MSPs often face a common problem as their portfolio of services and products grows over time - the complexity of managing that portfolio increases. It's not uncommon to see MSPs with multiple antivirus solutions or numerous configurations of workstations and laptops. With each customer request, new products and solutions are sold. This results in a messy portfolio of solutions and technologies, making it difficult to maintain an overview, and causing a disconnect between sales and services.
Selling different products and solutions can be tempting, and sometimes mergers contribute to an overwhelming number of services, configurations, and SLAs. While offering a broad range of services may sound appealing, in practice, this often causes more harm than good. Customers rely on MSPs to make the best choices for them, both commercially and operationally. MSPs looking to fix the link between what is being sold and what services are being delivered should explore “bundling” services together.
For example, ensuring teams always sell ongoing support with each laptop/desktop, or better yet including security software as part of the bundle, and then offering optional backup for that software such as Microsoft 365 Backup.
Selling Business Outcomes
MSPs should think more about selling business outcomes, not just hardware and software with a managed service wrap-around. Categorising your services into preconfigured business outcome-based solutions simplifies the decision-making process for your customers, as they can easily choose the solution that fits their specific needs. This is particularly beneficial for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) who prefer using IT resources that align with their requirements, without having to analyse each component in detail.
Bundling your services not only streamlines service delivery but also enables you to make better purchases. This efficiency translates into smoother operations and allows you to present customers with a clear and well-defined offering.
Efficiently manage your services
The first step to efficiently managing your services involves the challenging yet crucial task of actually deciding what your bundles will contain. It's essential to have a deep understanding of your customer's needs and adapt your offerings accordingly. For help with getting started productising your MSP services, download our free guide:
Once you have established your service structure, it becomes crucial to make it easy for customers to access and choose your services. This can be achieved through the development of standardised proposals or by establishing a clear sales process. It's also important to avoid unnecessary complexity in your service portfolio by avoiding the continuous addition of new solutions.
In essence, effectively managing your service portfolio requires organisational skills, making well-defined agreements, and implementing them into your systems.
Salesbuildr for portfolio management
Salesbuildr simplifies the management of your portfolio. Salesbuildr integrates with your PSA system, which eliminates the challenge of manually updating services and opportunities between your PSA, quoting and sales tools, especially when working with productised bundles.
Our solution is designed specifically to assist MSPs in streamlining the lead-to-order process, not only for hardware but also for presenting your complete MSP portfolio online to customers. With Salesbuildr, you can establish your service portfolio clearly and without ambiguity. It enables you to create bundles and seize up-selling and cross-selling opportunities that provide maximum value to your customers and generate higher profit margins for your business.
Curious to learn more? Book a demo below to discover how Salesbuildr can help you effectively set up and manage your portfolio.
