dnsUNFILTERED: Jeffrey Newton, Cyft

[00:00:00] Mikey Pruitt: Welcome everybody to another episode of dnsUNFILTERED. Today I'm joined by Jeffrey Newton founder of a new AI startup called Cyft and a Road Warrior in the MSP space. I guess you could say, spend a lot of time there, Jeffrey. Say hello and give us a little background about yourself.

[00:00:20] Jeffrey Newton: Thanks for having me Mikey.

As you mentioned, I spent 18 years inside, five different MSPs, seven different times which did a little bit of boom boomeranging there, right back and forth. Spent the first decade on the tech side, just traversing the ladder there. Transition in the in between, before the market was really moving into that.

VCIO style world, right? And then eventually pivoted fully over to the sales side entirely, and spent the last eight years building, growing and running sales teams that crushed it for MSPs. And then, formally set sail on that side of the fence, crossed the aisle over to being a co-founder of a vendor that serves MSPs.

 

[00:00:58] Mikey Pruitt: So let's pause right there. What prompted you to make the leap from, MSP side to this dirty vendor side? Like how did that happen?

[00:01:07] Jeffrey Newton: serendipity probably like a series of fortunate events is really what led to it. The. The shorter version is in my how far back do I go?

The MSP where I lost was our sales team broke operations after 28 months, like literally broke operations. We stopped outside sales. I dismantled the team stuck around to figure out how to basically rebuild it. So fast forwarding now I'm rebuilding a sales org. And as part of that. I was just on LinkedIn one day, which was really rare 'cause I'm not a big social guy.

You wouldn't know that now 'cause I'm on LinkedIn every day. But like social media platforms were never really my thing. I happened to be on there. Saw a post from this guy named Jesse Miller had something to the effect of, Hey, I have a peer in the industry that's wanting to interview MSPs to help inform them of their voice to CRM solution.

Like shit, that's pretty interesting. I'm in the middle of trying to rebuild my sales org, my sales stack, the tools and all that. So I did a user interview. One user interview turned to two user interviews, three inter user interviews, bought a chunk of consulting hours from me. Fast forward a little bit more the MSPO as that went through an equity event, and the same day that they, the CEO James, my now partner, called me and asked, have you ever thought about being a co-founder before?

And so it was just, again, series of very fortunate events. And when all of that went down. Said, let's do it. And been here ever since

[00:02:33] Mikey Pruitt: I was actually thinking of the movie title, A series of unfortunate events. Yeah. But welcome to the vendor side. Yeah. I think that's a really it's a trajectory that I like to see with MSPs because you, as an MSP, know where the downfalls are, where the hard spot spots are, where the rough edges that need refining are and pivoting into providing something. I think is easy for you to do. Yeah. So let's talk about Cyft for a second. You guys basically do smoothing the rough edges of ConnectWise with voice.

Is that right?

[00:03:08] Jeffrey Newton: Yeah, so we, the easiest way to try to think about it is essentially offering the interface of voice to ConnectWise manage. We do it in a couple of different ways Our. Early product, early adopters, the beta MVP version was the ability to speak to Cyft. We would review it, we would go into CW through the API, we would map all those fields that you don't wanna touch.

'cause you don't wanna click 73 times just to hit submit through their interface. And it would just be flawless. It'd move straight in. And so that's, that was where we really began. And then that evolved to, once you created this sort of like Pandora's box movement with the ability to interface with.

Your tools with reality, with just your voice. Just like we are natural language, it creates that aha moment where people are like, oh what if, right? So then the next what if was essentially where we're at now, which is in the process of releasing live listening. So rather than you having to tell us what you want done in manage, actually ride shotgun on the calls with you and just take from the conversation everything that.

Needs to be documented wherever it is, whether that's creating tickets, creating opportunities, finding sales opportunities, kicking off a project, doing your time entry, like all those components just happening in real time. Again, using the voice, the dictating function's still there, but we're trying to cover basically the full spectrum of the surface area for the MSPs.

[00:04:28] Mikey Pruitt: So when you said riding shotgun, you're talking about using AI to parse, summarize, et cetera, like a sales call.

[00:04:35] Jeffrey Newton: Yeah, exactly. Initially what we're gonna be rolling out what will be available for release day one is the ability to listen to teams calls zoom calls and Google meet calls immediately.

So like your AI agents really riding on those calls. And then we're gonna be releasing a local. Application that can do voice recording of your VoIP system as well as needed there. Or we can tap into an API of your voice system. So the big folks like RingCentral and whatnot, they have APIs. We can just yank the transcript and then use our agents to review and parse and reason through the transcript to then put the right information in the right place.

[00:05:12] Mikey Pruitt: So I, I did not realize the full scope of Cyft because obvi, honestly your homepage is still like a little, it's like a little cryptic. It's yay, we pulled it down because we

[00:05:21] Jeffrey Newton: we're transitioning from this 1.0 version to the 2.0 version. And in order to do that, it was like a hard reset, if you will, of kinda the value prop.

