https://www.channelfutures.com/wp-content/themes/channelfutures_child/assets/images/logo/footer-logo.png
  • Home
  • Technologies
    • Back
    • Analytics
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • Cloud
    • Data Centers
    • Desktop
    • IoT
    • Mobility
    • Networking
    • Open Source
    • RMM/PSA
    • Security
    • Virtualization
    • Voice/Connectivity
  • Strategy
    • Back
    • Best Practices
    • Business Models
    • Channel 101
    • Channel Programs
    • Channel Research
    • Digital Transformation
    • EMEA
    • Leadership
    • Mergers and Acquisitions
    • Sales & Marketing
    • Specialty Practices
  • MSSP Insider
    • Back
    • Business of Security
    • Cloud and Edge
    • Endpoint
    • Network
    • People and Careers
    • Training and Policies
  • MSP 501
    • Back
    • 501 Reports
    • MSPmentor Education
  • Intelligence
    • Back
    • Our Sponsors
    • From the Industry
    • Content Resources
    • Galleries
    • Podcasts
    • Reports
    • Videos
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
  • Awards
    • Back
    • European Partners 51 (EP 51) Awards
    • Excellence in Digital Services
    • MSP 501 Rankings
    • Top Gun 51
  • Events
    • Back
    • CP Conference & Expo
    • Channel Partners Evolution
    • Channel Evolution Europe
    • Industry Events
    • Webinars
  • More
    • Back
    • About Us
    • Advertise on Channel Futures
    • Contact Us
Channel Futures
  • NEWSLETTER
  • Home
  • Technologies
    • Back
    • Analytics
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • Cloud
    • Data Centers
    • Desktop
    • IoT
    • Mobility
    • Networking
    • Open Source
    • RMM/PSA
    • Security
    • Virtualization
    • Voice/Connectivity
  • Strategy
    • Back
    • Best Practices
    • Business Models
    • Channel 101
    • Channel Programs
    • Channel Research
    • Digital Transformation
    • EMEA
    • Leadership
    • Mergers and Acquisitions
    • Sales & Marketing
    • Specialty Practices
  • MSSP Insider
    • Back
    • Business of Security
    • Cloud and Edge
    • Endpoint
    • Network
    • People and Careers
    • Training and Policies
  • MSP 501
    • Back
    • 501 Reports
    • MSPmentor Education
  • Intelligence
    • Back
    • Our Sponsors
    • From the Industry
    • Content Resources
    • Galleries
    • Podcasts
    • Reports
    • Videos
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
  • Awards
    • Back
    • European Partners 51 (EP 51) Awards
    • Excellence in Digital Services
    • MSP 501 Rankings
    • Top Gun 51
  • Events
    • Back
    • CP Conference & Expo
    • Channel Partners Evolution
    • Channel Evolution Europe
    • Industry Events
    • Webinars
  • More
    • Back
    • About Us
    • Advertise on Channel Futures
    • Contact Us
    • Newsletter
  • REGISTER
  • MSPs
  • VARs / SIs
  • Digital Service Providers
  • Cloud Service Providers
  • CHANNEL PARTNERS ONLINE
 Channel Futures

Sales & Marketing


How to Target the Right Managed Services Customers

  • Written by Paul Barnett 1
  • August 20, 2010
A vital component of building your managed services sales and marketing strategy is defining your ideal customers. Most small VARs and MSPs fail to do this and

A vital component of building your managed services sales and marketing strategy is defining your ideal customers. Most small VARs and MSPs fail to do this and it’s a critical mistake. They try to be all things to all customers. They do break fix work, managed services, deal low-budget customers, high-budget customers, end-users, and businesses of all sizes and shapes and verticals. It’s time to simplify. Here’s how.

Here’s where the danger starts: “If the customer is willing to pay, let’s sign them up. Money is money. “

If that sounds like you, you are walking into trap that is difficult to get out of.

When you try to be all things to all customers, it blurs your business focus. I can guarantee if you take this approach, your business will have difficulty growing at some point because of it.  It is impossible to effectively target your sales and marketing when you have no idea who your ideal client is. Your sales team cannot pre-qualify and go after the right clients that make the wheels of your business turn. Your marketing strategy cannot be honed in when you don’t even know who you want to market to.

Food for Thought

The key to having great service delivery is building a repeatable and predictable process that can be duplicated by any trained and qualified employee. All great business organizations have fixed methodology for service delivery. For example: you can go to any McDonald’s in the world and get the same Big Mac with roughly the same type of service delivery. It doesn’t matter who is making the burger or where you are at when you buy it, the results are the same.

