Empowering Your MSP Business to Grow and Prosper—One Post at a Time

When it comes to cyber security, the threats themselves—ransomware, phishing, etc.—are nothing we haven’t seen before. What is new, though, is the scope and the increased threat to small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs).

Most SMBs today have a false sense of confidence; they don’t see themselves as worthy targets and assume they have nothing of value to an attacker. However, this leaves hackers thinking: “all the better to eat you with, my dear.”

But why is it that SMBs aren’t properly protected against today’s threats? Why are they so hesitant to change their cyber security strategy? To answer these questions, we did a little research into SMB security trends. Read on to learn which challenges they face and how you can position your managed security services as the solution.

In an increasingly dangerous era of cybercrime, hackers have now found a new target: major golf tournaments. On August 8, news broke about the latest hacking attack against the Professional Golfers Association (PGA) servers, locking files and demanding ransom just days before the competition took place.

As an MSP, hacking and ransomware are not new concepts. However, news headlines typically only cover enterprise-level attacks, now including the PGA of America. So, how can you bring a major news story like this down to your SMB clients’ level?

In this post, we’ll take a closer look at the PGA server hack and how you can use this story to bring awareness to the need for your managed security services.

How does the public view your company? Are you top-of-mind for your industry? MSPs cannot live without public relations (PR), especially since all IT is local. Maximizing your brand's visibility within your community helps attract new prospects and define your current customers' opinion of you. You may think it's optional and really only useful for enterprise businesses, but it's a necessity for any company, regardless of company size, production, or goals.

In this post, we'll go over the value of good PR in managed IT services and provide some best practices when crafting a PR plan.

With less than two months until Navigate 2018, there’s promise it’ll be the best one yet. Navigate is the only user conference in the IT channel that empowers MSPs to scale rapidly and improve their business metrics. This year, Navigate will bring attendees valuable content that’s tailored for MSP success, direct access to Continuum’s leadership team, collaborative networking opportunities to hear and learn from peers, and much more.

But these aren’t the only reasons why you’ll want to be there. Keep reading to discover four more ways we’re stepping up our game with Navigate 2018.

Did you know that almost 70 percent of organizations don’t believe their basic security software can block today’s cyber threats? What’s more, nearly half of the security risk that organizations face stems from having multiple security vendors and products. But what does this mean for you, the MSP?

There’s a ripe opportunity with managed security services. Adding security to your portfolio will not only allow you to better protect your clients, but also step in as their all-inclusive IT and security provider. So, how can you get there?

I’ve asked a couple of experts to share their advice and help answer the question that’s crossing every MSP’s mind: how do I sell managed security services?

Given today’s security landscape, it’s more important than ever that businesses have a plan in place to respond to major cyber threats. These threats are becoming more and more sophisticated, leaving businesses less and less equipped to handle them. To even stand a chance against a security incident, your clients need an incident response plan—and it’s your job as an MSP to help them solidify this plan.

How do you balance customer and employee satisfaction? What common MSP mistakes should you avoid? How can you get prospects to hear your sales pitch? We answer these questions and more in our roundup of the MSPblog's most popular posts of July 2018.

See below for the top five blog articles our readers couldn’t get enough of this month!

This year has ushered in many technological changes, most notably in the small- and medium-sized business (SMB) landscape. Your SMB clients are becoming more aware of how integral technology is to business success, leading to the adoption of things like mobile and cloud solutions. Given its ability to address both operational costs and budget constraints, it’s no surprise that the cloud is a top IT priority for SMBs. Cloud levels the playing field, providing a route to enterprise-grade applications, storage and computing infrastructure without the need to purchase and maintain on-premise hardware.

But how exactly are your clients and prospects utilizing the cloud, if at all? What are some of their top concerns and how can you convince them to partner with you for guidance with their cloud—and overall IT—strategy?

Over the past few years, IT news headlines have been dominated by cyber security—its latest hacks, threats and defensive advancements. However, with all of this attention given to the enormous amounts of data stolen or the enterprise-level costs, it becomes difficult for the need for security services to resonate with your SMB customers.

While the stakes are at an all-time high for virtually every business, MSPs are challenged with changing this perception of “impending doom” and educating SMBs on the real threats to their business. Keep reading to discover how you can bring the evolving security landscape down to the SMB level and convince these businesses of the value of your managed security services.

From all of us here at Continuum, we want to wish you a Happy 4th of July! We all know how hard MSPs work; IT never sleeps, and you’ve promised your customers with 24x7x365 support and uptime. However, with Continuum’s proactive solutions and Network Operations Center (NOC) handling the time-consuming, day-to-day IT management, our MSP partners are free to enjoy a holiday where...