For 10 long years, my partner Tom and I ran WTC Services like most MSPs do: waiting around for referrals that rarely came. We built our business in Paso Robles, California, from nothing in 2012. No investment capital. No debt. Just two guys working hard, hoping someone would notice us. Our “growth strategy” was basically to cross our fingers and pray the phone would ring.
After an entire decade of grinding, we had managed to scrape together just 31 clients, averaging roughly three new clients per year. We focused entirely on the technical side, thinking that if we could just do the tech better, somehow that would magically make us grow.
I was dead wrong.
The Phone Call That Changed Everything
Everything changed in August 2022 when I had what I now call my “wakeup call.” After adding only two measly new clients for the entire year, I was talking to a list-cleaning vendor who casually asked if we belonged to Robin Robins’ group.
We didn’t DO marketing or sales, so I had absolutely no clue who this Robin person was. But something about the way they asked made me curious enough to google her name.
That Google search led me to Technology Marketing Toolkit, and within minutes I was filling out a form on their website. The call came quickly, and before I knew it, I signed up for EVERYTHING Robin offered. I mean everything: the Rapid Implementation Workshop (RIW), the Fractional Marketing Manager, the KEAP Sherpa and the TMT Marketing Automation Platform (MAP).
Looking back, that was the best business decision I’ve ever made.
“The Marketing Practitioner Method” That More Than Doubled Our Business
In September 2022, I attended RIW. That’s where I discovered “The Robin Way” and learned what MSP really stands for. For 10 years, we had thought MSP meant managed services provider. However, after working with our TMT Fractional Marketing Manager Alex, who laid out our entire marketing plan month by month and taught us the structure and planning of “the Robin Way,” I realized we had been running our business completely backwards. We weren’t a technology company that occasionally did marketing; we were a marketing and sales business that happened to sell technology.
That’s when I created our new acronym: MSP now stands for Marketing and Sales Practitioners. This mindset change has had the biggest impact on our business. Even though I have a degree in business, I now realize we had never actually focused on marketing and sales. We had been playing small-time when we should have been thinking big.
The Exact Steps That Took Us From 3 Clients A Year To 30 New Clients In 12 Months
Our first year with TMT we added eight new clients, more than we had EVER added in a single year. But that was just the beginning.
The real magic happened in 2024, our second year as TMT members. We added 30 new clients and $90,000 in monthly recurring revenue (MRR). We went from being a local MSP hoping for scraps to becoming a national powerhouse serving clients in 27 states and four countries (USA, Canada, Mexico and Sweden). And we were selected as a finalist in the Better Your Best contest!
By the end of 2024, we had:
- $4 million+ in gross Income
- $300,000+ in MRR
- 70 clients with an average MRR per client of $4,285
- $2.6 million in contract value added in just one year
How We Became The ONLY IT Provider In A $4 Billion Industry
We are a local MSP that has conquered the national market. Today, WTC is the ONLY IT provider that focuses exclusively on the fastener industry. Of the 4,000 fastener companies in the US, we now serve 50 of them. We didn’t just stumble into this niche, we strategically built our presence through four key steps:
Step 1: Define Your Niche
You don’t achieve national presence without a niche. We discovered this by digging deep. Through this exercise, we realized we had expertise we could leverage beyond IT. We became laser-focused on the fastener industry, a segment of manufacturing and distribution that nobody else was targeting.
Step 2: Become An Expert In Your Niche
We educated ourselves about what makes the fastener industry different. We interviewed our clients and prospects with the intent of learning what was important to them, not us. Then we used their exact verbiage in our messaging. We let prospects know that WTC has 200 years of combined experience in fastener-specific technology and seven team members who worked directly in the fastener industry.
Step 3: Develop Marketing Messages That Speak To Your Niche
We Robinized our website, utilizing the KEAP Sherpa to create a landing page that speaks directly to the fastener industry. We even designed a specialized logo and incorporated fastener imagery and messaging throughout our marketing.