In the IT service industry, the methods and process we use to support end-users, break/fix, and managed services clients all differ. When you try to provide service to all of them, you never pin down a repeatable process or a level of predictability that customers demand and you need to grow your business.

Now imagine McDonald’s trying to house their fast food business, a Ruby Tuesdays, and a Morton’s Steak House all under one roof. It would be impossible to train the staff, make the meals, deliver service, and please the customers effectively. This sounds a little silly doesn’t it? But, it’s the same thing you are doing when you try to be all things to all customers. This is why this strategy ultimately fails.

Simple Solution

Finding the right customer depends on your delivery strategy. Define your product and then look for the client who buys that product.

I like Gary Pica’s take on this. Pica, founder of TruMethods, says the right customers are “the right businesses who will pay the right amount of money for your services.”

To me, this sums it up. Find a target market, figure out what kind of prospect brings you the profit you need to make, and go after it. Make a profile of this ideal company. Define how many employees they have, what their verticals are, how much revenue they have, and where they are located. Once you have this figured out, attack the market with purpose. Don’t deviate from you profile of the ideal client.

Remember, it is just as important to say no to the wrong prospect as it is to say yes to the right one.

Paul Barnett is marketing director for VirtualAdministrator, which offers hosted solutions for managed service providers. Read all of Paul’s guest blogs here. Guest blog entries such as this one are contributed on a monthly basis as part of MSPmentor’s 2010 Platinum sponsorship.


Tags: Cloud Service Providers Digital Service Providers MSPs VARs/SIs From the Industry Sales & Marketing MSPmentor Blog

Related


  • Why Autonomy Wins
    There are three types of MSPs today. There is nothing wrong with any of them, and not everyone fits within this scope. However, regardless of strategy, there is one thing in common across all three: Things are changing, and their focus is not on the end user.
  • The Golden Opportunity for MSPs: Growth of Ransomware
    With ransomware on the rise and with the recent WannaCry attack worldwide, MSPs have a real opportunity to not only protect their customers' data, but also gain profit while increasing their margins by offering cloud backup--the best defense against ransomware.
  • MSPs, You're Paying Too Much for Bare-Metal Backup
    Let’s face it: As an MSP, you want to increase your margins. One place where there is a huge opportunity to grow revenue and provide more value to customers is within the cloud backup market--especially as more customers have more data and more computers, from PCs to Macs to servers. It all needs to be protected, and if you have clients requiring bare-metal recovery, you are reading the right blog.
  • Benefiting from a Unified IT Business Management Platform
    IT Service Providers (ITSPs) and Managed Service Providers (MSPs) are on a constant quest to boost efficiencies and cut operational costs while driving recurring revenue and increasing profitability. But achieving these goals can be a serious challenge when you do not have the right solutions in place, or your team has to move back and forth between disparate solutions to run the business and deliver managed and cloud services to clients.

6 comments

  1. Avatar Bob Penland August 20, 2010 @ 3:09 pm
    Reply

    Great blog post Paul!

  2. Avatar Neil Jones August 20, 2010 @ 9:49 pm
    Reply

    Nice work indeed Paul. It takes a lot of nerve to turn down a potential customer. However, once you start and get over the thought process that you’re throwing money away, it gets easier and produces better results for your company.

    Neil Jones
    Live Virtual Help Desk

  3. Avatar George Sierchio August 23, 2010 @ 1:23 pm
    Reply

    Excellent points, Paul. This is one of the most difficult issues I often have to get to sink in with some clients. Especially with those who have made taking on anyone and for a significant variety of types of services into a bad habit for years.

    This makes it difficult to deliver consistent quality in service, which in turn makes it hard to hire quality technical service people and retain them. And it also leaves real money sitting on the table while taking care of barely profitable, time consuming clients that are all over the map.

    The longer in business like this, the harder it is to wrap around the owner’s head how much it hurts them and the company as a whole and thus extremely difficult to work towards the necessary changes.

    George Sierchio
    The Consultant’s Coach

  4. Avatar Paul Barnett August 23, 2010 @ 2:18 pm
    Reply

    George,

    You are right on the money with your assessment.

    By taking on any and all comers you paint your business into a corner that is very difficult to get out of. Hiring, service delivery, marketing strategy, sales approach all become impossible to pin down. It’s like trying to nail jello to the wall.

    Paul Barnett
    Virtual Administrator

  5. Avatar Mike Byrne August 23, 2010 @ 3:51 pm
    Reply

    I couldn’t agree more. I would also add that MSP’s would benefit from conducting their target market analysis/profiling PRIOR to actually building out their services. This goes a long way to ensuring the solutions you create, alien properly to the needs of the target prospects.

    I would also add that by conducting a business/technical assessment on the front end of your sales process helps bridge the business amp; technical divide that sometimes exists between MSP’s amp; their clients. It also provides you with an opportunity to customize your solution.