If you look. Probably tomorrow the new page will be up actually for the new landing page to really expand and talk about what is this brand new category that no one knows about because it's brand new. It's never existed before, and it's called intelligent automation. And we don't have to go way down deep into that rabbit hole, but that's where we are.

That's where we sit. That's really what we're evangelizing. Like being the first to really bring. An ag agentic world through intelligent automation to MSPs. We really see it as moving through the MSPs to empower the SMB market across the country too. 'cause the SMB market relies on MSPs. It's like this unknown and unforeseen component of what we actually do as MSPs.

And so we really see our purpose and our value proposition to be reaching through the MSPs, supporting them to make life suck a lot less because of the tools and everything else that's going on while they're doing. Sort of their life's work for the people that, that they serve.

[00:06:27] Mikey Pruitt: So I bring this up, not as a commercial for sif, but to showcase the power of AI and, try to convince MSPs that. Ai, what are we gonna do with it? Exactly. What S CIF does is what you're gonna do with it. And Jeffrey and his team have given you like one piece of that, automating, it's automation. It's really all it is except you can use the ai to enhance automation where necessary, like summaries and formatting things correctly for ConnectWise in your case.

So this is what AI's promise is. And if you're still on the fence about it. Maybe take a second look.

[00:07:06] Jeffrey Newton: Yeah. 'cause it's like and this will be the last point I make on it. 'cause I think this will bring it really down to the tactical and the practical. Like for every service manager, every technician, anyone that's has any role in an MSP right now, like I can assure you that your information, like how it's getting into manage, is not standardized.

Even if you think it is, like it's, everyone does it slightly differently. Everyone speaks it slightly differently. They type at different levels. Never again do you have to have the existence of must change statuses that no one changed, right? Like classification that's actually done. Or the ticket notes from your engineers like fixed it with three and a half hours billed against the ticket.

That's the reality that people have accepted as good enough. I call it the good enough line, right? MSPs have accepted meh for so long that they've forgotten what holy crap feels like. Didn't really ask permission for my vocabulary, but that's, and it's just, it's wrong, but it's the way that the industry has desensitized and created this like calloused existence, that it's just the way it is.

It's it doesn't have to be anymore, and it isn't that way anymore. And AI's changing everything, whether you like it or not. It's like you better figure out your. Your place in it and how to actually test it and dabble and demystify it because your customers are gonna ask you about it.

And if you don't have the answer, like it's not the same. It's not the same situation as it was 15 years ago when Cloud came out and it was just this marketing buzzword that you avoided for three years until you actually figured out how to take people from local exchange 365. I guess it's totally different than that.

[00:08:33] Mikey Pruitt: The thing that CIF focuses on in your career transitioned into from a tech background is sales. Do you feel that MSP struggle in that area? I assume so because of your, of cif, but go, yeah.

[00:08:47] Jeffrey Newton: Yeah. I, it is an area, it's probably the most common area that if I have a room of a hundred MSPs and I asked from stage.

Whereas the one thing that you need more this year, you want more this year. What's the one problem you wanna everyone wants to grow. They want to grow, they wanna scale, they wanna figure it out. They've also, in some cases, like committed to certain things to try to grow, but it's such an unstable and like mystical component of this space where there's a lot of.

Things that are positioned in certain ways. Gotta choose my words carefully. There's a lot of offerings that are out there in a certain way that like gets you bought into the concept of it, but they don't run the last mile. Meaning like they might tell you, Hey, here's what you need to do. But there's this disconnect in how you actually apply it, how you actually implement it, how you actually succeed with it.

And so what you end up instead with is one or more years wrapped up in a really expensive relationship that doesn't maybe produce the results that you were promised, and then you're made to feel like it was your fault. And that's not the way that it should work either.

So like the quick answer is, do MSPs need help with sales? Absolutely. Because it's not something that is ever trained traditionally. And you can't really take like this. Known sales model, this other guru that you wanna follow that hasn't lived it and breathed it at Ms. P either. 'cause MSP is black magic, right?

Like we're literally selling an intangible thing. It's a service. It's not here's the thing and there's the transaction. Like it is really a. The conduit to deliver the end result that the prospect or the customer actually cares about, which is their business outcome. Not you, not your stack, not your tools, not the new flashy widget.

I'm sorry to the tech folks like it, it doesn't matter. They don't buy off tech specs like we do, and that's really ultimately what I found out the hard way. 'cause I came up on the tech side, right? Like I was a tech first, didn't go to school for it, but I knew how to read the room and figure out who the smartest one in the room was.

And then I knew people well enough to unlock the cracking the code, if you will, of I could name names, but like my past is littered with those brilliant people. But it was all about unlocking them as people to want to help me figure out, okay, here's how I go and here's what I do. And that's the same skillset ultimately that.

That I leaned on for the sales side, which was the people, the psychology, the human to human component to get people to move toward the outcome they actually wanted. And we were just like an enablement tool as the MSP to deliver that to them.

[00:11:22] Mikey Pruitt: Absolutely. I saw a brilliant interview between you and Jonathan Schofield, and you actually said something similar about cracking the code of people is really the power move in sales.

