Issue #63 – 9 out of 10 MSP owners don’t Do This

Communication is key to running a thriving business.

Why?

Because no matter how amazing your solution is, if your avatar isn’t kept in the loop, you might as well be doing nothing.

Communicating and updating your client on status updates, hurdles, and victories can make a drastic difference in how they view your service.

That’s why during today’s Back to Business section, Jeff will talk about the importance of communication.

In today’s newsletter:

• 🗣 Amazing Announcements, our latest blog post, and our podcast!
• 💸 Back to Business, Jeff will discuss the importance of communication.
• 💖 Community Corner – Showcasing our Thriver Neco and the Kindle Scribe.

💛 Carla

Amazing Announcements

📋 The 4 Phases of Business Growth: Want to achieve your goals and live extraordinary lives? We have a fantastic blog post that covers this topic and gives you the information you need to grow your business and get the wealth, freedom, and impact you want.

🎙 SGM Podcast: We are finally launching a podcast, and we’d love your support! So click the links below, check it out, and share it with your network!

• ➡️ View our podcast on YouTube.
• 💚 Listen to our podcast on Spotify.
• 👓 Read our show notes.

Back to Business

Before you read any further, I want to make one thing clear:

I am not promoting United Airlines.

However, Heather recently had an experience that highlighted the importance of communication and made United Airlines look good.

First, though, let’s talk about your communications.

Do you use bulk communications software (such as Mail Chimp or Active Campaign) to send automated, planned communications?

We always ask this question when we start working with MSP owners.

Nine out of ten times, they look at us with a classic deer-in-the-headlights stare: Bulk communications? Automated messaging? Planned communications?

Your communications strategy is one of the most critical aspects of your business, and most MSP owners leave their communications to chance.

A lot like American Airlines.

Heather was supposed to travel from Chicago to New York. She went to the airport, checked in, and went to the gate.

She sat down, started working, heard a boarding call, and looked up to see that this was no longer her gate. And she wasn’t the only one.

They’d changed the gate without an announcement. She checked the app: nothing.

She and a small team of other wheelie-dragging passengers found the screen with the gates and went to the new gate, where they were admonished for being late and breathlessly ushered onto the plane.

Once there, she sat on the plane for two hours with no more information than “there is a delay.”

Then she got off the plane.

The app showed her flight was still on time with no changes. But had it been on time, she would have already landed.

American announced a new gate change, but that gate had no flight information, and no one could tell her when and if the flight would ever take off.

After about 8 hours of this, American canceled the flight, and she went home.

Not traveling to New York annoyed her, but the lack of communication morphed annoyance into apoplexy. She’d bounced around the airport all day, missed any other means of transportation, and couldn’t do anything else (like work) because the airline did not communicate.

This is where United Airlines shines: they developed a robust communications program that notifies you whenever anyone associated with the flight sneezes.

Well, okay, almost.

United boasts a fantastic system that alerts passengers of changes, delays, and cancelations. Both United and American have oodles of experience frustrating passengers.

But United is many times better at communicating, making the frustration much more palatable and, all else equal, making them a more attractive choice.

So which are you, American or United? I know you don’t frustrate your customers nearly as much, but do you communicate?

• Do you guide them through your process?
• Do you have an automated strategy that gives them clarity and peace of mind and allows them to do other things?

Enjoy,

Jeff

Community Corner

🗣 Client Shoutout: Thriver Neco Turkienicz! This week I wanted to showcase Neco’s company Leib Productions. He has an excellent YouTube channel that shows you how to incorporate video into your business. Which, by the way, is a method you can use to communicate in your business.

• I specifically wanted to showcase his latest video, How to Get Referrals That Work 24/7 For YOU! Make sure to follow his channel so you can continue getting valuable information about the role that video (and specifically video testimonials) plays in business.

🥐 Croissant Methodology of Networking: Want to learn how to make networking events less intimidating and awkward? NPR released an interesting article about changing up the way you network at events (and they use food as a great way to visualize it for you).

📓 Amazon’s Latest Product – Kindle Scribe: Kindle Scribe is what you’d imagine, it’s an e-reading tablet that also doubles as a notebook. The benefits are that you can save on paper products and have a digital notebook that doesn’t distract you with apps (looking at you iPad). Learn more about this tool (and learn about its competitors, reMarkable and Kobo) here.