Conferences
Focused Events
IT Nation Connect Global: November 5-7, 2025
The largest most comprehensive conference for global MSPs.
IT Nation Connect Europe: March 9-11, 2026
For Europe MSPs looking to improve their IT business practices.
IT Nation Connect ANZ: August 26-28, 2026
For the Pacific's MSPs looking to improve their IT business practices.
IT Nation Secure: June 2-4, 2025
Cybersecurity best practices for MSPs – 2025 event recap.
Grow
Best practices for MSPs and investors in the business transition journey.
Foundations
Essential building blocks and tools to transform MSP business.
Automation Nation
Hands-on product training for the most innovative MSP solutions.
PitchIT
Annual solutions provider accelerator program.
Local Meetups & User Groups
Join MSPs in your area to network and learn.
Groups
IT Nation Evolve
MSP peer group elevating leaders through community.
Service Leadership
Accelerate MSP growth through benchmarking and best practices.
Resources
SLIQ™ Benchmarking & Operational Maturity Level™
Performance diagnostics & improvement for MSPs.
Index Reports
MSP performance and maturity benchmarking reports.
MSP Compensation Report
Global IT compensation insights based on real-time MSP data.
Channel Resources
Guidance and resources for MSP solution partners.
Resource Center
Blog
Wise Up Podcast
Webinars
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ConnectWise Virtual Community
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A powerful tool for IT solution providers who want to drive accelerated performance and maximize the profit potential of their business.
Profit is most closely correlated to proven best practice operational methods. Understanding what really drives profit and following a customized, detailed action plan to get there is the fastest way to achieve optimal financial results.
It all begins with:
SLIQ begins by assessing your organization’s current Operational Maturity Level™ (OML™), which is derived from a series of 30+ OML Traits based on your Predominant Business Model™ within six Functional Areas: Sales, Strategy, Service, Compensation, Financial, and Security and Compliance. Progressing in these OML Traits is essential for unlocking higher growth and profitability.
OML Traits are the fundamental components that every IT solution provider must focus on to build a strong, sustainable, and high-performing business. Advancing your maturity in these OML Traits paves the way for an organization to achieve top financial and operational performance.
Click on the Functional Areas to view the associated OML Traits.
Based on your OML assessment, SLIQ creates a detailed, prioritized progression plan specific to your firm to achieve greater operational maturity, better service quality, and profitability.
You then assign actions to your team and hold them accountable by re-assessing your OML quarterly and receiving an updated action plan to move to the next level, and on your way to best-in-class. By aligning these action plan steps with strategic frameworks like EOS, you can boost accountability and ensure ongoing progress.
SLIQ guides you through the process, delivering precisely timed best practices via tools, videos, white papers, how-to documents, and templates—as well as ongoing live, quarterly webinars open to your questions—all from the experts at Service Leadership. This guided step-by-step approach is proven to deliver faster growth, higher profit, and increased service quality through accelerating business performance improvement or business model transformation.
Within the Functional Areas in SLIQ, there are tools designed to measure the impact of your operational methods today and allow you to play "what if scenarios” with many aspects of your company, giving you insight into how different adjustments would impact your business.
Solution Provider Value Creation Planner™Top-performing solution providers set the strategic foundation for all decisions by establishing:
This tool allows you to quickly and visually play "what if" with these major operational factors to speed the process of setting strategic direction to rapidly and safely meet these goals.
View Example
Solution Provider Business Simulator™This tool can be used to perform an informal benchmark on your solution provider business as it is, since the "stoplighting" controls will indicate by color which aspects of the business are at best-in-class levels. It can then be used to test "what-if" scenarios for evolving the business model or improving poor performing factors in your revenue and cost model to see what best-in-class performance would deliver.
Financial Forecasting - Revenue - Example Tool™This tool will enable you to practice forecasting revenue over a two-quarter period by line of business and then gauge the accuracy of your revenue forecasting to see how accurate your forecasts were by tracking your projections against actual results. Once you have done this, you can formalize the process using your own tools to carry on consistent, accurate forecasting.
View example
Service Multiple of Wages Calculator™An effective "safety net" that can prevent costly pricing mistakes and dispel dangerous pricing notions, this calculator is easy to use and most helpful in running "what if" scenarios to test service profits and set service pricing. Premised on the best-in-class formula of generating revenue per person of 2.5 times their W-2 wages, the calculator will help your run scenarios around changes to the variables that ultimately impact EBITDA.
S-L Cost of IT Operations Calculator™Most Solution Providers offer multiple solutions and services, and each must be sold enough to consume the full delivery capacity in which the company has invested to attain a best-in-class return on each. This tool allows you to demonstrate to prospects (and clients up for renewal) what they are really spending on IT support and operations compared to your managed services pricing.
Sales Expense as Percent of Gross Margin Calculator™Two items stand between your hard-earned gross margin dollars (GM $) and your bottom line: (1) sales and marketing expense, and (2) general and administrative expense. Sales expense can vary wildly. To maximize the likelihood of achieving targeted profitability, this tool helps you determine what percent of GM $ you can pay in total compensation (base and commission) for a quota-carrying salesperson and still arrive at your targeted bottom line.
Managed Services Financial Simulator™
Proper planning is important for a new service offering to have the best chance of attaining best-in-class growth, service quality and profit. This tool helps you (1) understand how many deals you will have to sell, and at what price and COGS, in what period of time; (2) make sure the new offering is cross-sellable to your Target Customer Profile; and (3) that the shareholders have approved the offer, the investment and ROI curve.
S-L Small Business Cost of IT Operations Calculator™
Most solution providers offer multiple solutions and services, and each must be sold enough to consume the full delivery capacity in which the company has invested to attain a best-in-class return on each. This tool allows you to demonstrate to prospects (and clients up for renewal) what they are really spending on IT support and operations compared to your managed services pricing.
Service Multiple of Wages Calculator™
An effective "safety net" that can prevent costly pricing mistakes and dispel dangerous pricing notions, this calculator is easy to use and most helpful in running "what if" scenarios to test service profits and set service pricing. Premised on the best-in-class formula of generating revenue per person of 2.5 times their W-2 wages, the calculator will help your run scenarios around changes to the variables that ultimately impact EBITDA.
Customer IT Operational Maturity Calculator™
Evaluate your client’s or prospect’s IT operational maturity to help determine their fit with your company and your likelihood of success in selling and delivering to them successfully, regardless of customer size.
Technical Compensation Calculator™
Determine exactly what you need to pay your technical professionals based on your specific business model. The Technical Compensation Calculator enables you to solve for the following variables based upon your inputs: utilization, rates, gross margin percentage, and total annual earnings of technical professionals.
MSP+ Security Playbooks: Ready, Aware, and Resilient
Three-part series providing practical guidance on implementing a robust cybersecurity program for your business.
Ready: Initial foundational for implementing security best practices to guide your company's security journey.
Aware: Guidance on driving further maturity of your company's security posture by implementing the safeguards that are characteristic of a mature cybersecurity program beyond the basic requirements
Resilient: Guidance on how to further increase the maturity of your company's security capabilities through the implementation of safeguards that require more time, formal governance, and personnel.
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