719 Crafting Your MSP Brand Story with Decoded Strategies

[Uncle Marv]
Hello friends, Uncle Marv here with another episode of the IT Business Podcast, the show for IT professionals and managed service providers, where we try to help you run your business better, smarter, and faster. We are here with another one-off video, well, I've already messed that up, but we're going to keep right on going. This is a one-off audio show that I'm doing.

It's going to be a very special show, folks. I've got two new guests that I think you're going to find interesting. If you are a part of the ASCII group, you may have already heard of them, but these are two friends from the Decoding Strategies marketing site, Annie Mosbacher and Kristin Spiotto.

Sorry, it's a Friday.

[Annie Mosbacher]
It's a Friday, man. We're just so happy to be here. This is awesome, Marvin.

Thanks for having us.

[Uncle Marv]
Thank you guys for coming on. You guys, it's going to be interesting because you're not new to the MSP scene, but some of us are going to think you're new because we haven't heard of you. Obviously, we're going to have to go back and talk about your beginnings as a company but let me go ahead and do this.

I'm going to let people know that, yes, you've been a part of the ASCII group. You've done work with MSPs. You have a great marketing strategy, but you're different.

It's not really about marketing. It's about story brand, right?

[Annie Mosbacher]
Yeah, storytelling, big, big part of what we do for sure.

[Uncle Marv]
Okay. A lot of us, we hear that in this industry, MSPs are notorious for latching onto words and not knowing what the real meaning is, so why don't we just lay that groundwork out first and tell us what it about storytelling is that makes your company different?

[Kristin Spiotto]
Well, it's really the way that we take a storytelling-based approach to marketing. We know that MSP leaders have a lot of feelings about marketing. A lot of them are highly skeptical, a little nervous because they've invested in things where they haven't necessarily got an ROI, so we know that people have feelings when it comes to marketing, but we find a lot of times the reason that marketing doesn't work is because we have not taken the time to really build our message and position our company in such a way that's really going to resonate with our customers. We know that people love stories. There's a reason that we're excited to binge watch the latest show on Netflix or go see the latest movie.

I just went and saw Wild Robot last weekend, and it blew my mind. There's a reason we love stories, and so really what we like to do is take the magic that is in stories that we're all drawn to and then use that to help MSPs invite their customers into a story that they're excited to be a part of.

[Uncle Marv]
All right, I'm already going to take a left turn here, and because you brought up that movie Wild Robot, that's half cartoon, half techie, so what reason did you actually go to see that?

[Kristin Spiotto]
Half cartoon, half techie. Well, I went to see it because I have a seven-year-old and a nine-year-old who love the book.

[Uncle Marv]
There we go.

[Kristin Spiotto]
But I would have seen it anyway because it's a gorgeous movie and a gorgeous story. That's why I went. It's because the story is unbelievable.

[Annie Mosbacher]
Preston, you called me the next day and you said this was the best movie that you've seen the past year.

[Kristin Spiotto]
All year.

[Annie Mosbacher]
Why? Why? You didn't go into the detail, though.

What was it that made it so exceptional?

[Kristin Spiotto]
So the main hero, this is, of course, the Wild Robot. It's a robot who crash lands on an island and has a journey that is unexpected and goes on a journey of motherhood that's incredibly powerful and unexpected, and you are just emotionally invested in this character, in the problem, and in seeing them become who they really are meant to become. So it's just, it's a story that you want to be on the ride for, and it's really moving and really incredible.

[Uncle Marv]
Okay, Annie, I'm gonna, you referenced that Kristin said this was the best movie in the last year. Did you guys not see Beetlejuice?

[Annie Mosbacher]
I tell you what, and don't kill me for this, Marv, I did not see the Beetlejuice sequel and I've actually never seen the original, which I know a lot of people have feelings about and one day I possibly will, but no, I did not happen to see that one. So I can't comment.

[Uncle Marv]
Okay. All right. What about Top Gun Maverick?

[Annie Mosbacher]
Top Gun Maverick was great. I tell you what, we saw the new Alien movie, which Kristin and I are both big fans of the whole franchise, and it was spectacular. So if I were to give like the A plus, one of the best movies I've seen in the theater this year, that would probably be up there.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. Very interesting.

[Annie Mosbacher]
Yeah.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. That's not why my listeners are here, but I just knew we had to.

[Annie Mosbacher]
We just threw out there a bunch of movies for you.

[Uncle Marv]
Yes. Yes. And by the way, I should note that this is how Annie and Kristin start their own podcast.

What is it? Decoding Story Brand Podcast.

[Annie Mosbacher]
It's Decoding Story-Based Marketing, which I know we just, we threw a mouthful in the title of our podcast, but Decoding Story-Based Marketing Podcast.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. And you guys, you and then you have a third person with you, Ben, and you guys start almost every show talking about this type of stuff.

[Kristin Spiotto]
We love talking about movies. We love talking about stories. I think it's why we love using the Story Brand Framework in our messaging so much is because the things that make us come alive, talking about the latest thing that we've loved, that thing and that magic is something that we can apply to our messaging.

