Studies have shown that businesses are starting to increasingly rely on social media to help build brand awareness and drive the sale of their products and solutions. For example, according to a recent Forrester report, 98 percent of sales and marketing leaders see value in social selling in the short and long term, and 49 percent have already developed a formal social selling program. Many Channel companies would agree with the potential benefits of social media marketing, but they also acknowledge they’re a long way from realizing its full potential.
During a recent chat with ex-marine and current president of MSP Carolinas IT Mark Cavaliero, I made the mistake of asking him what keeps him up at night. “Nothing,” he said. “We’re running smoothly and I sleep great at night.”
And other misinformation observed by a managed services pioneer.
Jason Shirdon is VP of operations at Ease Technologies, a 53-employee managed services company in Baltimore. He’s been there since 1999, having joined the company when it was just seven years old and back when managed services wasn’t even a concept. Shirdon is in part responsible for the fact that managed services is far more than a concept today. Some five years before Karl Palachuk and company began advocating for the managed services business model in 2005, Shirdon was implementing it among Ease Technologies clientele. He and his colleagues at Ease just didn’t know what to call it back then.
Darek Hahn, president and CEO of Dynamic Strategies Inc. (DSI), details the challenges of his company's shift in customer focus, sales strategy, and corporate culture.
Russ Levanway, CEO of California-based MSP TekTegrity, recently let me pick his brain about how and why the company acquired four MSPs in the five-year period between 2010 to 2015. Like many solutions providers looking for ways to grow, TekTegrity used these acquisitions to expand its regional footprint and establish itself in new verticals. In the process, Levanway had to integrate differing cultures and a rapidly expanding headcount.
It’s a good time to be an MSP. Multiple reports from channel organizations are touting healthy EBITDA and growing MRR. Still, the times are changing. Looming giants like Microsoft threaten the storage and networking markets with new software-defined technologies. Competition is creeping in from unforeseen places, from small-time resellers to big-time global services companies.
Studies have shown that businesses are starting to increasingly rely on social media to help build brand awareness and drive the sale of their products and solutions. For example, according to a recent Forrester report, 98 percent of sales and marketing leaders see value in social selling in the short and long term, and 49 percent have already developed a formal social selling program. Many Channel companies would agree with the potential benefits of social media marketing, but they also acknowledge they’re a long way from realizing its full potential.
It is common knowledge within the MSP industry that the reactive ‘break fix’ approach to IT support is not a sustainable practice. Like the firefighters of centuries ago, MSP’s have learned that waiting and hoping for the call to put out a ‘fire’ so they get paid and keep their firehouse in business is NOT the best practice for the MSP industry or the clients they serve.
An aging telecommunications channel is rapidly morphing into an innovative technology marketplace. Leading carriers, pure cloud vendors, ISVs are making indirect channel a priority as 60% of all technology purchases are made through an IT consultant. Business lies with the person that has the customer relationship, those IT consultants (referred to as agents in the indirect channel) have the proverbial keys to the castle.
Selling professional services is tricky business. There is nothing tangible in the conversation. No product to pick up, turn over, and closely examine for quality and functionality. What clients are buying is you and your expertise.
An MSP owner realizes that two of his newest team members aren't going to make it to the ninety-day mark. Should he dread replacing those employees, or relish the chance to dramatically improve his business?
What would a shorter sales cycle do for your business? It’s time to find out.
I f you have been in the IT service business for a while, you likely have the basics down for backup. You probably have some revenue coming in from the service, and you might even have saved your clients a few times from severe data loss.
Often, the mention of Disaster Recovery produces thoughts of monsoons and hurricanes, complete chaos, no power, etc. In reality, for many businesses a disaster is simply as an event that creates an inability for the business to function. Disasters come in many shapes and sizes – the natural disasters we all think about, but also chemical spills, building fires, broken water pipes, and, on a much smaller scale, a virus-infected server.
Harbortouch is a leading national provider of touch-screen point of sale (POS) systems and payment processing services. As pioneers of the “as a service” model, Harbortouch offers an unprecedented “free” POS program that allows the company’s sales partners to offer a full-featured POS system with no up-front costs.
Webroot delivers intelligent cybersecurity for endpoint, mobile and web to channel partners, consumers, businesses, and enterprises worldwide. Powered by its BrightCloud® collective threat intelligence network, Webroot protects the internet of everything. Our cloud-based threat detection, high performance, lightweight agents, and single, web-based point of control have changed the way businesses think about protecting mobile devices, PCs and servers. Named a ‘Visionary’ in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection Platforms, Webroot’s smarter approach to security is why companies including Cisco, F5 Networks, GateProtect, HP, Microsoft, Palo Alto Networks, Proofpoint, RSA and others choose our solutions for advanced threat protection for their security products and services.
Datto protects business data and provides secure connectivity for tens of thousands of the world's fastest growing companies. Datto's Total Data Protection solutions deliver uninterrupted access to business data on site, in transit and in the cloud. Thousands of IT service providers globally rely on Datto's combination of pioneering technology and dedicated services to ensure businesses are always on, no matter what. Datto is headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut and has offices in Rochester, Boston, Portland, Toronto, London, Singapore and Sydney. Learn more at www.datto.com.
| ConnectWise is the leading business management solution designed exclusively for technology organizations, such as IT solution providers, MSPs, software companies, hardware/software resellers, and System Integrators. |
CompTIA is the voice of the world's information technology (IT) industry.
Jenne, Inc. is a leading value-added distributor of technology products and solutions focusing on voice, video, data networking, premise security and cloud. Jenne is committed to providing value-added resellers, integrators and service providers with a broad product selection, competitive pricing, on-time accurate delivery, outstanding technical support plus ongoing sales and technical training.
“What are our cybersecurity protocols?” This question is one that has, undoubtedly, been top of mind for CTOs at numerous corporations and government agencies around the world in the wake of recent ransomware attacks. Given the hundreds of thousands of endpoint devices in more than 150 countries that were infected in the latest global attack, WannaCry, can you blame them? Hal Lonas, chief technology officer at Webroot, takes us beyond the sobering wake-up call that attacks like WannaCry bring, and discusses actionable advice companies should consider when fortifying systems against cybercriminals.
According to the employment firm Manpower, Inc., sales representatives were ranked in the top three of the hardest to hire positions in the U.S. in 2016. This is especially true in the managed IT services business. During the hiring process, the challenge is looking beyond a standout personality to see what lies beneath. How do you break through the surface to assess an applicant’s ability to close sales and help your business grow?
We asked the Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG), an IT analyst research and strategy company, to examine the challenges your business customers are facing as they take on malware and other cyber threats at network perimeters.
The managed services market got its start as early as the 1990s as the recurring revenue business model sparked a new era of change in the technology industry. As managed service providers (MSPs) emerged, the market for their offerings grew, and it is expected to reach $193 billion by 2019, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 12.5%, according to Markets and Markets.
In a recent survey, conducted by Opinion Matters on behalf of VIPRE, IT administrators chimed in on a plethora of topics surrounding endpoint security. Here’s a look at some of the standout numbers from The VIPRE Report.
