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How Do I WIN the Attention of Larger MSPs? Jennifer Roy, CEO of Nucleus Networks, Gives You The Cheat Codes

• Ian Richardson

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In this episode of the WIN Podcast, host Carrie Richardson sits down with Jennifer Roy to unpack how vendors can successfully connect with enterprise-grade managed service providers. Roy shares insights from her leadership at Nucleus Networks, a multi-location MSP within the Lyra Technology Group family, and breaks down how her team prepares for events like Pax8 Beyond.

Roy discusses what catches her attention at vendor booths, how her team prioritizes discovery calls, and why follow-up matters more than flash. She emphasizes the importance of being informed, respectful of time zones, and strategically aligned with an MSP’s operational goals. 

Vendors who come prepared—and stay professional—are the ones who make it onto her calendar.

If you're an IT channel vendor trying to land a meaningful partnership with a large MSP, or a new MSP owner wondering how operationally mature MSP owners prioritize their time at industry conferences, this episode is packed with unfiltered guidance from someone who receives hundreds of outreach attempts per quarter—and still takes the time to coach the channel on how to do it better.

Read the article inspired by the podcast on the Fox & Crow Group blog here.


Carrie Richardson and Ian Richardson host the WIN Podcast - What's Important Now?

Serial entrepreneurs, life partners and business partners, they have successfully exited from multiple businesses (IT, call center, real estate, marketing) and they help other business owners create their own versions of success.

Ian is certified in Eagle Center For Leadership Making A Difference, Paterson StratOp, and LifePlan.

Carrie has helped create and execute successful outbound sales strategies for over 1200 technology-focused businesses including MSPs, manufacturers, distributors and SaaS firms.

Learn more at www.foxcrowgroup.com
Book time with Carrie here!


Be a guest on WIN! We host successful entrepreneurs who share advice with other entrepreneurs on how to build, grow or sell a business using examples from their own experience.

Carrie Richardson:

Hi, good afternoon everybody. My name is Carrie Richardson and I am the host of the WIN Podcast. With me today is Jennifer Roy, who is the CEO of Nucleus Networks in Vancouver, Canada. Jennifer, thanks so much for joining us today. We are talking about planning for events like Pax8 Beyond as an MSP, and I'm hoping to give people advice on how they would go about getting the attention of an MSP like Nucleus. Tell us a little bit about your history with Nucleus, the business, and then we'll move on to how would someone get Jennifer's attention at Pax 8 beyond.

Jennifer Roy:

Sounds great. So I joined Nucleus back in 2001 as the Chief operating Officer and then took over as CEO in January of 2024. So I've been with with Nucleus for about four years. Been in the space for about 14 years. But fairly new to Nucleus. As you mentioned, our head office is in Vancouver, but we service all across Canada with offices in Vancouver, Victoria, prince, George Calgary, Edmonton, and Toronto. We are part of the Lyra group. Lyra is our midco that oversees, about 85 MSPs under their umbrella. So fairly large ecosystem of managed service providers. From my perspective. I've got this enormous peer group of people I can learn from and, including the executives and team at Lyra.

Carrie Richardson:

You joined Nucleus in 2021 and you became CEO in 2024. What was that transition like?

Jennifer Roy:

Our previous CEO, Martin DesRosiers, he had led Nucleus for a decade. I know you're very familiar with Martin. So big shoes to fill. When I took over in January of 2024 I had worked really closely with Martin up until the transition. I'm still today learning 15 months later. Still learning new parts of the company that I hadn't been part of before. So it's been exciting. It's been a lot of hard work. But I like hard work, so it's been good.

Carrie Richardson:

Now Lyra's growth trajectory has been impressive, but Nucleus's growth trajectory has also been impressive. So how are you maintaining that organic growth cycle? You said, I can't remember the exact numbers, but double digit growth three years in a row.

Jennifer Roy:

Yeah, I think actually it's been even longer with double digit growth. So very successful. I think a big piece of that is having the right partnerships,having the right team members. We have an incredible team here. A lot of 10 plus(years) tenured employees and management team. I'm one of the most recent management team in our organization. So almost everybody has been here, 10, 15 years. And that really helps us drive success. We focus a lot on maturity of the organization, processes, documentation. So that has really helped with our growth plans as well. And again, strategic partnerships like Pax eight is a really big piece of our growth.

Carrie Richardson:

For people who haven't met Jennifer, you've probably met or interacted with or seen posts from Karl Fulljames online, which brings me to the next question. When you're planning to attend an event like PAX eight beyond, how do you, Karl and the rest of your team plan who's going to do what? What are your goals going into that event?

