Your sales team knows how to sell IT solutions. But they’ve never evangelized managed services to your existing and target customers. Further complicating matters, your sales team is worried about their compensation under a managed services model. Get Started: Register to enter our Resource Center, where you’ll be able to download numerous guides to building and running your managed services business. And check back often. We post new guides in the MSPmentor Resource Center every week.
Across the managed services market, it’s easy to spot friends who became business partners. But can those friendships survive the day-to-day stress of business development and business management? I’ll answer that question by sharing my own personal experiences.
Quosal, which develops quoting and sales proposal software for VARs and MSPs, has upgraded its Order Porter Mobile solution for Apple’s iPad. The benefits: iPad users now have visual quoting capabilities, and managers and sales personnel can now break down company-wide data by sales offices, locations or individual company representatives.
Tigerpaw Software and Corelytics are challenging their software users — VARs, MSPs and IT service providers — to an ‘Amazing Business Race’ competition in which users must meet sales and other business performance goals in order to continue the race. If you were at the 2011 Tigerpaw User Conference last week, this shouldn’t be a surprise. Here’s why.
Mike Cooch and I have finally reconnected. Cooch is well-known in MSP circles for starting a range of businesses — everything from Everon Technology Services to Kutenda. During 2008 and 2009, we typically spoke or traded email a few times per month. But changing businesses and growing families pulled me and Mike in different directions over the past two years or so. We finally reconnected tonight. After our conversation, I re-read a blog Mike wrote back in May 2011. It included four key questions MSPs should ask themselves every day. There’s pretty darn relevant.
Our next webcast is today (Wed., Oct. 19 at 2:00 p.m. eastern). Join us as two MSPmentor 100 companies — Kevin Crowe from Long View Systems and Tim Hebert from Atrion — describe how they maxed out their recurring revenues in 2011, and where their respective cloud and MSP strategies are heading in 2012. Crowe and Hebert will reflect on 2011 outcomes and preview 2012 game plans during our webcast. Instead of writing your 2012 business plan from scratch, borrow some great ideas from two top MSPmentor 100 companies and Nimsoft, the event’s sponsor. Bonus: Nimsoft CEO Chris O’Malley will join in to answer your questions live.
Like all other businesses, the goal of every MSP is (or should be) success – strong revenues, healthy profit margins, sustainable growth, happy clients. But achieving success does not mean the end of potential dangers for MSPs. Indeed, success can bring its own set of dangers along, as evidenced by the recent collapse of the Boston Red Sox 2011 season (before any angry Sox fans write comments, I’m a lifelong Massachusetts resident and passionate Red Sox supporter). Here are three lessons from the Red Sox Collapse of 2011.
One of the underlying conversations at the 2011 N-able Partner Summit involves managed print services. Indeed, two of the event’s sponsors are Oki and Xerox, which both have been putting on their managed print services game faces of late. In some ways, MSPs must now compete with printer and copier dealers. But Oki and Xerox also want to partner with MSPs.
NetEnrich Inc., which promotes closet-to-cloud services for MSPs, has hired a VP of sales and a senior director of product management. The moves reinforce continued expansion at NetEnrich, which has been pushing beyond traditional NOC (network operations center) services for MSPs in recent months.
Before you pitch a technology upgrade to your SMB customers, consider this: SMB owners and entrepreneurs prefer proposals that help recruit new customers and drive revenue. And remember this: SMBs are generally not too anxious to borrow money these days, according to a recent blog posting on the website of The Boston Globe. Here’s why.
I didn’t know much about SmarterTools, the mail server software, help desk software and web analytics provider before Smarter Tools VPs Jeff Hardy and Derek Curtis reached out to me. The first thing that caught my attention: Curtis and Hardy didn’t want to schedule a 10 minute phone briefing. They wanted to meet face-to-face to discuss how SmarterTools has been competing with the likes of Zendesk and Salesforce.com since its founding in 2003. Here are the details.
