August 2010
Business Solutions

I never miss a chance to sit down and chat with Arlin Sorensen, founder of HTG Peer Groups. Not only does he always bring a smile to my face, but he is shares his honest opinion about the concerns and needs of the managed services and VAR space.  

When we sat down at CompTIA Breakaway this year, we revisited the HTG plans to slow growth a tad, and really focus on going deeper with their existing peer networking groups and members. One area that Arlin sees as needing attention is the process that both VARs and MSPs have in place for wooing new customers — and the ongoing struggle many MSPs have with migrating their sales team from product/project sales to managed services. HTG is working on several fronts to help their members tackle those problems, including leveraging sales consultants to educate members, identify members that have successfully changed the way the sell and highlighting their stories, and teaching members to better use the tools found within their PSA software that help automate much of the sales process. 

"Many of them have never used those tools for creating workflow and tracking sales in the pipeline, so we are trying to provide some guidance around better leveraging those tools," says Arlin. "Many times the business owner knows he needs to be better, he just doesn't know how. We're trying to fill that gap."  

If you want to learn more, click here to listen to Arlin share a few more details about the HTG efforts.