Building revenue with new MSP solutions through Vendasta Marketplace
How often do the local business clients of your IT or MSP (managed service provider) company ask you for help with their websites even though that’s not what you do? To your clients, you’re their trusted resource for all things digital. If you’d like to say yes rather than refer them somewhere else, it might be time to consider partnering with a cloud marketplace as the next step in growing your business. Marketplaces can open the door to generate revenue from hundreds of new service offerings that assist your local business clients with their digital footprint.
In this article, we explore how IT service provider DragonTech IT Services tacked on more than $30K in extra revenue by doing just that. Here’s how they did it.
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Deep roots in digital
DragonTech IT Services CEO and Founder Josh Evans began his journey in IT as a young boy.
“I got my first start working in IT at 12 years old, fixing computers for people in 2000/2001 at $25 a piece. I've always had a knack for it. I've always been very good with computers. And I am 100 percent self-taught,” Evans says.
After working in various positions in the IT and MSP (managed service provider) space throughout his career, there was a turning point that drove Evans to start his own business.
“When my son was born, I realized that I wanted to set the right example for him. I just walked down to the courthouse and started the company. At the time I did not know what I didn't know about running a business, but I knew I could fix things.”
Transitioning from fixing computers to running his own business was a challenge at first, but Evans soon got his feet under him, and he began doubling his revenue year over year starting in 2019.
The need for new IT and MSP (managed service provider) solutions
“[Local business owners] expect an IT company to also be able to host their website, to secure their website. Once we started hosting, it was a chain reaction. We identified websites that didn't have an SSL certificate so we began to provide that as well. From there customers would ask if we could improve the build and look of their website as well,” Evans says.
That’s where Vendasta came in the picture. For Evans, using managed service provider software to offer website solutions was a natural progression from providing IT and cybersecurity offerings to his clients, but he couldn’t do it on his own. He needed a trusted partner to lean on who could fulfill those orders without creating a need for DragonTech to hire in house. With 20 years of industry experience behind him, Evans was looking for a reputable partner that could complement his service offering with the digital marketing and productivity software tools his clients were already asking for.
After conducting research into the capabilities of the Vendasta platform, DragonTech partnered with Vendasta in 2020 after landing a client who needed a full package of digital marketing solutions to complement their IT needs.
“The size of that one single client paid for the Vendasta subscription for the year and we were off,” Evans says.
Vendasta Marketplace and Marketing Services: An MSP’s secret weapon
With access to white-label digital marketing fulfillment from Vendasta’s Marketing Services division, Dragon Tech IT Services now had an army of expert agents behind him to action on any website or digital marketing needs his clients needed to grow their businesses. To date, Evans has tacked on an additional $31,000 in recurring revenue through the platform, putting him on track to bring in $250,000 in annual revenue by the end of 2022.
“By the end of next year, I have strong beliefs that we will break half a million in annual revenue,” says Evans.
Evans is propelled by a passion for all things tech. Fueled by the trust his small business clients hold with him, Evans is thankful to not only offer new and valuable solutions to his clients through the Vendasta Marketplace, but he also relies heavily on built-in proof of performance reporting. Available free and integrated directly into the Vendasta platform, a client-facing portal gives IT providers and MSPs (managed service providers) the opportunity to demonstrate in real time how the solutions are impacting the digital footprint of the small business clients DragonTech serves.
As the platform has grown, we've really taken inspiration from it and now we offer the portal, branded as our DragonWing business manager, helping your business take flight. We offer it not just as a digital marketing tool, but also as a place where clients can review analytics for their business.
New host of MSP (managed service provider) solutions paint a bright future for the industry
Evans is working directly with his Vendasta Partner Development Manager to build out new tiered pricing packages for his clients, in order to ensure he has a service offering to fit any budget.
“Vendasta has made us a digital marketing company. They inspired us to move forward and branch out rather than just simply providing IT services,” Evans says.
