MSPmentor » Marketing

Help Wanted: Managed Services, Marketing and SEO Experts

Nicholas Mukhar — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 15:03:17 +0000

Things have shifted a bit this week on our MSPmentor Job Board. The usual openings for technicians and support personnel have been replaced by MSPs looking for business development, marketing, sales and SEO experts.

Here’s a sampling of what’s available this week.

Business Development and Sales Representative in Livermore, Calif.
Technology/Copywriter/Blogger/SEO in Oneonta, N.Y.
Support Engineer in the eastern United States
Managed Services Operations Manager in Warminster, Penn.

The MSPmentor Job Board is free to anyone who would like to post a job or career opportunity — as long as the opportunity is within the managed services, cloud services or IT channel market.

Small Business Technology Marketing Strategies: Next Moves

John Moore — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 13:26:12 +0000

MSPs might be able to learn a thing or two from B2C marketing techniques and a recent report from hawkeye, a marketing agency, offers a few ideas to consider. The report, Ten Marketing Trends for 2012, points to content curation, “gamification” and authenticity as among the key developments unfolding this year. A B2B version of the report is due out soon. In the meantime, here’s a breakdown of a some of the report’s findings and how they could apply to service providers:

First up, MSPs need to reinforce their brands via content marketing. Indeed, content marketing involves publishing tips, how-tos, opinion pieces and other articles to bolster credibility and underscore expertise. Admittedly, a small-business MSP may find it difficult to produce a supply of original material. The hawkeye report recommends marketers have 12 months of content prior to launching a strategy.

“It takes a commitment and a steady stream of content to remain visible,” noted John Tedstrom, managing director, insight and strategy at hawkeye. “In general, most small businesses probably don’t have a lot of resources or the time to create enough original content.”

The workaround? Tedstrom suggested supplementing original articles with content curation. That is, collecting content from other sources and adding your take on it. The act of collecting and organizing content provides a service in itself and also offers an opportunity to put the information into context for the customer.

Tedstrom said a business can offer perspective on how a given piece of content is germane to the customer and how it might solve a particular problem.

“It could be as simple as commenting and talking about how relevant it is to your customers,” he said.

And, in doing so, Tedstrom said a business can reinforce what it stands for and bring its brand to life.

Naturally, you’ll need to keep copyright, fair use, and attribution in mind when aggregating content.

Tedstrom noted: “It’s also probably wise to post a link to the other site, and probably good to ask permission first and establish a relationship.”

Borrowing From The Gaming World

Marketing programs have begun to incorporate elements of gaming into their campaigns. It’s a new development and the impact is not easy to assess. The hawkeye report acknowledges that “not everyone agrees on [gamification’s] effectiveness.”

Tedstrom, however, said gamification may be appropriate for training and education. The “leveling-up” concept could apply here. He also pointed to simulation as a potential component of branding and marketing. He pointed to the example of IBM’s Smarter Planet website, which includes a sim game called CityOne. The game lets players try to make a city’s energy systems more efficient, for example.

Tedstrom said a sim game provides an avenue for engaging customers, as they apply a company’s technology solution to a particular scenario.

A game is certainly more participatory than traditional marketing material. That said, game development is probably not realistic for most small business marketers. Companies may still be able to apply simpler gamification elements such as level-based recognition, Tedstrom noted.

Incorporating Customer Feedback

Opening oneself to customer feedback — and embedding it into your marketing message — may prove even tougher than cranking out a game. But Tedstrom said that approach is key to establishing authenticity at a time when trust in manufacturers and brands has eroded.

Tedstrom said a business could incorporate customer comments, ratings, reviews and feedback to boost its transparency. He also suggested inviting customers to share feedback on products and services with each other in a non-competitive setting.

Most companies think this form of marketing sounds like a great idea, Tedstrom said. That initial enthusiasm tends to wear off when the time comes to actually implement a program.

“They get very concerned about that unfiltered commentary,” he said.

Domino’s Pizza represents an extreme form of the warts-and-all marketing approach. One of the company’s ad campaigns acknowledged negative customer feedback and revealed plans for addressing its pizza-making shortcomings, Tedstrom noted. As a second step, Domino’s deployed a live customer feed in New York’s Times Square with comments writ large and in lights.

