JSU / Playbooks / MSPs
How to price your MSPs sales bottleneck
Run the same math as the JSU Bottleneck Index on your own MSPs numbers in three steps.
The MSPs bottleneck prices a single question: what does it cost you per year to be slow and unfocused at first contact? For a typical firm it is around $504,000.
The formula
Annual bottleneck = average deal value × winnable deals lost per quarter × 4. For MSPs, that is $42,000 × 3 × 4 = $504,000.
Run it on your real numbers
The published figure is representative. Take your own average deal and your honest quarterly loss to slow and generic follow-up. Recurring revenue; losses compound.
- A competitor's client suffers a public outage or breach
- An in-house IT manager departs a 30–150 seat company
- M&A forces tooling consolidation
- Cyber-insurance renewal demands new controls
Then decide if it's worth closing
Once you have your number, compare it to the cost of fixing speed and aim at first contact. In msps, the leak is almost always the larger figure.
Remember what each variable really represents. The $42,000 is one msps relationship walking out the door. The 3 losses a quarter are not no-fits; they are deals you could have won had you reached the buyer inside the 22 hours window. Multiply by four and you have a full year of revenue that went to whoever simply answered first. That is the figure to price your fix against.
The bottleneck is rarely effort. It is speed and aim at the first touch.
Why does a lost MSP deal hurt more than a one-time sale?
It's recurring revenue. A $3,500 MRR contract lost is $42,000 in year one and compounds every year after. Three a quarter is $504,000.
Which signals predict an owner ready to switch MSPs?
Public breaches at competitors' clients, in-house IT departures, M&A consolidation, and cyber-insurance renewal demands.