Jennifer Roy:

Right, he's incredible. I'm very grateful to have him on my team. So Karl and I have attended a fair amount of events together, and so what we typically do is divide and conquer for the sessions. So we look at the agenda, we go, okay. These ones are more technical. Karl, you're gonna go to these ones. These ones are more operational or sales or marketing. Jen will go to these ones. So we try to divide and conquer and then share notes at the end of it. So usually you'll see us huddled at the airport or on the plane kind of debriefing each other and sharing information. And in terms of, the pavilion floors or the vendor floor we try to be pretty strategic. We like to look at any booths where maybe we've never heard of a product or we've never explored it. So that first pass will be who's new? Who do we wanna see? We also do a gap analysis before we go Maybe there's vendors we're looking to replace or maybe there's a need that we've identified and we need to have a new strategic partner. So our top priorities is who's new and what is our current need and who can help fill those needs.

Carrie Richardson:

What specifically do you look for when it comes to interaction? At the event, how do you like someone to approach you? What will catch your attention and keep you for five or 10 minutes versus what are the things that you're like"absolutely not.

Jennifer Roy:

The more fun booths will tend to get our attention. So if you have a booth where you've got, a game or you've got something that is gonna gauge interest we're gonna stop. Or if you have cool swag, I'm not gonna lie, my team really loves swag. I'm not as big on swag, but they really love cool swag. So that might get us at the booth to keep us at the booth for a longer period of time. You're gonna need to have a quick pitch that's gonna give us, a high level overview of what your product is and how it's actually gonna impact my business. If you're just, having us walk by and quickly scanning and you're just trying to get a huge number of people versus genuine interactions, the likelihood of me wanting to use your product or wanting to continue the conversation is minimal. So really looking for those quick, genuine connections that then will lead to further conversations.

Carrie Richardson:

And how do you like that further conversation to happen? How should someone interact with you after the event? What are the things that really stand out to you?

Jennifer Roy:

For me, email is usually my preferred method. I don't set any rules on my email. Everything comes into my inbox. So if you email me, I'm gonna receive it. And if there's again a need and a genuine reason for me to reach out to you, I'll respond and book time for a demo I know a lot of people go to phone calls. I'm okay with phone calls. I just, I always ask people to be respectful of the fact I'm in Pacific Time Zone. The amount of times I get a 5:00 AM phone call from a vendor and that's so off-putting. I might be awake at 5:00 AM but I'm not ready to talk business or be sold to at 5:00 AM So I always prefer an email and then schedule a time with me for a phone call. I try to be kind, but I work in technology. I answer my phone almost all the time. So if you call me at 5:00 AM the chances of me answering are high. I try to just start calling people out and saying, Hey, it's 5:00 AM this is not a good time. You're not gonna get a well received response from me now. Why don't you try calling me in a few hours or better yet, email me and we can have a conversation. I often will get vendors that call me that can't service Canada. And I'll say, I don't operate in the us. And they'll continue to have me on a slow drip email or a phone call every couple of days because they haven't booked a meeting. And those, are again off-putting for that particular vendor to, not know their audience and not know who they're contacting.

Carrie Richardson:

So if Nucleus is sponsoring an event themselves versus attending an event, what's your usual approach to follow up?

Jennifer Roy:

I look for the relationship. Who has a relationship with that prospect or a client. So we're, let's say, doing a client appreciation event. Who has the best relationship with that client? And then I ask everyone to be very strategic. Your clients. Do they prefer phone calls? Do they prefer emails? Do they prefer a text, a teams message? Whatever their method of communication is how we should send that invite. We send out regular updates to our clients through newsletters and blog posts. All of that's done through email. But for the most part, I think it's really important we meet clients where they're at. What is their preferred method? And we actually document that as well, so we know what our preferred method is for each of our clients.

Carrie Richardson:

So are you a"go to coffee and breakfast" person or are you a"stay out late and go to the party person" or are you both?

Jennifer Roy:

I am definitely coffee and breakfast. I am usually the first one back in my room at these events. I'm an early riser, so I am not out late usually at events. Karl. You might find him on both sides, but usually I'm just at breakfast.

Carrie Richardson:

And is there a session in particular that you're looking forward to at PAX eight this year?

Jennifer Roy:

I'm looking forward to quite a few of the sessions. I'm actually on a couple of the panels at beyond this year. I'm obviously looking forward to participating in those panels. And then I'm looking forward to the keynote. Usually the keynotes are always incredible, the different announcements that are gonna come through. And a big piece for me at conferences is the networking. I find some of the most value in connecting with my peers in the industry, connecting with different partners. That's usually what I look forward to the very most on these events is those genuine connections.

Carrie Richardson:

Tell me about the panels that you're participating in at PAX eight. What are the topics and where can people find them if they want to see you?

Jennifer Roy:

So on Sunday I will be part of the woman in tech panel. That is Sunday afternoon. I think it's at five o'clock. Don't quote me on that, but I think it's five o'clock.

Carrie Richardson:

That's a power panel. It's gonna be a good one. I wouldn't miss that one.

