Wasn’t it nice when you could operate your MSP solely on technology, and talk to clients about this router versus that router, or this server versus that server. Unfortunately times have changed and with the growing cloud technologies you are not just selling servers but a multitude of different technologies (many of which your clients do not understand the difference of).
In today’s world of business not only do you have to speak the language of technology but more importantly the language of business. Customers want to know less about the actual technology and more about how is it going to benefit them or bring them more value. Watch as Howard and Harry chat about the future of the MSP.
Video Transcript
Harry Brelsford 0:03
A Nation Nation back with my friend Howard Cohen. Howard. I feel like we talked to her three times a week as we're out gallivanting and serving clients, but always nice to get you back as an analyst for us. Thank you for sticking with us. Always. Harry, you and I swim in the same circles. Yeah, yeah, we do. You should try. So I wish I could swim. I really enjoy swim and can't wait till they open the why backup in a normal capacity. So hey, in any event, let's talk about what will we look like tomorrow? Make that the topic you have written a piece about that? What's the story? Okay
Howard Cohen 0:47
My column, the evolving MSP is all about helping msps figure out where are they going from you.
You can't stay still, you've got to be like a shark. If you stop swimming, you die. If you stop growing, you die. It's like language, Latin, stop changing, it died. So one of the core concepts that I've been discussing with a lot of people lately is a weakness that I see amongst some of the msps that I talked to a larger proportion that I would have thought. And I think it makes somewhat of the difference between the successful and the unsuccessful, MSP. That is to say that an MSP can't just focus on technology anymore, right? It was great in the days when you could talk about this router versus that router, this server versus that server. But that's not what you're selling anymore. Now you're serving this cloud versus that cloud. But realistically, your customer isn't speaking that language doesn't necessarily understand the fine differences of idiosyncrasies. What they want to hear more about is how is it going to benefit them? What's the value of what you're going to bring to them? And more often than not, that starts really at the beginning of the conversation. You know, you start off conversing about what value do they need? To be able to answer that question, you have to speak a whole new loan, not a whole new language, but a whole different language, the language of business, correct, you know, you have to be steeped in in how businesses operate. And that's not simple. A lot of people think, well, I run a business. So I know business. The fact is that businesses vary, operations in businesses vary. There are some fundamentals for sure. And you have to have those, but I think it's the reason we tend to gravitate toward verticals, you'll learn all of the, you know, the complexities of a given vertical, you can sell to more and more of that vertical. I think, in general, this is going to be mandatory for the MSP of the future.
Harry Brelsford 3:02
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I, I, of course, I always, somehow, I always end up agreeing with you. And here's what I mean, is that I have the trademark, the pocket MBA, and I, you know, have the new book out and all that. But about 10 years ago, we actually had a curriculum, we had a 16 week curriculum that a gentleman named Jeremiah ran, gave it a go might have been a little bit ahead of our time, probably need to revisit that. But Howard, on the bicycle bag that you got our branding was basically learn to speak business fluently in 16 weeks. And we were really using the same conversation as those online language systems and the CD ROMs that you can get for learning a language. And we thought, well, that's what it is. Because in 16, is, is this a real MBA? No, absolutely not. And I'm not sure our audience needs to go to an expensive to your program to get a real MBA. But the idea was, learn to speak the business Language of Business brother too early in coffee. But uh, Hey, keep up the good work. And next month, what I want to talk about is another piece he did, because it is it is a hot topic, diversity and inclusion, right that that conversation has been bubbling up to the surface. It's it's an evergreen topic, but it seems to be louder now. Right, with remote work and this and that, and the way we work is changing. So why don't we tackle that one head on?
Howard Cohen 4:36
And I think what we'll talk about is that it's it's happening at the top level executives that I speak to are all about diversity, equity and inclusion. Okay, and it's starting to trickle down, but we need to figure out what to do to make it happen faster, because it's critical. Yep. All right.
Harry Brelsford 4:54
Thanks, Howard. Good to see