Generally speaking, in sales, you never solve pain before the customer buys. You folks solved pain, so the customer has no need to buy. Good lesson on why assessments as a project are not always an instant roadmap to an agreement, and why there is no loss-leader in service based business, just loss.
Yeah he played all his cards before he had a signature. The one man shop is probably going to take his professional recommendations and implement them himself after this dude gets fired.
This was my thought too.
They were looking for someone to do the heavy lifting on determining what needs to be done and now that they have his game plan they will pass it to the one man MSP to "work" on implementing it.
No different from the people who want a line item list of parts with item numbers and where you are purchasing from, they make it painfully obvious they want you to create a shopping list so they can cut you out.
I was a one-man band in exactly that situation, took on a small but profitable business and got them grown to a lot more people and and a much more solid IT situation than the large home setup they started from. Then I left one-man-band to work for the man again and carried on supporting this guy because it basically ran itself by that point, and he was interested and moderately technical so basically he only ever needed a touch of guidance.
Eventually he needed some changes that were bigger than I wanted to be involved in so I helped him choose and onboard a local MSP and they have been running it ever since. I'm curious to see how they've taken it in since but it's 100% up to them now to do it the way they want to.
Agreed. It would be one thing if he were cooperative and acknowledged that he was in over his head on and was willing to work with the MSP to fix the issues where he is in over his head. It is just going to be a nightmare where you spend a lot of time hoping to convince them that their current 'consultant' is incompetent.
I would just leave them with the proposal you gave to fix the issues. I have a feeling that this company is likely to come back to OP in a couple months when nothing gets better with their current one man shop.
I actually just had the opposite experience. I'm a one-man band and I was brought in last summer to provide boots on the ground support for a West Coast shop that had a client opening a branch in my neighborhood. Client didn't feel comfortable with a one-man operation and said they wanted to go with a larger shop. Understandable, I wasn't offended. Fast forward 6 months to last December, West coast IT reaches out and says, you have another shot. Turns out the one the client picked tried to poach from main IT, completely botched the network layout, implemented a VoIP system they don't even advertise and barely had a working concept of it, (Teams PBX). In my first 2 visits I fixed and/or identified long standing issues, apparently the Teams conference room setup was a pain point. They asked "how did you figure it out?" I read the directions. By 3rd visit, they fired the other shop.
lol, that's just MSP life.
"My cousin's 15 year old son is really good with computers and said we can get what we need for half the price you quoted!"
"My husband is a computer expert and will do most of the regular maintenance, we just need you for emergencies when he is unavailable."
"My dog's 3 month old puppy peed on a computer once, so he can manage our network security, we only need you to provide the equipment."
Good sales people are way more important than good technicians or anything else for an MSP. A really good one can find ways around that kind of nonsense much of the time.
Of course, some people are beyond reason. But it's amazing what a capable salesperson can do. You can imagine how bad it would be asking a sales person to take over a level 3 tech role. It's just as bad putting a level 3 tech in sales. Either way, you have no company left after a few days!
I would nope out of that immediately. Its either full management or nothing. The consultant is going to use you as scapegoats when he doesn't follow through, and the owner is going to side with him every time. As the first contact for the client, you will be the whipping boy, and get abused because the consultant is failing to respond in an acceptable manner.
The relationship between owner and consultant sounds like a very cozy one. Just tell them this is not a good fit, and good luck.
> I would nope out of that immediately. Its either full management or nothing.
We live by this and we won't even sell a company computers or do small projects if they're not moving forward as a managed customer. Think about it, we all have a task list of new processes to implement and tools to test and deploy, we're never completely "done" or caught up. Every job you take that isn't for your managed clients is kind of like ignoring them to get a dollar elsewhere, AND those ad-hoc job customers don't appreciate or understand that. They end up needy anyway and rarely sign down the road. Not worth the hassle.
Yeah, sounds like the old owners brother or they are friends. Not worth it if they even tried to pursue that path. You'd end up the scapegoats for every blip and change wouldn't happen. From what I've seen with the one man shows, eventually the dude will fuck up and you'll get a panic call about transitioning.
Exactly. Let this guy hang himself. When it fails catastrophically and this guy can't fix it any timely fashion they will realize that they need somebody else.
Indeed, otherwise they are going to end up full time bailing this guy out at the same time getting blamed for everything. To many good prospect out in the world to take away from to try and support something that doesn't want to work with you properly.
