EOS in MSPs: Turning Vision into Consistent Execution with Murray Smith

Welcome to MSP Mastery: Ctrl Alt Deliver Podcast, the podcast for MSP owners and leaders who want to build a better MSP, one that actually works for them.

I am Jeni Clift, joined by my husband and long time business partner, Nick Clift. Together, we unpack what is really working in thriving MSPs, including insights from the trusted partners who support them.

In this episode, we are joined by Murray Smith, a Certified EOS Implementer™ based in Geelong, Victoria. Murray helps leadership teams build clarity, discipline and accountability through the Entrepreneurial Operating System. With a background in Victoria Police and experience working with businesses across a range of industries, including MSPs, Murray brings a practical perspective on what it takes to build a business that can grow without relying on the owner for everything.

Murray, Nick and I share a long connection through EOS, with both Nick and I having worked as implementers before Nick moved into his current work as an integrator for MSPs. This conversation brings together the visionary, implementer and integrator perspectives to explore what it really takes to turn a business operating system into consistent action.

We discuss why the best processes should support the team rather than make people slaves to the process, and how to recognise when spreadsheets, manual updates and disconnected tools are creating unnecessary work.

We also talk about the importance of financial visibility, clear accountability and leadership teams that are prepared to have honest conversations, challenge each other and keep doing the work even when it feels messy or uncomfortable.

Here is what we covered together:

✅ The changing MSP landscape: Why sales cycles are taking longer, why market consolidation matters, and why MSPs need a stronger pipeline than they may have needed in the past.

✅ Selling the problem, not the product: Why buyers are doing more research than ever and why trust based conversations create stronger long term client relationships.

✅ Commitment before tools: Why an operating system only works when the leadership team genuinely wants to improve and commits to consistent execution.

✅ The discipline of doing the work: Why goals and quarterly priorities only matter when people make time every week to move them forward.

✅ The importance of the integrator: Why the person driving daily execution is essential when most of the work happens outside the leadership meeting.

✅ Clarity through accountability: How an accountability chart helps MSPs establish who is truly responsible for sales, service delivery, account management, finance and more.

✅ Knowing your break even number: Why every leadership team should understand the monthly break even point so they can make decisions with financial awareness.

✅ Sharing the numbers: How giving leaders access to meaningful data helps them understand the levers they can pull to improve performance.

✅ Service delivery ownership: Why operations leaders need visibility of service gross margin and the financial impact of their department.

✅ Process should not become the work: How to recognise when spreadsheets, manual administration or disconnected tools are slowing the team down.

✅ Platforms and personal accountability: Why the right platform can support the business, but should not remove individual ownership of the numbers and actions.

✅ Healthy leadership conflict: Why a strong leadership team can challenge ideas, have difficult conversations and still remain united around what is best for the business.

✅ The danger of the one voice in the room: How visionary leaders can unintentionally limit their team when they answer every question and hold on to every decision.

✅ Finding the right operating system: Why MSP owners should first understand what is driving the need for change before choosing EOS or another business operating system.

We created this podcast to share the real conversations and lessons we wish we had more of while running our own MSP, with practical insights from people who understand the challenges of this industry.

Learn more about Murray and his work with leadership teams at Grip6, or connect with him on LinkedIn.

👉 Read more episode notes here: mspmastery.blog
👉 Listen on YouTube: youtube.com/@MSPMastery
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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

I don't care what you do, just as long as you're not a slave to the process. And the minute that I see you're a slave to the process, that's when I'll step in and say you need to adopt a platform. This is just wasting time. The leadership team, you should know the break-even number every month for the business. So you can look that, oh, are we tracking okay this month or not? If 80% of the work is being done when the implementer's not there, you better make sure you've got an integrator who can actually execute daily and hold people to account and get people to do the work so they can actually see what good looks like and then drive to the finish line.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

Welcome to MSP Mastery, the podcast for MSP owners and leaders who want to build a better MSP, one that actually works for them. I'm Jenny Clift, and alongside my longtime business and life partner Nick, we unpack what's really working in thriving MSPs, including insights from the trusted partners who support them. With more than 60 years of combined experience, we've seen it all from the first break fix calls to the sophisticated MSP tools of today. We've been early adopters of the tech and the strategies that shifted our industry toward recurring revenue and long-term success. Our goal with this podcast is to share the real stories and hard-won lessons that inspire and add genuine value to our industry, helping you build a business that is both profitable and fulfilling. This is MSP Mastery. Here's Nick, myself, and today's special guest. Murray Smith is joining us today, an EOS implementer based in Geelong, Victoria. Murray and I share a unique connection as we both trained as implementers around the same time, starting our journeys into the entrepreneurial operating system together. Before his career in business, Murray spent 15 years serving in the Victoria Police, a background that built a foundation of discipline and community service. Today he works extensively with small businesses, including MSPs, helping them navigate the complexities of growth. He brings a wealth of practical insights to the table regarding how to get leadership teams aligned and moving in the right direction. And I think it's also worth mentioning for our listeners that Nick was a fellow EOS implementer as well for a couple of years. These days he's transitioned into working extensively as an integrator, specifically for MSPs, taking those high-level EOS concepts and making them a reality in the business. Having both Murray and Nick here today gives us a brilliant perspective from both sides of the EOS equation. Murray, welcome to MSP Mastery.

SPEAKER_02 2:46

Thanks, Jenny. Thanks, Nick. Good to be here. And yeah, it'll be uh good discussion with Nick being full-time in the integrator seats now. So, particularly with MSPs, there's a lot to cover. There is, mate. It's good to see you again. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:58

Yeah. Pity it's not in the same country, but this will do No, no, we used to effectively be neighbours, didn't we? We lived in Geelong for a few years during the exciting lockdown of Melbourne, that COVID place, you know. I think we spent two two years in lockdown down there. It's amazing how quickly we forget, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. I just want to forget too. Thanks.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

Murray, so as we always do, and you'd be very familiar with this as a fellow EOS implementer, please share your personal and professional bests. But from the last six months.

