David De Camillis WINS with Strategic Mergers and Marketing Innovation in Managed Services

Mergers & Marketing With David DeCamillis

Embark on an expedition through the intricate landscape of merging managed service providers, as Carrie Richardson teams up with the savvy David De Camillis to talk marketing and mergers.

Uncover the secrets to navigating  blending disparate business cultures, processes, and technologies, all while maintaining the unique identity of each entity.

In a candid exchange, David imparts wisdom gleaned from the successful union of Platte River and Applied Tech, highlighting the significance of a robust integration strategy and the power of a harmonized operational framework. As we dissect the critical role of branding and consistent communication, learn how to minimize client fallout and staff resistance during these transformative business ventures.

The conversation takes a dynamic turn with the overview of TechMedics' evolution, spurred by a chance encounter that turned into a thriving partnership. 

Consider the realities of digital marketing and content creation as we scrutinize their impact on visibility and lead generation, affirming the necessity of a meticulously crafted annual marketing plan. 

This podcast about brand development and growth strategies culminates with an optimistic glimpse into the future of marketing in our industry. Be inspired by David's relentless pursuit of innovation at TechMedics and the marketing feats that await. 

Join us to gain a wealth of knowledge that could propel your business into its next chapter of success.

Carrie Richardson and Ian Richardson host the WIN Podcast - What's Important Now?

Carrie helps businesses improve their sales and marketing teams.

Ian is certified in Eagle Center For Leadership Making A Difference, Paterson StratOp, and LifePlan.

Learn more at www.foxcrowgroup.com

Book time with them here: https://randr.consulting/connect

Be a guest on WIN! We host successful entrepreneurs who share advice with other entrepreneurs on how to build, grow or sell a business using examples from their own experience.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Carrie Richardson: Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Carrie Richardson, and I am the host of WIN and a partner at Richardson and Richardson. With me today is David DeCamillis, somebody I've had the pleasure of knowing for almost my entire channel career.

[00:00:12] Carrie Richardson: How are you doing today, David? Awesome. Thanks for being here. For those of you who don't know, David worked with Platte River, which was a managed service provider in Colorado.

[00:00:26] David DeCamillis: Yeah, it was officially labeled as a merger.

[00:00:30] David DeCamillis: Two years ago in fact, two years, two years ago this month, and we merged slash were acquired by applied tech. I was the VP of sales and marketing when we were taken over.

[00:00:44] Carrie Richardson: All right. So tell me a little bit about the transition that happens when you merge with another organization.

[00:00:52] David DeCamillis: Merges are challenging, especially when it's two MSPs. 

[00:00:57] David DeCamillis: You would think that because most MSPs [00:01:00] do things very similar as far as, what they're selling and what they're providing to their customers, managed IT, cybersecurity, et cetera. How you bundle it, the vendors you use, how you price it, how you deliver it.

[00:01:12] David DeCamillis: But actually, if you open the hood, every MSP is completely different. And that's probably why the merger didn't go as smooth as what we all expected it would. You have two different sets of Staff who are used to doing things their way, and we tried to find the better of the 2 and merge the best of the best, including vendors and solution stack.

[00:01:43] David DeCamillis: But that was challenging too, because it's a big lift. It's a big change. So what we expected would take 6 to 12 months really.

[00:01:58] Carrie Richardson: I'm an MSP, I'm [00:02:00] considering a merger , what could I do to prepare in advance? What could both firms do to prepare to avoid some of the challenges that you experienced? 

[00:02:10] David DeCamillis: Pick the stack, pick the process, pick the way you're better off just sticking with one or the other, and then maybe after you've taken it over and converted the other side of the house, then you can start looking at improving because the longer you wait.

[00:02:28] David DeCamillis: The harder it is to provide that service delivery to sell to your leads the same way, and you run the risk of not closing as many deals and losing customers. The sooner you can just say, draw the line in the sand and fully convert the other side of the house, the better off you are. 

[00:02:46] Carrie Richardson: Should that happen prior to LOI?

[00:02:49] Carrie Richardson: Should there be an agreement prior to the finalization of the documentation about What stack we're going to use, whose sales process is going to be [00:03:00] undertaken or optimized. 

