What Do MSPs Sell Today?

Last time, on March 7, we asked what do you sell and how do you sell it. This time let’s drill down deeper and ask what MSPs sell today, and how that has changed over the past several years.

An MSP Says It Best

In an interview, I recently asked an MSP what advice they’d give to a client who was looking for an MSP. It was a leading question, obviously, meant to give that MSP the opportunity to describe his company as the preferred resource. But he didn’t. His answer was as simple and direct as it gets. He said:

“I would tell them to look for someone who knows what they’re talking about.”

That simple wisdom spoke volumes to me. It reminded me of so many things I’d been taught along the way.

Ask Not What You Sell,
Ask What Your Customers Buy!

The easiest thing to sell will always be the thing that your customer wants to buy. Back in the early days when manufacturers like Apple, IBM, Compaq and others were first introducing personal computers, that was exactly what customers wanted. These new devices sounded great. They held the promise of making work so much easier.

For decades, those in the channel business considered themselves resellers of computer-related products.

Then Came the Cloud

Cloud computing changed everything relatively quickly. Many customers preferred to purchase many computer-related products from online vendors. Other customers simply stopped buying larger server-class computers and storage, preferring to use cloud resources to reduce their costs and their administrative burdens.

Many resellers soon came to realize they could not continue to grow their businesses if they were going to depend upon product sales to achieve their goals.

The Channel Transition

Some resellers shifted quickly into service provider mode, becoming the early Managed Services Providers (MSP). The best of them recruited technical experts with networking, server, storage, and other advanced skills. Some trained existing staff to enable them to provide advanced services. They developed formal methodologies. They sought ITIL training. Some developed high-value vertical solutions for various industries. Many of these began to outsource product procurement to others, preferring not to carry the credit and logistic costs involved. They were no longer resellers. They were true consultants, true networking engineers. True professionals.

Others went out and had “MSP” crash-imprinted on their business cards and did not much else to qualify as such. The only thing they achieved was to muddy and reduce the value of the role of Managed Services Provider.

What Do Real MSP’s
Real Customers Buy Today?

This brings us to the heart of the matter.

Customers do not turn to MSPs simply to obtain “solutions.” They certainly realize computer-related products are better purchased elsewhere.

My MSP interviewee had it exactly right. Customers look for an MSP who knows what they’re talking about. They buy your experience, your expertise, and your ability to provide what they need to grow their businesses. Simply put, they buy your smarts!

How Do They Know
How Smart You Are?

There are a few ways to make it easy for customers to learn how smart, experienced, trained, prepared, and talented you and your company are.

The first and foremost way may surprise you.

The easiest way to show someone the value of your knowledge is to share it with them freely. Many MSPs publish articles that demonstrate their superior know-how. Some publish them in their own blog. Others publish in blogs with broader distribution. Some create full white papers that describe various accomplishments and send them to customers via email.

Whatever your mode of distribution, sharing your insight in writing makes it easy for potential clients to consume, at no risk to the reader.

Many top MSPs publicize and promote various awards they win to demonstrate the recognition their expertise has attained. One word of caution here; don’t promote these in your “blog.” Readers come to a blog, and come back to a blog repeatedly, because they find valuable information and insight in that blog. Announcements of your achievements don’t offer them any insight or other value. Place those messages, instead, in your news feeds and press release sections. Save your blog for teaching valuable lessons.

Some MSPs offer project programs that feature money-back guarantees. In this way, they take the risk onto themselves and off the customer’s plate. It’s reasonable to expect that an MSP who is willing to offer a money-back guarantee is justified in being as confident as they are in their own ability.

“Smarts” is Repeatedly Resellable

Always appreciate that which you learn while performing projects for clients. When you engage in a project for a specific vertical industry, document everything you learn from that project. Analyze and identify ways in which you could have produced that project faster, better, and less expensively.

Then go out and find every other company you can in that vertical industry and offer the same project to them. You enter into that sales cycle armed with a great case study of how successful you’ve been implementing that project and can clearly identify the value available to the next customer. And the next. And the next.

Don’t be surprised if you get faster every time you perform that project. If you consume fewer hours but keep your fee the same you will find yourself becoming more profitable with every repeat of that project.

Your Vendor-Partners Want You
Selling Your Smarts Too

Make no mistake, your vendor-partners know you can no longer produce enough profit from sales of their products to make it worthwhile. They no longer try to get you to push their products because they understand there’s nothing in it for you.

In turn, however, they’ve also come to realize that you can build new services around their products and drive plenty of margin in those services. Many will bend over backward to help you create and sell those services, recognizing that every project engagement will also pull sales of their products through with it.

Actions to Take

1. Talk to each of your vendor-partners about how they can help you create new services based on their products. Shift into high-innovation mode with them and create well-differentiated offerings.

2. Invest time in developing and expanding your own portfolio, your own services catalog. Make sure each service is well-defined, easily identifiable, with clear value propositions and a proven track record of profitability for your customers.

3. Become highly introspective. Are your people conducting themselves as professionals? Do they look the part? Are their communications reflective of professional expression?

4. Go to the source. Ask your customers what more they need from you? How can you serve them better? Nobody knows better than they do.