When Ann Westerheim, Ph.D., founded Westford, Mass.-based Ekaru, it was important to her to develop a team that genuinely cares about their clients—down to having someone answer the phones instead of using an automated system. Here she reveals how Ekaru stays ahead with a personal touch, building a culture of constant learning, and using uncertainty as a trigger for growth—not retreat.
MSP Success: What are the top three growth indicators you use to measure your company
and why?
Ann Westerheim: We look at how many new conversations we are having per month, and how many proposals we end up generating out of those contacts. We do a lot of surveys to get the pulse of the folks that we’re working with and then do more of a longitudinal Net Promotor Score. We also do technology business reviews, our nonquarterly review meetings.
With some clients, we maybe only do one a year. Ideally, we do four a year, because we want to have a connection with the client; so there, we’re looking at how many efforts does it take to book a meeting. If we have a lot of trouble scheduling a TBR, we know that customers are not seeing the value in this or maybe they’re not happy. We want to look for indications that maybe something needs to be improved.
For example, if someone’s not up to date with cybersecurity, that’s potentially an opportunity for us to step up what we’re doing. Like all MSPs, we have standard IT that includes a baseline of cybersecurity. If you’re focusing on growth, the TBRs are an opportunity to connect with the client, understand how their business is going, and develop a deeper relationship with them. If it’s just a sales pitch, that kind of backfires.
There’s a lot of great training out there with various groups around how to develop review meetings with clients. Empath is one we like. We try to take advantage of anything we can learn out there.
MSP Success: What is one key secret to your success over the past year or so?
Westerheim: We’ve developed a team that genuinely cares about our clients. We do live-answering of phone calls even though we have a sophisticated phone system we could use. We try to take a very personalized approach. It’s always a work in progress We’re very into staying up to date in the industry. We try to articulate that to clients that we’re out at the conferences; we’re learning what’s new. Everybody on our team has time on their calendar to do training and learn new things. Ultimately, that benefits our clients as well.
MSP Success: What were your biggest challenges this past year related to growth?
Westerheim: The common adage is businesses don’t like uncertainty. In an election year, there’s uncertainty and now there’s stuff going on with the tariffs. What I tell myself after all these years is just be consistent. Keep doing the things that we know work.
Whenever there’s a downturn in the economy, I find that’s the time to really put the accelerator on and do more marketing and more outreach. It’s not always going to translate to business, but it’s easy to panic, and retracting is the worse thing you can do.
Just being consistent even when you don’t see the immediate results is something that always helps. People need what MSPs do. They need IT. They need security. So eventually, all the efforts will pay off with some level of success.
MSP Success: Has there been a vendor or tool that has been instrumental in getting you to where you are today?
Westerheim: The PSA with the RMM; we’re a ConnectWise shop. There’s a lot of good products—SaaS Alerts is something we’ve been on for about a year now. Huntress is another. One thing that’s really delightful is there are a lot of vendors building a lot of affordable solutions in the small business space. That’s our passion—helping mainstream USA small businesses, and there are tools that are very smart, very strategic, they’re low cost, and they have an enormous, positive impact on increasing security. I love that there’s so many great vendors that have emerged over the years that let us provide smart and affordable things to our clients. I tell people you can get some amazing security offerings or packages for the cost of a latte for a month.
MSP Success: Who is the most impactful business leader whose techniques or leadership style you try to emulate and why?
Westerheim: One who really resonates with me is [former Apple Founder and CEO] Steve Jobs and his whole message of delivering a great customer experience and connecting the dots. I think as MSPs, if we can deliver a great customer experience and also have our finger on the pulse of technology and be able to connect the dots, that’s real magic.
MSP Success: What is the top lesson you’ve had to learn that has been instrumental to your company’s growth?
Westerheim: In business, not everything is going to work out and you can’t hang onto things that aren’t going to work. I’ve learned that the hard way; taking on projects that weren’t a fit for us years ago—it doesn’t always work out, and that’s OK. You learn from that, and you understand more of what your core best offerings are. Related to that is the fact that not all clients are going to be a fit.
MSP Success: What advice would you give to other MSPs looking to grow their businesses?
Westerheim: Commit to being a lifelong learner. There’s so much great information out there, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. I have tons of friends in the business. We all have somewhat different focuses, and you’re not in this alone. There are people you can learn from who want to help. To me, that’s what’s great about the MSP industry.