[00:03:02] David DeCamillis: Yeah. If you could, if you have the time , it's going to be a benefit. If you don't, then you're going to want to, determine that and start that process within 90 days.

[00:03:12] David DeCamillis: We waited almost a year. And some things are easy to convert H. R. right? There are certain departments that it's a little bit easier. Marketing typically can be a little easier if you know what you're doing, but no, it's. Get it done as soon as you can. 

[00:03:30] Carrie Richardson: Were there some very clear ownership of things that people just didn't want to let go of?

[00:03:35] Carrie Richardson: I know you love marketing. Marketing is very important to you. Was it difficult to have to collaborate with somebody after being responsible for everything for your, for most of your career? 

[00:03:47] David DeCamillis: No, even though I was, had been responsible for the brand and sales and marketing for almost my entire career, To meet with the owners, the partners, the decision makers and [00:04:00] show and convince them.

[00:04:01] David DeCamillis: So that was still the same. We did take too long to refresh the brand, bring in the agency to go through that whole process of figuring out who this new entity was and reflecting that in our brand and our marketing so that we could do a linear focus of Legion. Yeah, that took a little longer and I say at the marketing side to yeah, I think that whoever is doing a merger and acquisition.

[00:04:30] David DeCamillis: This should be that initial assessment of that takeover candidate, and that should be, like you mentioned, part of the process leading up to so that you can actually start the process the day that happens. 

[00:04:46] Carrie Richardson: Yeah, I wonder how much opportunity is lost in the quarters following the merger where you spend so much time having to make decisions and go back and remake this [00:05:00] 

[00:05:00] David DeCamillis: thing.

[00:05:01] David DeCamillis: It's hard on the staff, because you have two different staffs using two different platforms, two different tools. Providing service two different ways, and the longer you continue that, the more disruptive it is, because as you're merging those departments, those people are like, wait a second, we do it this way.

[00:05:16] David DeCamillis: And then the customers are confused too. It's a mess. And I know it hurt our revenue. I know I saw Legion go down. I saw the conversion, sales conversions go down. We had client retention issues also because trying to move the clients to the new platform over a long period of time, they see the changes and the pain points.

[00:05:40] David DeCamillis: For a longer period of time and you know that unhappiness extends when it doesn't need to.

[00:05:46] Carrie Richardson: It's almost like you need to drop both teams into a room for a week and do a strategic plan where everybody's stuff gets considered and everybody votes on yes, like we all agree together that this is what we're going to [00:06:00] do.

[00:06:00] Carrie Richardson: And then after that, you got to shut up for at least a year. 

[00:06:05] David DeCamillis: Yeah, as long, I think you'll get more employee buy in because there won't be uncertainty. There won't be confusion. I think you'll get quicker buy in because they just want to know what to do and how to do it. They, it's the uncertainty that causes that hesitation and frustration within staff.

[00:06:22] David DeCamillis: I really think so. 

[00:06:25] Carrie Richardson: You had multiple locations as well. So not only do you have some challenges around communicating messaging between leadership, now you've got multiple offices to roll that uncertain message out to. 

[00:06:38] Carrie Richardson: So I could see how that would be challenging for all parties concerned. 

[00:06:44] David DeCamillis: Yep. We're in growth mode like most MSPs and you're consistently hiring. So the sooner you bring a new blood on the same platform, the same way of doing business. The better it helps. I think [00:07:00] another suggestion I would make to every MSP and they should do this today, but especially before an acquisition or merger is document all your processes.

[00:07:10] David DeCamillis: Every department you need to go through and fully document and vet out every single process within the entire organization. Two things happen. A things. Are broken. So you can, it's easier to fix them. And two, when you do that merger, it's much easier if you know exactly what both sides are doing.

[00:07:30] David DeCamillis: So you can merge them. In a cleaner way

[00:07:33] Carrie Richardson: and then a lack of documentation definitely impacts 

[00:07:37] David DeCamillis: process document process documentation. It took us too long to document our departments processes. I know that delayed things. I know it did it and made it confusing for staff. 

[00:07:51] Carrie Richardson: I think that's very similar through most businesses.

[00:07:55] If, you don't know that how to get to a from A to B and [00:08:00] if something happens, skip to C or D, your people are screwed. 

