You may be on top right now, but how do you ensure long-term success in a growing industry like managed services?
The MSP industry is constantly changing, with new competitors appearing daily. Big or small, they tend to describe themselves in similar ways. They are almost certainly going to emphasise their excellent service and ability to tailor solutions to the customer.
The question is, how do you stand out if everyone else is saying it? Here are some ideas.
Understanding your customers' priorities
Knowing your target market is the first step towards staying ahead of the competition. It's fine to provide a wide range of services, but they must be ones that your customers will consistently find valuable. If you are unable to demonstrate this, your customers will start to look elsewhere, particularly in the current economic climate.Creating customer profiles can help to firm up that understanding. If you're unfamiliar with the term, customer profiles are descriptions of a few different types of customers. They will have similar pain points, purchasing habits, and so on. This may aid in identifying approaches that work for a broader range of customers.
Choose your partners wisely
Of course, knowing your customers is essential. The next big question is partnership. The channel is built on partnerships based on mutual trust, knowledge, and benefits. We achieve this by supporting each other, from vendor to distributor to MSP to end user.
As an MSP, you must ultimately add value to your customers. And here's the thing: the right partners will assist you in this endeavour.
Naturally, I'm going to promote Brigantia here, but it's not just rhetoric. We have an excellent cybersecurity solution stack and a highly knowledgeable team. We combine these to assist our MSP partners in providing the excellent service that their customers expect and deserve.
That is how the channel should function, but we have all seen instances where it does not. It's worth returning to a fundamental question. Are your partners helping you in helping your customers? That is ultimately what the channel is about.
Always walk the walk
This may seem obvious, but it is critical. If you advertise the high quality of your service, you must live up to it. There is no substitute for doing a good job in a competitive, service-oriented industry. The previous points mentioned will directly help to deliver on this.
In conclusion, know your customers and choose the right partners, because the right partners will directly support you in adding value to those customers, whether it is a specific combination of services to meet a specific need or a specific configuration of a product to benefit that customer.
The details will change, but the point will remain the same. The channel is all about sharing benefits, from customers to vendors and manufacturers. When we all commit to it, we will achieve success.
