A Monster Idea for Lead Generation
During a private roundtable at the Ingram Micro Seismic partner conference in Chicago, a managed service provider shared a rather intriguing approach to sales lead generation. Here it is.
The managed service provider uses Monster.com to identify businesses in his region that have open IT positions. Those online job advertisements, he noted, often list key business and platform requirements — and are basically cheat sheets for MSPs to quickly identify customer pain points.
Armed with that information, the MSP contacts the hiring company to see if he can help fill some IT voids until a full-time hires found. The approach provides a natural opportunity to discuss ongoing managed services as a potential alternative to making a full-time hire.
I think that the strategy is brilliant. It creates opportunities for both independent contractors and business. However, in some cases the contractor may really desire a full time job. Nonetheless, I think that this strategy enables both parties to gain a sense of fit.
I was telling my sales guys to do this almost 2 years ago!!! They laughed me off… Should have copyrighted the idea. haha
We’ve had mixed results with that approach. Some companies found it annoying that we were using their job posting as a potential sales opportunity. In our experience about 50% were open to it.
Amy Luby
http://www.mspsn.com
We also tried this approah with mixed results. It seems to work better for contractors than for mSP’s. Amy’s 50% is a generous number, from our experience.
Jim Van
http://www.logicomm-inc.com
We have utilized this approach with mixed results as well. Our top sales rep began with a truely novel approach, his local newspaper! Craigslist has also produced favorable returns as well on occasion. Creativity will always work wonders in our industry.