Image Gallery: Boston Pax8 Mission Briefing
Pax8 takes its Mission Briefing roadshow to Boston.
July 24, 2019
Pax8
Just months after SolarWinds’ acquisition of PassPortal, Colin Knox, founder and CEO of PassPortal, was out in front of session attendees, telling them about secure password and documentation management, and why they need it.
“If you’re not secure, your clients aren’t secure. You’re an extension of your client’s networks,” he said. “You have to get your house in order.”
He talked about how MSPs are being targeted and why MSPs are high-payoff targets for attackers.
Health care is the fastest growing sector of the U.S. economy, with the highest vulnerability to cyber risk, said Marc Haskelson, CEO of the Compliancy Group.
Businesses think that the security they have in place is good enough. Not so — there’s basic managed security, and there’s compliance as a solution (CaaS) and advanced security. Haskelson talked about basic managed security and services, including RMM, help desk and backup, for example. CaaS and advanced security is bundled firewall, Wi-Fi, advanced security products, encryption, backup/disaster recovery, RMM and help desk.
The MRR range for basic security services for partners: $75-$125 for a net profit of 30-50%. The MRR range for CaaS and advanced security: $175-$250 for a net profit of 200%+.
Paul Redding, CEO of Carlin Bradley, talked about how CaaS transformed his business.
“Now, I’m a business solution provider, not a technology provider.”
Redding said that with the Pax8 Compliance Stax, MSPs can double the revenue and triple the profit.
Dropsuite is all about backup, archiving and recovery solutions, particularly for Office 365 – Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint, OneDrive, Groups and Teams. In fact, Weyman Jones, national sales manager at Dropsuite, calls it a huge opportunity for partners.
Why? Because there’s perception versus reality. Companies think that Office 365 data is backup and restorable, and they hold the MSP 100% accountable for that data whether they’re paying for it or not.
“There’s a difference between backup and archiving,” said Jones.
There’s a data protection gap not covered by Office 365.
Three myths about Office 365 backup: It’s backed up already because it’s in the cloud (no, not entirely); firms don’t ask for it because they don’t know the pitfalls (education is the key); and, I can restore quickly with Microsoft (no, you can’t).
Taking advantage of the networking opportunity at the Pax8 Mission Briefing, here’s what Roger Michelson, vice president and chief operating officer at IT partner, BNMC said about why he works with Pax8:
“We wanted an easier way to work with Office 365 as a cloud solution provider. We were frustrated with our current distributor, Ingram Micro, who had the cloud solution provider model, especially around billing,” he said. “We had multiple bills; we had challenges just setting up a new customer or changing them. The Pax8 model made it much easier; they provide a lot of customer support – walking us through everything, having meetings – and even when we had a billing issue right away, they fixed it in five minutes, very quickly. That’s why we went to Pax8.”
Michelson still works with Ingram Micro, as well as Synnex, Tech Data and D&H.
“There are a lot of things we have to purchase for our customers,” he said. “For example, I can’t buy workstations and laptops from Pax8. They work with specific cloud-based providers that I do need to buy [from]. But if I need to buy hardware or software licensing, I’ll go to Ingram, Tech Data, Synnex and D&H Distributing — that’s what they specialize in and have it down to a science. Pax8 was built from the ground up around cloud and that’s where they’re the best in the market right now.
Pax8 wants its MSP partners to know about its Wingman Professional Services around email migrations and IaaS builds. The distributor also wants partners to know that its email migration and IaaS builds are both re completely white-labeled.
There also are other professional services such as AD Connect and AD Synch, as well as hardening Office 365 to turn up all of the services. Professional services will also work on custom projects.
Breach Secure Now (BSN) president and CEO Art Gross has been helping MSPs with SMB security and HIPAA compliance for a long time. He’s both the owner of a security company and he ran a MSP for 19 years.
BSN helps MSPs focus on the human element of security by combining the components needed to identify, educate and manage employee vulnerabilities.
“Employees are gullible,” he says. “Eighty-eight percent of business breaches are caused by social engineering.”
The customer’s top threats are the partner’s top opportunities.
There’s a lot of nitty-gritty to get into when comparing Microsoft 365 Business and Office 365 E3, and at the Pax8 Mission Briefing the company talked about how partners can make more money with M365’s bigger incentives and rebates.
Pax8 has resources for partners that explain Microsoft 365 Business and offer a comparison between it and Office 365. There’s also cost, rebate and incentive information.
The MSP panel, with Bret Meche, owner, Premier Data Systems; Zac Paulson, CEO of TrueIT; and Chris Leffingwell, vice president of sales at VIP Technology Solutions Group, had a lot of collective experience and knowledge that they shared with attendees. There was also a lot of interactive back and forth with MSPs in the audience.
There was a common theme among the panelists: Pax8 simplifies offering cloud services and providing them with the help they need to get the job done.
“I couldn’t make an impact with Microsoft. We were a small fish for them,” said Paulson, who admitted to being a skeptic when he first heard about Pax8. Not anymore.
Hot topics with attendees focused on the positives and negatives – mostly positives – about partners working together and how to handle, or tactfully fire, difficult customers.
The MSP panel, with Bret Meche, owner, Premier Data Systems; Zac Paulson, CEO of TrueIT; and Chris Leffingwell, vice president of sales at VIP Technology Solutions Group, had a lot of collective experience and knowledge that they shared with attendees. There was also a lot of interactive back and forth with MSPs in the audience.
There was a common theme among the panelists: Pax8 simplifies offering cloud services and providing them with the help they need to get the job done.
“I couldn’t make an impact with Microsoft. We were a small fish for them,” said Paulson, who admitted to being a skeptic when he first heard about Pax8. Not anymore.
Hot topics with attendees focused on the positives and negatives – mostly positives – about partners working together and how to handle, or tactfully fire, difficult customers.
About 65 channel partners were in attendance at the Pax8 Mission Briefing in Boston, on Thursday, July 18. This was just one of 30 being held this year in a variety of regions across the country. So far this year, the Mission Briefings in Anaheim, California; and Denver have had the greatest attendance, attracting over 100 partners.
Pax8, the self-described distribution disruptor, has designed these Mission Briefings with MSPs in mind. The educational day-long event covers a number of sessions, including sales topics such as how to uncover upsell and cross-sell opportunities; meeting new technology vendors to help you sell more Office 365; and a panel session of MSP peers who discuss opportunities, growth, challenges and strategy — depending on where the discussion takes them. And, of course, there’s time for networking with other partners and the Pax8 team.
Channel Futures was in town for the event. Scroll through the slideshow above for a look at what took place.
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