Challenge To N-able Partners: Grow, Cross Sell Services, Own Your Market

By Gennifer Biggs, security, storage, and managed services editor

When N-able CEO Gavin Garbutt took the stage on Thursday morning at the N-able Partner Summit, he was ready to talk about growth and the future. After eight years of partner gathering, Garbutt outlined his hopes for the next step of managed services and the N-able channel base. "We've moved on from speeds and feeds, we are here to talk about how to improve your IT business, how to increase profitability, how to increase customer acquisitions, and how to increase your revenues," Garbutt told the 300-plus N-able partners in attendance. "I want you to be thinking about how you improve your company and your business model." Garbutt issued the first of his two challenges to the group right off: Get 5 to 10 great ideas from this event to take back to your business. Write them down and then share them.

He went on to expand on a message he started delivering to the IT channel nearly a year ago (Listen to Garbutt at ConnectWise Summit 2009) – using free essentials licenses from N-able to slide a foot into the door of customers still resistant to proactive and managed services. "Research shows the annual spending on remote managed IT services by SMBs is expected to increase threefold in the next 5 years, that is 28%/year," says Garbutt. "If you are keeping pace with that spending, your businesses should be growing at an accelerated rate." The rub, of course, is getting those SMBs onboard. "Eighty-five percent of North America's 6 million SMBS are not managed," he adds. N-able advocates using essential licenses to pull outlying time and material customers and casual customers into the managed flocks.

His overall challenge to the N-able partners: grow your managed customer base 100%, leverage reporting from those essential licenses to cross sell services, build your recurring revenues and profitability, and take control of your market.

Listen as Garbutt explains how N-able is prepared to help its partners meet his challenge.