But that kind of partnership is just one of the isolation issues that managed service providers – particularly smaller local specialists – face. It’s a tactical issue.

I believe there’s a much more, much more strategic issue that smaller MSPs face, and that is an issue of accountability.

As I wrote in the beginning of that recent column: One of the great things about the channel is that it is full of independent, entrepreneurial individuals. But that’s also one of the challenges that many solution providers face.

And while that’s true when it comes to developing and delivering technology solutions, it’s even more true in the area of developing the business.

It’s lonely at the top, and many small MSPs, born of a passion for serving customers and delivering top-notch technologies, don’t benefit from the depth of a board of directors to help guide the ship over the long term, and hold leadership accountable for growth goals and milestones along the way.

A great business mentor…

This could be a fellow or former MSP or VAR, a senior vendor or distributor executive, for example, who has the passion, skills and candor to help your business grow – is a great alternative. If you’ve got such a mentor, get closer! These kinds of people – who have the know-how who to help you grow your business and the willingness to share it, but don’t have the conflicts of interest that can derail or at least call into question the best of intentions – are rare, and should be truly embraced.

But I believe for regional managed service providers who want to get serious about making their business more than just a “lifestyle” business, there’s a much better option: the peer group.

First, a word of defense for the lifestyle business. I know I may have used it in the above paragraph in almost a pejorative sense, but I hold the concept of a lifestyle business in the highest of extreme. As an independent blogger and pen-for-hire wordsmith, I’ve chosen a path that is perhaps as far out on the end of the concept of lifestyle businesses as is possible. I believe is an honorable – and in my personal case highly-desirable – rationale for starting and running a business to have something that allows you to do what you love to do.

However, for many entrepreneurs, there is the desire to grow beyond the boundaries of the lifestyle business. And somewhere in the business goal continuum between “pay the bills and let me lead the life I want to live” and “total world domination” there emerges the need for leadership to face greater accountability, and even scrutiny, in terms of the business’ goals, and the strategies and tactics that will allow it to meet those goals.

Peer Focused Board

Perhaps the most successful approach I’ve seen to this kind of external accountability demand for solution providers is the Peer Board of Directors approach espoused by a variety of groups – most notably the Heartland Tech Groups peer groups and the VentureTech Network’s Masterminds groups.

In both cases, it’s a simple concept that takes a lot of time, effort, and caring to execute well – get a group of leaders from likeminded but not directly competitive solution providers together on a regular basis, and open the kimono. All the way. Share everything – pour over each other’s financials, lay all the goals and dreams of the business on the table. Set, in front of your fellow members, quarterly goals for how you’re going to grow or enhance the business. And then be prepared to report in on how you executed (or perhaps failed to execute) on those goals.  And, of course, be willing to provide the feedback, encouragement, well-intentioned criticism necessary to help your fellow “board members” guide their own ships.

For businesses not used to being particularly accountable to anyone outside their four walls, it can be difficult and humbling experience to share all your organization’s financial metrics, dreams and goals with a group of what may in some cases be, at first, a group of more-or-less strangers. But as relationships build quarter over quarter and year over year, it’s a structure that I’ve seen have remarkable transformative effects on how solution provider leaders think about and structure their businesses.

It’s an opportunity for the sharing of true best practices, and for getting a much-needed outside set of eyes on where your business is at and where it’s going.

It can be tough going at first, but a number of conversations with organizations that have joined such groups have recorded one constant truth: it can be liberating, exhilarating, and even business-changing to stand naked (in a business transparency sense) and truly accountable before a group of your peers that care enough to hold you to the highest standards.

To whom are you accountable, and how are those people or organizations invested in making your business the best it can be? Sound off in the comments – I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Some say the workforce isn’t the issue, that a plethora of people are available for employment. But the real issue is finding those with the right skills, abilities and attitude. Another big problem is getting those prospective employees in the right place. A report by the Department of Health Information Management at Texas State University-San Marcos projects a shortage of 10,000 health IT workers by 2013  2013 to meet its goal of implementing and effectively using electronic health records (EHRs) —in that state alone! Could Texas find that many interested workers? Sure, but they’ll likely need to take a combined approach to filling those positions; training in-state candidates and recruiting skilled professionals on a national level. There’s no cheap solution to resolving the shortage of IT professionals.

