Selling Cloud to Business Owners

1. Selling Cloud to Business Owners

2. Presentation outline • Paul Byrne ChannelCloud UK/Ireland & On Line Computing/London Cloud • Seth Oxhandler CEO, CoolCat, Inc. • Chris Martin GFI MAX • Scott Calonico GFI MAX

3. First, what do we mean by Cloud? • From the perspective of an MSP/VAR Cloud should mean: • Taking all the client’s technology from behind their firewall and presenting it back to them via a hosted desktop to include: • Secure environments • Virtual servers (File, SQL etc.) • Exchange email, email security, email continuity, email archiving • Blackberry & Active Sync • Sharepoint • MS applications – per user/month • Hosting of LOB applications • Hosted desktop accessible from any device • PBX • Off site backup & DR options • Managed Firewall • Managed AD • VLAN • Web Hosting • End user can self manage their own environment

4. Why Sell Cloud to business owners? Gartner (Feb 2012): “Cloud purchasers are looking for business outcomes not technology and therefore is a different sell, the channel needs to adapt to this new way of doing business and utilise services to differentiate in this highly competitive fragmented market.”

5. Why Sell Cloud to business owners? thevarguy.com (Feb 2012): “To deliver cloud services, you may need to make a few business changes. This may be an entirely new business model for you. And, because the decision to move to cloud computing is typically made at the executive level, some of your sales teams may need to invest in executive-specific selling skills.” “The best way for VARs and solution providers to sell cloud services to SMB customers is to discuss the technology’s business advantages as they relate to customer needs and pain points throughout the sales cycle. Describe how the technology can improve their business, drive down costs, and increase productivity and network performance. It’s a value proposition sure to interest them.”

6. Why Sell Cloud to business owners ?(On the basis that Cloud is appropriate, if not stay on-premise, either way you secure the business) • Blue Ocean opportunity – very few providers right now • Sell business outcomes not technology - for the first time you can now have a very high/positive impact on client's business's  by leveraging Cloud • Climb the food chain - from server guy to trusted business advisor • Quicker decisions • Business owners are interested in what impact a decision will have on their business.  They focus on increasing market share, increasing revenue, controlling/decreasing expenses, bottom line not technology sprawl. They are more direct and less patient. • Higher recurring margins • Fewer dips in revenue stream, more consistent profits, higher net margins • Increase the value of your IT Services practise

7. How to get to the business owner? • To interact and sell to them, you must understand them and others in the organisation • Make your C level resource available for meetings • Lower levels are interested in protecting their turf, keeping their jobs, impressing others. These folks focus on features and functions. They will eat up your time and ultimately cannot make the decision.

8. How to sell to Business Owners • Build trust/relationship with business owner - never easier for business to acquire IT • C level to C level and start thinking like a business person (be very comfortable with P&L statements and Balance Sheets). They must perceive you as having equal business stature (don’t be scared, they are more like you than you realise). Most owners have done sales before. • Figure out what goals and pain points they have and help them solve those problems • You must be able to demonstrate how your solution helps them resolve their pain points.

9. What are some of the business outcomes/benefits of Cloud for SMEs? • Opportunity to remove any limitations/pain points of existing on-premise solution • Eliminates business risk associated with owning IT • Free existing internal resources from mundane day-day IT tasks • Increase staff productivity with anytime access • Financial control & flexibility • Eliminates capital expenditure • Ensures software licensing compliance • Built in state of the art continuity and DR options • Reduced admin overhead

10. How to equate these outcomes/benefits to your client’s bottom line. (Factor in revenue, staff numbers and average salary) Opportunity to remove any limitations/pain points of existing on-premise solution • Approximate what additional Revenues/GP can be had as a result Eliminates business risk associated with owning IT • Determine costs for any downtime in previous periods - factor loss of revenue and non-productive staff costs Free existing internal resources from mundane day-day IT tasks • Allow for cost savings based on salary and no. of days recovered Increase staff productivity with anytime access • Allow a minimum of 1hr/week additional productivity for each member of staff and factor in staff costs to achieve that on-premise

11. How to equate these outcomes/benefits to your client’s bottom line.(Factor in revenue, staff numbers and average salary) Financial control & flexibility • Don’t pay for unused compute resources - agree a % of on-premise costs as resource wastage Eliminates capital expenditure • Capex vsOpex - there's a value to holding onto your cash - mark-up up capex cash retained to allow for interest gained Ensures software licensing compliance • Factor in time saved in not having the need to audit software licensing each year Built in state of the art continuity and DR options • High levels of Continuity and DR options are inherent in the Cloud - allow for costs to do so on-premise. Reduce admin overhead • Allow for time consumed managing several vendors on premise

12. Contact details • Paul Byrne • paul.byrne@channelcloud.co.uk • Seth Oxhandler • soxhandler@coolcatinc.com

13. MSP Business Management • Real-world tips and resources • Videos, webinar recordings,whitepapers, e-books, and more • Blog articles discussing thelatest topics and techniques Helping you to: • Grow your IT support company • Run your company more profitably • Deliver fast IT support and increase uptime • Minimize threats to your business www.mspbusinessmanagement.com

14. Q&A

15. Thank you