Amanda Doucette-Lachapelle was digging through her documentation system when she found 11 different documents on how to set up Windows 10. And they were all written by the same person.
"We were like, why?" said Chappelle, MSP field strategist, Auvik. "We're just letting anybody put [anything] into our documentation system. This doesn't make sense. We should be vetting it. There has to be a process here."
Doucette-Lachapelle cites that one example of a recurring experience. It might not always be this dramatic, but many MSP owners hit similar walls where operational chaos starts costing money and testing sanity.
Jennifer Roy, CEO of Nucleus Networks, said she spent years at a previous MSP saying yes to everything and building solutions on the fly. She was constantly firefighting. "I think that there comes a time in the journey where you have to say, okay, we need to stop and build a foundation that's going to last," Roy said.
The shift from reactive to strategic thinking requires slowing down. That can be uncomfortable. But Roy said she's now okay taking time to build scalable processes, even when every instinct screams to just get things done. No more Band-Aid solutions. Now decisions get filtered through one question: Does this fit into our foundation? If not, you don't do it.
To build that kind of clarity, you first need to understand your people, how they operate, and what problem you're actually solving. Doucette-Lachapelle recommends reverse engineering from the desired outcome. When it came to documentation, her team needed an SOP for creating SOPs. That included a classification system that made it easy for people to produce quality documentation consistently. "You have to scale from the place that you want to be, not the place that you are right now," she said.
Rethinking KPIs
There are many ways to measure success; they just have to be consistent. For instance, Juan Fernandez, founder of MSP Owners Group, reframes what KPI means. "It's key people indicator and key profit indicator," he said. "Where do I need to empower my employees to do the most? And where can I make the most money?" The goal is scalability. Anyone coming into the organization can find what they need and feel empowered to work without constant oversight.
"The definition of success for us is when the team comes back and says, 'It works, Juan’... The best moment you can have as a leader is like, hold on, we actually just figured out how to do something—without a problem [first],” he said.
Roy's team uses an OKR (objectives and key results) goal-setting framework. It connects strategic objectives to measurable outcomes, setting quarterly goals and giving every new hire a personalized dashboard full of KPIs from day one.
The Time-Buying Strategy
Dan Mitchell, CEO of Alt-Tech Inc., says MSPs trying to climb out of chaos should tackle the things that buy you time first. "If you repeated that same process 50 times, why haven't we automated it? You're burning time and each client becomes less profitable."
As a CEO, you can also pay someone else to handle repetitive tasks at a lower rate, which frees you up for higher-value work that moves the business forward. Mitchell's team also connects KPIs directly to total compensation packages, allowing them to pay above market value when performance is strong. He says the result is better talent retention, lower churn and higher profitability because they're not constantly burning revenue on rehiring.
Doucette-Lachapelle wishes she'd instituted change management on documentation much earlier. "The amount of money that our organization wasted on people creating stupid documentation is astronomical," she said. The lesson applies across operations, as small inefficiencies compound fast.
The Revenue You Already “Have”
Fernandez estimates there's between $20,000 and $40,000 of untapped revenue inside each existing customer and reboarding them is the way to unlock it. Thinking of onboarding as a one-time event is a mistake. Customer needs evolve, technology changes and gaps appear. Reboarding existing customers roughly every two years uncover:
- Services they need but aren't currently receiving
- Technology gaps that need addressing
- Opportunities to realign expectations and scope
"There's profit in silence and getting those customers onboarded quickly, thoroughly and completely in a way that's very meaningful is also very profitable," Fernandez said. Too many MSPs focus on time to revenue without considering time to profitability. They're very different metrics. If you're spending excessive time supporting the backend because you onboarded too quickly, you're leaking money.
For new MSPs, Fernandez advises focusing on a clear, concise onboarding program that gets customers to profitability faster. For established MSPs, reboarding shakes fruit from the trees you’re already growing.
Making the First Move
Roy offers one more piece of guidance: Take risks, but be ready to fail fast. "Not all your risks will pay off," Roy said. Risks come with potential rewards. Playing it too safe keeps you repeating the same patterns.
The shift from operational chaos to clarity doesn't require a complete business overhaul on day one. It starts with one decision to work differently. Maybe that's automating your most repeated process. Maybe it's instituting documentation standards. Maybe it's reboarding your first customer. The important part is starting somewhere. No MSP owner built their business to live in a state of duplication, confusion and waste. But for those who find themselves there eventually, there are lots of opportunities to take a first step from chaos to clarity.
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