SPEAKER_02 3:30

Yeah, thanks. So professional best. I went to my, as you would all, and your listeners may not be aware of this, but all EOS implementers, strangely enough, also run on EOS. So every 90 days we get together and meet and discuss what we're going to do over the next 90 days and and what our numbers are like and so forth. And I did my last, what we call QCE, Quadly Collaborative Exchange in Detroit in the US, which was great. I'd never done it before. And it was just really nice to be, I guess, at the at the birthplace of VOS and doing it with implementers from another country, which was a great experience. And I really enjoyed that from a professional level. At a personal level, whilst I was also over there in the United States, I managed to get to my class reunion at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. So it was great to see a lot of my old classmates that I hadn't seen for a long time and talking to them about what they've they've achieved in the time since we graduated from MIT. So that was a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_00 4:27

Oh, that's amazing, mate. And did you have any um issues in immigration over there? I've heard of some people have some challenges being coming into the US at the moment.

SPEAKER_02 4:35

Yeah, I think that's slightly overblown. Okay, that's good. That's good. They were pretty easy going when I went through. Sure, they asked a a couple of questions, but people are coming to your country. You want to know what they're coming for. So that's fair enough. Yeah, I think it it might be slightly overblown that one.

SPEAKER_01 4:50

Yeah, I think so too. I think there's, you know, like anything, like people coming to Bali, you know, there's a perception of everybody gets Bali belly, and the ones who don't don't say anything. So the only ones you hear about are the ones who get sick.

SPEAKER_00 5:04

We spent a week recently with a guy, a friend of a friend of ours, and he got detained for three and a half hours and they grilled him. And this is an 80-year-old guy about his social media content and took his laptop and his phone off him and went through the whole lot for about three hours. And in the end, they gave it all back to him and he was free to go. But he said it was horrific. So it's put him off going again. So I'm glad you had a pleasant experience because I have heard of others that have had a bit of a two or three hour ordeal. Just yeah, not familiar. Ah, good. Yeah. Yeah, I've done that too. Jenny and I have been to QCE in the US in the past, and it it is a great thing to do. And like with any business, getting with your peers and learning from each other, sharing experiences is what it's all about. So yeah, it's good to know that you did that, mate. Yeah, it was fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 5:47

And I went to Sydney expecting you to be there, but you got a better offer. You're in Detroit.

SPEAKER_02 5:51

Yeah, it was uh it was a one-shot deal. So but I'd like you say, Nick, there's a real advantage or there's a real lesson to be learnt by exposing yourself to others and how they're outside of your normal network, if you like. And certainly that was the case for me when I went to Detroit, so it was great. And I'd recommend anyone, whatever, you know, particularly in the MSP world, it's so easy to get stuck into your own network and just think within that network and that's the only way to do it. And then it it can be a trap, particularly with the peer groups and so forth, to think that that's the only way you can learn. And there's plenty of ways that you've just got to get a little bit uncomfortable and find other avenues to learn, whatever that looks like, whether you know it's looking up YouTube channels or there's plenty of open open university sort of stuff that people can just look up just to get other perspectives is so important. Definitely.

SPEAKER_01 6:44

Let's jump into some questions. So, Murray, you've been an EOS implementer like me for well, it's more than seven years now. What are the biggest shifts you've seen in how small businesses and specifically MSPs approach their operations today compared to when we both first started out in 2018?

SPEAKER_02 7:03

Yeah, so it's interesting. You know, a lot of people would jump to what is today's gold rush being AI, but I won't do that. There's a couple of things that I've noticed, because that's there, right? You can't can't deny it. And I will touch on it in a minute, but there's a couple of other points that have been and specifically for MSPs. So not certainly these apply to other business in other industries as well, but specifically to MSPs, there's a couple of things that I've seen. The first one is the sales cycle seems to be a lot longer now than it used to be. The decisions are taking longer. So what might have been a two-month decision or eight-week point of conversion from yeah, we're gonna go with you to actually doing it, seems to me that decision of yeah, we're gonna go with you has now gone out to six months with a lot of businesses that I'm seeing in that cycle. So, what I would say to MSPs is go back to your pipeline and make sure it's a bit bigger than what you think it needs to be, on the basis of thinking about these deals will not close as quickly as they used to. So that would be the first one. The second one that I've seen, and I think both Jenny and Nick, you were subject to this, is the concentration of the market. So whilst there were a large number of MSPs and there still are, you know, a lot of them are now being bought and consolidated into larger entities. So where you might have had maybe four or five what we'll term as big clients, we're now seeing those types of MSPs being consolidated into a larger form where they're not so worried about the small servicing of small players, they're focusing on the larger players and concentration of the market. So they're the two ones that I've seen the most. And then if we think about AI for a moment, but even before that, it's the commoditization of the product. So, what previously would have been a programming requirement, or someone, a software engineer working it out or whatever they're doing, there's a lot less of that. There's a lot of drag and drop now. If you think a really simple example, whilst it's not in the MSP world per se, but if you think about websites, when they first came out, that was a whole sit down, code it, make it happen, and now it's just pretty much drop and drag. And we're certainly seeing that with a lot of products in the MSP space as well. So they're probably the three things that I'm seeing change the most in the last seven or eight years.

SPEAKER_00 9:22

I I agree, I concur with that, Murray. I'd say, especially on the sales side of it. Like I remember back when we were in the 2000s, 2010s, kind of at the peak for us, I would close 95% of every quote that I did. And part of that was I wouldn't quote something unless I'd already had a verbal approval from the client because that's what you did. And I never had a pipeline, I never had any of that stuff. It was all just working with referrals and existing clients, and that's completely changed. And now we that we coach coach people, the businesses we work with, especially with through morphability now with the sales coaching. We're working to get a pipeline of up to 300 leads, and they need to know who you are and what you do and are willing to receive information from you on a regular basis. They're not going to buy from you today, but that cycle, like you said, it takes a long time now, and we're back into that nurture, nurture, nurture six to 12 months because changing is hard. It's like you can't just flick a switch and change from one MSP to another and be smooth. There's drama, there's a whole lot of stuff, and it hurts. So totally agree with that. It's good, and I think the AI side of it as well is very interesting because a lot of the MSPs I work with are doing so what you used to do. So you used to build a SaaS product and sell it to multiple businesses, but today we can build a product to solve our own in product own problem internally, but that's a completely different kettle of fish. They're building a product to sell to multiple other businesses. I think that's that's still a SaaS play. That's not a vibe-coded AI solution because if you just want to solve a problem for yourself, 100% you can do that now. You look in the MSP industry, a lot of the SaaS products out there came from an MSP solving a problem for themselves, and then they rant that up and then they went out and sold it to other MSPs. I think that is going away because every MSP can basically vibe code their own solution to their own initial problem. And it's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 11:11

