MSP Talking Points & Presence

Yeah, yeah, I am again robbing Microsoft. I think in their lexicon thats called “innovating” but you can only lie to yourself so much: I got this idea from Eric Ligman.

First off, here is the new ExchangeDefender MSP report:

So my bit of innovating involves me allowing you to stick an <iframe> tag in your web site or your customers web site giving them realtime access to how bad the spam situation may be. With your logo and all that good stuff on it, of course.

But that third blue box from the top is perhaps the most important one on the page because I see it as the most demanded feature among my products: MSPs want talking points! You all get charts and pictures and spreasheets and junk from the tools you’ve subscribed your customers to, but you don’t have a really great story to discuss with them. Ever notice how even the lowest wage earners lean over the cash register in the supermarket and circle the amount you saved on your grocery bill? Why? Because it reinforces the message that something is being saved by spending money at that store.

So, three is a start. I am giving you data and pretty animated pictures to discuss how many messages are being processed, how much bandwidth is being saved and just how much productivity is being conserved thanks to ExchangeDefender. Want more talking points – tell me what matters and I will build it.

Why are these important? Well, being an MSP is kind of like selling futures – you’re guaranteeing a certain future scenario for a certain price. So you’ve bought Ericks book, you’ve listened to my SBS Show podcasts, you’ve sold your MSP plan. You’re going to be a life saver the first month. You’re going to be great the second month in. By month number three you’re still pretty good. Six months into the contract they might be scratching their head – WTF is that geek still doing here, we don’t have any computer problems anymore?

That, in a nutshell, is why I’m building the remoting indicators to help you syndicate these charts direct to your customers in a way that they can see them day-to-day. Same goes for the ticket counters and reporting that I am currently coding into the Shockey Monkey. I literally want to enable my partners to have a s***bar on each customers SharePoint that says the following:

You are this f**cked without us:

# Spam Blocked, # Tickets Answered, # Patches Applied, # Computer Maintenance Tasks Performed

But for now, as I rob Microsoft, I’d like your opinion – what type of data would give you more talking points with your clients to justify what you’ve sold them from my stable? This goes for all the products, not just ExchangeDefender.