Empower Prague—A Nerd’s Eye View: Stefanie Hammond
It’s my first day back in the office post-Empower Prague, and my head is spinning from all of the great conversations, training, and insights that were shared during the event.
We recognize that not everyone has the opportunity to leave their MSP for three or four days to attend events such as this, so if you were not able to make it this year, the Head Nerds thought it might be helpful to reflect on some of our favourite highlights and takeaways to keep you in the loop!
So here are my top four highlights from the week:
MSPs should be focusing on ways to help make their MSP business more recession-resilient.
On the Tuesday prior to event kick-off, my colleague, Paul Kelly, and I delivered a new boot camp focused on Co-managed IT services. Co-managed services has become a hot new market trend as of late, and with the right plan of attack, this approach can help an MSP thrive despite the economic uncertainties that seem to be plaguing the global economy at the moment.
Maintaining the status quo by targeting the same types of companies you have always been targeting for your traditional managed services, may make it difficult to break through any revenue or customer-growth plateaus you may be experiencing. But by targeting mid- and upper-enterprise companies with Co-managed IT services, you can use this model to help capitalize on the tech talent labor shortages these larger organizations are currently facing. The key messages expressed during our boot camp centered on how MSPs can partner with internal IT teams to bring about improved levels of operational efficiency, along with better workload management and HR cost control.
During our two-hour session, we reviewed the top co-managed programs we are seeing MSPs successfully take to market, and outlined what features and services are typically included in each program, along with reviewing sample pricing theory. The three main programs focused on were: Patch; Backup; and EDR. Special emphasis was put on co-managed patch, which is a great foot-in-the-door program for any MSP because it’s an activity that the majority of MSPs are already very proficient in, but something many internal IT teams find complex and tedious. So this is a perfect opportunity to take this critical, but mundane task off their plates to allow them focus their efforts elsewhere.
At the end of the session, we unveiled our new Co-managed Digital Playbook to the attendees. This brand-new resource is designed to be an MSP’s definitive guide on how to build, price, market and sell co-managed services and is available to download by any N‑able partner.
To request a copy, just connect with me directly, or speak to your dedicated Partner Success Manager!
Peer-to-Peer Learning is Incredibly Valuable
At previous Empower events, partners who attended requested more opportunities to attend sessions that were hosted by their peers. Recognizing this, we structured the agenda around peer panels as a primary focus for learning. I had the great fortune to participate in the M&A track led by our Davide Di Labio, VP, Sales Growth Strategy, and Paz Maoz, Sr. Manager, Growth Strategist, where they hosted two panel discussions that included MSP industry leaders who were on the buying side of the M&A equation.
During these informative sessions, partners were able to leverage the panelists’ vast knowledge and experience of the M&A buying process and how to best prepare their MSP for exit. They also shared their insights and lessons learned around what happens post-acquisition, to help make the road post-M&A less bumpy.
These sessions were very well attended by Empower delegates, and partners left the sessions feeling more confident in how to navigate their own M&A journey. My plan is to capture all of this amazing content that was delivered and create new boot camp sessions on this very relevant subject. So stay tuned for that!
MarketBuilder can help take your MSP marketing from nil to thrill!
Yes, this is something of a cheesy remark, but part of my duties this year at Empower Prague was to cover the MarketBuilder booth when delegates were not in sessions. This was one of my most favourite parts of the event, as I had the opportunity to speak to partners about their sales, marketing, and program development challenges in a face-to-face setting. Although I was showcasing the fabulous content and collateral that has been developed for the MarketBuilder platform, I often found myself delivering mini training sessions around: layered security and the importance of selling services verses just reselling a product; marketing trends and the importance of developing an online presence to more closely align to the current buyers’ journey; and the best way to structure and price your go-to-market programs to make them as profitable as possible.
It was wonderful connecting directly with partners who have been regular attendees of my virtual monthly office hour sessions and boot camps. So thank you to every partner who stopped by the booth to introduce themselves and say ‘Hi!’.
When attending Empower, there are no competitors.
It never ceases to amaze me how willing our partners are to network and to share their own successes and best practices with other N‑able partners. Watching strong bonds and connections being formed was such a delight to witness. We always say at our Empower events – “While at Empower, you are not competitors. The competition is outside the event” – And the partners who made the trip to Empower, took this to heart. And I was excited to see a few friendly faces who made the trip to Prague from Canada and the United States because they wanted to learn and gain a different perspective on the MSP industry. Each market is unique and those partners that travelled to Prague benefited from new learnings that they can now take back and incorporate into their own business.
So these were my top takeaways from our week in Prague. Our next Empower event will be taking place in Frisco, Texas in March 2024 at the Omni Hotels & Resorts. We hope you will join us.
Each Head Nerd that attended Empower Prague will be writing their own blog to provide their favorite highlights from the week. Check them out here:
Stefanie Hammond is Head Sales and Marketing Nerd at N‑able. You can follow her on LinkedIn and on Twitter at @sales_mktg_nerd.
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