And to take it to a full SAS product, you're still looking at a hundred to a hundred and fifty thousand dollar investment to actually turn it into a saleable product. Nick, I wanted to touch on the what you said, Murray, about the sales cycle being much longer. I think that then forces MSP owners into having a more mature sales tool. So using your PSA, your CRM, whatever that is. Because if it's an eight-week cycle, you can kind of keep it in your head. But if it's a six-month or longer cycle, you have to be utilizing those tools. And Nick, this is something you do with morphability. And we certainly started using the CRM when we started working with sales coaches. You just have to get them into a system. You can't remember all of what everything you've got going on around you if it's a six-month process.

SPEAKER_02 12:02

That's right. I think there's also an aspect of that is about people are are buying less about, and to Nick's point, less about product and more about problem. So what's my problem? And if as a sale uh in a sales seat, if you're talking about product in the first instance, you've got it wrong. And so once you start talking about problem, there's a real opportunity to build a thing called trust. And then building that trust takes longer, a little bit, but it it may be more beneficial in terms of revenue for you over the long longer term. But it's also about where people are placed, right? It's so easy to research now. So you as a salesperson can sit there and say, Oh, okay, now I understand your problem. Maybe this is something that you want to look at, whatever that is, and you present whatever that solution is to them, to the potential buyer, and then they'll go, No worries, thanks very much. And they'll go away and research that because it's so easy to do now and find out whether that is, in fact, something that's worthy. And generally what they're looking for is the weaknesses of whatever product you've put before them, if it's not your own proprietary product, and about what are the comparisons to other things out there. And it's much easier in today's world to compare products than it has been in the past as well. So there's a lot of research going on outside of the conversations that you're having.

SPEAKER_00 13:17

100%. And you have to assume that whatever proposal you give to a potential client, they're feeding it into their favorite LLM, AI chat, whatever it is, telling me, go do some deep research, tell me if this is on the in the mark, tell me what's weak, what's good, what's bad. Because it's absolutely happening. So I was doing some work for a client the other week and comparing some marketing options. And I took the three proposals we got back, put them into, I think it was Claude at the time, and yeah, that's a really simple question. You know enough about us what we're trying to achieve in this MSP, review these proposals, tell me what I can do internally, what I can't do, or who I should go with, blah, blah, blah. And it said between 65 to 85 percent of all the services in those proposals can be done in-house with AI. You need to pick this one to do the website, you need to pick this one to do that. It was really interesting, but it did have a provider saying, but you need to have a dedicated AI engineer to use the tools to do it. So in the end, we as a the client and I, we decided to go with an external provider, even though we know that we could do part of that ourselves with AI, but you've got to have the dedication and skills. And it's not a part AI is not a part-time fun job. If you want to do it seriously and save money or time, you've got to dedicate the time to it. But I suppose the point was anything you send to a client is going to be tested in an AI model somewhere. So that is for sure.

SPEAKER_01 14:42

So let's move on now to leadership teams. So having worked with such a wide variety of leadership teams, Murray, I didn't actually ask the question, but I know you work with some MSPs, but there's a whole bunch more industries that you work with. What have you observed as the primary difference between a business that really gains traction on EOS and one that struggles to make the tools stick?

SPEAKER_02 15:06

Yeah, so it's a great question. And with your HR background, Jenny, it's no surprises where I'm about to go. So you can put in place as many tools and systems as you like. With leadership teams, if they don't want to lean in and do the work, it doesn't really matter what you do. It's not going to work. So with that in mind, the people, because with EOS, you work with the leadership teams and they then drive it through the business, of course. So if they don't want to be something different, then it's not going to be different. It's just going to be a cool badge that they say, oh, we do EOS. Everyone goes, Oh, cool. Well done, you. And they really don't. So that's the first one. They gotta they gotta want it. They really do. The second part of that is it's great that if they want it, but then they've got to have the consistency of execution. So what I mean by that is don't be motivated, just be consistent. Right? There are some days when leadership teams implementing EOS, it's not fun, it's not sexy, it's not awesome, it's just the grind. It takes what it takes. And so when when you just consistently apply it, that's when the leadership teams get that's when teams get the most out of it. So A, they've got to want it, they've got to want to lean into it, they've got to want to be something different, and B, they've just got to be have the consistent, the discipline of consistency. And if they don't have those two things, then it's hard. It's really hard. They might still get there, but it'll take them a lot longer, and it probably won't be as enjoyable because people like us come in and give them a whack for not doing what they're meant to be doing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:32

A very gentle, nice whack.

SPEAKER_02 16:35

Okay, maybe. Maybe.

SPEAKER_01 16:37

Maybe, maybe not.

SPEAKER_02 16:38

Yeah, so they still have the capacity to get there. It's just not going to be as enjoyable. It's you know, it's called work for a reason, it's not meant to be enjoyable all the time. They've really got to have those two aspects nailed down, and I'm sure you do too, Jenny. Always make this abundantly clear in the first time that I meet them is if you're looking for something that's just you can paste on a wall and stay doing, I am not for you. I only want to work with people that want to get better. If you don't want to get better, and that's what those two things are part of, then this really isn't for you. And everyone goes, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I want to get better. And then when you test it and it's not quite there, then you've got a whole nother challenge, which is just as exciting for an implementer, but not so exciting for the business. So they can really nail those two things down and go beyond the yes and actually demonstrate they're doing it, that they are consistent and they do want to do it and they are leaning in, that's the difference.

