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We absolutely love this motivational quote from author Karen Lamb – who said, “A year from now, you will wish you had started today.”

There are always great reasons to put something off, to say “There’s no point trying to save money this month, when I need to buy a new sofa”, or “I may as well wait until next week to hit the gym, as there will probably be a discount by then.” The truth is, if you’re nervous about doing something – you’ll never be short of reasons to procrastinate on making it happen.

The same is true for switching up your business model. One of the comments we hear the most from our customers is “I wish I’d moved to offering managed services earlier – I wasted so much time using the break/fix model!” As always, we’re here to help! Here are eight solid reasons why you need to let go of those nerves, and make this year the year you say goodbye to break/fix for good!

1. It’s better for the customers

Customer-centricity is one of our most important values here at Atera, so let’s start by putting ourselves in the shoes of your clients. With a break/fix approach, you’re sitting around waiting for something to go wrong in your customer environments, so that they can pick up the phone and call you. By offering them managed services, your customers will hardly ever have to experience IT problems, because you’re proactively managing their environment 24/7. Don’t assume your customers wouldn’t want to pay for managed services. After all, you’re offering a lot more value for a single, predictable monthly cost. Start the conversation with some of the following benefits, and see how it goes.

2. It puts you in the driver’s seat

Managed services means that the client environment is as recognizable to you as the back of your hand. You understand all the nuts and bolts, you can make smart decisions about how to optimize costs or resources – and it’s all in your own control. Break/fix means you’re tied to whatever decision was made by the last guy who was called to solve an issue, and you can’t get ahead of optimizing the environment and ensuring nothing bad happens as soon as you leave the site again.

3. You won’t experience gaps

Under a break/fix model, the client pays you every single time they want you to do something. That means they’re going to call you as little as possible, which means a lot of cut corners! Under the managed services model, the client is paying you a fixed amount per month, no matter how often they call on your expertise. This means that you won’t find them attempting to fix problems themselves, or ignoring small issues until they become large problems, which makes your job a whole lot easier.

4. Your monthly revenues will become a lot more transparent

Wouldn’t you like to feel confident about the amount of money landing in your bank account next month? With break/fix, it’s all a guessing game, where you look over your last few bank statements or cross your fingers and hope that a previous client will come back to you with a cyclical task. Focusing on managed services gives you the stability and transparency of a monthly invoice, which may go up slightly with value-adds or extra services, but has a consistent monthly minimum that you can rely on.

5. You’ll be able to handle security with greater ease

A worst-case scenario for any MSP is to be called to a client who is facing a cyberattack. Whether it’s files encrypted and held to ransom, machines compromised, or a sensitive data leak – there’s only so much you can do after the fact, especially if you don’t have visibility and control over the whole network. With managed services it’s like you’re approaching the problem from a totally different vantage point.

You’re continually monitoring the client environment, so you would likely spot the signs of an attack before the client does, allowing you to stop the issue from spreading. As an MSP, you also have smart processes put into place ahead of time, like data backups, network segmentation, or wider incident response.

6. You can stop being associated with things going wrong

One of the biggest issues with break/fix, is that you become exactly that – the fix it guy. The person they call when something goes wrong. If you can fix it, great, you’re forgotten about until the next time. If you can’t? Suddenly you’re seen as bad at your job. Becoming a managed service provider is about so much more than fixing existing problems. It’s about seamlessly managing a network to provide optimized security, spending and resource allocation, it’s about offering added-value and great service, and proactively working to keep the network running smoothly.

Wouldn’t you rather be associated with those wins?

7. Managed services allow you to become a trusted advisor

A managed services model helps you form a longer-term relationship with your clients than you can achieve in the time it takes to fix a printer jam. As you can create a rapport between you, through Quarterly Business Reviews, proven results, and tangible improvements to the way the customer does business, you’re taking your place as a trusted consultant or advisor. This allows you to slowly increase the services you offer to fit the client’s needs, adding to your own repertoire and revenues at the same time. Customer moving to the cloud? Looking for added security support? Considering VoIP services? Who better to help than their existing MSP?

8. You can take advantage of improved technology

As the break/fix wizard, you never know what you’re going to need, and you can’t justify buying technology that supports you in remotely managing and maintaining networks and client environments, or dealing with customer communication. As an MSP, you set your terms and your customer offering – so you can complement your SLA with the right software to get the job done to the best possible standard. A powerful RMM and PSA with added integrations like Remote Access, Cybersecurity and Billing is a one-stop-shop that can help you achieve all your managed services goals in 2022.

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