Secrets to Selling More Managed Security Services

In this ebook, you will learn all about TitanHQ’s five pillars of MSP selling success.

• Pillar one: Activate the principle of KISS (Keep It Simple Simon)
• Pillar two: Do you focus on building your business or account management?
• Pillar three: Unify and standardize your tech stack
• Pillar four: How and when to sack a customer
• Pillar five: Becoming a system thinker and cultivating relationships

Download the PDF version here.

Summary

The managed service provider industry (MSP) is a global phenomenon. It is a highly competitive market with an estimated 130,000 MSPs worldwide and 40,000 in the USA . Over the last decade or so, cybersecurity has become a vital element in the portfolio of a successful managed service provider. As such, managed security services have become a lucrative prospect for an MSP. A report from SkyQuest highlights the value of managed security service providers, with findings showing the following:

• The value of the market will be USD 103.64 billion by 2031.
• Manages security services will grow at a CAGR of 14.2% between 2024-2031.

Managed security services are a growth area for the MSP. Analyst firm Canalys has recently published a report highlighting the value of managed security services to MSP partners and customers. The report found that 34% of partners expect a 20% year-on-year growth in cybersecurity revenue in 2024, with two-thirds expecting at least 10% growth.

Managed security services offer high market value and potential business growth. However, an MSP entering the space needs to keep certain things in mind. TitanHQ has almost 30 years of experience working with MSPs that deliver security services. Here, we discuss what an MSP needs to become a stand-out security service provider in this competitive marketplace.

TitanHQ’s Five Pillars to MSP Selling Success

A business needs a strategic vision in its pathway to success. Your company may have a strong foundation stone built on corporate goals, but the pillars upon which these goals sit are what add strength and longevity to your plan. TitanHQ has worked with countless MSPs to deliver exceptional security services. Our solutions are designed with MSPs in mind. This collaborative relationship between TitanHQ, MSPs, and customers has given us insight into how to make these relationships work and which type of approach best meets the needs of all stakeholders in the ecosystem. From best-of-breed integrated solutions to exceptional support to trusted relationships, TitanHQ has compiled the five pillars of selling success.

These are our five most important pillars of selling success for the modern MSP delivering security services:

Prioritize your security investments - "By 2026, organizations prioritizing their security investments based on a continuous exposure management program will be 3x less likely to suffer a breach."

Gartner

How to Create a Simple and Proactive MSP Business Model

Simplifying your business model starts with understanding you and your client's needs. Businesses choose an MSP for reasons such as:

• They need to stop using the outdated break-fix IT cycle.
• Their business needs sustainable and predictable IT costs.
• They need help finding in-house expertise to manage best-of-breed solutions.

These three core reasons for choosing an MSP can be used to help develop your business model, keeping it straightforward but effective. The development of a simple MSP business model typically involves the following:

Create your Technology Foundation: An MSP that wishes to handle multiple clients’ needs purpose built tools. Remote monitoring and management (RMM) and professional services automation (PSA) products are among the offerings that can serve as an MSP's technology foundation.

Automate your Services: Even smaller MSPs can handle multiple clients because services are automated. For example, auto-remediation automates a security response to a threat, like phishing. MSPs use auto-remediation as a security tool to prevent cyber-attacks. Look for security solutions that provide some level of automation, such as report generation or automation of regular phishing simulation exercises.

Expand your Services: MSPs can use successful services to provide add-on opportunities, such as consultancy and data analysis, or additional associated offerings, such as security awareness training. Choose solutions designed to easily plug additional services into your tech stack that are interoperable and based on standards.

Market your Services: In a competitive market like managed security services, an MSP must develop a compelling reason for clients to choose their offering over a competitor's. Some cybersecurity vendors offer white-labeling, campaign support, and market development. A supportive vendor can give you a competitive edge and help you build your MSP market presence.

