How MSPs Can Quickly Grow Security Revenue with the Right Partner

The small to mid-sized enterprise (SME) market is wildly underserved in the cybersecurity sector, opening up massive opportunities for Managed Security Service Providers (MSSPs), as well as Managed Service Providers (MSPs) who could benefit from offering stronger security services as part of their overall IT offering. 

Many MSPs are tempted to build out a security practice but this requires extensive investment and more importantly, will take time before the offering ever hits the market. Partnering with a MSSP can be a great way to get immediate access to a growing market and customer need.

But with 10,000 MSSPs in the US alone, who should you go with? Which one is going to help you grow your average revenue per user (ARPU) the most?

What should you look for? Here are three key components we believe are important to consider in order to maximize your sales efficiency, revenue potential, and reducing customer friction.

1. Easy to sell

The MSSP’s offering and service should be easy for the MSP to sell. It’s fine if the MSSP’s sales reps themselves are selling the MSSP’s services like hotcakes, but if your team can’t sell it, then it’s worthless to you. 

How long did it take for you to understand the MSSP’s sales pitch? Did it take more than one meeting? The more meetings it takes, the less likely your sales reps are able to replicate the pitch. While most vendors offer extensive training to sales reps, often totaling up to hundreds of hours, this poses two problems:

1. Reps are unlikely to retain such immense amounts of information, rendering the hundreds of hours moot. If the MSSP’s offering is simple to grasp and little-to-no training is required, the greater the likelihood of success. Don’t forget, they’ve got to sell your core MSP services too!
2. The faster you can get reps on the floor selling, the sooner you start making money. Long sales training programs are bad for profits.

If the MSSP’s story can be told in 5 mins vs 60 mins, your reps are calling more prospects. In short, the overall sales-prop and value is better when it’s intuitive. 

If your potential MSSP partner isn’t making it easy for you, look elsewhere.

2. Reduced cyber risk increases revenue for the MSP

While the direct revenue from selling the MSSPs service is important, it’s just as important that the MSSP actually helps your customers reduce cyber risk.

According to IBM’s 2021 Cost of a Data Breach report, the average cost of a data breach rose 10% from 2020 to 2021, the highest year-over-year increase in seven years. The average cost of a data breach is now $4.24 million, with an average of $1.59 million of that coming from lost business because of the breach. 

If your customer is breached, your entire business is at risk including your existing MSP service contract. Partnering with the right MSSP means happier customers, better customer retention rates, and a much higher customer lifetime value for the MSP.

A quick way to validate whether a MSSP is up to the task is to ask the following:

• Do they provide 24×7 detection and response? Attacks can happen at any time and without response capabilities, the burden and responsibility of stopping the attack goes back to you.
• Do they have the ability to defend against nation-state level attacks? While your set of customers will never be the direct target of Russia or China, criminals use the same set of tools state-sponsored attackers do. Protection should include the ability to protect against email, endpoint, privileged access and non-malware based attacks.
• Are they validated by cyber insurance? Just like how attending a driver safety course can make it easier to get car insurance, a competent MSSP can help your customer get pre-approved cyber insurance.

3. Pricing for MSPs

This is where most security vendors fail. They do not understand your business and how MSPs make money. 

A good MSSP partner will include simple pricing. The pricing model shouldn’t confuse sales reps, which in turn would confuse customers. This extends beyond just being cost effective and needs to include:

• Treating you as a single customer where you can benefit from volume discounts.
• Discounts should be applied retroactively so that selling more in the future can have an immediate impact on your margins. 
• Helps the MSP sell, and create incentives accordingly.

Introducing the SolCyber “Howdy Partner” program

The SolCyber “Howdy Partner” program has been designed to provide MSPs with the ability to bolster their cybersecurity offering with minimal effort. We help bridge the gap to enable you to better compete with more comprehensive MSPs and increase your ARPU, without taking on risk or resource investment.  

Some of the benefits include: 

• Fortune 500 Level Security: From hacktivists to nation-state actors, we deliver a comprehensive cybersecurity capability that protects customers. It’s even backed by leading global insurers. Don’t risk limiting your existing business. 
• Immediate Upsell Opportunities: Your sales team can start selling immediately with as little as an hour of training. 
• Better Margins: Our pricing is ultra-competitive including retroactive volume-based discounts.

To find out more about the SolCyber “Howdy Partner” program, visit www.solcyber.com/howdy-partner or contact us at howdy@solcyber.com