From Break-Fix To MSP

By Ashley Ogilvie, IT Glue

Gone are the days of simply fixing your clients’ tech and waiting for the next frantic phone call. Organizations today are entirely dependent on technology, so your clients can’t afford even a hint of downtime. For many businesses, this means that the break-fix model is no longer a viable solution for providing the necessary level of consistency and reliability customers need. Managed service providers (MSPs), on the other hand, are all about that consistency.

Before you take the plunge and get into the nitty-gritty of transitioning into your own MSP business though, you need to start with a shift in your mindset. Running an MSP has a lot of differences in comparison to break-fix, like how you tackle your pricing, operations, or sales and marketing, but by far one of the most key elements surrounds the change in your overall role.

Relationships

As an MSP, your role has less to do solving your clients’ technological issues on a case-by-case basis as it does making sure you’re consistently preventing them. In other words, your role is preventative rather than reactive. Keep in mind that when your clients start to notice that they’re not consistently coming to you to fix stuff, they’re going to wonder what they’re paying you for. Of course, that’s exactly where their money is going. So they don’t have to be running to you every other day with a new problem. (Ok, you’ll probably still have a few tickets, but that’s not the heart of your business anymore).