Topping Technologies · Competitive Playbook
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00 Competitive Playbook

How we take their business.

A field-tested plan to bury Pegasus, out-credential Centre, and steal the lane from GuidePoint — built off the actual gaps in their positioning, not generic playbook advice.

01 The opportunity

The competitive set has the same three holes.

Every one of the three "bury" targets hides their pricing, hides their SLAs, and runs generic positioning. None of them own DFW-local mid-market with managed IT and cybersecurity under one roof. That's the gap we walk through.

Publish their pricing
0

Out of 3. GuidePoint, Pegasus, and Centre all hide pricing entirely. A starting-at range or transparent tier is instant differentiation.

Publish their SLA
0

Out of 3. No response-time guarantee on any homepage or contract page. A real /sla page with credit-back terms is radical transparency.

HQ'd in DFW
1

Out of 3 — only Pegasus, on Internet Blvd in Frisco. GuidePoint is national, Centre is Houston. The "DFW-native" frame is ours to take.

02 The bury list

Three targets. Three different attacks.

Each one has a different fatal gap, so we hit them with a different angle. Get the angle right and the field doesn't have a response.

GuidePoint Security

Reston, VA · National
What they are

National cybersecurity pure-play. ~15 service domains: app sec, cloud sec, IAM, IR, threat intel, pen test, MDR, vCISO, compliance. Government/federal lean. Heavy on jargon, light on outcomes.

Their gaps
  • No DFW office, no local presence
  • Security only — can't do MSP / IT services
  • No published SLAs, no public pricing
  • Enterprise-only; SMB & mid-market neglected
Our attack

"IT and Cyber under one roof — one team, one bill, one throat to choke. And we actually have an office in your city."

Pegasus Tech Solutions

Frisco, TX · 2611 Internet Blvd
What they are

Generic mid-market MSP, literally on the same street as us. vCIO + TAM, "transparent pricing," "proactive cyber." Standard playbook, undifferentiated execution.

Their gaps
  • No signature certs or awards displayed
  • No notable case studies surfaced
  • Thin content marketing footprint
  • No brand personality — could be any MSP
Our attack

Out-execute them on craft. Better SEO depth, better content, real case studies, brand personality (the flamethrower, the podcast). This is the one we win on marketing alone.

Centre Technologies

Houston, TX · TX + OK · Mid-market
What they are

50–500-employee mid-market focus. Verticals: energy, healthcare, manufacturing, financial, legal, construction. Deep cert wall: SOC 2 Type II, MS Solutions Partner, Dell Gold, Cisco Partner Select, Veeam Gold, Arctic Wolf 2025 South Central Partner of the Year, Texas DIR.

Their gaps
  • HQ is Houston — not DFW-native
  • Excludes true SMB and upper enterprise
  • No published pricing or SLAs
  • Soft messaging: "love your IT department"
Our attack

Own the DFW-native frame hard. Plano/Frisco-HQ'd, North-Texas-only staff, local chamber proof. Match enough of their cert stack to clear procurement, then beat them on responsiveness and personality.

The reseller tier (CDW · SHI · Insight · Presidio)

Catalog shops with managed services as a side hustle. Account-manager churn, procurement-driven, no real ownership of outcomes. We already win these at renewal/RFP — the play is to show up in front of their unhappy mid-market customers via the alternative pages and Google Ads in §06 + §09.

03 Our angles

Six lines that should run through every page, every ad, every cold email.

Consistency wins competitive positioning. These are the messages — pick from this set, don't invent new ones.

The angle
What it says to the prospect
"DFW, not the DFW office of someone else."
Centre and GuidePoint and the resellers all have HQs elsewhere. Topping is from here.
"IT and Cyber, one team."
Aimed at GuidePoint specifically — they can't do MSP. Aimed at the resellers — they can't really do cyber.
"You'll know your account manager's name. Forever."
Aimed at CDW / SHI / Insight churn. Stable account ownership is a structural difference.
"We publish our SLAs. Read them before you sign."
Centre, Pegasus, GuidePoint all hide these. Radical transparency builds instant trust.
"Mid-market and SMB both fit."
Centre starts at 50 employees, GuidePoint won't get out of bed for sub-enterprise. Topping serves the whole band.
"The IT guys with personality."
The flamethrower is the signal: Topping isn't corporate-beige. Reinforce relentlessly across content + brand.
04 Three biggest moves

Do these first. They compound faster than anything else.

