Managed service providers and sales represent the two sides of the coin. On the one hand, managed services provide your company with a team of experts that can address issues before they become problems – ultimately saving companies money in the long run.
On the other hand, sales generate revenue for businesses and enable them to grow. To simplify these two ends of this topic, we’re going to break them down and talk about what each position entails, how they contribute differently to your company’s success, and how you can ensure that your company is hiring the right people for these jobs. See more about MSPs on this page here.
It’s essential to have a well-defined strategy to grow your company and make it more successful. Regardless of how good the service or the technology is, the sales are generally the ones that will drive predictable growth and revenue for the company.
However, most managed service providers or MSPs find themselves on a plateau when they are unable to crack the complex codes of sales. They might go with the principal-led sales work, but this is only up to a certain point. Eventually, many founders ran out of capacity to grow to the next levels. Some organizations may need a team of experts to help them with the entire process. The three ingredients that they should learn do are the following:
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Create a Properly-Mapped Process for Sales
Most often, the founders of many MSPs may think that their path to success involves hiring famous influencers and superstars to get more customers. This is not usually the case, as many other MSP founders have failed to hire the right people. Some of the failures that they may be experiencing may be due to the following:
- Undocumented sales process
- There are no CRM tools available in place
- Poorly defined products and services
- Non-existent or lacking tools
In these kinds of situations, you might find that hiring the first sales team you’ve come across isn’t going to solve all your problems. Everything is bound to fail, and one of the things that you can do is map a sales strategy.
Mapping out what you want to achieve doesn’t need to be elaborate, and you still need to be flexible with the overall process. You can start with a winning MSP sales strategies team where every process should be documented. This will be easy if you decide to train new employees or improve your existing ones over time. If the methods are just all in the founder’s head, then it might lead to lackluster performance and confused agents that were left to their own devices.
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Recruit the Right People
Another key ingredient to your success is the recruitment of the right people. Map out the various sales roles that you have available and build a team to follow through. You can achieve many great things when you learn about the sticky relationships of clients with their managed service providers.
It is difficult to change their IT infrastructure, software, and programs simultaneously for the client. They would definitely stay with the right people who have proven their value in the past.
As a company, foster your existing relationships and build rapport. Seek out other opportunities for revenues in your current accounts. Others may think that the sales process generally starts with seeking unfamiliar leads and new clients, but this is not usually the case.
Driving your revenue growth from your existing clients is a challenge in itself. The reality is that there’s a non-stop stream of upgrades, updates, and new technologies that need to be sold to the clients. The solution is to add account managers to nurture daily client relationships, from upgrades to upsells.
Keep your quarterly business review on track and make it a part of the account manager’s full-time job. This will help you gain traction with your current clients and ensure higher engagement for your company.
The next employee that you need to hire is the hunter. This is a business development representative where you schedule new appointments or sell more products. The sole focus is to set appointments with valuable leads and make a sale. Other hires should include account executives where the clients know how technology can impact their business.
CEOs are often IT experts who are always waving advice to their clients. However, before he could succeed, he needed account executives and a sales team who could manage most of the complicated sales cycle. Get more information about the sales cycle in this url: https://www.thebalancecareers.com/the-7-stages-of-the-sales-cycle-2917515.
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Stay Focused
Another critical ingredient is staying focused, which is something that MSPs should focus on as they continue to add more clients and grow. Savvy companies may have a periodic evaluation of their successes and profitability while they essentially increase their focus to the more profitable niches. When they have a clear understanding of where they are going, MSPs will be able to reach their goals and get there in no time.