I think a lot of MSPs start as a tech person. They're fixing computers, they graduate into Ms. P and they have to just put on this sales hat. Yeah. But I think a lot of them don't really realize that is also a logical problem that you can dissect, optimize pieces of.

Put back together in a a program like our Brains work. Yeah. This is, these are the steps. And the steps may need to vary based on people, which is, step number one, understand the person that you're selling to. Sot talk a little bit about that psychology breaking the pieces of a sale down.

[00:12:12] Jeffrey Newton: Yeah, so it's interesting because it's multifaceted. It's like these three matrices that. That overlap each other. And actually, I'm glad you saw that interview. 'cause that was, the purpose of that was to really break down one of those three triangles the stages of awareness, five stages of awareness.

But it starts a little bit before that. And I'm glad you brought up the who we are as MSP owners or MSP leaders, because that's really where we gotta start. Traditionally speaking, and I apologize for stereotyping us all, but it's, we were really good technical people. That probably had a slight problem with authority.

So like we ended up wanting to work for ourselves and not that person. So like we started our own company and then we evolve a little bit. Like we turned around one or two or three years later and like we have a decent portfolio of clients, one or two employees. It continues to grow. Word of mouth, right?

Like we accidentally fell into business basically 'cause we didn't wanna work for someone else. And that go like that goes and grows and scales to a certain point, but at some point. That style of growth, barely outpaces attrition, right? To get out and above actual growth for a business. And so that's where you have to start thinking about not yourself, but the rest of the world and not necessarily that island that you've created in that really comfortable insulated space.

And so like you have to break down the people part of it. First step in that is realizing that everyone else does not see this the world the same way that you do. That was my first lesson. And you could unpack that a couple of different ways, but the main takeaway there is just think about the last time you sold something or tried to sell something and then contrast that with the last time you bought something and like really sit with a blank piece of paper and write down the characteristics of what was happening.

And I assure you, you could put a line down the center of that page and they would be so distinctly different. The things you cared about, what you looked at, which part of your brain was activated when you were doing the thing? Why? Because people buy emotionally and then they rationalize the decision logically.

Whereas when we as problem solvers with tech technicians and tinkerers and break it apart and put it back together again, people like we try to bludgeon people to death with, let me tell you all the things I know about how smart I am about the thing that I sell, which has nothing to do.

With the emotional attachment to the buyer buying. So maybe to tie this to your first question of do they need help with sales? Absolutely. Why? They don't have a sales process at all. So no sales process, and I'm not talking about, I know what I do as the owner when it's founder, let's sales and I know how I'm gonna run this call.

That's not a sales process. If it doesn't live as a document that someone else can pick up and run without any questions being asked and do it flawlessly. Now that's like a. Where most coaching stops is like you need a sales process. Not saying you don't, you do need one, but more importantly, you need to acknowledge that the buyer's process is actually more important if you wanna sell something.

And then here's where I also see this go wrong. I followed your sales process here, Jeff, right? I said the thing exactly like you told me to say it in the thing, and they threw me outta their office. It's walk me through that. Help me understand what it was that they said or you said, or why you said it.

And when you said it, it's but I followed it. It's right there, right? It's black and white. It's that's the problem. You can't be black and white. It's not procedural, it's not, it's a motive. You have to actually relate with the human being sitting across the table from you. And it's a framework and not a process.

It's really how I built it in the teams that I ran was frameworks are fluid, right? There's some space in between. We have some objectives, we have some milestones. We're gonna hit them. We traditionally put these legos together to make it work. That's our process. But if you came to the table, Mikey, and you were at a different stage in your buying process.

It would be ridiculous for me to force you through the first seven steps of my sales process when you're already on step six of nine, or six of three, or whatever the numbers are like. But we seem to fail to do that because we oftentimes are so logical and methodical and analytical and like we're trying to do the right thing, like checking those boxes and stuff.

And the unfortunate part is you're shoving your prospects through a meat grinder and you don't even realize why they won't call you back at the end of it all.

[00:16:28] Mikey Pruitt: Yeah. You have to. Part of the sales process is learning the nuance and where to apply emotional versus logical and stay away from talking about your tech stack for crime.

Yeah. It has nothing, nobody cares

[00:16:41] Jeffrey Newton: to do with it. It has nothing to do with your tech stack. You're gonna change it within six months anyways. Don't tell me you're not so don't sell on a stack anyways because no MSP keeps it for more than 12 months. 'cause you need the shiny new object. So like it.

Don't set yourself up for that failure. 'cause then you're gonna have different conversations with them when it's what happened to the thing you sold me on? Oh, we got a new cool thing now too. It's no, how about we sell them on why it matters to their business? Why they should even care that you have it at all.

[00:17:06] Mikey Pruitt: Yeah. Outcomes. Outcomes. And it is really funny when you mentioned about how we guess how. People get started in tech and it's like I, when I'm talking with someone like at the bar at the end of a show or something, or at a hotel, I'm like, so what law did you break before you started this company?

Yeah. 'cause it's not always breaking a law, but it's often skirting up against legality in some way. Yeah. YeahAnd, I have a story that I won't say on camera, right?

[00:17:34] Jeffrey Newton: Yeah. There's an element of it and I usually call it that like defiance to authority is like the best way to generalize it.

