Everyone knows it takes a lot of blood, sweat and tears to grow a managed service business and some are more successful than others. Gordon Tan, owner of R & G Technologies and founder of Client Heartbeat knows this more than most having grown his business from a one man operator, to a four million dollar IT services business. In this not to be missed session, he shares real world insights and practical examples into his four biggest operational challenges over the course of this growth and how he overcame them.

1. Getting from $400k to $4m –
the four biggest operational
challenges
Gordon Tan – CEO of Client Heartbeat
Gordon@clientheartbeat.com

2. Our MSP today
• 31 FTE
• $4.1m turnover in FY2014
• $150k/mth worth of Managed Services

3. The beginning - $400k, 3 FTE

4. Obstacle #1 – Hiring & retaining
the right people…

5. Why it’s a problem…
• You need sales
• You can’t do everything!
• Can’t afford to pay people
• If you train them up they leave

6. What we did…
• I went into sales (hired a tech manager)
• Sold the “dream”
• Paid peanuts
• Read about people management
Sales Services Technical
BDM (me) Service Co-ordinator Technical Manager

7. What we did…
1. Set a vision
2. Be honest
3. Be authentic
4. Be fair
5. Get to know them as people
6. Let them be heard

8. 1. Create a vision
• Because noone wants to work for your sh** little company
• Start with WHY – sell them on your vision
• Create values (it’s not a waste of time)

9. 2. Recruitment…
• Hire & Train if you can
• Don’t settle for less
• If he wants $50k, give him $50k
• You need people you can rely on

10. Hiring & Retaining People
Final Tips:
• Getting your first few hires right is absolutely essential
• Hire slow, fire fast
• Don’t underestimate the power of your vision and values

11. $1.2m, 6 FTE

12. Obstacle #2 – Being too busy…

13. The Problems…
• Too busy to do anything strategic
• Not doing the things you promise
• Bad response times to clients
• BAD customer churn

14. What we did…
• Sales
• Did nothing for too long!
• Lost a couple bad clients
• Eventually increased our prices
• Implemented Service Desk bonuses
• Moved “up the food chain”

15. 1. Increase your Prices
• Just do it! You won’t come out behind I promise
• Do less work for more money
• Increase price = more resources = better service = more clients =
increase price

16. 2. Incentives for Staff
• Incentivise the result you want
• Service Desk bonus worked really well for us

17. 3. Used GFI
• Kaseya, N-Able were too time intensive for us
• GFI “just worked”

18. $2.3m, 16 FTE

19. Obstacle #3 – Retaining Clients

20. The Problems…
• Didn’t know why we were always losing clients
• Not enough “customer intimacy”
• Hard to know where all your clients are at

21. What we did…
• Sales
• Hired Service Co-ordinator
• Developed Client Heartbeat
• Implemented Incident & Problem Management
• Restructured Team
TAM TAM TAM
Service Desk

22. 1. How do you retain customers?

23. New research on the human brain

25. Why this research matters to MSPs
• It’s not enough to appeal to LOGIC
• We must appeal to the limbic (emotional) brain - It’s about creating a
feeling (freedom, reducing stress, feeling cared for)

26. 2. Monitor Client Satisfaction
• Send out a quarterly survey
• Identify “At risk” clients
• Do something about it!

27. $3.1m, 25 FTE

28. Obstacle #4 – Systemising the
Business

29. The Problems…
• More people = more problems!
• Reliability of service
• You need more managers/team leaders
• Systems are low priority

30. What we did…
• Sales
• Starting measuring more stuff
• Efficiency – effective hourly rate
• Service Desk - average time per ticket, average response time %
• Started documenting more procedures
• Get team involved via mini-games

31. 1. Pick the metrics that matter
• What are your smart numbers?
• What is your one critical number?
• Can you measure these in real-time?
• Are your staff kept updated?

32. 2. Focus on building a “production line”
• Build your own production line
Your MSP
Helpdesk
Projects Production Lines
Audits
Consistent, reliable outcome
Gross Margin$

33. Some caveats
• Good people can prop up poor procedures
• Nothing beats good culture first and foremost
• Procedures are so you can scale

34. In summary
• It’s harder at 3-5 staff, than it is at 25 staff
• Be prepared to learn from mistakes
• Change comes incrementally
• If we can do it, you can too

35. Client Satisfaction Monitoring on Auto-pilot.
1. Gather client feedback
2. Improve client satisfaction
3. Retain more clients
4. Collect & Share Testimonials
• Used by over 300 MSPs big & small
• Integrates with CW & Autotask

36. Gather Client Feedback
Simple, personalized email
surveys – with automated
email follow-ups
Industry high survey
response rates (60%)
Runs on autopilot
Passes all feedback into a
simple dashboard

37. Improve Client Satisfaction
Track and monitor
changes in satisfaction
on an individual client
level and on an overall
company level
Benchmark satisfaction
against other companies
in your industry

38. Retain more clients
Client Heartbeat uses
past scores and industry
data to identify unhappy
customers
Get instant notifications
so you can proactively
follow up, address
concerns and retain
their business

39. Collect and share testimonials
If we detect positive
feedback we’ll ask for
testimonials and collect
them automatically
The client can also
share these to their
social media

40. Here’s what your peers say about CHB…
• Within a week of using Client Heartbeat I was comfortable
recommending it to 10 of my peers. – Myles Keough (Spadetech)
• Very valuable solution!!!!!! Every company can benefit from using
Client Heartbeat - it is a key metric for any executive to follow. –
Janice Siddons (TUC Managed Solutions)
• Client Heartbeat is a straightforward simple tool we can use to track
how we are going in our business, without having to wait for
customers to tells us we are doing something wrong! – Wayne Moore
(Divest IT)

41. Thank you – Questions?