If I Were Launching an MSP Now | Vadim Shelomyanov

VadimShelomyanov, President and CEO of New York-based; INVAR Technologies, shares three suggestions he'd apply if he were launching an MSP today:

1. Build a strong team with customer service people first – We consider our business to be customer service oriented first, and we just specialize in technology.

It's really about being able to service the customers, respond quickly and make sure that the experience that the customer has is the best that you can possibly get it to be.

We say that we're going to excel in customer service, because that's really what they have you around for.

The technology sets are very common across different vendors, but how fast you respond and how good the relationship is with the people that pick up the phone, how well they speak English, etc.; all those things are very important.

This is foundational in running an MSP business, as we are.

Aside from the team, the type of technologies and the stack that you operate should be as simple as possible – to make sure that it's easy to deploy, that it's efficient, and that it's very easy to maintain going forward.

We found it to be a cornerstone of our success.   

2. Create multiple revenue streams – The best way to do that is by innovating and listening to your customer needs.

In our experience, we've expanded our services and product portfolio horizontally and vertically based on conversations that we had with our customers.

We've come up to a place where we are starting just by listening to one client's growing pains, and being able to cater to everything IT.

Through using partnerships at different levels and making sure everyone performs to the highest level possible, we've been able to create such an experience for the customer that they really don't need to look anywhere else.

3. Be sales-hungry – Be very sales oriented and make sure that the operations are built around that.

I think that as part of growing any business, you need sales and they need to be effective. You need to be able to make money and have healthy margins, and not just do things just for the sake of doing them – which sometimes technologists tend to do.

So, it's very important to make sure that you do things for the right reasons.

It's going to add up to your bottom line and create a better experience for your employees, which makes a huge benefit to your customers.

Editor’s note: Comments are edited to improve readability.

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