Here’s where to get started with cold email campaigns for MSPs
In a lot of my discussions with MSP business owners, I find that people are often receptive to the idea of conducting cold email outreach campaigns… they’re just usually not sure where to begin. We all know what a cold...
Ask an MSP Expert: How do I create service level agreements as an MSP?
Q: We recently transitioned to the managed services model, and want to make sure we’ve covered our bases when it comes to monthly contracts. Are there any best practices you can offer for creating a Service Level Agreement (SLA)? Service...
Are you overlooking the most valuable marketing asset in your organization?
Harken unto me, as I reveal THE secret shared by highly successful entrepreneurs, sales professionals, and marketers that is completely missed by the masses. This is the difference between businesses that enjoy above-average results and the mediocre majority. What is...
Selling is hard, so let prospects sell you instead
We all know selling can be hard, so wouldn’t it be great if we didn’t have to sell anymore? While we can’t get rid of selling completely, we can make it easier on ourselves by switching roles with our prospects....
Sales & Marketing
Ask an MSP Expert: Can cold calling truly help my MSP?
Q: For a while, I thought cold calling was dead. But now, I’m revisiting whether it should be a part of our sales and marketing strategy. Do you think cold calling can make a significant difference for my MSP? Cold...
Don’t write an MSP marketing plan, build a marketing strategy instead
Not too long ago, I wrote an article about a topic that has always been near and dear to my heart — market research. If you want to make sure that your message resonates with the right audience at exactly the right...
Is “normal” behavior holding you and your business back from success?
This shocking statement just came in from the US National Library of Medicine regarding diets: “They all work…when you stick to them.” Back when I was teaching fitness classes, the most common question I would get was “What is the...
Security
Cybersecurity defense: Racquetball, rest, and service
I frequently talk to MSP owners or their technicians and often find them harried and stretched for time. While those descriptors could apply to scores of professions, the stakes of feeling frazzled are high for MSPs. The world of cybersecurity...
Another ‘-ish’ MSPs need to watch
When it comes to MSPs, there is one set of letters that causes indigestion: ‘-ishing.’ Phishing is the biggest headache, of course. Successful phishing expeditions have led to many network breaches in businesses large and small. Recently on Smarter MSP,...
Tech Time Warp: Jerusalem malware inspires antivirus industry
Even malware can produce silver linings — at least in the case of the Jerusalem virus, which inspired computer science students to develop some of the first antivirus software. In November 1987, Omri Mann and Yuval Rakavi were computer science...
Better Business
The increased need for auditing
The best and the worst thing about modern IT platforms is that they are flexible and change can happen extremely rapidly. So, why do the same capabilities create such diametrically opposite issues?
MSPs as my co-pilot: How managed services are evolving
With the rate at which workloads have been moving public clouds, it may not come as a surprise to managed service providers (MSPs) that capital spending in hyperscale environments is increasing. A survey of 200 IT decision makers published by...
Why you should make time to attend MSP conferences
The IT conference season is a very busy period when dozens of conferences aimed at IT Solution Providers and Managed Service Providers (MSPs) take place worldwide. Wherever you are in the world, there will be an MSP-focused conference near to...
Tech Insight
Optimizing cloud experiences could be the next big opportunity
Most organizations at this point have migrated some portion of their IT environment to a cloud computing environment. However, a report published today by Unisys shows that not all those organizations know what to do once that migration is completed....
It can pay to watch cloud pricing plan changes
As the party responsible for managing your client’s IT infrastructure, it’s up to you as the MSP to keep up with what’s going on in the field. As your clients move deeper into the cloud, you want to make sure...
Tech Time Warp: Mozilla Foundation releases Firefox 1.0 with fanfare
In 2004, you might have assumed Microsoft had won the browser wars for good. At the start of the year, 85 percent of web users relied on Internet Explorer.