    Mike Byrne

    Quest Software (PacketTrap)

  6. Avatar Paul Barnett August 23, 2010 @ 5:32 pm
    Reply

    Mike,

    You are spot on.

    There is no way you can hone in your marketing, sales approach, and service delivery if you have no idea who your ideal client is first. Identifying your ideal client upfront will go a long way in bringing clarity and focus to your business plan.

    Paul Barnett
    Virtual Administrator

Leave a Reply to Paul Barnett Cancel reply

-or-

Log in with your Channel Futures account

Alternatively, post a comment by completing the form below:

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Content

  • What's Ahead for the Cloud & IT in 2017
  • Phishing Trends for MSPs to Watch-Part I
  • Should You Become an MSSP?
  • PSAs and Strategic Growth for MSPs: Top 5 Myths Debunked

Galleries

Images: Channel Evolution Europe Featuring Avant, 8×8, Sophos, CenturyLink, More

December 5, 2019
view all

From the Industry

The Importance of Strengthening Your Cyber Security Culture

December 4, 2019

Don’t Let Lack of HIPAA Compliance Make Your Business Sick

December 4, 2019

Using ADR to Help Secure Your Business First

December 4, 2019
view all

Webinars

Edge of Tomorrow: Network Security in the Age of Data-Driven Business

December 11, 2019

Why Business Value Should Be Your First Concern and How to Create More of It

December 12, 2019
view all

White Papers

Secrets to Sustainable Growth – for MSPs, by MSPs

December 4, 2019

Why Managed Security Presents A Golden Opportunity for MSPs

November 26, 2019

The Ultimate Guide to On-Site Managed Services

November 26, 2019
view all

Events

Channel Partners Conference & Expo

March 9, 2020 - March 12, 2020
view all

Videos

FASTCHAT: Why an MSP Needs to Extend Detection and Response Beyond Endpoint Security

October 22, 2019

Ingram Micro: It’s Up to Our MSP Partners to Keep Clients ‘Out of the Headlines’

October 14, 2019

Liongard: Here’s How We ‘Roar’ for the MSP Community

October 14, 2019
view all

Twitter

ChannelFutures

Understand the limitations of #NoSQL database storage, including drawbacks in security, data consistency, and lack… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

December 10, 2019
ChannelFutures

bit.ly/348Y25i twitter.com/Craig_Galbrait…

December 10, 2019
ChannelFutures

A successful sales strategy leads to a profitable #MSP. Learn how to build sales expertise, select and train staff,… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

December 10, 2019
ChannelFutures

With so many avenues to reach out to your prospective and current customer base, it's important that your company g… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

December 10, 2019
ChannelFutures

.@HPE hires former #Microsoft exec Keith White to lead #GreenLake business unit. dlvr.it/RKywnr

December 9, 2019
ChannelFutures

.@HP shareholders receive direct pitch on @Xerox acquisition. #printers dlvr.it/RKyh9d

December 9, 2019
ChannelFutures

#KeeperMSP - increase revenue and security with #passwordmanagement as a service. @keepsecurity dlvr.it/RKyh9Z

December 9, 2019
ChannelFutures

Suzanne Swanson, @Trustwave global channel VP, talks about #infosec and #cybersecurity as a #TopGun51 winner.… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

December 9, 2019

MSSP Insider

Newsletters and Updates

Sign up for The Channel Report, Channel Futures Update, MSP 501 Newsletter and more.

Live Channel Events

Get the latest information on the next industry-leading Channel Partners event.

Channel Partners Online

Want more? Find more channel news and analysis on our sister site, Channel Partners.

Media Kit And Advertising

Want to reach our audience? Access our media kit

DISCOVER MORE FROM INFORMA TECH

  • Channel Partners Online
  • Channel Partners Events
  • MSP 501
  • MSSP Insider
  • IoT World Today
  • Webhostingtalk

WORKING WITH US

  • Contact
  • About us
  • Advertise
  • Newsletter

FOLLOW Channel Futures ON SOCIAL

  • Cookie Policy
  • Privacy
  • Terms
Copyright ©2019 Informa PLC. Informa Telecoms & Media Limited is a company registered in England and Wales with company number 00991704 whose registered office is 5 Howick Place, London, SW1P 1WG. VAT GB365462636. Informa Telecoms & Media Limited is part of Informa PLC.
✕

channel futures Logo

Want to stay updated? Sign up for our Channel Futures newsletters today.

Websites are now required by law to gain your consent before applying cookies. We use cookies to improve your browsing experience. Parts of the website may not work as expected without them. By closing or ignoring this message, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
X