Let’s look at how to market your MSP to manufacturers and whether this vertical is even right for you. Also this week, good/better/best pricing for MSPs, and how this 40 technician strong MSP wins clients.

Welcome to Episode 333 of the MSP Marketing Podcast with me, Paul Green, powered by the MSP Marketing Edge.

Do you want more manufacturer clients for your MSP? Manufacturers are one of those love it or hate it verticals in the channel. Some MSPs absolutely thrive working with manufacturers. Others hear the word and breakout in a cold sweat. And honestly, both reactions are completely valid. So right now, I want to do a proper, balanced, deep dive into how to market your MSP to manufacturers, starting with whether this vertical is even right for you, and then looking at what manufacturers actually care about when they choose an MSP.

So let’s start with the reality. If you enjoy complexity, manufacturers can be a fantastic fit. They often have expensive production machines, specialist software, bespoke setups, and critical systems that simply cannot go down. And yes, somewhere in most factories, there’s usually a machine still running on an old XP box that hasn’t been rebooted for 10 years because if it stops, the whole place stops. That’s the joke I always make, but it’s funny because it’s true.

The upside of this is obvious. There are lots of large, complicated, high revenue projects. There’s specialist work that you can charge properly for. There’s a real value in what you do because downtime costs manufacturers serious money. When production stops, it’s not a few annoyed users. It’s lost output, missed deadlines, idle staff, and very stressed owners. That makes manufacturers willing to invest when the risk is clearly explained.

But let’s be honest about the downside. Manufacturers rarely have standard setups. There’s very little cookie cutter IT. Every environment is different. Every site has its own quirks. And that means that often you need your most senior technical people involved a lot more often than you would in a nice tidy professional services business. If your MSP is built around highly standardised stacks, minimum variation, and keeping senior techs away from day-to-day firefighting, then manufacturers will feel like chaos to you.

Before you even think about marketing to manufacturers, you need to answer a simple question internally… do you enjoy this kind of work?

Assuming you do want to go after manufacturers, the next mistake MSPs make is marketing to them like they’re any other business, because they are not. Manufacturers think differently. Their world revolves around production, reliability, safety and efficiency. They don’t care about shiny tools or buzzwords. They care about one thing above all else – keeping the production line running. From their point of view, the best MSP is not the most innovative or the most cutting edge, it’s the one that feels the safest. The one that understands their environment, the one that won’t casually suggest upgrades that risk stopping production.

So when you market to manufacturers, your messaging needs to shift. You’re not selling IT support, you’re selling risk reduction. You’re selling uptime, stability, you’re selling calm. Manufacturers choose MSPs who demonstrate that they understand the consequences of failure. Talk about downtime in terms they understand… lost output, missed delivery slots, idle machines, wasted labour. Show that you respect legacy systems, even if you don’t love them and that you know how to work around them safely.

One of the most powerful things you can do in your marketing is to talk about how you approach change. Manufacturers are often change averse for very good reasons. So explain how you test, how you plan, how you schedule work outside production hours, and how you build rollback plans. That builds trust fast. Case studies are especially important here. Manufacturers want proof, real examples. Stories of similar environments, similar risks, and similar complexity. So even if you only have one manufacturing client, that case study will do more heavy lifting than 10 general testimonials.

You should also lean into onsite presence a lot more than you might in other verticals. Manufacturers value MSPs who show up and walk the floor and understand the physical environment as well as the digital one. So talking about site visits, audits, and physical awareness during your marketing and your sales process immediately differentiates you from MSPs who just kind of want to be very much remote based.

And finally, remember that manufacturers don’t choose MSPs emotionally in the same way say as creative or professional services businesses do. Their decision is grounded in risk, responsibility, and consequence. So your marketing should reflect that tone. Be calm, be reassuring, be very competent. There’s no hype needed. There’s no drama. You need to show that you understand their world, you respect their constraints, and you can keep the machines running safely. If you can do this, you will stand out very quickly. Marketing to manufacturers, you know, it’s not about being flashy. It’s all about being credible. And for the right MSP, that can be an extremely profitable place to be.

