Are you exerting a ton of effort to increase sales, yet seeing few results? MSP business owners share one goal: generate new monthly recurring revenue. While nearly every owner agrees on this goal, few achieve it. You need key metrics, the right focus, and solutions for improving how you’re selling managed services.
We want to help you skip over failures, avoid exerting so much effort, and move right to increasing sales. I’ll be joining Intronis for a free webinar. In this session, I’ll be giving advice and strategic direction on how to improve your sales and increase monthly recurring revenue.
Get a head start on what you’ll learn in the webinar with these four actionable tips for improving your MSP sales process.
4 Ways to improve how you’re selling managed services
1. Apply the math and science. One of the biggest dividers between average and top MSPs is the efficiency with which they’re closing deals. World-class MSPs expend less time and money to get the same sales results by doing the math.
Look at these three metrics in your company:
- FTAs (first time appointments): Anyone you’re meeting with to start or restart a sales cycle
- Close ratio: FTAs divided by the number of new agreements
- Average monthly recurring revenue: Average monthly revenue per client
Assess these numbers and identify the areas that need improvement. When you take action to impact any of these three numbers, you’re putting your company on track to increase the success of your sales process.
2. Improve your value proposition. How valuable are your services? And how does that value compare to the price you’re charging your clients? You need to be able to separate yourself from the competition. The key to improving your value proposition is demonstrating the positive impact that your business offers.
Ultimately, you have to discover and develop your MSP super power — the extra service or process you offer that sets your business apart. That super power answers the question, “Why should I choose your MSP and not a cheaper option?” For example, you could have a full-time network administrator at your clients’ disposal, adding value to your services.
3. Set the right goals. Without the right goals, your efforts to increase monthly recurring revenue are going to fall flat. If you’re not currently setting annual recurring revenue goals, how are you gauging success?
Use your close ratio and average monthly recurring revenue rates to determine the number of FTAs required. Set goals for how many leads you want to meet with every year, quarter, month, or even week, based on your revenue goals. When you have this KPI (key performance indicator) to work toward, it’s easier to identify areas that need improvement.
4. Pursue and generate warm leads. To help you on your journey to a better sales process, evaluate the amount of time you’re spending on leads. Of the four types of leads, you should spend your time with those most likely to close deals.
- Suspects – These are the potential clients in your database that you really don’t know much about. You’re unsure of their needs or budget.
- Prospects – You know that prospects are in need of your MSP services and that they generally fit your client model.
- Warm 250 – Warm leads have specific needs, and they’re in the market to buy. They are often returning prospects. Ideally, you want about 250 potential clients in this category.
- Hot – These are the leads currently in your sales funnel who you know will be deciding soon.
Separating your leads into these categories is important because you need a way to focus and track the leads with the most potential. This will allow you to minimize the time you spend selling to the top of your sales funnel and put more energy into the prospects and warm 250, two categories ripe for signing.
When you strategically optimize how you sell managed services, you’ll begin to see the results of your efforts. You’ll increase your close rate and eventually see an upsurge in your monthly recurring revenue.
To get more tips and strategic direction on how to improve MSP sales, watch the webinar.
Photo Credit: Leo Leung via Flickr.com. Used under CC 2.0 License.
