Customer Reviews

The Guide to a Successful Managed Services Practice - What Every SMB IT Service Provider Should Know...

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Every Small Business consultant needs to read this book. Yes, it's an awesome guide to managed services. But it's also a great guide to deciding which services to sell, how to price them, how to sell them, and how to "deliver" after you've inked the deal.

Did you need to know how to run a help desk? Or how to create an escalation procedure? It's all here.

You'll save literally hundreds -- maybe thousands of hours of work by reading this book. I run a very successful managed services business and I learned a great deal from this book. Simpson deserves a big hand for putting together such a valuable guide.

It takes less than one hour of consulting labor to pay for this book. It is more than worth it!

The IT pro industry has gone through many changes over the past 5 and 10 years. One thing that has remained constant is the lack (until now) of a "How do to it right" manual and set of processes.

Providing Managed Services today is, in my opinion the only way for an IT consulting firm - especially ones focused on the SMB space to survive.

This book provides the real world information and tools you need to understand and implement Managed Services in your company. The authors have obviously LIVED the transition from break fix to recurring revenue streams, and have provided a roadmap to success for others looking to make the same transition.

My company spent a year trying to make managed services work. This book helped us plan, execute and fine tune our offering to the point where we are now billing close to $200,000.00 in managed services, have happier customers, and less stressed staff.

If you have even CONCIDERED looking at managed services, this is the one book to read. And if you HAVEN'T considered providing a managed service offering... READ THIS BOOK!!!

Erick nails the importance of Managed Services, especially in today's global economy. Your clients are no longer located in the same geographical region as you are, they can be any where. No service company should be without this powerful book that will take your business to the next level.

I can guarantee you, if you do not put the lessons to practice that are in this book your competitors will and you will be out of business!

Stuart Crawford
Calgary, AB
http://www.stuartcrawford.com

I guess you could say that Erick "wrote the book" on Managed Services. I've been following his lead now for about 3 years and our execution of Erick's principles has helped us to make record profits the past two years.

About three years ago, the SMB IT provider space was buzzing about the 'managed services model". People were describing it in theory, and others were sharing their homespun experiences.

Then came this book. The first publication to define, educate and instruct on how to go from zero to sixty into managed services. The tools CD is valuable and you can start using it immediately.

Erick's efforts will save you countless hours moving to an MSP model.

I was a web developer looking to get into the Managed IT Services arena. All of the work I have done up to this point was referral based web development projects. I am now about 6 weeks into implementing the strategies presented in Erick's two books and I have proposals worth over $50,000 in revenue, over the next 12 months, sitting in clients hands waiting for the close. Not to bad eh... $0k to $50k in 6 weeks! Can't wait to see where Erick's strategies take me 12 months from now!

This is an excellent resource and provides a tremendous jump-start for anyone wishing to start a managed services practice. It covers pretty much all the bases and I refer to it all the time.

I can't disagree more with the reviewer who calls the price "greedy" - yes, the book doesn't go into tremendous depth, but the CD of documents alone must be worth thousands of dollars and I applaud Erick for his generosity of spirit in providing them all. We just presented a modified version of the Agreement to a client and he was tremendously impressed with the clarity and detail.

This book sits on my shelf and my service manager's shelf. You can't get $99 worth of consulting this valuable. It's a great reference, a great start, and worth looking at for everyone looking at managed services.

I expected the book to be a guide not a highlight.

lots of white space and basic knowledge. I am new to the managed business yet I did not find anything fancy about this. the useful parts of this book can be summarised in a few pages.

I am a business owner interested in the Managed Services market space. I have read so much about Managed services but have not found a step by step guide on how to implement the managed services business plan or sell those services to clients. What I needed were step by step guides on both the topics. I was introduced to Erick's books by another associate. This book and "The Best I.T. Sales & Marketing BOOK EVER!" by Erick were exactly what I was looking for. Erick is not just a subject matter expert in Managed Services but has practiced and implemented his teachings and recommendations. He explains several key concepts and best practices on Managed Services, Deliverables, Pricing, How to identify clients, sell, support and maintain the services and build a long term win-win relationship with the clients. The coverage on How to Hire and Train your sales staff is worth its weight in gold. Included along with these 2 books are several forms, analysis tools and documents which make the sales process a whole lot easier with predictable results. These are the bibles for my managed services business and I refer them frequently. If you are serious about building a profitable managed services business, you must have these books.