SPEAKER_01 17:30

Yeah, and I see that time and time again of we want to do it, and then you go back next time and no rocks are done, and you know, we want to change and and I want to get out of, you know, everything coming to me, but becomes clear pretty quickly the ones who are saying they want to and the ones who really do want to.

SPEAKER_02 17:47

And to be honest, how I deal with that is when they've built out their vision traction organizer, the two-page document that allows them to understand how to run their business. I'll just pull that out and say, okay, let's start changing the numbers and let's start changing the goals. Okay, what for? I said, Well, you're clearly not going to do any of this. So, what are we gonna do? What are your revenue table? Let's let's let's change those down because you've already made your decision that you're not gonna do these rocks, you've already made the decision you're not gonna do this. So how about we just change that 10 million down to five? Because that's what we're looking at. Are you all right with that? I go, or no, no, no, I don't want to do that. Yeah. Not really. I said, well, if you're not really happy with that, then let's get on with it and do lean in and do the work. Otherwise, you know, let's just call it a day.

SPEAKER_00 18:27

Yeah, and I think we get we also, Jenny, because both of us, Jenny and I were both implementing at the same time, and we have joint joint clients we work with now in some instances, and we've decided that we can't want the solution more than the client wants it. And it can get very, very frustrating when you're going in there and you can see what needs to be done. You you know they have the capacity, they've got the potential, they've got the skills, they've got all the knowledge in the room. For whatever reason, they just can't get out of their own way and do with the work. And it gets I used to get so frustrated with that, but now I've learned that.

SPEAKER_02 18:57

And now you're the answer to that. To be honest, Nick, you're now the answer to that because the majority of the time, the reason why they're not doing it is because they don't have an integrator.

SPEAKER_01 19:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:06

They might they they might think they do, but they don't. Because 80% of the work is done when the implementer's not there. Correct.

SPEAKER_01 19:13

Oh, yeah. Exactly right.

SPEAKER_02 19:15

So so if 80% of the work is being done when the implementer's not there, you better make sure you've got someone like Nick in the seat, an integrator who can actually execute daily and hold people to account and do that consistency of discipline and all that sort of stuff and get people to do the work so they can actually see what good looks like and then drive to the finish line. Because if they don't know that, it's kind of hard when you say, Oh, you've got to lean in, and they go, Well, I am leaning in, are you though? If you bring in an integrator who knows what they're doing, like in next circumstance, and they go, Oh, that's what it looks like. That's what leaning in means. Oh, okay, that's what discipline is. Then then you're off.

SPEAKER_01 19:50

Oh, you mean I actually have to do something every week towards my rocks. I can't just, yeah, just spend an hour once and go, yep, I've done. Show me some proof.

SPEAKER_00 19:58

Oh, uh, well you'd be surprised how many people we always say you need to put two 90-minute blocks into your calendar a week to work on your rocks as a bare minimum. And I would say 95% of people refuse to do that because it's a commitment they're making to themselves to do something that they've already committed to the rest of the leadership team. But I just don't get why people don't do that. Like as a team, we sat down, we agreed this is the priority for the next quarter. We all looked at each other and we went around the room and the implementer confirmed, yes, you're gonna do this, yes, is there any reason you can't do that? What help do you need? Blah, blah, blah. And we all said yes, yes, yes, yes. And then we went and did jack shit. Like, that's the challenge of humans, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 20:38

Yeah, it is. And on top of that, they paid for that advice.

SPEAKER_01 20:42

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:42

Good money.

SPEAKER_01 20:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:44

So they pay for something that they don't. It's a bit like going to the doctor and saying you should take these particular pills, and you go, yeah, okay, thanks. It'll save your life, and then not not taking them.

SPEAKER_00 20:54

Well, it's like like we say, it's like the difference between a spa and a gym. A spa you pay and someone else does the work. A gym, you have a membership, but you have to do the work. You're not going to get results unless you do the actual work. So I think back to the original question, Jenny said, what's what have you noticed as the difference between the ones that do get it and move forward versus the ones that kind of are stuck in this procrastination wheel? And and is there is there a magic, one or two pieces of nuggets that you can help share with our listeners as to if you are finding yourself in that constantly come to a chord lead, you're you're feeling bad as a visionary or the owner, and and you don't know what to do to help your team get to the next level. Is there any kind of specific little tidbits you've got there?

SPEAKER_02 21:32

So it's a bit of tough love, but I really there's a coach of a well, he no longer coaches now, but his name was Nick Saban, and he used to coach the Alabama football team. And he won six national titles. And it was this concept of the illusion of choice. And so the illusion of choice is all about be great, it takes what it takes. You you might think you've got choices to make in that space to say, well, I can do this, I can do that, to be all these sort of things. You've Really don't. To be great, it just takes what it takes. So, you know, when I'm working with teams, it's kind of like just keep fronting up, just keep doing the work and do it as honest as you can and know whether you're giving your 100%. And it just takes what it takes to be great. If you set the framework up and the structure up, which is what EOS is designed to do, and if you've got where you want to be and what you want to get there, what's more important? Well, nothing. Because you've all agreed to that, then it takes what it takes to deliver that. Now that doesn't mean that you get 100% success in everything you do. It just means that you apply yourself to the task at hand with the focus and effort to get the outcome you want. And that there's no choice in that, really, is there? That's just what it takes. So it's kind of hard advice, but it's like, okay, it's just true to life. If it wasn't, we'd probably all be living in Bali, wouldn't we?

