Managed networkmonitoring services are hot. To your customers, who don't read the industry trades, these services may seem like just another expensive, overhyped product being pushed at them -- but for the sake of their businesses, it's your responsibility to set them straight. Here's how:

Finding the Value
"The customer often doesn't have clear understanding of the value managed services," says Jared Mills, director of managed services for service provider InterTech Computer Products. "They frequently compare the last quarter's receipts against the cost of the service and make the unfortunate decision that their organization doesn't warrant a service of this magnitude."

To counter this reasoning, Mills and his team present the customer with the "cost of the unknown," asking such questions as:

• How much would four or more hours of downtime cost your business?
• If you could avoid that cost entirely by monitoring server activity, would you be more likely to decide this service has value?

More often than not, Mills says, the answer to the latter question is yes. But for customers who still contend that they don't need network monitoring because they have a backup solution, he outlines an even more dramatic and costly scenario in which the above downtime is accompanied by a backup failure.

"Without proper monitoring of each backup job, there's no security in backups," he says. "Our managed services package provides this security and has been a great selling point that counters the cost-to-value problem."

Putting the Past to Rest
Another typical challenge to a managed services sale, Mills says, arises when the prospect has previously partnered with another IT organization -- with disastrous results.

"We recently met with a potential managed services customer who had utilized another organization for help desk and monitoring services," he says. "They were less than excited about going down that road again."

For InterTech, the solution to this challenge lies in demonstrating its help desk's ability to see a tough problem through from start to finish, rather than giving up, the way some organizations do.

"We provide a live demonstration of our ability to remotely resolve just about any problem that does not require hardware replacement," Mills says. "Then we demonstrate that these same help desk analysts are watching the monitoring boards for each organization that subscribes to our services. They're able to take the same remote-resolution skills and apply them to being proactive in ensuring that the monitoring delivers value to the customer."

For more tips on positioning, marketing and selling managed services, as well as information on adding managed services to a solution-provider business through Ingram Micro Seismic and the Virtual Services Warehouse, Ingram Micro customers can contact a services representative at (800) 705-7057.