Eight Habits of Highly Successful Managed Services Providers
by Jessica Davis
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With clouds looming overhead as a new business model and managed services complicating what used to be a simple break/fix business proposition, many IT solution providers may find themselves flumoxed over whether to transition to becoming managed service providers or remaining as VARs. Certianly, vendors such as Microsoft and others are pushing the cloud model hard. And plenty of managed services platform technology providers have established themselves as strong leaders in the industry, from ConnectWise to Kaseya to Level Platforms to Nimsoft, and beyond. With so many choices and options for IT solution providers, what’s the right choice in establishing a successful business? Is it necessary to spend months or even a year or more researching the best tools to base your business on? Should you pay a lot of attention to price? What are the best practices of the most successful IT managed services providers today? And how do they consistently increase their margins. Channel Insider took a peek inside the workings of successful MSPs at a recent panel discussion featuring some of the industry’s most prominant MSP businesses. Here are some eight of the habits of highly successful MSPs.
Standardize your technologies
Move all your customers onto the same hardware, the same anti-virus software, and any other standards you set. That makes it easier for your techinicans to service them efficiently.
Brand products as your own
Do you send your clients a quaranteen report every day? Make sure it’s your logo that’s at the top of that report. Consider branding the hardware you sell, too.
Check metrics regularly
Perhaps schedule a weekly scorecard meeting. Look at phone records and anything else that matters. Look for the trends and what’s making you money and what’s not making you money.
Face time
Make sure you schedule facetime with clients at least on a quarterly basis.
Establish processes
Standard processes bridge the gap between tools and technicians, leading to greater efficinecy in your business.
No second guessing
Shoot for consistency across everything, and once you make your decisions on tools and technologies, don’t waste time second guessing yourself. Just get it done!
Choose your focus
Focus on what you do well and execute on that. That approach translates to and you success whatever business mdoel you go after.
Engage with your peer groups
Find your trade association, peer group or other organization that can help you with your business.