| MSP University Over 15,000 Readers!
IT and Managed Services Newsletter
MSP University helps Solution Providers succeed...period.
May 2009 |
|
|
|
|
|
| Welcome to MSP University |
Memorial Day
Memorial Day is a United States federal holiday observed on the last Monday of May (May 25 in 2009). Formerly known as Decoration Day, it commemorates U.S. men and women who died while in the military service. First enacted to honor Union soldiers of the American Civil War (it is celebrated near the day of reunification after the Civil War), it was expanded after World War I to include American casualties of any war or military action. |
| FREE MSP University Membership! |
 Have you created your FREE MSP University account yet? Just browse over to www.mspu.us and sign up to receive access to IT and Managed Services webinars, tools, forms and collateral to help you transform or improve your IT practice with valuable resources in areas of business operations, HR and hiring, sales and marketing and service delivery, project management and help desk operations.
Learn how to:
- Revolutionize your existing business model
- Transition existing break-fix customers to Managed Services clients
- Market to the right prospects and close Managed Services business
- Choose the right tools and technology to maximize your efficiencies as an MSP
- Build closer relationships with vendors and fulfillment partners
- Grow your revenue month after month, year after year
How much annuity-based revenue is your IT practice currently generating?
What is your company worth?
What are your plans for improvement?
Evaluate your options as an MSP with our FREE membership offer - why wait any longer?
|
|
|
|
|
Announcing More Premium MSP University Membership Benefits! |
 Great News!
We understand how difficult the recession has made it for you and your clients to grow your businesses, which is why we have decided to strengthen our business partnership with you by providing more resources, more training and more marketing collateral than ever to help you succeed - after all, we are all in this together...
MSP University is proud to announce that we have increased the value of our Premium Membership by upgrading its benefits with the following new features:
These additional tools, marketing and training resources give you the competitive advantage that you need in order to succeed during these uncertain economic times, and prepare you to increase sales, shorten existing sales cycles and make each and every one of your accounts more profitable - all while increasing client satisfaction!
Imagine all of this for only $99 per month with no long-term contracts!
Fax your authorization form to: Premium Membership at (888) 875-8083.
|
|
MSP University Baltimore Boot Camp Report |
|
Survey Says: 100% Satisfaction!
What an amazing 3 days we experienced May 21st-23rd in Baltimore, Maryland with over 100 of our MSP University Solution Provider partners and an amazing group of Sponsors and Presenters that helped us deliver our best Boot Camp yet!
Just to give you an idea of the value our Boot Camp attendees received, here are their responses to two survey questions:
I would recommend this Boot Camp to another member of my team: Yes 100%
This Boot Camp was worth the investment: Yes 100%
When have you ever attended a training event wherein all attendees overwhelmingly felt this way? Remember - our attendees gave up their Memorial Day Holiday to attend this Boot Camp!
We started our Boot Camp with a full day covering transformation strategies to take IT Business Owners and transform them into CEOs. Covering HR, hiring, compensation and operational strategies, the highlight was Paul Dippell's session on Key Performance Indicators and what to measure and modify to increase profits. Paul, CEO of Service Leadership Inc.; MSP University's Benchmarking and Analytics Partner ( www.service-leadership.com), covered the Benchmark provided to all MSP University Members prior to attending this Boot Camp and how to understand its details in order to take action to improve metrics and increase profitability.
The next 2 days were focused on 2 tracks: Sales & Marketing and Service Delivery, with the attendees broken into 2 groups to benefit from these respective focus areas. Our Sales & Marketing track covered executing the 7-Step Sales Process broken down into 3 appointments to sell IT Solutions and Managed Services, with heavy emphasis on role-playing each phase of the Warm-Up, Qualifying, Presenting the Proposal and Managed Services Agreement, Overcoming Objections and Closing the Opportunity. As mentioned, each attendee to this track executed a tremendous amount of role-playing, coached by MSP University Partner Support Managers and judged by their fellow attendees.