Build Resilience: The cybersecurity threat landscape is not the only moving goal. Geopolitical changes, working patterns, and even pandemics have created challenging conditions for MSPs to thrive in. A resilient MSP is a successful MSP. Build resilience into your business model and your technology stack. Choose security technology vendors offering future-proofed tools, such as AI-powered and anti-phishing solutions that predict emerging threats. By building resilience into your business model, you become proactive and ensure your clients are protected.

Building your business is a numbers game. Your salespeople must hunt down new clients, find opportunities, and develop these to the point they can be passed onto an account manager. Commission packages inspire business builders. Knowing their salary will be augmented with an excellent commission payment for bringing on a new paying client motivates the business builder. Account managers are "steady as she goes when it comes" to salaries.

An MSP needs both nurturing account managers and hungry business builders. By developing a business that nurtures both types of employees, you are more likely to be successful in selling more managed services.

Unification and standardization are vital ingredients for full-stack customer provisioning. As analyst Canalys points out, “Cybersecurity has changed everything about the managed services space, from the services partners can offer, to the complexity of the solutions delivered to customers. But relatively few partners can deliver full-stack services.

Delivery of a full-stack security offering is, therefore, a competitive edge, no-brainer decision.

The benefits of offering a unified, full-tech stack of security solutions include the following:

• Offering full-stack service to your clients will give an MSP a competitive edge.
• The full-tech stack approach differentiates your business from other MSPs, allowing you to be a specialist and expert in that security area. A survey from Pax8Nebula found that over half of MSPs believe that a full-tech stack would enable them to differentiate their business.
• Full integrated tech stacks reduce technology sprawl. This, in turn, reduces any associated support overhead.
• Improves ability to scale and take on more clients.
• No need for staff with multiple skills across disparate products. Staff can focus on the unified technology estate.
• Consistency in service quality is an inherent part of a fully integrated tech stack.
• Improved support and focused marketing from the security vendor(s) supplying the integrated tech stack.
• Better operational efficiencies.
• Solutions that work seamlessly, without conflict.

Cloud-based security services that are platform agnostic can be easily added to an MSP tech stack. The net result is a consolidated, comprehensive, competitive MSP platform with a 360-degree view of security, essential in a highly complex and sophisticated cyber threat landscape.

Cybersecurity has changed everything about the managed services space, from the services partners can offer, to the complexity of the solutions delivered to customers. But relatively few partners can deliver full-stack services.

analyst Canalys

It may seem counterintuitive to "sack a customer", but certain conditions force the situation. Some examples of warning signs that you should watch out for include the following:

• The client violates SLAs, ToS, regulations, or laws. Any issue regarding statutes, regulations, or even ethics could seriously backfire on your company. You may have to justify your client's technology decisions in court. This may rebound on your business reputation.
• The customer's attitude towards your staff and company is abusive. Your staff should be respected, and poor behavior that is insulting or abusive should be challenged. If this does not work, you may need to rethink your relationship with this customer or lose skilled staff.
• The customer does not listen. Customers come to an MSP for expertise and cost-effective exceptional solutions. However, if they do not heed advice or warnings, this may interfere with the effectiveness of those solutions. An MSP's relationship with its customers should be collaborative, but sometimes, with the best will in the world, a relationship breaks down.

There are other reasons to sack your customer that are not the customer's fault. This includes a change in your business model that is at odds with the customer's needs. Whatever the reason for saying goodbye to a customer, you must be considered in your approach.

Considering sacking a customer, you must look at all the options carefully. Being prepared and ready with the facts may save you face in the broader market. To prepare, explore the following:

Is your Tech Stack too Disparate?

Offering too many security tools may be difficult to maintain. Customers can be confused by disparate technology offerings, expecting one thing and receiving another. Be clear in what you offer and move to a standardized, unified tech stack to simplify things for your business and customers.

Does your Customer Service Stand up to Scrutiny?

Exceptional security service delivery requires outstanding standards of support. Does your company offer excellent customer support using expert advice from the vendor if needed? Poor support can lead to frustrated and angry customers and a breakdown in the MSP-customer relationship.