It's like a personality trait in some ways. And it's not necessarily even a bad thing, right? Like it's just a little bit that way and. We're fortunate that there was enough of us that were, otherwise we wouldn't be an industry. And it's a different way of looking at things. I think it's what makes us really powerful disruptors.

'cause we buck the trends and we find new ways to do things and we, we don't necessarily follow all the rules all the time. And that's just the way that we see reality.

[00:18:08] Mikey Pruitt: So the majority of MSPs are, they're hearing this and they're thinking about that sales process and breaking it down at logical steps and applying emotion and nuance where appropriate. Yeah. After that sales let's just say they master that. Sure. And they're still trying to grow, perhaps out of this, one to 3 million a RR zone that most people most MSPs are in. Yeah. What is the breakout motion?

And tips, suggestions that can get MSPs past that, that lower Mr. A RR.

[00:18:40] Jeffrey Newton: Yeah. So if I really take a step back and think through that question to give you the break point, I step one.

I see this all the time across all the orgs of MSPs, including the ones that I coach on the sales stuff, is we were born and bred out of becoming the multiple hat wears, right? Like we live in a dumpster fire. We're catching falling daggers every day, like it's constantly reactive. The whole thing is just controlled.

Chaos and controlled is probably a little too benevolent of a term, but it's chaos. And as a result. We don't even care about that part. Like we're okay with it. That's what we signed up for. Like we thrive in that. That's great. But lean into the fact that if you really want results, then you really need to commit to the result that you want.

And the first step to that is' assigning dedicated roles and responsibilities to the outcome that you want. So let's just talk about outcomes and stuff like oftentimes. If an SP comes to me after a conversation about sales, we're like, holy crap. We want that too, right? We wanna break operations and give me 3 million a r in 28 months.

Okay, but here's how you have to do it. Usually one of my first questions is what's your number? And the conversation like, is stopped, right? Deer in headlights eyes. I don't know. What do you mean what's my number? Number, how big are we? How many employees we got? No, what's your number?

You're the owner led sales. You said you don't have a team. Okay, great. What's your number still okay, so I know that the first problem is one, accountability, and two, like that defines of authority, and I call it the cloak of like incivility, insi, invincibility, cloak. Like I'm the owner, I can do whatever I want.

I can say I want to grow, maybe I'm gonna grow by 10 grand. MRR, maybe I'm gonna grow by a hundred grand MR. It doesn't matter what the number is, which is step one, but you need a number. If I can get to the point where it's like, what's your number? We want to grow by $20,000 MRR. Okay, great. You have a number, so we're sitting in January, it's 2025.

When do you, when's that number by? Is that this quarter? Is that this year? I think by the end of, okay, great. So now we've committed to 20 grand MRR by December 31st, 2025. January 1st comes 2026 and you're at 19,999. What happens? Maybe you're at 21,000, either one, but let's just go with 1999, right?

You didn't hit it. You've gotta fire yourself like you have to treat things the same way that you would out of a dedicated role and responsibility that you would have of a sales rep that's carrying a quota. And not only that, like you can't wait until Jan one to figure this out. Like you gotta reverse engineer what it's gonna take to get to 20 grand.

MRR. And run that across 52 sprints is, at least how I chose to run my teams, was 52 sprints. There's 52 weeks in a year. We're on week number three, right? So we're in the third sprint of this entire year. How are we gonna get to our goals by the end of it? You need to break that down from annual to quarterly, but then you also need to understand there's some seasonality in the way business works.

But we will create the numbers in such a way that it doesn't matter where the seasonality works. So you gotta rip out the excuses. And then it comes down to controlling the inputs for the outputs. Also being able to like stare in the mirror and realize when you're the ultimate problem, like there's no one else to blame but you if you are the owner who also is responsible for sales, and then you're gonna gimme all the excuses.

Like my biggest client had an exchange blow up and I had to do this other thing for 93 hours straight. I get it, I understand it. That's the reality of our work, right? Yeah. Like I'm not saying any of that's wrong. What I am telling you is that's also the, the fake out that happens in our space.

There's no shortage of work to be done, but constru misconstruing action or activity for productivity is what's gonna keep you from hitting your goal by the end of the year. And so there's so much more to say about all that, but like it comes down to dedicated roles, crystal clear expectations, accountability, whether for you get an accountability partner, if it's just a one man show, declare it publicly somewhere. Do something to assign that to yourself. And then commitment, commitment I think is where I see most people fall short, because let's just stick with the same numbers. Okay, I want to grow by 20 grand. MRR perfect. That's perfectly attainable. Shouldn't have an issue doing that.

How are you gonna get there? If you're just the one man show, or 2, 3, 4, like five people, okay? So yeah, you probably have some shared responsibilities. You do need to at least time block and guarantee that you're committing the time and the talent treasure. If you had it right to the goal, to reverse engineer the 52 sprints and all the daily inputs that have to go into the thing that's gonna give you the output.

