The COVID-19 crisis has proven to be a challenging time for IT support teams and managed service providers (MSPs). It hasn’t only left these organizations in a vulnerable position, but also in a state of uncertainty as to what may be in store for them. OnPage interacts with current and prospective clients ranging from large businesses to small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

In 2016, we wrote about the exponential value of computer networks and the importance of IT professionals as champions of the network, “doing their part to secure, maintain, and advance the engines that keep everything running.” Today, those words ring true in ways we could never have predicted four years ago.

If you sit back and look at what you’ve actually achieved over the last couple of weeks, you should feel very proud of yourself and your team. With virtually no warning, you’ve supported your clients well through the greatest business upheaval in modern times. You’ve probably set up countless VPNs. And no doubt you’ve been hunting around for new laptops, just like everyone else. While the COVID-19 situation is changing daily, the dust is starting to settle a little.

I speak to a lot of MSPs every day, and I’m always asked for advice on meeting new prospects. Finding new clients is one of the biggest challenges they all face. “Have you tried asking your existing clients for referrals?” is my stock answer, and with good reason—prospects referred to you by an existing client are four times more likely to buy than any other opportunities you’ll chase. Here are my tips on supercharging your referrals and winning new business.

MSPs generate more MRR (monthly recurring revenue) when they’re able to reduce reactive noise and dedicate their resources to more proactive MSP tasks. This is because proactive tasks are predictable. They’re scheduled into our days (e.g., regular technology alignment visits, business impact and strategy meetings, centralized services, and projects). We know how much they cost and how long they take to complete. We know the margins on proactive tasks (if we price them properly).

The National Institute of Standards and Technology Cybersecurity Framework—NIST Cybersecurity Framework for short—is a set of best practices to help companies better identify, detect, and respond to cyberattacks. While the framework was intended to be used by internal IT teams, its five major themes—identify, protect, detect, respond, and recover—can be used to create a handy network security assessment tool for MSPs.

For MSP business owners, figuring out how to improve your bottom line is like an ongoing game of tug of war. Do you raise your rates or do you make your service staff more productive? Raising rates may seem like the easier option, but at the risk of upsetting existing clients and losing prospects to competitors with better rates, it may not be your best bet. Instead, you should focus on improving service efficiency and productivity within your MSP.