Partnerships Unraveled
The weekly podcast where we unravel the mysteries of partnerships and channel to help you become more successful.
Partnerships Unraveled
Greg Jones - Why MSPs Struggle with Sales and Marketing & How to Fix It
In this episode of Partnerships Unraveled, we're diving deep into one of the biggest challenges MSPs face: sales and marketing. Joining us is Greg Jones, SVP of Business Development at Kaseya, who shares his unique approach to driving MSP success—by flipping traditional vendor marketing on its head.
Greg unpacks why Kaseya prioritizes partner enablement over product evangelism, offering actionable insights on how MSPs can generate recurring revenue, leverage MDF effectively, and overcome common marketing roadblocks. He also reveals surprising data on what truly drives ROI in partner marketing (hint: it's not big-budget events) and why smaller, more focused campaigns are delivering exponential results.
If you're a vendor or MSP looking to scale, strengthen partner relationships, and drive demand the right way, this episode is packed with invaluable lessons. Tune in to hear how a partner-first mindset isn't just good business—it's the key to long-term success.
Connect with Greg: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregpjones/
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Welcome back to Partnerships Unraveled, the podcast where we unravel the mysteries about partnerships and channel on a weekly basis. My name is Alex Whitford, I'm the VP of Revenue here at Chanext and this week I'm very excited to welcome our special guest, greg. How are you doing? Very well, sir. How are you? Yeah, good, good, I'm excited to get into this one. I think, uh, your story and your business is uh is a really interesting one. In the context of how lots of vendors go to channel, uh go through the channel, and how uh data and kosei go through the channel, I think it's going to be a really great one to unpick good, good, looking forward to it.
Speaker 1:Thanks for having me on awesome.
Speaker 2:Maybe we can start, uh, with a little bit bit of an introduction and you can give us a little bit of a rundown of who you are and where you've come from.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sure, my name is Greg Jones. I'm Senior Vice President here at Kaseya looking after our enablement team, really. So that's everything, I guess, away from products and services, which might sound a little bit odd from a vendor, but more about how we help and support partners grow and scale their MSP business. Really, I've been in the industry 25 years now, been with Kaseya around about six years before that. I was on the MSP side of the fence for about 10 years and then local and central government in IT. So a bit of experience there, yeah, just to touch.
Speaker 2:It's funny because obviously I think when you hear most people talking about sort of senior leader within a channel business, it's hey, we're going to talk about revenue and we're going to talk about sales strategies. But I find MSP sort of fascinating because MSPs know how to service customers very well but they sometimes struggle to generate the level of demand that they need or to do the sort of the core sales and marketing functions which I know is what you spend a lot of time helping MSPs go to market effectively, which is almost the channel in reverse, right, lots of people end up spending all their time talking about products. Why do you think MSPs or what's the sort of vision behind your strategy in terms of prioritizing helping MSPs go to market as opposed to evangelizing why your technology is so great?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think you know for all vendors, if you just lead with tech, it doesn't solve the biggest challenges. Lead with tech, it doesn't solve the biggest challenges. Um, ultimately, if we get down to the heart of it, nobody's looking to buy tech. They're they're looking for the outcomes of the tech and ultimately, all vendors have great technology or they wouldn't be in business. Um, but for us, it's about much more than that is looking at the channel holistically and saying, okay, how can we truly empower partners? Now, that's not just for the love of God, it is also to help us.
Speaker 1:Obviously, because we're in business, there's a direct correlation with our MSP partners' success and our success. About 98% of our business is through the MSP channel. You know that's everything to us and we remain loyal to that. However, if you look at all of the data out there from all vendors and all of the large data houses like Canalys, idc and Gartner, it is that in the top five issues concerns what's keeping MSPs up overnight.