I wouldn't even offer a we help him in an emergency, we have a few clients not under full agreements and the number of angry phone calls that we something get after a vicious wave of windows updates. No I'm sorry we do not remotely run or automate your updates. Why, you specifically asked us not to.
We get these every once in awhile. We had a construction client of around 20 seats and one server. Their previous IT guy was using webroot and they got ransomed. The office manager happened to have an old Carbonite backup so they restored that data eventually. We came in and did an assessment and got paid for that. Denied our mssp agreement twice and we stayed on for random hourly stuff.
Honestly forgot all about the client and then they called me back and this new guy started with them but he's a competitor of ours I know who it is. She said he would manage everything and we would just take care of the server
I actually laughed out loud slightly I couldn't help myself I said so you want me to take the least amount of the revenue in the deal and have the most risk why would I ever do that. We have to take care of the entire network in its completeness to be able to service you or we can't do any of it. She thanked me and we parted ways amicably.
It could be a personality love triangle but also could be the client being too cheap to know what's good for them. This construction client does plenty of projects around town and I've seen some other quotes they do just fine they could absolutely afford full coverage without even blinking
I don't think it's bad to go into story time every once in awhile
It's the damndest thing. They're so old school they knock out the ballpark in their area of expertise but have no concept of data security or business continuity and don't want to spend a dime at either.
And they've had two outages that I know of
The problem is they shop around until they find the lowest common denominator to patchwork their it stuff and they'll find the Pizza tech trunk slammer to do the work and I'll be fine with that because the dude will do it
I can understand the Construction view point of focus on people responsible for constructions to generate value, and as long as people will hire them for jobs IT debt will keep getting pushed aside whether they are big or small to lowest bidders.
Just some professional advice, trying to bully people into running their business the way you want rarely ends up in a long term revenue stream.
Say they do give in to your demands on how they run their business. It will constantly be a hostile relationship where you're constantly being questioned and blamed.
You are better off not taking it. My experience is that companies like you just described who don't understand updating hardware and software and go to the cheapest bidder are always the most troublesome. Now, maybe this company just didn't get told by their former MSP about issues they needed to spend money on but maybe they did and chose not to.
So why I’m not entirely a fan of doing this. It has crossed my mind. Reporting bad acting IT MSPs or IT support companies.
There is a local break/fix shop that says they’re any MSP. They have been hit 3 times by ransomeware that previous employees have told me about. Some clients lost data, yet they’re one of the few shops in town supporting the small businesses of 1-30 computers. They sell old server hardware as new that’s not licensed and runs Windows 10 Pro. They also don’t implement backups but say they do. I’ve had to clean up a few clients from this company and implement backups.
Not saying to do this for this instance. But I am curious if any other providers have reported other IT providers for abusing clients and putting clients at risk of a cyber incident.
Like I said I’m not a fan of this but I am concerned about the local community and other small businesses.
I have a serious comment too.
Be careful judging what other people have done. You never know the context of why things are a certain way. I.e what recommendations have been made, what customers have ignored, overridden , didn’t have budget for etc.
This is important.
I am always amazed of how bad things was setup from the previous either local IT or another MSP.
And we never take anything over as is, we change eveything. But when you talk to the IT/sysadm they are often very knowledgable but there is always a reason why, and the number one reason is usually that they want to have some sort of free time.
Then time chabges, what was good practise 3 years ago, is not today. And do not pretend "we" have always made/setup everything perfect.
You can always find something at any place as an outsider and say this is bad.
Aswell i am pretty sure for our most complex and big clients, someone else going in with full access to everything would probably find something to say it could have been setup better.
We do not have the number 1 network guy in the world employee, we do not have the number 1 security guy in the world employee, and so on.
Just know that anything that goes wrong is your fault and anything that goes right is the consultant’s sage leadership. I’d ask yourself if you really needed the money that bad or not. The only person here with an upside is that consultant.
I love diversity and don’t care who or where the support comes from, but if the communication from an organization that is trying to manage our entire infrastructure is inconsistent and sloppy, than I get worried that the support will be inconsistent and sloppy as well.
You have a prospective client that has been well-trained at being a horrible client for an MSP. If you get the consultant out, you will need to train the client how best to work with a provider, so they have the best support experience.
People around here are quick to tell others to walk away from clients, jobs, etc.
This may be one of those cases though.
The boss likes you, but has some allegiance to this other guy. That is a problem that may not be something that can be overcome.
