Is Managed Services A Sinking Ship? 5 Tips To Keep You Afloat

The IT Service Provider market is a mixed bag right now. Some companies are thriving and others are seeing difficulties.  If you are in a slump and need a few new ideas to get your heart back in the game, here a short list for you to work on.

5 Tips to For Those Who Are Struggling To Deliver Managed Services

Package your offering. This may be commonplace for many of you reading this, but I realize all too well that it is not always that obvious. There is a reason McDonald’s invented the #1. Their combo meal menu is easy to order, simple to understand, and reduces the complexity of the decision.  If you are a managed services provider and are struggling with this, here is a good read. Feel free to comment if you have further questions.

Give people options. Not everyone agrees with me on this one, but after selling over $350,000 in IT service monthly recurring revenue over a 3 year period, I feel like I can have my own opinion.  Once you have packaged your offering, give your potential customers 2 or 3 (don’t give them more than that) different ways to engage with you.  The important part here is that your lowest tier offering should leverage automated tasks – not man hours.  Make sure however that your customer will have a successful relationship with you at this level.  Also make sure YOU feel good about.

Your pricing sheet should be 1-page. If you haven’t heard Gary Pica speak, you should.  He hammers you on this one!  My price sheet was always 1-page and 1-page only.  Do this and you will acquire more customers.

Be a marketer. This is not a “cold-calling” or “send out brochures” tip, this is a “use your technical skills to market YOU and your business” recommendation.  I wrote a post back in January about running post-maintenance-script popup messages once a Kaseya script has finished.  This keeps you and your business at the fore-front of every users brain.  Warning: don’t do this more than 2 times a week as it has the opposite effect.

You attract that what you are.  This is not really a tip but rather a business principle.  What’s cool is that I received a little bit of credit for this principle in Mathew Dickerson’s latest book.  Basically, if you want to attract larger customers you need to act like a larger customer.  If you want to attract “mom and pop” type customers, you need to act like a “mom and pop” organization.  Change the face and operations of your organization to attract the types of firms you want to work with.