Speaker 1:It is around sales and marketing, how to generate new MRR monthly recurring revenue, arr annual recurring revenue into their business, and that's very interesting. We see it much more in this vertical as opposed to other verticals, and the reason for that is a lot of MSP owners, business owners and management teams are very technical people. Usually they got into business by accident. In a lot of cases you know they started fixing a few things for somebody, helped here with a charge here and the next minute they're in business and sales and marketing is so kind of the team hate me saying this but fluffy and creative and it's very much away from core MSP day-to-day 101 business but it's so important and that's really why we lean into it so much, because it's everything to us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's funny, right, because you sort of open up and it sounds obvious yeah, I see so many senior leaders stray away from it which is meet the partner where they are Right. And it's like, hey, we're not investing in really to use your terminology fluffy brand campaigns. It's like no, no, we're struggling to upsell effectively. How can you help us do that in really to use your terminology fluffy brand campaigns? It's like no, no, we're struggling to upsell effectively. How can you help us do that? And it's like, oh, well, we could build a marketing campaign or do some sales functions to help support you to upsell from one product set to two product sets with your existing base, which is where the MSP really needs the help. Right, and it's that core understanding.
Speaker 2:I know you manage a substantial mdf bot across your region. I'd love to understand some of the strategies that you think, um, you've seen work well where partners have actually spent that mdf uh effectively, because I know it is a core bugbear of uh lots of people within the distribution and vendor space that, hey, partners ask for mdf and maybe it's not the greatest ROI not tracked most effectively doesn't really generate any returns. Talk to me about what you see working well.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So for us, we're all about tracking a Casaya and looking at truly the millions of dollars that we invest. Is it having an impact of dollars that we invest? Is it having an impact? And MDF gives the biggest ROI in terms of return investment for not only Kazea but also our MSP partners, and we track it year over year. But also we break it down in terms of in-person events, digital campaigns. You know, really, look at what is working in certain geographical locations how is it having an impact and does it make sense really.
Speaker 1:So we totally scrapped our MDF program and really built it from the ground up, not from a Kaseya standpoint of view, but from an MSP focus. You know, what are the things that they really need from a program? Well, they need it to be able to be accessible, really easy, and they need help and support on that journey, because many of the MSPs have either never run a webinar, never run an in-person event, are not au fait with large marketing campaigns or you know this is outside of the norm or their comfort zone. So we redesigned it. It's our really easy to access. You know it's one page of a4 paper some information that we ask which really is making sure, we have a business case for the mdf request that comes in. And then I have a panel of people I think there's about five or six people on that panel now who review every single MDF request each week and all they're looking for is does this make sense? Is this going to add value to our MSP partners? Because, if I'm being totally honest, we can afford to say yes to something and have a loss because we've got quite deep pockets, as you can imagine.
Speaker 1:But for us it's about protecting our partners. So when we're vetting out whether it's a yes or a no, we're actually looking at it from the MSP lens. Does this make sense? Is their money protective? Are they going to get an roi? Because our program is a match funded 50 50. So if they put a, you know, a pound, a dollar, a euro, whatever it might be, they're actually we're going to match it with exactly the same, so that both parties have got skin in the game, and that, for us, is key. We can help them with speakers as well, so it's not just a financial incentive. Some MSPs are actually looking for not necessarily the money, but we're not comfortable speaking in person. We've never run an event.
