This book intends to help established business owners move to a managed service model and help anyone develop a cloud service offering specifically focused on the small business market. These are the quotes I noted while reading Managed Services in a Month: Build a Successful, Modern, Computer Consulting Business in 30 Days by Karl W. Palachuk:
- Managed Service – Technical Support delivered under a service agreement that provides specified rates and guarantees the consultant a specific minimum income.
- Managed service means you take responsibility for the client’s network and work to prevent problems before they happen.
- Managed Service involves a focus on preventative maintenance, recurring revenue, and predictability.
- Your solutions must be completely buzzword compliant.
- Mobile Device Management – MDM – almost has to be a managed service offering.
- It is much more profitable in the long run to find clients who fit into your model. That means you have to have a model. You have to create an ideal client and a service offering for that client.
- Break/fix becomes shorthand for a business model that evolved on its own and was not created intentionally.
- Most consultants can name their top client. But most can not name their top ten. You psychologically raise a client’s perceived importance when that client complains a lot, takes a lot of attention, or someone convinces you that they’re important. But if, at the end of the year, they’re worth less than a client who pays the bill and never complains about anything, you need to focus on the reality instead of the perception.
- The right time to fire someone is the first time the thought crosses your mind.
- Document everything. Everything you do. Everything you promise. Every process and procedure. If you start to be successful, you’ll want to clone yourself. That means you have to have all that documentation in place.
- Define your ideal client and go after them.
- Fire clients who are negative, abusive, don’t pay their bills, or simply add stress to your company.
- No client is indispensable. No employee is indispensable. You are not indispensable.
- Don’t meet with anyone who can’t say yes.
- Have a clear definition of managed service.
- Everything you sell should be profitable.
- Avoid scope creep at all costs.