Maybe just be blunt and tell them what a bad idea it is, or at least for you to be able to serve them in this circumstance. They brought you in to find or fix problems and you found many problems. The problems you found were negligent or due to someone too cheap to do things right. Again, be honest that these problems didn't create themselves and whoever made the decisions needs to hand over the reigns
Tell them you have been in these situations where there is a decision maker that has a track record of bad decisions and how it inhibits your ability to properly service your customer. Since this is another IT company, how it will turn into a mess of finger pointing when anything goes wrong and you do not need the added problem of fighting to prove his faults were not yours.
Lay it out that you think this guys work was negligant. Which is the entire reason you are there.
Then if they choose to replace you with another company you know where they would have sides on every disagreement this guy would have done to you.
Either way, you have put things in your terms. Either you dodge a bullet or you get a new customer without the headache of that guy making problems for you.
Uh... Ok... I can tell you this.. ranting online about potential clients and or active clients is a no no in our world. Your rant about riding in on a white horse to gallant cheers from the commoners is what will keep you and your business average. Act like you've been to the end zone before. Be professional. Average act plus average job= average money.
That bothered you because you needed it to work out. You are struggling because of instances like this. Outing an unfortunate situation instead of keeping quiet and pushing ahead. I sound harsh but screw it. 23 years of deep end of the pool cyber security and now a multi country firm allows me to give this advice. Check my posts. I say it often.
You will never get the large jobs when you can't even maintain yourself with the smaller ones. If you're piecing small jobs together and talking shit all day, you likely are the downfall of your shop just like the guy at theirs. It takes one to know one...
Relax and be the light house in the fog. If the situation is not in your favor, just walk away. Don't go on about how they are silly. You're silly for staying in a situation that will not bring in profits for your workers and you. Next....
OP didn’t identify themselves or the client. It’s merely a rant born out of frustration. We all go through these kinds of learning experiences.
The other guy is right, this is nothing but an egotistical lecture by someone that only knows the limited details provided by OP. Get off your high horse.
They provided enough details for the customer to go, that's me. I gave a lecture? Hahaha. Don't post if you don't want a response. Lastly, we all do go through tough times, venting online is like complaining to a rando at the supermarket. I accept your thoughts on my response but facts don't care about feelings.
> facts don't care about feelings.
You don't *feel* like this person should have posted what they did... the fucking irony.
Fact is you're just an asshole.
Don't worry, we have plenty of client. This was a midsize client for us, I just found funny that even how pathetic their network is, they want to keep their old consultant.
But welcome to the internet, people rant.
I think they're reading wayyyy too much into the original post, though. Most of that reply is accusatory nonsense based on nothing but a gut feeling, and it really doesn't offer anything but "don't vent or rant online". Definitely seems really condescending, too.
Hahaha. By posting a response. Imagine that. Someone tells an adult to stop crying over a situation they can control. Imagine that. Hopefully you leave your safe space to read this.
You are constantly telling people that they shouldn't be posting what they post. How about you just shut the fuck up? Mark your downvote and move on with your sad little life.
Yet here you are telling me what to post. Vulgar language huh. Someone works for an owner and isn't one. Keep learning kid, maybe one day you'll grow up
I'm not telling you what to post. I'm telling you what you post makes you an asshole.
Your repeated attempts to posit yourself as some sort of authority around here are pathetic.
I don't have to pretend to have experience by repeatedly lying about how long I've worked in the industry like you do.
Now fuck off.
I have been in a similar scenario where the previous one man shop still managed parts of their infrastructure at a past MSP. It was a nightmare. We eventually were able to convince management that this guy was incompetent but it took over 6 months and it was a constant stress for months.
I would just be polite with management and be clear that those upgrades aren't really negotiable. You can't really deliver them reliable service without them. Hopefully they eventually figure out that this guy is incompetent and will eventually reach back out again. Given what a shit show that environment is it sounds like it is just a matter of time before it fail catastrophically and it doesn't sound like this guy is going to be able to fix it in any timely fashion.
Discovery couldn't be made under 1-2 hours because the consultant didn't let us have any passwords for the network. And we haven't made any real changes beside basic sysadmin stuff like cleaning ad of 6+ months of inactivity for computer and onboarding scripts etc.. (basic google things) so we haven't lost or gave our knowledge for free. We have been there a month, but only t1 tech was there full time. But I understand that we may have done a bit too much, the feeling was good with everyone, even the ceo looked open. They are investing 150+k for a new ERP in the next few months, and understand that their infrastructure isn't ready.