And let's go. Let's talk slightly larger MSP, like maybe you, you're actually gonna invest in sales and marketing for the first time. Maybe that's a dedicated rep for the first time. Maybe it's an outsourced marketing thing. Maybe it's what, it doesn't really matter. But the level of commitment and the resources to accomplish the goal is another area that I see MSPs fail.

Like I wanna grow by 20 grand MRR, but I didn't carve out any of my budget for it. Okay, great. So you really didn't wanna grow. Like you're more like, I hope to get a referral this year is the reality that they sit in. And so I would say commitment to the goal that you've laid out with a clear plan to hit it.

Dedicated roles of responsibilities with accountability. Like it sounds almost oversimplified in some ways. I could imagine people sitting wherever they are listening to this and being like, all right. Didn't hear anything new. That's the surprise too, to a lot of people. It's not, it doesn't need to be new.

You just need to hold yourself accountable and do the things, do the right things. Actually,

[00:24:34] Mikey Pruitt: you're, you're basically outlining a math equation, so you're 20 20,000 a RR divided by 52. Adding in variability for seasonality. Yeah. That's something I think our tech minds can really grasp. Yeah.

And I would add to that. Reverse engineering your current customer base to figure out why the heck they hired you. And don't talk to the person that made the decision. Talk to the technicians that are there that kind of work hand in hand with you. Talk to the average office staff the people that answered the phone, like secretaries front office types.

Why do they like working with you and listen to. The words and phrases that they use. Because that is what will resonate with people like them. Yeah. So you're taking this equation you're adding, injecting in messaging. And I believe I've heard you say that something that's very similar.

You're injecting the messaging used by your customers to attract more of them, to now get to that 20 k extra.

[00:25:36] Jeffrey Newton: Yep. Absolutely. And that's such a critical point. Okay? So that, that comes from one of the godfathers of marketing that says you enter the conversation already happening in their prospect's mind.

And it's coupled with this other idea of if you can articulate someone's problem more effectively, more clearly than they can, they automatically and subconsciously associate you with being the solution. So rewind and listen to that a couple more times if you. Can articulate someone's problem more effectively, more clearly than they can, you automatically and subconsciously get associated with the solution.

Like really unpack that. You actually don't have to be the solution, but they're gonna perceive you as the solution. They will automatically and subconsciously associate you with that. How do you do that? Use their vocabulary. Talk to 'em like you're literally inside their office so that you know their business better than they do.

Where do I begin? I don't know. Pick an ICP first. Ideal customer profile. Pick one. Look at your current client base. Start breaking it down. Don't pick the ones you don't wanna work with. Pick the ones you wanna work with. Let's go back to the earlier example of like your cell phone's ringing. You got two options.

You look at the screen and you see the name on the screen. Do you like drop the phone trying to answer it so quickly 'cause you love talking to this person? Or do you wanna throw the phone against the wall and you let it go to voicemail? Let's pick the one that you can't wait to answer. Okay, great.

What industry are they in? What role do they have? Let's write down some of that demo demographic and psychographic information. And now you have an ICP. And so now you can start to say, okay, they happen to be a lawyer. Okay, great. So when I talk to lawyers as prospects, I'm gonna use words like matters.

Why? 'cause that's how they run their business with matters, right? Like they're gonna, and their practice management system, like use the language that they use like your coworker. It's those little subtle nuances that you already know 'cause you take all their support tickets, but you don't bring that kind of context to a sales conversation.

Those are those little tips, tricks, whatever you want to call it. Like that's the pieces of psychology where you can intentionally game the system in your favor. And for lack of better words, right?

[00:27:47] Mikey Pruitt: I feel like that's gonna be feature four or five for Cyft analyzing sales calls, analyzing service calls, tickets, and mining that vocabulary and the phrasing.

And then giving you kind of the playbook for the type of customer that you're gonna outreach next.

[00:28:07] Jeffrey Newton: Yeah, I think a a limiting factor that, that some aren't even aware of that's happening is the scarcity mindset, right? Like we just talked about ICP and I can remember when I was early on in, in this stage on the MSP side, and I'm like, Hey, I don't wanna, I don't wanna pick one.

I don't wanna sell to everybody. Why not? Why I don't want to take away all the opportunity that exists. What, here's what happens if you don't. You can't sell everything to everyone, or you end up selling nothing to no one, right? Like we can't just be the IT provider, the preferred IT proprietor for SMBs in the greater Omaha, Nebraska area, like good luck having that messaging resonate anywhere.

It just won't. But if we happen to be the MSP provider that specifically serves or knows how to talk to orthopedic surgeons in. A 17 mile radius of this place. Like I can have a much different conversation with the decision maker there, and they already know what they're walking into as well, right? So like we've pre-positioned ourselves to be something that they already want, and then the dynamic of the sales conversation is on the emotional spectrum that they need to go through, which is a different conversation, but like it's five layers too.

And desire is an important layer. You want them there. What happens if they came into the sales conversation already at the desire stage, now they actually want the outcomes that you provide, and you're just guiding and facilitating their logistics of a decision making process to give it to 'em rather than having to convince someone.

That your stack is better or your pricing might be higher or lower than the other guy? Or how do you compare to the three other bids that they're, that they have on the table, right? That's the reality most MSPs find themselves in. It's I don't know how to deal with objections. I dunno how to prevent objections.

