There are two reasons why MSPs fail to attract prospects:
- Potential prospects don’t know you exist.
- Those who do know don’t understand that you solve a problem they have.
Spending time, money, or resources on Point 1 is a waste without Point 2, so start there.
The problem is that most MSPs sell something nobody wants to buy: IT services. Potential prospects have IT issues but are unaware that they are IT issues, aren’t interested in IT, and/or don’t speak tech. They don’t know how your IT services solve their problems. This leads to confusion and not buying.
Overcoming Confusion
So, how do you get uninterested potential customers attracted to your offerings? Answering these three questions can help you:
- Who is your target market? This can be a vertical, but a vertical often is too broad. So, it more likely will be a sub-part of a vertical.
- What problem do you solve for your target market using technology? This is an objective your target market has and a reason they can’t achieve it. They have business problems, not IT problems.
- How will you talk about it in their language? Use prescriptive sales: Start with the problem in their language, then accentuate the pain of the problem, present a solution, discuss the transformation, and make an offer.
Without clear, tested, and optimized answers to these questions, you shouldn’t spend any money on advertising. It doesn’t work. So, answer the questions first.
The good news is the answers make connecting with prospects easier. Instead of talking to everybody about something no one cares about, you speak to a specific audience about a problem vital to them.
Right Place, Right Time
The next step is to find prospective customers by going to where they are:
- Attend conferences and shows. If you solve a problem for dentists, go to dentistry conferences, not MSP conferences.
- Use social media. Identify 100 attractive prospects on LinkedIn, and target them with customized outreach through social media, mail, email, phone calls, and office visits. Add to the list as you close clients or eliminate someone as a prospect. If you spend money on awareness, spend money here.
- Network. Identify your top 250 contacts, make them aware of your target market and the problems you solve for them. Since what you do is no longer confusing, they can make introductions.
- Create content: Write for publications, newsletters, blogs, and whatever else you can find that your target market reads.
Evolve into Marketing
Joe Rojas
If you’ve answered the first three questions above and followed the next steps, you will attract customers.
Once you’ve perfected your sales process, you can consider marketing. There are no silver bullets; there isn’t one thing you can do that magically works. I’ve tried it all; this is the strategy that works.
Joe Rojas is co-founder and COO of New York-based Start Grow Manage, and author of “How Entrepreneurs Thrive.” Learn more cool facts about Rojas on channelWise.
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