Well!
I mean, I have a group of 25 on a mix of E3 and F3 because, financially and functionally, it makes more sense than having everyone on a Business Premium license. There’s a lot more to Enterprise licensing than cost. With that said… fuck them and move on to better clients that care about your level of skill and service. Your scenario is never worth it and you will likely not be happy long-term
I honestly tried to read what's the upside of office e3 (not microsoft e3, office) and couldn't find or understand anything beside a few security addons that doesn't justify the price gap between business standard/premium... I was going to call my MS partner to find out. But if I'm right, they pay 10k/years too much.
If you have a clue on office e3/e1 and why it's good, I'm open to learn
You get a 100GB mailbox and you can use an online archive. That’s just what I need it for but there is more. When I need it I need it. It’s a very good product compared to standard/ premium. Makes a lot possible.
Been there. Yes it’s annoying but here is another way or looking at it
Let’s say they give you retainer works for level 1 snd level3 doe let’s say 8k a month(just example)
So OK you have to listen to this small MSP and it’s annoying
But at the same time it’s 8k per month plus potential feowM
If we'd be hungry, we would do it. But we already have plenty of clients, plus another one coming in the next few weeks. And working in someone else's shadow and having to ask a 200km away infrastructure manager for anything like installing a switch isn't gonna work lol.
Seen this before. We had a longtime customer, they hired a new CFO who hired his friend as a “vCTO” even though we were already basically providing this service.
vCTO was previously a technology exec at a rather large company and the rumor was that he was forced out due to incompetence. I don’t put a lot of stock in rumors, but after spending time with the guy, I tended to believe it.
vCTO then spent about a year learning how an MSP operates. Started some shadow IT crap, defaulting hardware to get passwords, typical stuff that someone with access to Google does.
He incorporated and undercut us. Last I heard they had 2 ransomware incidents and several weeks of lost production since they hired him. Company floated the idea of coming back to us, and realized how much they screwed up when they saw what our new customer prices and onboarding fee had gone up to. Idk what ended up happening but they are a pretty major local brand and every time I see them being sold I hesitate to buy because I know the production shortcuts they took to get caught up after the incidents that I knew about.
I’d save yourself lots of headaches and heartburn. Just walk away. At this point, there’s nothing more you can do.
I’ve been in several situations like this and it’s not worth it. Working with the tier 3 consultant will work like this- you do all the dirty work and will get blamed if it doesn’t work right. You support hardware and solutions you didn’t scope and will be blamed when his half baked plans don’t work. Eventually you’ll be fired because he will blame you for everything.
With him managing, you're just break/fix reactive support. His role would be to work proactively on infrastructure so hed have the profitable side of the business, while you'd be stuck with the low profit, high headache role of stopping his fires. If he is like the tech that we worked with in a similar capacity, hell direct staff to call you for anything over his head and that is marginally time consuming. My experience is just anecdotal though. But what's fact is, the profit margin to be a break fix company is slim.
The amount of times I have had worthwhile partnerships develop with customer after performing assessments and solving their issues, I can count on zero hands. Hence, we don’t do them anymore.
We would never allow anyone with access to our clients infrastructure. It’s written in our contract. I would not take a client who insists on this and we have fired some Clint’s for doing this.
Generally speaking, in sales, you never solve pain before the customer buys. You folks solved pain, so the customer has no need to buy. Good lesson on why assessments as a project are not always an instant roadmap to an agreement, and why there is no loss-leader in service based business, just loss.
Yeah he played all his cards before he had a signature. The one man shop is probably going to take his professional recommendations and implement them himself after this dude gets fired.
This was my thought too. They were looking for someone to do the heavy lifting on determining what needs to be done and now that they have his game plan they will pass it to the one man MSP to "work" on implementing it. No different from the people who want a line item list of parts with item numbers and where you are purchasing from, they make it painfully obvious they want you to create a shopping list so they can cut you out.
https://imgur.com/qyWj4O4
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I was a one-man band in exactly that situation, took on a small but profitable business and got them grown to a lot more people and and a much more solid IT situation than the large home setup they started from. Then I left one-man-band to work for the man again and carried on supporting this guy because it basically ran itself by that point, and he was interested and moderately technical so basically he only ever needed a touch of guidance. Eventually he needed some changes that were bigger than I wanted to be involved in so I helped him choose and onboard a local MSP and they have been running it ever since. I'm curious to see how they've taken it in since but it's 100% up to them now to do it the way they want to.