Customer Due Diligence has Failed.

Knowing your customers ensures they can meet the costs of delivering your services. If you have not performed customer due diligence, you may end up with a non-paying customer.

Do you have an SLA?

Your Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are as important as the security solutions you supply. An SLA is a legal document that outlines MSPs' obligations, commitments, and responsibilities towards the customer. The SLA is your protection and sets the bounds of service delivery. A customer who ignores this can quickly become a problematic client.

Once you have the evidence in place and have decided to discuss the ending of the contract, you should sit down with the customer to discuss the issues. Be professional and constructive and attempt to work out a compromise. Go through the problem areas with the customer and discuss a way forward, even if this ends in a parting of ways.

Provide Exceptional Products

An MSP that delivers poor-quality security solutions will degrade customer trust. The customer must see the fruits of the relationship in the quality of products and the delivery of solutions. Maintain your competitive edge and customer satisfaction by supplying advanced, state-of-the-art security solutions that work to mitigate cyber risks. Evaluate security solutions that are designed to be delivered by an MSP. Ensure those solutions, like AI, use advanced functionality to detect and protect against the changing threat landscape.

An MSP business can also check out vendors for product reviews by independent review sites such as G2, Gartner, and Peer Reviews.

A happy customer is one who has exceptional products that work. By giving your customers the best security solutions on the market, you will help build trust with them.

Deliver Exceptional Support

Support is as important as the product itself. An MSP can create a competitive edge by offering and delivering great support. Word gets around, and a great support package will be a factor in building your business and finding and retaining customers. However, to provide this exceptional support, you need to have great vendor relationships with suppliers who, in turn, provide their outstanding support to an MSP. By collaborating on support options, an MSP and security solutions vendor can work together to build customer trust.

People Love Consistency

Keep your interactions with the customer consistent. Relationships are built over time, and a familiar face or voice helps develop a connection with a customer. Maintain consistency and continuity by assigning the customer the same contact person or team. Over time, consistency, augmented with exceptional products and excellent service, will create a trusted relationship and customer loyalty.

Offer an Open-Door Policy

Don't close the door on clients. Keep communication going and leave your door open for them to contact you or a dedicated person on your team. This will reap benefits as you can develop conversations around what they need going forward. Consider having regular meetups and even customer conferences. Even smaller MSPs can have breakfast meetings to discuss new security issues and changes in the threat landscape. By using a process of continuous communication with benefits like learning opportunities, your relationship with your customer will strengthen.

Build Trust; Don’t Do the Hard Sell

Train your staff in relationship-building techniques. From sales to support, each staff member must understand how to foster trust and respect with the customer. Ensure staff understand the importance of always acting professionally. A Dale Carnegie paper on building customer loyalty states, “71% of customers said they would rather buy from a sales professional they completely trusted than one who gave them a lower price”.

71% of customers said they would rather buy from a sales professional they completely trusted than one who gave them a lower price.

The Road to Better Security Services Sales

The road to revenue from security services is paved with gold. However, getting there is not a case of just adding a few disparate security solutions to your client offering. The savvy MSP knows that selling any services, including security, requires a clear vision and strategy built upon a solid foundation of an exceptional, unified tech stack, reliable support, and excellent customer relations. The MSP landscape may be crowded, but the best companies will shine through diligent attention to the details of security service delivery.

For more essential strategies, watch the latest TitanHQ MSP roundtable panel. Find out how specific decisions by our MSP partners are fueling their continued business growth. Watch the TitanHQ MSP roundtable panel discussion here: “MSP Strategies for Success”.

At TitanHQ, we are dedicated to partnering with MSPs to help them build a high-margin security practice, supporting both existing clients and attracting new ones with our unique value proposition. Our advanced network security solutions currently protect thousands of businesses in over 200 countries worldwide.

Get Started with TitanHQ Today.