Build More Profitable Technology Stacks — 3 Keys to Cross-Selling in the Cloud

Nick Heddy

By Nick Heddy, SVP, Sales and Marketing, Pax8

Gartner says that those ready to scale will dominate the cloud market. The public services cloud space alone is expected to grow more than 21 percent by the end of the year. This begs the question: How quickly can you scale your cloud practice to meet this growing demand?

Without a solid growth strategy in place, you could find yourself missing out on lucrative opportunities. Prepare your practice to achieve double-digit growth by reviewing new technologies.

Build Your Foundation in the Cloud

Before you can begin to have effective conversations around cross-selling and upgrading, you first need to first lay a foundation for success. Think about what types of solutions your existing (or desired) customer base could most benefit from. This might include: productivity, infrastructure, continuity, and security.

If you’re aiming to build a productivity solution, you might start with Microsoft Office 365. It’s a basic, cloud-based productivity solution that most businesses require. It’s a good place to start, but it’s important to remember that it’s just a starting point. You can also include: monitoring solutions, communication solutions and migration services, to name several.

How to Scale: 3 Best Practices

Once you have a solid foundation in place, consider adding complementary solutions to your line card. Start with the basics, but continue to grow your solutions list as it makes sense for your business.

1. Offer options. Not everyone is going to splurge for a top-of-the-line security solution. To give customers viable options to suit their needs, consider offering up to three different packages — basic, intermediate and comprehensive.
2. Up-sell and cross-sell. Channel partners frequently overlook the opportunity to cross-sell. Instead of going out and finding a new client, cross-selling is a simple simply way to sell a new – and often complementary – solution to your existing client base. In fact, according to a survey conducted by For Entrepreneurs, it’s 68 percent more costly to gain $1 from a new (rather than existing) customer. This means you could grow your revenue and profit margin in tandem simply by expanding your line card and selling it through your existing client base. Asking customers about upgrades and renewals is also an effective way to grow your business. For Entrepreneurs also found that it costs 140 percent more to win a new customer than renew a current customer.
3. Office 365 Adoption is on the rise. If you are looking to expand your business and add new clients, we recommend leading with Microsoft Office 365. Going after this cloud solution as an entry point will give you the freedom to quickly provision and realize the ROI of your efforts.

According to research conducted by SpiceWorks, cloud-based solutions are on the rise. Although Microsoft Office is still the dominant productivity suite in the workplace, Spiceworks survey data shows more than half (53 percent) of organizations are using Office 365, and an additional 17 percent plan to adopt it in the next two years. In fact, among all productivity suites, Office 365 is expected to see the most growth, particularly in enterprises with more than 1,000 employees, where 24 percent plan to adopt Office 365 within the next two years.

Bonus Tip: A distributor partner matters. Choose a cloud distributor that delivers the enablement and value to facilitate your success.

From sales and marketing resources to dedicated quote-to-cash tools to make selling cloud solutions more profitable, make sure you get the support your MSP practice needs to thrive in the cloud.

Nick Heddy is senior vice president, sales and marketing, at Pax8.