Client Case Studies

“Our First Marketing Campaign Generated One Lead, 8 Testimonials And Saved Our Oldest Client From Leaving”

Tom Blandford,
eTrepid, Inc.

I Had Peaked At $340,000 In Annual Revenue

The year was 2009. After 10 years in business, my break-fix IT business had peaked at $340,000 in gross revenue. The rollercoaster of waiting for something to break so I could go fix it was exhausting. Something had to change, and that’s when I finally made the decision to go all in on managed services, launching a new company, eTrepid, and setting a goal to reach the $5 million mark within five years.

When I say “all in” on managed services, I really mean “all in.” For my employees AND clients, there was no choice. If they wanted to stay with me, they had to make the leap. This decision cost me a few clients AND a stubborn employee. And my revenue actually DROPPED to $240,000 my first year as an MSP. Things had to get a bit worse before they got better. In year two as an MSP, we nearly tripled to $730,000, and in year three, with the help of my first salesperson, we nearly hit the million-dollar mark. We were on our way! Read full article and comment →

“We Tripled Our Bottom Line In One Year!”

Eric and Lisa Shorr,
Secure Future Tech Solutions

There is an old saying: “You never just marry the person. You marry the mother, father, siblings …” What I did not realize is that, along with Eric, I married his fledgling business, PC Troubleshooters too. The “three” of us have lived in wedded bliss – well, sort of – for nearly two decades! But after slow, consistent growth for years, it came to a screeching halt. We were stagnant… until we found Technology Marketing Toolkit and changed our mindset.

A Marketer And A Tech – A Match Made In Heaven?

Lisa’s story: Marketing and branding are in my blood. My grandmother sold ladies’ skin-care and cosmetics. My grandfather sold men’s suits. While making the sale, he would talk about the skin-care products his wife sold (a great joint venture deal!).

My first job post-college was selling books at Houghton Mifflin in Boston. I got the job with that publisher because I told my prospective employer, “I want to work trade shows!” I was hired, and off to trade shows I went!

Then, one day, my good friend fixed me up with a young Rhode Island boy named Eric… Read full article and comment →

“We’ve Pushed Our Company From ‘Unhealthy’ To Growing A Thriving $5 Million Company!”

Chris Hoose,
Choose Networks

My business has had many influences: my parents, my wife, employees, Arlin Sorensen (HTG), and many teachers such as Paul Dippell, Gary Pica and Arnie Bellini, but the person responsible for the last three years of our company’s exponential growth is my coach, Robin.

I’m honored to share with you the story of how I’ve more than doubled my business over the last three years and in the process have gone from a tech-minded business owner to the growthminded CEO of our now very profitable MSP.

My Business Desperately Needed To Grow Without Breaking The Bank

Although I had purchased the Toolkit nearly seven years ago, it wasn’t until just 3 years ago that I got serious about marketing. Prior to that I wanted to grow, but I really didn’t have much interest in learning about marketing. We did grow, but getting to $2.3 million in my business was painful and expensive… mostly accomplished via costly acquisitions. I was generating zero leads via marketing, relying solely on sporadic word of mouth referrals and potential new business acquisitions to grow the business. Read full article and comment →

“Our First 90 Days Of Marketing Generated $6,091 Of New MRR And $93,240 In Project Work”

Stefanie Groot,
Windstar

We Were Working Hard, But Climbing Further Into Debt

When Windstar opened its retail space 14 years ago, we serviced everyone, consumers and businesses. If you needed help, we helped. We were the classic computer shop in a small town.

Within two short years, we had grown to eight employees, business was booming and we thought we were doing awesome! We thought the bottom-line numbers would mirror our hard work, but what they showed was the opposite. We were working hard but climbing further into debt.

In those early days, we advertised with everyone that came to us – the local paper, radio, TV, yellow pages. We bought gadgets, sponsored sports teams and golf charity events, and more. If someone was selling a promotion, we were buying. No wonder we were losing money!

So, a short four years in, we took a hard look at the numbers and, with new competition in town, we closed the retail shop and decided to focus on this new managed services thing with our business clients. Unfortunately, our struggles continued, but our newest issue was getting businesses to pay us monthly when they were used to paying only when they saw a problem or wanted us to do something. Read full article and comment →

“From $0 MRR To $10,000+ And Growing Strong!”

Damien Pepper,
DSP Electronics

For 21 Years, I Didn’t Really Want To Grow

I could sum up my first 21 years in business in just a few words … we had no ambition to grow. I was comfortable with my little business here in the suburbs of Melbourne, Australia, and although some would call us stagnant, my real hope each year was that we would achieve the same level of revenues as last year. I guess you would probably say we didn’t have very lofty goals. The revenue we achieved every year was my security blanket… why would I want to change it?

MRR… The Revenue That Keeps On Giving

After purchasing the Toolkit to see how it could help my business, I quickly learned about MRR and how it could make hitting my number even easier every year. So, I set about to convert existing customers where we were patching servers for an hourly rate to a full managed service for monthly recurring revenue. On top of that, I began to close a handful of real MRR customers that we had taken from lead to close. I quickly found out that MRR was the key to my success – it’s the revenue that keeps giving. By the beginning of last year, we had raised our MRR from $0 per month to $10,141 per month. A great start indeed! Read full article and comment →

“In Just 12 Weeks, I Generated $205,228 In Revenue!”

Liam O’Keeffe,
Silicon Systems Ltd

After 26 Years In Business, Our Marketing Was Sporadic At Best

My journey with Robin started 26 years into our business with a great client base already in hand. Over the last five years, we have faced a significant challenge in transitioning from a systems integrator/VAR to a leading managed IT services provider. As the Managing Director of a 12-person team, and as our one-man “in-house marketing team,” my personal challenge has always been to dedicate enough time to marketing to see real growth results. To date, our (my) efforts had generally been pretty sporadic, doing marketing activities only when I had downtime, or when things weren’t too busy (which wasn’t that often). I knew I had to get smarter with marketing if we were going to grow our services business and expand our client base.

After exploring various New Zealand-based marketing “consultants,” but not really finding what I was looking for, I met a long-term Robin Robins Producers Club member, Vijay Nyayapati – also based in New Zealand. Vijay told me just how influential the Toolkit had been to his business. Given my past history with making time to get around to marketing, I decided to bite the bullet and fly halfway around the world this past August to spend two days in person with Robin. This was a pretty big investment in time and cost. But… WOW. Read full article and comment →