Speaker 2:Can you help us execute what strategies work well, what agendas um, so we help with the full package around that really again meeting the partner where they are right, because I think one of the things mdf um outside maybe of the msp world more, when we get into sort of the legacy reseller model it's the people who spend the most. Mdf are the very largest partners who have huge dedicated marketing teams, right, and so they understand how to run events and webinars brilliantly. They do. Sometimes they do them even better than vendors do. But you've built your entire strategy not just around hey, here's some money, it's also where do we meet you, whereas most msPs don't have a huge 30-man marketing team who really understand the game, and so it's the stuff around that program that I can imagine drives the real tight sort of engagement between yourself and the MSPs.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, and this year has been really interesting year. Last year's data, I should say, is the the largest roi in terms of um multiple of spend that we spent out. Getting back in was from the smaller spend. So our sweet spot for the perfect roi is between about a thousand and two and a half thousand dollars. That is perfect and a lot at the moment, believe it or not, which, if you ask me away from the data, I would say that's just untrue. It's webinars that are actually working. Um, if you're anything like me, you're absolutely sick of webinars, but you know that is what is delivering a ridiculous ROI at the moment. And also, as well, you don't have to spend big money to have a successful event webinar campaign. You know start small.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is funny. You sort of say I'm sick of webinars. I had a two and a half hour conversation with my father-in-law yesterday around what the hell chat GPT is, and I think because we're so in our ecosystem, right, we're so in the echo chamber they are. They don't spend all their day joining security webinars and understanding what AI is going to do to the market, and so that sort of last mile information to the average consumer is actually really relevant, right. And so sometimes we get sick of the stuff that's actually most important because we hear it actually too much but the average accountancy firm in Lancashire knows nothing about it, right, they don't sit there listening and breathing the data. So I think it is not just where do you meet the MSP, but where do you meet the end customer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's really key, what you touch on there, but also as well the type of content. There was a direct correlation with a spike in ROI numbers with how we changed the data that we were presenting on those calls. So it is absolutely not about Kaseya or Datto and it shouldn't be about any of your other vendors, because the end customer is not interested who you use in your staff. They just want that business outcome. So a lot of the data and the presentations are around thought leadership. You know, this is what the landscape is, this is what the data is showing and this is how mr x msp or Mrs X MSP is doing to protect your organization. So they go hand in hand. And we do see regional nuances to that data as well where we have to shift it very slightly. But yeah, it's very interesting, very interesting very interesting.
Speaker 2:So I know that you guys run one of the sort of most successful, uh sort of marketing programs of any vendor that I speak to, and I speak to a fair few. Um, I think the thing that you're saying there that may be for our senior executives who listen to the podcast, maybe question is you're saying you literally pay partners to do marketing that doesn't include your brand and that is great ROI.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. You know you should not be leading with our brand. You absolutely shouldn't, unless that is your thing. But even on your website, you know when a customer comes on your website they're not interested who you partner with and they don't care about Kaseya or Datto. We don't need the brand recognition because our market is through MSPs. We don't deal direct. So, yeah, absolutely. We are not about pitching Kaseya and Datto or any of our brands, products and services. We know by just helping you get a new customer, we will get that organic growth because we're going to be in your tech stack somewhere. We have over 45 different product services, business lines now that we offer. So we understand you can't just be pitching this, this, this and this. It just doesn't work.
Speaker 2:And so really you're helping MSPs take sort of outcome messaging or problem messaging to market and then and then just generating that demand, understanding that the roi is on the back end right once, once the revenue is actually delivered, which I think is a very forward thinking view on marketing, because most people you know most people in their partner program it is quite literally written if it doesn't contain our logo, doesn't contain messaging, or if it contains another competitor, we're not paying. And you've flipped that completely on its head to say rip all of that information out. What we care about is making you successful and inherently you understand that the partner, if the partner is successful, you're successful and that's fine.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's been key for us. Um, you know, in terms of our dominance in the marketplace, really, um, you know, we don't get everything right at casea, far from it. We drop the ball far more than we would like, um all than we should. Um, you know, we're transacting with over 47 000 msps across the globe now, and what I can tell you from that is the fastest growing MSPs are not the cleverest MSPs or even the biggest MSPs. It's the ones that solely focus on sales and marketing. The right data.
Speaker 1:I do consultancy with hundreds of MSPs and the amount of time that I hear, oh, we're not focusing on sales and marketing, or we're not doing events at the moment because we want to get our service delivery right and get everything perfect. Well, let me tell you, you're never going to get there. There is no holy grail of MSP. You know, I've worked with thousands and thousands of msps and I've never, ever seen a perfect one. There's always work to do. But start today, and what?
