How many new MRR clients did you add last year that would be one of your top 10 clients?
How many of these targets do you have current, live sales opportunities with right now?
For most MSPs, the answer is none.
However, a few elite MSPs regularly land large clients. I work with dozens of MSP owners who grow annual revenues by 25-40% each year. Landing large new clients on a regular basis is the key driver of this success.
How This Will Impact Your Business
So, what mistakes do MSPs typically make?
- Failing to focus on large target clients explicitly: You must segregate large clients from the other prospects that you pursue. There are different buying dynamics and unique techniques to gain entre for larger target clients. There is also a higher threshold for relevance and credibility. Pursuing large clients the same way that you do average-sized companies will bear no fruit.
- Picking the wrong target clients: You want to target companies who are “clones” of your best existing clients — and in niches where you already have distinctive experience and insights. You also focus on those prospects where clients, allies, colleagues, and referral sources can make an introduction for you.
- Promoting the features and benefits of your offering: People buy your services to avoid, prevent or relieve critical/current business “trauma”. They don’t care about your offering. No prospective client ever woke up in the morning hoping that an MSP would call them today. Instead, they care about their own problems and “pain points”. You are only relevant to them in this context.
- Failing to align prospecting with the target’s buying process: These “pain points” therefore mark the beginning of THEIR buying process. Zeroing in on their “pain points” grabs their attention/interest and establishes your credibility. It shows that you understand their business and creates the reason for future engagement. Pursuing this more personalized approach builds chemistry over time if done properly.
- Pursuing these clients as a vendor rather than as a business expert: Research and a wealth of experience show that target clients value providers who have solved the same problems they are facing with other clients just like them. Demonstrating YOUR understanding of THEIR “business pain points” positions you as a business expert (rather than a salesperson hawking a product and begging for a meeting)
- Failing to play the long game: Many MSPs execute a short burst of prospecting calls and emails and then move on. Sometimes success just takes more professional persistence. Since the payoff is larger, we can stay in the prospecting process longer than our normal cycle. You reach out to the prospective client over time. You use an integrated and cohesive mix of prospecting and market actions in a niche-focused campaign. – leveraging the full range of tools (mail, call, email, social media, referrals/introductions). All marketing messages should provide value-added content, relevant insights, and stories/examples of results delivered to clients just like them.
Your Next Big Client Is Waiting Out There For You, but, right now these prospective clients:
- Don’t know you
- Have no reason to listen to you
- Are not compelled to engage with you
- Are distracted by other priorities
- See little value in meeting with you
This can all change. It has changed for my clients in the Sales Transformation Program. It can start to change for you as well.
Michael Cummings is the leader of Taylor Business Group’s (TBGs) Sales Transformation Program whose MSPs clients grow their revenues annually by 20-40%.