[00:08:05] David DeCamillis: It makes sense. It falls to every department, invoicing is huge. Communication with your customers is huge. Do you have account managers? Do you have CIOs? How often are they meeting with the clients? Yeah, there, there's so many aspects of the business that, That are critical to the success.

[00:08:23] David DeCamillis: And I don't think a lot of people think about that. I think all they think about is, okay, what size of book is it? How much monthly recurring revenue do we have, right? How many employees are there, 

[00:08:33] Carrie Richardson: 

[00:08:34] Carrie Richardson: I work with businesses that are hoping to sell their businesses.

[00:08:37] Carrie Richardson: Process documentation is one of the biggest challenges when it comes to getting to that closing table. Nobody wants to buy a messy book. 

[00:08:50] David DeCamillis: And it's amazing how many MSPs think they have that well documented. But they probably haven't done it in years.

[00:08:56] David DeCamillis: And if you actually went through the process, step by step, you'll [00:09:00] see there's a step missing. There's a lot of steps missing. 

[00:09:05] Carrie Richardson: Yeah, I noticed that myself and honestly paying someone else to do it. Best decision I ever made. I paid someone else to run my business for a full year to get us from where we were to the closing table so that I didn't have to deal with any of the back and forth.

[00:09:20] Carrie Richardson: I hired someone to do that. I assume that they're acting in my best interest. In my case, it was my husband, so I was pretty sure he was acting in my best interest. 

[00:09:29] David DeCamillis: That's a great point, though, because if someone outside of the organization can understand the process, then someone within the organization will definitely understand it, right?

[00:09:39] Carrie Richardson: It was it was a good choice for both parties and the transaction went very smooth where there was no interruption of service, no client loss. Everything went very well and I got to leave day one. 

[00:09:54] David DeCamillis: Nice. I also feel like you're better off saying acquisition. The [00:10:00] merger, because when one company acquires the other, the assumption is the company that's acquiring is going to dictate what path you go, what process you go, and it makes it easier if the other entity knows they're being acquired because a merger almost indicates that they're equal and they both have a say.

[00:10:22] David DeCamillis: And I think that caused some disruption and less buy in. Or not as quick buy in from staff, like both cultures were competing with each other. Hey, it's our way. 

[00:10:34] David DeCamillis: Yeah, I think acquisitions definitely are easier and or, if it's really not merging, call it an acquisition.

[00:10:42] Carrie Richardson: You've since moved on from applied. Tell us what do we know 

[00:10:48] David DeCamillis: so I joined tech medics another MSP. What a surprise. I've known tech medics. I've known one of the founders James. His wife, Helen, are the founders of the [00:11:00] company. 25 years as of this January, so congrats. Hats off. I met James Moon at the first Ingram Micro event I went to, an S& B Alliance event in Denver, and oh god, that was like 15 years ago.

[00:11:15] David DeCamillis: And it was his first event also, and we became fast friends and we've been friends, but also business colleagues. We've been sharing business ideas, reach out to each other for advice, checking out vendors, hiring tactics sales and marketing, et cetera. When I made the decision.

[00:11:37] David DeCamillis: To leave applied tech, he was one of the first people that I reached out to, and he jumped right away, flew into Denver, met with my wife, Amy and I, and he put an offer in front of me that I couldn't refuse. Those are the best kind. Oh yeah. And I was talking to other MSPs and other vendors but what I loved about [00:12:00] TechMedix is it reminded me of when I joined Platte River Networks, but about five years in.

[00:12:06] David DeCamillis: Because when I joined Platte in 2008, the main services, managed IT industry was really just starting. It was a kind of a break, fix TNM model back then. And hats off to Brent and Tree, the founders of Platte River because they had actually been Created a managed service offering called intuition and think about this.

[00:12:26] David DeCamillis: This is 2008, but they hadn't launched it yet. So by bringing someone with the sales and marketing experience and brand experience that I had, I was given a perfect setup to basically brand that, launch it, rebrand the company. And we just exploded from there. So with TechMedx, TechMedx has 25 years.

[00:12:49] David DeCamillis: MSP, great reputation expertise, leadership, everything's there in place. What I'm doing is just taking their their [00:13:00] brand and enhancing it. I'm enhancing their digital marketing. I'm showing them how they can touch a bigger audience and how they can generate more leads and close more deals. 