Why is good, better, best pricing so controversial for MSPs? I hear MSPs say things like it’s too complex or it adds noise to an already long sales process, or maybe even just prospects will get confused. And I think that focuses far too much on a small number of perceived downsides while completely missing the much bigger upside. Because when good, better, best pricing, also known as three-tier pricing, when it’s done properly, it doesn’t complicate the sale at all. It actually guides it and helps prospects to make a decision. And it shifts the conversation away from whether they should buy from you and towards which option that you offer is right for them. Does that make sense?

So let’s break this down properly. First, what do we actually mean by good, better, best? Well, at its simplest, you already have a bundle of services that you sell. With three-tier pricing, you still have that bundle. You just offer it in three different flavours. So the good package is the essentials. What they genuinely need to keep things running. The better package builds on that with perhaps more protection, more resilience, more support, and the best package is exactly that. It’s everything you offer at the highest level for the businesses that are more risk averse, more regulated, or just want the most comprehensive offering that they can get.

Now, if it helps you to visualise this, you might label them something like bronze, silver, and gold. Bronze being essential protection, silver the business grade resilience and of course the most popular choice, that’s what you want it to be, more on that in a second, and gold being the premium protection plus strategy for businesses that want that highest, highest level. And that most popular label I just mentioned in the middle, that’s not an accident. In fact, a common and very effective approach is to place the package that you most want to sell in the middle. And that way, prospects can compare it.

They can see something cheaper that offers less and something more expensive that offers more. And this allows them to feel like they are choosing the option that fits them best rather than being pushed into something. And that feeling, that sense of control is a critical part of buyer psychology. You’ll know you’ve got good, better, best pricing, broadly right when around about three quarters of your new sales, your new clients land in the middle package. Now, let’s talk about why this works from a psychological point of view, but without getting academic.

A huge amount of buying behaviour is driven by how we feel, not just what makes logical sense on paper.

And there are three psychological principles quietly doing a lot of heavy lifting here. The first is something called price anchoring. The top package sets a reference point, which makes the other options feel more affordable by comparison. The second is the compromise effect. Most people naturally avoid extremes, so when presented with three options they tend to gravitate towards the middle one because that feels safer and it feels more reasonable, especially when it’s labeled as the most popular choice. And the third is something called choice architecture, which sounds like it’s out of the matrix.

But actually, instead of asking prospects to design a solution from scratch, which is stressful and overwhelming for them, you’re giving them a small number of clearly defined options that align with different risk tolerances and different budgets. And the combined effect of putting these three together, that is so powerful. Price sensitive buyers are no longer scared off because there’s a sensible entry level option. Buyers who want more protection or faster response have a clear upgrade path. And crucially, the sales conversation becomes about which package to choose, not deciding whether or not to buy from you. That is a very different conversation to be in.

Now, when it comes to structuring the three tiers themselves, and these are not prescriptions, they’re just starting points. Every MSP’s tech stack and service model is, of course, highly different. But as a general guide, a good or bronze package might include things like remote help desk during business hours, monitoring and patching, a baseline AV or EDR, basic backups such as Microsoft 365, and of course a standard response SLA, or maybe even no SLA at all.

The better or silver package would include everything I’ve just talked about in bronze, plus you might throw in onsite visits or maybe out of hours support. You might throw in full server and workstation backup with tested recovery. There might be email security, phishing defence in there, maybe even priority response, definitely an annual strategic review, because that’s a great long-term retention tool.

And then the best or the gold package would include everything we just talked about in bronze and silver, plus 24/7 response, advanced security monitoring such as SOC or MDR, virtual CIO, definitely strategic planning with roadmaps and budgeting, and of course, if they need it, compliance reporting that’s relevant to your client’s sector.

So when it’s all structured this way, three-tier pricing isn’t about confusing prospects or padding invoices. It’s all about clarity. It’s about guiding decisions and it’s about meeting buyers where they are in terms of risk, responsibility, and expectation. When you do it right, good, better, best pricing makes it easier for them to buy. And that’s why it works so well for lots of MSPs.

