Counterintuitive advice from successful MSP owners

The single most counterintuitive thing I've learned in my 4 years as a founder? When you're drowning in work... Take time off. (I know, sounds nuts) When you've got: → 100 fires to put out. → 50 decisions waiting. → Everyone needs you NOW. Your brain screams: "I can't leave! Everything will fall apart!" BUT → Warren Buffett makes 3 good decisions a year. → Bill Gates takes a whole week off to sit in the woods and think about Microsoft's future. Meanwhile... I'm making 50 micro-decisions a day and struggling to justify a day off. Until last week. I forced myself to take some PTO. For the first few days, I had moments of guilt.  And checked Slack 47 times... obviously. Then something crazy happened. Those fires? My team put them out without me. The urgent decisions? They made them without me too. And I had space to think. → Not about today's problems.  → But about next year's opportunities.  → And the vision for the year after that. Here's what no one tells you: You can't see the forest when you're constantly putting out fires in the trees. The ONLY way to think strategically? Emergency eject yourself from the tactical. → Your calendar will never magically clear itself. → Your inbox will never hit zero. → The fires will never stop. But if you want to build something truly sustainable and long-term... You need to step back. The business doesn't need you in it every second. It needs you above it, seeing what others can't. Take the damn time off !! 

Around 6 months ago, Reformed IT joined IT Nation Evolve. I attend quarterly peer group meetings where I'm basically in a room with around 10 of our "competitors", talking openly about how our businesses are doing. Everything is an open book, the people in the room have full detailed accounts information and we talk about personal subjects too, like how our home and family life is going. I've noticed a divide recently in the MSP business community. Some people, and dare I add, the most successful, are open to sharing and collaborating with others in the industry. However, there also seems to be a group of business owners that feel like they know everything there is to know and that other perspectives, experience and ideas are irrelevant. That was very much my mentality, 15 years ago. Back then, in my previous business, I was guarded about what I shared with others and I would often dismiss other ideas and perspectives. On reflection, that stifled my personal and our business growth. Right now, I embrace being around others who have achieved the levels of success I'm striving to achieve. I've seen on plenty of occasions where people say you shouldn't compare yourself to others. I say that's rubbish. There are often limiting beliefs and artificial ceilings we place on ourselves. For me, the best way to overcome those is actually to benchmark and compare yourself to others. Quite often something seems impossible until someone does it. Imagine what the fastest 100m time would be now if nobody ever raced? If anyone is reading this thinking that this type of community and peer group is something they want to get involved with, reach out to Dan Scott. I'll hopefully see you at a future meeting and I'd love to hear your ideas and insights. #msp #itnation #evolve #peergroups

Most MSP owners make this mistake. They hire for what they can afford. Not for what the business actually needs. That decision locks them into years of firefighting. Not because they lack ambition. But because they misunderstood leverage. Your first hire is not just an employee. It is the foundation of your leadership. It determines whether you free yourself to grow… or chain yourself to work you were trying to escape. When you hire cheap, you buy time debt. When you hire capable, you buy compounding growth. So start thinking like a CEO, not a manager. Ask yourself: → Can this person replace 70% of my workload today? → Will they grow with the business in 12 months? → Can I trust them to represent us with clients? If the answer is no, you're not hiring leverage. You are hiring delay. A stronger hire costs more upfront. But it accelerates: → Your capacity to grow revenue → Your ability to spend time with clients → Your focus on strategy instead of firefighting Every month you wait for a cheaper hire to “level up” is growth you never get back. You need to hire for tomorrow’s org chart, not today’s. That means looking six to twelve months ahead. Will this hire unlock new revenue? Will they create capacity for me to lead? Will they still be effective when we are 40% bigger? If not, the hire is a short-term fix. And short-term fixes create long-term ceilings. I hired what I thought I could afford and spent years babysitting, training, and mentoring. It slowed everything down. Once I started hiring people who could solve problems from day one, the growth curve changed. I had time again to work on my business. That single shift helped me build something that could move with or without me. So before you make your next hire, ask yourself: Are you hiring for today’s problems, or tomorrow’s opportunities?

“Do what you’re good at. Focus on your strengths.” That’s the conventional advice we all receive. However, if you're a *leader* this advice can in fact backfire... I remember gaining insight into this with a conversation I had a few years ago with Giacomo (Peldi) Guilizzoni, CEO of Balsamiq. His insight on this topic turned my head sideways – in a good way 😀 Peldi asserted: “Doing what you’re good at hurts the team.” Huh? Let me explain. Peldi admitted to me that he’s good at getting stuff done. He makes things happen. He thinks he’s killing it. But as a CEO, more than a decade in, should he really the one doing all the doing? After a decade running his business, Peldi noticed he’d created an environment where his coworkers were depending on him to get things done. If he takes a vacation, he leaves them hanging. If he has to be out for a week, they’re stuck. Peldi conceded: “What I realized is that I should stop myself from doing things I’m good at — which is so counterintuitive — and instead, focus on #delegating, #training, and making sure that everybody gets good at doing those things.” Doing what he was good at was hurting his team, not helping. I could relate. I’m good at communicating. So I do it internally. A lot. I write-up about what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, a new approach I’m thinking about, a new concept we should try… But, when I take a step back, I realize that I rarely let my team have a chance to communicate an update, show off their work, and write out their thinking behind a project. I'd been doing it for them because I think I'm the "expert." I never give my team the chance to communicate fully, and so they rely on me for it... and they never even have a chance to become the expert. For both Peldi and I, our predisposition became a preoccupation. We’re good at it as #leaders, so we automatically assumed it was good for our team -- when it fact it meant that our team never learned to be good at it too. The best leaders don't relish in being "the expert." They teach their teams to become experts, too. -- 👋 Feel free to give me (Claire Lew) a follow for daily #leadership tips.

Startups don’t starve. They choke.” That’s what my mentor told me. I didn’t get it, until I almost choked on my own business. It’s not starvation. It’s indigestion. I’ve seen it (and lived it). – Launched a product before nailing the first one – Took every meeting, joined every call – Said yes to clients we had no business serving – Built five landing pages before finishing one – Hired before we had process – Pitched “MDR, SIEM, XDR, SOC, oh my!”… instead of solving one clear problem At the time? It felt like momentum. In reality? It was noise. A bloated, unfocused mess. The most successful entrepreneurs I know have one thing in common: They know what to ignore. They pick one meal. They chew slowly. And they don’t order dessert until they’ve earned it. If you’re an MSP, startup founder, or tech leader stuck in the buffet line right now, ask yourself: What’s the ONE thing you’re here to solve? What problem would you bet the company on? What would your customers actually pay for—today? Then cut the rest. The opportunity will still be there later. But your focus? That’s non-negotiable. #StartupLife #CyberKayVon #Entrepreneurship #FocusOverEverything #FounderJourney #BusinessGrowth #MSPMarketing