A statewide issue is one thing, but how can emerging MSPs accomplish their business’ goals when they can’t find qualified personnel? Recruiting experienced IT professionals has never been an easy process for IT services providers. The difficulties start with writing an accurate job description and identifying the proper candidates, and proceed all the way through the onboarding process. Since the typical MSP business lacks a dedicated human resources department, the owner or office manager often gets saddled with those responsibilities—usually without formal training. When the hiring process is only used sporadically, the paperwork and onboarding procedures aren’t likely to become routine either.

With a shortage of skilled IT professionals, an MSP may also need to cast a wider geographic net to attract the right candidates, or settle for less qualified candidates. Both make the selection process more onerous, extending the time required to recruit suitable employees (reviewing resumes or on the road at colleges or more distant job fairs). Other costs creep in as well, from relocation and hotel bills for remote candidates to the extensive training expenses to bring less qualified candidate up to par.

The biggest issue affecting many MSPs is turnover. How often do providers give a prospect their first shot at a tech career and, after making investments in training and allowing them to cut their teeth, that employee leaves for a bigger company? Turnover is a killer to an MSP’s efficiency; reducing potential productivity through attrition. Contracts that include non-compete clauses may help minimize “job shopping,” but there are few things an employer can do to protect their training investments.

When MSPs add up all these potential personnel issues, one would wonder how they stay in business at all. Of course, the strongest survive and thrive—but many struggle to improve their productivity and overall business efficiency.

Personnel Challenges Threaten Productivity

Matching jobseekers’ skills to the needed expertise often becomes an exercise in futility. For managed services providers (MSPs), the challenge is aggravated by the need to employ technicians and engineers who will readily perform repetitive duties. Many activities outlined in service-level agreements (SLAs) are critical to the continued operation of the business, but completing those tasks can be quite monotonous and unrewarding for an IT professional.

How do MSPs find employees with the skills needed to perform these duties AND the patience to deal with the repetitive nature of many of the everyday responsibilities? It’s not easy, and retaining those individuals gets tougher every year. Most MSPs use incentives to satisfy their critical employees’ financial cravings and career goals, and make every effort to create a healthy work environment to meet their other employment needs. The difficult part of the equation is getting more productivity from these ever-escalating cost increases.

Even if a company can find suitable technicians and engineers, the dearth of skilled IT professionals may require an employer to pay much higher wages to attract the best and brightest prospects. That negatively impacts the company’s payroll costs and profitability, making expansion less attractive and causing many MSPs to rethink the way they do business.

So how do companies build their business in areas where skilled IT professionals are in short supply?

While Microsoft and Intel are pushing for an increase in the number of H-1B visas to fill the gap with more foreign talent, typical MSPs have to focus on the activities that will address their specific labor needs. The three typical approaches providers can take to solve a skilled personnel shortage include:

• Hire: continue to perform their own recruiting, onboarding and management
• Collaborate: share client projects/support with other MSPs and service providers
• Outsource: partner with a third-party agency that can provide the necessary skilled specialists when and where they’re needed

While the hiring concerns were outlined in this post, the opportunities with each approach (and potential pitfalls) will be addressed in my next article.

Over the past month, I have seen a number of my “MSP buddies” become super sick with colds they can’t easily shake, fevers that are furious and even the odd bout of pneumonia.  Why are so many IT professionals getting sick? I am no doctor, but I have some theories.

The first is obvious:

We are working ourselves too hard, taking too much on and not knowing when to say no.  A simple “no” is hard for many of us to get our lips around.

We need to have a solid diet and eat normally.  I remember when I was a young buck running around the streets of Calgary solving every computer issue that came up, a quick hot dog from the sidewalk vendor normally did the trick.  Not today. When I don’t eat a regular breakfast, lunch or dinner I feel tired and worn out.

Taking time off was the next important lesson:

I recently got into photography with the purchase of my new Canon Rebel camera.  This is a wonderful escape from my constant work mindset.  When I get to go out and wander around the Niagara Peninsula region of Ontario, Canada and photograph nature, ships through the Welland Canal or even the majestic Niagara Falls themselves, I give my mind a new workout, something to stimulate new senses rather that constant focus on the same thing.

