Many MSPs view selling their business for a profit as the ultimate mark of success, but that’s not the case for Tracy Hardin. Instead, she prefers to keep her business small, maintaining the standard of client care and quality her customers are used to.
Her strategy is clearly working—not only has Next Century Technologies maintained a steady 10% year-over-year revenue growth rate over the past four years, but the MSP was also recently nominated by readers of the local publisher, Smiley Pete, as one of the best tech companies in Lexington, Kentucky. Hardin is also a finalist for MSP Success’ inaugural MSP Titans of the Industry Awards in the Woman-Owned Business category.
Starting Next Century
Next Century Technologies has been providing Kentucky businesses with comprehensive technology solutions since 2001, but that wasn’t always Hardin’s goal. In fact, Hardin never intended to start her own MSP; after graduating with her computer science degree, Hardin worked for several companies, eventually becoming a network engineer at a well-paying but thankless corporate job. “The corporate world was rough, and there was no overtime pay even if I was swamped with work. Not to mention, the users were ungrateful,” Hardin explains.
That’s when she made the switch, moving to a Kentucky-based IT consulting firm. “It was a complete turning point,” Hardin says. “The consulting firm’s business clientele were so happy to see me walk in the door and showed appreciation when I fixed their computer problems. It was a totally different mindset, and I loved getting to peek behind the doors of these businesses and see how they really use technology to operate.”
Making IT Personable
Her time working for the IT firm taught her how not to run a company and led to her starting Next Century Technologies, with a focus on client relationships.
Next Century Technologies’ commitment to a personable, client-centred experience can be seen throughout all facets of the business. “First of all, we have a satisfaction guarantee on all our support agreements where we offer 24/7 support and try to answer all calls by a live human,” explains Hardin. “We also put real pictures of our staff on the website and always encourage our employees to connect with our clients—whether it’s over something like the latest U.K. football game or how to properly cage a tomato plant. Providing the best possible outcomes while being personable is always our aim.”
The MSP’s symbiotic relationship with their customers benefits both parties—the clients are taken care of, and Next Century Technologies grows in revenue. “Taking care of our clients means they’re more likely to give us referrals, which improves revenue,” says Hardin. “We also upsell our existing clients by always looking for better products to add to our security stack. Then we go to each of our clients, saying, ‘This is what we’d like to change. This is how we can improve security.’ We’ve had more and more clients reach out to us proactively. So now, we’re going out to all of them and asking if we can add new security features. Sometimes that requires more licenses to be purchased, so that of course improves revenue. But the real bonus is that they’re more secure, because if we don’t come to them with these solutions, some other MSP is going to.”
Education-Focused Marketing
This level of client care is reflected in Next Century Technologies’ marketing efforts, which are primarily focused on education. To that end, Hardin has written two books—one on cybersecurity and one on IT operations.
“I hand out free copies all the time, whenever I go to events,” says Hardin, adding, “I wrote them because I wanted to educate business owners. I have been doing this for well over 20 years. There are things I wish business owners knew; the books are written to them. The operations book is for the business owner that does their own IT or has their own IT staff. The cybersecurity book is for anyone, but it’s written in a nontechnical way.” Both books are currently available on Amazon, and Hardin is pricing them low. “The goal is to educate people. Get [the books] out there to as many hands as I can, versus how much money I’m going to make per copy,” she explains.
This education focus is also apparent in the MSP’s upselling strategy: “We’re trying to educate our clients to make them more security aware,” says Hardin. This year, she’s focused on securing her clients’ email accounts; she recently added SaaS Alerts to her stack. “The results were pretty shocking,” she says. “Right now, email is the most compromised area we see with clients. It’s the biggest threat to them. I caught four compromised accounts in the first month, and some of them had been there for months. So, we started paying more attention to 365. Right now, we’re in the middle of a campaign to get [our clients] proactively locked down and dialed in.”
The Small Business Superpower
Looking ahead, Hardin plans to make her VP a partner in 2025 so she can take a small step back. “One thing that was and continues to be very important to me is that we don’t sell out,” says Hardin. “I’ve had hundreds of offers to buy my company, but it would derail everything. When you’re small like we are, you can be really hands-on and personable, which is our priority.”
Taking care of her clients and staff is far more important to Hardin than a big paycheck. Many of her customers and employees have invested years into her MSP, and she feels duty-bound to them. “It really was never about how much can I sell it for. It just never crossed my mind,” she says.