Jennifer Roy:

I am very excited. And then I'll also be part of the PAX 8 Premier sports marketing panel with Leif from PAX eight. So looking forward to that one as well. Nucleus was fortunate enough to work with PAX 8 to do an initiative with the Abbotsford farm team for Vancouver Canucks. We've got our logo on the ice and we've been, working with PAX eight on a co-branded marketing initiative. So I'll be joining their panel to talk about how that's benefited our business.

Carrie Richardson:

Wow, that's a pretty big sponsorship.

Jennifer Roy:

Incredible. It's been great.

Carrie Richardson:

Who else is undertaking large sports marketing initiatives right now in the channel?

Jennifer Roy:

There's three of us on the panel. It's me, Lisa Williams from Microsoft. Dion McMillian is also on the panel, so it's the three of us on the panel, and then Carrie Schiff will be the one who is Oh yeah, so it'll it's the, sorry. The CPO is Dion. So Dion is on the panel and then Carrie Schiff, She's moderating it.

Carrie Richardson:

How far in advance do you make plans for things like dinners with vendors? How booked is your dance card by the time you hit the floor?

Jennifer Roy:

So typically it's pretty full by the time I arrive. But I would say it's hit and miss. And I always find it funny who invites me out and who doesn't invite me out. And again, I'm not the one staying late at the party, so I will often decline if someone is asking, Hey, do you wanna meet for cocktails at 10:00 PM I don't drink alcohol. So a 10:00 PM cocktail hour i'll say, Karl, do you wanna go for a scotch? And I'll have a coffee. But for the most part, I'll decline those ones. So I would say usually I'm pretty booked by the time I, by the time I arrive at the conference, my calendar's gonna be pretty stacked.

Carrie Richardson:

So how far in advance should somebody be connecting with you before a major event like PAX eight Beyond or IT Nation? If they want to be assured that you'll be able to join them for a meal or a coffee?

Jennifer Roy:

A week or two. I'm starting to get my calendar fairly full right now for Beyond and we're what, 10 days out? A week or two is adequate.

Carrie Richardson:

We already got to you, so we're good.

Jennifer Roy:

Yes. Yeah, we've got something in the calendar.

Carrie Richardson:

You only have so much time as a vendor as well, so you have to be really strategic. I want to invest time in, my friends and peers who I don't see very often, high value prospects that maybe we haven't connected with in person. And I don't wanna neglect my current clients for the sake of attracting new clients.

Jennifer Roy:

absolutely. I can definitely appreciate that. I never take it to heart when an existing vendor maybe doesn't invite me out to dinner or whatnot, and I know that they've had a, a dinner. Because I understand first of all that it is strategic and I have lots of touch points with them. In addition, on the flip side, my calendar is usually pretty full and there may be strategic partnerships I wanna explore. So if I have, competing invites it might make more sense for me to go with a new strategic partner versus an existing one. It's definitely a balance. This will be my first beyond. I've been at the last couple of IT nations.

Carrie Richardson:

So previous large events that you've attended, what's really stuck out for you?

Jennifer Roy:

Let me think. At it, nation Threat Locker gave away a Hummer that for sure had a lot of people talking. Obviously those big grand gestures are not for everybody. And nor does everyone have a budget for a big, huge grand gesture like that. But I like the idea of stuff that's unique. I think at IT Nation there was someone with a basketball hoop at their booth. And, I was traveling with my crew that really enjoys basketball. They had fun. They made silly videos Having something at your booth that's gonna get people to be interested to stop by is always gonna win. Having a conversation starter that maybe has nothing to do with your business is just going to gauge interest and get people to be, curious of why you have a Hummer outside of your booth or why you have a basketball net. Keep it interesting.

Carrie Richardson:

Are you usually one to book a demo on the floor for a later time?

Jennifer Roy:

Yes. I will often book a demo because my calendar fills really quickly. I'd rather just do it. I'm usually booking a couple of weeks out and I'd rather book while I'm there, get it in the calendar, get it scheduled and then I know that it's on the books, it's done, and I can cross that kind of off my to-do list. Whereas once I get home and then I'm back in, the rhythm of meetings and strategy and building my business, I don't necessarily always have that time to go back. Whereas I've invested the time in the conference I'm at. I'd rather just book the demo on site.

Carrie Richardson:

That was super helpful. I hope that everybody listening that's getting ready for PAX eight beyond got a lot of wisdom from your share. Advice on how to prioritize follow-ups and engage with MSPs effectively is always valuable to the community. And I thank you very much for spending a little time with us today.

Jennifer Roy:

Thanks so much, Carrie. I look forward to seeing you in 10 days.

Carrie Richardson:

Yeah we'll be by the pool.

Jennifer Roy:

Amazing.

People on this episode

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Carrie Richardson

Host
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Ian Richardson

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Jennifer Roy

Guest