SPEAKER_00 22:52

That's uh actually interesting you brought that up because I don't know how I found it, but I got onto some. It was the anti-doom scrolling solution. So it popped up in my Doom Scrolling on Facebook saying, You shouldn't be doing this, you should be doing micro learning. And I've gone, that's probably a good point, actually, that I could use this time to learn something. It goes, yeah, we'll click here and try this. So I I did and I went down the path. And the first lesson it gave me was a summary of atomic habits from James Clear. And his theory was it's all great to have a big goal, but a goal will not set you free. It's the process and the discipline of doing exactly what you just said, Murray. Having a goal is great as an aspirational thing, but that's not what the secret is. The secret is to do what you're committed to do on a regular basis. Have that discipline and just keep framing up. Keep having your level tens, keep checking in on your rocks, keep doing your to-dos and just constantly keep doing it. And so many people I work with go, oh, well, we didn't really went, had a busy week last week. We didn't really get anything done, so we'll skip the level 10 this week. No, no, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_02 23:50

Yeah, and it's also the realization that it doesn't have to be perfect. Like it's sometimes it's gonna be clunky, sometimes it's gonna be messy. And you know, Bradman didn't score a hundred every time he went out to bat. So, you know, you've just got to accept that some days you're gonna go out for a duck, and that's okay, at least you turned up, right? At least you had a crack. So that's the follow-on of that as well.

SPEAKER_00 24:11

That's why it's called an average, isn't it? It's not the one-time hit, it's a like exactly right.

SPEAKER_02 24:17

So he's pretty close to 100, but you know, even he wasn't at 100.

SPEAKER_01 24:24

So, Murray, for an MSP owner who feels like they're constantly fighting fires, what do you think, or what's one tool or discipline, and we've just talked a bit about discipline, you've seen have the most immediate game-changing impact on their day-to-day life?

SPEAKER_02 24:41

Yeah, so for me, there's lots of opportunities to have that impact with AOS. But I've got to, I'm always amazed when I sit down and talk to businesses about accountability and then who's accountable for what, and then working out what we know as the accountability chart. For those that don't know it, it may have the appearance of an organizational chart, but it's really about who's accountable for what, what are the top five things are accountable for, and let's be clear about that and make sure that one person is accountable, not two, and all those sorts of things. But just going through that process of working out the accountability chart and therefore who's accountable for what, I always find interesting because particularly in MSPs, it's like, and this is when it gets messy, it's like, okay, you're in charge of who's accountable for account management. That's the classic. Oh, yeah, yeah. MSP hate that one. Yeah. Sales and account management. But eventually they all get there and they work it out. But that's just one example. But the power of be having the clarity around, okay, well, I'm now in charge of sales and marketing or sales, whatever it might be. I'm now looking after pre-sales, I'm now looking after, you know, service delivery, whatever it might be. And I'm here are the five things of service delivery I'm meant to deliver to. I always find that the thing that helps MSPs the most in the early stages simply because it's the discussion they've never had before. Because a lot of the MSPs have been built by somebody started it and they've done everything, and then they've brought on someone else because the volume of work got too great and they know each other really well, maybe husband and wife, who knows? So there's no need to build that sort of understanding because it's there already. And then as the team grows, like you might have three, you still get away with that. But when you start to get beyond five, six, you know, there's no longer that personal relationship starts to disappear, and so does the clarity. But everyone still thinks that say, Oh, Nick's doing this and Murray's doing that. But is he though? Oh, I thought you were doing it, and that starts to happen. And you see that a lot in MSPs, but so that accountability chart and really understanding it. Because when I first started implementing EOS, I was lucky enough to be in that Microsoft program where we would go around and implement EOS into MSPs all around Australia. And that was the thing that surprised me the most was around that, oh, you mean you're accountable for that? And it was just simply being able to say to people, who's holding the ball on this issue? And if they if that couldn't be answered, then that was the biggest problem.

SPEAKER_00 26:57

Totally right. And I love the accountability chart for the clarity at the leadership level, but also so anyone in the organization can look at it and go, Oh, I just had a phone call with a client and they were bitching and moaning about X, Y, and Z. And that's clearly it's part of a marketing thing. They didn't like the surveys or something. So who owns customer success as an example, customer service on the internet? So I know who to go to rather than everyone just talking to everybody, and then you take a 15-minute conversation and it involves five or six different people, you end up wasting four hours. And it is tough for I I've my experience with this is the toughest ones are when it's uh a single owner, sole director, sole shareholder that's always had the financial control. And when it comes to sharing accountability, because you know, integrator is supposed to implement the business plan and be accountable for the PL. There's a lot of smaller MSPs that they don't even know their own numbers, let alone know how to share them with somebody else inside of the business. So you've got to work with your team to give them some kind of information. And we were pretty in the end, we were very transparent on a percentage, top line revenue and percentages. We didn't go into dollars of profit, but the people wanted to know, they would work it out.

SPEAKER_01 28:10

Or make it up. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 28:11

They'll make it up. So if you don't tell the smart people, we'll be working it out anyway. And the the Mrs. Jessups of the world, they're gonna make up something anyway, right? They'll make something up and they'll share it and it'll become gospel because they said it. So my advice would be come up with a method, work with your implementer, work with your owner group, whatever it is, come up with a story so your team, your company knows what's going on. So we're all on the same page because you don't want one person saying one thing and the other person saying something different.

SPEAKER_02 28:37

And the extension of that though, Nick, is in terms of the finance thing that you raised, is for those listening, I I challenge them, if they're founders or visionaries, the leaders of their organization, to go to their leadership team and tell me and get them to ask this question what is the break-even point for this business every month? And see whether the leadership team know that. Because if they don't, it probably means that they're making decisions in the blind financially.

SPEAKER_01 29:00

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:01

As a member of a leadership team, you should know the break-even number every month through the business. So you can look that, oh, are we tracking okay this month or not? That'll give you an insight into their ability to make decisions, but it'll also give you an insight into accountability. Because if they don't know, the visionary might still be accountable for the finances, but they can't be that accountable if we're setting revenue targets every quarter and profit targets. And are we holding that person accountable if we don't know that number? If the visionary wants to hold that finance seat, knock yourself out, mate. But that requires you to be accountable for telling us what's going on in the business and for us to be able to challenge you about what that looks like.

