MSP Sales: The Buyer’s Journey and How it Applies to You
BY IT GLUE | October 22, 2018
Why did your clients choose your MSP? The purchasing behavior of your customers surrounds one main thing: they need a solution to a problem they’re encountering. But you’re not the only option your customers and prospects consider. Understanding the process your prospects take when deciding on your services comes down to a likely familiar term called the buyer’s journey. How much you understand this journey, and the role your MSP plays within it, will have a direct effect on your ability to sell. Let’s dive into it.
Awareness
The first stage in the buyer’s journey is awareness. It’s here that the potential buyer will identify the problem they’re experiencing, and educate themselves on what the causes of the problem are. To do this, they’ll begin researching their problem in order to gain a better understanding of it. Ask yourself, what problems does your MSP solve? Is your solution obvious to prospects who begin conducting research? It’s up to you to pave the way that allows prospects to seek you out.
Keep in mind that some of your prospects can’t pinpoint exactly what the problem they’re facing is, just that they have one. Thus, sometimes they end up seeking solutions without know exactly what they need the solution to solve. You can assist your customers through this part of their journey with a discovery call where you help identify the problem at hand.
Consideration
How’s your product marketing strategy? Now that your potential prospects are armed with the problem, they’re going to search for a solution. The information your MSP produces can cater to identifying these problems, and outlining how your services can solve them. It’s also important for your content to clearly distinguish how your MSP differentiates from the rest, in order to set yourself apart.
What services do you offer? What’s your security like? Do you store information in the cloud or on-premises? As prospects move through their research, your goal is to ensure that they can find as much information as possible that provides evidence that you have the solution, versus another MSP. To do this, you’ll have to know what your competitors are offering and be able to do something that they can’t. Otherwise, it will be tough to sustain differentiation.
Decision
The buyer is now ready to select a specific solution to their problem. In other words, this is where you can potentially turn a prospect into a customer. But you’re not past the finish line yet. Prospects at this point compare different solutions in terms of both product and price. If you want to close the deal, you’re going to have to make sure you stand out.
Making sure your MSP makes the final cut
So how do you ensure that you close the deal? We turned to our VP of Sales, Mike Savard, for advice. He suggested that you need to be able to explain the following:
Features: What it is.
Your techs likely have an in-depth understanding of your services, but does your sales team? Knowing what makes your MSP stand out among the rest is mandatory for closing the deal, so make sure your marketing campaigns and sales team are in line with the full scope of what your services include.
Advantage: What it does.
Your services mean nothing without being able to understand and explain what they’re capable of accomplishing. If you have great documentation in place, any member of your team can easily find the information your prospects need to understand your services. When your MSP takes on new features, makes updates, or expands your services, document these changes so that any member of your team can be equipped with the knowledge to explain these features to prospects. More than that, include these changes in your marketing strategies, whether in blogs, social media, or in emails so that as prospects conduct their research, they can easily see the advantages of what you offer.
Benefits: What it does for them.
Most importantly, it’s not just about what your services are, but what do your services do for your clients? At the end of the day, you can have the most amazing service offering in the world, but if it doesn’t accomplish something that your client needs, it means nothing to them.
More than that, if you can’t explain how your services accomplish something that your clients need, it’s still ineffective. Learn to frame what you offer in a way that your prospects understand what problem your MSP solves for them personally. At IT Glue, that’s why we ask what our prospects are doing for documentation – to spur that thought and guide them to the realization that IT Glue is the solution for them.
Prove your track record, and the benefits of your services, through your documentation. When done correctly, you won’t just be talking about things like consistent uptime, you’ll be proving it.
If you’re interested in how IT Glue helps you create and manage incredible documentation, sign up for a demo today.
IT Glue™ is a proven, best practices-driven IT documentation platform packed with features designed to help you maximize the efficiency, transparency and consistency of your team. With so much of your business productivity lost each day in search of vital information, let IT Glue secure this information and start Freeing Minds™.
