Jenna Vreugdenhil gaf op MSP Global een sessie over pricing en packaging. Veel MSP's maken te weinig marge: reken je echte kosten per seat door en mik op zo'n 70 procent brutomarge. Verkopen, marge en levering hangen samen. Verkoop op wat je de klant oplevert, niet op een lijst tools, en wees voorzichtig met AI-contracten van 24 maanden.
So, Jenna, we're at MSP Global in Barcelona. I think it's an amazing event, and you had some really great sessions the last couple of days. Correct. And we had great turnout and amazing feedback, honestly. So what were the highlights of your session? Because I know you had a a session about pricing and packaging. Yes. So the pricing and packaging session was basically about how MSPs are making too little margin, and I was explaining to them that if they are able to position themselves as a strategic partner, realistically think about what the actual cost per seat are. So I think a lot of MSPs think about their cost per seat as, you know, calculating all of my tools, maybe my support people. But in reality, you're you're doing strategic work, you're doing technology alignment work, all that kind of stuff. So really realistically looking at what your actual cost per seat is, and then aiming for a profit margin of around 70... Gross profit margin of around 70%. And so I was not naming numbers like, you should have... You should charge €200 per seat, and people in the room were like, what? But there was one MSP that actually was able to do that and said, you know, it's not a bad thing to be the most expensive proposal on the table because at least the least you'll get is a phone call basically saying, hey, loved our conversation, but you were the most expensive. And you'd be like, yes. And I can tell you exactly why. Because we're way more strategic, and we do all this kind of stuff that all the others don't do. So, yeah. But I think a lot of the MSPs struggle with pricing, but also with the selling aspect. Right? So you're kind of intriguing me with what you're saying that it's not a bad thing if you're the more expensive MSP or the more expensive post on the table, but you need to be able to sell and position yourself, right? Absolutely. I think selling is something really important. I think selling, margin, and delivery are three things that are completely intertwined. They all need to be working equally. Because if you could sell like the best person and deliver an amazing service, but you make a terrible margin, that's terrible. If you can make an amazing margin and you can sell it well, but you can't deliver on your promises, you're just gonna have a crap ton of churn. If you then are able to have an amazing margin, have an amazing delivery, but you can't sell, well, then you're not gonna get any clients. So, yeah, definitely something that MSP should be focused on as much as the margin, as much as the delivery for sure. So... And how do we feel about product selling versus value based selling or outcome based selling? Oh, well, I think... I don't know if you... This analogy that I've said before to you, but it is an ingredient list basically that you have on your website that says, you know, I have to sell an RM, I sell an AV, I sell an EDR, manage stock, pen testing. Okay. Cool. Your customer is a small to medium sized business. That doesn't mean anything to them. They don't need to know those kinds of terms. What they should know is what are you gonna help them solve? So what I was telling my customers in... My customers, the people in my session is if you do not have a conversation with your current customers for what their main business goals are for 2027, you're not gonna be to sell on business outcomes because you need to ask questions, what are their goals, and then you can tie your solution to business outcomes for them and not sell on tools because people are just gonna compare with other with other MSPs. And that... That's just so commoditized. It's not something where you're really gonna differentiate yourself. There goes The Martian then. Right? Absolutely. Absolutely. Because then they're like, oh, well, why isn't this tool listed in the Gartner? And then they're just gonna start comparing and it's it's just a battle you don't wanna have because they're not technical. So you are the expert, stand in that, like, you know, authority and give them advice from that point of view in terms that they understand. So we're here in Barcelona today, but we've been traveling for, like, almost a week with each other. Right? So because first, there was PAX eight beyond in Copenhagen. What what were your takeaways there in these couple of days? Yeah. Absolutely. I love the innovations that we saw at PAX eight. A lot of people there really trying to figure out how to sell AI as a service. So there's a lot of questions around like, okay, do I offer it as like a project work? Do I do it as MRR? How do I license the the tokens? I think a lot of people are trying to figure that out, and there's not really a framework for that yet cause we're so so so at the beginning. If you think of the Gary Pikas of the world or the Robin Robins who have all these like trialed and tested frameworks for MSPs, we don't have that for AI yet, and the commercial side of AI, and that's something I'm personally really passionate about. So if you know of anybody that has figured that out, I'd love to hear, but that's something that we're all really trying to figure out right now together. And I think also a lot of MSPs struggle actually to make money with AI with their customers. Right? Yeah. Absolutely. And I think if you haven't automated your internal processes yet, you're not gonna be able to sell it, first of all. And secondly, I think, again, it comes back to having those strategic business owner to business owner conversation. If you know what their outcomes are, and if you know how you can, you know, help, you know, find the pain points and their processes and like then start thinking about how you can automate that for them. Then the... And then maybe, you know, be part of a peer group or a community where you can ask other MSPs and be like, okay, how would you frame this? Because I think the the thing that I'm seeing with quite a few MSPs nowadays is that they will offer AI as a service as like an MRR with like crazy margins. We're talking 95 to 99% profit margin. I don't think that's really gonna be sustainable either, like, because then in two years time, your cost... I think it's gonna take couple months for your customer to figure out that you're, you know, making way too much margin on that for them. And that's not really the way to go either, because then you're just gonna have a bunch of churn, I think. So... Yeah. And I think that customers expect, like, with this whole AI bubble that we're currently in, that MSPs are gonna be more efficient, that they're gonna pay less with their MSP, but that's not really the case. Right? No. And I do think that if others start offering that eventually, I think Yeah. Then MSPs that are overcharging and making maybe a bit too much margin right now. I don't think you have to air too much on the Yeah. Like, low side. Don't get me wrong, like you you you need to make a margin and you can be pretty confident about it, but some people are making like almost like crazy margin and I don't know how sustainable that is if you're locking people into twenty four month contracts because it's changing every month. I was... Yeah. There was a session today that's called AI Momentum, and it was basically saying, you should approach AI with your customers on a monthly basis. So have a monthly, like, leadership meeting and discuss about the, you know, updates, be that strategic person that tells them what's happening in AI, and then maybe like add something extra. And like, that could be like a retainer MRR based service, I think. But it could be more like consultancy, and then if you find a project, then you maybe build that separately if there's a huge new thing. Like, how are you doing twenty four month AI contracts right now if you don't even know what AI is gonna look like in twenty four months? Do you know what mean? Yeah. Twenty four months is crazy. Like, if you think about that. So what is your expectation moving into 2027? It's only two months away, which is crazy. Right? Yeah. Totally mental if you ask me. But what do you think is gonna be the biggest shift that we're gonna be seeing moving into next year? Yeah. I mean, I feel like I'm beating a broken drum. I don't know if that's saying, but I think that whole MSPs trying to figure out, like, in a year or two years ago, we're still talking about how to go from break fix to a managed service provider. Now, we're going from managed service provider to a... It's still managed service provider, but you're offering that AI services, AIs and services. And I think we're all collectively trying to figure that out. I think Jay McBain in his session today was talking about that channel should be really picking up that opportunity, Anthropic and OpenAI, all those big companies, they're now trying to... They're now helping while the channel is catching up to go direct to market, but they don't wanna own that. They don't wanna be those people that sell that directly. They want the channel to own that. So it's just the opportunity for us to just catch up. I think there's a lot of partner programs that are being launched by these big AI companies. Lean into that, figure out what they're offering and how they think you should commercialize that, and just really, really... If your your own business isn't AI first, like, internally, and you wanna be AI first commercially, like, that's something you really need to get on, like, ASAP. So...
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