[00:13:13] Carrie Richardson: And my understanding is that they've gone through some explosive growth in the last five years.

[00:13:18] David DeCamillis: Yes and no. They did. They had some explosive growth and they pulled back, and focused on the core business then had some more growth. Like a lot of MSPs out there. You know how that first million is really hard. The second million, you're 5 million, you're 10 million. Those are big challenges. You see all this growth, but you try to catch up both on staff and on process and on tools and on leadership. We're really in a solid position to explode and since I've already been through that with Platte River, I feel like we're in a really good position to grow in a smart way so that we don't, have such big [00:14:00] swings in our revenue growth.

[00:14:01] David DeCamillis: It's more of a consistent growth and we can manage it effectively. 

[00:14:06] Carrie Richardson: Having a guide through that must be a godsend for tech medics. You don't often have the opportunity to acquire the talent that you want. At the time that you need it. 

[00:14:23] David DeCamillis: Yeah, I call it fate because James happened to be in Denver when I made the decision to leave applied tech and it was a fluke and he was already meeting with me and he was going to plant the seed to see if I'd be interested in joining the firm without having any idea that I was.

[00:14:42] David DeCamillis: That I was planning on leaving. Serendipitous fate, whatever you want to call it. The stars aligned, right? James and I were meant to be and now, we are, we're already crushing it. So we have a wonderful marketing manager, Alex. She's been with Tech Medics [00:15:00] for seven years. In fact, James introduced me to her right when he hired her and she's done.

[00:15:06] David DeCamillis: With limited resources growing the company, James has handled all the sales. So now that I have the sales experience, the brand and the marketing experience, I can help her succeed even more. And just then. December, when we started applying some of the digital marketing and brand enhancements in January, we already saw 6 qualified leads come in where 4 were already presenting proposals to and we were only averaging 1 to 2 a month prior to that.

[00:15:41] David DeCamillis: Our website traffic is up 1200 percent in 30 days. Our social, our LinkedIn presence is up over 1000%. Thank you. So it's already working. The sky's the limit. 

[00:15:55] Carrie Richardson: You were looking at, but I think you you just answered those. [00:16:00] So you're measuring your LinkedIn. Engagement increase. You're measuring number of leads.

[00:16:07] Carrie Richardson: What are the other important KPIs that you're looking at when you're trying to enhance someone's brand? Website 

[00:16:15] David DeCamillis: traffic is definitely, and not only the traffic, but where they're going on the website and what pages they're clicking on. We measure every post. I'm definitely up the game on our LinkedIn post.

[00:16:29] David DeCamillis: Not only did I up the number of posts, but the content it's got to be content that resonates with our audience. It has to be helpful. We're not selling, it has to educate, has to be entertaining. It's not just about it and tech. It's about business. It's about life. So we measure the number of impressions we measure if they click on the link.

[00:16:52] David DeCamillis: Because we obviously always direct every post every blog to our website. That's key. And we want to [00:17:00] see what our audience is clicking on and where they're going and how long because that tells us what they're interested in. And if what we're doing is actually working same with email we are starting drip email campaigns on a regular basis.

[00:17:14] David DeCamillis: We want to see who opens and who clicks on what and how they behave. So our job is to try to touch as many of the prospects as possible, but also our customers, our partners, our community who can give us referrals, right? So we want to get the brand out there in a multi touch, multi platform approach and consistently provide them with good content that resonates.

[00:17:46] Carrie Richardson: So how far in advance do you begin planning for a content, I usually call them content rotations. Is it a month out? How much lead time do you give

[00:17:55] David DeCamillis: Typically I like to have the calendar and the the [00:18:00] marketing plan for the year Done by December 1st of the year prior and then I actually create and that calendar includes it's not necessarily the actual post or the content, but it does include daily, weekly, monthly, whether it's a blog, a LinkedIn post, the monthly newsletter, an email campaign.

[00:18:23] David DeCamillis: An event. So I like to map all that out in December, two reasons, obviously that's going to make it easier to create the content plan and execute on the campaigns. But secondly, that gives me a one up on my competitors. When I go to the vendors asking for marketing development funds to pay for all these activities.

