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How to Increase the Revenue in Your MSP by Working Less Hours

How to Increase the Revenue in Your MSP by Working Less Hours

Table of Contents

When working with new clients at IT Experts, the first question that I normally get when people embark on their own business growth journey is “Where do I find the spare time as I am already consumed in the technical aspects of the business as it is!”. I know I need to do something, but there are only so many hours in a day!

Well, 9 times out of 10, most IT & Managed Services provider business owners that I work with are busy in their day doing “stuff, bits, bobs and WORK, ” and have totally lost the focus on working ON “Revenue generating tasks” and physically planning out how they are going to increase income in a strategic and planned manner.

When you set up a business, the first objective is to start getting income in, recurring revenue, and clients through the door. Then you get to a point where about 18 months in when people are busy working IN the managed services business (i.e transactional tasks, technical stuff) and not working ON the business. (Strategic direction of the business).

This normally involves people doing lots of things that don’t really contribute to the growth of the business and these small tasks don’t serve you, the business needs and also don’t add massive value to your clients either.

The reason for this is that you have been focused on delivering for your clients, which is a good thing, by carrying out their deliverables and projects, and because you don’t want to let them down, you just agreed to do it and this distracts you the main PURPOSE of your business and why you started in managed services to begin with.

In addition to this blog, I had previously released a podcast about time management essentials for MSPs, you can check that episode out below:

If we go back and review the ancient Pareto’s Law (Pareto Principle) or the 80/20 Rule, some of my biggest managed service providers client’s gains in a businesses performance have actually come from stopping doing things that don’t add value. These are quite simply distractions that chew up your day and although make you feel good, don’t actually contribute to the bank balance filling up!

At IT Experts, we help our managed services customers to focus on actually doing less work and fewer activities that are build around their own growth plan. The solutions we can provide will increase customers, revenue and sales for your company. Our model will give you the tools you need to get your daily tasks and processes in line and make your business a success.

This leads to uber focus and all of a sudden you are achieving so much more in your day, without working 12 hours.

More than often, what happens when you are unproductive the good old endorphin rush of “doing stuff” because it makes you feel good kicks in, and you feel like you have had a good days work rather than actually taking the business a step forward by increasing your company’s assets, customer service, client portfolio, and sales pipeline.

The process of doing less to achieve more is actually quite scary, because you think that by doing less you’re actually going to be regressing the business and the business will start to shrink. 

This is absolutely not the case! In fact, the polar opposite will happen. Trust me!

When you focus on what really matters to your IT & MSP Business and where that next £1 is coming from, where that new client is coming from, or your new package or service you are developing to increase your MRR (monthly recurring revenue) you will soon start to get traction and small results of your actions will start to appear!

How to grow my IT Business

So, today I have three IT Experts Golden Nuggets that will help you focus on developing your own growth plan to help you and your IT/ MSP Business by actually doing less work and they are:

Tip 1 – Nailing Your Niche

The first step is to really identify and know your NICHE or your Vertical Market, what workstream your clients are in, and to understand WHY you are the expert to be solving their problems. 

The reason why this is important, is because ALL your messaging, content, conversations, language must resonate with their pain points – that you can clearly solve! Do you align their ultimate needs with your managed services solutions?

Review all of this and once more carry out an in-depth exercise with your technical team and help desk to see how widely spread out your services, then link back to your niche and target market. Once you have done this then tighten up your marketing message so that you resonate with your prospects and everything that you do.

Tip 2 – Service, Please!

The second Golden Nugget is about delivering world-class Customer Service. Just because they are buying from you today doesn’t mean that they will in the future. Being an MSP and having the luxury of MRR means that any client you have can be really sticky! But you need to look after them and you need a plan on how you are going to do that. 

 

So, for example with your service desk, how do you provide top-quality support to them? What can you offer that makes you different from your competitors, how can you take extra care of them when things go wrong? There are many MSPs and yours needs to sit above the rest to your customer.

Go back and review your client’s individual needs, double-check that there’s an alignment between the services and the solutions that you provide, and what your client’s ultimate NEEDS and WANTS are, then over deliver world class service to match!

You want recurring revenue and this is how to get it. Look after your customers and support them with effective management and the security of support and solutions that you can provide as a managed service. Managed service providers can gain new business through recommendation from current customers by providing excellent support to them, which will in turn improve cash flow.

Want to know more about Ian?

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Tip 3 – Make It Different

The third tip is about what makes you really different from your competition! What is your USP (unique selling proposition) and Value Proposition? Everybody says to me “We are really good at customer service.” or “We are great at supporting our clients.” but ALL IT & MSP Businesses say that it’s all very vanilla and really not at all tangibles.

I strongly believe that as a techie service provider, people buy from you because of the way that you do things, not what you do. The way you respond to their request, the way you respond in a crisis, the way your business communicates with them. Many MSPs provide the same TYPE of services to their customers but not all provide the same QUALITY of services.

If you were to say that you are involved in your client’s overall business strategy and you have aligned your deliverables with value adds in terms of reporting or helping them meet their KPI’s, then all of a sudden you then start to become different and unique. 

So here be really critical with your own organisation’s culture and your people and dig into why you are different and what you do differently. It could be in your technical expertise, your industry or business sector specialism, your geographical area. The question we need to ask is, Why is it a no-brainer to come to you rather than somebody else. 

Be ruthless here and very self-critical! Ask you team and trusted close allies, be prepared for the answers.

 

future of MSP

SUMMARY

There you have it, three great tips that if deployed as part of your overall growth plans will make a big difference in your business performance. I guarantee that if you tighten down on your niche, have a good internal look at how you actually serve your clients and what makes you different to make you resonate with those clients and find them a solution to their pain points, then you will very quickly and significantly start to do less work.

You will become super focused as a business leader, generate more revenue, (clients will buy more from you as you will build rapport quicker) which will, in turn, add massive value to your IT & MSP business.

As with everything when growing your IT/MSP and Tech Business it’s all about small steps and ensuring that you have a structured and connected Growth Plan.

At IT Experts we use our very own tried and tested Profit Builder Model that helps you grow and scale your managed services business quicker and more sustainably.

If you want to come and see it in action, then come to one of our events where you can see how the individual parts of tech business growth really work.

I hope you enjoyed this Blog and if you want more like this, then check out my other awesome content specifically for IT / MSP and Tech based Businesses. Alternately if you want to have a quick chat about how the MSP Profit builder can help you take your business to your next level then click HERE to book a call.

Ian Luckett

Ian Luckett

I am a Business Growth Consultant and I specialise helping business owners in the IT & MSP space.
I pretty much wake up every day with the purpose to help others out, whether that be in business or in their personal lives.

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