The Power of In-Person Engagement for MSPs
By Pete Roythorne
It’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day demands of running your MSP business. Between servicing clients, tackling technical issues, and pursuing new opportunities, your schedules can fill up quickly. But while supporting your customers is essential, it’s also important to step back and give yourself time to work “on” and not “in” your business.
In-person conferences, meetups, and networking events give MSPs unparalleled opportunities to not just learn from vendor and industry experts, but also to gain insights from each other’s experiences, connect with people with similar business challenges, and grow your businesses together. Getting time to mix with your peers face-to-face is where the real magic happens!
As N‑able Head Nerd Stefanie Hammond, says, “I always find there is nothing more energizing than being able to meet and engage directly with our partners, spending quality time learning about their businesses, and hearing about areas where they are seeking improvements and having them ask for our advice and guidance. The personal connections I’ve been able to make with partners over the years have been an invaluable experience, and is something that cannot readily take place in the online world, and I hear exactly the same thing from the partners I speak to. Making those connection is crucial.”
Here are just some of the key benefits of making time for face-to-face engagements at events:
Make New Connections
The relationships your build with other MSPs are invaluable sources of collaboration, advice, and support. Conferences and events put you directly in touch with new peers you may never meet in any online groups. Having friendly faces in every city helps you potentially take on new markets and build local partnerships.
Learn From Experts
At in-person events, you gain access to insights from the brightest minds in the industry. Veteran MSPs share hard-won lessons and wisdom. Expert speakers and trainers provide actionable strategies and tactics. Workshops let you gain hands-on technical experience. The focused learning environment helps us quickly build new capabilities to better serve clients.
Stay Up-To-Date
Technology, tools, and best practices change rapidly in the MSP and IT worlds. Conferences are prime opportunities to get fully up to speed. Through keynotes, breakout sessions, and exhibit halls, you can discover the latest solutions for security, automation, backup, productivity, and more. Events keep you on top of innovations you can quickly roll out to gain a competitive edge.
Recharge Your Inspiration
Conferences can reignite your energy and passion. Seeing old friends, sharing stories from the front line, learning together—it can all remind you why you got into this field in the first place. The enthusiasm is contagious. You can return to work excited to try new things and take your MSP to the next level.
Seeds for Future Wins
While conferences provide short-term knowledge gains, their real power comes from relationships and insights that pay off for years. The partnerships formed lead to channel opportunities. Feedback from peers improves service delivery. Contacts become trusted advisors. Inspiration turns into game-changing projects. Years later we realize just how valuable those handshakes and conversations were.
Tips for Maximizing Events
To make the most of conferences and peer networking, try these five things:
- Have clear goals going in—learning, connections, publicity etc. Focus your agenda.
- Be open and approachable to all. Don’t hide in your shell. Ask questions and listen.
- Follow up quickly with your new connections. Add value proactively.
- Share takeaways and new ideas with your team. Spread the knowledge.
- Apply your inspiration! Don’t lose momentum. Experiment with change.
With our next Empower taking place at the Omni PGA Frisco Resort, Texas from March 25-28, 2024, you’ve got the perfect opportunity to make these connections with your peers, but also to make the connections with people at N‑able that can really help you grown your business.
“Being able to engage face-to-face with members of the N‑able team ensures that nothing is lost in translation, and provides you with the ability to speak to a number of our Head Nerds all in one place, on a multitude of topics,” adds Stefanie. “If you have a program design, sales, or marketing question, come speak to me as the Head Sales and Marketing Nerd. If you have an N‑sight, operational, or Mac question, go seek out our Head Nerd Joe Ferla. If it’s an automation or N‑central question, Marc Andre Tanguay or Jason Murphy have you covered. Meanwhile, if you’re looking for strategies on how to address cybersecurity with your customers, our Head Security Nerd Lewis Pope has the intel to help. And of course, if you need anything on how best to implement Cove as your backup and data protection solution, Eric Harless is your Head Nerd for that. Empower is like the Walmart for Head Nerd engagement. It’s an MSP’s ‘one-stop’ shop when it comes to getting all of your sales, marketing, security, operational and technical questions answered all in one place, so you can return to the office refueled, re-invigorated, and ready to tackle the next phase of growth for you MSP.”
Stefanie’s fellow Head Nerd Paul Kelly adds to this. “What sets Empower apart from all the other industry events I attend is that it gives me the chance to build or enhance relationships with our partners,” he explains. “I can’t tell you how many times partners came up to me at our most recent Empower in Prague just to introduce themselves and tell me that they attend my online events all the time. That’s how a lot of conversations start at Empower, but they soon quickly evolve into things like what content works for you what content doesn’t, what areas are you struggling in, have you looked at this or that, or have you attend my fellow Head Nerds’ boot camp on this subject? Our roles as Head Nerds is to help and advise our partners and they is no better way in doing so than standing face to face.”
He continues: “The other aspect of Empower that I really love, is that the focus is always on enhancing the relationship between N‑able and its partners, nowhere else will you get the opportunity not only to listen to what our executive leadership has to say on the vision for N‑able and its partners, but freely interact with the executive team throughout the event. If you’ve never been to an Empower before, I urge you to join us in Empower Frisco. This will be our biggest and best Empower yet, I guarantee you that you won’t be disappointed and if reading this is the catalyst for you registering and you come up to me at Empower to say ‘Hi’ I promise I won’t say ‘I told you so’ when I ask you if you found the event worthwhile.”
Our next Empower is taking place at the Omni PGA Frisco Resort, Texas from March 25-28, 2024. Register here.
Pete Roythorne is Senior Brand Content Editor at N‑able
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