SPEAKER_00 29:40

Further to that, is people want to know how they can contribute to the success of the business. And if they don't know the numbers, and what annoys me the most is having a service delivery or operations manager that doesn't have accountability for the service gross margin. Like if they are not managing the profitability of the service department, I know guys that are SDMs that don't even know what their salary numbers are, they have no idea what the costs of running their operation. It's not crazy, it's unfortunate. You're losing a lot of momentum because these people are passionate about their jobs. And if they know what they can do and the levers they can pull to help the bottom line of the business, they will do it. And I mean, we had that experience with young Aaron when we put him as a project manager. Like I never would have thought this guy had a financial bone in his body, but once we explained it to him, he never missed a number for three years. Every month he made his professional services number every month for three years. And it was purely because we shared the information. He had access to it himself on a daily basis, and he knew what he could do to impact that number. And he was accountable for it. 100%.

SPEAKER_01 30:40

Yeah. And a bit of healthy competition in that, and we've talked about this on a number of the other episodes, but Nick, in his sales role, had to sell $50,000 of projects each month. And Aaron, as head of professional services or project delivery, had to deliver $50,000. So they were working out of the same bucket. Nick's job was to fill it up, and Aaron's job was to empty it out. And both of them hit that number pretty much for three years because and it was just at every leadership team meeting, it was I put another $35,000 in the bucket. And Aaron would say, Well, I just took $40,000 out. So it was just this healthy competition because both knew their numbers and both were absolutely focused on delivering that each month.

SPEAKER_00 31:22

We went right down at the end to the guys when when I explained the value of time and money to the technicians that were doing time entries on tickets, when we got a proper discussion going and they actually understood, it was amazing. Like if you've got a client paying you, for example, $3,000 a month, you might say, Oh, okay, I'm going to allow following 70% gross margin. I'm only going to allow $1,000 worth of labor to be spent on that client. So you have to measure that on a daily basis if you want to manage that, right? It's no point waiting to the end of the month and doing a report. Oh no, we did $2,500 worth of labor on that $3,000 client. Oh dear, sorry. No, no, we we set up an individual dashboard gauge live for each client. And it was a lot of work in the back end, and we had to manually change those numbers every month. But I'm sure net today's environment with AI tools, we could do it much easier. But the impact was enormous. Like people would go, hang on, your client's really noisy. What is going on? And even the senior techs would say, okay, we need to fix this number of tickets that are coming in on this particular client. And once you give that granularity and give people access to data, it's amazing what they can do with it. But somehow we seem to, it's all too hard and it's all kind of all rolled up into one. And you know, we as a leadership team go, oh, yeah, we're doing all right. We're 5% net profit, yay, and we're our gross margins 40% on service. Well, that's about 30% below where it should be. And it's amazing when you kind of figure it out and how quickly things can snowball on.

SPEAKER_02 32:46

And that can sound a lot like theory, but the living example of that is you two. Like you're living in Bailey for a reason because you structured your business in a way that allows you to exit successfully.

SPEAKER_00 32:56

100%.

SPEAKER_02 32:57

Right. So this is not about, oh, do your numbers. It's about if you truly want a life where you have the capacity to do other things and you want your business to operate effectively, then you've got to do the things that others aren't prepared to do. And these are the things, right? And if you do that, there's a payoff. And if you want that payoff, then you need to do the work. You need to have the accountabilities in place and you need to do all the things that you've just mentioned, Nick, to allow that to happen. If you don't want to do that, that's okay. That's your decision. Then don't expect to get out, oh, why are they doing that? Well, because they've built a business the way they wanted to build it to get what they wanted. That's not your life. You decided you didn't want that.

SPEAKER_00 33:36

By not making any decisions, you've decided on what you're going to get anyway. Correct. Either way, it's a decision, isn't it? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:43

And keep doing the same things and you'll keep getting the same result.

SPEAKER_02 33:47

Exactly right.

SPEAKER_01 33:52

So let's jump now into software platforms. So there's so many around now to help manage if you're running on EOS 90, Streti, EOS 1. We're pretty much moving to Stretti because of the integration of Teams. So many MSPs are running on Teams. Do you typically recommend a specific tool to your clients? Let them find their own path, or are you still EOS is very much pen and paper? But what's your approach to that?

SPEAKER_02 34:19

Well, it's not pen and paper. I'm pretty agnostic about this. I always just say, look, there's plenty of platforms out there, EOS, like you've just said, 90, EOS 1, Stretty. My view is I don't care what you do, just as long as you're not a slave to the process. And the minute that I see you're a slave to the process of filling spreadsheets out or using JIRA or whatever you might be using to run, the minute I see that that's slowing you down, that's when I'll step in and say, you need to adopt a platform. This is just wasting time. If they're efficient enough in however they're doing it, I don't get involved in it. But interestingly, just this week I I had that discussion with a business I was working with. It was clearly slowing them down. I said, mate, you've got to stop doing this. This is just wasting your time. Do you how much time do you spend on this every day? They'd say, oh, maybe half an hour. Okay, okay. So even if you just did it four days a week, there's two hours you've lost this week. How much are you earning an hour? Do you know how much a subscription for this stuff is? And it's clearly that's when I'll step in. But in the first instance, I'll leave it up to them for them to work to whatever they want to work with. If they ask, I'll tell them that these are the three. And you know, Streddy certainly does the integration. I think Nighty does as well now. But anyway, whatever the case is, don't be a slave to the process. The minute that happens, it's a problem.

SPEAKER_00 35:30

Yeah, I agree. Marin is and there are lots of automation platforms out there like Asana and Trello and you know SharePoint with Microsoft To-Dos and Loop and Notion and all that stuff. They all kind of do it or they can do it if you've got a programmer that can actually make it do it. But my experience with that is they get some of the tools right and they lose the gold and nugget, which is an individual person who's accountable for a number physically typing that number into a system. Because if you've got an automatic, and the reason people want to use the other platforms is because oh, that data's already in the back end. I'll just get a script to do it. And so you go into the level 10 meeting and a number pops up, and the number's supposed to be, you know, sales calls are above 20 and it's four. And everyone goes, Well, what the hell happened? You know, hey, come on, Bill. You're the sales manager. Oh, I didn't put that number in there. I don't know what it means. You've lost the entire point of EOS. Like it's the personal accountability. And I would encourage people not to automate the tool you use to present in your meetings, whether it's a breadsheet or whatever it is, but don't have it automated. The physical act of someone typing that number in there, subconsciously, they know they're going to get questioned about that and they will have the answer to the question that you're going to ask in the level 10. If you just present people with numbers and here it is, there's no ownership. There's no ownership. They go, I I I didn't put that number in there. I don't know where it came from.

