Are You Selling To Your Full Potential: The Modern Office

By Gennifer Biggs, security, storage, and managed services editor

Worried about the cloud? CEO of ConnectWise, Arnie Bellini, thinks you need to get over it. And in his opening keynote at the ConnectWise IT Nation partner summit on Friday, Oct. 5, he explained why.

Last year, Bellini highlighted to attendees the reason they will always be relevant: They own the last mile — that entry point and relationship with the SMBs they serve so well. A relationship that vendors need you for. This year, Bellini explained why defending that last mile relationship is key to surviving — and prospering — in an IT world now impacted by cloud computing.

To defend that last mile, Bellini says you must do two things: hone your help desk offering to become indispensable to your managed customers, and then tackle the issue of vendor management. But don't stop there.

Bellini used the visual of a modern office, and highlighted all the places you — an IT solutions provider — need to involved in your customers' environment. Those touch points include the top of mind anchors such as hardware, software, professional services, infrastructure, security, storage and backup/disaster recovery, and email management. But they also include areas often overlooking by many MSPs, such as website management, VoIP, printers and copiers, telepresence, video surveillance, and co-managed IT.

The goal is to more tightly align yourself as a trusted advisor, and town as much of that customer environment as possible. Why? When that potential that your customer's servers could move into the cloud becomes a reality, you won't care, because you will have such a rich presence and deep relationship, the impact will be less.