The Three Most Common Sales Mistakes MSPs Must Avoid

The theme I wish to explore in this year’s series of blog posts is how to be a better salesperson and how to build a better sales model. Each month I will explore a particular sales struggle that may be impacting your sales success and provide a few insights and actionable strategies that can be implemented to help you or members of your sales team overcome these challenges so that you can become more effective in your role.

This month I want to talk about barriers to sales, the three most common mistakes I see MSP sales professional make, and how to avoid them.  

Mistake #1: Being too technical in your conversations with prospects

It is important to note that Managed Services and Managed Security Services are NOT technical sales.  They are 100% a business sale that is won by having business-level conversations with the right set of decision makers and stakeholders.

The struggle for many MSPs is that they like to sell by focusing on the technology they use in their programs, because it’s within their comfort level. However, they can also be their biggest barrier to sales. Most business owners or business decision makers are clearly NOT technical people, so if you try to talk in a technical fashion with them you are going to lose them. This means the opportunities you have worked so hard to earn through your marketing and lead gen activities, will begin to slip away.

So, it’s important to keep in mind who your target audience is. When you talk technical to a non-technical business owner, you will likely fail to drive home the business value that your services can provide, and driving home this value is especially important when your services may cost more than what they might be currently paying with an existing MSP. So ensure you are speaking the right ‘love language’ of your prospect and paint a larger picture around how your services will improve their overall business and help them generate revenue. Because how they generate revenue most likely will have technology backing it, and although it’s that technology that needs management, it is not what we want our conversations focused on.

So how do you course-correct if you find you’re guilty of this? Easy! Think of yourself like a Business Owner (which likely many of you reading this are), and think about what concerns you have when it comes to running your own MSP business. I’m sure you’re always thinking about some or all of the following:

• Your revenues—what money is coming in, how you can generate more, and what you need to do to protect that revenue.
• Your profitability levels—what you are putting to the bottom line and what you’re investing back into your business.
• How to best improve your overall competitive position within your marketspace
• How can you create a better customer experience for your clients?

These are the same concerns of the prospects that you are speaking with. But the difference here is they are utilizing technology to help them generate, protect, and increase their revenue streams. 

So your opportunity becomes: What is it that you can offer to that Business Owner that will help him/her with the management of those revenue streams? Because increasing revenues, reducing costs, mitigating security risk through better employee protection tactics, managing the overall customer experience to reduce churn. That is really what a business owner cares about.   

When we can talk in their ‘love language’, that is how we get into the mindset of a business owner and get them to really jump up and say, “you know what? I hear what you are saying and I feel that we may have a real partnership potential 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. It’s about you having an actual relationship where you are working together to ensure you are assisting them in the tangible ways that can help them build a better business. 

You want to focus your prospect conversations around:

• What outcomes they can expect to receive from the services you are going to provide
• How you can help make their business better off and safer tomorrow, than it is today

So think of yourself as a business owner; because when you can align your services to their revenues, and to the safety and security of those revenues, a business owner will begin to see value immediately, and they will be more inclined to continue engaging with you as you progress further through the sales process.

Mistake #2: Rushing Through the Sales Process

If your marketing and lead gen strategies worked, and a prospect has reached out to engage with you, there is no reason to rush through your sales process to try to get to a quicker close. Rushing through the stages of your sales process can be a real disservice to not only your prospect, but to your MSP as well, as you can fail to get a true understanding of your prospect’s unique situation. As tempting as it might be, you want to respect and observe your sales process, even if your prospect is ready to sign with your MSP tomorrow.  Because when you take shortcuts, you are taking unnecessary risks that can impact the potential outcome and profitability of that sale.

If you rush, you will fail in these areas:

• Being able to fully understand your customer’s unique situation, and their specific set of business requirements and challenges they are currently facing
• Being able to thoroughly demonstrate how your services can mitigate and help resolve those challenges
• Being able to do your due diligence during the discovery and qualification phase, leading to your failing to create a meaningful proposal for their business—a proposal that will highlight how your MSP is different and better from whom they are using today, along with the value your services can provide to their business. 
• Potentially identifying other sales opportunities for your MSP. For example, you may miss some potential cross sell and upsell opportunities that not only could have benefited the prospect, but your MSP as well. 

