I hear this question a lot and the answer in my mind is a simple one assuming you have not raised money to build out an infrastructure.
You really have two good options to quickly and easily get your managed service team off the ground.
- One guy to sell and one guy to do everything else
- Outsource until you have enough volume to bring things in
I know option 1 sounds pretty common sense but it is the formula that works. In our case Mike was the guy that went out and found customers and I was the one that had to service them once they signed on. I do not recommend going out and investing in fancy phone systems or high prices PSA systems. You should have a simple hosted PSA system to get you going, quick books to do your billing, and a guy at a desk (not out in the field) with three phones, two computers, and a bunch of monitors.
This setup will carry you quite deep into your initial client base before you need to start thinking about a scalable team structure. The key to this structure is doing everything you can to keep your resources in house and ready for phone calls not out in the field. Use a partner network to deliver your field work until you have enough to warrant a full time resource of your own to create focus on your remote services.
Option 2 has become more realistic these days with all of the master MSPs, NOC services, help desk services, and field partner options available in the industry. You could choose to leverage these service to start building your services and bring things in house if you desire when volume reaches a critical mass.
The key to this option is to look for partners that make their service financially attractive and most important of all do not lock you in to long term contracts in order to work with them. If you can find these things there is nothing wrong with using this method to get your services off the ground.
No matter which of these options you find attractive one major key is to build service offerings that you can deliver. If you feel that a call back service, engineer calls you within 10 minutes, or an email and chat only service offering will best set you up for success out of the gate then sell these services. Do not sell 24/7 unlimited access or other services unless you have a way to deliver it.
Josh