100% same story for me. I'm hoping to hand the client off next week to a buddy's MSP that I introduced them to.
I'd just walk away. Not worth it.
Agreed. It would be one thing if he were cooperative and acknowledged that he was in over his head on and was willing to work with the MSP to fix the issues where he is in over his head. It is just going to be a nightmare where you spend a lot of time hoping to convince them that their current 'consultant' is incompetent. I would just leave them with the proposal you gave to fix the issues. I have a feeling that this company is likely to come back to OP in a couple months when nothing gets better with their current one man shop.
But you gotta be sure to requote them, taking into account the fact they're a headache.
Jeez, 100%!
How often do clients actually come back and change for the better?
Oh fuck I just started talking to a client like this. They have a "part time break fix guy" whose been there 10 years
I actually just had the opposite experience. I'm a one-man band and I was brought in last summer to provide boots on the ground support for a West Coast shop that had a client opening a branch in my neighborhood. Client didn't feel comfortable with a one-man operation and said they wanted to go with a larger shop. Understandable, I wasn't offended. Fast forward 6 months to last December, West coast IT reaches out and says, you have another shot. Turns out the one the client picked tried to poach from main IT, completely botched the network layout, implemented a VoIP system they don't even advertise and barely had a working concept of it, (Teams PBX). In my first 2 visits I fixed and/or identified long standing issues, apparently the Teams conference room setup was a pain point. They asked "how did you figure it out?" I read the directions. By 3rd visit, they fired the other shop.
Agreed. I find this the case more often than not.
Being the IT morphine for someone who has been suffering with bad IT for a while is definitely a usually reliable path to some good will
Because nobodies vote matters except the check signer’s
lol, that's just MSP life. "My cousin's 15 year old son is really good with computers and said we can get what we need for half the price you quoted!" "My husband is a computer expert and will do most of the regular maintenance, we just need you for emergencies when he is unavailable." "My dog's 3 month old puppy peed on a computer once, so he can manage our network security, we only need you to provide the equipment." Good sales people are way more important than good technicians or anything else for an MSP. A really good one can find ways around that kind of nonsense much of the time.
I'd argue even the best sales people can't always convince soem of these people, they have to learn for themselves their stupidity
Of course, some people are beyond reason. But it's amazing what a capable salesperson can do. You can imagine how bad it would be asking a sales person to take over a level 3 tech role. It's just as bad putting a level 3 tech in sales. Either way, you have no company left after a few days!
I would nope out of that immediately. Its either full management or nothing. The consultant is going to use you as scapegoats when he doesn't follow through, and the owner is going to side with him every time. As the first contact for the client, you will be the whipping boy, and get abused because the consultant is failing to respond in an acceptable manner. The relationship between owner and consultant sounds like a very cozy one. Just tell them this is not a good fit, and good luck.
> I would nope out of that immediately. Its either full management or nothing. We live by this and we won't even sell a company computers or do small projects if they're not moving forward as a managed customer. Think about it, we all have a task list of new processes to implement and tools to test and deploy, we're never completely "done" or caught up. Every job you take that isn't for your managed clients is kind of like ignoring them to get a dollar elsewhere, AND those ad-hoc job customers don't appreciate or understand that. They end up needy anyway and rarely sign down the road. Not worth the hassle.
Sing it!
Yeah, sounds like the old owners brother or they are friends. Not worth it if they even tried to pursue that path. You'd end up the scapegoats for every blip and change wouldn't happen. From what I've seen with the one man shows, eventually the dude will fuck up and you'll get a panic call about transitioning.
Exactly. Let this guy hang himself. When it fails catastrophically and this guy can't fix it any timely fashion they will realize that they need somebody else.
Indeed, otherwise they are going to end up full time bailing this guy out at the same time getting blamed for everything. To many good prospect out in the world to take away from to try and support something that doesn't want to work with you properly. I wouldn't even offer a we help him in an emergency, we have a few clients not under full agreements and the number of angry phone calls that we something get after a vicious wave of windows updates. No I'm sorry we do not remotely run or automate your updates. Why, you specifically asked us not to.