I can hear many of you now. Stuart I can’t take time away from the office, or I don’t have the right people to help.  Or even worse, what I suffered from for many years, no one can do the job as well as I can.

Well, that is the biggest load of rubbish I have ever heard.  Like I said, I battled through it for many years.

Here are some things you can do right now:

• Outsource as much as you can.  I outsource almost everything.  I have a talented writer, a great graphics guy, the best SEO team and a website development team that I would put up against the best of the best.  These folks can help you when you get super busy.  Look around at the things you have in your office and what you can outsource today and plan for in the future.

• Start up a virtual help desk.  Take all those naggy client calls and have an outsourced help desk deal with them. Your clients want service, and yes, you are still there to help them when needed.  However, a well-oiled help desk can field up to 90% of those level 1 calls from clients and free you up to take care of the most important items and have a balanced life.

• Invest in the right tools.  Recently, I moved Ulistic over to Basecamp.  What a great solution for my business.  What tools are available to your MSP?  ConnectWise, Autotask, Labtech, Level Platforms are all examples of great tools designed to facilitate your business operations and keep you focused.  Invest in them and use them.

• Get a great coach.  As an MSP coach myself, I help IT firms each day navigate through potential landmines and help them stay clear of disaster.  I help them maintain focus and remind them why they are in business in the first place.

Why are you in business?  I bet you it is not to work yourself into an early grave.  Stop and smell the roses from time to time.  Look around, outsource where it makes sense and take the time to have that balanced lifestyle where work and your own personal interests are aligned.

Let’s start with one of the biggest potential changes for managed service providers: the company announced a rather radical simplification of its services partner programs. How radical? Well, from the hodge-podge of some 47 partner programs that concerned services, Cisco is going down to one – the new Cisco Services Partner Program.

In other words, fairly diverse MSPs will go from having to manage a large selection of obscure service programs – one for managed services, one for professional services, one for integration services, one for services delivered on Catalyst switches on the second Tuesday of the month ending in y, etc. – to one program.

Already in a massive pilot with some 4,000 Cisco partners around the world, Cisco notes that participating partners saw a 15 per cent increase in the portion of their bookings eligible for rebates as a result of a new, uniform rebate compensation model.

The company also announced plans to share its Smart Services portfolio with partners. Smart Services are a bunch of Cisco intellectual capital that aim to embed some network-based “smarts” in services. One of the major goals of Smart Service is automation of previously manual network administration and management tasks – a subject near and dear to many an MSP’s heart.

And on the subject of getting closer to MSPs, let’s take a step back a few months now to late last year, when Cisco introduced OnPlus, a service based around a network appliance for remote management. At its simplest, it appears to be an easier way for managed service providers to get hooks into a Cisco-based network and manage and automate from there. But chatting with Cisco, you get the impression they have much bigger goals for it.

Specifically, they see an opportunity for just about every partner type. And, put in its simplest terms, that opportunity boils down to “getting into managed services.” The pitch seems to be this – partners buy OnPlus devices from their distributor of choice, install it on their customers’ networks an build their own remote monitoring and management practice around it – billed in monthly recurring revenues for management services, with everything automatically measurable and meterable.

In other words, it’s an olive branch to solution providers who haven’t yet figured out this whole managed services thing – a very rudimentary “managed services in a box” kit, if you will. But there’s the potential for OnPlus to get very interesting in the future – already there have been whispered hints that the current generation OnPlus remote monitoring box is just the first in a family of products that aims to ease and automate managed services for Cisco partners. If there turns out to be reality behind these whispers, things could get very interesting.

Lastly, a “watch this space” kind of note. Everyone who knows Cisco knows that it loves to measure things, and most of the company’s partners know that those measurements include partners’ overall profitability with Cisco – a figure that the company reckons converts into partners’ overall “return on Cisco.” But at Partner Summit, global channel chief Edison Peres seemed to suggest a new type of measurement was going to start. Not only will Cisco keep track of the effect its pricing and programs have on partner profitability, the company will start eyeing what impact it has on partners’ business valuation. Nowhere could this be more impactful than in the acquisition-ready field of managed services companies.

