One of the most commonly asked questions I see on social media is, “How do you grow your MSP in 2021?” And there is some agreement that this is more difficult today than ever before because people are working from home and it’s harder to get them on the phone or knock on an office door.
Let’s address that second part first – Is it more difficult to grow your MSP today than it was pre-COVID-19? I don’t think there is enough information available to be sure, but I would point out that it doesn’t matter…Many MSPs struggle at new client acquisition when clients and prospects were open! They made it harder on themselves then it needed to be by having zero sales process and using irregular bursts of some combination of marketing:
- Social media
- Pay Per Click / Paid advertising
- Local trade shows
- Chamber of commerce events
- Referral groups(BNI, etc)
- Cold calling
- Referrals
Often even referrals are lost because the sales process that followed the referral was somewhere between flying by the seat of their pants and a disorganized and inconsistent process. Need proof? There are entire groups on Facebook dedicated to sales and marketing in the MSP space with hundreds of posts in each group where someone is asking how to close new business.
The pandemic has been very good at pointing out the things we just weren’t doing well as an industry. If you are just getting off the ground in a new MSP, do yourself a favor and avoid some of the missteps that the industry just doesn’t seem to be able to shake. If you’re running an existing MSP, the pivot will be more difficult, but will likely be fruitful in the long run. Your niche doesn’t need to be the same as others, and neither does your differentiator, but you should be trying to identify the processes and procedures that cause friction between you and your clients and solving for them.
Then let’s see how those processes – one in particular – can help in 3 areas of opportunity. Those areas are:
- New sales
- Upsells
- Referrals
That one process that can help increase sales in all three areas is your business review process. Your vCIO process. QBRs, SBRs, TBRs, whatever you may call them, dialing in that process really refines (or defines) your sales process. Done right, it already is your upsell process. If you want to see how sales and business processes work together, read this article on how QBRs hit every part of your sales cycle/customer journey.
If the struggle you are having is defining, refining or scaling that process, we can help. Lifecycle Insights is not just built to automate the process. Our entire team is dedicated to helping you grow your business. Give our 30 day free trial a shot. We will work as hard as you do to make your QBR process a successful part of your growth in 2021.
