Five Sales Plays That Separate MSP Leaders from Laggards

By Nimsoft Guest Blog 2

managed services sales success

They include…

1. Pros Call High: Pros have supreme confidence in themselves, their company and their product.  They know they have earned the right to an executive audience through hard work, integrity and expertise. They are politely relentless in getting to the C-Level decision maker that can make the buying decision.  They won’t spend a ton of scarce company resources until they get to the person with the motivation and budget to buy. Pros know that the customer C-Levels care more about the economics of the MSP deal than technical specs, so they build their case for buying based on “make money and save money” criteria instead of showing off shiny new technology.

2. Pros Show Up: Pros know that customers sign long-term MSP deals only when they trust the provider to do what they say they are going to do. The fact is most competitive participants are very technically and commercially sound. The winning MSP is often the company that did the most face time to build rapport and trust between itself and the prospective customer. Pros go light on email and log the miles to be there face to face.  Pros show up.

3. Pros Know Their Audience: Pros communicate effectively by establishing a few key deal themes and hammering them home. They pay attention to the audience type and customize the themes based on the business or technical items that particular audience truly cares about. Who hasn’t sat through the pain of the rehashed technical deck presented to the CEO who doesn’t know or care about “speeds and feeds”? Pros don’t let that happen. They bring the right sales messages to the right people at the right time and keep the “we’re so smart” jargon in check.

4. Pros are Transparent: Pros are always looking for ways to build the trust required to close the deal. So they do the right thing and let customers understand their company’s areas for improvement in addition to its many advantages. Pros know that good buyers are smart. They will ask the right questions eventually to unveil the good, bad and ugly of any MSP operation. When asked about outages, Pros go into detail about the event, how it was addressed and how the key learnings were incorporated into the operational framework. In short, Pros exhibit the quiet confidence of real world MSP experience not the hubris of unattainable perfection.

5. Pros are Easy: Pros are always looking for ways to make it easier to do business. They know most buyers prefer simple to complicated.  Straightforward contract language beats murky legalese. “Get to the point meetings” trump extended affairs with too many presenters. The 10-slide deck beats the 30-slide marathon. Pros ask the question at every turn, “Is this sales tactic making it easier for my customer to buy?”

What are the best things your best sales people do to win business? What makes your MSP sales stars special?

Phil LaForge is VP and GM, service providers at Nimsoft. Monthly guest blogs such as this one are part of MSPmentor’s annual platinum sponsorship. Read all of Nimsoft’s guest blogs here.