Forget the advice to “exercise the 80-20 rule”

For years, business leaders have told IT services to follow the 80-20 formula, recognizing “80 percent of revenue is drive by 20 percent of your clients,” or “80 percent of work done in a company is done by 20 percent of the people. Melby says MSPs need to walk away from this mentality. All clients are not equal, or profitable, he said. Keep your mind open and create advantages in value that others can’t. “Work with the clients you don’t want to work with,” he added. “Some of those rigid business rules, while they might apply technically, 80 percent of what we do that might not be as profitable or as impactful, still provides a lot of benefit and significance in how we provide service to our top 10 clients. You can’t just cut out the 80 percent of what you want and expect that 20 percent to remain profitable.”