Speaker 1:What we done, when we made that move as well, is we, we start a lower level, meaning we say, okay, what are the hot topics in the SMB, sme world, where is the flow going of demand, but also money, you know. And then we reverse engineer it in terms of the content and webinars for partners so that, so that then our partners are not going against the grain. You know, if the flow of data is going this way, why build a webinar about thought leadership? That's going that way. You know, this is not rocket science. Let's just go with the market. You know, and it's proved. Phenomenal results for us, literally phenomenal results.
Speaker 2:You spoke about seeing the greatest ROI on fairly low spend sort of MDF activities. One of the things that we're seeing a lot of data suggest is that the very largest partners where you actually see worse ROI, typically from a programmatic level, both from a vendor perspective because you have to pay a lot more people sales and marketing people who are involved in those accounts, but also because maybe there's some level of saturation in terms of marketing lots of different vendors with lots of different messaging and maybe those end users are sort of at capacity. We're seeing lots of data both from canalis and gartner around. Actually smb roi for uh, for marketing is exceptionally strong. You're also seeing that from a. Do you also see that from a in your market where actually marketing to the sort of 50 fte company, 100 fte company, you actually see very good roi in terms of that spend?
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. For us, we're about tracking all the time, so we're constantly tracking and you're right, marketing much larger in terms of the enterprise is not getting as good a result as the SMB, sme world, but also as well on our MDF. I've put a few caveats in in terms of limits that now need approval, because the larger events are just not given the ROI and for me, you know, it's economics of the madhouse. You know, do I help one partner with a very large event that I know is not going to deliver a huge ROI? Yeah, it might be a great experience for the people attending the event you know an f1 or a golf day, but why, why don't I use that spend across another 15 partners, splitting that money up and deliver a fantastic roi for them?
Speaker 2:you know, because that's what it's about really yeah, we we spoke, spoke a lot about in our prep call around sort of MSP ICP classification that's too many acronyms but getting MSPs to really understand who they are selling to and a bit to sort of continue your analogy over-indexing on F1, although it's a great experience, obviously. Instead it's like well, we understand that there's this MSP who sells in this geography and really cares about finance and manufacturing for the sake of argument, it's quite easy to build a very small cost campaign that's very, very targeted. If you have that data, how do you encourage MSPs to get really specific about who they are selling to?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that is key basically also have a, an mspp, a group called true peer, and ultimately we have about 900 partners globally in that. If we look at the amir or the uk I, there's probably about 100 120 msps in that and it's about helping them solely with their business um, increase their business operational maturity, increase their revenue, increase their profitability, doing more with less and all of that. And we do a huge piece of work in there, where we start at the beginning. Most times when I say to an MSP or a business, hey, what's your target customer profile? They give me surface level things, and what I mean by that is they're going to tell me things like well, it's this vertical or industry, it's manufacturing, they have this many employees 200 or 50 employees geographically located in this space. They're profitable, this is roughly their turnover. I say, okay, that's great and it's super important, some of that data, but we need to get under the hood further again and look at what they're really looking for. Is that stuff kind of doesn't matter too much? What they're actually looking for is the behavior and characteristics of those businesses, and what I mean by that is what we're trying to weed out is lifestyle businesses.
Speaker 1:If you are a lifestyle business and you are the CEO of a lifestyle business.
Speaker 1:Your primary job is to protect your revenue streams and your expenditure, because it's a lifestyle business and the more you spend, the less to provide for the lifestyle theoretically, whereas a business that is looking to grow and have hopes, aspirations, dreams or a business plan they're the ones that are in the mindset of I need to spend to grow.
Speaker 1:Spending within my business is going to empower me and a lot of MSPs the ones who are being really successful are finding those clients and then saying to them hey, after looking at your business, this is where you're at here with technology. This is where you've told me you want to get to as a leadership team or a business plan or a certain number. We've got a delta now between point a and point b, where you want to get to. What we do as mr msp is we give you a blueprint to drive that change. To get from point a to point b is our job as a managed service provider to enable and facilitate that growth. So, yeah, we got off track a little bit there, but I think it's really important to understand why we really need a target customer profile.
