Let me read this article to you
This one doesn't apply to brand new businesses. But it's perfect for MSPs that have been around a few years.
Because there's a sentence I hear at least once a week from the MSP owners I'm working with.
"Oh yeah. We used to do that. But we stopped it for some reason".
Quite often the "some reason" is no real reason at all. As in, no-one made a decision to stop it. It just stopped. Perhaps someone went on holiday. Maybe it just never started again after a long weekend. But it stopped.
This happens across the board in every area of the business. It can happen with the way tickets are handled. Or how client information is logged.
Quite often, it happens with sales and marketing processes.
One of my MSPs said to me a few weeks ago:
"Oh yeah. We used to send out case studies to prospects before we met with them. But we stopped it for some reason."
We then had a long conversation about how sending those case studies in advance of a meeting show that the business is safe. This is social proof - most people prefer to do what they can see most other people are doing.
And if the prospect perceives the business is safe before meeting with the sales guy, the sales conversion rate and overall order value will go up.
Even if it's a tiny shift upwards, that adds up to a lot of additional net profit over one year; 3 years; 5 years.
The headline of this article promised you the perfect sales promotion, that's guaranteed to work. Let me tell you what it is
It's something that you did in the past that worked really well. And then you either never repeated it; or it became routine... and it just stopped.
And then no-one ever picked up that it had stopped, so it never started again.
Actually, it's probably not one thing. It's probably a series of things. That all work together to give you overall a better result.
Here's an example. In my last business, we identified five key actions that had to happen before a sales meeting, in order to give us a 2 in 3 close rate.
They were to ensure that we had:
- Qualified our prospect properly
- Fully engaged with them at an emotional level
- Made sure they had absorbed social proof
- Locked off enough of their time for the appointment, etc etc.
These five key actions were the difference between a 1 in 3, and a 2 in 3 close rate. That's a major impact on net profits from small actions.
So I systemised the implementation of them. And built a warning system (a results dashboard) to tell me when something had broken down.
At the time, we used to post out DVDs of social proof to prospects. My admin lady ran out of them, and didn't tell anyone. Who knows why. She just carried on posting out appointment confirmation letters without the DVDs.
I noticed within a few weeks, as my dashboard showed our overall conversion rate had slipped. That was my cue to follow the system through and diagnose what was broken.
20 minutes and one bollocking later, there was an order for 100 more DVDs send to the DVD printer people.
Here's your opportunity, then
1) Spend a few hours looking back over old promotions, strategies and tactics.
- What did you used to do that worked really well?
- What did you try once that was a hit, but has never been repeated?
- What are the small actions in your MSP that have the greatest impact on net profitability?
2) Bring them back. Implement them
3) Then build a warning system that tells you the next time they fall over