We kicked off the Service Delivery track with a deep dive on Windows Server 2008, EBS and SBS2008, delivered by Microsoft training Guru Stephen Deming. Those of you who have had the opportunity to see Steve in action during a Microsoft live training event know what a treat it is to watch him work. Once the attendees learned what they needed to know about this next generation of Microsoft's Server platform, it was time to get into Service Dispatch, Problem Management, Service Desk, NOC and overall Service Delivery Best Practices. These sessions were delivered by Erick Simpson, Vice Presidend and CIO of MSP University, and were conducted in a great participatory manner, keeping the slides to a minimum, and discussing more interactively the attendees' own internal processes, and comparing them against best practices for efficiency, effectiveness, profitability, consistency, scalability and client satisfaction.
A special treat during lunch on the second day of our Boot Camp was MJ Murphy's (Business Development Manager, Microsoft Local Engagement Team) passionate, electrifying presentation on Microsoft's Local Engagement Team's mission to help partners build community presence and increase local business success with their help. If you follow our blog regularly, you'll recall our respect for Microsoft's efforts with the Local Engagement Team and may have viewed some of the webcasts MJ and Erick Simpson have delivered and posted at www.mspu.us/courses.
On the final day of the Service Delivery track, our good friend and Virtualization Guru Dave Sobel, President of Evolve Technologies ( www.evolvetech.com) and SMBVirtualization ( www.smbvirtualization.net) delivered and informative presentation on how to price, position and maintain Virtual Environments for maximum profit. Dave has authored a book (which includes a forward by another well-respected industry author) and DVD training series on the subject.
MSP University would like to thank our partners, who devoted 3 days during Memorial Day Weekend to spend time with us improving their businesses, as well as all of our Sponsors and Presenters:
Our next MSP University Boot Camp is scheduled for August 12th-14th, 2009 in Orange County, CA. For information on how you can attend absolutely FREE, visit www.mspu.us.
|
| New MSP University Best Practices Guides Posted |
 Be sure to check out the newest addition to our ever-expanding library of educational resources - our I.T. and Managed Services Best Practices Giuides at www.mspu.us/courses. We are constantly creating and updating our content with new information to keep it fresh and relevent, in order to meet our commitment to you in providing the most valuable I.T. and Managed Services content available in the industry.
Best Practices Guides Available Now:
These Best Pracices Guides serve as companion documents to our Webinar training courses, and illustrate our concepts in a concise, easy to understand graphical manner.
And the best part? They are absolutely FREE to download after creating your FREE Basic Membership!
Join MSP University now absolutely FREE to download these valuable Best Practices Guides and dozens of other Webinars, Forms, Tools and Collateral!
|
| SaaS as a Managed Services Deliverable |
Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions are billed to clients on a subscription basis, similar to Hardware as a Service (HaaS). It's common for SaaS to be mentioned along with Managed Services, as though they are one and the same - but for many MSPs used to putting their hands on physical hardware and selling tangible projects, SaaS has met with some resistance. But SaaS isn't going anywhere - in fact, experts predict that it will become the primary method of software delivery and use for the majority of individuals in the future. In fact, you are probably a SaaS user already!
Reselling and maintaining SaaS solutions for your clients is no different than selling and maintaining a hosted email solution - in fact, hosted email is actually SaaS. Other popular SaaS solutions you have probably heard of include Microsoft Online Services, Quicken Online, Salesforce.com and Google Apps. It can be argued that Facebook and Twitter are also SaaS solutions.
SaaS solutions reduce overall challenges and complexity with hardware and software installation, maintenance and integration. Today's SaaS solutions are designed so the SaaS vendor maintains the hardware and is responsible for ongoing software functionality, upgrades and availability, while the MSP's relationship with their clients and vendors is one of facilitating process and change management and training, as well as configuring SaaS solutions to meet their clients'unique needs, and becoming their single point of contact for incident management and service requests moving forward.
