How MSPs Can Use the ‘Four Kinds of Luck’ to Succeed

When was the last time your business struck lucky? 

Perhaps a big new client contacted you out of the blue. Maybe you got talking to a stranger in a restaurant – and it turned out they needed support with IT.

Or it could have been that one of your competitors let their clients down, so they moved to you instead. 

Like any business, MSPs are sometimes just lucky (or unlucky!) when it comes to winning work and growing.

But as MSP co-owner Leon McQuade explained in Heimdal’s recent webinar – Scale Your MSP Business: Roadmap to £1 Million ARR – you can also make your own luck. 

What you’ll learn:

• Find out about the ‘four kinds of luck’
• See how they apply to MSP businesses
• Read specific examples from MSP co-owner Leon about how MSPs can get luck ‘on their side’

What are the ‘four kinds of luck’?

The notion that there are four ‘kinds’ of luck stems from the 1978 book Chase, Chance, and Creativity: The Lucky Art of Novelty by US neurologist James H. Austin.

The original book is primarily about discovery in biomedical research, but some of the underlying concepts have been used to inform our notions of luck in business too. 

The four kinds of luck are:

• Blind luck: Random chance, e.g. winning a client through a chance encounter on a plane.

• Luck through motion: Pushing until you get a lucky break, e.g. winning a customer after 100 cold calls.

• Luck through preparation: Spotting opportunities, e.g. noticing an emerging niche in the market and exploiting it.

• Luck that’s unique to you: Your reputation and experience means you’re more likely to get lucky, e.g. referrals from happy customers.

Why it’s valuable to be aware of luck

While most people like to feel they are fully in control of their own destiny, the reality is that many things that happen to us are outside of our direct influence. That’s just as true in the world of business. 

For example, the founder of a successful MSP might like to think their business is doing well because they have excellent judgment, competitive pricing and advanced skills.

This is no doubt important, yet much of their success may rest on good fortune. 

They might, for instance, live in a large city, so there’s inevitably more demand than if they lived in a rural area. Or, early in their career, they might have specialized in video telecoms tech because they found it interesting.

There’s no way they could have known that a pandemic 15 years later would mean their skills would be in high demand.

What’s interesting about Austin’s book is the idea that there is more than just one kind of luck. And as Leon explained in our webinar, there are things you can do to make it more likely your MSP will experience them. 

How can MSPs use the ‘four kinds of luck’?

In our webinar, Leon discussed several ways that MSP owners can harness luck to scale and grow their businesses. You can watch the full webinar here, but we’ve developed some of his points below. 

1. Using ‘dumb luck’ as an MSP

‘Dumb luck’ is about things that happen over which you have no real control at all – winning a lottery is the classic example.

For MSPs, this could translate as opportunities you couldn’t possibly have prepared for, such as:

• Chance meetings with leads at cafeterias, on transport, at water coolers…
• The unexpected collapse of a direct competitor, meaning you’re suddenly in demand
• The rapid emergence of a new market for which you happen to be well placed
• A big company moving into the same building where you rent offices who just so happen to need managed services

These events are almost entirely out of your control.

Obviously, taking the opportunities when they arise requires a certain amount of business acumen (see point 3 below), but sometimes you just get lucky – and are grateful for it. 

2. Using ‘luck through motion’ as an MSP

“I remember me and my business partner used to have to share rooms [when traveling] and we didn’t have enough money to pay ourselves at times…but what we did have was luck through motion. I call that ‘hustle energy’. You know, you’re out there, you’re meeting people” – Leon McQuade.

The idea of ‘luck through motion’ is that you increase your chances of being lucky by simply putting yourself out into the world. Leon says that MSPs can expand their “luck surface” by doing this. 

However, it’s not about just randomly talking to anyone! Instead, the aim is to interact with people in your “ecosystem” and add genuine value to them. 

This could include things like:

• Hosting webinars and sharing useful information
• Attending industry events and trade shows
• Networking with business groups
• Posting useful information on LinkedIn and other social networks
• Running events at university job fairs

You have to be strategic to increase your chances of luck through motion. You’re more likely to win the kinds of customers you want, or hire good engineers, if you engage with relevant ecosystems. 