That’s pretty strong marketing medicine and Tedstrom admitted tactics of that sort won’t be appropriate for every business. But if your marketing strategy seems a bit tired, these emerging trends may contain a couple of ideas worth investigating.

LinkedIn Etiquette: Time to Silence Social Media Spammers?

Joe Panettieri — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 22:07:33 +0000

I received an email from a loyal reader this morning. Her message: It’s time to start filtering and censoring the LinkedIn groups for MSPmentor, The VAR Guy and Talkin’ Cloud — which are sometimes saturated with unsolicited press releases, event promotions and some reader “questions” that are thinly veiled vendor promotions. What’s a so-called forum moderator (poor old me) supposed to do?

First, I must concede some guilt here. I certainly promote our own webcasts across our LinkedIn groups. But I think that’s fair game since I launched and essentially manage our LinkedIn groups.

Attention. Hello. Read This. Now.

Now, about that third-party spam. In recent weeks, I’ve started blocking some of the louder LinkedIn voices who attempt to post unsolicited press releases and other marketing materials to our groups, especially when they make competitive claims that can’t be backed up. Often, I move the press releases into a “promotion” area rather than the “discussion” area.

Still, I’m trying to figure out where to draw the line. Just how much filtering of the groups should I do? I’m open to ideas and feedback…

Smart Guy

Ironically, just last week I received a social media strategy guide from Jeff James, an industry news analyst within Penton Media’s IT Group. I’d share the guide with you — but I suspect I’d lose my job… (Penton acquired Nine Lives Media, MSPmentor’s parent, in 2011.)

James’ social media document is killer — chock full of best practices and secrets for driving successful social media engagements. I plan to give it another close read tonight. Hopefully, it will help me to more clearly understand what types of content I should — and shouldn’t — allow to be posted in our LinkedIn groups.

Is it time for me to wash away the social media spam?

Sales Proposal and Quoting Software: Can You Compete Without it?

Joe Panettieri — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:49:39 +0000

I’m now convinced that all IT service providers — MSPs, VARs, resellers — need quoting and sales proposals software. Ironically, I reached that conclusion while researching a potential home improvement project. Here’s the back story, and how it shaped my views back in the managed services providers.

My wife and I have spent the past few weeks meeting with home improvement contractors and Home Depot. We may — or may not — remodel our aging kitchen. We’re still weighing the potential project “components” and costs. Call me crazy, but the process reminds me of a potential sales engagement in the managed services market.

Consider these three scenarios:

1. Contractor one is well-spoken and comes with numerous references. His work for some of our neighbors is stellar and he has incredible vision for how our kitchen could be remodeled. But we’ve met this contractor twice and we’ve asked him — multiple times — for a project estimate. He originally told us the sales quote would arrive in two weeks. It has been a month. We’ve yet to see an estimate from him.

2. Contractor two has a well-regarded team — rip-and-replace specialists, plumbers, electricians. We suspect he could handle the entire job. He’s a project manager of sorts and extremely personable, spending considerable time on-site making sure home renovations meet customer expectations. Here again, we’ve asked multiple times for a job quote but we’ve yet to receive one.

3. Contractor three is a tag-team involving Home Depot and a local contractor that is part of Home Depot’s outsourced “service provider” network (no joke). Here’s where things get really interesting:

Home Depot has essentially given us 20 hours of free in-store consulting. A Home Depot employee has sat with us two or three hours per weekend, designing kitchen layouts and then using the layout software to generate a real-time price quote for all the “hardware” (cabinets, etc.). Each time we change a cabinet or a design point, the sales quote is updated dynamically — in real time.
The local contractor, potentially working in combination with Home Depot, visited our house with a laptop. Using (1) our kitchen dimensions, plus (2) some custom requests (from us) plus (3) the Home Depot “hardware” quote, the contractor was able to generate a price quote for us during his first visit to our house. The quote covers installation services.

