As a reseller, you rely on your vendors not only for products, but for technical, marketing and sales support. If your business is moving to an MSP model, that support goes away, which presents a host of fundamental implications for your business.
For more information, visit www.nimsoft.com.
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Managed Services - Becoming a Vendor
1. Managed Services
Becoming a Vendor
Lane Smith
Ken Vanderweel
2012
2. Introductions
Ken Vanderweel Lane Smith
Sr. Director, Business Coach
Global Service Providers 4-Profit Inc.
CA Nimsoft
2
3. About CA Nimsoft
First to Unified Monitoring First to Full Featured SaaS
First to Usage Monitoring First to Datacenter Power
First to Vblock Monitoring First to Unified IT Management
GROWTH MOMENTUM: NIMSOFT SINCE ACQUISITION
3
4. Bridging the Gap between Business and IT
PROBLEM CHANGE
SERVICE DESK
CONFIGURATION
INCIDENT
KNOWLEDGE
SERVICE CATALOG
AND REQUEST
SERVICE LEVEL
MESSAGE BUS MESSAGE BUS
APPLICATION VIRTUALIZATION
MONITOR
USER EXPERIENCE
STORAGE
CLOUD DCIM
DATABASE SERVER
NETWORK
4
5. CA Nimsoft MSP Center of Excellence
Areas of Focus:
• Service Catalog
• Team of individuals focused solely on the • Pricing and Packaging
Business Enablement of our Service Provider
partners • Contracting
• Focused in supporting the growth of our service • Onboarding
provider partners by delivering advisory and • Service Level Agreements
enablement services to sustain momentum and
success • Service Offering Launch
• Core Principles of the COE: • Marketing Collateral
₋ We succeed only when you succeed • Sales Enablement & Training
₋ How you define success is unique
• Demonstrating Value
₋ Simple doesn’t mean basic
• Avoiding Commoditization
5
6. About 4-Profit
Helping Solution Providers find
their chosen destination on purpose
Market Focus Guiding and inspiring business leaders to reach their "chosen" business destination
Types of Services • Business Assessments
Offered • Business Coaching for Owners and Managers
• Strategic Planning & CEO Development
• Candidate Recruitment & Hiring Strategies
• Business, Sales, Operations and Marketing Peer Groups
• Workshop Training and Speaking Engagements
6
7. Nature of your Business Today
Your Vendor Brands are Your Brand
7
8. Nature of your Business Today
Vendor You – The IT Reseller
Creates product Resell vendors’ product – installs & supports
Creates value proposition Follows vendors’ lead
Creates brand awareness Follows vendors’ lead
Creates and invests in marketing programs Markets vendors product typically as part of MDF
or other vendor paid funds
Generates leads Takes leads from vendors
Help close deals from leads Closes deals – heavily relies on vendor for support
Provides reseller with product training, technical Attends vendor training, certifies technicians,
escalation, collateral, pricing guidelines, provides installation and support services
certification, etc.
8
10. Microsoft Office 365
35+ Case Studies most with video testimonials
9 dedicated product detail pages all with videos & detailed info
Many, many online product demos
Cost calculator
Plan decision tools
10
11. Microsoft Training
Technical Sales
• Deployment guides • Self Paced training guide
• Performance and tuning guides • Proposal templates
• How to videos • Sizing tools….
• Virtual labs
11
12. Your ‘Service’ is your Product
Be like a vendor and bring your service (aka product) to market
Relax, IT is Done.
Our Services Get Started Now!
IT
IT
Experienced.
Reliable.
Our People
Tips for Managing IT
12
13. The Typical MSP NOT Thinking like a Vendor
1 Marketing Slick
1 proposal/agreement/SLA
No training
No case studies
No testimonial
No pricing tools
No experts
No lead generation activities
= No Sales Success
13
15. Nature of your Business Tomorrow
You Lead With Your Brand
15
16. Nature of your Business Tomorrow
You – The Service Provider Vendor
Creates service offering(s)/product Products support your service offering(s)
Creates value proposition Products are a piece of your value proposition
Creates brand awareness Creates their brand awareness
Creates and invests in marketing programs May provide marketing support for your service
offerings
Generates leads May still provide leads though as your secondary
source
Close deals from leads May provide support in closing deals
Provides your team with product training, sales May provide supporting training and
training, technical escalation, collateral, pricing documentation
guidelines, etc.
