Expectation Creation: The Solutions Provider’s Sedative

A common them cut across today’s panel discussion “Business Operations Challenges: What’s Keeping Solutions Providers Up at Night?” at Breakaway 2011: Expectation Management.  Panelist responses to questions from moderator Regina Ciardiello, managing editor, SMB Nation, were laced with the consistent message “manage expectations before expectations manage you.”

Vetting vendors for partnerships?  Manage expectations, said panelist Ilene Rosoff, CEO and president, The Launch Pad.  “We approach vendor partnerships with a two-stage process.  First, we treat the vendor like an applicant in a job interview.  We tell them upfront what our expectations are.  The second stage is product testing to ensure the vendor’s offering meets our expectations upfront.”

Concerned about customers over-hyped on the cloud? Manage expectations, said panelist Chris Wiser, CEO, TechSquad. “Cloud buzz is way ahead of cloud delivery. I have yet to find a cloud solution I trust.”  Wiser said his company plans to share its concerns and questions about the cloud with customers and prospects through a Q&A site.

Worried about working with difficult clients?  Manage expectations, said panelist Brian Kerhin, CEO, Byte Harmony, who advocates turning expectation management toward your own company’s point of view. “Qualifying clients is as important as qualifying vendors. But sometimes a customer issue is just a problem to be solved, rather than a reason to fire the client.  Sometimes it’s better to delve into a new solution that might not be in your comfort zone.”

Uptight about HR matters?  Manage expectations, said Wiser. “Job descriptions.  If you don’t have them, put them in place – down to the janitor. Create an employee handbook, and follow it to the T.  Paperwork the heck out of every HR issue.”



Anxious about marketing your company? Manage expectations, said Ed Mana, president, Technology On Demand. “If you haven’t done active marketing, you’ve done nothing.” But be realistic and start small, he said.  The rewards from even modest efforts can be great.

“We get a lot of business from our LinkedIn profile alone,” Mana added.   He described a direct marketing campaign to 100 prospects that he felt he “botched” that still delivered a 67-percent response rate.

Stressed out by clients that pay late?  Manage expectations, said Kerhin, whose perspective again was aimed at his own organization. “Make sure your accounting people have a process for dealing with late payments and follow it.  Automate as much of it as possible.  Have a procedure for stopping services for late payers, and communicate the whole process to clients upfront.”

On the same issue, Rosoff offered, “An MSP can avoid 90 percent of collections issues by using credit cards.  Build the processing costs into your pricing; it’s worth the 2 to 3 percent the card issuers charge.  We won’t take on clients that won’t use credit cards.”

Harried by keeping pace with all the new solutions available? Manage expectations, said Mana. Don’t expect to be all things to all customers, he said.  Go vertical, “There are riches in niches.”