One of my favorite business and marketing gurus is Dan Kennedy. He suggests that every business – including MSPs – is at risk of having a “Sales Prevention Department” working within the company, doing everything it can to prevent you from actually doing business with more customers.
Does your managed services business have a Sales Prevention Department? I think we all do in one degree or another, and it would be smart for every MSP to take a look at their sales and service processes to find where you are slipping up.
I have a few examples from other industries recently that might illustrate some opportunities to improve at your business:
- Call centers that don’t pick up the phone! Everon is in the process of selecting a new call center to help us with a new service we are rolling out, and I have contacted about 15 to get quotes. At least half don’t even pick up their own phone! Of the half that do, at least half again didn’t call me back when I asked them to. Are you kidding me?! The Sales Prevention Department strikes again!
- Salespeople that call you “Big guy” in the first 30 seconds of speaking with them. I’m not kidding. I called a company recently with every intention of buying from them, but was absolutely rejected by the completely clueless salesperson I had to deal with. He called me “Big guy” in the first 30 seconds of our conversation. I was so turned off by this and other things that I bought from someone else.
- Gatekeepers that take too much pride in their work. Again, I was contacting a fellow small business with 100% intention on buying from them, and called the owner to introduce myself. He is a grad of the Babson MBA program, as am I, and I wanted to make a personal connection. The gatekeeper took so much pride in her work that she refused to connect me to him. I guarantee you the owner would fire her if he knew she was pursuing her role with such fervor.
- Employees that rob from the company till. I’m not referring to outright theft here, but the kind of robbery that I think has a much larger impact on our economy – salespeople that don’t sell because of their own personal fears or biases. I happen to be a water snob and entered a gift shop at the airport to buy some bottled water. The clerk saw me looking at the choices and pointed me to the cheapest bottled water because “buying the expensive water is such a ripoff”. I then grabbed the most expensive bottle and proceeded to buy hit while he looked at me like a fool. This same scenario is happening in every company in America; salespeople unwilling to sell the most expensive option because of their own personal biases – robbing from the profits of the business.
All of these are examples of the Sales Prevention Department at work. I’ve recently been made aware of a few examples at Everon and Kutenda, and I’m doing my best to exterminate them! Take a hard look at your business and you are sure to find some as well.
Let me know if you find some good ones that are worth sharing!
MRC