SPEAKER_02 36:53

Another thing about platforms, Jenny, is if they're not on one, it can be an indicator, and this goes back to Nick's role now, about how strong their integrator is. Because a great integrator will not put up with BS. They'll just say, This isn't working for us guys. We need to sort this out. I'm going to take a to-do away and work out what platform we can use because I'm not putting up with this anymore. I want you to focus on your work every day. So sometimes it's a good indicator about how strong their integrator might be. Because if the visionary is coming over the top saying, Oh, this is too expensive, we can't afford to have this type of platform. Another platform and like a good integrator will another $20 a month.

SPEAKER_00 37:30

Oh my God.

SPEAKER_02 37:31

But it's also we we've got so many digital platforms now, we don't need another one. It's kind of like, well, maybe the integrators should have been looking at it, saying, well, what platforms are we using that we shouldn't? And equally, this is really going to drive business performance. Let's have a look at this. So there's plenty of ways to look at what having a platform and not having a platform, a dedicated platform, can tell you about a business, which comes back to the point about being a slave to the process. A good integrator will recognise that and make the change themselves without me telling them.

SPEAKER_01 37:58

And I think the other thing the integrator should be doing is if I jump into one of the platforms and as coach or implementer, and the whole scorecard is red just week after week after week, that's on the integrator. Why is this still red? Why are you not asking questions and putting things in place to turn it back to green?

SPEAKER_02 38:18

Yeah, yeah, that's right. Platforms are helpful. They give you great insights into where business is at and how they're coping.

SPEAKER_00 38:25

And I was just going to add to what Jenny said that it's as a fractional integrator, when I jump in and help different businesses, having somewhere that's separate where you can look at it and not get sidetracked with going down rabbit holes to try and fix the problem. It's like an external fractional integrator. It's a good investment. It's not super cheap. But the value you get out of those people is if you've got a system where they can come in and they know exactly what they've got to focus on, okay? Like Bill is not performing in sales. Okay, Mr. Integrator, go and have the one-on-ones on him, do with a rock review with him personally, find out what is going on, fix the problem so next week he's back on track. That's the integrator's role. It's not a full-time job. I would not say an integrator is a full-time job anywhere. You're either the general manager plus an integrator or your ops manager plus integrator or whatever. But having someone like myself come in for a couple hours a day or a day a week as an integrator, it's so important to have that data accessible that you can work with one-on-one with the people and get the value for them. And also you can feel like you're giving value back to the business because if you've got to go and hunt through the back end of a whole lot of systems, it really becomes very fast-plexed.

SPEAKER_02 39:30

Can be problematic. Yep. Yep, no question about that.

SPEAKER_01 39:36

Okay, let's finish up one last question. Based on insights you've gathered over the years as EOS implementer, the businesses you worked with, what does a healthy leadership team look like after 12 months of implementation? And how does that affect the overall value of the business?

SPEAKER_02 39:54

Yeah, so healthy leadership teams. So this will sound counterintuitive, but a healthy leadership team will go there. So from outside, they can look quite confrontational in some respects. They're prepared to go and have the conversations they need to have. And I can recall a business I work with, they invited some of their middle managers to their leadership level 10 so they could observe how they do their level 10 meetings. And at the end of the meeting, the integrator asked the middle managers, Oh, how did you find that? What did you think? I said, gee, you the leadership team doesn't really get along, do they? And they said, What do you mean? I said, Because you really, you really argue your points and go for it. And they said, Yeah, but that's the point. It's about understanding what healthy looks like. And we can talk about the five dysfunctions of a team by Pat Lancione and all that sort of stuff, but it really is about they had the trust in the room that they could talk about the things that matter, and then they could challenge each other and have the conflict and then commit and then be accountable and then see the results. And and so that's what a really healthy leadership team will look like. And it's each individual will be different. Individual leadership team that I've worked with is different in terms of how quick they get there. Some get there quicker than that, some take longer, and that's okay. But what we know about your second part of the question about what does that do for the structure of the business, it's game changing. Like if you've really got people in in a leadership role that is committed to the business, they'll do what's right for the business in the first instance, and they'll even if it's to their own detriment that but they'll still do what's right, that's when you have a leadership team that's fully on board and does what needs to be done and united to actually deliver. And ultimately it makes their life easier too, right? Because they can get through issues quicker, they can push through, they know they're not going to offend, egos are left at the door, they're all right with that, and they can really make it happen. Now, I'm not suggesting that's an easy place to get to, it's really, really hard and it requires ongoing maintenance. It's not just something you get there and go, okay, we're here now, let's we're done. You kind of have to be working on it all the time. So that's what I'd say about that in terms of you know leadership teams, but and the effect on the structure is second to none.

SPEAKER_01 42:05

And it is. It I mean, it's a difficult place to be. But I guess if I'm talking to a potential client and I can see that there's only one voice in the room, there's five people, but there's one voice and it's the visionary. You ask somebody else a question, the visionary answers. I start to wonder whether this is a bit of a minefield, I guess. But because there's a lot of work for that person to be quiet and let everybody else speak. But I think when there is that, I call it a healthy leadership team, as you said, you know, that people are willing to argue their point and do what's right for the business. That's really the key to it. But when I hear that one voice and you ask Bill a question and Fred answers, and you ask Mary a question and Fred answers, I start to think, oh, this is not where I want to be.

SPEAKER_02 42:51

Yeah, that's right. So I will often when I see that, Jenny, I'll often say, have we got our recruitment process right in this business? And they'll say, Oh, what do you mean? And I'll say, I'm pretty sure we recruited for a head of sales, didn't we? And they'll go, yep, yep, yep. So why why are you answering for the head of sales? And why aren't you talking and why aren't you defending your position? You're the head of sales. So did we want a head of sales or did we just want a minion? Which one did we want? Because if we wanted a minion, we've got a recruitment problem because we've got a position description. And maybe we should change the accountability chart and put all the accountabilities on you, and we'll just say, do whatever this person says. Because that's that's how we're rolling now.

