I often ask MSPmentor readers what markets they’re going to enter next. Perhaps I should spend more time asking them what markets they plan to exit, and what products/services they plan to kill. The answers to those questions are pretty telling. Here’s why.
As we ramp up for 2010, I’ve spent considerable time brainstorming with my business partner (Amy Katz). We’ve got a bunch of ideas for new sites and new efforts. But as we looked at the enormity of some new efforts we suddenly realized: We’ve got some existing efforts that are time sinks and perhaps we should rethink them. Two simple examples:
1. MSPmentor’s Career Center: Back in October 2009, there were more than 80 listings in the career center. But gradually the career center listings have declined. Perhaps if we promoted the career center more we’d get more listings. But fact-checking the free listings is a bit of a time sink for us. So should we keep the career center? Reinvent it? Change it?
2. MSPmentor Podcasts: MSPmentor podcasts get a lot of listeners — including thousands of listeners on iTunes. But I’m leaning more and more toward our FastChat Video format — especially video over the web. So podcasts become vodcasts (from sound… to sound+video) and save us editing time on the back-end since we’ll live in a single editing tool.
Ironically, podcasts are sometimes a technical headache: Our service provider sometimes blocks the podcast feed because they think incoming requests are DoS attacks. Strange, I know. That’s why we’re migrating to a new service provider. In the meantime, we don’t suffer such problems with videos because that content lives on YouTube and a dozen other video sites…
Our Biggest Major Challenge: Time
The one thing I need more of — every day — is time. I suspect the same is true in your business. If you only had more time to…
- work on a new idea
- develop a customer relationship
- mentor your staff
- achieve a life-work balance
There are only three ways to gain time:
- Automate
- Delegate
- Kill some products, services
We’re looking for ways to regain time right now. I wonder if you are, too.
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Great points! I’m trying to figure out some of the same things here now. I’m also trying to listen to my customers more and the market more to see which products and servcies they need and want, instead of which ones I want to build for them.
-Dave
Managed Data
http://www.twitter.com/manageddata
I think gracefully killing established products is one of the toughest things for MSP leaders to execute on (no pun). Especially the ones that are not clearly BAD. Ideas that fall on their face right out of the chute – that’s easy. Deconstruct, learn, and move on. But some products just won’t die. They don’t lose money. They don’t make money. Customers like it – but there aren’t enough of them to get to critical mass. Maybe it’s dated technology with some remaining die hard users. Heck, I ran a dial up ISP business until 2008. Joe brings up the correct point – look past the P&L and examine the mind share and time you have to invest in these borderline products. You just have to crowd them out to make room for growth. Over communicate intentions and build a soft landing for your customers – and then move on to next big thing.
Dave@1: We’re striving to listen more closely to customers as well. But here’s an interesting twist. During a recent conversation, Digium CEO Danny Windham reminded me that sometimes it’s smarter/less expensive to develop a product and “get it out there” rather than doing costly market research and polling customers again and again.
Examples: Were customers asking for iTunes? iMac? iPhone? Or does Apple spot dysfunction markets that are prime for disruption?
Phil@2: Your thoughts remind me of how Lou Gerstner ran IBM. Soft landing for OS/2 corporate customers during the IBM Global Services ramp-up.
Killing a product or service is hard to do but is well worth it in the end. You need to make sure that your business is growing as well as delivering the quality that you originally intended.
Hey Joe, besides knowing when to kill a product or service is knowing when to kill something that doesn’t serve your overall purpose. Many small business owners get sidetracked daily with many distractions like volunteer groups, advisory councils and even habits that rob valuable focus time, time to call clients, time to meet others, time to lurk in the streets downtown (I do this and it is great to just bump into people, only works in busy downtown metros) and time just to think.
So to go deeper into killing a product or service is knowing when to dump distractions in your life.
Cheers
Stuart Crawford
Phil, you (and Joe) hit the nail on the head. My struggle isn’t killing an unprofitable product… it is whether or not to kill a product that I actually make money on, but that causes me a lot of grief and is cumbersome for me to manage on the back end.
For me, 2010 is going to be a year of contradictions. I am having trouble selling managed services contracts, but there seems to be a stronger demand in my area for lower end hourly service.
I also bought in to the “work on your business, not in your business” but I’m realizing that I spend most of my time tweaking, changing, testing, reading, both my business and the technology we use, when really I need to spend more time working with clients now.
Joe, you are absolutely right, however, when you said that the best products create their own market. That is the I.T./MSP service conundrum. How do you take something that is becoming more and more of a commodity every day and create your own market, or at least fine ways other than price to provide value with.
-Dave
Dave: I keep hearing about the hourly service demands as well. I wonder: Will any VARs/MSPs create low-cost apprentice programs where college interns and recent grads handle the hourly support chores?
-jp
Hey guys, I recommend reading “Selling the Invisible” by Harry Beckwith. Opened my eyes to a lot of selling tricks around Managed IT Services. I prefer to use the term “Business Technology Services” or something like that.
First never call it managed services to the public, but I think that is a given…I hope! Work on your own brand, people do business with a those who have a brand. Remember the old says “I will fire get fired for choosing IBM”. Perhaps not the best service, but a brand which is recognized.
Food for thought
Merry Christmas
Stuart Crawford
http://www.bulletproofIT.ca
Stuart: I just got a Kindle for Christmas. Checking out Selling the Invisible today. Thanks and Merry Christmas.
-jp
All: Selling the Invisible is also available as an audiobook (for those of us who are really time-challenged) from Audible.com. For many, it’s also downloadable, for free, from your local library as an audioook. I return to it often on long drives…
Joe: the cool thing about the podcasts is that I can listen to them while doing other things, driving, etc. Hope you’ll keep us ‘listeners’ in mind for any future podcasts/videos…
Happy Holidays!
Jim Van
Logicomm, Inc.
http://www.logicomm-inc.com
Jim: Thanks for the friendly reminder about the value of audio podcasts. We’ll keep that in mind as we prepare new content.
-jp