My mantra with regards to automation has always been, “If you do it more than twice, automate it.” And I stick by that, with a few exceptions. There are some things you should never trust to an automated script.

I often have discussions with N-able partners who need help capturing data for either regular reporting or just to have when a customer asks for it. Often people will use a tool like BrightGauge to pull data from their RMM platform and generate dashboards and reports. However, these can be overly complex if you only need to capture the data so you have it and can act upon it. What I regularly recommend is that you create a monitoring script to capture just the data that is needed.

The MSP sales process has experienced some serious disruption over the past couple of years as a result of the pandemic, and as we make our way through this fifth wave, it is still unclear how much more we will all have to endure. But your MSP business still needs to grow—and to grow, you need sales, so what are the top sales skills your team needs to generate success in 2022?

The state of backup technology has moved forward, and many of the old assumptions are no longer true. For years, image-based backup was considered the industry standard. But today’s IT professionals really need full-system recovery capabilities without the built-in inefficiencies of legacy image backup products. Image-based backup backups are far from ideal, especially for managed services providers (MSPs).

I don’t usually do blog posts on news stories, but this one has the potential to impact a lot of people, so I thought it was worth taking a closer look. The top-level story is that Microsoft announced it will not be releasing Hyper-V Server Free as part of Windows 2022. However, if you’re already using Hyper-V Server Free 2019, you can continue to do so until 2029. Hyper-V Server Free is basically a Windows Server Core on which Microsoft has pre-installed the Hyper-V role.

For managed services providers (MSPs), providing the highest quality returns on your customers’ investments is always a top priority. There are many reasons for a business to hire an MSP, but increasing IT productivity and strengthening their bottom line tends to be at the core. While many practices are essential to achieving that goal, few are more important than IT documentation, which can increase productivity, boost quality of service, and heighten consistency.

For a managed services provider (MSP) business, building a great relationship with customers is the ultimate way to secure continued business and build your brand. Every strong customer relationship centers on one key concept: trust. Without trustworthy correspondence between you and your customers, you can’t do much to prevent your end users from switching to another MSP team.

The MSP sector currently finds itself in a difficult situation: While the industry is growing, many are finding it increasingly hard to hire skilled techs quickly enough to fill their increasing knowledge gaps. We frequently hear from our partners that there just aren’t enough skilled techs in the market, and things are moving too quickly. This is particularly true in security, but it’s certainly not limited to that area.

Following my previous blog post (which you can read here), I’m continuing to look at marketing and lead-generation activities for small MSPs. Here are my remaining tips on how to effectively market when you are an MSP of one.