Freedom for MSP Owners to Grow the Business
In this chaotic world, no place is more chaotic than the MSP operational environment. While we have written many articles on how to drive the chaos out of the work environment, most of them have been summarized in this eBook: Unshackled: Freedom from Service Delivery Issues
So now that you have remembered the eBook, found it in the bowels of your hard drive, and blew the dust off it while skimming thru it for the first time, we turn to now what!
What is the Role and Responsibilities of the Owner of an MSP. Go Sell Something so as to Grow the Business?
Let’s jump in.
As much as we hear Owners saying, “The Techs do not know what to work on next,” we also hear Service Managers saying, “Why does the Owner not leave Service Delivery issues for me to handle?”
We have done our best to answer both questions.
The Owner’s responsibility is to leave Service Delivery Issues to the Service Manager to handle, but they don’t because of a lack of Trust. (Read our article: Trust - Secret to Business Success Here)
For years, we’ve been writing about what it takes to make sure the Techs know what to work on next and how the Service Delivery Team can build Trust with the Owner and Customers.
A summary of the two years of articles is captured in our comprehensive eBook, Unshackled. Download your copy here
If an MSP follows our advice (and many do) to build a high level of Trust in the Service Delivery Operations, this will:
Free up the Company to grow.
Allow the Owner to go out and sell something.
Now, what does that leave for the Owner’s Role and Responsibilities? After all, his role is not to be a Service Delivery watchdog, and no one wants him in that role anyway!!
What is left for an Owner to do once Service Delivery is covered?
According to the Visionary Academy, an Owner still wears many hats.
Visionary for the Company
Sets overall trajectory
Plays with ideas
Solves big problems
Manages External Relationships
Leadership within the Company
Defines the Business Plan
Sets Budgets & Policies
Outlines Business Priorities
Hires and Leads Managers
But the most important responsibility to focus on is…growing the Business and guiding it through the growth phases. This sometimes means sales; other times it means growing the Leadership Team so they can focus on Sales, Administration, and Operations.
All too often, the Owner is the Visionary and the Leadership Team in all areas of the business, and this is fine. But under no circumstances (once the MSP Business has matured beyond 3 Techs) should the Owner be saddled with Service Delivery Issues. This then becomes the bottleneck and reason so many in the Industry say that Service Delivery Issues are the #1 barrier to growth.
While we are not an MSP (we are The Autotask Service Delivery Authority), we have grown through similar phases as an MSP does, growing from a 3-Tech shop to a 6-Tech shop. By the end of 2021, we will mirror a 10-Tech shop in all areas but Revenue.
In 2017-2018, not only was I responsible for all Sales, but I was also developing 90% of the Content and delivering 100% of our services. With Carol H joining us in 2019 we started moving the delivery of services to the Content Delivery Team and now they are delivering 75% of our services, while I focus on other areas.
By 2020, we matured to a place where Managers are also running the Marketing and Administrative functions. In 2021, with the addition of a Sales Team, I will start migrating out of Sales and more into the Visionary and Leadership role, leaving the management - including Service Delivery - to the well-equipped managers we have either hired or grown within the business.
Where does that leave me? To do what I do best of course, and that is to develop more (and better) content to help the Autotask MSP Community Resolve Service Delivery Issues so they can Grow their Businesses.
Talk to you next week,
Steve
Want to chat more about how to grow your business? Book a time on my calendar here
How do we know how to help MSPs grow their business? Because we have 22+ years of MSP Service Delivery Coordinator/Manager experience on staff, and 17+ years Autotask System Administration experience. Which is another way of saying we have been there and done that, and we know how to leverage the Autotask software to Resolve Service Delivery Issues.