ConnectWise CEO To MSPs: Face Fears Of Evolving Market With Best Practices

For managed service providers, the key to success in the ever-evolving IT market is to remain focused on best practices, taking advantage of known resources designed to reap the highest rewards using the least amount of effort, ConnectWise CEO Arnie Bellini told attendees at IT Nation.

Bellini had dreamed for close to 10 years about swimming across the English Channel. However, when he tried two years ago to make the swim, he failed, he confessed to a crowd at this year's IT Nation conference Thursday in Orlando, Fla.

The failure wasn't because of lack of training, he said, detailing a rigorous training regiment, but rather because he didn't follow best practices.

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Over the course of the year following his failed attempt, he trained smarter, not harder, hired coaches and spoke to people who had completed it, talking with them about the best ways to prepare himself. When he tried again in September of this year, he made it, swimming 40.8 cold miles over 16 hours. What made him successful the second time around, he said in his keynote address, was following best practices. Bellini made the point that managed service providers could achieve huge goals in their own businesses if they practiced the same ideals of adopting best practices.

"It's about getting up and in a measured way doing the things you need to do to find success," Bellini said in his keynote.

Bellini said that managed service providers often equate putting in more effort to getting better results. He said his Channel swim effort helps show that isn't always the case. It is more about using best practices to translate less effort into more results.

"The definition of best practices is putting out the least amount of effort to get the highest level of results, and isn’t that what we all want?" Bellini said.

Bellini said that it is always good to solicit feedback and get advice from people who have already conquered the problem. To that end, he said ConnectWise works to engage partners for feedback on product developments so that it will be as helpful and successful as possible. For example, ConnectWise announced it will be adding a series of dashboards to its platform, starting in early 2014 with a services dashboard, after feedback received from last year's IT Nation conference.

"There are lots of other people who have done this. Find out what they have learned and seek out best practices," Bellini told attendees.

NEXT: Meeting Transition Head On

ConnectWise's Bellini also talked about additional new features being added to the ConnectWise product, such as an increased focus on mobile, a new interface for the coming year and enhanced chat capabilities within the application itself to enable better communication with customers.

While she didn't agree with everything Bellini had to say, Kristina Robinson, CFO of Sandy, Utah-based ITNow, said she was especially excited for the increased communication capabilities that will allow her company to better connect with customers.

"The most exciting part was ... where they talked about the chat and the communication because we worry about that. We've lost some [customers because of that]," Robinson said after the keynote address.

As the market changes, it isn't necessarily an easy process to make the transition, he said. When he swam the English Channel, he showed what he called his "path to success," a curvy course across the Channel.

"It's never a straight line," Bellini said. "It's not a super human effort, its something every one of us can do. You have to have determination and will," he continued.

Going forward, he said, ConnectWise is committed to its partners and helping them be successful through providing products to help them improve their practices and prepare for the problems ahead.

"As far as I'm concerned, the bottom line is this is a brand new world we are heading into, and you have to be successful. We need you to be successful. We want you to be successful," Bellini said. "If you really are willing to face yourself, I think you're going to find the future is going to be absolutely phenomenal for [partners]."

PUBLISHED NOV. 14, 2013