So that's why we dig talking about movies. I mean, I worked at Blockbuster in college, like I've been a movie person my whole life, but we love really thinking about then what we can learn about that to help businesses grow their business.

[Annie Mosbacher]
All right. Yeah. And I think, you know, you brought this up right at the top, Marv, this idea of like, it's so easy to latch onto the buzzword or the latest shiny trend in certain areas.

And something that I think has really fueled the business that we do, especially with really complex technical companies, is at this moment, most businesspeople have kind of heard the buzz term of story or, oh, I got to tell story in my marketing. That's something that a lot of people are talking about or thinking about, but it's very difficult to define what we mean by story. And so we like to look at examples of film or books or really epic stories to really think about the reason that these films are so effective is not just that they are trying to manipulate an emotion or elicit an emotion or make you laugh.

Those things are somewhat secondary. It's because they follow this framework where you identify a hero. They have a problem that they cannot overcome by themselves.

They need a trusted guide to come in, help them overcome the problem and see the light at the end of the tunnel. So I've sometimes find really examining movies to be such a great way of showing like story means something very, very specific when it comes to marketing. And a lot of companies get that wrong thinking I have to make a funny video or I need to make my audience feel emotional or cry, you know, in a Super Bowl commercial.

And so I think looking at some of the ways that we really interact with stories in a personal perspective can really help us get it right when it comes to marketing.

[Uncle Marv]
So I want to piggyback off of that and say that one of the things that I have seen in our industry is that, yes, everybody tries to put up a eye grabbing, catchy post thinking that that's going to drive business and whether, you know, and I'm going to be controversial here because this is kind of going around in our industry where, you know, people are dressing up in costumes and people are putting together, you know, cartoon characters and trying to do bright, colorful characters.

I on the other hand do nothing. I am known as no marketing Marv, although yes, I do have some marketing, I have some brand awareness and stuff like that, but I don't go out and do those crazy things. You guys mentioned in your podcast, and I'll say this, so actually your first podcast of season two just came out the other day, I noticed that, but in either your last episode of last year or the second to last, it was all about MSPs and you talked about how MSPs get a lot of things wrong because we're focused on that low hanging fruit of SEO or lead gen, but with the wrong focus.

Can you talk to that a little bit as it relates to what you just said about we need to put out a story?

[Annie Mosbacher]
Yeah, well, Kristin, I know you've got a thousand thoughts on this too, but I'll kind of get us started on it. So, you know, one of the things that we see so regularly and honestly, I think is just heartbreaking to both of us and why we love working in the MSP and IT space so much is oftentimes business leaders who start this type of company do it because they are subject matter experts in the services that they are selling. Most often MSP leaders don't necessarily come from a marketing background, but as any small business owner kind of get thrown into a scenario where they have to wear a zillion different hats and kind of figure it out.

And so there's so many different schools of thought in the world about what constitutes good or traditional marketing. And some of the loudest concepts out there like running ads, spending a whole lot of money on a website redesign, investing heavily in SEO, hiring an agency who emails you and promises you 500 quality leads every month, right? Those are really noisy, different avenues or channels of marketing.

And so it can be really tempting to think, oh, I have to do all these things because it's really what I hear about the loudest. But what we find is if you jump straight to investing in an SEO strategy, or we just heard this this week from a prospect we were talking to, they spent $20,000 on a new website that looks beautiful, but all the words are garbage. Truly, they're straight words.

The words are garbage. It was an afterthought. If you spend all of this money on those type of tactics before you develop your messaging and positioning strategy to determine how can we communicate about what we do as a business in a way that is unique, differentiated, and above all else, clear so that our audience really understands what we do and how we fit into their story, all of that money and all of those marketing tactics are going to fall flat. You will not get an ROI on that. So something that we believe wholeheartedly, before you do any marketing efforts, before you launch ads, you do SEO, whatever those things are, start with your messaging so that you can feel a lot more confident that the words that you're putting out across all of those different tactics are going to be effective.

So really at the heart of what we do, that's a core belief on how we approach marketing and why we start from a messaging and positioning perspective.

[Kristin Spiotto]
And the other thing that I would add to that is, Marv, you mentioned people are trying really flashy tactics and that can be like, you know, dressing up or creating a new cartoon character. And I mean, by all means, if someone wants to dress up like a hot dog, go for it. Fantastic.

God bless. I think that's great. But what I will say is those kinds of like real splash and dash tactics of like, I'm going to do something big to get a bunch of attention all of the sudden, that may get some attention.

That is not going to lead to long-term sustainable growth where you're resonating with your audience. And the other big question I have when people do some of those really attention grabbing tactics is whose attention are you trying to get and what message are you trying to communicate and how are you trying to position yourself? So I do usually caution against like, you want to be taken seriously as a business leader and you want people to trust you as the guy that they are looking for.

So that requires authority and empathy. And if we're being really, really silly in our marketing, a lot of times that may not resonate or appeal to the audience that we actually want to attract. So I think, yeah, hot dog costume, go for it if you really want that.

But I would actually take a step back and think about what is the message that I'm in, that a story that I'm inviting someone into and how am I showing up in the way that it's going to help them recognize I'm the trusted guy that's going to be able to help them.