Want to offer managed services to SMEs? Join your city’s small business networking association. Want to work with blue chip finance firms? Contribute to financial services podcasts. 

Suggested: Top MSP events to attend in 2024

3. Luck through preparation as an MSP

“Because I’m prepared, I’m spotting opportunities that align with where I’m going – and I can expand and be more lucky” – Leon McQuade.

Luck through preparation is about being ready to exploit new opportunities when they arise. For example, a lucky MSP might have:

• Predicted the rise of cyber criminals targeting small businesses, and began offering security services to those companies.  
• Realized that the pandemic would lead to a boom in working from home, and so prioritized selling remote communication and collaboration tech. 
• Understood the significance of generative AI, and prepared its teams to resell tech like Copilot.
• Identified changes in regulations (such as GDPR), and created data protection assessment services.

Luck through preparation is largely about mindset and culture. Is your MSP open to change? Do employees feel like they can discuss new trends and suggest new services?

Is there an openness to new opportunities?

Do you have monthly ‘town hall’ sessions where people can offer ideas? 

It’s also about monitoring information and trends, both within the IT industry but also the wider world. Read industry blogs, newsletters and the general news – and keep an eye out for opportunities. 

And it’s about speaking with customers. Leon suggests “interview your top customers and ask them what keeps them up at night; what are their hopes and their fears, their dreams and their goals?”

By talking to customers, you can identify what issues they’re having – and offer new products or services that will meet a demand in the market. 

4. Luck that’s unique to you as an MSP

The final kind of luck is perhaps the hardest to quantify, but potentially the most valuable.

It’s when your MSP wins new business, or hires great employees, precisely because of who you are and what you stand for. 

For Think Cloud, Leon’s MSP, this luck comes from the company’s reputation and brand. Over many years, the company has developed a strong community around the business. 

They actively share insights and information, and have become a trusted resource not only for customers, but for the wider business community in their region.

They do this by making a variety of content available for free (podcasts, an educational platform, newsletters).

He says the company also engages actively with the wider MSP community – taking part in webinars, speaking at events and sharing information intended to help other MSPs. 

These activities might not immediately result in new business. However, Leon says that there have been many times when leads have contacted him after coming across an old webinar, podcast episode, or LinkedIn post.

The point is that these new leads would never have heard about the company and got in touch if it weren’t for these things that were unique to Think Cloud. 

Get started: Guide to MSP marketing

Make your own luck

The notion that we ‘make our own luck’ can sometimes seem a little simplistic. Yet, as the examples here show, there clearly is truth to the idea.

There are many things MSPs can do which make it more likely that those unexpected opportunities happen to them – meaning they’re more likely to be successful too. 

Heimdal’s unified security platform helps MSPs continually monitor their clients’ environments for threats, then deploy a comprehensive range of cybersecurity solutions to address almost any challenge. 

Request a demo for Heimdal’s technology here – because some things can’t be left to chance. 

Frequently asked questions

My MSP is struggling. Is it just bad luck?

It could be. There are so many factors – often out of your control – that can mean an MSP business struggles to win or retain business. It is, however, important to take a frank look at how you operate – are there things you’re doing which are damaging your chances? It’s also valuable to try and take a different perspective. Rather than focus on the negatives, what can you do to increase your company’s luck? 

Are successful companies just lucky?

No, not really. Although many successful MSPs happen to have started in the right time and place – or had founders with a good contacts book – there are also many things they do to increase their own chances of ‘being lucky’. Success also depends on a lot of grit, hard work, skill and determination. 

Are companies who get hacked just unlucky?

It really depends. For example, businesses can be victims of Zero Day attacks, where malicious actors exploit unknown vulnerabilities. For these businesses, there may be nothing they could have done to avoid being breached. 

That said, most companies can take a wide variety of measures to reduce their chances of being hacked – or catching attackers who’ve broken through their outer layers of defense. While it’s not helpful to blame victims of hacking, organizations do have a responsibility to be aware of the scale of the threat they face and implement measures to protect themselves. 

Danny Mitchell