plans office expansion in Mason

Mason, MICHIGAN – Richardson & Richardson Consulting LLC (R&R), a Michigan-based multi-disciplinary business consultancy, has acquired RocketMSP, an Ohio-based I.T. channel podcast, and webinar marketing company.

R&R and RocketMSP started exploring the possibility of partnering earlier this year through a series of strategic conversations between Carrie (Simpson) Richardson, Co-founder and Partner at R&R, and Steve Taylor, CEO of RocketMSP.

“I saw another entrepreneur who had a vision similar to ours at R&R,” said Richardson, “Steve was doing all the right actions and not getting the traction he needed, so I started trying to work with him over the course of the year. The opportunity to explore more than a collegial friendship arose through those conversations.”

Taylor plans to join R&R as a Project Manager and will be spearheading the organization’s “Guaranteed Deliverables” offerings for business development. RocketMSP is continuing forward as a subsidiary of R&R, focused solely on the I.T. Channel.

The acquisition is not the first for the Richardsons – Having grown and sold Doberman Technologies, a Mason, MI-based ChannelE2E Top 100 Vertical Market MSP that participated in an acquisition of its own in 2017 as well as successfully transacting on Everywhere Managed, a Las Vegas, NV based call center and Managed Sales Pros, an I.T. Channel specific demand generation company, the Richardsons are no stranger to buying and selling businesses.

“I’ve known Carrie for years and have always appreciated how much she helps to mentor others in the channel,” said Taylor. “When the opportunity came for us to put our strengths together to offer a service that provides real, actionable results, I had to jump on it!”

Co-Founder and Managing Partner Ian Richardson stated, "Acquiring RocketMSP and bringing Steve in as part of our core team was a no-brainer. Our companies were strategically aligned, and Steve’s knowledge, experience, and relationships in the channel complemented our own. With his joining R&R, we expect our growth trajectory to continue up and to the right, furthering us on our mission of transforming 1,000 businesses over the next ten years.”

About RocketMSP:
RocketMSP is a company dedicated to the success of MSPs of all shapes and sizes, specializing in accountability peer groups. RocketMSP also has the RocketMSP Podcast; a podcast focused on showing demos of products and services from MSP channel partners and interviewing interesting people within the channel to stimulate positive change and growth for MSPs. It can be heard on your favorite podcasting platform and seen on YouTube or Spotify. Learn more about RocketMSP by visiting their website at https://rocketmsp.io

About Richardson & Richardson Consulting:
R&R is a multi-disciplinary business consultancy focusing on actionable strategic planning for emerging, established, and exiting Entrepreneurs and their teams, along with guaranteed deliverable marketing and business development services. Learn more about R&R by visiting their website at https://randr.consulting

For more context and the background story on other recent news: 

M&A Activity in the IT Channel: Two Female-Founded Channel Vendors Cut a Deal

WINSTON-SALEM, NC — October 27, 2022 — Next Level Services, US (NLS) announced today that it has acquired Managed Sales Pros, LLC, an outsourced demand generation company based in Mason, MI. NLS and Managed Sales Pros provide outbound lead generation and business development solutions to IT manufacturers, distributors, and resellers.

The companies share some key traits:

· Both companies were founded, led, and managed by women.

· Each company had an exciting growth trajectory, quickly and profitably hitting 1MM in ARR before their third year of operations.

· They were self-funded, started as home-based businesses, and have remained debt free.

· Neither founder has a college education; both are first-generation female entrepreneurs that had no previous business experience before founding their companies.

“Managed Sales Pros is the premiere sales development outsourcing partner in the MSP space, and our core values are closely aligned," said Sierra Chase, CEO of NLS.

"I started my career working with Carrie [Simpson] at Everywhere Managed in 2016, supporting Managed Sales Pros clients from our Las Vegas office. When I left EM to launch NLS, Managed Sales Pros (in alignment with their core values) supported me in the growth of my business. This acquisition was a planned strategy on my roadmap. I look forward to building on Managed Sales Pros's excellent reputation in the IT channel."

Chase left Everywhere Managed, which was acquired by Austin-based NRS Holdings/EBQuickstart in 2020, to form Next Level Services US in 2020. She started her new business in the middle of a global pandemic, anticipating the challenges of a remote workforce. Next Level launched as a work-from-anywhere outsourced sales support agency and quickly ramped from two to 16 employees in just one year.