Also of note: We don’t have any “personal’ experience or “personal” references yet from Home Depot and the contractor, but we’re impressed by what we’ve seen so far. If we work with Home Depot and the associated contractor, all of the cabinet installation would be guaranteed for 25 years. And, the Home Depot service provider network leverages some sort of customer survey — making sure contractors have at least a 90-plus percent approval rating to stay in the service provider network.

Information Technology Projects and Managed Services

Now, apply our home improvement example to the managed services market. As Big Box retailers (Best Buy, Staples, etc.) continue to push into managed services, you can imagine the Home Depot price quoting model taking hold.

First, Best Buy can offer some basic hardware quoting services to small businesses — generating on-the-fly cost estimates for a 25-node small business network running email, for instance. Next, perhaps mindSHIFT — Best Buy’s managed services arm — could further customize the quote to blend in managed services and cloud services.

Get Moving

Where does that hypothetical scenario leave independent MSPs, VARs and IT resellers? The short answer: To compete with the big guys and with entrenched MSP rivals, you’ve got to generate accurate, comprehensive price quotes far more rapidly. It’s not enough to sit down with a customer, offer sound advice and great customer references. You need to follow-up rapidly and seal the deal with a compelling proposal.

That’s where sales proposal and price quoting software enter the picture. Two of the best-known options are Quosal and QuoteWerks. I’ve also heard some buzz about BigMachines, CIS QuoteBuilder, CNet ChannelOnline, QwikQuote and VARStreet (which Autotask recently sold back to VARStreet’s employees).

I wonder: How many incomplete sales proposals are sitting on your desk? And how many of your customers are choosing alternative IT service providers simply because they received a timely price quote?

MSPs: Communicate Value and Stop Focusing On Price

N-able Guest Blog — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:26:55 +0000

If a customer doesn’t see the business value in what you do, your services are expendable. It’s a harsh reality, but one that we all face. As an MSP, the challenge lies in communicating your customer value day-in and day-out. For most, promoting value at the front end of the sale to earn the customer’s business comes easy. But once the ink dries, many MSPs turn the focus to meeting the SLA (service level agreement) and recognizing the recurring revenue. The selling stops. The relationship is managed, but is the business still being earned and relationship nurtured?

Once a customer sees the ongoing stability of a remotely managed IT environment, some jump to the conclusion that all their technology headaches are gone, which can lead them to wonder what exactly they’re paying you for. It’s a legacy issue that MSPs must address early on through constant communication, strategic pricing and a clear demonstration of business value through smart reporting and quarterly or bi-monthly business reviews.

Steps to Success

Not sure how to combat this issue? Here are several do’s and don’ts gleaned from N-able’s MSP Elite:

Don’t productize your services and fixate on price. Posting a flat-rate service fee on your web site devalues and artificially commoditizes your services.
Do focus on customizing your value and the outcome for your clients by using technology to support your clients’ needs and business goals.
Don’t underestimate the customer experience and need for a personal touch. Going remote has its obvious advantage, but being seen and heard face-to-face remains critical. This is a relationship business.
Do establish a defendable and differentiated value proposition.
Don’t be afraid to walk away from a prospect or customer. If you’re not seeing eye-to-eye out the gate, just call it a day and move on. More than 80 percent of the market is unmanaged. Additional opportunity is out there.
Do become a valued business consultant as well as a technology provider. Listen to your clients and establish an ongoing meeting with a structured process about how technology and your services will, and are, supporting their business.
Don’t just send along a canned report that shows threats blocked, patched applied and servers fixed. Consistently track, report and celebrate what your team has accomplished. Customize the report to show how your efforts have met the customer’s needs and helped them achieve their goals. Reporting is going to be huge in 2012. From compliance to general accountability, reporting both on technology and business impact is going to be core to an MSPs’ service moving forward.
Do establish corporate values, technical processes and a signature of service that will ensure a positive customer experience and drive greater loyalty.
Don’t sell to anyone and everyone. Assess your portfolio and focus on the right clients. Understand who your target audience is, what they need and specialize your service to meet their needs.
Do have a plan. A one-page strategic plan will help keep your team focused and on track.

