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:

1. 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!
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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

Managed services

That’s a pretty frightening stat for managed service providers to read!  According to a very interesting report I just read, only 33% of clients are loyal to their IT service provider and don’t plan on looking for alternatives in 2010.  Ouch!

The report is titled Deal or No Deal: Sales Mistakes that Turn Buyers Away.

It’s a must read for MSPs and anyone selling professional services.

The good news is that means that any MSP with their sales game in high gear has a lot of potential clients out there – you just need to hustle to reach them.

MRC

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… Rank: wait… Traffic: wait… Price: wait… C: wait…

I am a big fan of the late, great Billy Mays.  I really enjoyed watching his infomercials and the way he seemed to approach everything with passion and high-intensity.

But until he died, I never really slowed down long enough to think about why I found his infomercials so entertaining, nor did I realize just how good he was at what he did.

Billy learned the art of the pitch while working on the boardwalk at Atlantic City, hawking kitchen products to the passersby on the street.  If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.

And he did.

Billy took his art of the pitch, worked tirelessly to perfect it, and brought it to much larger audiences on tv, making himself a fortune in the process.

To most people, I think he was probably just a hyper guy with a really booming voice.  But when you looked closer, you realized that everything he was doing was done with absolute precision; everything focused on making the cash register ring.

Every managed service provider can learn something from Billy Mays -whether it’s advanced sales techniques or the importance of being passionately dedicated to being the best at what you do.

Rich Shefren, CEO of Strategic Profits, wrote what I believe to be a fantastic tribute to Billy Mays and a very insightful study of the sales techniques he used so successfully.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

MRC

I’m a big fan of Mark Fitzgerald, a Sandler Sales Trainer based in Tampa, Florida.  I first met him at one of the Connectwise Summits and was mesmerized by his command of the strategies, tactics, and philosophies of sales.  I read his newsletter; you should to (I’m not sure how to sign up for it other than emailing Mark at mark@saleskills.com.

Here is a recent essay from him on the economies impact on the sales cycle.  Thanks for keepin’ it real, Mark!

The world is the way the world is. The stories change to protect the innocent. That is, we like to embrace stories that shield us from the not so comforting instantiation of reality in all its nakedness. Social beings that we are, we conspire in group-licensed narrative. Nodding, repeating the mantra we commune. It would be amusing save that it’s become so tiresome.

I like a good story as much as the next guy. When I was a kid my mother used to read to me. I fancied Winnie the Pooh and the L. Frank Baum books (of which most people know only the Wizard of Oz). In those days I could happily enjoy the exact same tale again and again. Indeed, I insisted on it. I’m sure now that it must have driven my mother crazy. She never let on. “Mothers are like that… yeah they are” (Bayer aspirin commercial circa 1963).

Fast forward to 2009. I’m no longer so easily amused. I still like stories but my brain now craves variety. Additionally, my “willing suspension of disbelieve” has atrophied somewhat since childhood. Being a salesperson has sharpened my sense of familiarity. That is, I not only recognize when I’ve heard a story before, but I also hear it for the falsehood that it so often is. What surprises me is how many people who should know better don’t.

Here’s the current best seller. “The economy has people scared and they’re afraid to make a decision.” The evidence for this is one or another statement made by prospects that sound like these:

We’re going to look around a little more.

That sounds good. Let us get back to you.

We like your solution the best of any we’ve seen. Just give us a little time to get things together.

Call me next week.

Story of the year: The prospects above are having trouble making decisions.  Reality: they already made a decision and it’s “No”. “No” with packaging for the consumption of the salesperson is still “No”.

Earth to salespeople: It’s no harder to get people to make decisions than it ever was. In a time when people have less money (we are in such a time), fewer will buy and we’ll have to prospect more to find the ones who will. The story about people having a hard time making decisions might make salespeople feel better, but it won’t make you any richer.

People have a lot of ways to say “No”.

And that’s the way the world is.

Earl Nightingale said that.  Smart guy.

I just read it in a presentation given by  Jonathan Warrey, IT Sales Manager at Marco, at the recent HTG Summit in Dallas.  He gave a good presentation on what it takes to build a good sales team, and the different salesperson personality types you should be able to identify in your interviews.

The lesson, whether you are applying it to salespeople or anybody else, is that the most successful people take full accountability for the results they get in life.

This is a particularly important lesson to remember when the economy sucks.  It’s very easy to crawl under the blanket and suck your thumb when times are tough, but that won’t do you any good.

As I said in our annual meeting in Boston last week, we have enough managed services business opportunity within a mile of our office to double our business in the next year; all we have to do is go get it.  I’m not saying it is easy, but it is out there – bad economy or not.

Take a hard look at the key people on your team.  Do they believe in Mr. Nightingale’s lesson?  If not, you don’t want them around.

Then, even more important, take a hard look at yourself.  Are you being accountable for the results you get in your life?  In  your business?

It’s a question worth asking yourself every month or so to keep you on track!

MRC