Many solution providers fear the onset of SaaS - and for those whose primary client relationships are rooted in reactive, break-fix or transaction-based services - they should. In order to build long-term, value-based relationships with clients, providers' services need to become a critical component in their clients' overall businesses, and not simply a reactive incident or project outcome-focused resource. They need to initiate positive organization-wide change through technology focused on business outcomes that create synergies across all business units for their clients. Only by evolving as a true business partner in this manner will providers be able to break free of a hardware-centric value proposition and position SaaS solutions properly to help their clients achieve their business goals.
|
| MSP University FREE Webinar Course Highlight |
How to Receive up to 5 copies of Microsoft Software to Jumpstart your Prospecting
Are you a Microsoft Partner? If you are, Microsoft will agree to sponsor up to 5 local Chamber of Commerce events at any Chamber of Commerce you choose to work with by furnishing up to 5 copies of a Microsoft Software Package (Microsoft Office, MSFT Streets And Trips, SBA, etc.) to you to be used as raffle prizes at these Chamber Events.
This is a tremendous way for you to generate leads for your products and services as you collect business cards or registration forms for these raffles!
Once again, our special guest is Michael "MJ" Murphy, Business Development Manager, Microsoft. Together we discuss how to take advantage of this tremendous opportunity from Microsoft.
All you need to do as a Microsoft Registered, Certified or Gold Partner to receive this benefit is agree to attend each Chamber Event and conduct the raffle of the Office Prize. This gets you in front of local business, demonstrates your relationship with Microsoft and builds your credibility in your local markets - YOU WIN!
When marketed with your local Chamber of Commerce, this acts as a hook, creating fresh buzz around the Chamber events and driving attendance - THE CHAMBER WINS!
The Chamber helps get the word out about Microsoft software and its sponsorship of the event - MICROSOFT WINS!
Wow, we've heard of win-wins before, but this is a 3-way win!
Watch this valuable Webcast to learn how to position this opportunity with your local Chamber of Commerce and utilize Free Microsoft software to increase leads and fill your opportunity pipeline.
Click here to watch this informative Webinar (log in with your FREE MSP University credentials)
|
|
We Can Build Your Website In Only 7 Days Flat! |
 Does your website really drive revenue, or is it simply a company brochure?
Is your website client-facing and designed to attract your specific target audience?
Does your website clearly identify your prospects' pain and explain how you can solve their problems?
Does your website accurately reflect all of your services and solutions?
There is simply no other organization with MSP University's experience and expertise that can design and deliver a Website solution to you in only 7 days that:
- Is incredibly affordable
- Drives revenue and repeat business
- Is client-facing and attracts your target audience as part of your marketing process
- Identifies your prospects' pain and positions your organization as the solution to that pain
- Showcases every single one of your products and services
- Integrates your PSA solution's existing client login functionality
- Integrates your existing email marketing solution/newsletter registration functionality
- Contains meaningful, relevant content developed by experts in your industry covering over 20 of the most commonly requested services and solutions by end-customers, including Managed Services!
MSP University's 7-Day Website Solution is the answer!
There is simply no other organization with MSP University's experience and expertise that can design and deliver your Website solution in only 7 days that:
-
Helps you drive revenue and repeat business
-
Is client-facing and attracts your target audience as part of your marketing process
-
Identifies your prospects' pain and positions your organization as the solution to that pain
-
Showcases every single one of your products and services
-
Integrates your PSA solution's existing client login functionality
-
Integrates your existing email marketing solution/newsletter registration functionality
-
And contains meaningful, relevant content developed by experts in your industry!
|
|
MSP University Industry News |
Here are just a few of the accomplishments MSP University achieved in the month of April:
- MSP University delivers two 1 day I.T. Solutions & Managed Services Sales & Marketing Workshops at HTG Conference in Irving, TX
- MSP University article "Winning Business in a Losing Economy" featured in ChannelPro
- MSP University conducts 1-day onsite consulting engagement for partner in Calgary, Alberta CN
- MSP University conducts 1-day onsite consulting engagement for partner in Bakersfield, CA
Keep up with our latest news at www.mspu.us/news
| |
|
If you know anyone that might benefit from reading our newsletter, please forward it to them!
Sincerely,
Erick Simpson
MSP University
|
|
|
|
|
