Client Case Studies

Robin’s Workshop Sparked $4,595 A Month And $70K In Project Work!

Eugene Hastey,
CG Tech Services, Inc.

Working 90 HOURS A WEEK Just To Keep My Company From Shrinking!

I started CG Tech Services in 2004 as a one-man band. For a couple of years, it was just me running around doing everything…all the tech work, keeping up on technology and finding time to do the admin work. For a couple of years, we grew steadily through word of mouth. We’d take whatever work we could get and happily billed our hours, not knowing anything about managed services, target markets or USPs. Ignorance is bliss sometimes.

Eventually, ignoring marketing catches up with you. In 2008, as the Great Recession took hold, it hit us like a ton of bricks. We lost several architecture and construction clients, while our other clients didn’t have available funds for projects. We struggled. I was working 90 HOURS a week just to keep the company from shrinking! I was making less than EVERYONE on my team!

During the tough times of the recession, I gave myself until the end of 2012 to turn my business around. Otherwise, I was going to have to give up and close the doors. I couldn’t keep working 90 hours a week making as little as I did. Read full article and comment →

From Being Content As A One-Man Band And 99% Break-Fix To Increasing MRR By $28,000 And Shifting To 80% Managed Services!

Mario Zaki,
Mazteck

Early Lessons In Self-Sufficiency

When I was only three years old, my father passed away. It was just my mother and me for all of my childhood. To this day, my mom has been my hero and continues to be the strongest person I know. She taught me how important it is to work hard and leave everything in God’s hands. And boy, did she work hard! From restaurants to warehouses to factories, she has always worked demanding jobs for little pay.

Starting at the age of 13, I always had two part-time jobs and would give my mother my paychecks to help with the bills. And knowing that she was barely making enough to support her family, I took out a student loan to put myself through college. In 2004, I opened Mazteck. Pretty quickly, I was able to save enough to help my mother with her bills and even purchase an investment property for her. Read full article and comment →

How I Grew My Company More In 90 Days Than I Did In The Previous 6 Years (2,190 Days) COMBINED – $258,612 In Increased MRR!

Tom Glover,
Pineland Cogentes

They Were The Busiest 3 Months Of My Entire Life. And I LOVED Every Second Of It!

Give me a choice of staying busy or being bored, I’ll always choose to stay busy. I joke that if this IT thing falls through, I can always be a circus juggler. I knew the three months of the Rapid Implementation Workshop would be crazy busy. It was the other little twists life had in store for me during this period that I didn’t count on.

Here’s just a glance of this insane time period: attended Robin’s Workshop; started and finished $100K mountain bike trail project; sold my company, completed merger; completed renovations of my office building; hired new technician; migrated to AutoTask; migrated to new accounting system; onboarded four new clients; migrated 25 servers to Azure; taught my 16-year-old daughter to drive a straight shift; designed, hiked and mapped 5.5 miles of new city mountain bike trails; executed testimonials campaign; implemented new “Robinized” website; executed new direct mail campaign, five e-mail campaigns, 10 QBRs, four JV partner meetings, four monthly newsletters and one awesome Shock-And-Awe box; interviewed, hired and trained new marketing coordinator (thank God!) and even slept (once or twice).

Whew! I got tired all over again just writing that list!
Read full article and comment →

How Our Start-Stop-Start Again Approach To Marketing Almost Put Us Out Of Business

Ross Brouse,
Continuous Networks

Stuck Between Growing Our Business And Saving It

It’s all perspective. From the outside looking in, our commodity cloud and server company seemed like a goldmine a few years back. We were climbing toward $8 million in annual revenue. We had 50 employees. But because we weren’t sure how to effectively lead, how to business plan and how to market, our business was not poised to weather a potential storm.

Over the next couple of years, the storm hit hard. We lost nearly HALF of our revenue and 60% of our team. With tons of debt and too much overhead, we were bleeding money. My business partner, Jason Silverglate, and I didn’t want the same fate for our IT services business, Continuous Networks. But things were not good within that company.

As the CEO, Jason was also in charge of sales and marketing. I was the COO, so I was running (trying and failing) operations. The culture we had built was starting to tank. Everybody was overworked, and it showed. There was stealing. There were physical fights. I was often working 18-hour days, seven days a week. To be blunt, we were stuck between GROWING our business and SAVING it. Read full article and comment →

I’ve Increased Revenue From $1.2M to 1.75M, Profits Are Up 642%… And I’m Living A Life I Love With My Family!