[Uncle Marv]
Is there a step that comes before putting together the message? Because here's why I'm asking. We are in an industry where all of us kind of look the same, act the same, do the same when it comes to the services we provide.

And a lot of times, even though we are alike, some of us try to say how we're different, but yet don't know who we are. So is there anything that needs to happen before we try to put this message together? Don't we need to know who we are first?

[Kristin Spiotto]
Well, certainly. You do need to know who you are. But what I would say, and Annie, I'm going to want to hear your thoughts on this too.

First things first, there are a lot of MSPs that look the same, and there's reasons for that, but there's a lot of MSPs where you look at their website and one looks just like the other. A lot of times it's because people are getting caught up in the same jargon again and again and again, and they have not taken the time to build their message, which is where you really identify who am I to this market? How do I want to show up?

What are the things about my particular company that are especially unique or valuable or differentiated from the competition? Because you may MSP sell a lot of similar services, but they may do it very differently. And what feels important to them?

So what it feels important to one, maybe we're going to really simplify this so this doesn't feel confusing for you and you get just what you need and nothing more. For other folks, we may need to be extremely thorough and make sure we're covering all the bases and you want to be on the cutting edge. There's just different ways of approaching that.

So I would say that is the brand messaging. Like that is what you need to think about is what helps us stand out from the competition, even when it's a very crowded, crowded market. Annie, I'm curious if you have other thoughts on that too.

[Annie Mosbacher]
Totally. Everything that you just said is, I think, exactly the groundwork that you need to think about, Marv, in that way. And what I would say is the act of defining your messaging and your positioning is the act of defining who you are as a business.

There is no right or wrong, perfect, analog, zero or one answer to your messaging and positioning. It's born from strategic decisions that as a business owner, you need to make about how you want to be perceived in the market. So I think the act of this and why we love going through this process is it gives business owners that opportunity to really think about who we want to be in the market?

How do we want to be perceived? What's most important to us to communicate to our audience? The other thing that I think is really important here, and it's super nuanced, but I think is such a driving factor in messaging, is anytime we think about our brand story, our brand messaging and positioning, we need to look at it through the lens of our audience.

So even just this act of saying, OK, we have to differentiate from the competition, already I'm looking at it from the inside, looking out. So we got to flip that a little bit and say, OK, what is it when somebody is looking from the outside in? Differentiation is not the first thing that they are going to be looking for.

The first thing that your audience is going to be looking for is, is what you sell as a company, is that relevant to me? Are you offering something that's solving the problems that I have? So we actually look at the highest level as the most important thing you need to start with is establishing relevancy to an audience who's maybe going to be spending, if you're lucky, 45 seconds on a website, 10 seconds scrolling through something on LinkedIn, two seconds looking at an ad, right?

You have very, very little time to capture that attention. And I'll tell you what, I'll be less generous than Kristin is. Hot dog costumes aren't going to cut it.

We need to really establish relevancy by naming what we do. We have to do that so clearly that it can connect with our audience to say, yes, that is what they are looking for. The problems that you solve as a brand are the problems that our audience is looking for.

And once you've done that, once you've slotted in their head is, OK, this is a relevant company to me, then you can start thinking about how you differentiate from others. But I think there's this shift, this paradigm shift that we need to make, that we have to look at it from an outside-in perspective and follow psychologically what our audience is looking for and not get tangled up in internally what we think that we need to do. It's just a different way of approaching that messaging development.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. So all of this kind of rolls into this role that you guys, you've termed it as trusted guide. I know you've heard our industry say trusted advisor.

Don't know if you like that word or not, but we can go into that. All of these things, when we talk about becoming trusted with them, to me, website, hot dog costumes, none of that matters. It's what happens when they see us and engage with us and talk with us.

How do you talk with people about that? How do how do you help them become the trusted guy?

[Kristin Spiotto]
Well, I would disagree with you, Marv. If you say the website doesn't matter, because how are we going to get to having that conversation with them if on the front end, our messaging on our website, on social, wherever they're first engaging with us isn't working and isn't inviting them into a story? So that is the problem is I actually find most MSP leaders do not have an issue closing the sale.

If they can get someone on the call, especially the ones that are super engaging, super warm, super personal, committed to their customer success. They if they can get on a call with someone, they're going to close it. The problem is getting those conversations to happen.

So I would push back on that and say what you have on your website really matters, because that's the only way you're going to get more people in the door. So that didn't answer your question. That's all right.

[Uncle Marv]
I'm going to make a note. We'll come back to that. I want to defend myself.

[Kristin Spiotto]
But yeah, we could talk about that. But what I will say is how do we show up as either the trusted advisor, trusted guide? Really, what we're saying is if you if you see a movie, if you watch a movie, there's always a guide whose job it is to help the hero win the day.

There's always a Gandalf or a Yoda. There's always a character who's there whose job it is to say, hero, I'm going to help to be successful. So this is our big thing.

We want brands to be the guide and not the hero. We want you to be the Gandalf, not the Frodo. And so really you do that with two qualities.

And those qualities are empathy, which is I care about you. I understand your problem. I understand what you're going through.