If we only do three things in the next 60 days, do these. Each one is asymmetric — high impact, low cost, and the field isn't defending the surface area.

Move 01

Build the alternative / comparison page network.

When someone searches "centre technologies alternative" or "guidepoint pricing" they are 5–10× more buying-intent than someone searching a generic term — and none of the competitors defend those pages. Cheapest CPC in the entire ad set, highest conversion content we'll ever ship.

9 pages
One per priority target
Ship: weeks 1–4
One per week
Move 02

Stamp the local SEO grid first.

Five city-level pages — Plano, Frisco, McKinney, Allen, Dallas — with city-specific H1, embedded map, NAP block, case study, FAQ schema. Local intent is dramatically less contested than generic head terms and lifts the Google Business Profile pack signal too.

5 pages
+8 more as we expand radius
Ship: weeks 1–2
Highest-leverage first wins
Move 03

Publish SLAs and pricing ranges.

GuidePoint, Pegasus, Centre all hide both. A real /sla page with response-time tiers + credit-back terms, and a /pricing page with starting ranges, is instant differentiation, an enormous trust signal, and the cheapest move on the list.

2 pages
SLA + pricing
Ship: week 1
Days, not weeks
05 The SEO page network

~48 pages, one focused intent each.

The full ranking surface. Each page maps to one keyword cluster and one ad group, so paid traffic in §09 lands on a page already optimised for its intent. Built incrementally — see the 90-day plan in §11.

Category
0
City pages
/managed-it-services-plano-tx
/managed-it-services-frisco-tx
/managed-it-services-mckinney-tx
/managed-it-services-allen-tx
/managed-it-services-dallas-tx
+ Fort Worth, Richardson, Irving, North Texas, DFW umbrellas
Category
0
Vertical pages
/industries/healthcare-it-dfw
/industries/manufacturing-it-texas
/industries/financial-services-it-dallas
/industries/law-firms-it-dallas
/industries/oil-gas-it-texas
+ Professional services, Construction
Category
0
Service deep pages
/services/managed-cybersecurity-services-texas
/services/soc-as-a-service-dfw
/services/managed-detection-response-mdr-dallas
/services/microsoft-365-managed-services-dallas
/services/cmmc-compliance-services-texas
+ Azure, BDR, co-managed, pen test, vCISO
Crown jewel · Highest intent
0
Alternative / comparison pages
/alternatives/guidepoint-security-alternative
/alternatives/pegasus-technology-solutions-alternative
/alternatives/centre-technologies-alternative
/alternatives/cdw-managed-services-alternative
+ SHI, Insight, Presidio, plus head-to-head /compare/ pages
Category
0
Problem / pre-funnel
/resources/signs-you-need-a-new-msp
/resources/how-to-switch-msps-without-downtime
/resources/what-is-co-managed-it
/resources/cmmc-2-0-roadmap-texas-defense
/resources/dfw-cybersecurity-readiness-checklist
+ Ransomware playbook, MSP vs MSSP, budget template
Category
0
Trust pages
/sla — response times + credit-back
/pricing/managed-it-services — starting ranges
/case-studies — index + detail per study
/certifications-and-partners
/team — real photos, real time at Topping
/reviews — Google + Clutch + G2 + Glassdoor
Total ranking surface
~48 pages, one focused intent each

All interlinked: service → city → vertical → case study → service. Every page anchored by LocalBusiness, Service, and FAQPage schema and a single canonical CTA.

06 The crown jewel

The alternative-page strategy, in detail.

The single highest-leverage thing we'll build. People searching "[competitor] alternative" are at the bottom of the funnel — already shopping, already unhappy. The competitors aren't defending these pages, so the CPC is cheap and the ranking is winnable.