More Guidance

For additional insight, see the following partner video on value-based packaging, pricing and reporting, featuring insights from J. Michael Drake, CEO of masterIT, which has been an MSPmentor 100 company multiple times since 2008.

Another good resource is the recent report called “Countering Artificial Commoditization and Poor Pricing Practices in Managed Services,” written by The 2112 Group and sponsored by N-able and NetEnrich.

Mike Cullen is VP of sales at N-able Technologies, which develops remote monitoring and management automation solutions for MSPs and IT departments. Monthly guest blogs such as this are part of MSPmentor’s annual platinum sponsorship.

The ‘Big Boys’ Are Discovering the SMB Managed Services Market

Dan Berthiaume — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 15:42:44 +0000

It was only matter of time before some of the “big boys” who traditionally serve Tier I clients started discovering the opportunity SMBs represent. Communications services provider Comcast, which has an established $2 billion managed services business for companies with 20 or fewer employees, is now focusing attention on slightly larger SMBs with 250 t0 500 employees.

ZDNet reports Comcast CFO Michael Angelakis told attendees at a recent investment conference that his company will provide managed services such as Ethernet and voice systems to SMBs of this size, with a potential market size he estimates at $10 billion or more.

Comcast does not operate in a vacuum, and undoubtedly other large service providers will also decide they would not mind pursuing SMB customers for a potential multibillion dollar payoff. So what can MSPs who already specialize in the SMB market do to protect their turf? Here are a few suggestions.

Remind SMBs You Know Them

Large service providers offer many amenities that smaller MSPs cannot match, but one area where smaller MSPs have an untouchable advantage is personalized service. A big company like Comcast simply does not have time to devote to getting to know the ins and outs of an SMB when Tier I clients are demanding undivided attention.

Remind SMBs you know them through actions as well as words – make personalized recommendations for service improvements based on your daily observations and interactions, or even throw in a small free upgrade because you noticed it was needed. These thoughtful actions will go a long way when one of the Big Boys comes knocking on their door.

Stay on the Ball

SMBs will not realistically expect a small provider to offer as many bells and whistles as a multibillion dollar company like Comcast, but if a small provider is significantly behind the current trends in managed services, it will be a major reason to switch. If you aren’t already, make sure you are up to date with the latest developments in areas such as mobile technology and cloud computing so you can at least compete on the same general playing field.

Work Harder

A small provider can simply outwork a larger competitor. Despite vastly smaller staff and resources, a small provider also has far fewer distractions, especially compared to a company like Comcast that has so many different sides to its business. Be ready to put in the extra effort to prove you are more valuable than the Big Boys. Bigger is not always better, and 2012 will be the year for MSPs who specialize in the SMB market to prove it.

Help Wanted: Accountants, Technicians for MSPs

Nicholas Mukhar — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 14:02:42 +0000

This will be a very active year on the MSPmentor Job Board, if the first few weeks are any indications of things to come. Managed service providers and technology companies are only one full work week out of the Holiday business lull, but they’re wasting no time promoting new or vacant positions on our job board. Many opportunities for sales and technical professionals are already available, so have a look and see if any of the openings attract your interest.

Here’s a taste of what the MSPmentor Job Board has to offer this week.

Service Desk Technician in Nashville, Tenn.
IT Consultant Level II-III in Denver, Colo.
System Engineer in Tallahassee, Fla.
IT Account Manager in New York, N.Y.

The MSPmentor Job Board is free to anyone who would like to post a job or career opportunity — as long as the opportunity is within the managed services, cloud services or IT channel market.

Another Way for MSPs to Build Customer Reports: BrightGauge

Joe Panettieri — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 02:51:06 +0000

BrightGauge believes it has built an easier way for managed services providers (MSPs) to create and deliver performance reports to customers. BrightGauge’s cloud-based application, championed by Eric and Brian Dosal (pictured), involves a five-step process to generate customer reports. Here’s an overview.

According to BrightGauge, the SaaS system works like this:

BrightGauge connects securely with the MSP’s PSA (professional services automation) and RMM (remote monitoring and management) software systems.
The MSP’s reporting data transfers to BrightGauge via an SSL encrypted tunnel.
BrightGauge integrates the data from the MSP’s PSA and RMM systems.
The MSP logs into BrightGauge and sends reports to customers.
The MSP’s customers log in from anywhere to see the reports.