Fred Sagester,
Sagester Associates Group

Taking My “Underdog” Business To SUPERHERO Status

Does this sound like you? You’ve spun your wheels in your IT business for years. But you’re in a deep rut. Growing your business by improving your sales and marketing is ALWAYS at the top of your priority list…but you NEVER take action because you’re just too busy. Instead, you keep spending long hours doing what you’ve always done, hoping your results magically change (because YOU won’t change).

That was me. Since opening Sagester Associates Group, Inc., in 2001, we were the underdog. The little guy. For far too many years, we operated solely on word-of-mouth referrals. As a result, growth was unpredictable and stagnant. My average client size is under $1K a month. But this little guy had the same aspirations as he had as a kid: to be a superhero and be onstage at Boot Camp like other MSP superheroes. Read full article and comment →

“Becoming A ‘Wealth-Building Business’ By Growing Revenue Beyond $2M (Up $535K) And Net Profit By 2,100%… All In ONE YEAR!”

Bob Coppedge,
Simplex IT

How A Self-Proclaimed “Crotchety Old Geek” Strives Every Day To Be Better Than Yesterday

My story is a bit different. While I was recently one of five Better Your Best finalists honored to present onstage at Robin’s recent Boot Camp, I’m not about to go on and on about how fantastic I am. Because none of you care what I DID. Rather, you want to relate MY success to what YOU can do to succeed in YOUR business.

But before I do that, a bit of overview. I’ll start with my family. Nineteen years ago, I was a swinging bachelor with two cats. Then I met Julie, who has really lousy taste in husbands, and three daughters. The cats are all dead now, but I got three sons-in-law and six grandkids out of the deal. So, technically I outsourced my family. That’s my experience with mergers and acquisitions.

I started Simplex-IT in 2007. We were an MSP from the start, avoiding the “trading time for money” challenges of the break-fix model. By constantly reinventing ourselves, we have never had a down year (knock on wood). The company has increased revenue each year, always been profitable, and I’ve been fortunate to always provide myself a decent wage. We have always been a bootstrap from a financial standpoint and never dipped into savings or loans. Read full article and comment →

How I Fired 981 Demanding Break-Fix Customers And Added 91 Quality Managed Services Clients To Double Profits To 31.3%

Charles Swihart,
Preactive IT Solutions

A Holistic Better Your Best Transformation:

Failed Marketing, Arrested Clients & Payroll Nightmares

“This is too easy.” After I opened my business in 2003 and put out roadside bandit signs at night, the phones lit up. I quit my day job as a software developer and began hiring employees. My business soon moved from my study to my garage to a real office.

Soon we were making enough money to fund our first two (failed) marketing campaigns: a $6,000 Yellow Page ad and $4,000 in cable TV commercials. Nothing but crickets.

After a few years, we had nine employees and were booked all day. Problem was, our “anything for a buck” break-fix business came with a truckload of stresses. We dealt with so many hot checks that I had to document a process for submitting them to the district attorney. Plus, in 2015 we had 981 customers. Servicing that many customers took a toll on our employees and turnover was scary high.

The worst part? Every month your revenue starts over at ZERO! It’s not a good cash-flow model. Have you ever spent all night wondering how you’re going to pay the bills? Have you ever borrowed against your house just to make payroll? I’ve done that, and it’s the worst feeling in the world.

The daily stress of this break-fix lifestyle wreaked havoc on my body. Imagine crawling under desks when you weigh 375 pounds. My business was in bad shape. So was I. Read full article and comment →

How This “Small-Fry” MSP Owner Increased Revenue By $1.6 Million, Net Profit By 1,300% And Became Our 2019 Better Your Best WINNER!

Sitima Fowler,
Capstone IT

Moving To America With Only $100 To Our Name, The Odds Were Stacked Against Me

Until age 11, India was my home. Because my father wanted to create a better life for my family, we came to America in 1979. My parents and my brother arrived with only $100, hoping to fulfill our dreams.

However, our lives began as a nightmare. We knew nobody. We had no money. And we had no clothes. When you’re an introvert and wear the same exact outfit every single day, kids make fun of you.

One of my fondest memories as a teenager was going to McDonald’s. A rare treat indeed. Our entire family of four would share a single small bag of fries. Then I looked over to the man sitting next to me. All by himself, he was eating a LARGE box of fries. That moment was burned into my brain. It became my French Fry Mindset. I realized right then that there is a big, abundant world out there, and I was determined to be a part of it. Read full article and comment →