Passkey Technology‘s focus on client retention, continuous improvement, and robust cybersecurity is building lasting relationships that propel growth. In this conversation with MSP Success, company President Bret Erickson, who bought the Golden Valley, Minnesota-based business in 2007, reveals tips, strategies, and a key new solution that all position his MSP business for success.
MSP Success: What are the top three business indicators you use to measure your company and why?
Bret Erickson: 1) Client retention. I hear the term “churn rate” in our industry, like that’s something to be tolerated and measured. I never want to set ourselves up for failure. 2) Projects. Projects mean change and usually improvement. That means we are doing our job. Moving clients along in their technology journey and not standing still. 3) Feedback. A couple of my favorite books are Raving Fans and Customers for Life. I want to hear how great our staff is. I want to hear how much they appreciate our response time [and] that they trust us. Then I know we are making an impact–that we are doing what we set out to do.
MSP Success: What is your single secret to success this past year?
Erickson: Taking the time to work “on the business” as they say in E-Myth. But not alone–with our staff. In smaller breakouts or squads. Each with a topic. Soliciting ideas and pain points to be solved, from the whole organization. And most importantly, never have a meeting without an agenda and minutes.
MSP Success: What was the biggest challenge you overcame this past year related to growth?
Erickson: Knowing my limits and admitting them. I think I’m a good sales engineer. I’m a good consultant. I am not a great closer/salesperson. Growing a salesperson and account manager internally who has those skills has taken a huge burden off me. And we are having far more success cross-selling and landing prospects.
MSP Success: Has there been a vendor or tool that has been instrumental to your business?
Erickson: We needed something to keep an eye on our Office 365 tenants and be able to take action in the middle of the night. There are a lot of competitors out there, and a good friend of mine in a peer group loved SaaS Alerts [now part of Kaseya]. SaaS Alerts markets themselves as [a product to] detect and automatically remediate SaaS threats. It’s spot on.
But 100% of why we went with them is the personal attention they give is way above anything I’m used to and their dedication to the IT community. They have weekly community calls for an hour, and you can hop on and the CEO [Jim Lippie] and other leadership are on there. It’s kind of unheard of, their level of dedication to the channel.
MSP Success: How is the cloud detection and response (CDR) solution helping you protect your clients?
Erickson: I’m pretty sure I’m stealing this quote, but it sums it up: When it comes to the security of Office 365, we’re basically fighting against organized crime. These are well-funded, multinational crime rings. So we need tools like SaaS Alerts to be fighting the battle.
It’s a big part of our security stack because it is constantly monitoring everything that’s going on inside a tenant’s Office 365. You can see where people are logged in from, and if we get an alert that someone is logged in from Kazakhstan, we go to the customer. You have an Events [module], which is very cool, because it logs everything–whether someone opened a file, copied a file, downloaded a file, who was it, and what time it was. It’s really slick. We’re getting enterprise-level tools at a price point a small business can afford.
MSP Success: How has incorporating CDR into your cybersecurity stack benefited your business and tech efficiency?
Erickson: When you get that phone call that says, “I think I got hacked,” the first thing is, it stopped it before it happened. The second thing [the platform] will do is the remediation, that immediate investigation–it takes a long time to do that. There’s the initial investigation and looking at what happened, and after the fact, the in-depth investigation where the client wants big questions answered. So it’s either taken those things away or made it way more efficient.
I don’t think our industry had the tools to monitor to this level before SaaS Alerts. It’s added improved monitoring capabilities and watching for threats, whereas previously, it would be a lot more reactive.
Now [technicians] can do diagnostics, investigate, tell a customer the level of damage that may have occurred, or ensure that there wasn’t data taken.
MSP Success: What words of advice would you give to other MSPs looking to grow their business?
Erickson: There are a few things I live by. It’s important to allow your staff to mess up. You have to let them be human and be ready to change. Don’t overcommit, to either a solution or a long-term deal. Our industry has a six-month shelf life. You don’t want to lock in at this much money for three years.
We’re here for the customer. I do think a lot of our industry is about profits and what can I sell. That all comes if you focus on your customer.
To find out more about cloud detection and response, see Why MSPs Are Rushing To Add CDR
