Video: Blue Mantis CRO On How To Make Customers For Life

hey Channel insiders I'm your host Katie boso and welcome back for part two of my interview with Terry Richardson cro of blue mantis if you haven't watched or listened to part one head on over to Channel insider.com right now to catch up in part two today Terry explains what it means to have a customer for life and how that's his Focus every time blue mantis takes on a new client cyber security is a massive critical necessity across every company every company that is connected to the internet congratulations you're a tech company that's just how it goes these days you need to think about cyber security so what are your customers asking for most in 2024 whether it be a specific solution or an answer to a specific problem and how was blue mantis delivering so you know they trends that I'm sure you're well familiar with are the top things that customers are asking about um AI seems to be um in most every conversation companies are trying to figure out um how to use it to you know do different things with their business even something like Microsoft co-pilot you know how can I take advantage of that uh and but do it in a in a secure way um so AI is still a very um Regular and ongoing topic security probably Remains the top of Mind business conversation that we're having um you know I referenced earlier sadly the state of the world um the the incidents of ransomware attacks and and other um detections of you know malicious behavior are just not they just wrapping up Cloud you know continues to be uh a conversation um I I think it's pivoted to it used to be how quickly can you get workloads into the cloud and now it's more about how can you help me control my cost spend related to Cloud because it's out of control right now so we do a lot of cost optimization work there and then I think that the new one in factly it's an an eighth practice we just started earlier this month formerly is around Resource Management um there are it skill gaps that our customer are struggling with and so we have been successful in helping provide resources to fill those gaps where the the companies either can't find the talent that they need or frankly in the case of security oftentimes they may not be able to afford um the talent that they need so rather than hiring full-time employees they're they're looking to us to u to provide resources on a you know on an ongoing basis so those are probably the top four that that you know we are regularly dealing with and responding to in the the normal course of business and like you said when it comes to that top talent you're you're only as good as your people a lot of people need to Outsource and they're turning to you to go how do I even do that I'm a business manager I don't know how to to work with it everybody wants to do more with less that's kind of the the you know every was looking for you know improved efficiency and productivity and skills capability and unfortunately budget don't allow you to hire everybody you need always at the time you need it so you have to make other plans and so yeah we just decided to be more intentional around hey instead of doing this on a reactive basis when a customer asks we actually think there's a greater Market need so now we're proactively um you know letting folks know that hey we can we're here to help if you need us in that area well let's build in a story where we can talk about a specific customer that has turned to Blue mantis for help can you share a customer success story with me and where you were able to answer the call there's a customer we have permission to use a name called Aspire Health Alliance they're based in brancher Massachusetts they first reached out to blue green pages of the time about 5 years ago to um do some uh managed service work so take over responsibility for a portion of their it operations um since that time they've relied on on us increasingly for new and different things um it's success story because we've been able to continue to add value in new and different ways but the customer has also appreciated um the relationship not only by rewarding us with ongoing business but really in their feedback how happy they are with the caliber of the Personnel that they in act with which is a really nice reinforcement for our customers so you know from the initial manag Services work we've done um a big cyber security project for them and and get them in a much better position of of being protected against vulnerabilities uh we've done some strategic projects related to uh software defined wide area network that was important for their business we help them rearchitecturing to have to rethink connectivity and you know the list goes on and I think that's that's one of the Beauties you know I always heard and you probably heard me reference to kti and maybe in our prior conversations where you know the difference between um Personnel salespeople on the vendor side versus solution provider side you know was always described to me and now I'm living it where the solution providers take kind of a customer for Life approach right and it's whatever you need to do to satisfy that customer and continue to serve them and meet their needs and deliver the outcomes that they expect where on the vendor side because of just the constant organizational churn there's a lot of times is turnover and that rep the customer relationships gets broken but on the solution provider side it's almost sacked so as long as the seller's doing a good job and the customer is happy it's a customer for life and when you do it right it it becomes magical you really get to know um the customer their needs their requirements and how to better serve them and it just can build on itself and it's a beautiful thing to watch and that's one that um I'm proud of the work that the blue mantis green Pages team has done and I think the customer would tell you that you know they're happy with the decision that they made to to partner with us and hopefully we'll keep earning the right to to get future business love to hear that Terry Amazing Story and I appreciate you sharing that with me and I also want to know as far as the people that are helping you continue to be successful I I should say companies but it is really people when it comes down to it when you're looking at vendors and solutions are there anyone that you would shout out as far as they're doing a great job this is just great Tech or this is just great support and we find a lot of success with that particular vendor are there any ones that you would say I mean I can give you a few examples I'd have to be careful how I phrase it cuz I don't want to sled anybody but I would say um Microsoft's been terrific we work with Microsoft in a number of