[00:18:44] Carrie Richardson: I'm sorry, I would love to pick your brain on that one. We had someone on a couple of weeks ago, who mentioned that 80 percent of market development funds from vendors go unclaimed. 

[00:18:57] David DeCamillis: Oh, It's ridiculous. I'm doing a session just on [00:19:00] MDF at Exchange in Orlando in March and I know I'll have a full house because That was the first thing I started using when I joined Platte River because we didn't have a big marketing budget.

[00:19:11] David DeCamillis: So I'm like, Hey, I want to do all these great things, but I don't have the money. How am I going to pay for it? So I started going to the vendors right away. And if you show them. A solid plan, a solid list, lead gen event and how you're going to show them ROI, right? Good theme, make them look good, right?

[00:19:34] David DeCamillis: All of the above. They'll open their checkbooks. They'll pay. They'll pay for everything. 

[00:19:39] Carrie Richardson: All right, I'm going to keep that in mind and we'll have to come back to that for a future conversation. I know that there are a lot of MSPs in my network who would love to know how to even fill out that very comprehensive Cisco MDF application form.

[00:19:57] David DeCamillis: Yeah, they're all different and some are [00:20:00] challenging to fill out, others are not. And they usually are quick to make it easier for you because if they see the success, they want you to succeed, which means they succeed. 

[00:20:11] Carrie Richardson: So in your experience, David, how long does it take from, day one, we're going to start we've put together a marketing plan.

[00:20:17] Carrie Richardson: We're going to start, this is day one of execution on the plan. How long have you seen marketing plan execution to, hey, this produced ROI. What's the usual runtime for a day one campaign to. 

[00:20:34] David DeCamillis: Yeah, I don't mean to brag, but it's just because I've been doing it for so long and unseen success and I typically am doing things that other marketers are not doing.

[00:20:45] David DeCamillis: They tend to follow. I tend to lead. But just to be conservative, I would say. You should start seeing I guess it depends, right? Improving website traffic and impressions and likes [00:21:00] and clicks. That's something you should see immediately. Because most firms are not posting good content, they're not posting it consistently.

[00:21:10] David DeCamillis: You also want to use multiple resources within your organization. So I had our president, I had our CEO, and then myself. And then the tech medics linked in site were pushing content out more than one a week, right? I think we're doing a average of 5 to 6 post different post each week. So that alone is a massive increase for what we were doing a month ago.

[00:21:37] David DeCamillis: So naturally, we're seeing an immediate bump in impressions, likes, comments, people following right connections. So When it comes to actual Legion, I was able to make some changes in our digital marketing, our SEO, and on some of the B2B search sites to get our name higher up, and I was [00:22:00] able to do that in a couple of weeks.

[00:22:01] David DeCamillis: I started, I should say we started, Alex and I, we started mid December, and I can directly point to MS Managed Services leads. That we presented proposals to that came from two of those sites and another two that came from the digital marketing and another one that came from LinkedIn. So that's in 30 days.

[00:22:27] David DeCamillis: Yeah,

[00:22:31] David DeCamillis: and so the idea is to continue to improve the website, the content on the website start to do the email campaign, start to do events in person webinars do podcasts, right? Win awards, do press releases, get out in the community get on boards, get in front of associations. All this is going to help continue to increase leads throughout the year.

[00:22:59] David DeCamillis: [00:23:00] All right 

[00:23:00] Carrie Richardson: I think that you've given people a lot to think about for their own MSPs and what they can and should be measuring and the things that are easy to improve versus the things that are going to take a little bit more time, but all of them worth considering and probably should be evaluated one by one and figure out if you're doing it well.

[00:23:20] Carrie Richardson: And if you don't know, it's time to start measuring it. Thank you for joining us today, David. I would like to see if the prophecy unfolds as we expect. 

[00:23:30] David DeCamillis: I sure hope so. I expect it fully. Let's put it that way. Very optimistic. 

[00:23:35] Carrie Richardson: It was a pleasure to talk to you as it always is. And I wish you much success with your marketing endeavors at TechMedics. And I'll look forward to seeing you on the road again real soon. 

[00:23:45] David DeCamillis: Carrie, thank you. Really appreciate you including me.

[00:23:48] David DeCamillis: It's an honor. And I know I'll see you. And I wish you nothing but success.