MSP

Managed Sales Pros: More Than A Sister Act

President Tracie Orisko & CEO Carrie Simpson
President Orisko & CEO Simpson

Navigate the halls at an MSP conference, and chances are you'll run into Carrie Simpson and/or Tracie Orisko. Yes, they're sisters. And they have colorful personalities. But that's not the point of this blog. The bigger story involves their momentum in business -- building Managed Sales Pros -- a lead generation firm focused on IT service providers and vendors across North America.

The company's pure-channel model appears to be catching on. During a sit-down at CompTIA Annual Member Meeting (AMM 2016) in Chicago, Orisko shared a range of business growth metrics with me (mum's the word). Poke around and you'll find evidence of growth -- including a recent agreement with a major business continuity company. And a new 5,000 square foot call center in Las Vegas.

Simpson, Managed Sales Pros' CEO, has more than two decades of sales experience. Orisko, president of the company, worked for nonprofits and the healthcare industry before reaching a career inflection point, and making the full-time shift to entrepreneur around 2013.

Building Out the Team

Ashley Battel
Bob Andrews

Employee Number Three was Ashley Battel, a marketing and content expert. Simpson met Battel met when they worked together on The Eureka Project. While there, Battel oversaw calling programs.

Among the company's latest moves: Hiring Bob Andrews, an MSP veteran, as director of business development. Andrews has more than a decade of MSP sales and support experience. The Managed Sales Pro team met Andrews when he was director of business development for Solid Networks in California.

Managed Sales Pros hired Andrews based on his hands-on experience. "We wanted to add something to the mix that frankly, none of our executive team had," says Simpson, in a blog. "Actual, proven managed services sales experience from cold call to close. We’ve hired Bob to help us create programs that result in better, stronger, leads that convert into sales. That’s our number one goal this year. We’re not focusing on “number of appointments” anymore.  We’re focusing on creating deep, valuable, predictable sales pipelines for our MSP clients.  We couldn’t do that without bringing in someone who’s already done it successfully for multiple MSPs and VARs."

Andrews is managing relationships with such partners as Ulistic, Equilibrium, Vertical Axion, KLA Group, Plan27 and Tridigital.

Evolving the Business

Of course, growing companies demand evolving business plans. In Managed Sales Pros' case, the company has shifted to (1) annual agreements to deliver more ROI to customers; (2) a business builder program to nurture top 100 prospect lists; and (3) a new CRM platform to give customers enhanced reporting.

So what's next? It sounds like something new might be brewing for May 2016. Perhaps some rumors will emerge during Ingram Micro Cloud Summit (April 11-13, Phoenix). I believe Managed Sales Pros is set to attend...

Joe Panettieri

Joe Panettieri is co-founder & editorial director of MSSP Alert and ChannelE2E, the two leading news & analysis sites for managed service providers in the cybersecurity market.