16
17. How Do You Become a Vendor?
Develop an MSP Task team to launch YOUR productized service
Develop your service offering
Productize your service
HOW?
Build your brand
Generate interest/leads
Continuously improve
17
18. Developing Your MSP Task Force
You
Sales Service Marketing Finance Operation
• Individuals that have a solid understanding of your market as well as your skill sets
• Sales reps that are always open for new solutions
• Engineers with a solid understanding of managed / cloud services along with a sales
skillset
• People that can build the processes you will need to succeed
• Individuals who have proven training skills (leverage for future training and development)
18
19. MSP Task Force– What do they do?
Develop & productize initial service offering
• Build the processes needed to deliver your service offering
• Perform the initial sales efforts
• Evangelize the product internally and externally.
Support the service offering moving forward
• Help sales teams with customer engagements
• Understanding customers’ needs and ensuring that your offerings
continue to meet them
19
20. Developing Your Service Offering
Know Your Product / Service and the Value to Your Customers
Your Service ! Value to Your Customer
Stabilize Monitor 24 x 7 Increased Productivity
Assess
& Secure & Manage Support & Profitability
Clear definition of your services should be in your Service Catalog
20
21. Developing Your Service Offering
PRODUCTIZE
YOUR SERVICE
• Develop supporting sales & technical documentation
• Develop supporting processes from sales, through legal,
delivery, billing and account management
21
22. Developing Your Service Offering
Develop a new service/product checklist to ensure all components of service offering are created
Check out our upcoming webinar on “Developing your 1st Service Offering”
GENERAL INFO NEW PRODUCT COMMENTS
Organizational chart update/requirements 6 First round has been completed will need to re-evaluate a later date
Practice business plan/goals identified 7 Business plan is at vision stage will need to put budgetary numbers in place
SALES & MARKETING
Unique value proposition 5
Market opportunity 10
Vertical market opportunity 10 Foundation will bring a vertical of non-profits in
Elevator pitch 7 Need to get more details to see if the current rep has a specific recurring serve
Sales compensation plan 3
Documented sales process 1
Sales training process 1
Sales team trained on on product 1
1st call script 3
Pre-sales/customer network assesment 3
Sales proposal 2
Sales presentation 2 Jason is working on this one now
Marketing collateral 7 Need to review
22
23. “Productizing” Categories
General
Business Plan, Org Chart, etc.
Info
Sales &
Sales Processes, collateral, proposals, etc.
Marketing
Finance &
Service agreements, billing processes, licensing, etc..
Legal
Technology Ensure technology is scalable, fault tolerant, ..
Service
Core support process, customer satisfaction, employee training,
Processes
Pilot
Test offering viability, create case studies, refine processes..