And authority, which is I have a track record of success. So doing that absolutely shows up in conversations. But also you can definitely, definitely put that top of the funnel marketing content.

[Uncle Marv]
And your rebuttal.

[Annie Mosbacher]
I don't have a rebuttal. You'll notice Kristin and I mind meld on basically everything. No, this is really, really important.

And I would agree. You know, we talked to so many MSPs. We've worked with dozens of MSPs over the years and almost one hundred percent unilaterally across the board.

Their challenge is getting more people to sign up for sales calls. To Kristin's point, you know, if you're selling something really effective. That's why we love MSPs.

It's like this work. These services are necessary. They are an absolute necessity out there in the world.

And so that's kind of closing the final sale. That's not where the challenge is. But getting more people to know who your business is, encouraging them to sign up with you, that is really a big challenge there.

And so one of the biggest paradigm shifts that we have found to be just incredibly successful about the story brand framework and the way that we approach marketing and messaging is your brand is not the hero of the story that you are telling. Your brand is the guide and the hero is your customer. So there's an example of how this did not go so well from a few years ago with a company I know every one of your listeners probably knows quite intimately CrowdStrike.

So CrowdStrike came out with a big marketing campaign. Some number of years ago where the visuals were all of these really beautifully illustrated graphics and posters and things where a CrowdStrike person was standing on top of the mountain. The sun was shining down on them.

They had a big superhero cape. They were positioning as we're the heroes that are going to come in and save you and save the day. And on first blush.

Oh, that's cool. That looks really exciting. Wow.

What a what a what an ad. When you really think about it, CrowdStrike and the brand should not be positioning themselves as the hero. They should be positioning their customer as the hero or pulling in the right resources, getting the right partners.

But they are the ones, the IT leaders, the cybersecurity leaders, the CISENG leaders, whoever it is, that's pulling in CrowdStrike. They are the people who should win the day. CrowdStrike is not the hero here.

It is your customer. And so, though a brand, you know, we we've worked with before and lots of people have their opinions based on the 2024 unfortunate events of CrowdStrike. But that was such an effective ad for us to look at and say, you know what, it's just it's in the wrong order.

That should be your customer that's standing on top of the mountain, wearing the superhero cape under the sun. And so we really, really like to reiterate all the time with our clients and with MSPs. This is not your marketing should not be all about a brag list of what makes you awesome.

It should be about what you can do to equip your customer with what they need to be successful. So that's really what we look at when we think of being a trusted advisor, being a trusted guide. It's all about putting your customer at the center of that story and positioning yourself as the person who can help them win the day.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. Just to note, I notice that Star Trek reference you threw in there.

[Annie Mosbacher]
Great.

[Uncle Marv]
So here's a question I have since you brought up CrowdStrike. You said that that ad marketing campaign was a kind of a flop, right? Was it a flop because they did not get people in?

Or was it a flop kind of like what happened a few weeks ago where they had that update mishap and, you know, the world almost broke because of them?

[Annie Mosbacher]
Well, it's certainly we cannot connect the world breaking to one of their marketing campaigns. And so the reason that I bring that up is less to kind of investigate that particular company's success with it. We are not obviously on their team.

We don't know what their numbers are. But for such a large company and listen, large companies who are household names, you know, they have the privilege of people already knowing who they are as a brand and what they do. So this is why a lot of Super Bowl commercials you'll find are really fun.

There's the hot dog costume concept. They're fun. They're funny.

They might be tearjerkers. But if you actually look at most Super Bowl commercials and try to look at it from the lens of, OK, what does this company actually sell? Who knows?

Right. And so in this instance, it's a big brand. CrowdStrike was a big brand, very well known.

They weren't dependent on a particular marketing campaign, I think, to hit their revenue goals. But from a customer engagement perspective, it's an example to highlight around this is not the way we want to position. We are not the hero here.

It is our customers who are the hero. And there's certainly something that can be said about how they handled such a difficult situation for their customers in really, you know, not necessarily putting their customers at the hero there. So it's a great example for us to look at from an MSP who does not have the benefit of being a household name to say, OK, they may have a little bit of goodwill to be able to go off book and try it for other things.

This is not what we want to do when we are actively trying to grow our pipeline.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. So Super Bowl commercials, frogs or.

[Annie Mosbacher]
Horses, I'm not like Chris and take this one, she is.

[Kristin Spiotto]
She feels so strongly about Super Bowl commercials. I do feel strongly about Super Bowl commercials, but to decide on frog. I mean, horse, I think horses is where I'm going to go on this one because of the longevity.

OK, and I've been loving them for 25 years. Frogs were great in the 90s. Sure, that's fine.

[Uncle Marv]
All right.

[Kristin Spiotto]
But I will say I do feel strongly about Super Bowl commercials. And I love Super Bowl commercials. I come to the Super Bowl for queso and commercials.

And I think they're really fun. But the problem is a lot of those commercials garner a lot of attention and that people enjoy watching them. But they bet because the company works so hard to do something really funny, really clever, really creative.