Featured guest: Dorota Ulkowska draws on her extensive Managed Services background—including leadership roles at Shing Digital—to guide her work as Director of Client Success at Accurate Network Services. She blends process improvement with genuine client care, ensuring technology drives growth rather than creating friction. Dorota believes IT should be approachable and practical, helping organisations adapt to change with confidence. With a people-first style, she focuses on aligning solutions with business goals, building trust, and making technology an empowering force for clients.

MSPs, we are rolling up our sleeves right now to get into the specific marketing that one of the fastest growing MSPs in Canada is using today. I’ve managed to persuade their director of client services to tell me what they’re doing to win new clients, turn prospects into sales appointments and sell more to their existing clients.

Now, they’ve got 40 technicians and they’ve been going for 19 years. So this is a solid business and you’re about to hear some very solid marketing strategies and tactics from my special guest.

My name is Dorota Ulkowska. I am the director of client services for Accurate Networks.

And thank you so much for joining us on the show. I am delighted to have you here because you are there in the trenches. You’re leading the marketing for your MSP, I know you’re doing lots of marketing. You’re very good at the strategy and implementing the tactics for your specific MSP. In the next 10, 15 minutes or so, we’re going to get right into what exactly is working for you guys right now and also what’s some of the stuff that you’ve tried that doesn’t work. And I know this is going to be one of those, roll your sleeves up. Let’s actually get our hands dirty episodes, which we absolutely love here on the podcast.

So before we go any further on this, just give us some context. So tell us a little bit about Accurate Networks, whereabouts you are, give us an idea of how big you are and how long have you been with the business?

So Accurate Networks has been around for about 19 years and the head office is in Edmonton, we also have an office in Calgary and I actually have not been with Accurate for very long. I’ve been here for only five months and I’m just loving the environment, I’m loving the direction and just learning absolutely a ton. Our organisation is a managed services provider, which a lot of the people listening are in that group, but MSP is all we do. So if an organisation just wants to do an individual small project, we’re probably not a fit. We will be a fit if you’re also looking for a managed services provider. We do it all, but we really focus on managing our clients overall. And the reason why I bring this up is it is one of the differentiators from a lot of organisations because we actually do say no to potential clients when they are not a fit, which in my personal experience is quite unique.

Oh, I agree. Just to give us some context, how many technicians do you have in the business? That gives us an idea of size.

Yeah, we have over 40 technicians.

Okay. So worldwide, regardless of your currency, I think it’s a good way of indicating how big you are. And I agree actually, I think the smaller MSPs, so we’re talking from anything from the one person bands up to you and two or three technicians, even up to that stage, a lot of MSPs find it really hard to say no to any work that comes in through the door. I guess there’s sometimes a minimum user count that people put in. But yeah, especially when you’re trying to grow the business, it feels right to take any work, but you and I know that it is not right to take any work at all.

Let’s delve into that. I mean, obviously with 40 technicians, you’re going to have a lot of accounts people, sales people, obviously yourself, other marketing professionals. So that’s a lot of money to pay out every month, that’s a lot of resource. Obviously you’ll have huge amounts of monthly recurring revenue coming in. How do you as a business handle saying no to clients or to prospects in a way that doesn’t offend them?

We are very clear upfront what we do well. During initial meetings we interview the client just as much as they interview us.

And we set that up, set that expectation up by saying, “Look, we want you to have the right fit for your needs, but also we need to make sure that the clients we work with have the bare minimum of what they need to have in place or are willing to have in place in order for us to support them in the best way possible.” So our process is such that as we onboard clients, we provide them with an outline of the bare minimum critical risks that need to be addressed. And we need to work with clients who are open and willing to jump on those critical risks so that first of all, they’re functioning properly and securely, and we can manage them in a proactive, secure way in order for this relationship to go further.

Any clients who are going, “Well, no, I’m going to do my own research, or I’m not going to commit to that, or just take what I have and do with it what you need.” You’re not then the right fit. And the way we approach that is just by being very much upfront, just like in dating you have an initial meeting, you exchange information and sometimes it’s not a fit and that’s okay because there are so many MSPs in the marketplace. There are so many fantastic MSPs in the marketplace and there are many that are going to be a fantastic fit for you and we can make introductions. I gathered some information, I can pass this on to some of our partners, our contacts, and make the introduction for you so that you can move forward. But unfortunately, we are not the right fit for you. And it never goes poorly. People actually appreciate not going down a path where then they’re going to be pressured for change that they’re not willing to make.

