[Jeff Loehr]

I use two: chatGPT and Reword for blog writing. Honestly I don’t use the AI part for much more than helping me come up with headlines.

The best tools I’ve seen are the ones that learn your data so that your people can ask it questions… Anybody doing that?

[Jeff Loehr]

You know I talked to my coach about this same thing. I was bemoaning, not being able to reach enough MSPs (not saying you are bemoaning, but I certainly was. Whinging, actually. I was whinging.) He told me I wasn’t trying hard enough.

He asked me how many people I had reached out to the previous day – I said something like 10. He said well, 10 is not enough, why not 40 or 50? He explained that the last time he did this, he reached out to 300 people a week because that’s what it took.

I realized that I wasn’t doing enough. I was doing work, but it wasn’t transformative work. It was more like doing enough to say that I did it without actually getting the results.

I don’t know your situation; maybe you are reaching 300 with the perfect outreach. But ask yourself, are you? Could you do more?

Here are other things you can do:

1. Go to rootworks. Tell them that you are doing research to understand better the IT needs of accountants so that you can serve them better. Ask if there is a way to talk to some members, and be ready to join.
2. Talk to your network. Go through your A list and your B list. Does anybody know an accountant?

3. Expand your network by going to networking meetings. Tell everyone you want to talk to accountants to learn more about their IT needs and how you can better serve them.

4. Use Sales Navigator to build a list and reach out to 30 every day.

5. Ask your accountant clients if they know any other accountants you should talk to.

6. Reach out to the AICPA and ask someone there whom you should talk to.

Anybody else have other ideas?

[Jeff Loehr]

This is really great… I think you have a good idea who you avatar is.

My suggestion: keep deepening it and getting more specific. The better and more specifically you know your avatar the easier selling to them will be. But this can also take time, even interviews with your target…

[Jeff Loehr]

Hi David:

A good rule of thumb is that an MSP needs 50 clients for independence to reach the million-dollar target. There are many variables around this, but this is what it always comes out to.

Now, that does not mean you need to find 50 clients in your vicinity. If. You are in New York; you can find 50 XYZ avatar within a few blocks. But anywhere else, that might be a challenge.

Here’s the thing it is MUCH easier to serve a broader geography than it is to serve multiple avatars. Services like touchless install or Field Nation can allow you to be anywhere. And it is much more important that you have a deep understanding of your avatar’s problem than you be local.

What this ends up meaning is that almost any market segment will work.

One place to start is to go back to your favorite clients and see what commonalities exist and what you like about them. THAT is the place to start…

[Jeff Loehr]

I heard this on NPR this morning, thought it was insightful:

https://www.npr.org/2023/02/02/1152481564/we-asked-the-new-ai-to-do-some-simple-rocket-science-it-crashed-and-burned

[Jeff Loehr]

Yeah, I like Myers Briggs too. I am an INTP (Introver, Intutive, Thinker, Perciever). But honestly I think they all work if they give you some insight into how other people think and how to work with them. I think the two biggest mistakes are:

1. using too many, it gets confusing.

2. thinking that they are linked to competency.

Personality types are really just thinking styles and they don’t tell you how well a person can do a job.

[Jeff Loehr]

I don’t have any experience with crunch base but have worked a bit with AI and found it frustrating because implementation was so tough… but AI has improved so much, maybe it’s time to give it a try?

I am playing around with Chat gpt and the biggest problem I’ve come across is that it is often wrong but very convincing (if you ask a question it gives you and answer, it’s just that the answer might be wrong), you’d want to be sure that you can train the AI to give you the right answer…

[Jeff Loehr]

That looks very cool, did you see the issue with Microsoft capturing screenshots every few seconds with Copilot? It looks like they delayed that for now, but it could be a huge security issue. (I don’t think that affects what you are doing, I thought you might find it interesting.).

[Jeff Loehr]

Amén!

[Jeff Loehr]

What is really great?

[Jeff Loehr]

Very true!

[Jeff Loehr]

Yep, that’s the problem, it will always answer, just not always give a good answer.

[Jeff Loehr]

I just went through a meeting today where we didn’t follow the structure and, you know, it is amazing what structure brings to the productivity of a meeting.