In this episode of MSP Founders Den, we discuss how to maximize getting and leveraging Marketing and Sales Support from your channel vendors as we explore the challenges we face in the Marketing and Sales Dept. of our IT Managed Service Provider (MSP) Business. We also share important lessons we have learned through our years on how to maximize the effectiveness of these resources.
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Marketing and Sales Support for MSP Business
One of the things that it's always top of mind when I talk to a lot of my MSP friends and partners, is their desire to continue to grow the company, and we always talk about some of the challenges that they have, so we've decided to create this the series of videos in order to share the information we have, whatever pains we've experienced, and hopefully, these are very helpful for you.
So we'll start by talking about some of the challenges that we see in a lot of the companies that we talk to: most MSPs don't have marketing staff.
The Marketing and Sales projects are always a challenge because those are the last people you hire as the business grows, but most MSPs don't hire sales or marketing staff until there are at least 10 employees on average. The owner is usually the one running the company in the beginning, they might still be an engineer or a technical resource within the company, and it's is also responsible for sales, marketing, billing, bookkeeping, paying taxes, going to the bank, you name it.
As an MSP, we all have spent a lot of time spinning our wheels and trying to come up with our own stuff, trying to come up with different ways to make sure that we have a lead generation engine running while still being able to do everything else.
Back in the days day, we struggle with that, and we even join a couple of marketing programs here and there, those failed because we simply didn't have the resource to even implement those.
So we're going to share here some lessons that we learned, and we do appreciate those who reach out after our previous video asking us to talk deeper on some of the ideas topics, you will find more info here.
I can't say that enough. A lot of them have already created materials and processes that can help you do some of that lead generation that you need done, you, we're working together to achieve a goal, which is to deliver a product to an end customer. So why not take advantage of some of those?
So let's talk about some of those things:
One that I like very much is the webinar, "Lunch and Learn in a Box". So essentially, you can work with your existing vendor, and it could be any of the vendors that you can set up a webinar with, and invite interested people. You can use your list, invite all of your prospects, invite all of the customers that you feel can take advantage of that upsell, that could take advantage of the proposed solution. Those that maybe have been dragging their feet on security and you know it's important for them, or those that have been dragging their feet on the latest and greatest backup and business continuity solution and invite them to that webinar.
And it's true they're hearing it from a third party, somebody that is an expert on the topic, but you're going to come in, and have the opportunity to invite them and use the hosting opportunity to moderate the conversation, so you'll get an opportunity to introduce yourself as one of the leading managed IT, service providers, in the area.
And this is what you do, you explain what you have to offer and explain what you do for your customers and how you are the central point, the connection for all of these tentacles, which are the different technologies that you're gonna bring to their business.
Another one is that a lot of the vendors have a lot of ready-to-go social media posts, email campaigns, so those are things that you can truly take advantage of.
Another way to improve your marketing strategy is to plan ahead and that while you're having those quarterly meetings with your customers discussing the status of their IT and looking at their next 90-days, one-year or two-year plan, bring in an expert, whether that's done over Zoom or GoToMeeting or that's done in person.
Bring in that expert that is going to essentially drive home the points that you've been trying to make about that business continuity plan, about the revamping their telecommunications, and so on, and that will basically have the expert deliver all the benefits and all the reasons why they need to take advantage of that service.
And that is my friends, taking more advantage of the marketing and sales support from your channel vendors.
I hope this blog post and video have been beneficial for your MSP journey, there's more content to come.
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