ways Azure M365 co-pilot analytics they just more and more now they want to do they want to tap into our security capabilities they want to do more with us in security so there's so much that that transitions across multiple practices for us so that's a very strategic partnership Lenovo has emerged as a really strategic partnership uh both on the endpoint side where we've had the most success but lately um try to work together more collaboratively in the data center side Um T-Mobile is a new one um where there's some interesting 5G connectivity Solutions um that we're uh that we're focused on in the marketplace so that's kind of a new an emerging partnership that um that we're that we're focused on uh arctic wolf has been very strong on the security side for us HP is probably a longtime Legacy uh green Pages um partner that I'm because of my background been able to to reactivate um there's there's a list but that's you know that's some examples of of where we're seeing um we're seeing a lot of traction and I'm sure I can turn people to take a look at your partner list and know that everybody on there again is an intentional choice in Partnership oh I could have said Pure Storage I could have said barracuda I mean there's a long list right but um I'm just trying to look at the ones where I think there seems to be probably the most um the most level but you know it to be fair um the numbers a little bit longer than I told you but those are just a couple of examples so well thank you for that and looking ahead to the rest of 2024 where we're approaching quickly getting halfway through it by this time of year it's so hard to believe what have you got cooking is there anything we can expect from bloom mantis that you can talk about whether it be your Investments or more uh announcements as far as your your people anything that we can expect uh no no specific uh people announcements to foreshadow we'll continue to to roll out new offerings um to our customers you'll see in the coming uh days and weeks analytics capability something we're calling blue insights that will um that that helps customers um look at Network independencies through the lens of you know kind of application connectivity um we think that's going to be really interesting we'll uh we'll come out with new backup as a service offerings we'll we'll do some things with uh with 5G um we'll become more intentional about um you know connected um 5G laptops and um how that can you know really help in certain Industries those are just a few examples but it's it's it's really just continuing to refine our go to market around the the practice areas that I described and just kind of building upon the success um that we've had so we I think we have a good strategy for growth um second half of the year is going to be around um execution on the strategy we've spent the first half you know building out a lot of the strategy now it's uh it's you know Full Steam ahead on the execution side it's always interesting what what kind of gets bubbled up in the first two quarters of the year and then those last two quarters just absolutely look like you said full steam ahead the beginning have all year but then you realize how quickly time goes on so it's like okay I enough Innovation we gotta go you know exactly we gotta go deliver the numbers so and and my last question for you today Terry would just be I I've admired you and watched your career for so long now because it's just so interesting to see you make again at back to that word intention you make very intentional choices for yourself as far as where you're going to go and who you're going to work with and and what ultimately you want to do and I I really admire that so for those out there who are just starting in their leadership Journeys or perhaps their Channel Journeys do you have any advice as somebody who has been all over the board as leading in some of the biggest companies uh on the vendor side and all the way to the uh the solution provider side what would you say well first off if you're very kind in your your comments so thank you for that um I would say to anyone that's starting out pay attention to relationships because they matter people that you work with today in a given capacity you might be doing something different or they might be doing something different and you never know when you're going to work together again so invest in relationships it's easy to say but it's hard to do but they really do matter um you know one of the reasons that there were a few reasons that this job became attractive to to me professionally I had relationships with many of the vendors that we working with um that were built over time and we trusted relationships customer relationships um and people that you know we can attract into the company or folks that I've worked with you know or in my network that I that I trust um it affords me the opportunity now to kind of bring all that together um and I think because you know and I I I can't sit here and tell you that I was especially intentional you know about relationships early in my career but I always cared about people and I always knew that um you know kind of the golden rule will treat others the way you want to be treated um people remember that um it doesn't always happen but if you're you know really um focused on the people that you're working with you're doing right by them you're looking always for the the win-win outcome um it'll it'll pay dividends you don't know when or exactly how but trust me it'll pay dividends and at least it has for me so well said Terry I appreciate it so much and for those who are watching and listening where can we go if we'd like to learn more about blue mantis and if we're especially if we're on the customer side if we would like to continue to learn more about your Solutions and your offerings where can we go find out more blues.com um find me on LinkedIn I'm happy to uh happy to engage with anybody that wants to talk to me personally and professionally fantastic Terry thank you so much for your time today it's been a pleasure getting to catch up with you yeah it's been great thank you Katie thanks again to Terry for joining me and thank you for watching or listening check out all episodes of Channel Insider partner POV on Channel insider.com or watch on YouTube at channel inssider news and Trends you you can also listen to the podcast format of every episode on your favorite podcast listening platform don't forget to like subscribe and follow wherever possible so you never miss an episode and check us out on social media connect with us on LinkedIn or X at Channel Insider or with me at Katie boso once again I'm your host Katie boso and I'll see you next time

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