The exact measurements Cisco is going to take here aren’t entirely clear as of yet. And how those measurements are going to impact specific partner programs or actions is also not entirely clear yet. But it is interesting to not that Peres suggests that all future partnering decisions will be viewed through this valuation lens. If done right – and the company has a good record of executing on such shifts in partner measurement dating back to its decision a decade ago to base its partner programs around specialization and value-add rather than volume of gear sold – it could be a major shift in the long-term focus of the company’s program, and one for the better.

So what’s your opinion of Cisco as an MSP-friendly company? What else can the networking giant do to make your business easier and more profitable?

The “bread and butter technologies” MSPs rely on aren’t going away, but the speed of innovation continues to increase which, in turn, is driving commoditization and lower margins. Repeatable and automated processes continue to lower the cost of entry for new providers, allowing new companies to ramp up quickly to become formidable competitors. If these market activities aren’t monitored frequently and addressed through the addition of new creative services and programs, providers can find themselves in financial trouble rather quickly. Even if a new competitor doesn’t offer the exact same support plan or portfolio, if they can significantly undercut prices, clients may be lured away. If customers don’t see a major difference between the two organizations that deliver similar services, the lowest cost provider will typically win the deal.

So while it’s easier than ever for companies to call themselves MSPs, existing providers need to dig deeper into their clients’ needs and offer the types of innovation that will truly differentiate their business. And they need to do it on a continual basis to keep ahead of the competition. Before new competitors enter the market, MSPs need to evaluate the technologies and systems that could most benefit their existing and future clientele.

Not surprisingly, the current industry trends highlight many of the areas where businesses are struggling. Even larger companies with a dedicated IT team need help implementing some of the latest technology solutions, which presents a fantastic opportunity for capable channel providers. The old adage “where there’s mystery, there’s margin” hits on the true value of professionals who can successfully implement and support emerging technologies.

Emerging technologies are driving IT growth, as CompTIA CEO Todd Thibodeaux suggested during his keynote address at the association’s Annual Member Meeting (AMM) in Chicago last week. “We’re projecting a worldwide IT industry growth rate of 4.5 percent in 2012, with upside potential of 7.6 percent. We’ve found that IT industry executives expect services to lead the way, building on momentum in growth categories such as the cloud.”

Thibodeaux highlighted emerging technology opportunities for MSPs during his keynote, including:

• Mobility— MDM and BYOD will drive channel solutions and revenue for years to come (including application development). Partnerships are key to pooling resources and support.
• Cloud solutions—continue to thrive, from mobile solutions to hybrid offerings, and the channel will play an ever increasing role in its adoption and support.
• Security—this specialty permeates virtually every channel-delivered technology/service. While the margins on antivirus and web filtering solutions are diminishing, other SMB-oriented technologies are emerging, including: next-generation firewalls, reputational analysis, cloud-based security, and identity management

And with today’s collaborative communities and outsource partnerships, offering and supporting those solutions is much easier. Innovation may be the differentiator, but MSPs still have to balance the needs of new business practices without losing focus on their existing portfolio of solutions. The support that clients depend on today won’t go away, but through improved business and process efficiencies, providers can shift resources to the more profitable parts of their operations.

That’s where outsource partners can help. MSPs interested in starting a new business practice around one (or more) of the latest technologies don’t have to go it alone. They can leverage the skills and capabilities of other organizations to help deliver and support new services, or to take over the routine activities associated with existing services.

For example, by outsourcing help desk and NOC services (such as GMS Live Expert), an MSP can shift personnel to more lucrative activities. When those partners have a skilled team that can support emerging technologies, a provider can utilize those resources to build a formidable practice without taking on higher payroll costs up front. Outsource partners will typically fashion a custom support plan that fits their partners’ individual practice needs, allowing MSPs to leverage their own resources for maximum efficiency and profitability.

Are you interested in making more revenue from the front of the curve, but concerned with the unknown variables? Check out the latest solutions that would most benefit your clients and explore the partnership opportunities. It’s not as mysterious as you’d think—but your clients don’t need to know that!

How does the average managed services provider compare to a fictional radio station in Cincinnati, Ohio?  I think you will learn that Herb’s results were not too far off from what many of you are experiencing from your sales people.