/alternatives/guidepoint-security-alternative
vs GuidePoint Security — captures security-only buyers tired of jargon & no SLA
/alternatives/pegasus-technology-solutions-alternative
vs Pegasus — same-city head-to-head, key positioning is craft & proof
/alternatives/centre-technologies-alternative
vs Centre Technologies — Houston-HQ vs DFW-native, match cert stack
/alternatives/cdw-managed-services-alternative
vs CDW — account-manager churn pain, ownership-of-outcomes pitch
/alternatives/shi-managed-services-alternative
vs SHI — procurement-driven vs strategy-driven framing
/alternatives/insight-managed-services-alternative
vs Insight — catalog-shop critique, managed-service depth
/alternatives/presidio-alternative
vs Presidio — boutique-versus-integrator framing
/compare/topping-vs-pegasus-technology-solutions
Head-to-head — captures direct-comparison searches in Frisco/Plano
/compare/topping-vs-centre-technologies
Head-to-head — captures mid-market shoppers evaluating both
Page formula — use this template for every alternative page

Be fair, not smear. Fair pages convert better and Google now penalises smear content.

  1. 60-second summary at the top. Who they are, who we are, who each is best for. No marketing-speak.
  2. Side-by-side comparison table. Pricing transparency · SLA published · DFW office · MSP+MSSP combo · cert stack · response time · account-manager tenure.
  3. "When [competitor] is the right call." Genuinely. Federal/govvy buyer → GuidePoint. F500 with HQ in Houston → Centre. Procurement-only relationship → CDW. Builds trust.
  4. "When Topping is the right call." The matching prospect profile we're fishing for.
  5. One real testimonial from a customer who switched (with permission). One line. Named.
  6. FAQ schema answering the top 5–8 questions someone searching "[X] alternative" actually has.
  7. One canonical CTA — book a 30-min fit call (calendar embed), not a contact form.
Watch out for: calling competitors lazy / dishonest / inferior. Google's spam-update changes (2024+) hit smear-style affiliate-style alternative pages hard. Fair outperforms aggressive on conversion and ranking.
07 Publish what they hide

Radical transparency = trust.

The single biggest gap across all three "bury" targets is that they hide pricing, hide SLAs, and don't surface named customer outcomes. Topping is the radical-transparency option. Three pages, days of work, generational trust dividend.

/sla

A real SLA with credit-back terms.

Response-time tiers (P1 / P2 / P3) with named time targets, what we credit if we miss, and a public quarterly report on adherence. Even a soft version is enormously powerful — none of GuidePoint, Pegasus, or Centre publishes one.

Pattern P1 critical: 15-min response, 1-hour engineer-on-shoulder. P2 high: 30-min. P3 standard: 4 business hours. Miss it → service credit.
/pricing/managed-it-services

Starting-at ranges, transparently.

We don't have to publish exact per-seat pricing — but a "most clients land between $X and $Y per seat/month based on scope" page is enough to differentiate. Filters out tire-kickers, attracts qualified prospects, and shows confidence.

Pattern Three tiers: Essential · Plus · Sovereign. Each tier's inclusions, response SLA, and price band stated. Free 30-min scope review converts the band into a real quote.
/case-studies

Six named case studies, mapped to the verticals.

2 healthcare, 2 manufacturing, 1 legal, 1 finance — matching the vertical pages in §05. Get permission via a release form. Measured outcomes only: hours saved, downtime reduced, audit passed, cost cut. Logos beat words.

Pattern One-page per study: 1-line outcome headline · context · what we did · measured result · 1 customer quote. Each links to the matching service + vertical page.
08 Close the credibility gap

Match Centre's cert wall to clear procurement.

Centre wins mid-market RFPs on its certification wall. To be in the consideration set, Topping needs to match enough of it. This is the slowest line on the playbook — start it now so it's ready for the 6-month RFP cycle.

6–9 months
SOC 2 Type II

Table stakes for enterprise + regulated mid-market RFPs. The single biggest cert gap vs Centre. Start the audit immediately — 6–9 month window is the constraint, not the cost.

ImpactProcurement gate
3–6 months
Microsoft Solutions Partner designations

Modern Work · Security · Infrastructure. Earned (not bought) via partner-center scorecards. Centre has these. Required to bid on most Microsoft-heavy SMB and mid-market.