I don't know how to have a pricing conversation. I'm barely comfortable sliding the piece of paper across the table with the pricing that I'm asking for, and it's already too low. There's so much head trash. I think which is why it goes back to psychology again, that like we have to figure out on our own first about ourselves before we can have better conversations in the moment.

And you'd ask me about my transition from tech to sales. That was a big component that I had to learn was. Like I can't sell from my own wallet. I can't have those conversations. From that perspective, I have to really not care at all about what I know and what I know how to do. It's all about them.

And then getting curious, call it the cloak of curiosity, like you gotta put that on. You're not there to sell. You're not there to win. You're not there to get a client. You're there to understand and have them feel seen and heard and understood and then it just happens.

[00:30:46] Mikey Pruitt: If you, if your goal is to seek truth you're always going to win.

But if your goal is to go out and win, there's a chance you could lose. Yeah.

[00:30:56] Jeffrey Newton: Oh, that's so good. I think I heard that

[00:30:57] Mikey Pruitt: somewhere on a YouTube video recently. That's good.

[00:31:00] Jeffrey Newton: And it's true. And there's two points I'll make on that. 'cause I, there are characteristics that I've seen, so I like to call them out when I can.

First is, and I love the way you put it, because it's true in this way. There are people in this world, and there seem to be a lot of them in the MSP space, on the MSP side, where they actually see communication as right and wrong and win and lose. Now, what do I mean by that? Like you're there to win the conversation, to be the smartest person in the room to be seen as the right and or wrong, like you're never gonna be on the wrong side of right.

That is a recipe for disaster and you're in a sales conversation. The other way that I would, that I've seen this and I've categorized it, is. Again, having traversed both sides of the aisle. Sometimes I feel like I can make fun of the tech side since I was there once, but like traditionally speaking, the tech people look at the world through here are the a hundred reasons why this won't work.

The transition that you get when you move into the sales side is, how do I make this work, right? It's two totally different frames to perceive reality through, and when you can combine those two frames, it's the most beautiful thing in the world. There's nothing better than asking a, here's a hundred reasons why this won't work person.

How can I make this work? You get such an amazing answer, better answer than any of you ever thought possible, and it happens to be the answer that closes the deal. So like, how can I win? How can I make this work? And then seeking to understand what it is that the person wants, which is ultimately the criteria for I'm trying to make this work.

And then you just have such a simple recipe for winning business and. God, I want people to go back and listen to the way you quoted that because it's so true. It's not about winning and losing. It's not about right and wrong. Yes, closing deals, but it's not about. It's not a debate class and I was a debater in middle school.

So like I get all of that and it's you. The interesting thing I think people forget about debate. The thing debate teaches you is to be able to stand in the room in front of the same audience and argue both sides of the argument, right? We forget that in today's society where it's I'm confounded in my beliefs that it's, this is the only right, and this is the only truth. And like I can wear you down until you. Conform or

[00:33:15] Mikey Pruitt: eject. Yeah. And that's that is true. Debating both sides of the argument because you see people at the highest levels just ripping each other apart in the news, on stage, wherever.

And then if you see them in the same room, they are like whispering each other's ear, tapping each other's shoulder, making jokes and right. I'm thinking of a recent video. But this is, it's like a game almost. That people are playing and we are being we're witnesses to this game that's outplay playing out in front of our eyes.

That's, it's true in everything. There's going out to win and then they're just going out to be. Part of the conversation to be a truthful participant. Honesty, authenticity, all that stuff plays a role. And if you are, let's say putting yourself out online, kinda like you're doing, like I do there's, just being part of the conversation in a truthful, respectful manner is.

Increases your luck surface area of attracting more customers, future business. Yeah. Connections. Like how I ran across you, Jeffrey. Just increasing the surface area of possibility. Opportunity.

[00:34:36] Jeffrey Newton: Yeah. Be the person you would want to buy from. Going back to that buying and selling scenario, think about the last time that you wanted to buy something so you went out to do it.

I'm sure there's scenarios in there. Cars are usually the first one to think of, like you knew everything about what you wanted. You went to the dealership to do it, but then the sales guy rubs you the wrong way, turned you off. So you're like, okay, fine. I'll go to the other, one of the other threes, right?

Like dealers to do the same thing and get the exact same result like. That's the part that we seem to get wrong when we are the one on the selling side, because we're not born salespeople, right? We aren't professionally trained salespeople. We actually don't even prefer to be doing those functions most of the time as MSP owners.

So it's just really easy to forget that you have to like place, put on a different persona if you have to, but be the person that you wanna buy from, right? Because it's about the buying experience that you need to create. And another way I like to say it is be easy to buy. If you're easy to buy, you'll be easy to sell.

But what does that mean? Don't have a 19 step sales process with 7,300 questions on a questionnaire that you force them to go through. Just to figure out, I'm not really gonna do anything this information anyways. I'm gonna sell you my stack, I'm gonna put the other stuff in. Did it matter?