Sales and sales resources are significant challenges facing many managed services providers throughout the entire industry and around the world.  We all crave that superstar sales guy who can knock it out of the park or sell snow to a bunch of Canadians in the middle of winter.  However, many settle for a below average, so-called sales person who thinks she is in sales just because her business card says sales.

The million-dollar question is this:  What separates the sales professionals who succeed from those who continue to struggle?  It all starts with ATTITUDE!  I speak with sales people each day helping them grow in their profession and graduate from average sales people to highly talented, client focused and 100% committed sales professionals.

Many sales skills can be taught but without the right attitude, forget it.

How do you know if that sales person who’s CV looks so impressive has the ability to sell?  After all, if you are considering hiring him, he has done a great job of selling you. But that is where, for many, the sales skills stop.

There are several pre-hiring tests that MSPs can use before making offers to sales professionals.  The ones that I recommend are:

DISC – The DISC profile test provides vital insight into the personality traits that a person can offer.  Is she a driver?  Influencer?  Steady or compliant?  The DISC tool is available at http://www.thediscpersonalitytest.com/.

SSI – The Sales Skills Index will let you know if the person sitting across the desk from you can actually sell anything.  That is a vital piece of information that every MSP needs to know.  Wonder how many bad hires we could have prevented with this bit of intelligence.  Learn more about SSI at http://www.mspu.us/premium/training/on-demand-audio/sales-process-and-solution-training/02-the-sales-skill-index.htm.

PTSI – Values are the heart of any organization.  Values start at the top. You set the corporate values, which ones you want everyone on your team to bring to the table.  You must have the right people with the right values.  How do you know what values people possess? There is a test for that as well. Psychological Testing Services International (PTSI) develops theoretical and empirically-based psychological assessment tools that are administered over the Internet.

Hiring the right sales professional can do great things for your MSP and hiring the wrong sales person could cost you a fortune.  Do your homework ahead of time, and trust the data when making that next sales hire.

Remember, not every MSP needs sales people, contrary to what industry pundits say.  You don’t need to have a sales person in order to make your business a success.  Nobody can sell the business like the business owner. You can build trust with clients better than anyone else.  One of the best ways to bridge this gap is to look to outsourcing part of your front line support to a hosted helpdesk

However, there will come a time when you are ready to make that sales hire,. When it does, use the tools available and make an informed hire.

Are you looking for ways to evaluate a sales professional?  Here is a great blog post on 5 ways you can evaluate a sales professional before he makes a sale.

By the way, if I was to start an MSP again, sales professionals would be the last hires I make.

As technology continues to become more complex, and specialized expertise more valuable to business customers, it’s natural that not every solution provider is going to be able to provide every solution to every customer. But no one wants to leave money on the table, much less give up said money to a local rival.

There are a variety of reasons solution providers come together to get work done. It may be because a solution involves a technology that you’re not particularly comfortable with. It may be because a client has a branch office outside your region. It may be because a customer needs products or services that, quite frankly, don’t fit with your business model or interests.

And beyond the solution-specific drivers that may be involved, there is evidence that partner-to-partner connections can be a rising tide that raises all boats. Consider this new study from Channel Partners and CompTIA, which shows that when telecom resellers work with IT solution providers, the result is better profitability for all involved.

But it doesn’t matter why you work with other solution providers, as much as it matters how you work with other solution providers.

Sure, if you need some help with a customer who wants to deploy a CRM solution, you could just hop on a vendor’s partner-finder site and hunt one down that way. But then, so could your customer without your help.

No, this is where all those years of networking comes in handy. There are a variety of communities for solution providers, from CompTIA’s industry events, to multi-vendor industry events like the Xchange series in the U.S. or ChanneNext in Canada, to distributor reseller groups, to independent organizations like HTG Peer Groups, SMB Nation, or The ASCII Group. All of them provide a great platform to really get to know your peers. They give you the opportunity to find out what they’re good at and what they do, but more importantly, it gives you a chance to find out who they are and how they do what they do.

In many ways, the owner-to-owner or cultural connection between your organization and theirs is more important than what they do. Sure, they have to be technically expert and provide good customer service. That’s table stakes. But for a relationship between solution providers to really work, the organizations have to be compatible, and each has to be comfortable with the other representing them in front of their customers.