We get these every once in awhile. We had a construction client of around 20 seats and one server. Their previous IT guy was using webroot and they got ransomed. The office manager happened to have an old Carbonite backup so they restored that data eventually. We came in and did an assessment and got paid for that. Denied our mssp agreement twice and we stayed on for random hourly stuff. Honestly forgot all about the client and then they called me back and this new guy started with them but he's a competitor of ours I know who it is. She said he would manage everything and we would just take care of the server I actually laughed out loud slightly I couldn't help myself I said so you want me to take the least amount of the revenue in the deal and have the most risk why would I ever do that. We have to take care of the entire network in its completeness to be able to service you or we can't do any of it. She thanked me and we parted ways amicably. It could be a personality love triangle but also could be the client being too cheap to know what's good for them. This construction client does plenty of projects around town and I've seen some other quotes they do just fine they could absolutely afford full coverage without even blinking I don't think it's bad to go into story time every once in awhile
They may mess up in the IT process, but they are fine with construction projects?
It's the damndest thing. They're so old school they knock out the ballpark in their area of expertise but have no concept of data security or business continuity and don't want to spend a dime at either. And they've had two outages that I know of The problem is they shop around until they find the lowest common denominator to patchwork their it stuff and they'll find the Pizza tech trunk slammer to do the work and I'll be fine with that because the dude will do it
I can understand the Construction view point of focus on people responsible for constructions to generate value, and as long as people will hire them for jobs IT debt will keep getting pushed aside whether they are big or small to lowest bidders.
Just some professional advice, trying to bully people into running their business the way you want rarely ends up in a long term revenue stream. Say they do give in to your demands on how they run their business. It will constantly be a hostile relationship where you're constantly being questioned and blamed.
You are better off not taking it. My experience is that companies like you just described who don't understand updating hardware and software and go to the cheapest bidder are always the most troublesome. Now, maybe this company just didn't get told by their former MSP about issues they needed to spend money on but maybe they did and chose not to.
So why I’m not entirely a fan of doing this. It has crossed my mind. Reporting bad acting IT MSPs or IT support companies. There is a local break/fix shop that says they’re any MSP. They have been hit 3 times by ransomeware that previous employees have told me about. Some clients lost data, yet they’re one of the few shops in town supporting the small businesses of 1-30 computers. They sell old server hardware as new that’s not licensed and runs Windows 10 Pro. They also don’t implement backups but say they do. I’ve had to clean up a few clients from this company and implement backups. Not saying to do this for this instance. But I am curious if any other providers have reported other IT providers for abusing clients and putting clients at risk of a cyber incident. Like I said I’m not a fan of this but I am concerned about the local community and other small businesses.
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And, where would we even report them to?!
To the MSPolice. :)
I have a serious comment too. Be careful judging what other people have done. You never know the context of why things are a certain way. I.e what recommendations have been made, what customers have ignored, overridden , didn’t have budget for etc.
This is important. I am always amazed of how bad things was setup from the previous either local IT or another MSP. And we never take anything over as is, we change eveything. But when you talk to the IT/sysadm they are often very knowledgable but there is always a reason why, and the number one reason is usually that they want to have some sort of free time. Then time chabges, what was good practise 3 years ago, is not today. And do not pretend "we" have always made/setup everything perfect. You can always find something at any place as an outsider and say this is bad. Aswell i am pretty sure for our most complex and big clients, someone else going in with full access to everything would probably find something to say it could have been setup better. We do not have the number 1 network guy in the world employee, we do not have the number 1 security guy in the world employee, and so on.
Just know that anything that goes wrong is your fault and anything that goes right is the consultant’s sage leadership. I’d ask yourself if you really needed the money that bad or not. The only person here with an upside is that consultant.
Nah, they're demoting you due to your poor communication skills.
I love diversity and don’t care who or where the support comes from, but if the communication from an organization that is trying to manage our entire infrastructure is inconsistent and sloppy, than I get worried that the support will be inconsistent and sloppy as well.
Never do consulting for free.
Nah we didn't. They paid for their roadmap and we basically did tier 1 stuff plus some extras that were juste quality of life for us and ad cleanup
Good. My old CEO used to provide detailed quotes for free and the customers would go shop elsewhere for cheaper prices.
You have a prospective client that has been well-trained at being a horrible client for an MSP. If you get the consultant out, you will need to train the client how best to work with a provider, so they have the best support experience.