I love that. Thank you so much. I think the three areas that we are going to focus on in the rest of the interview, and they’re the areas that I think most MSPs would be interested in. The first is how you guys generate leads. And I’m interested in what you do that works and I appreciate you’ve only been there a few months, but what you’ve tried in the past that hasn’t worked. So that’s the first area. Second area is turning leads into initial discovery calls, turning leads into meetings. And the third area is upselling your existing clients. So let’s delve into the first one, lead generation. It’s the number one problem for MSPs. “I don’t have enough leads. Where do I get leads from? My referrals have dried up.” So without giving away any secret source, what do you guys do that works well for you? And what do you keep doing for your lead generation?

So you mentioned something which is a huge source for us, referrals. So a lot of organisations say our referrals have dried up. Referrals is a system that we as an organisation have been relying on actually very, very heavily. The majority of our business growth has been due to referrals. However, in order to get referrals, we need to make sure that we are actually supporting our clients in an exceptional way. And if we’re not, those referrals are going to dry up over time and we are continuously asking for referrals. So not to be shy to ask for those introductions. As we are providing exceptional service and as we’re having the conversations with the clients to ask for those introductions to other organisations. And those things go up and down, most of the time our clients are not going to say, “Oh yes, I have a list for you here.” Obviously that’s not going to happen, but that will be top of mind and introductions are continuously made. So that is wonderful.

However, you can only rely on that so much. Even though our growth for the last, I would say 18 years has been very heavy on referrals, and I’m going to go as far as to say it’s been solely based on referrals, we are now doing many more events that are client and prospect facing. So again, how do we bring value to our clients without necessarily cold calling and asking for meetings for the business? And the way we do this is think of the type of information that our clients would benefit from and divide it up between in-person events as well as webinars. The more of a value we can bring to the market, the more known we’re going to be and the more people are going to reach out to us for particular expertise. So that is a mix of existing clients.

And again, prospects or our clients are bringing their contacts, and that’s how we generate definitely more attention as well. And the third area is our visibility in the marketplace. So outside of the basics of the website and the blogs and social media, as we have people reaching out, doing the cold calls and reaching out to organisations, our own visibility online needs to be strong. So once we do actually get a hold of somebody, they need to see that we have the credibility to stand behind. And sales, I think most people listening to this will know this very well inside and out. Sales is a question of being persistent, skill level, and luck. So you have to reach out, you have to make the effort and have luck at your back in order to actually get those initial meetings. So I would say it’s a trifecta for us with regards to growth.

Okay, that’s great. Thank you. I have two follow-up questions and I’m just looking for short answers if that’s okay. So the first of them is you ask for referrals, which is great. How do you ask for referrals? Because there are lots of ways to do it and many ways they don’t get the response that you want. In fact, it can almost come across as a bit slimy or as a bit creepy or is a bit desperate. So how do you guys do it? What’s your system?

We first check in on their satisfaction level with our service, right? So we always focus on that first. And if the feedback is OK we do not ask for referrals. If the feedback is fantastic, then at the end of that, we ask, “Look, this is how we grow through referrals. If you know of any organisations that are in alignment with your size, your situation, we would love to have an introduction.” That’s it. So just put in a note in the back of their brains that this is what we’re looking for.

So to summarise that, when you’ve got delighted clients, just remind them that you’re open for business and you want more people like them. As simple as that.

Exactly.

And the second follow-up question is, I love the idea of the events, of webinars, lunch and learns. I’m a big fan, especially real life stuff. Nothing beats being in a room with people and it’s surprising how often you end up doing business with them down the line in some way. So my follow-up question, and again, I’m looking for a brief answer, is how do you fill those events? How do you get people on your webinars and how do you get people into the room?