Program
23
24. New Product/Service Checklist
GENERAL INFO NEW PRODUCT COMMENTS
Organizational chart update/requirements
Practice business plan/goals identified
SALES & MARKETING
Unique value proposition
Market opportunity
Vertical market opportunity
Elevator pitch
Sales compensation plan
Checklist Categories include:
General Info
Sales & Marketing
Finance & Legal
Technology
Service Processes
Pilot Program
24
25. New Product/Service Checklist
GENERAL INFO NEW PRODUCT COMMENTS
Organizational chart update/requirements 6 First round has been completed will need to re-evaluate a later date
Practice business plan/goals identified 7 Business plan is at vision stage will need to put budgetary numbers in place
SALES & MARKETING
Unique value proposition 5
Market opportunity 10
Vertical market opportunity 10 Foundation will bring a vertical of non-profits in
Elevator pitch 7 Need to get more details to see if the current rep has a specific recurring serve
Sales compensation plan 3
Documented sales process 1
Sales training process 1
Sales team trained on on product 1
Use the following guidelines when completing the “New Product” column:
“10” Benchmark – Best effort with current resources and capital
“7” Average – Working well but could use some improvement
“5” Weak – Likely to be increasingly detrimental without change
“3” Poor – Highly detrimental to this business area
“1” Deficit – Risky/barrier to success
“N/A” – Does not apply to this product/service
25
26. Create Your Project Plan
OWNER ASSOCIATES TASK (highlight strategic in yellow) COMPLETE TARGET STATUS
Sales & Marketing Tasks
Jerry Define Sales Process Q3 Not Started
Jerry Develop Sales Proposal Q3 In Progress
Finance & Legal Tasks
Beth New contract billing process Q1 Not Started
Beth Contract change process Q2 Not Started
Beth Contract termination process Q3 Not Started
Technology
Deployment Team Ensure scalable Q1 Completed
Deployment Team Ensure high availability Q1 Not Started
Deployment Team Ensure licensing can be tracked and is legal Q1 Not Started
Service Offering / Delivery
John Change Management Process Q2 Not Started
Fred Patch & Configuration Management Process Q3 Not Started
Beth Ensure licensing can be tracked and is legal Q2 Not Started
Jeremy Review and Analysis Process Q3 Not Started
Jeremy Quarterly Review Process Q3 Not Started
26
27. Update Checklist and Keep Moving On
GENERAL INFO NEW PRODUCT COMMENTS
Organizational chart update/requirements 6 First round has been completed will need to re-evaluate a later date
Practice business plan/goals identified 7 Business plan is at vision stage will need to put budgetary numbers in place
SALES & MARKETING
Unique value proposition 5
Market opportunity 10
Vertical market opportunity 10 Foundation will bring a vertical of non-profits in
Elevator pitch 7 Need to document and make sure everyone
Sales compensation plan 8 Need to get more details to see if the current rep has a specific recurring serve
Documented sales process 7
Sales training process 7
Sales team trained on product 6
1st Call Script 5
27
28. A MSP Thinking like a Vendor
Expert Team • To support your sales efforts
Full marketing initiative
• Generating leads
Detailed sales process
• All supporting collateral ready
• Sales training program
Customer case studies and
testimonials
Detailed process for selling,
delivering and support your
service offering
= Sales Success
28
29. Developing Your Sales Leads
You are now marketing YOUR Product / Service NOT your vendors’
• Create a marketing plan for your new product/service
• Develop your own lead generation strategy
View our upcoming webinars on:
• “Creating a Marketing Plan”
• “Selling Managed Services”
29
30. What’s Next
You won’t get
everything right the
1st time
Leverage your experts
to expand your sales
force
• Sales training
• Technical training
• Process improvements
Focus on continuous • Customer Satisfaction
improvements improvements
30
31. Webcast Series
• Building your MSP – Self Assessment - developing your plan
• Building your MSP – Creating and developing your offering
• Why do your customers need managed services?
• Building your MSP – Pricing and packaging your offering
• Why you need to get in the game or be left out
• Building your MSP – Developing your service delivery engine
• The managed service model, explained
• Growing your MSP – Developing a marketing plan
• The 5 fallacies of doomed MSPs
• Growing your MSP – Developing a sales strategy
• Growing your MSP – Creating a scalable MSP practice
31
32. Where Can I Get More Information?
CA Nimsoft 4-Profit
www.nimsoft.com/mspzone www.4-profit.com
Socialize with CA Nimsoft! Socialize with 4-Profit!
@nimsoft @4profitWay
facebook.com/Nimsoft linkedin.com/company/4-profit
linkedin.com/company/Nimsoft/
slideshare.net/NimsoftMonitoring
youtube.com/user/Nimsoft
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33. Thank You
Contact Us
Email: lane@4-profit.com
Email: ken.vanderweel@ca.com