3 Steps to Scaling Your MSP in 2019

2019 is here! So you are probably thinking about how you can do things a little bit differently in your business this year.

For one, you’d probably like to scale your business at a faster pace. If last year felt a little like standing still (or worse – going backwards), it’s time to kick things into overdrive in 2019 and build your business momentum. There are three steps you can take to scale your business successfully this year.

Learn to put sales first.

We’ve done our homework at Benchmark 365, so we know what it takes for MSPs to scale. What we’ve learned is the following: Scalable MSPs are focused almost entirely on sales. Compared to other MSPs in the market, scalable MSPs are typically larger in size and generate more revenue when you break the numbers down. Your business grows only when you sell more — plain and simple. Without additional sales, your MSP is going to stay right where it is. You won’t be able to scale it.

I learned this the hard way. Years ago, when I was in the trenches running tech support, I didn’t have much experience in sales. Why? Well, I was too busy running a tech business to truly master the art of selling. As a result, our revenue had stalled, so I made the decision to switch things up a bit by putting sales first. This decision led to my MSP growing 100 percent year-over-year growth — and our MSP is still growing today.

Identify your labor issues.

For IT providers, labor has always been an issue. With the relatively low unemployment, more and more MSPs have been turning to automation tools to help alleviate labor shortage challenges and costs. However, at its core, yours is still a labor business, so even if MSPs automate what they can, people still need to drive the tools and handle help desk calls. If MSPs can’t acquire the right talent — due to labor costs and shortages — they won’t be able to scale their business fast enough to accommodate additional workflows, leaving money on the table.

Solving labor issues frees up your time, which you’ll need more of to scale your business to the next level. You don’t have a decade or two to build up a team to excite your customers anymore. You only have today — and today, scaling revolves around the following: speed, access to a much wider range of skills and lower-cost people solutions.

Begin outsourcing your support.

Consider outsourcing your customer support and helpdesk if you’re ready to get serious about scaling your business in 2019. From my experience — after having followed all the industry mantras, buying all the automation tools, hiring and losing trained technicians — outsourcing your help desk is only way to scale your MSP successfully. You’ll not only make time for sales and overcome labor issues but save money and generate more revenue to invest in other areas of your business, such as marketing and product development.

If you’re unsure of where to start, there are three keys to successfully outsourcing your MSP customer support: reset your value proposition, be open with customers about operational changes and commit fully to a comprehensive outsourced solution. Committing to a long-term support strategy by working with the right outsourcing partner (such as Benchmark 365) will help you scale and transform your business in the coming year – much faster. Here’s a great case study from Go Computers talking about just this.

Scaling an MSP and keeping it all in house is just too hard, especially in today’s economy. If scaling your business is a top priority for you in 2019, putting sales first, identifying labor issues within your business and beginning to outsource your helpdesk support is the place to start.

If you are eager to learn as much as you can – take a look at my new book – Infinite Scale: The Ultimate Guide to Growth for Managed Service Providers. It will help you scale, be more profitable and regain control of your time.