BrightGauge sounds simple. It costs $149 (limited time offer) to $499 per month for the SaaS solution. But I concede: I have no idea if BrightGauge works as advertised.

Meet Eric and Brian Dosal

MSPmentor has been watching BrightGauge off-and-on for about a year and we’re intrigued. BrightGauge was founded by Brian and Eric Dosal, two veterans of the MSP industry. Eric still runs an MSP, Compuquip, while Brian runs day-to-day operations at BrightGauge.

According to Brian Dosal:

“Reporting is that tangible weekly or monthly reminder to the clients on why they are forking over that monthly fee. BrightGauge helps MSPs create a great personal and professional feel with those reports and with data that is tailored to and focused for executives (not just IT jargon). And it takes minutes to schedule and create these really cool reports.”

The Kaseya Connection

In December 2011, BrightGauge delivered a Kaseya-only version of BrightGauge. The news surfaced in a blog entry from Brendan Cosgrove, community director at Kaseya. Noted Cosgrove in an email to MSPmentor today:

“This latest [BrightGauge] release works natively with the Kaseya framework without a PSA requirement. With Kaseya Service Billing and all the other data we’ve had all along, the solution from BrightGauge is quite compelling in terms of producing amazing reports.”

ConnectWise and LabTech

BrightGauge is working to expand its MSP platform support. Sometime this month, I suspect, we’ll learn more about deeper ConnectWise integration — leveraging ConnectWise’s APIs. And BrightGauge already integrates with LabTech Software.

“More integrations with other RMM and PSA providers are forthcoming this Q1,” said Dosal. “Being Connectwise partners ourselves at Compuquip, we have been focused on their community and that of Kaseya & LabTech.”

Just Say No (To New Customers)…

In mid-2011, BrightGauge stopped taking on new customers. “It wasn’t an easy decision by any stretch!,” recalls Dosal. “We really focused on getting our technology geared for a much larger audience and more products in 2012. We went live with this enhanced version at IT Nation and we bring on new customers every week and nearly every day…but still feel like a new company for the MSP community.”

We look forward to updates.

How MSPs Can Serve SMBs the ‘Bobby V’ Way

Dan Berthiaume — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 14:59:14 +0000

Forget the NFL playoffs. Let’s talk baseball. When the Boston Red Sox begin the 2012 baseball season, outspoken manager Bobby Valentine (a.k.a. “Bobby V”) will be at the helm. Back in October, I wrote an article about how the Red Sox’s historic 2011 season-end collapse, fueled in part by certain players indulging in fried chicken and beer during games, could provide cautionary lessons to MSPs serving SMB clients. Today, I’m going to offer a more optimistic set of three positive lessons MSPs can learn from the example of Bobby V.

Those lessons include…

1. Go Where The Work Is. This lesson may seem like a no-brainer, but it’s one that far too many people, whether their line of work is baseball, managed services or anything else, fail to follow. Bobby V started his career as a promising minor league ballplayer, but he only enjoyed a relatively brief stint as a backup player in the major leagues due to injuries. Rather than sit and curse his bad luck, Bobby V instead launched a managing career that included stops in Texas and New York, as well as tenures with two different teams in Japan. When the managerial work dried up, Bobby V became a TV baseball analyst and even served as public safety director of Stamford, CT.

The next time you don’t want to serve a client because they are too small, too far away, require too much attention, or any other excuse you can come up with, remember Bobby V. Work rarely comes to you, you usually have to go to it, convenient or not.

2. Take on Tough Challenges. Boston is a notoriously fickle and passionate sports town where the line between being loved and hated by fans is as thin as a single win or loss. Add in a relentless local media, a clubhouse filled with many players known for having poor attitudes, and ownership that could be politely termed “actively involved,” and being the manager of the Boston Red Sox becomes what is probably the most challenging managerial job in baseball. But like most tough challenges, it also offers a large potential reward, financial and otherwise.