Techaisle predicts that managed IT services spending within U.S.-based small and midsize businesses will grow from $7 billion this year to $12 billion in 2015. We’re always skeptical when we read research reports because long-term IT spending forecasts can change from one year to the next. But generally speaking, MSPmentor is confident the managed IT services market continues to grow. We’ve got our own built-in biases — yes, we’re bet a portion of our business on this market — but we also have a pretty good feel for why managed services demand continues to climb.
It’s official: Everyone agrees that the last 10 years have been an economic nightmare. People everywhere are tightening their belts and stocking up expecting the worst over the next few years. And the worst may come, if the folks in Washington don’t get their act together. But all this is big picture. Let’s shift the focus to our own businesses. How much can we do to hedge against the future when we are still struggling to make it through today, right? The truth is, there is a lot of opportunity in a down economy. Here’s why.
LabTech Software claims to be doubling down on the IT service provider industry. Specifically, the managed services software provider has created the LabTech Business Transformation Division. LabTech has hired Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer and Administrator Kevin Gibson to lead it.
Small business owners apparently are spending more time reading up on cloud services, according to some anecdotal data from SkillSoft. I wonder: As small business owners gain cloud computing knowledge, will MSPs polish their own consulting skills to answer more cloud questions?
When the Channel Transformation Alliance surfaced this week, it signaled that big technology companies — including HP, Microsoft, CA Technologies and Symantec — are finally ready to help VARs and MSPs to develop recurring revenue business models. In some ways, the Channel Transformation Alliance reminds MSPmentor of the old MSP Partners initiative, where vendors helped channel partners to shift from break-fix business models to managed services and now cloud services business models.
True Influence, an email marketing company, has launched LeadPAC — which seeks to help customers promote the “the right message, to the right people, at the right time.” But will LeadPAC catch on with IT service providers that want to engage more small business customers?
Despite the rapid growth of cloud services, many SMB customers still hesitate to embrace cloud computing. The fears range from security concerns to reliability concerns. However, a recent study from AMI Partners suggests that once an MSP convinces an SMB customer to test out the cloud, the hard work is over.
Our next webcast is this Wednesday (Sept. 21 at 2:00 p.m. eastern). We’ll reveal how you can deliver new customer value with the managed IT services tools you already have. Our expert guest speakers include two savvy MSPs (Rick Vines, president, Axcell Technologies; Michael Nelson, president, TLC Tech) and the always engaging Eric Townsend, SMB market development manager at Intel. During this Channel Expert Hour webcast we’ll cover best practices for customer satisfaction and retention. MSPmentor Editorial Director Joe Panettieri will be on hand to moderate the discussion and to ensure our experts answer your questions. Please join us.
As a managed IT services provider, it’s important for your team to have strategic consulting skills and effective processes, which ultimately lift sales. Think about the following words: Proficiency. Expertise. Talent. Skill. Art. Knowledge is power. Working with the most knowledgeable and talented people on the planet is a great way to relieve stress, move your business forward, and sleep well at night. As a business owner, working with experts whose expertise and integrity you trust is a truly magical experience. Check the box, move on to the next problem. These guys have my back.
A new SonicWALL MSP Advantage Program seeks to help partners drive IT security sales and monthly recurring revenues. The effort includes FlexSpend, the SonicWALL Global Management System (GMS) and the potential to create multiple revenue streams. Here’s how.
A the MSPWorld conference in Austin, Texas, companies such as Enterhost, GoGrid and Veddio are pitching cloud partner programs, cloud referral programs and cloud dashboards for MSPs. If the efforts work as advertised, MSPs can potentially pursue a growing range of recurring revenue opportunities tied to cloud services.
All the talk about the cloud over the past couple of years has obscured managed services to some extent. However, the managed services market remains in high-growth mode, and MSPs looking to increase revenues should be working hard to recruit new customers. But you’re going to need to do some education along the way.
ControlCircle, an MSP focused on the banking, accounting, legal and commercial sectors, wants to become “the UK’s foremost managed services provider,” according to a prepared statement from ControlCircle CEO Carmen Carey. To that end, ControlCircle has added three members to its management team, each set to lead three separate company initiatives.: sales, finance and technical services.
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