“Partnering with Managed Sales Pros instead of competing with them allowed me to build a profitable 7-figure business in under two years," Chase said. “I witnessed the challenges of trying to work on-premises through the pandemic and believed I could build a better employee experience by building a distributed team from day one.”

CEO Carrie Simpson founded Managed Sales Pros in 2014 to support managed IT services companies, at time of transaction had supported well over 1200 MSPs in the

growth of their businesses. In 2016, Managed Sales Pros expanded into the US to provide outbound sales development support for channel vendors. Like Chase, Simpson expressed optimism about the deal and collaboration to facilitate a smooth transition for clients.

“This is a simple transition, as Next Level has been calling for Managed Sales Pros since 2021,” Simpson said. “Our clients are already comfortable working with the NLS team, and we can’t wait to see how Sierra and her team will continue to impact the I.T. channel positively moving forward!”

The synergistic relationship between Managed Sales Pros and Next Level Services US naturally stems from their current partnership, and similar missions, visions, and core values (both agencies hire extensively through workforce economic development programming).

Ms. Simpson was quick to point out the uniqueness of this particular transaction:

“How many 100 percent women-owned channel vendors are there to begin with?” she said. “And how many M&A transactions in the IT channel involve two companies that were bootstrapped to over seven figures by first-generation female founders? I’m proud of my role in this. This is a great day for women in the channel.”

Carrie has not shied away from discussing her struggles with addiction and mental health. Celebrating 20 years of sobriety this fall, she, in partnership with economic development agencies, has hired many women that she describes as ‘second chance’ employees. Her unique leadership style has earned her several awards and acknowledgements, including an Athena Leadership nomination. She was inducted into the Las Vegas Women’s Hall of Fame in 2020.

“Our employees supported the explosive growth of companies like Datto, Cisco, OpenDNS, Auvik Networks, Servosity, Efolder/Axcient, Huntress, Zix/OpenText, and Acronis,” she said. “Our people worked hard every day, making hundreds of outbound calls each on behalf of our channel vendors. Yet, most of them wouldn’t have made it through the resume vetting process for any VC-backed software vendor in the I.T. channel. We created a business that allowed people – women especially – to learn, grow and thrive. Many of the women who started their careers as outbound agents with Everywhere Managed or Managed Sales Pros now earn six-figure salaries, are sought after for sales development leadership roles, and have equity in high-growth software companies.”

Sierra plans to continue supporting women who want to build sales careers in the I.T. channel. “Many of the agents and team leaders at NLS worked with me at Everywhere Managed. I’ve known them for years, and I know their pasts. We don’t regret our pasts;

we learn from them. We aren’t perfect people. I believe that so long as someone is committed to being teachable, owning their mistakes, and being better every day, they can create the life they want – and we can help. As a first-generation female business owner, I’m excited to set an example for my children, and hope this inspires other women in entry-level sales roles to keep pursuing their goals.”

Carrie will be leaving Managed Sales Pros to continue building Richardson & Richardson consulting, a Mason, MI-based multidisciplinary agency focused on sales, marketing, and strategy for entrepreneurs who are emerging, established, or exiting. Partnered with Ian Richardson, a Lansing, MI native (and founder of Mason, MI-based award-winning I.T. firm Doberman Technologies), immediate plans include adding two new project managers to their Mason, MI-based team and beginning the development of new office space at 323 Center Street in Mason.

About NLS
NLS is an outbound B2B call center that uses remote home-based agents to schedule qualified sales appointments for their b2b clients. Founded in 2020 by Sierra Chase, NLS is headquartered in North Carolina. Through their acquisition of Managed Sales Pros, NLS will continue to provide lead generation services to MSPs and the vendors that support them. NLS will continue offering sales development for services-based B2B companies with over 1MM in ARR.

About Managed Sales Pros
Managed Sales Pros was founded in 2014 by Carrie Simpson. The company began as a remote call center in Winnipeg, MB, Canada. Originally launched to support managed IT services providers, Managed Sales Pros pivoted to support IT vendors in 2017 and has been the sales development partner of choice of dozens of high-growth technology channel companies.

About Richarson & Richardson Consulting
Founded by Ian Richardson and Carrie Simpson (Richardson) in 2021, R&R is a multidisciplinary agency that focuses on supporting entrepreneurs in three stages of development. Following a structured strategic planning process, Carrie and Ian support emerging entrepreneurs by helping them build a strategic foundation for success. R&R helps established entrepreneurs grow through strategic sales and marketing planning and execution Finally, they guide exiting entrepreneurs focused on maximizing their financial success at exit while preserving their business legacies.