SPEAKER_00 43:31

I love your dry humour there, Murray, you know.

SPEAKER_02 43:34

But it's again, it's just asking the question, isn't it? It's just asking the question. I know I'm being a smart ass when I ask the question, but it's kind of just to drive the point home. What did you want? Did you really want the business where you have time to do other things, or did you just want, or you just want to keep controlling it? Let's understand that, then we can work with that. And so can everyone else.

SPEAKER_00 43:54

They can make decisions about whether they want to be here. And you're dead, right. I mean, I'll just contemplating myself, you know, I've got two. Really experienced implementers here, or we have on the pub today. And I I used to do it myself. So my question to you two guys is from a MSP owner out there. Now, obviously, everybody's heard of EOS, that all the VCs are saying you need to have a system in your business. How would they, if they're on the fence or they've read traction or they've listened to someone talk or they're kind of half interested, want to know a bit more, aside from reading the user manual of traction? If I was a business owner and I'm thinking I'm a bit sick of where I am, I think this EOS thing might be worth a crap. What are the kind of things they can do to get a bit more information or help them figure out what to do next, I suppose? Go first, Jenny.

SPEAKER_01 44:39

Okay. So the first thing I would recommend is jump onto EOS Worldwide Implementers page. You'll get a list of all of the implementers you can search by area, find one that, or maybe a couple, and have a chat with them. Be open and say, you know, I am talking to a couple of people. We all talk. All of the implementers in the region will talk. We all know that we call it a bake-off. So Murray and I might both be talking to the same client. For us, it's very much about is EOS the right fit for your business? Am I the right fit for your business? Often over the seven years, I've been sitting in a room talking to somebody thinking I am not the right fit for you for whatever reason. So that would be the first point of call. Talk to people in your peer network. You know, who are you working with? What's working, what's not working, what do you love about it? What are the pitfalls? What are you not enjoying? So that's probably the first two things, Mary.

SPEAKER_02 45:32

Yeah. So coupled with that, I would say, irrespective of whether it's EOS or any other business operating system, that, you know, you think you've got to ask yourself why? What is happening in my business that is driving me towards wanting to understand more about this? Because those questions are going to be asked of you anyway. Any good EOS implementer will be asking you that when they first talk to you. And if you don't actually understand, it's okay if you don't know, but as long as you've asked, you say, well, I don't really know, I just know I've got a rubbish business, or I just don't want to be working like this, that's enough, right? But you've got to say, what is pushing me towards this? What's happening in my business now that's making me think we need to do it differently? Because if it is like I just don't enjoy what I'm doing anymore, that's a different discussion than I want to have a great business. They might all lead to the implementing the same thing, whether it's a a new operating system. But if you don't understand what's motivating you to make the change, then it's really hard to drive the change.

SPEAKER_01 46:30

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 46:31

And it's really hard for an EOS implementer to help you if they don't understand that.

SPEAKER_00 46:36

I would kind of add to that from my limited experience, is it's finding someone you're you want to share your innermost demons and and desires and secrets. Because, you know, even though we're not business coaches as such as EOS implementers, we're we're following a standard process, it's the experience that the individual implementer brings to the table that can make the difference. Because like we all deliver EOS Pure and theoretically, you should get the same process and experience, but the person that you're compatible with will have a history. And if for example, Jenny and I ran an MSP together for 25 years or more. So if you're a family-oriented business and you want that experience, then someone like us who was a family might be the best. Now, if you want someone who's used to catch criminals and, you know, understands litigation, then Murray might be a guy, you know.

SPEAKER_01 47:26

And can ask really great questions.

SPEAKER_00 47:28

You want someone who's more social media oriented. Well, then there's plenty of those out there as well, you know. It's like it's understanding a bit about yourself. And I would say if you haven't done any kind of Holby, E Dis, Myers, Briggs, understand yourself. So when you understand yourself, you'll be able to find someone who's compatible with you because it is kind of that you've got to have a real trust and bond for it to work because you can't go into EOS. My only statement was you can't go into it half-hearted. Like it may or may not work for you over time. When you start, it's like a marriage. You've got to be completely committed doing what has to be done to give it a good chance and listen to the implement. You've got the vast experience. And if you don't agree with it, fantastic. Tell them that and say, go find me five other implementers that have done this before and prove to me that what you're saying is right. Or something like that. Like, don't you don't have to accept it as gospel, but you've got to accept the experience that's in front of you. Yeah. There you go. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 48:21

And the perfect time to implement EOS. I remember talking to one business MSP, actually, and they said, Oh, you know, we've just got a really busy period at the moment, and we're going to get past these projects. And thinking, you've been around for 32 years. Tell me about a time when you were not busy. There is no perfect time.

SPEAKER_02 48:38

Where do you think you are busy?

SPEAKER_01 48:40

Exactly. Okay, let's call it at that. Thanks, Murray, for joining us. Really appreciate your time.

SPEAKER_02 48:51

Yeah, it's been great. It's not 28 degrees where I am, but clearly it is where you are. So enjoy the enjoy the rest of the day.

SPEAKER_00 48:58

My air conditioning is still blowing out warm air. So yeah, I'm really enjoying the 29 degrees and about 99% humidity.

SPEAKER_02 49:05

I I don't have any sympathy for you.

SPEAKER_00 49:07

I'm sorry. Thanks, Murray. It's been really good catching up again and good reminiscing. And uh like for the guys listening out there, like you all know our story. You know, Murray's one of our fellow implementers, and he does work in the MSP space. So I mean the point of this episode was just to give you some background and some feedback about what can happen. And if you do choose to go down the EOS path or like Murray said, any operating system for your business, you just please, please commit to it and give it a good chance. You know, you you can't just read the book and implement step one. Yeah, it doesn't work.

SPEAKER_01 49:39

Cherry pick the easy bits.

SPEAKER_00 49:41

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:42

Skip over the hard bits. That always works well.

SPEAKER_00 49:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:45

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