A lot of business-building advice is floating around for MSPs. It can feel like drinking from a firehose. What to believe? Who to believe? What to do?

Fortunately, most of the advice is actually, quite good. The main problem is a lack of good curation of the best content and poor execution.

You basically need to get to the right content fast and take the right actions to execute!

We are constantly reviewing all sorts of MSP content, ideas, tools, courses, coaching and organizations. We simply keep the best and forget the rest.

Tomorrow’s MSP is not the same as today’s MSP. It’s a moving target and no one wants to be left behind.

Time is critical because the transition is currently happening much faster as MSPs are tasked with taking their customers into the digital-first economy.

Solving problems with technology without considering its fit into a comprehensive digital-first transformation is a dead end.

Stumbling in the digital economy is going to be seen by the public. Hiding bad things is no longer an option.

Transparency is the new “trust” currency of the future and regulatory compliance is the big stick.

Here are the 10 core steps to future-proofing your MSP business:

  1. Take a self-assessment.Ask yourself and your team 200 questions to get a feel for where you are in your game. You can get the 200 questions for free at www.bestmanageditcompanies.com Just ask yourself the right questions honestly and you will see the light.
  2. Review your team.Ensure each employee has a personal roadmap to achieve their goals. They must know what the company stands for and actually believe it. They must know where to go and how to get there from here.
  3. Build a culture around best business practices.When you adapt a best-business practice into your DNA, you will build a happier and more effective company culture. You can learn a lot by analyzing what other successful MSPs are doing in best-practices.
  4. Join a peer-group. I cannot tell you enough how collaborating with a bunch of your peers will be the best investment in success that you will ever make. You get to learn from the mistakes of others. You solve problems faster. You surround yourself with smart like-minded people. You will get all the help you need and I promise that you will be much happier.
  5. Never stop learning.Attend masterclasses often. Read books. Be a consumption animal of good content. You may know 99% of what you see, but that 1% makes all the difference in the World.
  6. Don’t just sell stuff to anyone. Rethink your strengths and solutions’ portfolio. Know who your right-fit customers are and where to find them. Keep on building the best solutions to ensure your customers win every day! Be responsible for their success through automation, creativity and smart business processes.
  7. Automate.Reduce the amount of human touch where possible. This will get you to a stronger level of cost-effectiveness that will allow you to compete with anyone and improve your worth to your customers.
  8. Market.Implement a solid digital-first marketing strategy and execute properly. Take marketing very seriously and invest accordingly in people, process, and tools with the proper budget. Outsource this if you are not confident.
  9. Build your niche marketplace.The old way of partners visiting 50 different vendor portals that they do business with is on its way out. The new way of having each partner plug in all the vendors that they want to sell into their private-label transactional marketplace, is the future. Do not miss this generational opportunity!
  10. Start now.Don’t wait for a sign. The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The next best time is now. Every day you wait, allows your competitors to be further ahead of you.

If you follow these 10 steps, your company will become more valuable, more profitable and a nicer place to work. If you are already doing well, then you will accelerate even more success.

We do understand the MSP business-building process at a DNA level. Join a community of MSPs to start leveraging everything we know. Over time, you will come to believe as we earn your trust.

Check out the below 60-minute discussion as we debate the topic “What to MSPs Really Want?

My guests were Randal Wark. He sold his MSP business and now he is the YODA of helping other MSPs grow. He is also the co-founder of the Mastermind program of The Channel Partner Alliance and a contributing journalist on eChannelNEWS.

And, Neil Jeffrey. He is an extra-ordinary sales coach from Britain who guarantees every client to find them $10,000 within the first 30 days of engaging with him or you do not pay. He also developed a special web platform that the Channel Partner Alliance now uses to help any MSP to improve their best business practices and scale.