Sales Tools for MSPs: Managing the Sales Process

When you learn that you have a lead that has the potential to convert, you must be ready to execute your sales process. That means the entire strategy you need to close that sale should be in place before you begin. Sales tools for MSPs play an important role in managing the entire sales process.

Let’s discuss how this process can be best managed by MSPs:

Step One: gathering information

Before you do anything else you need to get some information about your prospect. For example:

• Which industry do they belong to?
• Do they have on-site IT management?
• How big is their infrastructure?

This information is important to make a value based decision.

Step Two: connecting with the decision maker

1. Reaching out. Establish contact with the decision maker on LinkedIn or whatever seems to be their preferred platform for communication. Establish a good rapport with the person you talk to or send an email.
2. Introduction. Briefly introduce yourself in a professional manner. Share your company information explaining briefly what you do and how you can be of service to them.
3. Personalize. Send personalized postcards, brochures and cover letter.
4. Follow-up. Send an email or make a phone call as a follow-up. Be sure to find ways to maintain communications.
5. Request an appointment. At this point call your prospect and ask for an appointment. You will probably need two or three appointments for a deal to materialize. You will have to follow certain steps before and after each appointment. Make sure you arm yourself with sufficient knowledge of the industry in general and your prospect’s business in particular so you can make a strong case for your services. You must be ready to answer any questions they may have.

Step Three: face to face meetings

1. 1. Appointment. Now you are meeting your prospect for the first time. During this appointment you will work to understand the needs of this prospect. Ask questions about their IT requirements and infrastructure. See if the prospect is a “fit”. There are many factors that will allow you to determine that. This is not a “selling” event for you. Gather the preliminary data to see the extent of the services you will have to provide as you should know the suitability of your prospect after the first meeting. For example:
      • Does their infrastructure meet your certification criteria?
      • Does this business have viability?

      Your subsequent appointment/s will depend on the outcome of your previous appointment. But set up your next appointment before you leave after the conclusion of first one. Follow up after each appointment. Send a thank you note or email.

   2. Second appointment. The purpose of this meeting should be to present your formal proposal. This might include a powerpoint presentation as well as your written proposal. This is the time to promote your company and explain how you can address their pain-points. Outline your value proposition. Highlight the benefits of having your services and the specific ways you can help. For example, stress the importance of continuity for their business in case of downtimes and security breaches. Offer a cost saving analysis to make financial sense of using a MSP. Monetize the losses incurred due to lack of proactive solutions provided by you. Highlight the replacement cost of lost data and downtimes. Savings in the short run could cost much more in the long run. Some case studies can be the added ammo in your arsenal of persuasion.
   3. Close the deal. Once you have arrived at this point in the sales process you should be able to close the sale. But your work has just begun. You have just set a milestone in a relationship that will yield the continuous revenue growth for you for years to come. How well you guard this milestone will reflect your professionalism and consistency which will bring new prospects on board.

Step Four: post-contract duties.

1. Bringing them on-board. You worked hard on your pre-contract steps. You worked even harder to get a contract. Probably some parts of the on-boarding process were already mentioned in the previous meetings. But now you need to collect in-depth information to analyze the exact needs of your prospect’s infrastructure.
2. Technology assessment. Evaluate their technology. Some of it may not be up-to-date enough to work with the latest technologies. For example, this may include conducting an assessment of their vendors, operating systems, and software applications as well as determining potential upgrades and updates needed to bring the infrastructure to your certification level.
3. Provisioning. This part involves lot of on-site testing, confirming and configuring of managed devices, operating systems, and software applications. Configure remote access and control for RMM. Also configure bi-directional integration, communication and operation between the RMM tool and PSA solution.
4. Required Data. You will need to collect the information for all of the following;-Workstation, laptop and Smartphone-Backup, Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity-Application and productivity software-Printer, POS and peripherals-Vendor information
5. Train yourself. You have a new client and your client has a new system. That means you both need training. Your associates need to learn new client’s infrastructure to establish support system. That will involve Network Operating Center and their Service Desk.
6. Train your client. They need to learn how to place service requests and understand processes. You will be sending them a lot of information in the QBRs and they will need to learn how to decipher that information and make adjustments accordingly, if needed.
7. Time to go live. After provisioning and training you are all set to go. Go ahead and press that start button but remember the first few weeks are critical. Ensure that all goes well by doing some tweaking and fine tuning in the beginning. Evaluate the health of the network and infrastructure at short intervals in the beginning and then you can prolong those intervals until you can schedule them once a quarter.

You have completed a very significant phase in establishing yourself in the market. Document everything that you did right and everything that you could’ have done better. Make that document part of your training for the future. Now go out there and duplicate this success.