People watch half those commercials and have no idea what they're selling. So people are paying a billion dollars to go out and entertain a crowd instead of informing them about the problem they can solve and inviting them into their brand story. So I think a lot of commercials are really, really great.

But a lot of times people lean so heavily on entertainment value, they miss a huge opportunity to actually sell their product.

[Uncle Marv]
I've been saying that for a long time. I don't even care about the commercials anymore. Now, granted, we watch because we want to see which ones are funny.

But that's the only reason we remember them not to engage with them after the fact, which is one thing that, you know, we as MSPs need to be mindful of that as well, just to put stuff out there to get attention. Doesn't do anything if you don't get that engagement afterwards. So let me ask this question, which is probably a rephrasing of kind of what we've been talking about.

Was it is it that you guys have been finding in our MSP space that we're doing wrong? Like, what are those what are those mistakes that stand out to you?

[Annie Mosbacher]
Preston, do you want to tackle this first? You want me to you want me to go? You go ahead.

You go ahead. OK. So, you know, one of them I did allude to earlier, but I think it's important to tease out here when we look at, you know, providing recommendations for MSPs to think about this differently.

So the first big mistake is skipping over the critical step of developing your brand story and your brand positioning and instead jumping straight into tactics. So this is spending a lot of money on a beautiful looking website. This is investing.

I mean, I'm not kidding. We hear thousands, 20,000, 30,000, 40,000 dollars a month on SEO. This is jumping straight into posting a whole bunch of stuff on social media before you define how you need to be communicating as a company.

So when you do that, it becomes a leaky bucket. You're throwing a whole bunch of money out there. But without clarifying your message, it's going to start to drip through.

So without question, that is the single the single biggest issue that we see across the board and what we really endeavor and why we partner with folks like you, Marv, and why we're partnering with ASCII. And we've had, you know, partnerships with ChannelPro and ChannelCo and TDSynnex for so many years. We love getting in front of this audience because, again, when you are not a marketer, perhaps by nature or trade or have a lot of experience in it, it can be very tempting to jump to those loudest tactics that you hear about and think, OK, well, I'm doing marketing.

This is the stuff that I've heard I'm supposed to be doing. Why isn't it working? And there's a clear reason for that.

You've very likely skipped. How are we defining our company story? What is it that we have to say before you go and start to plaster that everywhere?

So just that is a big, big mistake that we're seeing, you know, across the board. So, Kristin, I'll let you take it from there. But it's important to reiterate that because it's a solvable problem, but one that we see a lot of folks making a mistake to do.

[Kristin Spiotto]
When we see a company website of someone that's come to us before we've really helped them with their messaging, a key indicator that they have skipped past the step of messaging is we see them getting caught in the weeds in their marketing. So they think, oh, we're going to really stand out when we show all of the things that we're proficient in. And basically their website is a big old long services list.

That's usually a big mistake. That's kind of a big alarm bell on like, oh, you're trying to win over by your features, which we're never going to win the feature war. We're never going to do that.

And so really, I think that that's a big, a big mistake is getting highly complex and trying to impress your sophisticated buyers. A lot of times we do sell to sophisticated buyers, but we try to impress them with overly complex language that actually ends up losing their attention because people actually just do not have time to figure out what we do. So we make it too hard for people to understand the value that we're going to deliver to them.

[Annie Mosbacher]
Yeah. You know, Mark, you brought up another topic that I think certainly fits in here that can be an easy mistake to make, which is kind of building marketing and sales systems that don't account for the need to nurture leads and engage with leads over time. So we see a lot of MSPs who have a very simple sales process or sales funnel that's very reliant on when someone schedules a sales call.

We'll show up. We'll have the sales conversation with them. We'll send a, you know, a terms of service or an SOP.

We'll close the sale and then move forward. But there are so many steps that most buyers need to take before they click that button to book a call with you or to get in touch with you or to send you that email. So really thinking about where we are showing up?

How are we distributing important content such that it's getting in front of our audience, reflective of the brand story we know we need to tell? And then really understanding that, you know, one touch point, one point of engagement with your audience is not going to be enough in most cases to drive them to the sale. So what does that look like?

Are you capturing email addresses on your website for people that are interested in some of the things that you have to talk about? Are you building a social media audience and community where you're regularly sharing helpful information and people are engaging with you and seeing your brand all the time? Have you developed a podcast where you have the opportunity to start engaging with listeners and deliver content where people are going to be hungry for it and starting to come to you as a trusted resource?

So, you know, there are so many different touch points that most buyers really need before they make the decision to say, you know what, I'm going to call Marv and I'm going to actually evaluate his company to see if they fit the needs that I have. You got to do a lot more engagement to really start to get people to the place where they're ready to have that conversation.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. Now I'm going to hit you with a hard one here. When you strip all this down and talk about, you know, the content, the funnel, the lead gen and stuff, what makes decoding strategies different than what else is out there?

Because we've got a lot out there. We've got some low end template based stuff. Hey, just spend a couple hundred bucks a month.

Get that out there, Joe. We've got the thousands of dollars per month. And I'll be honest, to me, it all sounds the same in a sense.

So what makes decoding strategies different?

