I had an interesting question come up the other day on a Master Mind Group coaching call. That is, “How do you compete with commoditized” managed services offerings? Namely, Dell?
First off, managed services isn’t “commoditized” – yet. Sure everyone is jumping on the managed IT services bandwagon, but if you walk into your average prospect’s office and say, “wanna buy our managed services program,” you’ll get the deer in headlights look.
So, here’s a few things for all MSPs to chew on…
First, it’s VERY difficult to have a truly UNIQUE managed services offering, regardless of what you are including. And if you do have something that is unique, it’s only a matter of time before your competition gets wind and then creates a cheaper, faster, better, lower-fat version of it. So guess what folks…it really is going to come down to two things:
1. Those who provide a consistently BETTER service than their competition by actually following through on their promises, delighting their clients, and going the extra mile.
2. Those who simply promote themselves better (marketing).
And, the second is a product of the first…combine them (an amazing, comprehensive service delivered right with great marketing) and you’ve got a force to be reckoned with.
After all, if your managed services program is substandard, it’s only a matter of time before you get fired and your competition gets hired.
But let’s suppose you ARE as good even better than your competition at actually delivering the service. Now what?
How do you sift, sort and screen through the cheapskates, tire-kickers, and price shoppers and find the few “sweet spot’ clients who truly appreciate what your managed services program offers to them?
It’s marketing – but not in the traditional clever advertising you see everywhere. You need to use educational direct response marketing to make that magic happen. And, you have to use your marketing to become slightly famous.
Let me explain…
Think of Starbucks, Les Schwab Tires, Domino’s Pizza, or even the George Forman grill. All are COMMODITY products you can get anywhere. But what makes these companies more successful at selling their products while their direct competitors stand by with their heads hung discounting like crazy to generate business?
Better marketing.
It IS all about how they are packaged and promoted.
Les Schwab is selling the same rubber donuts that everyone else is offering – but if you pull into one of their service centers, the mechanics RUN out to your car…and they offer guarantees and services that other tire stores don’t (or won’t offer).
In Seattle there’s a fish monger at the Pike’s Place Market that ALWAYS has a crowd which other fish mongers at the same market, selling to the same clients, selling the exact same fish barely have a line to buy.
What makes this fish monger different? The guys working there sing, chant, and throw the fish when you buy. It’s famous for that and people come from all around to buy their fish there just to experience the WAY they service their customers.
So how do you translate this into your managed services offering? Well, you’ll have to tune in for future posts to find out…I simply cannot cover it all in one shot.
But I will promise you this: the magic is in the packaging and marketing of the service, NOT in the service itself.
Dedicated to your success,
Robin Robins
P.S. If you want to see case studies from other managed services providers who are really exploding their business at a rapid rate through better marketing, go to the web site below:
http://www.technologymarketingtoolkit.com/casestudy.php
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Friday, February 15, 2008
How To Instantly Get A Prospect Interested In Managed Services
People are stubborn creatures. You can present them with a perfectly good product or service that will, without a doubt, help improve their businesses, income, or life in some way and they’ll still ignore you.
Take managed services for example. If you are the owner of a small business without the luxury of having a competent, full-time IT person monitoring and maintaining the security and health of your network, it’s a no-brainer. Besides, the #1 complaint you’ll hear from most business owners is, “I don’t have enough time in the day.” That being the case, why would ANY business owner spend one minute of their time dealing with or tolerating computer problems when they can hire you to take that monkey off their back? It just doesn’t make sense. Time is money, right?
Plus, there isn’t a person alive today that hasn’t felt like smashing their computer with a hammer at some point. Possibly even on a weekly or daily basis. Psychologists have even come up with a term to describe the incredible levels of frustration people feel with their PCs: “computer rage.” What business owner likes to have more worries, more stress, or more problems to deal with? No one! That’s why they pay people to do their taxes, clean their office, process payroll, design their web sites, and so on.
So why isn’t anyone responding to your web site or other marketing campaigns about managed services? I bet I know…
Chances are you’re NOT communicating the RESULTS your managed services program will deliver in a clear, SPECIFIC, or deliberate way. Specificity is not only one of the fastest ways to grab and hold a prospect’s attention in advertising, but also to differentiate yourself from the competition. That’s because 99.9% of the advertisers and marketers in the world are very unclear and vague about what they can actually deliver to a prospect. And truth be told, many of them really can’t be specific as to why a prospect should buy from them because they aren’t delivering a product or service that is all that good in the first place.
Telling a prospect that you fix and support computers for small businesses is about as interesting as watching paint dry. Who cares? What’s so compelling about that? That's a statement, NOT a result.
Imagine your reaction to an accountant sending you a letter that simply started out with, “Dear Sir, I would like the opportunity to introduce our company to you. We do bookkeeping for small business owners in the city. We’ve been in business for 5 years and do our best to provide quality services to our clients…” Who cares?
Now if they started out the letter with...
“It’s a documented fact that one in four small business owners will be audited or in financial trouble with the IRS leading to $43,700 in penalties and interest. It’s also a documented fact that 94% of the small business owners who get nailed by the IRS invited the audit by making one of four common mistakes on their tax forms and reporting. Had they not made one of these tiny oversights, they would be practically “invisible” to the IRS auditors. What makes this even worse is that almost 100% of the mistakes are made by the CPAs and tax preparers these business owners hired to avoid IRS trouble in the first place! That’s why I’m writing you today. Since you are the IRS’s #1 target, I want to offer you a surefire way to avoid the most common tax and accounting mistakes that trigger IRS audits, penalties, and fines. My name is…”
Yes, it WAS a lot longer, but you can see how being specific AND focusing on the reader would instantly suck the prospect into your message and get them flat out excited to call your office. As my marketing mentor Dan Kennedy always says, a marketing message can never be too long, but it can be too boring.
So here’s what you need to remember when developing your marketing message to sell your managed services program:
#1. Sell RESULTS. