How to Get Technician Buy-In for an Outsourced Network Operations Center (NOC)
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@Breffni-Potter said:
Because if Continuum say our price is X and their direct MSP says the price is Y. Anyone with a calculator can work out the price difference between the MSPs offering and Continuums.
So you are saying that there is no value add? That's easy, you should never buy through a reseller then and only direct. If you want to know how much of a deal that will be, just call and Continuum will tell you.
No one is getting protected here, customers will find out if they want.
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@Breffni-Potter said:
I've not even set a pricing structure for how they fit in yet
That's why I'm not saying publicly.How does that play in? Do they require a NDA to have a conversation with them? That's the same as telling us to jump off a bridge.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Breffni-Potter said:
Because if Continuum say our price is X and their direct MSP says the price is Y. Anyone with a calculator can work out the price difference between the MSPs offering and Continuums.
So you are saying that there is no value add?
It is up to each MSP to understand how they can add value, if you are a dumb reseller of the service, then there is no value. This is true of ALL products/services.
Which is why, I am in the middle of looking at that.
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Here is the bottom line... we are asking for a price.
It's that simple. Is the product good enough to tell us about or not? Calling for a price isn't respectful of the potential customer's time. Why would any one invest half an hour to find out if it is worth having spent the half an hour at all?
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@Breffni-Potter said:
It is up to each MSP to understand how they can add value, if you are a dumb reseller of the service, then there is no value. This is true of ALL products/services.
If this is true, then the reasons that we have been told why we can't get the prices don't hold up.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Breffni-Potter said:
I've not even set a pricing structure for how they fit in yet
That's why I'm not saying publicly.How does that play in? Do they require a NDA to have a conversation with them? That's the same as telling us to jump off a bridge.
Scott you are leaping all over the place with assumptions. There is no NDA.
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@Breffni-Potter said:
Which is why, I am in the middle of looking at that.
If you have value to add, then you have no reason not to disclose the price. The margin cannot be determined from the price.
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@Breffni-Potter said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Breffni-Potter said:
I've not even set a pricing structure for how they fit in yet
That's why I'm not saying publicly.How does that play in? Do they require a NDA to have a conversation with them? That's the same as telling us to jump off a bridge.
Scott you are leaping all over the place with assumptions. There is no NDA.
I didn't assume. Read what I said, I never said that.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Breffni-Potter said:
It is up to each MSP to understand how they can add value, if you are a dumb reseller of the service, then there is no value. This is true of ALL products/services.
If this is true, then the reasons why we can't get the prices are lies.
No, the reasons why you can't get the price is because of marketing choices. I've avoided them for months due to their marketing, the only reason I am talking to them now is to find out what they do, how good they are and if they are a good fit.
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Asking you how they are getting you not to disclose a price is nothing like assuming that they did it. I asked IF there was an NDA. You answered. I assumed nothing.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Do they require a NDA to have a conversation with them? That's the same as telling us to jump off a bridge.
Then what's this?
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@Breffni-Potter said:
No, the reasons why you can't get the price is because of marketing choices.
Okay, so their choice is to tell us that they don't think that the value of the product is a selling point. Understood, the message is plain as day.
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@Breffni-Potter said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Do they require a NDA to have a conversation with them? That's the same as telling us to jump off a bridge.
Then what's this?
It's a question. How does asking if they do something an assumption? I'm not even sure where you think the assumption is in that statement.
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Do they offer cotton candy with their product?
This is a question. It is no way implies that I think they DO offer cotton candy.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Asking you how they are getting you not to disclose a price is nothing like assuming that they did it.
Well it was implied. You could have asked "why are you not disclosing pricing" instead you asked about the NDA.
@scottalanmiller said:
Okay, so their choice is to tell us that they don't think the product is good enough to tell us about.
As I said, I disagree with how they market the product. We're agreed they could do better.
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@Breffni-Potter said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Asking you how they are getting you not to disclose a price is nothing like assuming that they did it.
Well it was implied. You could have asked "why are you not disclosing pricing" instead you asked about the NDA.
How was it implied? I wanted to know if you were allowed to tell us of the price or not. I didn't imply that you were.
You made an assumption that I made one. I did not. But it's the one case where I wanted to know specifically if you were just not sharing or could not.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Do they offer cotton candy with their product?
This is a question. It is no way implies that I think they DO offer cotton candy.
Ok, point taken.
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@Breffni-Potter said:
As I said, I disagree with how they market the product. We're agreed they could do better.
I dont' agree that they can do better. That's assuming too much. I agree that holding back pricing is a bad strategy if your pricing is good. If your pricing is bad, holding it back is important. So since they don't tell us the price, I cannot determine if the marketing is bad or the product value is bad.
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We've been discussing offline and something that occurred to me as to why they is such a huge disconnect here... although I don't agree with the results anyway, is that this is an IT Professional community and Continuum is not a product for IT Pros, it is a product to replace them. Not eliminate them, per se, but replace what they are doing. That's not a bad thing (see my commodity line talks) but what it does mean is that IT Pros are not their customers. Business people are. None of us in an IT role would ever look at them even if the price were public because it's not our jobs to look at this kind of thing. It's not an IT thing, it's a business one.
Now, that doesn't change the basics. If I put on my business hat and look at this thread what I see is "my time isn't considered valuable." IT people might say that and might know their hourly billable rate, but business people have to be acutely aware of the value of their time and know that wasting thirty minutes isn't an option if you want to be a viable business and more importantly, you have to worry about starting a relationship that started on the sole assumption that one party had time to waste and the other was happy to waste it - that's effectively a poisoned well.
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@Breffni-Potter said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Do they require a NDA to have a conversation with them? That's the same as telling us to jump off a bridge.
Then what's this?
This issue I think @Breffni-Potter (I know I do) sees here is that you responded to the question as if the answer was yes.
If the second half of the above statement has been If the answers is yes, that's the same as telling us to jump off a bridge then we would know you were talking from a perspective of a yes answer.
You're audience sees things differently
