Finding new IT support leads can be a difficult endeavor. With so many services and companies vying for the same customers, it is essential to have a sales presentation that truly sets you apart from your competition. The salesperson you have in charge of creating appointments has to have an effective strategy to be successful.
The key to gaining more proposals is complex. The first element is creating a sales presentation that shows the amazing value of the services you offer. This makes your prospects interested and curious about services and prices. Once you have gained interest, you have to explain to the potential customer how a no cost audit, that takes just 20 minutes, would allow you to create a custom proposal.
Selling the Free Audit
It is essential that you stress that when potential customers schedule a free audit to receive a custom proposal that it does not commit them in any way. Instead, it offers them the full benefit of seeing the presentation and learning about the IT support and services you provide. After all, there is no point to tell a prospect how great your services are if you don’t tell them how much they cost. Regardless of whether they decide to move forward with your services, it will allow them to make a competitive comparison. If they ever become unhappy with their existing IT provider, they will have this information on hand.
When you are able to approach the audit from this non-committal, rational point of view, it can be extremely persuasive.
Setting Up the Audit Appointment
It is important to remember to ask to set up the audit at the end of a sales presentation. This is the absolute best time to do it since the information will be fresh on the minds of your prospect — as well as all the benefits you have to offer. Also, someone who is considering a new company for IT support will likely have their cell phone or computer nearby, allowing them to check their calendar to determine when a good time to do the audit would be.
A good way to transition to ask for the IT audit meeting is to simply ask the prospect what their calendar looks like for the next few weeks. In most cases, if you did your job right, the prospect will be willing to suggest a time and date for the audit.
In some cases, the prospect will have to verify with you how long the audit will take and what information they will need to provide. This is where you need to make sure that they know all they have to provide (such as the username and password for the server) and that you are able to complete the audit without installing any type of software on their servers. This will ensure that their existing IT provider will not realize that anyone has examined their network.
Overcoming the Hurdles
Once you have overcome the most common hurdles (highlighted above), you are essentially home free. However, you may wonder, what in the world does securing the audit have to do with getting new proposals?
The answer is simple: once the prospect allows you to come into the server room and provide the audit, they will be expecting you to provide them with a proposal. All you have to do is make sure that whoever does the audit is completely clear that they will have to set the actual proposal meeting. This is why it is a good idea for the salesperson to go to the actual audit meeting to ensure that the proposal appointment is set with the actual business decision makers.
When the salesperson actually goes to the IT audit, it can be beneficial because they can distract the executive with banter while the IT professional conducts the actual audit. This is the ideal opportunity to continue building rapport with the business decision maker.
Conclusion
When it comes to selling your IT support provider, it is essential to have effective salespeople who can “sell” to clients even if they are satisfied with their existing provider. When you are able to convert your appointments into actual IT audits it will significantly increase the number of proposal meetings that you schedule on your calendar every month.
About the Author
Gar Whaley is Principal and Founder of Aligned Technology Solutions, providing IT support in Washington DC and Northern Virginia areas. Gar’s broad range of experience provides him with a valuable perspective on leveraging technology to help organizations lower costs, grow and enable innovation. He leads ATS with a passion and commitment to providing clients with phenomenal customer service combined with sound technology guidance. Prior to co-founding ATS, Gar spent several years in franchise restaurant ownership before the lure of the dot-com boom enticed him to the technology sector.