I can’t believe it, but there are still service providers out there who haven’t made the conversion to managed services.
Now, I’m not saying that everyone has to become an MSP, but there are many out there that have decided to but still haven’t gotten it done. As Yoda said,
“Do or do not, there is no try.”
That Yoda was wicked smaht!
Burn your boats!
When the Spanish explorer Hernando Cortez landed on the shores of what would later become Mexico, he commanded his crew to burn all their boats so that they would have no option of retreat. Their only option was to advance to conquer the new territory.
This really has to be your mentality about managed services. You have to have this level of commitment.
To give an example, prior to starting Everon I had an hourly service firm. When I decided to start Everon, I started from scratch. Done with the old business, I started the new business with the focus on managed services (though we didn’t know what it was called at the time!) and that’s all we sold. Flat fee services. To this day, that’s the only thing we sell. That was my level of commitment. I jumped right in full force.
I know that most of you are coming from the perspective of having a business that already has clients that you’re billing on an hourly basis. I’m not telling you that you have to sell your business or start from scratch though, to be honest, that would be the easiest way to do it.
Changing your culture and changing your operations from an hourly model to a flat fee model is tough. You have to be extremely, extremely committed or this business model just will not stick in your organization.
I talk with people in the industry all the time who say “I’ve tried this managed services stuff, I’d like to get into it, I’ve tried it a couple of times but it was tough, our market is different than yours….”
That’s BS.
I know that’s blunt, and I don’t mean to be rude or condescending but the reason that the business model is not working for them is because they have not committed to the business model. In any market, there are tons and tons of businesses that are willing to sign up for these services with the managed services model. Don’t use that as an out to enable yourself to avoid this level of commitment to managed services.
If you’re ready to commit to this business model, you need to make sure you’re fully changing your organization’s processes, culture, selling approach, and tools. Jump in with both feet and keep them firmly planted.
MRC
