70 MSPS DIDN'T WANT ANOTHER COACH

A summer off

I spent about 17 years in the MSP industry before that summer. As COO and CTO, I helped scale one MSP from about $2.5M toward $10M and grew the team from 13 people to 42. I left during the build-out of its AI plan.

Then I stopped. I spent the summer with my sons. They were 4 and 6. Zoos. Summer camps. Baseball games.

The whole time, one question sat in the back of my head. What's next?

Same post, three places

I didn't want to guess. So I wrote one honest introduction. Who I was. What I'd done. That I was figuring out what came next.

I posted it in three places, word for word. A Facebook group for MSP owners. LinkedIn. The MSP subreddit.

Then the messages came in. 70 MSPs reached out.

They were sick of playbooks and coaches

The common thread was loud. These owners had already tried the usual answers. The playbooks. The coaches. And they were sick of them.

That says something. These aren't owners who never asked for help. They tried the usual answers and still went looking for something different.

They wanted a player-coach

They didn't want more theory. They wanted an operator. A player-coach. Someone who would look at their MSP, find the real strengths and the real weaknesses, and move the business forward with them.

That's why The MSP Hero exists.

Every MSP is built different

A playbook assumes your MSP looks like every other MSP. It doesn't.

Your MSP has its own strengths and its own weak spots. So does every leader in it. So does every tech. One shop has a sales team that closes. Another has a service desk that never misses an SLA. Advice that ignores what your business does well wastes your best asset. Advice that ignores where it's weak sets you up to fail.

You need someone who has run the business, not only the desk. Sales, service, finance, people, and tools all pull on each other. Change one and the others move.

Same request, opposite answers

Here's what that looks like in real life.

Two MSPs asked me about moving off their PSA and RMM at the same time. Same request.

The first wanted to move to cut costs. The second wanted a better setup for its techs, with integrations that worked.

I looked at both businesses. The second had the operational discipline to pull off a migration. The first didn't. Its sales team was also part of its technical team. Pull those people into a migration and sales stops.

So I gave the second MSP a green light. I told the first one not to move.

They moved anyway.

Three months later, the second MSP was fully cut over and running well. The first needed three more months and spent more than 4x its original budget. It added zero new partners, lost three, and went live on a PSA that wasn't finished. It laid off one employee.

A playbook would have handed both of them the same migration plan. The reason you're switching tools matters more than the tools.

Starts with your business, not the framework

A problem solver looks at your numbers, your people, your service desk, and your sales motion before recommending anything. The fix fits your MSP, or it isn't a fix.

That means asking hard questions first. Why do you want this change? Who does the work while it happens? What breaks if your best people get pulled off their day jobs for three months? If nobody asks those questions before the project starts, you'll answer them the expensive way.

Tells you no

A good advisor tells you when you're not ready. That's not negativity. That's the job. If nobody in your corner has ever told you no, you don't have an advisor. You have a cheerleader.

Works the fix with you

Homework doesn't move a business. Execution does. An operator sits in the work with you, holds the team accountable, and adjusts when reality doesn't match the plan.

This is where most help falls apart. You get a plan, a few calls, and a pat on the back. Then Monday hits, the service desk catches fire, and the plan sits in a folder. An operator has lived that Monday. They know the plan only works if someone owns it when the week gets ugly.

What's the difference between an MSP coach and a fractional COO?

A coach teaches a framework and checks in on your progress. A fractional COO runs operations with you. That means owning the plan, holding your team accountable, and fixing what breaks along the way.

Why doesn't a standard MSP playbook work for my business?

A playbook assumes every MSP has the same strengths, weaknesses, and people. Yours doesn't. Advice that ignores what your business does well and where it's weak costs you time and money.

How do I know if my MSP needs an operator instead of a coach?

If you've already bought the playbook, hired the coach, and you're still the bottleneck, you need an operator. You don't need more theory. You need someone who has run the business to work the fix with you.