Speaker 2:That's perfect. I have one final one for you. You seem to be playing the game very differently, right? Really trying to meet MSPs where they are Really agnostic of your own brand and preferences, really helping them as consultants, either programmatically or literally one-on-one helping them grow? A lot of the executives who listen to this podcast will say okay, but so what, right? What does that really buy you? I imagine partner loyalty is extremely high as a result of the sort of program and incentives that you drive. Talk to me about the outcomes. Give me the cynical reason why building your program this way is so beneficial.
Speaker 1:For us it's about everything I mentioned earlier on on today's call. You know, look, we're in business. You know we're a very profitable business. Uh, if you look at last year, we grew 16 organically on 1.5 billion um with an adjusted ebitda of 38. It's an incredible business that now that's not a muscle flex from kaseya. And you know how great are we. That's a huge thank you to the msp community because, quite frankly, we are literally nothing without the msp community. We're a company with some great products.
Speaker 1:Um, we don't have a go-to market route without msps because because MSPs are everything to us. So for us, taking a different look at how we build programs and around empowerment and enablement is absolutely key. Yes, it's about business. If we help and empower our partners, they're going to grow and scale and I mentioned before there's a direct correlation with an msp success and our success if we're part of that program um. So that's why we've done it really and we see phenomenal um loyalty rates, engagements, certainly around mdf and the likes. You know, once somebody tries it and sees the results, they keep coming back and back um.
Speaker 1:But you know, we're like every other vendor. You know we we don't get everything right all the time. Do we have issues? Absolutely. Do we drop the ball more than we should? Absolutely, um, you know, as a leadership team, I can tell you our core focus is all about bringing enterprise-grade technology down to support MSPs, but it's also to be a true, true strategic partner. Every vendor says that, but what does that mean? And our programs? Like my department we have over 75 staff in that department None of them carry a quota, they're not quota bearing and they're not pushing sales. The MSP enablement team is solely there to enable growth and facilitate MSPs increasing their business operational maturity levels in whatever way. Sales and marketing our MDF whether it be our true peer program, which is um peer group for msp it's the fastest growing in the industry um, that for us is key because if we get that right, everything else will follow, you know awesome, greg, that's uh.
Speaker 2:It is great to hear what I think is a fundamentally sound reasoning from a cynical reason as to why you should build your program this way. I think the other bit that I know you share is I think it's just also more fun, right. We get in front of MSPs, helping them grow, having business decisions, having business discussions, helping people be successful and, as a result, you actually build this entirely different go-to market which is fundamentally profitable, hugely scalable and really is helping solve customer and msp challenges, which is awesome yeah, and we can also as well share around best practice.
Speaker 1:What is working well? Not from our point of view, but what's working well for other msps? How are they packaging, bundling, pricing, where are they seeing the best margins? You know, whether that be around security or compliance as a service and help other partners challenge the status quo in business, because if we keep doing the same well, if we keep doing the same thing and expecting the different results, I think they call that insanity. But you know, we need to innovate because SMBs and SMEs, the requirements from them for IT support and services from MSPs, is changing. That's why we're seeing it being the number one reason an SMB or an SME will leave an MSP is they don't offer the service or products that they need to empower their business, you know. So it's very interesting.
Speaker 2:Perfect. You've built an entire business around consulting for MSPs, but we also ask for a bit of consultancy on this podcast. We ask our current guests to recommend our next guest. Who did you have in mind?
Speaker 1:guest to recommend our next guest. Who did you have in mind in that case? I think I will have to.
Speaker 2:Let me think um let's go with rob allen, who is the cto, uh over a threat locker I I'm sure he will share some incredible insights awesome rob, we're coming for you, greg.
Speaker 1:Thanks so much for sharing.