So you don’t want to rush or gloss over the discovery stage, or any other stage, of your sales process in an effort to get the sale behind you. Because if you do, you’ll be short-changing yourself and your prospect, and you will lose out on the opportunity to present them with a solution that may truly address all of their needs.

Mistake #3: Continuing with the Sales Process When You Know the Prospect Isn’t a Good Fit.

The last common mistake to avoid is: Continuing down the sales process and continuing to engage with your prospect, when you know that they are NOT a good fit for your MSP. Meaning, you easily recognize within those first few minutes of just speaking with them that they don’t meet your ideal client baseline standards and that they are not the type of quality customer that you typically deal with or desire, but you continue meeting with them anyway.

Although your goal is to sign on new clients to your MSP, you don’t want to sign on unprofitable or undesirable clients that will be detrimental to your business. Not all revenue is necessarily good revenue.  Unfit prospects represent an operational and/or possible churn risk for your MSP—and that isn’t what you want. At the end of the day, you want to be focused on building a quality Book of Business. 

I recognize that it is never fun ditching a prospect your marketing worked so hard to bring into your sales funnel, but unless you do, you risk wasting a lot of time, money, and energy trying to nurture a prospect that ultimately will never contribute a healthy sum of revenue to your balance sheet.

So what are some signs to be on the look out for that may warrant you to DISQUALIFY your prospect and move on?  

1. The Prospect tells you they are only researching potential alternative MSP options because their boss told them to.
   As a result, they themselves don’t actually have any authority to make this kind of monumental switch decision for their organization—they are just following through with what their boss has asked them to do. If you ask to book a meeting with their boss and they discourage that, or don’t seem receptive to it, then it might be a hint to move on. It will be difficult to provide good quality recommendations on how you can assist them, without having the opportunity to speak with someone in a position of authority who can provide you with good quality information on the current state of their business and what they are looking to achieve from any potential new MSP.    
2.  The Prospect tells you that they are locked into a contract with another MSP and they’re just researching their options for when their contract eventually comes up for renewal.
   Obviously find out when their contract is up for renewal to see how close it is, as it will help you determine how much time and energy you should devote to them in the near term. But you will want to be direct, and clear the air to see if they are potentially just using you to see if they can get a better deal from their current service provider. It is one of those ‘difficult questions’ that you may just have to ask, if something doesn’t feel right. Because if they are just using your MSP to get a better price from their incumbent MSP, you do not want to get involved in this type of bargaining.  Businesses that are price shopping aren’t genuinely interested in your services, and they likely won’t remain loyal to you, especially if they ever have the opportunity to move to another MSP who might be cheaper than you.
3. During the discovery phase, the Prospect is already asking for discounts and a reduced monthly fee before they even had an opportunity to learn about the value of your services and the outcomes you can provide for their business.
   If the prospect is already coming to you in the beginning of the engagement and asking, “What’s the best price you can give me?” then that is another red flag for your consideration. Price-haggling isn’t the best way to start a business relationship, and it will likely be something that you will always have to contend with for the life of the contract.  
4. Prospect is gatekeeping you from the key decision makers and stakeholders.
   If the prospect is being cagey and is avoiding telling you who the other stakeholders and decision makers are when you ask about them, their intentions may be suspect as this is information that you are going to need to know to advance the sales process. So if upon asking they are not providing you with this information nor are they willing to connect you with them, then proceed with caution.  

 Am I saying that if you see any of these red flags your immediate reaction should be to cut ties and walk away? No, I’m not. But continuing with the sales process, while your prospect isn’t being completely open with you, or when they are actively avoiding answering key discovery questions, or keeping you from the key stakeholders, should give you a moment to pause to really think about what the long-term potential relationship could be like with this prospect, should you win them as a client.

You want customers who value you and your team and see the value and benefits that your services can provide to their business. There is a saying in sales that I don’t think we as salespeople practice enough, but it warrants a reminder: “Get to the ‘no’ as quickly as you can.” That way, if the prospect isn’t a good fit, you can move on and direct your attention to other prospects in the funnel. It’s perfectly OK to walk away from a prospect. The challenge is understanding when that right time is.

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