The bad news? I wasn’t able to record yesterday’s FANTASTIC webinar with Stuart. The good news? That means he’s agreed to join us again soon! If you didn’t catch yesterday’s webinar, be sure to register for the next one! You can register for any of our upcoming webinars at www.managedsalespros.com/tuesday-talking-points/
As promised, Stuart and I had a lively and casual conversation about his MSP, Ulistic, where the MSP industry is heading, and sales and marketing. I’ve pulled out a few of the key points here.
- The single biggest thing Stuart did to drive business for his MSP was network. Not only did he attend his local chamber of commerce events, he volunteered as an Ambassador and got involved in every event in some way. He contributed his time doing things like hanging up coats before major events and this lead to some solid relationships in his community, and access to important community influencers.
- Instead of relying on networking groups that required him to pay for participation, Stuart reached out to companies he knew had a similar prospect profile and created his own lunch group. Starting small, this group grew quickly and led to a tightly-knit group of people trading referrals weekly. The price tag? $25.00 for lunch once a week. This group is one of the things that helped Stuart grow his revenue over 1MM in a single year.
- Business owners can not be reliant on passive referral relationships. Reach out to your happy clients and solicit referrals and testimonials from them.
- If you are making an investment in marketing, you need to be answering your phone live — if you can’t do it, find a good answering service (Managed Sales Pros can help you here!).
- A website isn’t a marketing tool all on its’ own. Without marketing your website is the equivalent of a brochure sitting on a table somewhere.
- The average marketing spend for MSPs is $30,000.000 annually.
- And the biggest point? If you’re just starting out, don’t sell managed services. Sell the virtual CIO/CTO relationship and let someone else take care of the moving parts. I liked this idea so much I’ll probably find a partner and start doing it tomorrow, so hurry hurry scurry scurry.
Thank you Stuart for being our first guest, we look forward to seeing you in Savannah in a couple of weeks for your High Performance Peer Group Meetings!
Next week on Tuesday Talking Points, join us as we discuss Standard Operating Procedures for MSPs — specifically as they pertain to on-boarding, retaining and renewing MSP clients.