That networking homework means that when a customer calls you up with a need that’s outside your comfort zone, the answer is likely no further than your smartphone’s address book or your LinkedIn contact list.

So you’ve made the connections at an industry event to a fellow solution provider you think you can do business with. Now what? You’ll want to work together in the spirit of friendship, but the context of business. That is to say: this may be someone you’ve known for a long time, had many a beer with at a number of events over the years, and whose business and culture you respect and identify with. But for the protection of all parties involved – yours, your prospective partner’s, and that of your respective clients – this does need to be a little more formal than a handshake deal.

It doesn’t need to be a super-formal or adversarial contract, but there does need to be a contract in place that spells out the rules of engagement, the responsibilities and expectations on all parties involved, and the ways of addressing any problems or concerns that may come up when working together.

Like any relationship, it’s not always easy for two organizations to work cohesively together. But like any relationship, it’s doubly rewarding when it does work out well for all involved.

How have you been successful working with other solution providers? What challenges have you faced in working with other MSPs or VARs, and how have you overcome those challenges? We’d love to hear your thoughts.

Gartner research vice-president Steven Kleynhans argued that our current era is not the “post-PC” era that many have named it. Instead, he contends that the cloud will, eventually, unify all the devices that consumers use, including PCs. That means if business leaders want to attract new customers while simultaneously holding on to existing ones, they will have to embrace the cloud.

“When we first started talking about the cloud and the technological benefits we would be reaping from the explosive growth of that medium, who knew that it would be the consumer market taking the lead, leaving business enterprises in the dust when it comes to leveraging the cloud,” said Luis Alvarez, founder of Internet service company Alvarez Technology Group. “I am amazed by the way that consumer technology has embraced hosted solutions, from something as simple as Facebook to the complexity of entertainment on demand as offered by Apple TV or Hulu.”  Within the MSP realm – hosted solutions have extended to Live Outsourced Help Desk services – geared specifically to help with these consumer technologies finding their way into business environments.

Change doesn’t happen overnight, mainly because people tend to resist it. So, the changes that business leaders have to make to incorporate cloud computing into their business strategies will not happen right away. Nor should they. Such drastic changes in business operations should happen gradually over time. But if small-business owners in particular are committed to the success of their businesses, then they will start making those changes sooner rather than later. This is where Internet service providers can prove their worth to their clients.

“If we are going to be the technology advisors our business clients depend on us to be, then we need to figure out how to leverage the cloud aggressively on their behalf, but do it in a secure and safe manner. If you haven’t figured out the benefits of cloud computing and how to fold those benefits into the products and services you are offering your clients, you need to do it now or find yourself out of the game in a few short years,” said Alvarez.

Maybe saying that the PC will be completely replaced by the cloud is an exaggeration. But it’s no exaggeration to say that the role the cloud plays in our personal and professional lives will continue increase year after year. In one respect, perhaps Gartner is right:  by 2014, the cloud will be the “glue that holds all of our devices together.”

What information do you share with clients, prospects, neighbors and future employees? In most cases, as the old adage goes, what you don’t say says a lot more about your company that what you do say. While it’s true some organizations go overboard with their emails, newsletters and other forms of communications, most businesses are ‘minimal’ in the frequency and amount of information they share.

That nominal approach may be ok for companies looking to maintain the “status quo,” but it’s not a good plan for those building a successful MSP.

The nature of managed services is often its largest detriment when it comes to awareness: proactive, behind the scenes system management and support. When the technology and processes work well, the normal lines of communication between services companies and their clients typically decrease. It’s easy to overlook what isn’t a point of everyday conversation. Granted, no news is often better than bad news, but successful MSPs create more positive ways to keep front and center with their customers.

Through the use of multiple communications avenues, MSPs can not only regain the attention for their clients, but attract new prospects and improve their community image. Social media offers several platforms that companies can use to improve awareness, including LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and Pinterest. A recent CompTIA study validated those perceived values, with 61% of respondents citing improved communications as a key benefit of interactive online communities. Recruiting and customer relationships also improved according to the research, while cost savings (51%), brand positioning (49%), real-time customer satisfaction (48%) and potential lead generation (43%) were also identified as advantages. Obviously, each of these benefits is important to managed services growth, but social media is just one component of an effective communications plan

What’s the proper formula for creating a valuable managed services communication plan? While there are universal elements that all MSPs should consider when building the messaging strategy, the “cookie cutter” approach the right way to go. A suitable communications plan needs to address your organization’s specific service portfolio, client expectations and even your company culture.  For example, an MSP’s customers may not care that the lead tech has a new hamster, so highlighting it in a newsletter or posting it on Facebook or Twitter may be alienate them to future messages.

