Let’s discuss how MSPs can talk about AI without sounding like everyone else to win more consulting opportunities. Also this week, the pricing page no MSP dares to build, and what are the hot opportunities in the channel right now?

Welcome to Episode 353 of the MSP Marketing Podcast with me, Paul Green, powered by the MSP Marketing Edge.

How to talk about AI without sounding like everyone else

AI is probably the single biggest consulting opportunity sitting in front of your MSP right now. But of course there’s a problem. Almost every MSP talking about AI sounds exactly the same as all of the other MSPs who are also talking about AI. So today I want to show you why that’s happening and how to fix it. Let’s talk about how to talk about AI without sounding like everyone else.

If we’re honest, most MSPs are not true experts in AI. I know that you’re very capable users and you probably use Copilot or Claude or ChatGPT. I mean, you probably use all of them, right? You’ve probably had to play with all of the major tools available. But when I say that most MSPs are not AI experts, typically you are just a few steps ahead of the average person, depending on the kind of clients that you deal with.

These days, being an AI expert does only mean being a few pages ahead of everyone else because of course it’s changing so quickly.

I do think there is a big difference between being a capable user and being a credible advisor. They’re two completely different things. And the trap is, for most MSPs, if you are just a few pages ahead of your clients and your prospects that you’ve read a little bit more, you’ve watched a little bit more on YouTube, then you have to be careful not to turn that into genuine expertise. But what you have as an opportunity is the ability to talk to them about AI and how they can roll it out and protect themselves and protect their business. That’s something that they don’t know. And that’s something that even if you are only a few pages ahead of them in the book you still have the ability to talk to them about that.

For example, they might be looking at “How can we use Claude? How can we use ChatGPT within the business?” But they don’t know the questions to ask themselves. So they don’t know the concept of shadow AI, that their business’s data is being loaded into everyone’s personal Claude accounts right across the business. And of course that could be happening right now and they have no idea that this is happening. They don’t know that Copilot has those guardrails that you don’t necessarily get with Claude and with ChatGPT and with the others.

It’s almost a case of because they don’t know what they don’t know, and they don’t know what questions to ask, that’s why you can consult with them about their AI. So you’re not consulting with them about AI capabilities as much as the best way to roll it out across their business. And actually, isn’t that what you do already? You are already a consultant about the best ways that they can roll out technology and max technology in their business, and AI is just another strand of that. But when you are communicating that, you’ve got to be careful not to use generic AI messaging. And this is the issue with general MSP messaging anyway.

You’ve got to be careful not to use generic phrases because when ordinary business owners see the same phrases from all MSPs, it makes all MSPs look the same. And samey kills sales. So it’s exactly the same in AI. Here are some specific phrases that you might inadvertently use which make you sound the same. You might say phrases like “AI is transforming business” or “Unlock the power of AI” or “Stay ahead of the AI curve.” Those by the way, are all phrases which came out of an AI tool. And unfortunately they say nothing because all MSPs could easily put those on their...