Innovation. Are you thinking outside the box?

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

Day Two at Autotask CommunITy Live kicked off with a lively panel discussion featuring four very different MSPs: Jacob Braun, COO of WAKA Digital; Greg Donovan, CEO of Alpheon Corp.; Tim Smiley, VP of Operations at Tushaus Computer Services; and Craig Tribuno, CFO and VP at Systems Engineering. The group shared its insights on how to grow, where to grow, and how to measure growth of a managed services practice, as well as their opinions on cloud and other IT trends, and, lastly, some quick answers about business processes at their organization.

Some of their tips?

Greg Donovan, whose company is based in Raleigh, NC, just down the road from the Lenovo main offices, suggested creating partnerships with vendors. His company has done collaborative marketing videos with Lenovo and Level Platforms, showcasing his success with their products. "It goes a long way when you are trying to recruit a client on a national level, and you can show them marketing you've done with a brand name such as Intel or Lenovo," says Donovan. "It takes a little time, a little effort, but you are then on a great national stage."

Jacob Braun suggests that MSPs stop trying to just target one or two people at the CEO level, but rather have a conversation about business and technology with the IT director or CIO and then help them migrate the solutions upstream. "I also find that, while my specialty is security, theirs is not, so they may not fully understand the impact of compliance. We challenge our customers to bring in legal or HR or insurance, and then talk about how secure they are."

Craig Tribuno suggested MSPs stop worrying so much about the cloud, especially considering that customers often care only about a good, reliable solution rather than how it is delivered.

Braun adds: "We welcome the paradigm of cloud computing, but we look this the same way we look at RMM or PSA. It is a tool that allows us to service our customers better, to extend services that they may not have been able to utilize in the past. This landscape is in its infancy, so what we really need to see is leaders who show us how to collaboratively leverage this solutions as part of a total ecosystem for our customers."

Want to hear more advice?

Click here to listen to Jacob's suggestions.

Click here for the scoop on Greg's recommendations.