MSP EXPO is collocated at ITEXPO in February in Fort Lauderdale. I will be moderating one panel: "How to Differentiate Your Telecom, Managed, Hosted, and Cloud Services for Revenue Growth". The panelists will be Jim DeBald of CoreDial; Eric Hernaez of SkySwitch; and Joshua Feinberg of SP HomeRun. The panel will be 1 pm ET on Wednesday, 02/08/17. Join us.

The premise for the panel is as follows: "The way telecom, managed services, cloud, and hosting purchasing decisions are made is changing. Today, because IT influencers and decision makers are doing so much upfront research, often 70 percent or more of their decisions have already been made before you're even looped into the conversation. This can put you at a huge disadvantage if you haven't drawn their attention through market differentiation. Likewise, for those MSPs that have, this change in decision-making theory presents an opportunity to earn a seat at the table as a highly-differentiated trusted advisor. This session will detail how to ensure you get found early enough in the buyer's journey to matter, stand out from the crowd, command premium pricing, and attract world-class clients and talent."

As I have often written here, positioning, differentiation and USP are the key to value and standing out. We will discuss this during the session.

The IDEA Showcase Startup Event is Thursday at 4.