How to avoid the biggest mistake in your MSP sales process

This month, I have been delivering a three-part Boot camp series focused on the MSP Sales process. MSPs that I have been speaking with lately, have been telling me that they are starting to gain success with their marketing, and are increasing the volume of leads they are generating. However, they are also telling me they’re struggling with how to move those leads through the sales process and converting them into new, signed, Managed Services contracts at the end.

The B2B buyer journey has changed significantly over the years, especially with the increased use of digital platforms and content. This means when you finally have a prospect that is ready to meet with you because they are considering leaving their incumbent MSP and switching over to you, you want to ensure you are leveraging that opportunity, and creating a great first impression with them.

So, what is the biggest sales mistake I see MSPs make when it comes to navigating their prospects through their MSP sales process? A mistake that could cause your prospect to lose interest in your MSP, causing you to lose this opportunity altogether?

Being too technical when speaking to business owners, or key decision makers!

Selling Managed Services is NOT a technical sale

One of the most important things that you need to understand as an MSP is that Managed Services is 100% a business sale that is won by having business-level conversation. The challenge for many MSPs is that they like to sell by focusing on the technology, because that what they know, but at the same time this can actually become the biggest barrier to making a successful sale.

Business owners, or business decision makers, do not tend to be technical people. When we focus our conversations with them on a technical level, we can begin to lose them as an audience. And if that happens, the opportunities that you have worked so hard for through your MSP marketing and lead gen activities, can begin to slip away.

Technology can become a comfort zone for you to fall back on when you are in an uncomfortable sales moment. But a managed services sales pitch is not like selling a piece of hardware. With hardware, you can hold it, touch it, and compare its specs to other pieces of hardware. But with Managed Services, it’s intangible, you can’t touch it, and you can’t feel it. As I often say in my bootcamps: it’s not as if a business owner wakes up one morning and says to themselves, “Man, I need to go to Walmart and get me some Managed Services.”

When you talk to a non-technical business owner, you need to drive home the business value that your services can provide—especially when those services may cost more than what they might be currently paying with an existing service provider.

You need to paint a larger picture for them. This may mean developing your own business acumen so that you can expand your talk track to discuss with them how your services can improve their overall business and help them generate more revenue. Because how they generate revenue will most likely have technology supporting it. Although that technology needs management, it is not what we want our conversations to be focused on.

Get into the mindset of the business owner

So if we change our talk-track and begin talking with prospects about how we can support and protect their revenue streams instead of talking about how we can support their technology, that is how we get into the mindset of a business owner. And that is what you really need to do—you need to think of yourself as a business owner (which many of you are!).

So think about what’s important to your MSP business.

I’m sure you are always thinking about your own revenues coming in from your clients, and what you need to do to protect that revenue? What you need to do to increase that revenue? I’m sure you’re concerned about your profitability levels, what you are putting to the bottom line, and what you can invest back into the business. I’m also sure you’re thinking about how to best improve your overall competitive position within your marketspace.

It’s very likely that these are the things your prospects will be thinking about.

And because they are more than likely utilizing technology to help them generate, protect, and increase their revenue streams, your opportunity becomes:

What can you offer to that business owner that will help them with the management of those revenue streams? Risk-mitigation, employee protection, user experience, and maintaining and increasing revenue streams are some of the key drivers that business owners really care about. Speaking about those key drivers is how you get into the mindset of a business owner, and how you get them excited enough to say, “You know what, I hear what you are saying, and I feel that we may have a real partnership here.”

It’s not just about you coming in and managing their company’s computers and that server that is in the corner that they aren’t sure what it does. Instead, it’s about you having an actual relationship where you are working together to ensure you are helping them in the tangible ways that can help them scale and grow their organization. So, we want our conversations with prospect to be centered around is what is most important to them from a business perspective. Helping them to understand what outcomes they can expect to see from the services you are going to provide them, and how you can help them make their business better off and safer.

So, think of yourself as a business owner (again, which many of you reading this are). Because when you can align your services to their revenue streams, and to the safety and security of those revenue streams, a business owner will immediately see value in that messaging, and will be more inclined to continue engaging with you as you progress further through the MSP sales process.

Stefanie Hammond is Head Sales and Marketing Nerd at N‑able. You can follow her on LinkedIn and on Twitter at @sales_mktg_nerd.