Have relevant topics. Find out from your clients what information are they interested in. So as an example, AI is such a huge, huge topic. Everybody’s talking about AI, but what about AI? What are clients having an actual issue with? Some of our clients are literally having an issue with the basics of AI. What do I do? So the meat and potatoes of AI. Others are focused on, “Okay, I’m at a point where I want to create agents. How do I go about that? Show me exactly how to do that.” Fantastic, we’ll have an event focused on that. So listening to your clients.

Second of all, how do we fill the seats? In-person events, it’s easier, I would say, than webinars because we always centre the event around something wonderful, like a nice lunch and drinks, so we wine and dine them, and we keep it at a smaller event. So about 30 to 40 people at the very, very most. Purpose behind that is we have a short presentation, we want to give information, this is why they have come. But then the rest of the time, as they’re sitting at their tables, the discussions are continuing around that topic. And this is where you get a lot of the value. So they come for the networking, for the information, for the food. And it’s amazing how when you spread the word out to your clients and your prospects, especially if it’s a relevant topic, it just fills up.

I love that. And I think a massive success factor for you there, which I know will be intentional rather than accidental, is mixing prospects with clients because prospects ask clients that the client will go, “Oh, well, actually we’ve been with these guys for three years.” And the prospect will say, “Oh, really, how’s that working for you? ” And that the existing client will sell your business better than you ever can. Not the details of it, not how it works. Yeah, it’s a very smart thing.

Actually Paul, let me add to that because also clients with one another, not just prospects, do the same thing where if you are trying to work with one client to lead them down a particular path because it’s obviously beneficial for them and they’re hesitating for any reason, and then you have another client who has gone through that journey, they get that information from another source where that has worked out and therefore your sales path is that much easier.

Amazing. Thank you. Let’s move on to the second area. And I think you’ve given us the hint of where you’re going with this. You can have thousands of leads, hundreds of prospects at any one time but how do you turn them into a sales meeting? So you mentioned earlier that the third of your trifecta was having people on the phone, making outbound calls. Is that how you book most of your meetings or do you have other tactics and strategies that you use?

So it’s a mix. Again, for our organisation we have been very lucky to have a lot of referrals. When you get a referral it’s that much easier because it’s a warm introduction. And whether it is a cold call, whether it is a referral, whether it is just an introduction and it’s not quite a referral, where we start out is by looking at that introductory meeting to exchange information to see whether there’s a fit. If it is a referral, it’s quite obvious somebody is looking. If it is a cold call, you obviously need to catch their attention enough to identify whether there’s even an opportunity. And the opportunity in our particular segment is not to take business away from other MSPs. Because we’re dealing mostly with smaller to mid-size organisations, we are looking for organisations where they have a generalist or they have somebody who doesn’t really know that much about IT but it’s on their plate and it’s becoming too much. So that pain point is going to come up relatively quickly when you get a hold of somebody during a cold call.

The first step is that meeting and the non-threatening approach is “Let us meet to exchange information and see whether we are a fit for one another.” And to loop back to your first question, we are looking for our right clients just as much as you are looking for the right company to support you. And unless we exchange that initial information to learn a little bit about one another, we do not know whether we are a fit. So we portray that we’re not just hunting for any business, we’re interviewing you just as much as you’re interviewing us. And I have to tell you, that provides a little bit of intrigue.

I bet it does because most people go into a sales meeting just wanting the business regardless of whether it’s fit or not, as we were talking about earlier. I’m getting a real pattern here, this is a sizable business and as much as you have relied and continue to rely on referrals, which as we know that’s your business to lose, a referral comes to you, wanting to work with you. I’m hearing high quality, I’m hearing slow, I’m hearing authentic conversations. So I’m hearing a very, very rich, deep sales environment where, and it wouldn’t surprise me that your first, second, third clients from 19 years ago are still with you today. If they haven’t been sold or gone bust. And I suspect that when you onboard a client, you expect them to stay for 10, 15 plus years, which is really interesting.

And there’s a real lesson here. I think the fact that if any MSP of any size should be doing exactly the same in terms of how the authenticity and the speed of those conversations. You said a word earlier, persistence. And the persistence does not mean desperation. Persistence means making sure that if they’re going to move from one MSP to another, or if they’re going to move from their generalist over to a specialist outfit such as yourselves, that you just keep making sure you’re pushing it along, testing the waters and never giving up on them. Or I had a sales guy speak to me a couple of weeks ago selling me, it doesn’t matter what. And he said, “Well, have a think about it and give me a call.” And that’s the first time I’ve thought about it in two weeks. Whereas actually what he should have done was booked a meeting or said, “When do you want me to call you?” or something so that we all understand what the next step in the process is?

