MSP Partners' "Business Simulation Experience" a "Must Attend"!

The title of this all-day training should be "How to Not Go Out of Business". I'd be a lot richer today if I'd have spent just one day in college playing this game instead of sitting through another statistics or business calculus class. (Seeing money move around a game board in a simulated "break fix vs. MSP" environment is all the business calculus I ever really needed.)

Go to the event in Washington D.C. on December 9th!

Seriously. Playing this game will teach you on a visceral level what you need to understand about the value of the migration in the IT VAR community from a "break fix" pricing model to a "MSP" pricing model.

The bottom line is that in the "break fix" world you make decent money but you struggle every month. In the MSP world, after a couple tough months ramping up all of a sudden life gets very smooth because you're not scared about meeting payroll for lack of "break fix" work.

Even if you're already sold on the MSP model this exercise is a great reminder that staying in business is "all about the money". If the money on the board is not where it needs to be when it needs to be there then say "goodbye happy".

Click the link below to view a video snapshot of the event.



The event was presented by Amy Luby of MSPSN and sponsored by:
              


Thanks! :)

Thoughts on the MSP Alliance & the MSP World Show, Las Vegas 2009

If you scroll down and read the last several blog entries you'll see all the advance promotions TA did to promote the MSP World, Las Vegas 2009 show for MSP Alliance as a media sponsor. You can also see all the video we shot of the people we met.

TA's goal at the MSP World show (and all our interactions with MSPs) was (and still is) to learn the answers to the following three questions:

1. Is it realistic that MSPs will take on carrier services and sell them to their IT customers in a volume large enough to make MSPs a credible channel for carrier services vendors?

2. Is it realistic that MSPs would make good partners with telecom agents to share or trade leads with?

3. How easy, difficult or valuable is it for telecom agents and master agents to pick up the skills and resources necessary to become MSPs themselves and offer MSP services to their existing carrier services customers.


Well over the past several months we've learned what we think are the answers to these three questions and we're going to publish the answers  within the next several weeks in a MSP industry report we're creating for telecom vendors, agents and partners.


QUICK BOTTOM LINE?


When IT guys migrate their SMB customers from "break fix" (only bill when something breaks) to the "managed model" (bill a flat monthly fee to keep everything running) telecom guys can pretty much forget about having any serious "final say" on influencing future telecom decisions the customer makes. The IT guy who "owns" the customer's local area network gets to give the final thumbs up or thumbs down on any voice or data decision. This is obviously a bad thing for telecom guys.  


Fortunately there's lots that telecom guys can do to get back into their customer's inner decision circle for telecom and technology decisions and that's what we'll be sharing in our forthcoming MSP report.


FIRST STEP?


Eat, drink and sleep MSP.  In the six months or so since I learned how to spell "MSP" I've learned an awful lot about what it is they do and how they do it.  It's all come from studying them up close and by surfing the net.  If you're a telecom agent that's serious about staying in business I STRONGLY advise you to do the same.  


Start by talking to your customers. What do they have to say about the IT folks that help them keep their local area network and all their computers running? Study the websites of your local computer guys and take them out to lunch. Do any of them have active sales programs or all they all 100% referral sales people? 


NEXT STEP?


Join the MSP Alliance at www.MSPalliance.com. They offer a free membership to and there's an awful lot to learn by just reading everything written on their website.  You can also join www.MSPpartners.com for as little as $49 per year. Both organizations have a faithful following of real MSPs that I've met in person.  I can't say if one is better than the other but there's really no reason you can't join both.


BEST STEP?


Go to MSP functions. I went to the MSP World convention in Vegas last month and then a MSP Partner "MSP Business Simulation" event a week later. Both events were great because they were both full of living, breathing, hoping MSPs who were only to happy to talk to a telecom guy about being a MSP. You really can't learn about the ways of an MSP without interacting with them directly. This "becoming one" with MSPs is critical because to stay successful in the SMB market over the next several years, telecom agents will need to either partner with MSPs or become one.


SECRET STEP?


Help MSPs get more MSP customers. Don't lead with "Sell telecom & make more money!" - they know all about that. Lead with, "I've got a lot of telecom customers who I'm sure need to be MSP customers..." - your telecom sales will come right after that if you deliver.

Video Snapshots of MSP World Sponsors

Following are video snapshots (in alphabetic order) of a few of the MSP World sponsors we met. Click here to view to the printed agenda of the show that includes full details about the vendors and all the speakers.



Autotask's  Jake Carroll (518-720-3500) on how they make "your IT business run. Better.(SM)".



Canon U.S.A.'s  Chad Seefeld (402-214-6516) and Digitech Systems'  Brian Wiffin (800-671-6848) on their integrated image filing systems solutions.




CSC Leasing's  Matt Thompson (804-673-1000) on their equipment leasing solutions.



eTegrity's  Steve Ferman (877-928-2858) on their online backup and data recovery solutions.



Paessler AG's  Ken Sanofsky (818-292-5026) on their network monitoring solutions.



McAfee / MX Logic's  Steve McCutcheon (720-895-4417) on their cloud based email defense, web defense and email archiving solutions.



N-able's  Derik Belair (613-592-6676) on their network and systems management software solutions.



PacketTrap's  Matt Bolton on their traffic analysis solution for telecom agents and MSPs.



Tango/04's  Jim Van Valkenburgh (603-924-0859) on their remote monitoring solutions for mid-size and larger complex corporate environments.




MSP World, Las Vegas 2009 sponsors that we did not get videos of include:


Applicure - Web application security for MSPs


Gridstore - Storage solutions


Intel (Equus) - Systems builders


Kaseya - Unified monitoring solutions


Longjump - Cloud application platforms


Nimsoft - Monitoring solutions


Pranah Storage - Unified storage systems


Promisec - Clientless MSP solutions


ServicePilot - Integrated IT monitoring solutions

Symform - Enterprise-class business continuity solutions


Shavlik - Compliant network monitoring solutions