You have built a business based on network infrastructure design, support, maintenance and helpdesk. But listen closely. Your clients may be asking for services outside your offer sheet. Great news for you!

As a trusted IT partner you hope they look to you first for these services. Isn't customer loyalty the benchmark for retention? Stop passing on these revenue generators. After all, it is 6-7 times less expensive to retain and grow your current clients than to attract new ones.

Business 101 teaches that sticking to our core offering is tried and true. But how do you grow in today’s market where competitors offer seemingly similar value? How do you protect margins?

IT services should enable long-term business success

Lines are crossing between managing the backbone of IT infrastructure and the complexity of business process. In my organization, technology touches everything we do, every day.

Back in the day, when email went down business halted, yes, but in reality we could still function and get some work done. Today we are much more dependent on our technology. Now if email goes down there are broader ramifications.

We share, collaborate, meet, strategize, document and store in the cloud. Our core product, delivery, sales, marketing, and accounting are tied together.

These are the opportunities your MSP should seek out in order to grow; understanding a client’s business process, how intertwined that process is with technology and becoming a partner to providing business support.

Performance and growth sound like business support to me!

A recent Avaya article identifies the ‘focus on customer performance and growth’ as traits of a world-class services provider. A post by VentureBeat echoes the same sentiment: helping solve business problems and measure values based on outcomes delivers a holistic solution.

This is the open door to helping you break away from being perceived as a commodity based solution ( based on who has the best price) to one of trusted partner in providing a business solution.

3 Quick Steps to Add Business Support to your Offering

1. Do a competitive analysis

NetMBA states “an opportunity is the chance to introduce a new product or service that can generate superior returns.” You are already aware of others competing for your customers. Take another look at them with a specific eye for the business services they might provide (or not) and the pricing. With so much information available at our fingertips much of the work can be accomplished online. Now is a good time to do an external SWOT analysis. What makes you different? Where is the opening? How do you grow?

2. Get your sales engine revving

Sales, account managers, vCIO’s and techs are your eyes and ears. Dedicate a portion of your sales meeting to flushing out these opportunities. Something will rise to the top. Guaranteed. It is critical they understand the revenue impact new sales opportunities provide. And once implemented reward them generously. Need help on effecting change for your sales team? Here is a list of 7 ideas to help effect those changes from CIO.com.

3. Find key strategic partners

Define what you are looking for. Is it increased margins? Monthly recurring revenue? Create those key strategic partnerships that complement your offerings. Understand the value proposition.

You don’t need to reinvent the wheel. But wouldn’t it be nice to generate revenue by introducing a wheel? I was having a conversation with an exec this week on the value proposition of our service to his organization. $83.50/month, not exciting. But 50 clients at $83.50/month x 60 months? $250K with no cost, now he is listening.