Wow I cannot believe that today is actually the last day of 2009. A year that started off looking very gloomy could not have been a better year for Do IT Smarter. With the economy in shambles and the standard VAR business model in serious jeopardy this seemed to be the year that the managed services provider (MSP) business model finally reached main stream. So needless to say it was a good year to be a Master MSP with a focus on helping VARs make the transition to this business model. We accomplished many things this year but there were three distinct relationships that I believe really helped change our business for the better.
In 2008 we started working with TAG National, this is a company with a focus on helping telephony resellers grow their businesses. Their principals Dale, Dale (yes two Dales) and Brian are truly dedicated to helping their members succeed and this year was no exception. I was amazed at how their organization shifted their training and mentoring programs to address the recession and the challenges their members were facing in real time. What an accomplishment for a small company with over 140 member companies to support. Part of their shift was to work even closer with Do IT Smarter to help their members move into the managed services business model. Thanks to these efforts over 20% of our partner base consists of telephony focused resellers that are now starting to succeed as managed service providers. We have also learned so much from TAG when it comes to training our partners, their proven training model really helped us take our programs to the next level. Our managed services boot camps are just one example of our new training that we developed in partnership with TAG.
This work with TAG National helped us focus our efforts on the types of resellers that we will focus our business on. We found that we really excel when working with established VARs and have focused our efforts on these companies. One partner that really stands out is DocuTech out of Philadelphia. They signed on with Do IT Smarter in early 2008 and had primarily worked with our then CEO Don Begg. When I took over account management for them in 2009 I reached out to their President Howard Podgurski, in one of our first conversations he asked me “How can DocuTech become a more strategic partner to Do IT Smarter?”. This question set me back in my chair; I had always focused on how we can be strategic to our partners not the other way around. Well I did not answer his question that day but we continued the conversation and I have to say that it has changed my way of thinking when it comes to our partners. Howard has helped us change how we support our partners and what we expect of them. He helped us put together our Marketing Peer group which is headed up by David Schafran of Transformation Strategies, we refined our sales process to focus on customer value (which has proven to close business against low cost competitors) and he has even helped with our training programs, in October he flew down to Atlanta with me to present at our MSP Boot camp.
On a completely separate front we partnered with TGG Capital; we brought them in to help us with our finances. This had always been a week spot in our company; I ran finances for many years until I moved to open our Midwest offices then Don took over from there. Sure we have always done well; in fact we have been profitable every one of our 10 years in businesses. But we had never really leveraged finance to grow our businesses. We have always focused on revenue and growth and not so much on profitability. With a down economy and our desire to grow our business to the next level it was time to start focusing on finance. With the help of Matt Garrett and his team we did more than weather the recession, we excelled, and are now more prepared for the New Year than we have ever been.
These are just a few highlights in an amazing year, there were many more. We continued our efforts to educate the MSP community by working with the MSP Alliance, we (and several of our partners) spoke at the 2 MSP World conferences this year. We upgraded our NOC Accreditation to their Master MSP Accreditation in February; I was presented with their Leadership Award at the May conference and completed their CMSP certification shortly thereafter. MSPMentor continued to be a driving force in our industry and we were again recognized for our efforts making their MSP Mentor Top 100 list for companies and their Top 250 list for individuals.
We continued to partner with market leading vendors to bring best of breed solutions to our partners. Some new partners this year include eTegrity, Axis Business Solutions, Shavlik, Transformation Strategies and F Secure. We continued to strengthen our partnership with Level Platforms and in fact will have some exciting announcement around their product in the 1st part of 2010.
In November of 2009 we announced that one of our founders was leaving to start a new San Diego focused MSP, Nu Way IT and that I would be taking over as the CEO of Do IT Smarter. We capped the year off by receiving the Channel Insider Bull’s Eye Award for Top Master MSP. For this and everything else we accomplished this year we owe thanks to our employees, our partners, our customers, our strategic vendors and finally our families for putting up with all it takes us to do what we do. On that I wish you a Happy New Year and look forward to another exciting year in 2010.