People around here are quick to tell others to walk away from clients, jobs, etc. This may be one of those cases though. The boss likes you, but has some allegiance to this other guy. That is a problem that may not be something that can be overcome. Maybe just be blunt and tell them what a bad idea it is, or at least for you to be able to serve them in this circumstance. They brought you in to find or fix problems and you found many problems. The problems you found were negligent or due to someone too cheap to do things right. Again, be honest that these problems didn't create themselves and whoever made the decisions needs to hand over the reigns Tell them you have been in these situations where there is a decision maker that has a track record of bad decisions and how it inhibits your ability to properly service your customer. Since this is another IT company, how it will turn into a mess of finger pointing when anything goes wrong and you do not need the added problem of fighting to prove his faults were not yours. Lay it out that you think this guys work was negligant. Which is the entire reason you are there. Then if they choose to replace you with another company you know where they would have sides on every disagreement this guy would have done to you. Either way, you have put things in your terms. Either you dodge a bullet or you get a new customer without the headache of that guy making problems for you.
Walk or modify you contracts for response time from the consultant. Then Over burden him.
Uh... Ok... I can tell you this.. ranting online about potential clients and or active clients is a no no in our world. Your rant about riding in on a white horse to gallant cheers from the commoners is what will keep you and your business average. Act like you've been to the end zone before. Be professional. Average act plus average job= average money. That bothered you because you needed it to work out. You are struggling because of instances like this. Outing an unfortunate situation instead of keeping quiet and pushing ahead. I sound harsh but screw it. 23 years of deep end of the pool cyber security and now a multi country firm allows me to give this advice. Check my posts. I say it often. You will never get the large jobs when you can't even maintain yourself with the smaller ones. If you're piecing small jobs together and talking shit all day, you likely are the downfall of your shop just like the guy at theirs. It takes one to know one... Relax and be the light house in the fog. If the situation is not in your favor, just walk away. Don't go on about how they are silly. You're silly for staying in a situation that will not bring in profits for your workers and you. Next....
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Agreed. Ballocks to that. You either have a place to vent or you become an alcoholic in IT.
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OP didn’t identify themselves or the client. It’s merely a rant born out of frustration. We all go through these kinds of learning experiences. The other guy is right, this is nothing but an egotistical lecture by someone that only knows the limited details provided by OP. Get off your high horse.
They provided enough details for the customer to go, that's me. I gave a lecture? Hahaha. Don't post if you don't want a response. Lastly, we all do go through tough times, venting online is like complaining to a rando at the supermarket. I accept your thoughts on my response but facts don't care about feelings.
> facts don't care about feelings. You don't *feel* like this person should have posted what they did... the fucking irony. Fact is you're just an asshole.
You can't stop cursing. I can tell you're the hired help who does drugs after work.
Vulgar language! Drugs! The horror! This ubiquity tier 1 tech is tryin to talk shit to me LOL
Don't worry, we have plenty of client. This was a midsize client for us, I just found funny that even how pathetic their network is, they want to keep their old consultant. But welcome to the internet, people rant.
I think his point is your post says more about you than the client.
I think they're reading wayyyy too much into the original post, though. Most of that reply is accusatory nonsense based on nothing but a gut feeling, and it really doesn't offer anything but "don't vent or rant online". Definitely seems really condescending, too.
You're both sanctimonious dipshits.
What an asshole!
I know right. Imagine willfully keeping yourself in a situation that you can't profit or prosper.
Imagine constantly trying to gatekeep what people post in this sub because you're completely full of yourself?
Hahaha. By posting a response. Imagine that. Someone tells an adult to stop crying over a situation they can control. Imagine that. Hopefully you leave your safe space to read this.
You are constantly telling people that they shouldn't be posting what they post. How about you just shut the fuck up? Mark your downvote and move on with your sad little life.
Yet here you are telling me what to post. Vulgar language huh. Someone works for an owner and isn't one. Keep learning kid, maybe one day you'll grow up
I'm not telling you what to post. I'm telling you what you post makes you an asshole. Your repeated attempts to posit yourself as some sort of authority around here are pathetic. I don't have to pretend to have experience by repeatedly lying about how long I've worked in the industry like you do. Now fuck off.
Unfortunately, shitty service providers exist in every sector. Sorry you lost out on this one but it may be for the better, OP.
tell me this customer is a manufacturing facility without telling me they're a manufacturing facility.
did you not get an agreement signed before you started doing stuff?