Step 4: Go Where Your Niche Hangs Out
Trade shows became our #1 way to meet prospective clients. But we didn’t just show up with a boring booth like everyone else. We “Robinized” our trade-show strategy.
The Trade-Show Strategy That Won “Best Booth” (Without Us Even Knowing There Was A Contest)
At the International Fastener Expo in Las Vegas, we built a castle out of fasteners that had people stopping by our booth just to see it. We hired an artist to create a laptop and an actual mouse made out of nuts and bolts. My business cards became metal cards with nuts and bolts on them. When you hand someone something like that, they remember you.
We created an experience at our booth with candy, axe throwing and a spinning wheel with prizes. The result? We won the award for best booth at the fastener convention and we didn’t even know there was a competition!
In 2024 alone, we attended eight fastener member events across the country, from California to Ohio to Texas. None of the events was local.
At these events, we built our authority by conducting free webinars, speaking onstage about cybersecurity and attending roundtables. We built our brand recognition by sponsoring every single event. Prospects started seeing our name everywhere in their niche, so they automatically assumed we were the experts.
The Referral Marketing Strategy That Delivered 90% Of Our New Clients
Twenty-seven of our 30 new clients in 2024 came from referrals. We asked for referrals in meetings with JV partners, generating $40,000+ MRR. Also, a key fastener industry software vendor chose us as their “preferred vendor.” In the past they had referred clients to us, but now they ONLY recommend WTC for systems support for their software. This didn’t happen by accident.
We generated warm referrals by building relationships within our specialized niche. Since clients invest significant money in IT services, trust comes first. Instead of pushing sales, we invested time building relationships with high-value prospects. This approach paid off as they became comfortable with our brand and got to know us personally.
$7,333 Investment Yields $115,000 Client Contracts
Our cost to acquire a new customer in 2024 was approximately $7,333 per new client. We spent $220,000, which included sales and marketing administration, a part-time SDR, booths and trade shows plus travel, marketing materials and our TMT membership. We acquired 30 new clients, with an average of $3,200 MRR per new client on a three-year contract ($115,200 total contract value per client).
Not bad ROI, wouldn’t you agree? I didn’t have to travel to land all our new clients. I landed a 120-user client for Azure servers at $8,500 MRR without ever meeting them personally or visiting their office.
The Systems That Made It All Possible
None of this growth would have been possible without implementing Robin’s proven systems. We “Robinized” everything:
- SEO optimization: We started developing a secondary niche for the winery business in 2024, as there are over 200 wineries in our area. We added two new winery clients that year, more than $5,000 MRR, and became #1 in Google search for the Paso Robles area.
- Postcards: We send postcards before trade shows to relevant lists.
- Live phone answering: Before RIW, we didn’t even do this basic thing.
- Follow-up marketing: Monthly newsletters and 2X monthly Tech Tip e-mail campaigns keep our brand top of mind. We often receive comments about them at trade shows.
- Testimonial campaigns: We send e-mails to clients who love us and get them to tell us why.
- Accountability Group and dashboard: Seeing our yearly goals on our accountability dashboard, coupled with the incredible synergy and camaraderie of our TMT Accountability Group (the Prophet$) HELPING each other, pushed us to perform and achieve our best year of growth ever.
From Local MSP To National Authority In Just 2 Years
In 2022, we were running an IT business hoping for referrals. Today, we’re running a marketing and sales business that happens to sell technology. We went from growing 6% per year to 125% growth in just two years with TMT.
We plan to reach $5 million in 2025 and $10 million by 2027. We’re not just growing, we’re scaling strategically with purpose.
The most important part of Robin’s system IS Robin’s system. Because we now eat and breathe marketing and sales, all the pieces have started working together. It’s not one campaign or strategy, it’s the person I’ve become after almost three years of being indoctrinated into Robin’s Way.
The confidence I now have going into sales scenarios is driving results. We’re proof that a national niche is worth the effort. If we can build a national niche starting from nothing, so can you!
