How MSPs Can Accelerate Growth Amid Rising Inflation

By Mike Riley, Sourcepass

With rampant inflation across the United States, you might be surprised to hear that MSPs can still accelerate growth. Here are some insightful tips on how MSPs can accelerate growth despite rising inflation throughout the nation.

Client Success: accelerate growth by providing constant value to a business beyond traditional IT services.

One of the most effective ways for an MSP to accelerate growth amid rising inflation is by investing in the idea of providing constant value to the businesses you serve. More specifically, MSPs should focus on providing constant value to clients that go beyond the traditional IT services that they are commonly known for. This ensures that your offerings are not commoditized.

MSPs need to dive deeper into client needs and get invested in their success because their success is your success. When a client sees that their MSP is actively invested in their success and willing to provide constant value that goes above and beyond conventional service, they are more likely to come to you for additional services which will accelerate growth for all parties involved.

• Accelerate growth by differentiating your MSP & bring solutions to clients proactively
  • Be sure that you are the one that uses technology as the tool to sell bottom-line results. The key is to steer away from wasting time and precious marketing funds to promote the sale of services that will have no impact on your customer’s bottom line. If you can provide solutions that help your customers make more money or at least save money while increasing productivity, you will be richly rewarded with accelerated growth.
• Dive deeper into your client’s current business outcomes
  • MSPs should constantly look for ways to make a positive impact on their customer’s bottom line and scale that message through their champions and advocates. By focusing on client success and business outcomes, you can show customers that you are a vital part of their growth.

Innovation: work with partners to develop leading-edge solutions with flexible payments for those hit hardest by inflation to set your MSP apart.

These days, selling the same mix of IT services as everybody else is simply not enough to succeed as an MSP. The MSPs that still cling to this stale old model of business are shrinking fast and receding from the market. On the other hand, the MSPs that have embraced innovation and the idea of bringing leading-edge solutions with flexible payments to their customers are growing faster than ever.

• The days of big-ticket and big iron investment and ownership are over
  • Work with your lending partners and develop attractive leasing options.
• Ensure your clients get the best pricing for partnered solutions.
  • Work with your partners to take advantage of deal registrations on any opportunity to save a point here and there.

According to Forbes, some of the most resilient MSPs are those that have embraced innovation and constantly strive to offer customers new solutions and technologies proactively.

Marketing & Sales: leverage MDF to supercharge marketing and business development.

To beat inflation, you need to make money, and to do that, your MSP needs to double down on effective marketing while leveraging MDF, or marketing development funds. Another thing to keep in mind is the fact that no single client should account for more than 10% of your customer revenue. You can generate growth by tapping organizations from your existing client base for referrals. Generating new customers from referrals is an essential activity that MSPs can use to accelerate growth that is much less challenging than bringing in new customers from scratch.

• Turn your existing client base into a referral-generating machine.
  • Make sure you have an attractive referral program. If you provide top-level service with stellar feedback and reviews, put that reputation to work! By incentivizing your existing customers to share their positive feedback with other businesses in their circle, you can accelerate growth and get more customers.
• Build case studies that allow you to scale your message in those niche industries that allow you an unfair advantage over the competition.
  • Focus on creating case studies with laser-focused SEO to get more eyes on them and maximize value.
  • Create supporting content to drive traffic to the case studies and make them available to your sales team to share as reference material with customers.  

Technology investment should be driven by business outcomes such as increasing revenue, decreasing costs, increasing productivity, providing a competitive advantage, etc. Investing in client success, strategic technologies, and leveraging MDF while developing effective referral incentives are all things that MSPs can do to accelerate growth amid rising inflation.

About The Author

Mike Riley is the Chief Revenue Officer of Sourcepass, a leading digital IT services firm and one of the largest SMB-focused MSPs in the nation.