[Annie Mosbacher]
So there are a handful of different things that we can talk about here, but, you know, there is a reason why we always start with a messaging strategy. I've talked about that. I'm not going to go deep into those details again, but we always start there.

That is wildly different than what most marketing agencies, marketing frameworks and marketing companies do. In fact, we hear from a lot of MSPs who have used some of the tried and trusted, you know, kind of more templatized marketing and subscriptions out there who say, yes, this has given me a lot of templates. This has helped me kind of understand the type of marketing assets I need to create.

But it sounds like everyone else. This doesn't sound like me. I feel like I'm sending out content that just sounds really generic and doesn't have my personal stamp on it.

It doesn't sound like me. So that is something we hear regularly from some of that more kind of low end templatized marketing resources. Yeah, OK, I've got a good email template that I can send.

I kind of know how to build my website. But it feels really generic. Doesn't feel like I'm communicating anything you need.

And then, you know, again, there are so many different resources out there. But even when you go on to the higher end, that's where we start to see, once again, big investments in making a website look pretty, trying to find an avenue and a path through SEO. You know, a heavy investment in things like Facebook ads, which can be very difficult to track ROI on if not done really well.

So even in that sphere of the very personal, high end, white glove, high touch, expensive type of marketing service, Decoded Strategies does a lot of those things. We help and we participate in those things. But that is not where we start.

We really start from the place of who is your brand, who is your ideal customer, and how can we craft a unique strategy for you based on your uniqueness as a brand and the specific needs of your audience? And we start there. So the end result, we may be doing a lot of the same things, but I guarantee you they're going to be more personal to your brand because we are focused on what makes you unique and what makes your customers uniquely in need of the services that you have to offer.

So it comes back to that starting place that we always come from, which is the place of story and using a very scalable framework to build the stories that you need to be telling as a company before you do anything else.

[Kristin Spiotto]
And I would add one thing to that, which is that Decoded Strategy sits at a really special crossroads in the way that we partner with clients. We have deep technical expertise, so we understand the language of tech. We understand the language of MSPs and the services that they're delivering.

We take a deep, we prioritize listening and truly understanding a company's goals, what it is they're trying to communicate their heart for their clients. And we have storytelling expertise with our experience in the Story Brand framework. So we have that translation ability to really understand, to listen well and then to be able to tell the story in a way that's going to resonate with audiences.

[Uncle Marv]
So that all sounds hard, like it's going to take a lot of time. And it's not cheap. So how do you address that?

Because I think that's going to be one of the things that from an MSP perspective, it's like, I just want to give you money and you give me a system that works. Putting together this message doesn't sound like something that could be done that way. There's going to have to be some investment in figuring that message out.

[Kristin Spiotto]
Well, I would say there's a few things in life that we don't want to go cheap on. Tattoos and our marketing strategy. Like there's just some things in life that are so important that it is worth thinking, OK, should I be OK with investing in this?

Now, what I will say is it does take some time investment. It doesn't take weeks and weeks and weeks and months and months and months. The way that we do it is very contained, where we come in and really work with a company for a couple of hours and help them build their brand message.

And so this is not a massive time investment. And it also should not be an insane financial investment. I just I just talked to somebody yesterday who has pumped fifteen thousand dollars into their website.

And then he came to me and he said, I feel like the words on the website were an afterthought. And that breaks my heart. So all that to say, this does not need to be a fifteen thousand dollar investment.

This can be a much smaller right size investment. It's worth investing in, but it doesn't need to be just an insane fifteen, twenty thousand dollar investment. But also, if you want to do this right, you do need to spend more than three hundred dollars to do it.

It is worthwhile to take the time to really bring in experts. But it does need to take a ton of time and it does need to be an insane investment.

[Annie Mosbacher]
Annie, do you want to add anything to that? Just, you know, Marvel, I'm sure we'll talk in a little bit about some of the different, you know, workshops and ways that we support. But we take that really to heart in recognizing some different segments of the market that we work with, you know, on the MSP space or some of the small IT companies, we get that there are budget constraints.

And so we really think about different ways of scaling this work. What I will say that is core to the way that we work and core to what we have seen as qualities in the most successful MSP leaders is there is an absolute need to scale your efforts and to figure out how to drive efficiencies in what you do, what you templatize, what you automate, et cetera. But as a leader, you cannot abdicate some of the most important and strategic decisions that you need to be making about the business.

And one of those things is how you want to be positioned in the market. You can absolutely delegate out writing copy for an email or, you know, using an AI tool to help you come up with some language for a social media post. There is a place for delegating, templatizing, automating, abdicating, you know, getting other ways and resources to get it done.

But you have got to take ownership as a leader of a company to make the hard and sometimes, you know, tricky and energy. You know, you've got to put some energy behind it to make the decisions around. How do we want to be perceived in the market?

How do we want to be positioned in the market? Again, to Kristin's point, we do that in a couple of different ways. We do that at scale with big groups.

We do that in one on one capacities. We're talking a couple of hours, right? That is a few hours that you need to sit down with your coffee.

You're ready to go and really make some of these decisions. But once you have that and at the end of those workshops, what we deliver, what companies come out of that with is like a three page brand messaging guide that contains all the big ideas they need to be communicating about as a leader and as a business. Once you have that, everything else is easier.

