How Coaching Your Clients Leads To Higher MSP Profits (Pt. 1)

Too often, business owners overlook the buying power in the clients they ALREADY have and are too focused on acquiring new ones.

So in this two-part series, I’m going to discuss how you can increase sales with your current clients and turn them into the clients you want. Let’s dig in…

Part 1 of Coach Your MSP Clients How To Buy For Higher Profits: Teach Your Clients How To Buy

I received several letters from American Express in the last month about using your Amex card to pay your taxes.

Honestly, it never occurred to me to do this, mostly because I’ve never been unable to pay my taxes. But I know a LOT of  people who are in that situation and have not thought about this as an option.

Which brings me to a key point: teaching your clients HOW TO BUY.

Years ago I sought out and purchased a phone system from a vendor, only to have my current IT company grouse at me for not buying through them.

I told them quite clearly they were idiots for not educating, reminding and pursuing ME to let me know they even offered that.

A BIG question you need to ponder: do your clients REALLY know all of the products and services you could sell them? Read full article and comment →

How A Strong Unique Selling Proposition Helps MSPs Market Themselves

For those unfamiliar with the concept of a USP here’s the short of it. It’s a one sentence statement explaining why a prospect should choose to do business with you versus any and every other option…including doing nothing.  An example that became famous was from Dominos Pizza. “Fresh hot pizza delivered to your door in under 30 minutes or its free!” 

More often than not, most IT services businesses do NOT have a USP and are largely a “me too” business that appears to be just like every other MSP they compete against. Because of this, they start from a weak position with no authority, which leads to difficulty in selling their services at prices even slightly higher than the competition’s.

After all, if Joe’s Computer Shack appears to be delivering managed services for $20 a seat less than you, why SHOULD prospects pay you more? While I understand there IS a legitimate difference in service, quality of delivery, etc., your PROSPECT doesn’t know.

Fast Response

Not too surprisingly, “fast response” is very often brought up as one of the key differentiators many have over their competition, and it IS a good one.  “Slow” to no response, dropped balls and poor communication are all the top reasons why businesses fire their IT company and look elsewhere. But if you’re going to claim THAT as all or part of your USP, you can’t be half in. Someone who is trained and managed needs to answer the phone LIVE, ideally 24/7, but definitely between the hours of 7:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. Read full article and comment →

Six Ways To Elegantly Overcome Price Objections In Your MSP Business

However, I don’t believe most prospects are hung up on price – they’re hung up on something else and are using price as the reason why they aren’t buying, because it’s the easiest obstacle to throw your way.

Any prospect knows that “I can’t afford it” is an objection that’s impossible to argue, given you, the seller, have no real knowledge or ability to prove or disprove that.

Further, most salespeople will stop selling when that objection is thrown out for fear of being “pushy” or insulting the prospect.

So how do you overcome it?

Read full article and comment →

Close More MSP Sales And Unseat More Competitors By Becoming The LEAST RISKY Choice

Without one, you’re pushing a rope uphill, fighting price sensitivity and the high hurdle of replacing an incumbent provider who might actually be doing a decent to excellent job.

YOU are an unknown entity, unproven in your abilities, thereby a RISKY CHOICE to the client. After all, why would anyone incur the cost and time investment to replace a vendor that is doing a satisfactory job with a complete unknown?

They won’t unless the incumbent is doing a terrible job, in which case you’re playing vulture marketing, waiting for THEM to screw up and die so you can go pick the carcass.

The other alternative is to have something SO compelling, and offering such a big, significant benefit, that the client will make the leap.

ONE of the ways you can stand out from the competition and win more clients is NOT by being the BEST at what you do, but the least risky. We all know talk is cheap (unless it’s with an attorney).

Promises and hyperbole uttered by a salesperson are the cheapest talk of all. The bold prospects will say, “Put it in writing.”

But most don’t say anything; they just secretly decide to stay put with their current provider or call someone else; rarely will they verbalize their true concerns.

So how do you fight this? Read full article and comment →

What IS Marketing Supposed To Do Anyway?

From a Harvard Business Review article, “Why CMOs NEVER Last”:

Something is amiss in the relationship between chief executives and their marketing officers. Four-fifths of CEOs say they don’t trust or are unimpressed by their CMOs. Not surprisingly, CMOs have the briefest tenure in the C-suite, and their churn can mean serious internal business disruptions.

The articles goes on to argue this is mostly due to the job description and expectations being set up poorly.

I don’t entirely disagree; however, I have studied advertising and marketing and methinks the BIGGER issue is that marketers have drifted, forgetting that marketing is about SELLING THINGS – not followers, fans, likes, shares or hashtags.

To be clear, we HERE, in THIS community, are committed to the discipline of direct response marketing.

The key differentiator of it over all other forms of advertising and branding is MEASUREMENT: measurement of actual responses, leads and ULTIMATELY sales made, clients acquired.

Everything else is “fake news,” leading you to confuse activity with accomplishment. Read full article and comment →

It’s The Thought That Counts, Right?

Maybe that’s a good mantra to live by for casual gifts, but in business, it’s the worst piece of advice you can get, the worst excuse you can give.

Next month at our big annual Boot Camp (www.RobinsBigSeminar.com), 5 of our most successful members will present onstage what they did to secure an average increase in their business of $909,483 in 12 months, in addition to an 87% increase in bottom-line profits (click here to see who they are and to read their stories).

Not too shabby when you consider the average MSP never breaks the million-dollar mark in their business over their lifetime. Read full article and comment →

Fortune-Making Truths About Media, Money And Marketing Process For MSPs and IT Services Businesses

Here’s a truth many small business owners DON’T want to embrace, much less give recognition to: the more marketing media you can use simultaneously, the more money you’ll make.

You’ll also be a LOT less FRAGILE and vulnerable to an economic downturn, a serious competitor, commoditization, media disruption (like what happened to fax broadcast) or other disruptions. I would encourage you to pause for a moment and let that sink in. Think on it long and hard.

I just gave you a million-dollar “secret.”

So why don’t more have it? Because everyone – and I do mean everyone – wants the postcard they can e-mail to drive in clients.

The “one thing” that is more important than everything else. Gimme an EASY BUTTON, for goodness’ sake!

But the reality is, no business gets rich depending on ONE media, ONE strategy, ONE anything. There is power and stability in diversity and complexity. Sure, you have to start somewhere, and often “one thing done” is better than doing nothing.

As quickly as you can, you have to move beyond simple to complex. From one-shot messaging to multiple media, all interwoven, all supporting the other, all driving toward the same outcome.

So let’s break this down… Read full article and comment →

Getting 10X The Revenue From Everything You Do

When I’m working with a client to plan their marketing action list, one of the things I always look to do is take a campaign they’re currently doing that IS working, and see how I can make it pay bigger. Unfortunately, most people don’t have this ability, simply because they never put their mind to it.

For example, when you meet with a prospect, do you ask for a referral? How about after they buy, in exchange for some gift or slight discount? What do you have to lose? When closing the sale, do you offer an upsell of some kind? A warranty on new equipment? A phone system? PREPAY for the year for a 5% discount? When you go to a trade show, do you also make a point of visiting with (prospecting) the other vendors when folks are in the session? Maybe they could be a good joint venture partner or a referral source. Maybe they could become a client for you too. You’re already there, so why not make the most of it? Meet with the hotel manager and staff. Walk around other events going on. In almost every case, whatever you’re doing can be PULSED if you simply sit and think about how to maximize the opportunity. Read full article and comment →