Follow the Money Blueprint For MSP Success (With Dave Sobel)

“If I was starting an MSP today, I am not sure I would start an MSP.”

Now that’s a way to grab your attention when opening a podcast.

Coming from Dave Sobel, someone who’s been an MSP owner, vendor executive, and now runs The Business of Tech podcast – that’s not a throwaway comment.

Dave survived the dot-com crash and learned the hard lesson: “This better make money.”

Now he’s applying that lens to where MSPs need to go next.

Before we get stuck into the newsletter, don’t forget to download our latest report for MSPs. Check it out here.

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The Threat Brief – Void Proxy Phishing

From our guest, Adam Pilton – Cybersecurity Advisor at Heimdal and Ex-Cybercrime Detective

Void Proxy is a phishing-for-hire platform that proxies login pages in real-time, bypassing traditional MFA by capturing session cookies during live sign-ins.

Why it matters: Even users who enter correct MFA codes get compromised because the attack happens during authentication, not after.

Action item: Deploy phishing-resistant authentication (hardware security keys) for admin users and implement risk-based authentication for unusual login activity.

MSP Playbook – Follow the Money

Dave’s core philosophy shapes everything he does: “Follow the money, right? Like it’s all about the money. The money’s in the customer.”

His lens for filtering what matters: “How does what we’re talking about impact our customers and what can we do about it?”

But here’s where it gets interesting. Dave told me: “If I was starting an MSP today, I am not sure I would start an MSP.

“I would build a business process-oriented IT consultancy that engages customers on an ongoing contractual basis.”

Why?

Because business process makes customers money.

Dave explained: “Every business owner in the world, if I tell them I can give them a buck 25 back for every dollar they spend, that’s a money machine. They will spend until they are blue in the face.”

Play-by-Play: The Simple Questions That Unlock Everything

Dave’s approach to discovering business process opportunities is (almost) simple.

He starts with a broad question: “Tell me about your business. And then just keep asking, hey, why? Hey, why? Tell me more.”

From there, he narrows the focus by layering on specifics.
“Tell me about the pain point. Tell me about the market. Tell me about your customers. Who’s buying? What’s buying? What’s selling? What’s not selling? Why? Why is that not selling?”

For him, the lesson is clear.

You have to understand the problems first and take the time to dig deep.

Only then can you start to think about how technology fits into the solution.

MSP Hot Seat · Tools vs. Talent vs. Revenue

A growing MSP asked Dave how to prioritize their next investment dollar between tools, hiring talent, or driving more revenue.

Dave’s response was data-driven.

“MSPs spend roughly 5 to 7% of their total P&L on tools. They spend roughly 50% of their P&L on people, and 100% of their P&L is dominated by revenue.”

His priority order was clear.

“I actually think tools is the least important thing that an MSP works with… If I’m leaking top line revenue, most important problem of all.”

Before investing in growth, Dave emphasized checking if your machine works.

“If I drop an extra bit of power into the machine that is your profit and loss statement, and it is broken, it will not create more profit at the bottom.”

Dave’s Key Insight

“Business is about people doing things with people, right, creating new stuff… What we do is we wrap the relationships and enable them with technology to do better things.”

This conversation reminded me that MSPs who win long-term don’t just protect what their customers have. They help them create something new.

What’s your biggest challenge with moving from expense center to profit driver?

Hit reply and let me know. Your question might become our next MSP Hot Seat discussion.

PS. Got a question for the MSP Hot Seat? Or a guest suggestion? Get in touch on LinkedIn. I’d love to hear from you

Danny Mitchell