You've hired your first full-time IT person, and you finally feel like your tech is shaping up. You have big plans for this new role, things that are really going to take hold of the technical revolution and propel your business to the next level. Six months in and you still haven't begun to capitalize on these innovative ideas you get every morning at the gym while listening to Do You Think I'm Sexy by Rod Stewart.
Between printer fixes, Microsoft Office questions, password resets, and just keeping everything running, your full-time IT person has little to no time to tackle the visionary ideas you have that impact the growth of the business. Throw in the one-off situations like cybersecurity threats, WTF network outages, and integrating business intelligence in existing systems that your IT person has to take time researching, and you realize that your dream of tripling revenue in the next four quarters is seriously at risk.
Fast forward to that fancy cocktail mixer you hastily agreed to three months ago, and you're listening to an industry peer talk about how they have greater insights into their business than ever before. Thanks to technology and the experts who make it run, they're automating tasks that used to take hours, and everything inside their network is running like a sailboat on calm waters with a 30-knot wind behind it. This peer is describing your dream.
“How is he doing it?” you wonder to yourself. “I have a skilled IT person costing me $85k a year that is so underwater, they couldn't begin to tackle these things.”
Then you hear: “They call themselves a Managed Service Provider (MSP), but they’re more like a Magic Service Provider. It's like I have a 10-person IT team working for me. They never take vacation, they never get sick, and they're there 24 hours a day."
“Sure,” you think to yourself, “but that’s some outsourced Geek Squad thing. My business is unique, and they would need to understand my business—not just my technolo..." Your thought is interrupted as his story continues, "and we have regular meetings about my business, not just my technology. They truly take a seat at the table and dive deep to understand our “why,” not just our “what.”
You whip out your phone with the urgency of someone who just got their first swipe right on Bumble. Instead, you're jotting this down in your notes app: Managed Service Provider.
Here’s what your peer figured out and you are now learning. Technology is 20 miles wide and 20 miles deep. Even the most skilled technology professional couldn't keep pace with everything, much less do everything. By using an all-in-one managed IT services package, he got a team of 20 for the price of one, and they all come with deep expertise in different areas—desktop support, network administration, cybersecurity, automation, AI, business intelligence, and more — all while truly understanding your business, your roadblocks, and your dreams. He found the magic, while you're still trying to manage.
Looks like you need to excuse yourself from the cocktail mixer and start diving into hiring a Managed/Magic Service Provider. If anyone in your group chat asks where you went, say you had an IT emergency you had to attend to because your IT person had the night off.