Even if you use a template, you have something really personal that you can slot into that template. You now have a framework and a flow and honestly, some formulas that you can use to inform everything else. So the upfront work cannot be skipped.

It is worth investing in time. And from a financial perspective, however you need to do that. But that is where you cannot advocate and you cannot hand over some money to someone else and say, do that for me.

That is the work that needs to be done. And then it helps you scale and delegate after.

[Uncle Marv]
All right, Kristin. What's this cheap tattoo store you got?

[Kristin Spiotto]
I don't do cheap tattoos. I will say my first one, I wish I spent a little bit more on it, but now I learned a lesson.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. So we're going to go much longer than I thought we were. So let me at least try to get a couple of things in here before we end off.

We talked about the fact that you guys were not initially in this MSP space. So I want to ask two questions. And however you guys want to answer is one, the decision to start Decoded Strategies.

How did that come about? And then how did you start to slide into our space?

[Annie Mosbacher]
Awesome. Kristin, do you want to do the origin story? And I'll do the MSP origin story.

[Kristin Spiotto]
Absolutely. So Annie and I got our start in tech. We, you know, we come from a SaaS space.

And so we really worked there and knew each other long before we started Decoded Strategies. And this particular company that we worked at was an incredible company. Still an incredible company.

[Uncle Marv]
Did you guys both work there at the same time?

[Kristin Spiotto]
We did.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah.

[Kristin Spiotto]
Yeah. And this company could not figure out how to talk about what they do. And so that was the heartbreaking piece.

And I remember when I came to work for this company, I got hired into a sales role. I actually didn't realize it was a sales role until about three weeks into it because they had one of those weird job titles. And at the end of the training, I realized, like, oh, I have to go out and sell this.

And I asked one of the leaders of the company and said, how do you describe this? How do we talk about this? And she said, it means something different for everybody.

So just talk about what it means for you. And that, to me, sparked just a huge desire to think. How on earth do we talk about this?

How do we communicate about this in a powerful way? So fast forward several years, I discovered Story Brand is a framework to do this, to solve this problem that every company has, which is how do we talk about this? How do we communicate about this in a powerful way?

So eventually we started supporting some other companies. And Annie and I just decided, like, the magic that's in this, we've seen too many couples, I mean, too many companies struggling with this. And unable to solve this problem.

So why don't we get after this and help some companies solve this problem once and for all?

[Annie Mosbacher]
And what I think is so unique about our story and our background that kind of creates some of the DNA of Decoded Strategies is, though Kristin and I worked in tech for a significant part of our career, we both actually started in a very, very different world. We both worked in nonprofits and different advocacy organizations. And so we had this experience of going into the software space in the software community and having to kind of learn how to be technical enough to really understand the inner workings of what we were selling, but also recognizing that there is a translation needed.

Even when you're talking to a technical audience in that sort of marketing and sales position, you've got to be able to translate beyond the technical components. There's so much more to it. So as we started Decoded Strategies, because of our background in software and tech, we were working with a lot of various types of tech companies.

We've worked with medical tech and medical devices. We've worked with software startups. We've worked, of course, with folks in cybersecurity.

And we had the really fortunate opportunity to meet the former vice president of marketing at DLT. And so we started to do a lot of work with DLT, with some of their vendors that were coming in and looking to really sell into the public sector, of course, during the acquisition of DLT within, you know, up into TD Cynics. We also played a part there with some of their marketing and helping to really support their vendors who are looking to grow in that space.

So that was our real introduction to the channel. And from that, we've had the opportunity to speak at a lot of different events, including events from TD Cynics. Earlier this year, I had just the most incredible time presenting a keynote at the channel company event for small SMB IT companies and MSPs in Orlando.

Of course, we've been partnering with the channel co-since then and the channel pro helping to deliver some best practices to their community. And ASCII has been just an incredible partner. So for us, it's been a varied journey across the channel, but really came in through the Cynics opportunity to really look at what a lot of large and small vendors were doing in the space.

And that has kind of fueled our love for this particular community and brought us to this point.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. So I want to ask a couple of questions here. Tidy up some things.

So is it just the TD Cynics or were you with TD or were you with Cynics and then went through the merge?

[Annie Mosbacher]
Oh, good question. So we were with DLT first, OK, and then joined the what I believe at that point was full in TD Cynics. So we started with DLT and then it became the kind of TD Cynics brand that we were partnered with.

[Uncle Marv]
OK, gotcha. And of all the groups in our space that you've mentioned, ASCII is one that I'm a part of. So I know that you guys have done some stuff there.

You did a webinar just a couple of weeks ago and it was quite popular and you're going to be doing another one, right?

[Annie Mosbacher]
Yeah, that's exactly right. So we have just had the most incredible time partnering with ASCII members. We've actually had a lot of clients over the past years who are members of ASCII before we really knew who or what ASCII was.

So we've been working very closely with Alicia Vetter over at ASCII. We've also been good friends with Don Sizer and have actually done a client of ours. And so we've worked with some folks.

