Episode #870 of the MSPi PrimeCast
Jim Lippie has spent years on both sides of the MSP industry. After leading an MSP, he moved into the software world, where he gained a different perspective on operating and growing a business. In his conversation with Joey Pinz, Lippie shared several lessons he wishes he could take back to his MSP days.
Here are seven business principles from that experience that can help MSPs strengthen how they operate, grow and lead.
1. Operate With Greater Urgency
One of the biggest differences Lippie noticed in software was urgency. Investor expectations often create pressure to perform, which can influence how quickly organizations make decisions and execute.
Lippie says that experience taught him a different set of disciplines. For MSPs, bringing greater urgency to priorities can help prevent important initiatives from continually getting pushed aside.
MSP Action: Identify one important business priority that has stalled and establish clear ownership and a deadline for moving it forward.
2. Know Your Customer Acquisition Cost
Lippie says customer acquisition cost, or CAC, receives significant scrutiny in software. While his team tracked it during his MSP days at Thrive, he says they didn’t examine it at the same level.
He believes many MSPs may not know exactly what it costs to acquire a new customer. Without that number, it becomes harder to understand the economics behind new-logo growth.
MSP Action: Calculate what your MSP spends across sales and marketing to acquire new customers and begin tracking CAC consistently.
3. Build Upselling and Cross-Selling Into Growth
Another lesson Lippie took from software was the importance of upselling and cross-selling. He specifically says this is a motion he wishes he had understood better while running an MSP.
Growth does not have to come exclusively from winning new customers. Existing relationships can provide opportunities to expand when additional solutions appropriately meet customer needs.
MSP Action: Review existing accounts for relevant services customers may not currently be using and identify appropriate opportunities to expand those relationships.
4. Pay Attention to Net Retention
Lippie also places significant emphasis on net retention. He describes it through the relationship between upselling, cross-selling and churn and says it is a metric he would focus on much more if he were running an MSP today.
That makes net retention an important way of looking beyond new sales and understanding what is happening across the existing customer base.
MSP Action: Begin measuring net retention and examine how expansion within current accounts compares with revenue lost through churn.
5. Understand the Customer’s Perspective
Lippie believes his previous MSP experience gives him valuable perspective today because he understands many of the challenges MSPs face every day.
That experience reinforces a broader principle: understanding customers requires more than knowing what they buy. It means understanding the environment they operate in and the problems they are trying to solve.
MSP Action: Make customer conversations about more than services and renewals. Ask what business challenges are creating the greatest pressure for them today.
6. Develop Leaders, Not Only Managers
Lippie draws an important distinction between management and leadership. Managers may supervise people and activities, but he believes leadership requires something more.
For Lippie, leaders create a vision, explain why it matters, generate buy-in and help people feel ownership. He also believes you are not truly a leader until you can help make someone else a leader.
MSP Action: Identify employees with leadership potential and give them opportunities to take ownership, communicate a vision and develop others.
7. Make Discipline and Commitment Part of the Formula
When asked about discipline, Lippie describes it as “pretty much everything.” It is something he says he learned at a young age and has carried throughout his life and career.
His formula is simple: good decisions plus great effort lead to desired results. For MSPs, that reinforces the importance of consistently executing the fundamentals rather than relying solely on strategy or ambition.
MSP Action: Choose a small number of business priorities and establish the consistent habits, accountability and effort needed to follow through on them.
What This Means for MSPs
Lippie’s experience across MSPs and software provides a useful perspective on what makes businesses stronger. Urgency, customer economics, retention, customer understanding, leadership and discipline all play a role.
For MSPs, the larger lesson is that stronger businesses are built not only by adding customers, but by becoming more intentional about how the organization operates, measures performance, develops people and executes over time.
Catch the full conversation on MSPi PrimeCast Episode #870 and connect with Jim at https://www.linkedin.com/in/jim-lippie-52931/