A Message from
the CEO of D3UC

A Message from the CEO of D3UC

“The best way to predict the future is to create it.” – Abraham Lincoln

January 2024

D3UC celebrated its 10th Birthday last year! What have I learned from founding, growing, and running D3 Unified Communications over the past 10 years? A lot!

First, we achieved several key goals that we are proud of on our decade long journey:

  • We have proven that an MSP of any size can sell cloud-based phone and unified communication services under their brand and at prices they set.
  • 75% of our MSPs have less than 10 employees and 50% are 1 and 2-person MSPs. Interestingly, our MSPs are roughly spilt 50/50 between MSPs that never sold voice before and MSPs who were reselling or white labeling another vendors UCaaS solution, were unhappy, and switched to D3UC.
  • Our MSPs provide Unified Communications services to 100’s of Small Businesses, defined as having less than 100 employees. Our MSPs’ customers are in every industry, every state, and of every size.
  • We’ve created a comprehensive knowledge base that provides instructions on how to perform each of the tasks necessary to provide high quality delivery and support.

Second, our MSPs shared some of the key reasons they selected D3UC:

  • MSPs were able to gain more control, strengthen customer relationships, and boost profitability with D3UC. The D3UC model puts the MSP in the driver’s seat of a white labeled UCaaS offering they own and manage directly.
  • Our model empowers MSPs to deliver exceptional customized support and meet the unique needs of their customers. It also provides more transparency into costs and requirements, allowing MSPs to accurately calculate their profitability on each customer without worrying about hidden fees or minimum monthly revenue commitments.
  • MSPs can focus resources on nurturing long-term relationships with customers. The call quality and support from D3UC leads to higher customer satisfaction and retention.
  • Finally, we are not owned by a private equity or venture capital firm, so our MSPs do not have to worry about us being sold to a direct competitor.

Third, the Small and Medium Market (SMB) is more than just two markets – it is really THREE Markets as the chart below shows:

  1. The Small Business Administration (SBA) defines the Medium Businesses as companies having between 100 and 499 employees and the Small Businesses as companies having between 2 and 99 employees.
  2. But in reality, the Small Business market is two vastly different markets:
    • Businesses with 20 to 99 employees – the LITTLE Small Business segment
    • Businesses with 2 to 19 employees – the BIG Very Small Business segment
  3. The Very Small Business market is the LARGEST market segment in the US since 89% of all US Businesses have LESS than 20 employees! That’s 5.4M Businesses!
Number of US Businesses by Size
TYPE OF BUSINESS NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES TOTAL # OF BUSINESSES TOTAL # OF EMPLOYEES % OF TOTAL BUSINESSES
Large 500 – 10,000+ 20,868 71,295,520 0.34%
Medium 100-499 94,957 18,612,620 1.56%
Small 20-99 555,046 21,762,863 9.10%
Very Small 1 10-19 640,827 8,632,696 10.50%
Very Small 2 2-9 4,790,714 12,685,729 78.51%
6,102,412 132,989,428 100.00%
* Census Bureau Statistics of US Businesses 2019

 

Fourth, our MSPs are most successful when they focus their resources on selling and supporting Very Small Businesses versus Small Businesses, for the following reasons:

  • With 5.4 million VSBs out there (versus just 555,000 Small Businesses), VSBs dwarf the opportunity available with the Small Businesses by a ratio of 10:1.
  • Small businesses with 20+ employees usually have a team of decision-makers, while a VSB’s decision-making process is typically driven by the business owner.
  • While at a typical Small Business there may be one or more people in dedicated IT roles, an IT person at a VSB is rare. Because of the absence of an IT department, owners of VSBs often wear more hats than they’re qualified to wear. MSPs can alleviate some of the pressure this creates – especially in the arena of technology and communications.

As a result, I had an epiphany during the holidays while watching a PBS documentary called, “The Gold Rush.” Among the key points of the film, the one that struck me was that “most of the gold that was found was laying on the ground and, in the streams, and rivers.”  The prospectors that focused on sifting the dirt and panning the rivers and streams – versus using dynamite and digging mines looking for the “motherload” – were the ones that found enough gold to “strike it rich!” The prospectors quickly realized it was easier to collect a hundred small gold nuggets than it was to dig mines hoping to find a dozen medium gold rocks.

So, what was my epiphany from a decade of partnering with MSPs and watching the Gold Rush documentary? That our MSPs are the prospectors, and the Very Small Businesses are the gold nuggets that can make them rich!

The Next 10 Years

I believe that MSPs should reconsider their strategy of targeting Small Businesses with more than 20 employees simply because those businesses have greater headcounts. It might seem to make sense to sell to companies with more employees since the more employees there are, the more phones you’ll sell. But, at the end of the day, you’re selling to businesses, not employees.

Additionally, there’s more competition for the Small Businesses – especially ones with 50-99 employees. You’ll come up against more MSPs like you selling to those businesses because most MSPs aren’t looking at the VSB market – they’re looking at what they think is the “larger” Small business, because they believe that a single 50-employee business is less work and more profitable than five 10-employee customers. The past 10 years have proven to me that the opposite is true.

Further differences also fall in the MSP’s favor: VSBs owners won’t care much about your lack of certifications, or even know what they are. They are looking for someone to take on the burden of managing their technology, and they likely have little understanding of how it all works. They’re in need of a sticky, long-term partner who will be there for their growth.

So, there it is – everything I’ve learned from our MSPs over 10 years of true partnership. They have been printing money selling to the 5.4 million VSBs in the US, and making profits of 50%-100%, selling D3UC’s cloud-based Unified Communications solution to their customers, under their name and support, and at prices they set.

D3UC will be spending the next few years creating a future where our MSPs will get even better at selling to Very Small Businesses. We have created a complete guide that describes how MSPs can take advantage of the incredible opportunity the VSB market holds. We call it the, “The Very Small Business and the Modern VoIP Market

If you’re interested in joining D3 Unified Communications and cashing in on your share of the gold rush, please contact me at 973-330-8801 or chuck.daniels@d3uc.com

Happy Prospecting in 2024.

Chuck

 

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