When you get a new dog, he doesn’t understand anything you say. “Not on the rug, Duke.” “Outside, Duke. Right now!” “ Let’s go for a ride in the car, Duke.”
For him it is all “ blah, blah, blah, Duke, blah, blah, blah.” Since you don’t speak “dog,” you have a problem. You’ve got to get Duke to learn what those sounds mean, and treats and rewards are the way to get the job done.

This same situation too often occurs in technical sales when an MSP shows up at a prospect’s door trying to convince them of the need for managed services. The salesperson speaks “IT.” “Mirrored servers, BYOD risks, site-to-site replication, malware.” Its that same “blah, blah, blah.”

The only difference between your dog and a prospect is that Duke relies on you for dinner, treats and shelter. He has a strong incentive to learn your language. The prospect doesn’t. There is no equivalent of a rawhide treat in the world of MSP sales.

What’s the message here? To sell managed services, you need to speak the language of the target market, not your own. When the IT entrepreneur launches her MSP, she obviously has to branch out into sales to pull in the first clients. However, that may not be a good long-term selling strategy. The salesperson for an MSP needs to be able to empathize with the target market and speak their language, not IT. Here are some possible things to consider when developing the sales role within an MSP.

1) The career IT professional – It may not make sense for your salespeople to be IT professionals at root. The difficulty here is that technical issues are deeply intuitive for them. They’ve been brought up in a professional culture that routinely speaks in the shorthand of technical jargon. It can be very hard for them to not fall back into industry-speak and lose the attention of their prospects. More importantly, even the basic logic of why a small firm could benefit from the services of an MSP may seem so intuitively obvious, that they may find it difficult to articulate to a layperson the need for outside help.

2) Sales people with career experience in your targeted markets – In addition to not speaking IT when dealing with non-technical prospects, there is the need to have a deep understanding of the target market. It is likely that most MSPs will target 1 or 2 industry verticals at most. Insurance, medical offices, accounting or attorneys, for example. There are two reasons that limiting your range might be of value in pushing sales.
First, in each of these markets there are very industry-specific rules and regulations that have an impact on the design and requirements of their IT infrastructure. For example, digital record requirements and HIPAA security issues define the superstructure on which all medical IT must be designed. Accounting or legal firms may have some similarities, but there are distinct differences that set them apart. Failure to be well versed in these requirements would be a hindrance in understanding a prospect’s pain-points. Someone with a background in the specific field can readily understand the needs and unique requirements of that field and is more likely to create a more immediate bond on which to build a long-term business relationship.

Secondly, professionals who work in fields that require extensive education and training, particularly medical, accounting, and the law are more likely to be very skeptical of those pretending to understand the needs of their field. A sales rep with only a shallow grasp of industry requirements could be very off-putting if they pretend to understand an industry but don’t.

3) Familiarity with the small business entrepreneurial mindset – The final thing a good MSP sale rep needs is an innate understanding of the entrepreneurial state of mind. Someone who has worked part of their career in the world of small business or start-ups can have a leg up on other salespeople. Logically, there can be clear, rational reasons to begin outsourcing IT needs, but that isn’t always enough for small business owners. The very nature of an MSP’s services mean surrendering some control, and that can be very, very difficult for the business owner who started the enterprise from nothing. A sales rep who is sensitive to these worries will be able to navigate those concerns, perhaps designing very gradual approaches to incorporating MSP services into a small businesses IT infrastructure.

In summary, think twice about standard assumption that to sell a technology service, the salesperson needs to be a career IT person. Sales skills, and an empathic understanding of the client’s needs and wants are the key to successful sales..