Your Nine Keys result

Your pipeline is a person.
Not a system.

Loading Services is your weakest Key. Work arrives through the founder's network, one or two clients carry the revenue, and when delivery gets busy nobody is feeding the machine. The global consultancies never run out of pipeline. Neither should you.

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150+ IT services founders coached. 6 exits worth a combined $230M.

Weakest Key

Loading Services

Pipeline building, referrals, reactivation and the resilience of your demand

  1. Loading Growth
  2. Loading Sales
  3. Loading Clients
  4. Loading Rates
  5. Loading Services
  6. Growing IP
  7. Growing A Team
  8. Growing Leaders
  9. Growing Market
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What is likely going on

You have probably said this: "We have never really needed to market. The work finds us." It did, for years, through you. Then a big client paused, the referrals slowed, and the gap took nine months to close.

Demand in an IT services firm has to be built the way delivery is built: on a weekly rhythm, with a named owner, measured. Marketing to attract prospects and direct outreach to named accounts, both, every week, through the busy quarters as well as the quiet ones.

When Loading Services scores lowest, it usually means the pipeline would stop if one person left, no structured reactivation of past clients has happened in a year, and the twenty warmest relationships in the firm's network exist only in the founder's head.

The three levers below turn the founder's network into the firm's system.

The three levers to pull first

These come from the Loading Services Key of the Loading Growth Wheel. Each one has an action you can complete this week.

Map your twenty warmest contacts

Every IT services firm sits on a network of people who already trust it: past clients, former colleagues, partners, the sponsor who moved firms. Written down and worked deliberately, that map is worth more than any cold campaign.

This week: list the twenty people most likely to take your call tomorrow. For each, note the last contact date and one useful thing you could send them. Send the first five this week.

Run a structured reactivation campaign

Lapsed clients already know your work. A structured campaign to the clients you billed two or three years ago is the cheapest qualified pipeline available, and almost no firm runs one.

This week: pull every client billed in the last three years who is not billing now. Write one short note that asks what has changed since you last worked together. Send ten this week, with a follow up date in the calendar.

Make the weekly rhythm non negotiable

A pipeline that depends on one business developer, or on the founder's spare time, is a risk, not an asset. The firm needs attraction marketing and direct outreach happening every single week, owned by someone whose job it is.

This week: name the owner. Block two hours in their calendar every week for outreach and one for content. Report connections, conversations and meetings booked at the Tuesday sales meeting, starting next week.

Referral partnerships, client concentration below 30 percent, and a three month expense reserve come next.

Five signs this Key is costing you

Tick the ones that are true of your firm this quarter. The count tells you how much of your future revenue depends on luck.

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  • Signs you recognise0 of 5

Guides for this Key

Read every guide on Loading Services

Your Everest fit

Loading Services is where Everest Basecamp starts, because a firm without a lead generation system cannot work on anything else calmly.

Up to 10 staff

Everest Basecamp

Build the lead generation system, the Top 100 account list and the weekly rhythm, with the Nine Keys basics alongside.

$150 per month, capped at 100 firms

Talk to Ian about Basecamp

10 to 40 staff

Everest Ascent

Regular group sessions and one to one time with Ian on positioning, referral partnerships and the LG90 pipeline program, inside the 90 Day Sprint.

Pricing on the call

Talk to Ian about Ascent
Ian Markram, founder of Loading Growth

Who is telling you this

I am Ian Markram. I built and sold an IT services firm, and for the last decade I have coached founders of IT services and systems integrator firms who compete with the global consultancies every week.

  • 150+ IT services founders coached
  • 28 years in IT professional services
  • 6 founder exits guided
  • $230M combined exit value
He helped us grow our business by looking for the right clients, shifting our mindset and focusing on the right things.
Benjamin Chambersthen COO, Mojo Soup
He and his team help drive continuous improvements in my business in practical steps of a manageable size. His advice has been invaluable in helping me mature as a business leader.
James BeresfordCEO, Talos

Get the Loading Services playbook by email

Five short emails over two weeks: the three levers with a seven day action each, what they looked like for one founder, and a 45 minute call with Ian if you want to work through them together. Then take the six minute scorecard for your scores across all nine Keys.

Questions founders ask at this point

We get all our work by referral. Why change what works?
Keep the referrals and add a system around them. Referral work is the best work. It is also the least predictable, which is why the firms that grow steadily map their network, work it deliberately and reactivate past clients on a schedule rather than waiting for the phone.
Is this LinkedIn outreach? Our buyers are not on LinkedIn.
Your buyers are CIOs, program directors and heads of transformation, and most of them are on LinkedIn even if they rarely post. The rhythm matters more than the channel. Warm contacts, past clients and partner referrals come first; LinkedIn is where the follow up happens.
Who should own the pipeline if not me?
Eventually a senior person with a sales number. Until then, you, with a fixed two hours a week and a campaign team doing the work around you. LG90 is built on that model.
We are a systems integrator, not an MSP. Does this apply?
Yes. This is built for IT professional services and SI firms that sell project and advisory work against the global consultancies. We do not coach MSPs. If your revenue is mostly managed services contracts, this is not the right program for you.
What happens on the strategy call?
Forty five minutes with Ian. You bring your result and your rough numbers. You leave with the one lever to pull first and a view on whether Basecamp or Ascent fits. No pitch deck.

Find out which lever to pull first

Bring your Loading Services result to a 45 minute strategy call with Ian.

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