And finally, they were like, you know what, let's do something together. We really think that this is a valuable kind of set of resources for our community. So a couple of weeks ago, we did a half day messaging workshop for ASCII members.

So this was our inaugural workshop to partner with the ASCII community where we invited MSP leaders to sign up for the workshop. We were together for a half day on Zoom and we trained them on the story brand framework and really the approach, the very scalable and repeatable approach to building a story. And as we went through the training and as we guided them through this framework, they had time to start actually workshopping and building out their brand story.

They got one on one coaching. Kristin and I were both there to give them feedback and direction to make sure that they were really approaching it right. They had the opportunity to get feedback from some of their peers, which was really incredible.

But ultimately, they left that with a fully-fledged brand story that the next day they could go and run with. So it really was a hit. We had some great feedback from the group.

It was really incredible. We've had enough requests for another one that we're going to be hosting another half day messaging workshop on December 4th. And so this one is going to be open to any MSP that would like to join us.

However, ASCII members are going to get a very exclusive discounted rates to that event. But we're really excited to bring this back for folks to join us, have the opportunity to learn the story brand framework and how this can be such a powerful way to differentiate in their messaging and marketing. They're going to have the opportunity during that time to really build out what we call their brand script, which is that high level brand story that can guide all of the rest of their marketing assets.

Kristin and I are going to be there with our team to provide that one to one coaching and really make sure that they're on the right track to do it so that they can leave with some really tangible and practical efforts. In the past, this is something that we've done kind of on a one on one custom basis with our clients. But we recognize that financially that's not always feasible for every MSP leader.

So that's why we've developed this workshop to bring the same sort of resources in a group environment to hopefully expand who has access to this type of service.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. And for those of you that are checking the show notes to see how to sign up for this, there is no sign up link yet. If I get it, I will let you know.

In the meantime, you will be able to email Kristin and Annie. Hello at Decoded Strategies dot com and they'll get you on the list. And yes, she they are mentioning this for Uncle Marv listeners.

You'll get the discount if you're an ASCII member. If you're just an Uncle Marv listener. I mean, yes, you're special, but you're not that special.

[Annie Mosbacher]
So if you have no discount, but guaranteed fun time, a good experience.

[Uncle Marv]
OK, so either of you or both of you going to be at the ASCII Cup, the last ASCII event of the year in Tampa later this month?

[Annie Mosbacher]
You know what? We are not. We're so disappointed that the timing of everything this year has not worked out for us to join, though.

I know that there is an event here in Los Angeles where both Kristin and I are located in the early new year, I believe in February. And we're excited to continue conversations to think about how we can be present there and hopefully get to meet a lot of folks in the community. So we'll be we'll be looking at the ASCII events through our LinkedIn window that we always get to see the photos and things there.

But we're excited to hopefully meet some folks in person in February.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. So you guys are on the wrong side of the country there. I can't fly all the way out there.

[Annie Mosbacher]
Well, maybe we'll think of a good excuse to do an expense trip to L.A. But yeah, we're excited for folks on the West Coast to be able to engage a little bit there.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. Well, folks, we're going to have to end this off. Sadly enough, I think that we could chat for a while.

Annie and Kristin from Decoded Strategies, and you can find them apparently now all over the place. Let me see here. What else did I have?

Do you guys record your podcast on Mondays?

[Annie Mosbacher]
We record our podcast kind of on a different cadence, different schedules. So it's going to depend. But we are trying to put out a new episode every two weeks or so.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. I ask that because it always sounds like your guys are like, hey, what's what'd you do over the weekend?

[Annie Mosbacher]
That's funny. Yeah, it does tend to sort of land on that particular time. But yeah, we record them at different times.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. And Kristin, what's the best quote from Wild Robot?

[Kristin Spiotto]
Oh, my gosh. OK, well, there's a problem here, which is I'm awful with quotes and remembering. So I will say there's a beautiful moment where there's a house being built.

And so if I could just point to the most beautiful moment of that movie, watch that movie for when she's building the house.

[Uncle Marv]
OK, I don't think I'm going to watch it, but I'm sure somebody here will.

[Kristin Spiotto]
It's so good. OK.

[Uncle Marv]
All right, folks, Decoding Strategies, B2B branding and positioning. They are a marketing agency that is really more about story brand. Do not skip the message.

So, Annie and Kristin, ladies, thank you for hanging out.

[Annie Mosbacher]
Thank you so much for having us. This is really, really fun. I hope we can do it again, Marv.

[Uncle Marv]
I'm sure we will. Actually, I'll have to check in with Dawn and see if she approves. That's what we'll do.

[Annie Mosbacher]
Please do. Let's hold on into the next one. Then it'll really be a party.

[Uncle Marv]
There we go. All right. That's going to do it, folks, for this episode of the IT Business Podcast.

You can find everything you need in the show notes or you can head over to ITBusinessPodcast.com and find your favorite pod catcher, support the show, do all of those things. I'll have the links for our guest, Kristin and Annie, and they will have guest spots on the website so you can click them and get in touch with them. So thank them for coming on.

That'll do it, folks. We'll see you soon. And until next time, holla!