Five Business Priorities for Holiday Weeks

Lots of schools are closed this week in the United States. Email and voice mail traffic seems a  little bit lighter. It’s the perfect week to come into the office a little late and leave a little early.

Or is it? In reality, big companies are working overtime to win new sales and ensure they meet their 1Q financial goals. And small firms should take some time to carefully review their managed services strategies heading into 2Q. Here are five items that should be on your priority list for the week ahead.

1. Collect Overdue Invoices: Politely nudge vendors whose payments are overdue. Make sure you describe all the value you provided to them in 1Q, and reinforce the fact that you value a long-term business relationship with them.

2. Reinforce Your Value: Send a quick email or letter to your established customer base. Tell them about your key 1Q business achievements. Highlight some simple return on investment metrics, such as the number of pieces of spam you successfully blocked from your customers’ network.

3. Up-sell Satisfied Customers: In your note to customers, include some hints about new products and services you’ll be introducing in 2Q. Be sure to describe the business value of those services, and avoid the temptation to get bogged down in features and functions. Use the note to schedule a face-to-face visit with each customer.

4. Check Event Calendars: Several MSP-oriented events are rapidly approaching. We post many of them to the MSPmentor Event Calendar.

5. Learn About One New Vendor: We all get bogged down with our existing partnerships. But the worlds of open source and software as a service (SaaS) are rapidly converging with managed services. Check in with our sister site, The VAR Guy, for a close look at emerging companies in the channel.