No. So like why? Why intentionally put so much friction between the decision you want them to make? And how you're asking them to make it. Trust your gut a little bit. Like just be the person you wanna buy from.

[00:36:02] Mikey Pruitt: I have a real world example of this. At DNSFilter, we have a lot of content categories and threat categories, but the content category specifically you can block things that are not necessarily unsafe, but maybe un tort on occasion, or things you wouldn't want people doing at work.

And so we have. Seen and actually been asked for checklist for these categories that our customers can, our MSP customers can provide to their customer to like, check off, we wanna block this and this and this. I think that's a mistake because you should understand their requirements so well that they shouldn't even know the categories that you're applying blocking to DNSFilter.

Like you wanna abstract all that away, just like the tech stack. Like they don't need to see that you're gonna block gambling or adult content or whatever. You just, you should understand based on your conversations with them, with your understanding of them, what their needs are.

[00:37:00] Jeffrey Newton: Yeah. And ultimately what they want, right?

'Cause they're not gonna come and ask, how can I block adult content on my network in most cases is like what they're really caring about more is like. How are my people spending their time when I'm paying 'em to be here, and how do I optimize the outcome I need from the people that are here on the systems doing the thing?

And so you need to be able to have the conversation about ways in which you bring to the table, doesn't matter the name of the thing, right? It's just about 14 days after we take over in your environment, we're gonna roll out some of the solutions that you're getting with us. One of those happens to be this thing, right?

DNSFilter, and it does these things, but ultimately what it's about is one, providing a safe environment, like whatever the actual pitch is, right? But like it's the outcome that they want, which is one, don't have folks going to sketchy stuff online. That's going to jeopardize my network, first of all. And second of all, like maybe my people should be more productive when they're here, even if they won't say that out loud.

I think that's the other thing about sales. Maybe I'll unpack this for a second. There's three layers, levels to every conversation that's happening. There's the known, and I adapted this from like a, this is gonna date myself, but I remember watching Donald Rumsfield on TV one time and he said something about unknown unknowns.

I, that was the stupidest thing I ever heard as like a 20-year-old. And now I understood it once I got the sales. 'cause there's three levels to every conversation. There's the known knowns, I know it, and Mikey knows it and we are openly talking about it. Okay. And then you go to the known unknowns. So I know it, or Mikey knows it, but the other doesn't.

We're willing to talk about it, right? Then there's the unknown unknowns, where the known unknowns, whichever way that com you wanna flip the script between our dynamic. But I know it and Mikey doesn't know it, but I also know I can't talk about it with Mikey or this conversation is over.

So the sale actually happens in the third level. So you have to figure out how to build enough rapport, gain enough trust, and create enough vulnerability that I can actually say the thing that Mikey doesn't know about, but it's the thing he needs for the outcome that he wants. And as soon as I get the conversation to that level.

And like everything collapses, like the whole universe conspires in your favor and you'll win that deal because it's ultimately about trust. It's about safety. It's about security. It's about belief. It's about the promise of the future that you have that they want, but they don't. And then it just falls into place.

[00:39:21] Mikey Pruitt: Yeah you're talking about the psychology of humans again. And knowing that is not easy. Yeah. It can be practiced, can be learned, but it's not, something super simple. But you're absolutely right that the thing that. Your prospect needs to hear is not going to come out in the conversation.

And you have to find it and then articulate it in a way that they understand, like it's almost like mind reading. Yeah. And if that does happen, they are going to see you as authority as truthful, honest, and a person that can help them with their solution.

[00:39:56] Jeffrey Newton: Yeah. One of the books that I read that I think is a, it's a good quick read 'cause it's one of the Lencioni books, but it's called Getting Naked.

It's specifically about vulnerability and how to show up in a vulnerable way, and here's the unlock and why you should even care. I know I'm talking woowoo and feelings and stuff to like the tech crowd, but like this is the stuff that made the teams that I ran successful. Vulnerability is a superpower when you're talking about humans.

If I bring a certain level of vulnerability to this conversation, you, Mikey, would subconsciously and un unknowingly match my level of vulnerability. Like anchor that, pin that for a second. And now let's look at a sales conversation, right? Like, why are you even in the room? Why have you been invited in the room to talk about tech or being a service provider for this business?

Odds are it's not, 'cause everything's going amazing, right? And so it doesn't matter one of the five reasons why you're in that room, but there's probably only five categories anyway. But it's uncomfortable. And it also forces them to, in their own mind, even if they don't say it out loud, admit that they probably made a mistake in the past, that they chose the wrong solution.

They picked the wrong provider. They hired the wrong person. There's, again, you gotta understand the dark side, the shadow side of what's going on in their world and what's the hardest thing to do? Admit that. And you can't tell me it's not tech people because it's the same reason you won't transfer the ticket or escalate the thing or let it go.

It's the fear of failure and. That's the part. And so if I show up really vulnerable in a trusting way, even as you can probably hear, if you're just listening to this what happened to my voice in the last 15 seconds? It's quieter, softer, intentional, pauses. Like you're probably pulled way further into the conversation now than you were when I was screaming five minutes ago.

