Cookie Cutter Managed Services is a Thing of The Past

Solution- based selling differs considerably from a product-based sales process. When selling a product, the prospect generally has an understanding of what the product is. They have an image of what the product looks like or how it functions – it’s a tangible item, a commodity.

On the other hand, when selling a service or solution, the prospect often does not fully understand the scope of the service or what’s involved with its delivery. The reason for this gap is simple – a product allows the prospect to perform a task that may or may not generate revenue; for example, a server, firewall, copier or even a stapler, but a managed service solution is a service that offers the prospect peace of mind, cost savings and ROI; which are not necessarily tangible.

Making Intangibles, Tangible

To overcome the challenges facing solution-based sales, MSPs must make the intangible service offerings real for customers by matching those services to the prospects’ core business functions and needs. You can achieve this by ensuring your sales process illustrates your prospects’ current IT costs, inefficiencies within their network, and reductions in staff and business productivity associated with the current fee-for-service or break-fix support model.

By allowing your prospect to identify these issues and associate them with a cost, you can easily demonstrate the dollar savings between the typical break-fix service arrangements and even the most basic managed service solution. When selling managed services, ‘mean time to resolution’ is often a very effective tool.

Differentiating your services and sales tactics and offering solutions customized for individual prospects will give your managed service business an edge. Technology is evolving quickly and by offering solutions, you’ll have the flexibility to adapt alongside the industry.

About the author Mike Byrne is Director of Partner Enablement, SMB, at AVG Technologies. He has spent the last 10 years working with and providing MSP-specific consulting services to VAR's and MSP's from all over the globe. He specializes in working with IT service providers that are committed to making the transition into becoming successful managed service providers.