The Guide to a Successful Managed Services Practice - What Every SMB IT Service Provider Should Know... First Edition

I paid US$99 for this book and on arrival i opened it up and was firstly disappointed with the print. It looks like it's geared towards people with reading difficulties - big bold text with lots of spaces averaging 200 words per page.....and the screenshots are un-readable but wait you can download them from their website...after you signup with releasing your personal info??? Why not just print a quality book instead of going to some backwater publisher in a 3rd world country...Hold on it says Printed in the United States????WTF for $99.The the information inside is repetitive and well nothing new..no wonder it's shrinkwrapped as i would never by this book for 50% less never mind full price if i got to see inside.Only my view as there seems to be a few that rate it...but it should be Titled..."How to scam $99 out of inqusitive IT peeps by good title and blurb then shrinkwrpping it"

The book was very informative and reasonably easy to read. It provides lots of information that you would otherwise have a hard time finding from a single resource.

Please be aware that 'SMB IT Service Provider' that the book refers to is a provider of 'Remote Desktop', 'Network Monitoring' and 'Vendor Management'. These three are the 'Killer Managed Services deliverables' mentioned in the Product Description.If the description had been more clear on this, I wouldnt have bought the book, because what I'm looking for is more of Professional Services. For this I recommend  Managing The Professional Service Firm .The book is also what it says - a Guide. There is not much content, and what's most annoying to me as a reader is that there are consistently too many capital letters inappropriately used on every sentence. For example, 'We then follow up on a series of Direct Mail and E-Mail Marketing Pieces with a series of Phone Calls'. I wonder whether this book is edited at all...On the upside however, if you want to start / running a business in 'Remote Desktop', 'Network Monitoring', and 'Vendor Management', then this book could be useful.

First of all there are not 300 pages but 200, last 100 explain some trivial spreadsheets you can download from their site, so with a lot of repeating and ridiculous spacing you get maybe 50 pages of (worthless) reading.I needed 2 hours to read it all, and i regret it.I've been working in IT for 2,5 years now, and this is my first job (let's say I still don't have "a lot" of experience). The ideas in this book are, so simple, common knowledge.... (e.g. the author is explaining how to set up a meeting, to follow up an e-mail with a telephone call,... )One thing mentioned in the book, goes something like this "...you will notice that I repeat some of the key points, it's because some readers will jump right to the part they are interested in....", the author simply repeats himself because....he does not know what to writeDon't waste your money on this....please

Insightful, intelligently written, engaging and motivational. Easily one of the best I've read in quite awhile. Well worth every penny of the investment required.

So many pages and so little time yet this book is easy to read. How he manages to keep the flow on what could be a very dry topic moving along at such a fast pace is amazing. Don't be fooled though. You'll be referring back to this book as your business morphs and you're ready to tackle each piece of the MSP puzzle. Each element is well thought out and walks you through the process of implementing a managed services offering to your clients based on value. We all dream about getting our clients to understand the value that we bring to their business. Erik shows the way to make that dream a reality.

I expected the book to be a guide not a highlight.lots of white space and basic knowledge. I am new to the managed business yet I did not find anything fancy about this. the useful parts of this book can be summarised in a few pages.

Excellent and highly recommended!!

The book is OK. It contains some academic and regular knowledge for new comer of Managed Services. However I was hopibg for a lot more. Its still a worth the price I paid.