Similarly, the toughest managed services clients, like those requiring massive systems overhauls or wholesale training of the workforce, also offer large potential rewards. In addition to often being the most lucrative, successfully serving difficult clients can greatly boost an MSP’s market reputation and stature and help land future clients who maybe won’t be quite so difficult.

3. Promote Yourself. Nobody has ever accused Bobby V of being shy or having a small ego. He takes credit for numerous achievements, including non-baseball accomplishments such as supposedly inventing the wrap sandwich, and is noted for thriving on media attention. MSPs also need to publicly take credit where it is due (I won’t speculate on the veracity of the wrap sandwich claim), and court attention from trade media and any other potential sources of free publicity.

MSPs are not likely to show up in the pages of “Sports Illustrated” anytime soon, but a flattering online article can do just as much for an MSP as a “Sports Illustrated” profile can do for Bobby V.

SMB Optimism Provides Potential MSP Cheer

Dan Berthiaume — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 14:27:06 +0000

While few businesses really had a “good” 2011, unless good is measured on a sliding scale, it’s safe to say that larger enterprises generally had an easier time navigating an extremely tricky economy than smaller ones. Yet more than 40% of SMBs say they are optimistic or very optimistic about their businesses as 2012 starts, according to a survey from Zoomerang. This figure becomes even more impressive when you consider that 61% of SMBs report they are facing economic hardships and 50% say they failed to meet business goals in 2011.

A deeper dive into Zoomerang’s data shows that SMBs are not naïve in their business optimism. For example, only 19% of respondents revealed plans to expand their businesses in 2012, focusing instead on internal growth. According to the survey results, 60% of SMBs plan to focus investments and staffing in the business development sector to offset challenges experienced in customer growth. SMBs plan to fill existing positions or promote employees within business development and social media departments – focusing on internal processes instead of altering business plans.

And when it comes to customer growth, it is interesting that one-third of respondents plan to use advertising, marketing and social media as the primary methods of attracting new customers, despite 25% stating that they do not personally feel comfortable with social media tools.

MSPs Should Also Be Optimistic

These survey results should also make MSPs serving the SMB sector cautiously optimistic for 2012. Like SMBs, MSPs should prepare for customer growth without unrealistic expectations of dramatic expansion or wholesale new systems implementations. The addition and/or promotion of employees will likely require some reconfiguration and streamlining of existing corporate systems, and possibly the addition of new access points, such as mobile devices.

Furthermore, MSPs should closely investigate the possibility of providing managed advertising, marketing and social media tools to SMBs seeking to grow their customer bases in a tight market. Social media in particular is a leading edge technology which SMBs are just starting to discover, making now the perfect time for MSPs to develop a social media practice aimed at SMB clients. It is not likely that SMBs will want to undertake massive social media technology overhauls in 2012, but by introducing them to basic social media tools and services this year, MSPs can hopefully help SMBs grow their businesses so that in 2013, they will be ready for some real expansion.

MSPmentor » Marketing

Help Wanted: Managed Services, Marketing and SEO Experts

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Small Business Technology Marketing Strategies: Next Moves

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LinkedIn Etiquette: Time to Silence Social Media Spammers?

Attention. Hello. Read This. Now.

Smart Guy

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Sales Proposal and Quoting Software: Can You Compete Without it?

Information Technology Projects and Managed Services

Get Moving

Read More About This Topic

MSPs: Communicate Value and Stop Focusing On Price

Steps to Success

More Guidance

Read More About This Topic

The ‘Big Boys’ Are Discovering the SMB Managed Services Market

Remind SMBs You Know Them

Stay on the Ball

Work Harder

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Help Wanted: Accountants, Technicians for MSPs

Read More About This Topic

Another Way for MSPs to Build Customer Reports: BrightGauge

Meet Eric and Brian Dosal

The Kaseya Connection

ConnectWise and LabTech

Just Say No (To New Customers)…

Read More About This Topic

How MSPs Can Serve SMBs the ‘Bobby V’ Way

Read More About This Topic

SMB Optimism Provides Potential MSP Cheer

MSPs Should Also Be Optimistic

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