MSP Sector Specialist Startup
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Odd that you find your SMB customers take that stance. Anecdotally, I have found small business owners more often than not like to pass around information on good suppliers/service providers. I would guess the line would be drawn at sharing information between competitors, so perhaps having a lot of customers in a similar field is the reason for your experience.
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I like to ask around for help and advice wherever I can get it. I generally try and only select IT suppliers based on personal recommendations. But I have found that other IT people can be a bit cagey and unwilling to discuss their businesses. I suspect this is a fear of looking silly, like @scottalanmiller calling me weird for buying Meraki, or @JaredBusch telling me I sound like a media person not IT, or just shyness. But I have no qualms about looking silly these days.
I know a few one man band IT managers that don't go on any forums or go to seminars or really talk to any of their peers in the industry - they appear to operate in a vacuum. I couldn't imagine working like that.
We used to run a user group for our ERP system, and it was a game just getting people to turn up. A forum was setup and hardly anyone would use it. People seem to prefer to figure things out for themselves, rather than asking the advice of someone who has been through it all before. Madness.
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Similarly it seems daft to me the mentality some people take to do everything themselves rather than relying on the experience of others. Since putting word out a week or two ago about my venture I've secured PAYG contracts with 2 businesses, both through word of mouth.
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@Robin5170 said:
Similarly it seems daft to me the mentality some people take to do everything themselves rather than relying on the experience of others. Since putting word out a week or two ago about my venture I've secured PAYG contracts with 2 businesses, both through word of mouth.
Awesome. We find that it is hard to find SMBs that are willing to pay for proactive support. So tons of them have no IT but are unwilling to discuss having any and any that do already have MSPs that they are working with. So acquiring new customers is often a long road of waiting for the first group to have something go wrong and hopefully they remember us or the second group getting upset with their MSP and looking to switch or needing something that they don't provide.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Awesome. We find that it is hard to find SMBs that are willing to pay for proactive support. So tons of them have no IT but are unwilling to discuss having any and any that do already have MSPs that they are working with. So acquiring new customers is often a long road of waiting for the first group to have something go wrong and hopefully they remember us or the second group getting upset with their MSP and looking to switch or needing something that they don't provide.
I've ran into this attitude when I've been interviewing for some private sector jobs, public sector isn't like that. but, I will ask them what the current state of their network is, Average age of equipment, Guesstimate of OS version etc.. They usually Say no, you'll have to work here to find out. I politely decline the jobs, thinking their networks are probably in bad shape.
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I think that a lot of it has to do with SMBs having owners, typically. In government everyone is an employee of someone. It's more like big business but big business that is all the same team. SMBs have a combination of rarely helping each other and never discussing or thinking about their IT. Even if they sincerely wanted to help you, often they simply never consider their IT at all. The same things that make them treat IT as an afterthought at their own business makes them treat it as an afterthought when talking to others. And I've never known an SMB to go to another and say "I have no IT, do you recommend someone?"
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Update to what this thread was started for, my personal venture into MSP land. A family member has put up some cash so I can leave work to commit to it full time. Holy moses am I papping myself. Effectively, I can now hand in my notice any time I please, but I feel like I should have more definite work lined up. I have a couple of PAYG contracts on the go but they may or may not be that profitable - it is too early to tell. I also have a one man MSP that is in dire need of some helping hands offer work but again with all these things nothing is definite. I wonder if that is the change I need to make moving from employee to self employed.. Getting over the lack of definite work and ploughing on?
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Good luck. Where are you based?
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The lovely land of Yorkshire. Yourself?
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Northampton. A bit too far for you to travel.
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Not sure if you already have a preferred AV company that you use, but we have an MSP program if you're interested: http://www.webroot.com/us/en/partners/msp/
Good luck on jumping into the world of self-employment!
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Congrats and good luck!
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Thanks! Here's a quick site I whipped up a few nights ago. Rip it to shreds I need feedback. www.randran.com
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@Robin5170 said:
I like it! The fade to a bit of time to load for me, but that might be the bits having to swim under the ocean.
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Thanks Nic. Wasn't sure on the fade either. Seems to be hit and miss whether it is slow or not!
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When I see mission statements like yours I tend to think "blah, blah, blah....", but that's probably just me! I hate marketing speak.
"We offer so many services, it would not be feasable to list them all"
Why not? Also, spelling mistake?When I scroll down whilst reading the text, the background, which doesn't scroll, makes my eyes go funny.
Because you talk about "we", it sounds like you're an IT company, yet you don't have an address? This is a big turn-off for me. Are you marketing the company or yourself? An IT company and an IT consultant are two separate things, and I'm confused as to which you are?
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I don't see anything talking about your focus on the manufacturing sector. If you are going to focus on that, it seems like the web site should really speak to that. Make sure that people looking at the web site have no doubt that you are experienced on manufacturing and make an effort to focus on that.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
feasable
Spelling mistake - sorted. The main reason for not listing everything is lack of time. I set aside 2 hours to do the site and compacted it accordingly. As with all these things it's an ongoing process. The missing address is being sorted by the accountants to register the business at a dummy address on my behalf. Technically it is a company as I have 3 other consultants who will be working for me where needed with different skill sets.
The manufacturing stuff is coming later and is being put together by a professional site designer, rather than a 2 hour hash job. But in the mean time yes you're right i should emphasise that on this one too. -
Well, OK. For two hours work it's pretty good. I'll delay further judgement until it's finished.
