Vendors often fail MSPs by offering a single, generic certification path for all partners. MSPs require practical, operational guidance beyond basic product knowledge. This includes runbooks for common scenarios and specific training on managing a platform at scale across multiple customer tenants, not just deploying it once.

Many MSPs are technically brilliant but struggle with marketing and customer acquisition. Vendors can significantly strengthen these partnerships by offering practical support like content, use cases, and marketing materials. This helps evolving MSPs acquire new business and bridges the skills gap in their sales and commercial functions.

Huntress succeeded with MSPs by framing its security product as a way to protect their margins. Since MSPs charge a flat fee, a security incident meant lost time and negative profit on a client. Huntress helped them avoid financial losses and become heroes to their customers, ensuring deep partnership alignment.

Instead of building its program in a vacuum, Lenovo proactively gathered a group of MSPs to act as an advisory council. This allowed them to understand partner needs, identify market gaps, and craft a more relevant and successful program from the outset, which they continue to iterate on.

The role of a Managed Service Provider (MSP) is shifting from technical service delivery to strategic business consultancy. MSPs must become 'Managed Intelligence Providers' (MIPs), offering thought leadership and business advice to their SMB clients, filling the advisory gap typically served by large consultancies in the enterprise space.

Being a vendor just solves today's problems. To become a true strategic partner, you must understand a customer's long-term business goals and explicitly connect your product roadmap to their future success. This is critical for enterprise retention and moving up-market.

Initial go-to-market efforts selling directly to small businesses failed because the buyers weren't technical. After five consecutive calls revealed that SMBs outsource their IT, founder Kyle Hanslovan realized he needed to sell to Managed Service Providers (MSPs) instead of the end-users.

MSPs operate on thin margins and need solutions that improve their bottom line and increase their company's sale value. Instead of leading with tech specs, vendors should focus on how their partnership boosts Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) and EBITDA, which directly multiplies an MSP's valuation.

Many Managed Service Providers (MSPs) are technically proficient but lack commercial confidence. A psychology-informed enablement strategy is key. By understanding this partner persona, vendors can provide frameworks and tangible, real-life scenarios that empower MSPs to translate abstract security risks into compelling conversations their customers can relate to.