Become a Front-Runner: Huge MSP Opportunity at Channel Futures Leadership Summit

As part of its mission to bring educational content to its events that help channel partners accelerate their growth, the fall Channel Futures Leadership Summit has expanded its MSPmentor track to include exclusive training from New Charter Technologies.

Anchoring the conference track at the Channel Futures Leadership Summit, part of Informa Tech Channel’s event platform, will be MSP training from the senior most leaders at New Charter, one of the industry’s highest-performing managed services organizations. The content will feature the organization’s Front-Runner Methodology, which it designed to help channel partner leaders develop strategies for growth, business efficiency and and an improved customer experience.

This is content channel partners can’t find at any other industry event, held in a setting where peers can compare notes, share best practices and dive deep into the issues that can take their companies to new heights — all in a vendor-neutral environment.

After attending the three MSP training sessions, attendees will have an opportunity to understand where they stand among their peers by taking part in a fourth session featuring New Charter’s maturity model assessment tool.

Become a ‘Front-Runner’ at Channel Futures Leadership Summit

MSP and channel partners who participate in the MSPmentor track featuring the Front-Runner Methodology will walk away with an understanding of the processes they need to improve, or work needed to develop a best-in-class partner organization. The MSPmentor track, launched as an outgrowth of Channel Futures editorial coverage, features training from industry leader Len DiCostanzo, CEO of MSP Toolkit. DiCostanzo also serves on the Channel Futures MSP Advisory Board.

The training sessions will be presented by New Charter’s executive team, including CEO Mitch Morgan; Chris Luise, group president; and Peter Melby, chief revenue officer. The exclusive information in each session is designed to benefit both MSPs and/or channel partners including telco agents and technology advisors who focus on selling communications and collaboration solutions. The Channel Futures Leadership Summit runs from Oct. 30-Nov. 2, at the Fontainebleau Miami Beach.

Each session will present a holistic view of operational excellence that can be applied to almost any business.

New Charter’s Chris Luise

“We focus on building extraordinary, high-level client satisfaction, extraordinary high employee engagement, as well as best-in-class financial returns,” Luise said. “Those are the three elements we need to drive when we talk about what it takes to be a Front-Runner.”

Luise’s panel, “Understanding the Paths to Business Efficiency,” is all about working smarter, not harder; or, as he puts it, learning how to drive efficiencies without becoming McDonald’s. The problem with that type of model is that it’s associated with low client satisfaction, niche markets, a race to the lowest dollar value and high employee churn.

“You don’t want that. When we look at best-in-class, we need to take a …

… holistic look that focuses on the employees, the clients and the returns,” he said. “We need to look at efficiency broadly.’

Expect Luise to dive into the importance of standard operating procedures, which he says trump standard tool sets.

“When you look at how to handle a client, it transcends tools. It takes the religion out of tech and puts the religion in process development. That’s an important factor to consider,” he said. “If you’re challenging your employees, you can still do so by having them grow in other technical areas, while staying within the standard operating procedure framework. That’s an important element.”

Putting the steps in place to achieve optimal business efficiencies isn’t easy. But strong leadership skills, which Luise and the other New Charter presenters will focus on, can help overcome major challenges that pop up on the path to success.

“I think it’s always an issue with leadership,” Luise said, about addressing challenges. “You have to answer for your employees and your clients, ‘Why are we doing this? What is the vision of the end-result? Then you have to lead through that change. That is where it almost always goes sideways.’”

Leaders, he said, have to understand that achieving efficiencies transcends financial metrics, such as your own profitability. Clients and even employees don’t necessarily care about that.

“If you take away the financial gains of business efficiency, you need to lead with those other objectives. It sets the vision for a great client experience and a great employee growth model,” he said. “If you can package it up in a way that makes sense to all parties getting to where you’re trying to go, you can lead through this.”

New Charter execs will take a similar high-level, yet comprehensible, approach to the other two panels.

New Charter’s Mitch Morgan

Mitch Morgan, whose company ranked No. 47 on this year’s Channel Futures MSP 501 ranking of top managed service providers in the world, will address “Understanding the Paths to Excellent Client Experience,” the key ingredient of any business’ success.

While most channel partners – MSPs and agents/technology advisors – have access to similar technology and talent, providing an exceptional customer experience is the difference between the winners and the losers. Morgan will go far beyond the basics. He’ll focus on how a great client experience can impact technology stack adoption, customer retention and enhanced client profitability, and how it can also lead to better service results and deeper client relations.

New Charter’s Peter Melby

In his session, “Understanding the Many Paths to Growth,” Peter Melby will explore a multifaceted approach that’s fueled by continuous improvement. Melby will stress there’s more to achieving uninterrupted growth than the standard industry best practices most business leaders follow. He’ll help the audience gain insight on how to improve the process of tracking leads and sales deals; translate growth plans into sales, marketing and retention goals; develop consistent marketing efforts; and use metrics to determine the effectiveness of lead-gen initiatives.

Rounding out the Front-Runner MSPmentor session is the maturity model assessment tool, open to all channel leaders who attend the Summit. The test gives participants the chance to answer thought-provoking questions on the operational components that go beyond financial metrics. Find out what best-in-class really looks like for a long-term sustainable business. Best of all, you’ll see how your company stacks up against your peers. Whether you operate an MSP, VAR, IT consultancy, communications partner, technology advisor, cloud service provider or solution provider, all channel partners will benefit from this assessment. The maturity model assessment test is based on data and metrics New Charter Technologies has collected and followed to make it one of the highest-performing technology providers in the country.