Yeah, that's just a component of communication that you can use to cultivate an environment that's a lot more malleable and trusting and safe to say the thing that Mikey needs to hear, but we are too uncomfortable to say maybe to put a bow on this rant is like the result you want is just on the other edge of your comfort zone.

That's the tactic for salespeople is and my sales rep, when I first took over the sales team taught me this without even knowing he was teaching it with me. I saw in what he was doing, he had the uncanny ability to be comfortable as hell asking insanely uncomfortable questions. I felt it when he would ask questions.

I like, oh my God, that's awful. Oh God. But he didn't, and he didn't flinch and he delivered it perfectly. And it wasn't scripted. He was genuine, but he would ask uncomfortable questions. And you know what happened? Action happened on the other side of his uncomfortable question wasn't immediate, but we closed more deals and I learned so much from him.

His name's Scott. I'm gonna be interviewing for my show in the next month 'cause we're gonna unpack our journey together that way, but it's such a skill that can be learned. I know it 'cause I didn't have it and I learned it from him and that's where I'll end that is everything you desire is on the other side of your comfort zone.

It's true.

[00:43:08] Mikey Pruitt: Another brilliant clip from the episode. Yeah. I love that because humans, we have walls up naturally. We're skeptical. Everyone's out to get us, we can't trust anybody by default. And that's gonna remain true for till the end of time, because we're animals and we like to kill each other and, all do all the bad things to each other.

Yeah. But what you're saying is. On the sale side, like you are the seller. You are going to basically disassemble your wall and you are going to leave it open. You're going to be vulnerable. Yeah. You're going to put yourself in a situation that damage could be received.

[00:43:47] Jeffrey Newton: Yeah.

[00:43:47] Mikey Pruitt: And that other person is going to recognize that.

And either. Damage you in some way. Hopefully not. Yeah. Or they're going to disassemble, breakdown, peek through their wall to meet you in the middle, and that is how human connection is created. Yeah, and I would argue. That, the MSP space can become commoditized. Like we're all selling IT service.

We're selling cybersecurity. It's, a lot of the same, yeah. There's not much differenti differentiation between what the MSP does. But there is a ton of differentiation between the way an MSP makes you feel.

[00:44:30] Jeffrey Newton: Yeah. That's so huge, especially. I would call it in the post COVID world, not because it's COVID and not to like, it has nothing to do with anything.

You want to think about that the post COVID world taught the world, one that we're far more accessible when we're remote. And may maybe that means like we are right, we're not in the studio together. We're in a virtual studio recording this conversation. And then you also look at the technological advancements since that same timeframe and kind of two things have happened.

One. It became acceptable to have everything be remote. So like it's our default now, right? And so you have to work extra hard to build real relationships with people when you're not sitting there in front of them for a lot of reasons we don't have to go into. The other part is in this space specifically, we love our shiny objects.

So what have we done? We've created all of these layers, all of them, and we keep stuffing stuff in between 'em, right? Think of it as bookends, like MSP's here, customer's here, and there's all these layers of tools and tech and crap in between the people. So we're actually like making it harder to form, maintain control, enrich a relationship with another person by shoving all this tech crap at them.

In between it, when you know what I really want, and maybe it's 'cause I'm 40 and so like I still pick up a phone and call people, but if I pick up the phone and call you. I better not get your A VR. And if I do the A VR, better not have sales first. Instead of support. If I'm one of your customers, and if it does have sales first, I'm gonna push that button.

'cause I know someone's gonna answer it. And then I'm gonna say to the sales person, Hey, I need to create this thing, right? Like I get the support. Like we put so many layers of like fatigue on the end user experience, which is the important part. And so just like I said, you need to become the person you wanna buy from one of the.

Best focusing questions that I used to use all the time when I get pulled in from the leadership team to make some decision, especially tool stack decisions. I dunno what the question was. How does this affect the client experience? Great, it's gonna save us money. Great. It's gonna make us more efficient.

Great. It's gonna do all these things that sure. Arguably and standalone, they're great things to introduce to the business except for the fact that we're a service business and not a tech company. So like how does it affect the client experience is far more important than if I save an extra penny on the widget because it's gonna cost me so much more in the client experience and the relationship that I have and the goodwill that we've built and all these other things.

But I think we lose sight of the fact that we're service companies oftentimes as MSPs.

[00:47:04] Mikey Pruitt: My last question was going to be, what is the. Mindset shift that MSPs need to make to approach sales growth. However, I think we've covered that exceptionally well. So I just wanna say thank you for coming on, Jeffrey, and tell us before we go where people can find your podcast, SP Insider.

[00:47:26] Jeffrey Newton: Yeah, so it is now live on YouTube. MSP Insider show is where you can find that. If you want more daily dose stuff, then LinkedIn's The only place you'll find me Jeffrey Newton is where you'll find me on LinkedIn, can always shoot me an email if you want Jeff at Cyft ai. Cyft dot AI , excuse me,

[00:47:43] Mikey Pruitt: Cyft dot AI.

Yeah. Thank you Jeffrey, for coming on. That was a blast.

[00:47:47] Jeffrey Newton: Yeah, thanks Mike. Appreciate it.