Are you an IT provider still offering break-fix IT services? Are you ready to make the leap to a managed services model? We sat down with successful managed service providers, or MSPs, to learn their secrets to success when just starting out.
In this blog post, we are sharing three strategies for moving from break-fix to fully managed services.
1. Getting Started with Services and Solutions: As an MSP, your aim should be delivering best-in-class IT solutions to small-to-medium-sized businesses, or SMBs, without the enterprise-level price tag.
2. Pricing and Packaging for Profit: While offering more affordable pricing sounds simple enough, MSPs must avoid dropping prices too low in order to profit. So how can MSPs achieve this? Start by looking at your own costs when developing your pricing strategy. Once you understand your operational costs, you can begin to think about what you can charge for services. Successful MSPs implement pricing that’s straightforward and easy for SMBs to understand.
3. Choose the Best Vendor Partners: Being an MSP means that you will also need to offer responsive and consultative support. To achieve this, work with vendors who offer the same level of support that your clients expect from you. Vendors who offer 24/7/365 support, for example, will be able to support your needs, as well as your clients, around the clock. This helps MSPs better deliver on their promises to clients and keep things running smoothly.
Successful managed service providers “work smart” as the expression goes. It begins with selecting your services and solutions so that you can deliver the best-in-class IT solutions to your clients. You can continue to build upon your offerings by forming vendor relationships which are a key ingredient to success.
Once you have established your offerings and have started to network with different vendors, you’ll want to start differentiating yourself from other IT providers. Specializing in specific industries will make you the go-to person for your clients and new prospects. It’s important to remember that if you are delivering expert advice, the value of managed services will sell itself. The way you market your business and how you decide to deliver your services will define itself once you’ve invested ample time into understanding client needs.
If you’re just starting out as an MSP, it’s important to play to your strengths. Ask for feedback, learn from your mistakes, and replicate what works. Building upon your strengths will happen naturally over time and will lead you down a path of great success. For additional tips, check out our new eBook, How to Be an MSP: 7 Steps to Success.
Eric Torres is channel development manager at Datto Inc. Read more Datto blogs here.
