Welcome to week two in our eight week series on pitching multiple points of entry for Managed Services!  Thanks to those of you who have signed up for our newsletter – you’ll find some extra content included.  There is a form here that you can use to contact us if you would like to be added to our list.  We telephone verify all subscribers to remain CASL compliant — and to ideally learn more about the type of content you’d like to see posted here!  So bring us your sales questions, and we’ll try to address them!

This week, we’re pitching the Office Manager.

Those of you who think an office manager doesn’t have decision making authority either don’t have an office manager, or aren’t using your office manager’s time correctly.  I pulled this office manager job description off of a job board:

An office manager role usually consists of the following tasks:

  • using a range of office software, including email, spreadsheets and databases; 
  • managing filing systems;
  • depending on the organisation, duties of the role may extend to the management of social media;
  • developing and implementing new administrative systems, such as record management;
  • recording office expenditure and managing the budget;
  • organizing the office layout and maintaining supplies of stationery and equipment;
  • maintaining the condition of the office and arranging for necessary repairs;
  • organizing and chairing meetings with your staff . In lower paid roles this may include typing the agenda and taking minutes. The senior managers usually have an administrative assistant to do this;
  • overseeing the recruitment of new staff, sometimes including training and induction;
  • ensuring adequate staff levels to cover for absences and peaks in workload, often by using temping agencies;
  • carrying out staff appraisals, managing performance and disciplining staff;
  • delegating work to staff and managing their workload and output;
  • promoting staff development and training;
  • implementing and promoting equality and diversity policy;
  • writing reports for senior management and delivering presentations;
  • responding to customer enquiries and complaints;
  • reviewing and updating health and safety policies and ensuring they are observed;
  • arranging regular testing for electrical equipment and safety devices;
  • attending conferences and training.

Assuming an Office Manager at any size company does even half of these items, you can’t tell me for a minute that their opinion doesn’t hold weight with the office.  The Office Manager, more than anyone else in that organization, will have day to day contact with most of the other “decision makers” in the company, and will have the most accurate overview of how one change might affect all other systems or processes in the company.

Many Office Managers are frustrated about the percentage of their time that they feel is “wasted” on a day to day basis.   Your goal when pitching this role on managed services will be demonstrating first how it’s going to change their week personally – freeing up time for them to do things that “really matter” to them, and to their company.   The Office Manager, more than most people in the company, will understand what areas of the company are “broken”, and IT is no exception.

They will likely be the point of contact in a first point of contact IT contract, or the person who gets the call when something breaks.  They may even be the person who troubleshoots basic issues prior to contacting the break/fix service provider.  And if a company has an in-house IT department, the Office Manager will know how effective they are, or are not.  They are definitely the person who sets up new employees, and the person who requisitions any new hardware or software licenses.

Our strategy for pitching  is quite simple.  There is no different pitch for the under or over 20 seat space.

First, tell them who you are and then ask a very open ended discussion question.

“It’s Joe from ABC computers in Atlanta.  We work with (types of companies) in the Atlanta area to help them streamline their business processes using technology.  I’d like to take a few minutes to chat about anything you find especially frustrating, to see if we can suggest something that we might be able to easily improve using the right technology.  What’s the first thing that comes to mind?”

Responses here will range widely.

If they immediately identify an area that is frustrating them, you should tailor your initial response to a solution to that problem – ideally one that doesn’t require a whole lot of moving parts – and ask for a meeting to further discuss that solution.   You’ll have the opportunity to pitch managed services at the meeting, but your foot in the door should be a suggestion with a moderate price tag attached and an easier implementation.  You can ask at this juncture who else would participate in that discussion so you can send them an outlook invite, but make sure you don’t ask that question in a way that indicates you think they don’t have the authority to make the decision.  Not knowing the personality at play, that could very well shut down any chance you had of getting in the door.

If their response is a very defensive “Everything is fine”, this is probably not a great time to pitch this person.  Ask if you can send them some information about a few different services and some case studies for other companies you work with, and then ask permission to call them again in a few weeks.

If they are amenable to receiving the information and a call back, attempt to get a calendared meeting with them in two weeks time.  Sometimes the “Everything is fine” objection means “I’m having a lousy day”. Sometimes it can mean “I don’t have time for this right now”.  With a vague all-solutions conversation opener like the one we have introduced here, the “everything is fine” objection holds no real water at all – it’s a catch-all blow-off.  If they don’t keep the meeting, or won’t take your follow-up calls, you can simply add them to a drip campaign and move on to the next contact.

If the response is a thoughtful “I’m not sure” or something similar, this is a great time to suggest some of the things that your clients have achieved after implementing managed services.  The more case studies that you can lead people towards the better.  You also have the chance now to ask for a longer meeting. To be able to go through a needs assessment with this contact to identify ways you could help them.  As opposed to the “pitch one idea when they have one clearly identified pain point” approach. This approach assumes that you’re going to help them find the pain, and then propose a few ways that you will make it go away.  You become the trusted expert and consultant in this selling process.  Once you have had the exploratory meeting, you can begin discussing who else in the organization needs to be included.

You’ll note at this level we don’t really specifically mention “managed IT services”.    The discussions are about finding problems you can fix, and not about what specifically you will use to fix them.  Talk too much IT and you’re going to get bumped to IT or immediately dismissed as “something we already have”.

Resist the temptation to go above this contact before you’ve exhausted every opportunity to win them over.  You’re not walking in to the first meeting with a pen and a contract. You don’t even know if YOU want the business at this early stage.  Why not meet first with someone who has the real skinny on how things really work at this company?  The Office Manager will know all the politics at play, the budget and the actual time it takes to get any decisions made at the company. They will be the person whose life is most improved when better technology choices get made.  Recruit the Office Manager to make your sale for you.  When the Office Manager goes to the President with an idea, it gets considered.  When the President comes to the Office Manager with an idea, it gets put out to tender.

Next week, we’re pitching the Controller.  Thanks for reading, and Happy Selling!