Every business is broken down into different sections.  Every cog in the machine needs to work properly in order for the whole to be more than the sum of its parts.  The MSP world is no exception, and every aspect of the system can be broken down into even smaller systems.  The service desk in particular can be difficult to divide. Who does what?  What is important to have its own department?  And how have things changed since we entered a pandemic 6 months ago? 

Every service delivery role has had to adapt during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Technology Alignment Manager (TAM) is no different. The TAM (previously known as Net Admin) provides knowledge of the customer’s technology to the vCIO so a proper review of a customer’s IT environment can be completed.

If you've been around TruMethods for more than a year, you know what time of year it is: It's selling season.  

I recently wrote a blog post titled “Why Regulations are a Good Thing for Technology Service Providers”. The concept was simple: regulations and compliance benefit Technology Services Providers. Customers providing products and services within their industry usually have compliance requirements like protecting credit card information. Most business owners are not trained or prefer not to deal with these obligations and rely on third-party vendors. I wanted to revisit this topic now that the business environment has changed overnight.

Are you really doing everything in the scope of your position for your MSP’s customer? In the TAM and vCIO roles in particular, doing every facet of the role is incredibly important for the TruMethods model to work as well as it can.  Luckily, what each of these roles do can easily fit on one graphic representation.

The most successful people in life and business are certainly disciplined. Discipline is what keeps you on track, leads you to success, and helps you focus on achieving the goals, aspirations and milestones you set for yourself throughout your life. But not everybody has what it takes to build self-discipline — it’s a struggle for many. 

An initial meeting with a prospect doesn’t have to be unpredictable. (In fact, it shouldn’t be.) The process of “setting the stage” during the initial conversation with a prospect increases the likelihood of you being able to control the discussion from the onset, including getting the prospect to tell you no, which, believe it or not, isn’t necessarily always a bad thing. 

When it comes to MSP sales, who doesn't like a little FUD?

In the current economic climate, conversations around service pricing are often going to be tense and possibly even counterproductive. When an MSP receives a call asking for a quote, odds are the prospect is price shopping. MSPs that have built their pricing around the actual value they create may not fare well in a price-only comparison.

Since Covid-19 hit, every business in the world has had some sort of struggle.  Many businesses had to shut down entirely, and some had to go into overdrive to provide for demand.  For the Managed Services world, we all saw an uptick in tickets and issues while people scrambled to work from home, and after that many just heard radio silence.  When everyday feels like Groundhog’s Day how do we figure out how to move forward?