In the world of MSP marketing, it can be difficult to create tactics that work without an effective plan in place. In fact, many marketers in this industry still practice what is referred to as emergency sales management techniques.
For example, in the healthcare industry, many people rely on the services of the emergency room when a major issue arises. However, if these individuals would invest in preventative checkups on a regular basis, there would be no need for these extremely expensive visits to the emergency room.
Managed service providers who use the same emergency room tactics for their sales management system, may find there is quite a large issue with their techniques, which is affecting their bottom line.
What are Emergency Room Sales Management Techniques?
These tactics are ones that create these large sales goals with specific quotas and then wait until the set deadline arrives to review the failure or success of the MSP salesman. At this point, there isn’t much that can be done about the failure besides firing the salesperson, or making the decision to provide more time for the individual to reach the established goal. Neither of these options will actually help to guide the person so they can reach the goal, and granting more time or eliminating the person are both quite costly, resulting in additional recruiting costs.
Is it Time for a Proactive Preventative Sales Management Approach?
Rather than playing the “wait and see” game, a company can invest in a proactive preventative sales management approach. This means they are frequently measuring a number of factors -- such as leads, touch points, sales, etc. -- and then providing or suggesting the necessary coaching. Rather than measuring a salesperson on closed sales, measure their effectiveness by the number of proposals and appointments that are made/received.
If your salespeople were checked up on a biweekly basis to review the number of proposals and appointments they have set, then you will be able to determine if their MSP marketing efforts are effective, or if problems are present. If problems are there, then there is still time to find a solution.
For example, if the salesperson has had very few appointments in the past few weeks, then a bit of digging can be done to determine what is wrong and how the issue can be fixed. The fact is, if a salesperson doesn’t have appointments, there is no way he is going to make any sales. Some things to consider include if the salesperson is making any cold calls and where leads are (or are not) coming from -- networking, organic marketing, pay-per-click, etc.
