What if you could double the size of your business in the next twelve months with one transaction?
‘Yes please, Paul!’ I hear you cry. Well, you can actually do that.
It's not by winning new clients in the normal way (you’ll probably be pleased to hear). It's through acquisition, ie buying someone else's business or client base.
Now, most people are scared of the thought of acquisition, and quite right too.
I'm actually doing some acquisition activity myself at the moment, buying some security alarm companies and trying to put those together into a small group.
And it is difficult. The difficult bit is less the acquisition itself, more the putting different cultures and systems together and making things mesh as one coherent entity.
But for you, as the operator of an MSP, there genuinely is an enormous opportunity in going and acquiring someone else's clients.
What you're looking for is another MSP owner, possibly someone who is at the end of their career, or they've done 20 years and have just had enough.
It might be someone in your town, it might be someone in another nearby geographical area, where you could actually expand into that town by putting your two businesses together.
Because you're already an existing operator, if you add in a whole bunch of other clients and other staff, you should overall be able to make more net profit out of that than if you were running those two businesses separately, because you have economies of scale.
So, where do you get started?
The first thing you need to do is obviously find that MSP owner who is ready to get out.
There are a couple of ways you could go about this. I would start by sending a letter, a physical printed letter to every MSP in your town and in all the neighbouring towns. A very simple letter which could simply say;
‘Hi, I'm <INSERT YOUR NAME HERE>.
I'm looking to acquire another MSP. Is it worth us having a confidential conversation? Please text me on this number or just drop me an email. <INSERT YOUR PERSONAL EMAIL HERE>’.
Note the use of the words ‘confidential’ and 'personal'. This is deliberate, because when someone is thinking of exiting their business, their biggest worry is confidentiality. They certainly don't want their staff and their customers to know they're thinking of getting out until the time is right.
Don't do any follow up phone calls. Just send them that letter.
The other thing you could do is reach out to people on LinkedIn. Connect to all of the local MSPs, or at least attempt to connect to all of them.
They're not all going to accept your connection request. But when you do manage to connect to someone, just send them a message along the lines of the letter example.
Just as with any marketing, the key with acquisitions is getting the right message in front of the right person at exactly the right time.
Someone who might not be interested in selling today might just have had enough in six or 12 months time. Perhaps they come back from a holiday and they're ready to get out. Or maybe they get another piece of bad news - another lost client, for example - and that’s the nail in the coffin.
So, look at this as a numbers game.
Send out a bunch of letters today. Send out a bunch more letters in three months’ time. Do it again every three months or so.
Because at some point, someone's going to get that letter and be so grateful that you wrote to them.
You represent an excellent opportunity for them to get out with their pride intact.
Any questions on acquisitions (or marketing for your MSP - I know a bit about that, too), email me at hello@paulgreensmspmarketing.com , or join my MSP Marketing Facebook group .
