No one would argue that Office 365 is one of the hottest products to hit the cloud market in a long time. But just because you’re an Office 365 reseller, doesn’t guarantee that customers will be lining up to buy it from you. As a Managed Service Provider, you have to target specific markets and create a strategy to serve them. If you broaden your offers to reach a wide range of needs and customers, you’ll probably attract many leads, but only convert a few of them into sales. And even if they do sign up, these clients might not stick around for long because they won’t be interested in the services you have to offer.
Put yourself in the client’s shoes. Why would he buy an Office 365 plan from you if he can just as easily buy it from someone else or directly from Microsoft? If you want to make more money selling Office 365, you have to add real value to your portfolio.
5 Value-Added Services That Will Boost Your Revenue
1) Consider Vertical Markets and Diversify
Office 365 is a set of productivity services that fit every business owner’s needs. Focus on a number of professional areas that you know well and that you can easily access. Do some research to master the context, current challenges, needs and constraints of your target markets. Get in touch with new providers or try to find solutions with the ones you know. Pull out a list of available products to build tailored services for your target customers. You can also bundle Office 365 plans with those other products and differentiate your offers to address specific scenarios. By adding multiple services to your offer, you become the go-to person for all things IT.
2) Harness Your Provider’s Added Value
When you subscribe to Microsoft’s Cloud Solution Provider program (CSP) through a partner like Sherweb, you have instant access to valuable services like free migration and round-the-clock technical support. Let your customers know how reliable that support is when you’re promoting your offer. Talk to them about Sherweb’s Net Promoter scores, staff certifications and industry experience. When it comes to billing, you’d be better off charging a fixed monthly cost rather than per hour or per incident. Cloud solutions are very stable and incidents rarely happen. Charging for support makes sense because the service is provided for end users and it benefits your customers.
Sign Up for Sherweb Indirect CSP Partner Program:
- Download our Partner Infokit
- Sign up for Partners First, our partner program
- Login to Cumulus, our customized partner portal
- Sign up your first customer
3) Be Your Customers’ Technical Reference
You get more than just technical and migration assistance from the CSP program. You can also benefit from your cloud partner’s expertise to provide advisory and consulting services. Take advantage of the wide range of white-label documents offered by your partner and Microsoft and use them in your presentations. Keep in mind that your customers will feel more confident about your services if they feel that they’re speaking to an expert. Bring the partner’s solutions architects into your discussions so they can make suggestions about the best way to implement Office 365 services. By adding these billable consulting services to your portfolio, you can generate more revenue for yourself with Office 365.
4) Keep Your Customers Up To Date
Include training for your customer’s IT personnel or their end users during the migration process. Be ready to offer more sessions if needed. Your goal is to provide users with information and tips so they’ll feel more comfortable using Office 365. Once the migration is over, keep in touch with your customers to see if they need more help with Office 365. You may get more opportunities to run training sessions, which is easy money in your pocket! Your cloud partner can also step in to provide that training for you.
5) Cross-Sell with Office 365
By staying close to your customers, you can identify cross-sell opportunities. After dealing with the same type of requests a number of times, you should think about a new product or service that can address a client’s concerns. For example, if you have a lot of accountants in your customer portfolio and some of them have asked you how to integrate their accounting system with SharePoint, you might consider offering SharePoint Standard or Enterprise editions. Make sure you have site collection templates ready for that integration.
You can’t rely on the basic margins you make from the CSP program to earn a living from Office 365. You have to put some effort in marketing and add real value to your offers. As your CSP partner, Sherweb wants to help you define a winning strategy and make more money with Office 365.