I love this. Let’s move on very briefly to the final part, and the piece I wanted to talk about was selling more to existing clients. So do you have account managers? And if you do, are they customer service focused account managers or are they technical focused or are they straight out and out sales people?

No. So I do have account managers, absolutely. I have a fantastic team and they actually all come from a technical background, but the focus is customer focused with regards to a strategic proactive approach. So the way we approach our business is, as I mentioned when we onboard a client we take a look at the minimum things that need to be done in order to get them to a level where we can actually securely support them. But from there on, through our internal processes, we do an assessment on an annual basis to evaluate not only where the client is at, but also what their plans are for the future.

A lot of IT is reactive, especially in this market of small to medium-sized organisations. And those organisations are relying on us to help them plan out and budget for their future. Certain things are going to be reactive because things do happen, but we try to minimise that as much as possible. So the account managers work very closely with their clients to identify their future. They do that through assessments, through roadmaps, and have discussions like this is what we’re seeing as your organisation supporting you. “You have told us, Mr. Client, that fill in the blank… you’re growing, you’re moving, whatever it may be. And based on your infrastructure today, these are the steps that need to happen in order to support your business goals and your wins.” And then there is a discussion. What is your priority? Now we are building this together versus us trying to convince them of buying a new server or migrating it. So when you approach a business from that perspective, we now know two years down the road, what’s coming for each client.

So yet again, slow, quality, authentic. And that’s true partnership. I’ve said this before on the podcast, the word partner is the most abused word in the channel. You join a vendor, you meet them at 9am, you sign up with them at 9:05 and they call you a partner. That’s not a partner. A true partner is exactly what you’ve just discussed there where you and your client partner together slowly over time by having a solid plan for how are we going to make sure the technology helps you to grow the business and never hold you back. And that’s a true partnership.

Exactly. I absolutely love that. But there’s a dark side to this though, Paul, because based on this, there will be clients who say, “Yes, this is what we want. This is exactly what we’re looking for.” But you get onto this journey and there is pushback. There is continuous pushback of, “No, I don’t want to plan. I don’t have time to plan. I don’t have a budget. And oh, by the way, I’m moving next week. Please come and do my cables.” So an organisation following this process has to be in a position to have those open conversations with our clients to say, “Are we still a fit? Let’s have a check-in because we want to support you. We do want to be your partner, but are we a fit?” Because if you’re looking for an organisation to be reactive and to look only after the basics, then we’re not your people. And again, having those open conversations, which can be quite difficult, either evolve the relationship to the next level or you clean house and you have to be willing to do that.

Yeah. But of course, connecting this right back to the beginning when you were talking about fit and turning away people who aren’t right, and this applies to any MSP. Once you understand what makes a good client and what makes a client that behaves in the way we’ve just described, you look for that right at the beginning. So the further down your journey you go as an MSP, the fewer wrong clients you take on board because you learn to spot them. People give away their behaviours, don’t they? They red flag themselves in the things they say and the way they say it, and they don’t know that they’re doing it, which is absolutely fascinating.

Sadly, we are out of time because I could talk to you for this. Oh no. I know. The next 40 or 50 minutes or so. Thank you so much. You’ve been so generous. We are definitely getting you back on the show. We’ll get you back in 2027. Just for those MSPs who are listening, who either are based near you and would like to just make sure they’re on your radar for the clients that don’t fit you, but might fit them. But also for other MSPs around the world who just love what you’ve been saying and perhaps just want to connect with you and just say hi. What’s the best way to get in touch with you?

Two ways. There is LinkedIn, of course, last name is spelled ULKOWSKA, look for me there. Or through our website, which is accuratenetworks.ca, not .com or you’re going to go to another organisation in the US. So both ways are good ways to get hold of me. And Paul, thank you so much for this opportunity. I had so much fun.

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