Seven traits to look for when targeting new prospects

I came across an interesting sales stat in a 2020 report from Sales Insight Lab. They interviewed 400 sales professional and found that 71% of respondents said at least 50% of the prospects they were engaged with were NOT a good fit for what they were selling. This tells me there is a lot of wasted time and effort trying to convince incompatible businesses to sign with you.

So how can you improve your odds of converting prospects?

There are certain traits a salesperson should look for when first engaging a prospect that could signal they might not be the right fit for the business. Being able to spot these comes down to understanding what the ideal customer profile is for your MSP business.

If you’ve not already done this, scoping out your ideal customer profile is an exercise every MSP should complete. It will help you discern the characteristics you consider optimal when it comes time to target and engage with new businesses as part of your overall marketing and sales strategy. Just as you’d create and enforce technology-based standards for supporting and protecting your customers’ networks, it is equally as important to create and enforce an acceptable baseline standard for your MSP from a customer engagement and acceptance standpoint.

So how do you determine which traits you should be seeking? It starts by closely examining those you value in your BEST customers, and then aiming to connect with only those prospects that closely mirror these. Below I’ve listed 7 traits that signal you are engaging with the right prospect to help get you started:

1. They are in the right vertical

Some verticals are better than others to pursue, as some do not recognize the value of managed services and network security, and are only concerned with the monthly cost. The best verticals are those that need to adhere to specific industry compliancy requirements—and would be subject to a high degree of business risk if they failed to meet them.

2. They are the right size

Very small organizations will not appreciate the value your services can provide. Look through your customer base and determine your sweet spot—those customers big enough to truly value your services and appreciate the concept of outsourcing their IT to a reputable third-party MSP. Prospects that have multiple locations are a great fit to pursue as they generally acknowledge they have higher technology needs and will more likely invest in your comprehensive services package.

3. They have the right org structure

In a recent conversation with one of our successful MSPs on this topic, they told me they prefer dealing with organizations that have just one key decision maker who can sign off on their fully managed program. In their experience, if there are multiple partners involved, or a board of directors, the chances of getting them to sign off on such a program are significantly reduced.  Because of this, they direct their sales team to primarily engage with organizations that only have one or two people at the top, who will make the final purchase decision.

4. They have the right kind of data the bad guys want

Is the data their business is collecting seen as highly valuable? If so, these are the best prospects to target because the impact and consequences of a data breach could be catastrophic.

5. They have the right attitude towards their IT

Good prospects tend to view their technology infrastructure as being strategic to their business and are heavily reliant upon it. If their technology fails them, the downtime costs—and the disruption and impact on their employees’ productivity—are significant. So the more reliant they are on their IT, the better fit they are for your managed services.   

6. They take the right approach with their IT spending

You want to ensure the businesses you engage with include IT spending as part of their annual budget. If they don’t budget appropriately for IT, or they don’t intend to include line items for IT spending in future budgets, these are prospects you want to avoid spending time on. Good prospects are those who recognize quality, and are willing to pay a proper fee for services because they recognize their network’s security and performance is instrumental to their ongoing success.

7. They recognize they don’t have the right people in-house to support their network

Good prospects recognize they aren’t the technical experts and realize don’t have the technical know-how to best protect and secure their own network. They are looking for a partnership and will view you as their trusted business advisor—they won’t make a decision until they consult with you to see how their technology infrastructure might be impacted. They trust in the relationship and will give all technical recommendations their utmost consideration.   

You might be thinking: Will conducting this type of exercise actually work to improve my close ratios? In short, yes. A good example comes from another successful MSP of ours who completed an extensive profiling exercise similar to this a couple of years ago. They went through their database of roughly 2000 customers and, using these desired traits, managed to whittle it down to 125 great ones who are profitable and whole-heartedly support them. Now they are now very deliberate about who they engage with and have seen their close rates increase because their ideal customer profile dictates any new prospect they approach from a sales or marketing perspective. One of the biggest benefits they have experienced is that any new referrals they now receive tend to be of the same high quality as their ideal customer profile.

Good customers beget good prospects—who are ultimately qualified and eager to do business—which helps provide fresh leads into the top of the sales funnel.

I’m not going to sugarcoat it and say this will be a quick and easy exercise; but the more effort and perseverance you can put into it, the better your sales results will be. It will help attract higher quality leads, which will allow you to avoid wasting time on those 50% of prospects who aren’t—and will never be—a good fit for your services.   

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

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