ImpactChannel access
3–4 months
CMMC RPO / C3PAO path

Texas has an enormous DoD-sub footprint. Centre is positioned, GuidePoint is positioned, Pegasus is not. Take this lane before they do — it's a $billions-of-procurement-mandated multi-year tailwind.

ImpactNew addressable market
2–3 months
Texas DIR contract

Gets Topping onto state/agency RFP shortlists. Centre has it; GuidePoint and Pegasus don't list it. Public-sector procurement bypass at the SLED level.

ImpactPublic-sector RFPs
1–2 months
CompTIA Trustmark+

Quick-win proof point for smaller buyers and a useful tag in the footer trust strip. Inexpensive, fast, and signals operational maturity to less technical buyers.

ImpactSMB trust signal
10 90 days

What ships, when.

A practical sequence so the team doesn't try to do everything in week 1. Quick wins front-loaded; certs and authority moves running in parallel underneath.

Days 0–30

Foundation + quick SEO wins

  • 5 city pages — Plano, Frisco, McKinney, Allen, Dallas
  • 3 alternative pages — vs GuidePoint, Pegasus, Centre
  • 3 vertical pages — healthcare, manufacturing, financial services
  • SLA page + pricing range page
  • Google Business Profile tightened, reviews campaign begins (+20)
  • Schema — LocalBusiness + Organization sitewide
Days 30–60

Proof + paid pilot

  • 2 named case studies — one healthcare, one manufacturing
  • Co-managed IT + CMMC compliance service pages
  • Google Ads pilot — local + alternative keywords
  • SOC 2 Type II audit kickoff
  • 4 podcast episodes with DFW IT decision-makers as guests
  • DFW Cybersecurity Readiness Checklist as gated content
Days 60–90

Authority + scale

  • Remaining vertical pages — legal, oil & gas, prof services, construction
  • Remaining service deep pages — MDR, vCISO, pen test, BDR
  • LinkedIn Ads program to DFW IT decision-makers
  • Microsoft Solutions Partner designation push
  • First CISO roundtable at Topping's office
  • First direct mail wave (500 dimensional pieces)
  • First State of DFW IT survey published
After day 90 — cadence

1 new SEO page / week · 1 podcast episode / week · 1 case study / month · monthly review of Google Ads & LinkedIn (CPA, CPL, ROAS) · quarterly themed promo with PR + paid push.

11 How we know it's working

The scorecard.

Six numbers, reported monthly. If these move, the strategy is working. If they don't, we triage which layer is breaking.

Metric
Source
90-day target
Organic sessions, DFW geo
GA4 / Matomo
+60% vs baseline
Local-pack impressions
Google Business Profile
+100%
Rankings — tracked terms
Semrush / Ahrefs
Top 5 for 8+ local · Top 10 for all city pages
Branded search ("topping technologies")
Search Console
+50%
MQLs from organic + paid
CRM
+3–5× baseline
Reviews (Google + Clutch + G2)
Review platforms
+30 net new
12 Pricing · Two ways forward

Pick the pace that fits.

Two ways to engage — same destination, different cadences. One is pay-as-you-grow; the other is a flat monthly partnership that runs the rollout for you. Either way, the playbook ships.

Option A
Build-as-you-go
$250 + $10/mo
one-time build · then hosting
Included
  • Initial site build with baseline on-page SEO
  • Hosting at $10/mo — Matomo analytics rolled in
  • Minor revisions, included for the first few months
À la carte from there
  • $5 per additional SEO page — city, vertical, service deep, or alternative
  • Major revisions, or a sustained volume of minor ones, lift the monthly to cover the extra scope
Best for testing the water. Lowest upfront, you only pay for the pages you actually want.
Best for the full playbook Option B
Monthly partnership
$100 /mo
all-in · one predictable invoice
Included every month
  • Hosting + Matomo analytics
  • The site build
  • Several new SEO pages each month, mapped to the rollout in §10
  • Minor & medium revisions, ongoing — no per-edit invoices
Out of scope
  • Net-new features beyond the content rollout are quoted separately — or roll them into a small monthly bump if you'd rather keep one invoice
Best for executing the playbook end-to-end without per-page decisions. Predictable for both sides.
© 2026 Topping Technologies · Plano, Texas · Competitive Playbook
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