Effective Managed Services Marketing Techniques
 Marketing is defined as all activity that is conducted prior to a sales appointment in order to reach and interest your target audience, and embodies all messaging that prepares prospects for the sale. In other words, marketing is lead generation.

Like it or not, products are an integral (and important) part of any IT Service business. Product sales and services sales go hand-in-hand, drive each other, and produce a whole that is much bigger than the sum of the parts.

With the latest product and services automation tools available today, if you're not realizing a healthy balance of product and services revenue you're likely leaving serious money on the table, and setting yourself up for erosion of your existing customer base.

Back to the Future: A bit of VAR History

The term VAR (Value-Added-Reseller) came about as an evolution of the pure product dealer or reseller, who could make enough money on the margins they got pushing hardware for the large product vendors they represented. As margins got smaller and products got more commoditized, the dealer/reseller started to "add value" by either bundling together several products - often from a variety of vendors - to create so-called turnkey "solutions" and/or services combined with the product - such as training and implementation.

With the proliferation of more complex networks and systems, the break-fix repair and maintenance services side of the business expanded, and with the advent of Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) tools, the Managed Services business model evolved, moving many VARs into an almost pure services business model, positioning themselves as "trusted technology advisors." IT "consultants" are now abound, and many firms have completely given up on the product sale: "I'll tell you what to buy, Mr. Client... then you can go out and get it from someone else."

Don't Change Your Business Model - Use Today's Technology To Expand IT!
That's all well and good, and you certainly should NOT think about changing a successful business model that is working for you. But here are some things to consider in evaluating potential big opportunities that you may be missing:

1. Product Sales Drive More Services Sales. You may or may not be making big margins on product sales today, but there are a variety of services and accessories/upgrades that can be attached to a product at the time of the sale - configuration and installation, training, warranties, etc. - that could make the transaction more profitable. Today's IT Business Management tools will automate the process of up-selling and cross-selling, and produce reminders when products are nearing their end-of-life timeframes.

2. Services Drive More Product Sales. MSPs who know what they are doing are in a prime position to move A LOT of hardware. Let's face it, you are on the front lines of your clients' networks and you see what hardware and software is missing or inadequate for you clients' operations. And, you are the resource to replace the items that fail and need immediate replacement. You are in close contact with your client and their business operations, and are in the perfect position to recommend for them future major technology projects. What's more, you have the opportunity to offer and deliver the consumables and supplies that often carry a nice annuity for certain types of technology products. Today's Back-Office Quoting and Automated Procurement software can get you in the game for all these things.

3. The Opportunity for NEW Revenue. Admit it.  Your customers are already going online to buy technology products from someone else, but with today's technology, there's no reason you can't make it just as easy to buy the exact same products from you - at the exact same costs (maybe even lower) - and still make money. That's because there are hosted e-Commerce tools designed specifically for IT resellers. The best ones will give you total control over the products and prices that show up in your quotes or in your online store, include tools to automatically pull the best pricing from multiple distributors and let you set up different pricing and products for different customers. Built in tools that automatically recommend accessories and companion products or push close outs and specials can drive incremental sales without involving a dedicated salesperson. In fact, with the right purpose-built e-commerce solution, you can make margin even on items costing just a few dollars, because the transactions can be automatically processed, and sent directly to the distributor for fulfillment with little to no intervention.

ROI on Your Automation Software.Autotask Corporation has found a way to sell a full line of IT Business Management software - tools that can automate the way you sell, implement, manage, and bill your IT products AND services - at a price that any solution provider can afford.

You can get into a full IT Service management platform - Autotask Go! - starting at just $29 per month. And, you can get their complete VARStreet Back-Office software, with advanced quoting, live product pricing and availability feeds from your distributors, rich product content and images, and complete product procurement - for just $99 per month. But, even with pricing as low as that, it's reasonable to ask if you can afford the extra expense, and, as you'll see in a minute, the answer a resounding "Yes!"

If you are in the IT services business, you already know the value of your time. You SELL time. When you and your staff are engaged in billable activities, you make more money. When you spend time on activities that you can't bill directly, it impacts your overall efficiency and productivity.

Example 1: It can take hours to research, produce and deliver a single quote if you are doing it the old-fashioned way. After the sale, you still need to procure and fulfill the order. That's more hours to source the items, convert the sales order into a purchase order with specific distributors and confirm everything with your client. For this example, guess how many full transactions like that you do (or COULD DO) in a month, and estimate the number of hours your team burns in that process. If you have pure administrative people doing the work, figure out what you pay them per hour and do the math. That's your cost today.

Now, cut that cost in half. Odds are it's significantly more than a $99 per month Back-Office quoting and procurement product. And, it frees your admin people to do other things to help build your business... like surveying your customers to see who need more products. Of course, if you have billable people doing this work your ROI will be even better, because they're now free to bring even more money in the door.

Example 2: On the services side, you know how hard it is to get everyone to submit complete and accurate time sheets in a timely fashion. If your tech misses a single HOUR that could have been billed, that's $60 to $150 in income taken right out of your wallet (or more, depending on the service.) Compare that to the cost of an IT Service Management tool that makes it easy for a tech to capture more billable hours, AND be more efficient at the same time.
Kind of a no-brainer, eh?

How To See If These Software Products Will Work For You.  Complete information about affordable hosted software to automate your operations - both the product side and the services side of your business - is available at the Autotask Corporate Website. You can request a personal one-on-one demo of any of the company's products to see if they are a good fit for you.

If you are a smaller shop and want to know more about getting started for a little as $29 per month, visit Autotask Go!, there's complete product information, a comparison to the high-end Autotask Pro, and you can even purchase it right off the web site. At that price, you can actually get your own database set up and play with the product for a month or two without too much risk.

If you already have the services side of your business buttoned down but want to know how to quote and sell products more easily, and more profitably, visit the VARStreet product site. Here you'll get a good overview of the products available, and can register for an upcoming group demo.

We'd like to invite you to connect with us today to hear the latest news and events going on at MSP University.   Facebook provides us a much richer platform to engage with you through discussions, comments, pictures and video, while keeping you apprised of MSP University and events and news items you might find worthwhile.