The MSP Engine: Aligning Sales & Operations for High-Margin Growth | Feat. Ashton Solutions
In this episode, host Andrew Moore sits down with the leadership team from Ashton Solutions—Travis Grundke, Jim Abbott, and Tom Foley—to pull back the curtain on how they’ve aligned their organization for over two decades. From the "6-week onboarding rule" to the art of saying "no" to bad business, this conversation is a masterclass in MSP maturity.
Key takeaways from this episode include:
The Power of Expectations: Why you must tell prospects about remediation projects before they sign the contract.
Process vs. Magic: How to transition from owner-led selling to a scalable, process-driven sales engine using the EOS framework.
The Actuarial MSP: Viewing your contracts through the lens of risk management and profitability.
The "Spider Sense": How to identify "red flag" clients before they ever touch your service desk.
The Future of AI: Moving past the hype to find real-world business outcomes for your clients.
What Should Be In Your MSP Onboarding Checklist?
Repeatability is the key to growth. If your onboarding process is reinvented for every client, it becomes a bottleneck that drags down your team and increases delivery risk. That’s why your checklist must be:
Standardized: Applied consistently across all new clients
Flexible: Accommodates slight variations without becoming bespoke
Documented: Supported by templates, SOPs, and internal tools
Tracked: Integrated into your PSA for accountability and reporting
This structure allows you to onboard more clients, faster, while maintaining a high standard of delivery. It also gives your operations team confidence that what was sold can actually be fulfilled—without pig tossing or scope confusion.