What goes into an effective MSP communications plan?

• Marketing messages and collateral—create an effective, consistent message that resonates with clients and prospects
• Sales methodologies—avoid templates, but outline the messaging points and what NOT to say
• Email messaging —develop corporate rules (avoid spam) as well as individual guidelines to ensure employees remain professional at all times
• Newsletters—one of the easiest ways to mix marketing messages with valuable articles and related information. Try a weekly newsletter with three-four articles (brief intros with links)
• Social media—who controls the company’s pages? Stress the separation of business accounts from the employees’ private networks (check out this social media policy resource)
• Media and public relations materials—what’s the corporate message for the community and who is responsible for relaying it (important to spell this out in the employee handbook)
• Documentation and manuals—frequently review the information used internally, as well as the materials delivered to clients and prospects
• Legal documents –all contracts, handbooks and related forms should be reviewed by a legal professional to protect the company and its constituents
• Incoming communications—call and reception procedures, including voice mail and follow up
• Surveys—determine the best use, frequency and what you’ll do with this information
• Certificates and awards—how will the company promote these accomplishments? Media, newsletters, social media, etc.
• Speeches—do executives engage with specific groups or in community activities? Make sure people can identify the company, what it does and how to get in touch
• Invoices—perhaps one of the most overlooked messages sent to clients. Invoices provide a great opportunity to highlight new services and document all the “value” the company delivered

As they say, “Rome wasn’t built in a day,” and MSPs won’t assemble quality communications plans without some time and effort. But the payoff will come soon enough if it’s done well. When providers project themselves professionally and reinforce their reputation for superior service, customer satisfaction is likely to climb and new sales are sure to lead to increased revenues.

While it sounds simple enough, building an effective communications program requires a lot of patience, research and fine-tuning…just like any other critical part of an MSP’s business.

With the DELL news comes the DELL bashing once again.

I read this quote the other day and really set the stage for what I wanted to share this time around on the MSP Help Desk blog brought to you by GMS Live Expert.

The pessimist complains about the wind. The optimist expects it to change. The leader adjusts the sails.– John Maxwell

I have been in the channel since 1997, and over my almost 15-year career I have seen my fair share of change.  One thing for certain is that if I didn’t adjust what I was doing, chances are I would be running a struggling business or maybe no business at all.

CHANGE IS THE ONLY CONSTANT. Looking back at the John Maxwell quote we really have three options.  My question to you is what and why are you avoiding to change your business?

Are you a complainer?  Many of us fit into this category.  I believe in calling a spade a spade, so yes, many of us travel to conferences around the world just to gripe about what is happening to our glorious IT channel.  DELL’s acquiring SonicWALL and potentially screwing up its channel is the most recent gripe hitting the airwaves.  Are you one of those folks who invests thousands of dollars in hit IT shows just to complain?

Do you think the world will change? Do you see great things in the future?  Are you a person of many great ideas but act on none of them?  Yes, we have people in our community like this as well.  The future is so bright I need to wear shades!  However, we will sit back and wait for the change to come to us.  If you are one of these types; my question to you is this, how is that working out for you?

Do you make change happen? There is no secret that many successful people are game changers. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Henry Ford were game changers.  These business leaders didn’t sit back and wait; they took the world by storm and made a difference.  Are you able to do this on a regionalized level with your MSP business?

Are you able to make the change?  Or is status quo good enough?  It is a difficult decision to make for many of us.  Some of us have been in the industry too long to warrant any change.  Some of us are rookies just starting out and charting our courses. Then of course there is that portion of us who just sit back and complain or wait for someone else to pave the way.

In closing, you are the only one accountable for your own success.  How you react and perhaps more importantly avoid reacting, is your choice.  No one can do it for you.  So what will it be?  Leave us a comment.