Five Ways to Ensure Your MSP Has a Winning Hand When it Comes to Sales Success

According to the recent 2024 MSP Horizons Report, that was jointly published between N‑able and channel research specialists Canalys, the largest proportion of respondents (22%) still cite ‘new customer acquisition’ as the most significant business challenge facing their MSP business today. 

Why is this case? Why do almost one in four MSPs continue to struggle when it comes to sales and lead generation? And what steps can be taken to help improve the situation?

In my 20 years of working with MSPs in how to move their businesses forward, there are five common themes that I have witnessed in sales. Arguably these are the things that set the top performing MSPs apart from those MSPs that continue to struggle with their overall revenue growth. 

Five Ways to Maximize Your Sales Success

1. Understand your growth model 

There are several different types of growth models I have seen MSPs adopt and have great success with:  

• Traditional Sales Model
  This would be your Owner-led sales structure or a structure that consists of an appointment setter + outside account executive + account manager.
• Business Development Model
  This is the sales model that emphasizes networking, attending events, and relationship building to fill the sales funnel.
• Channel Model
  This is the sales model that leverages partnerships with other tangential organizations that are excellent at supplying leads to the sales teams.  
• M&A Model
  Merging or acquiring other MSP organizations to fuel customer growth.
• Marketing Model
  Leveraging brand-building and awareness-building marketing activities to create interest in your MSP and spur leads.
• Referral Model
  Relying on word-of-mouth, trust, and good will from existing customers to encourage other businesses to reach out and engage with you.
• Expansion Model
  Leveraging existing clients for sustained revenue growth via an established and robust account management motion.

With so many different growth models, it’s encouraging that there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to sales. But consistent sales success comes from knowing and understanding which sales model will work best for your MSP and being intentional and purposeful in how the model gets implemented. Those MSPs that I have seen struggle the most, tend to wander aimlessly amongst the different sales paths and use happenstance rather than opt to build a strategy and a detailed plan by which to grow their MSP.   

2. Understand your Ideal Client Profile (ICP).

During a recent Office Hours session, I had an MSP reach out and ask me how they can get in front of more small and medium-sized businesses? The first question I responded back with was: ‘Who are you selling to?” and the MSP exclaimed, “Anyone who will pay me!” 

While I can understand the fundamental need of engaging with prospects who are willing to pay you ‘something’, there comes a tipping point when building a quality book of business should take precedence over the ‘pick up every nickel you find’ mentality to sales. Top performing MSPs that excel at sales work from a highly refined ICP that includes structure around:

• Company size (employee size and/or revenue size)
• Geography range
• Preferred industry
• Adherence to certain compliance standards
• Set minimum monthly spend

Those organizations that don’t meet these ‘new customer criteria’ are either politely turned away or referred to another MSP who doesn’t impose such standards. If cashflow is an issue, it may be scary to turn away a business who is willing to pay you something. However, if that business is difficult or demanding, asking for discounts, or asking you to compromise on your security services to meet some unrealistic, preconceived budget, then this customer is imposing too much unnecessary risk on your MSP and you should let another MSP take them on. 

3. Invest in sales and have a formalized sales structure

I have had MSPs brag to me that they have been successful in growing their MSP without the need for actual salespeople. But when you dig into the backstory of how they are accomplishing this, it becomes apparent that they aren’t really growing, rather they are maintaining what they have. And there is nothing wrong with this, if this is the type of MSP you wish to operate.

I know a lot of MSP business owners where their MSP practice is strictly a life-style type business for themselves, and they don’t wish to explode and dominate the industry. However, if your desire IS to build world-dominance (or at least dominance in your marketplace) then it will become necessary to move beyond the owner-led sales model and formalize your sales structure by investing and trusting in sales professionals to take over the sales function.  

What that looks like will depend on the growth model (from point 1) that you decide to pursue. In the beginning, you may wish to invest in a Sales Development Representative (SDR) who can prospect and cold call and book appointments for you, so it takes that activity off of your plate. Or you may decide to hire a more experienced sales professional who is adept at the networking and relationship building to source new leads for you. You may even decide to hire a skilled Account Manager to find whitespace within your clients’ portfolio and build your recurring revenue through customer expansion. Either way, investment in sales will be required if growth is the ultimate objective.

4.     Seek support and guidance from your peers

Don’t feel that you need to go through the sales journey alone. Top-performing MSPs rose to the top by building a strong network of peers and mentors to help inspire and guide them. And if you don’t happen to have a strong MSP peer network today, we can help get you started by providing you with instant access to over 300 MSPs via our annual Empower Event and roadshows.

This year’s Empower Event is taking place March 25-28^th at the Omni PGA Frisco Resort, Texas and there is still time to register.

 If you are looking for assistance on how to get the upper hand when it comes to your MSP’s sales success, then consider registering for Empower Frisco. With a 95% satisfaction rating for networking opportunities, this is a wonderful occasion to remove yourself from the daily grind of the office, and gather with other MSPs to collaborate, share ideas, and understand what others are doing well that could potentially work in your business. 

And there will be something for everyone. Besides our ever-popular motivational keynote speakers we bring in, we are changing up our format a bit this year, where we will be introducing designated ‘peer cohort’ tracks that are aimed to strengthen the networking and educational components even further. These peer cohort tracks are designed to align with each of the most common roles and responsibilities that make up the bulk of your team and will include a:

1. Business Owners/CXO Track
2. Service Delivery Managers and Operations Track
3. Service Technicians Track
4. Sales and Business Development Professionals Track

I am excited to be delivering the Sales and Business Development Professionals Track this year, and the goal of this is to help our partners create a better sales motion through the upleveling of skillsets of their MSP sales professionals. I will be joined by three high-performing MSP Business Development Executives who have lived in the sales trenches of this unique industry for years and therefore understand the trials and tribulations of selling MSP services. They have figured out the formula where their MSP organizations are consistently achieving double-digits growth year over year. Through unparalleled access to our guest panelists, attendees will be able to leverage their knowledge and extensive industry experience and walk away with actionable nuggets that can be incorporated into their own MSP.  

And these same benefits are the hallmarks of each of our four tracks. Each track will have its own set of MSP industry experts present to share their own best practices and knowhow so that you get the best of both worlds: the thought-leadership you come to expect from N‑able, coupled with the real-world advice and guidance from MSPs who live the MSP-life every day and are willing to share their growth stories. As long-time Empower attendee, Jayson Kiel, CEO of Lockmann Krane International, said best, “There is no stronger educational experience than the one that can be provided by one’s own peers.”  

5. Have a plan

You can’t do everything all at once. So for 2024 choose your top three sales initiatives that you would like to implement, and make those three initiatives your priority for this year. Focus on the quality of your execution verses it just being a check-box item for you. Because even though our MSP Horizons Report found that new customer acquisition remains a top concern for almost a quarter of the MSPs surveyed, it also found that MSPs are actually quite optimistic when it comes to their overall growth potential for 2024 where 64% of respondents expect at least 10%+ growth in their managed services revenue growth this year. 

So put a plan in place to understand your own growth model and the target client that will work best for you and your market, and then build a strategy for how you can capture some of this growth potential for yourselves. And consider attending Empower Frisco next month to tap into the knowledge, expertise, and insight from some of N‑able’s own top performing MSPs and learn what they are doing and what challenges they have had to overcome to reach double-digit growth for themselves. 

If anyone has questions on what they can expect from attending Empower Frisco, don’t hesitate to reach out.   

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