I've been talking to a lot of MSPs recently about sales and marketing strategies. Seems there is quite the confusion about what works and what doesn't when it comes to selling managed services. But, I've noticed what could be a potential stumbling block in implementing even the best laid sales and marketing plans. I'll explain.
When MSPs ask for feedback on their sales strategies I usually ask them questions about their target markets, service specialties, and any other characteristics that might help narrow down their efforts. More often than not, MSPs will not have a particularly refined customer or service delivery strategy that could be called well defined. In fact, the MSPs that have the most difficulty in creating and implementing a sales strategy almost always have no defined customer segmentation or service delivery strategy. Stated another way, the MSP has no real way of determining why they are valuable to their customers.
I've found that the most successful MSPs know why their customers buy from them. This means that the services are well tailored to the customers. Only when this happens can the MSP create a sales and marketing strategy that can be effectively implemented.
My advice is before you decide on a sales/marketing process, you need to have the following in place:
- Who are your customers?
- Know the characteristics of your customers and why they buy from you
- Know the types of services your customers value most
- Understand the specific reasons customers buy from you and be able to articulate them in your marketing materials
It may sound simple but to really be effective at selling you need to know who you are selling to and what services they will value most, and therefore, purchase from you. Developing a service process first, in my opinion, should be first on your strategic planning list.