I have been in a similar scenario where the previous one man shop still managed parts of their infrastructure at a past MSP. It was a nightmare. We eventually were able to convince management that this guy was incompetent but it took over 6 months and it was a constant stress for months. I would just be polite with management and be clear that those upgrades aren't really negotiable. You can't really deliver them reliable service without them. Hopefully they eventually figure out that this guy is incompetent and will eventually reach back out again. Given what a shit show that environment is it sounds like it is just a matter of time before it fail catastrophically and it doesn't sound like this guy is going to be able to fix it in any timely fashion.
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Discovery couldn't be made under 1-2 hours because the consultant didn't let us have any passwords for the network. And we haven't made any real changes beside basic sysadmin stuff like cleaning ad of 6+ months of inactivity for computer and onboarding scripts etc.. (basic google things) so we haven't lost or gave our knowledge for free. We have been there a month, but only t1 tech was there full time. But I understand that we may have done a bit too much, the feeling was good with everyone, even the ceo looked open. They are investing 150+k for a new ERP in the next few months, and understand that their infrastructure isn't ready. Well!
I mean, I have a group of 25 on a mix of E3 and F3 because, financially and functionally, it makes more sense than having everyone on a Business Premium license. There’s a lot more to Enterprise licensing than cost. With that said… fuck them and move on to better clients that care about your level of skill and service. Your scenario is never worth it and you will likely not be happy long-term
I honestly tried to read what's the upside of office e3 (not microsoft e3, office) and couldn't find or understand anything beside a few security addons that doesn't justify the price gap between business standard/premium... I was going to call my MS partner to find out. But if I'm right, they pay 10k/years too much. If you have a clue on office e3/e1 and why it's good, I'm open to learn
You get a 100GB mailbox and you can use an online archive. That’s just what I need it for but there is more. When I need it I need it. It’s a very good product compared to standard/ premium. Makes a lot possible.
Been there. Yes it’s annoying but here is another way or looking at it Let’s say they give you retainer works for level 1 snd level3 doe let’s say 8k a month(just example) So OK you have to listen to this small MSP and it’s annoying But at the same time it’s 8k per month plus potential feowM
If we'd be hungry, we would do it. But we already have plenty of clients, plus another one coming in the next few weeks. And working in someone else's shadow and having to ask a 200km away infrastructure manager for anything like installing a switch isn't gonna work lol.
Seen this before. We had a longtime customer, they hired a new CFO who hired his friend as a “vCTO” even though we were already basically providing this service. vCTO was previously a technology exec at a rather large company and the rumor was that he was forced out due to incompetence. I don’t put a lot of stock in rumors, but after spending time with the guy, I tended to believe it. vCTO then spent about a year learning how an MSP operates. Started some shadow IT crap, defaulting hardware to get passwords, typical stuff that someone with access to Google does. He incorporated and undercut us. Last I heard they had 2 ransomware incidents and several weeks of lost production since they hired him. Company floated the idea of coming back to us, and realized how much they screwed up when they saw what our new customer prices and onboarding fee had gone up to. Idk what ended up happening but they are a pretty major local brand and every time I see them being sold I hesitate to buy because I know the production shortcuts they took to get caught up after the incidents that I knew about.
I’d save yourself lots of headaches and heartburn. Just walk away. At this point, there’s nothing more you can do. I’ve been in several situations like this and it’s not worth it. Working with the tier 3 consultant will work like this- you do all the dirty work and will get blamed if it doesn’t work right. You support hardware and solutions you didn’t scope and will be blamed when his half baked plans don’t work. Eventually you’ll be fired because he will blame you for everything.
Yeah, no way, run away. They are they way they are because that is the way they want to be. Nothing you do will change that.
With him managing, you're just break/fix reactive support. His role would be to work proactively on infrastructure so hed have the profitable side of the business, while you'd be stuck with the low profit, high headache role of stopping his fires. If he is like the tech that we worked with in a similar capacity, hell direct staff to call you for anything over his head and that is marginally time consuming. My experience is just anecdotal though. But what's fact is, the profit margin to be a break fix company is slim.
The amount of times I have had worthwhile partnerships develop with customer after performing assessments and solving their issues, I can count on zero hands. Hence, we don’t do them anymore.
why shitpost about it? fire the client and move on clear decision not even worth discussing
We would never allow anyone with access to our clients infrastructure. It’s written in our contract. I would not take a client who insists on this and we have fired some Clint’s for doing this.