A little background

Just in case you're new here: KnowledgeWave provides software training for end-users on popular business apps, like Microsoft Office, Teams and Adobe. 

In the simplest terms, the two key ingredients for a successful MSP are signing new clients and retaining them. New competitors are entering the MSP landscape every day as VAR's are attracted to the recurring revenue stream.

Don’t look now, but you can be sure those competitors are targeting your customers with offers to deliver more value for less cost. According to this Charted Institute of Marketing study, "it costs between 4 and 10 times more to acquire a new customer than it does to keep an existing one."

Of course you are interested in maximizing your revenues by spending less time troubleshooting end-user issues. So it makes sense to explore as many self-serve options as possible.

The realities of COVID-19 including the current mandated social distancing and “work from home” orders have changed our lives and our businesses. As a small business owner my company, KnowledgeWave, has had to adapt to the new ways of doing business during this pandemic. 

At your company, you are most likely doing the same.

How many end user apps do you think are part of Office 365? Go ahead, take a guess.

As an IT service provider, it’s helpful to keep an ear to the ground and figure out where your industry is going, what your market is demanding, and what combination of services and pricing will make it all count where it matters most: right on your bottom line.

Here are 3 quotes I wanted to share with you from recent conversations that can help you picture how you can benefit from reselling end-user Office 365 training to your clients.

I was discussing Office 365 end-user engagement recently with a respected IT security professional. Our conversation centered on the necessary tension between a user who is trying to get their work done efficiently, and IT’s obligation to protect organizational data. Nowhere is this more evident than with Office 365.

Update: July 8, 2020

This blog post was originally posted in January 2020 before the world-wide COVID-19 pandemic touched us all in March. With the need to work remotely and/or work from home, the number of businesses reaching out to KnowledgeWave for support around Microsoft Teams quadrupled.

This blog post was very relevant for several businesses reaching out for guidance around Microsoft Teams deployment and Microsoft Teams training. Many of these new businesses seeking guidance knew that Teams is included and integrated with Office 365. They were already using Office 365, but weren't using Teams. Instead, they were spending additional money trying to use Zoom.

As a partner to a number of top Managed Service Providers I want to pass along five common traits many of these MSPs have in common. Hopefully this insight will help you retain existing customers, win new clients, be a market differentiator, and grow your MRR.

Do your employees feel safe, valued, and heard by the leadership in your organization? How much have you done to promote a culture of safety and communication in your company? These issues can have a tremendous influence on employee productivity and retention rates. Investing in employees will allow them to perform better and will organically increase their job satisfaction. If you’re an HR manager looking to enhance company-wide productivity and job satisfaction, consider the following tips.

As an MSP helping your clients is one of your top priorities. Questions regarding Office 365 and associated applications (like Teams, SharePoint and OneDrive) can arise early and often when a client is migrating from another system (such as G-Suite) to the Office 365 platform. Helping your clients solve their problems and answering their questions is incredibly easy with the KnowledgeWave Learning Site.

Check out a quick, two minute show-and-tell video from KnowledgeWave CEO Eric Sokolowski, detailing a recent situation where an MSP easily solved a client problem with the KnowledgeWave Learning Site in just a few steps.

The machine-based world of technology can appear void of human touch to many outside of it. Which can make selling technology services to living, breathing humans even more of a challenge.

One method for adding a dash of humanity is incorporating emotion-based selling techniques – a powerful (and proven) weapon used by salespeople around the world.

Peanut butter and chocolate. Ham and eggs. Star Wars and J.J. Abrams. Some things are just better together.

Microsoft's Office 365 is designed to enable users to access Office applications on virtually any device—anytime, anywhere. But without the knowledge of its vast applications and features, you may be missing out on a valuable opportunity to increase business efficiency across your organization. To optimize the business use of 365 applications, check out these four tips:

Do you and your team find yourselves with newly-assigned duties that call for more expertise in Excel than you’re used to?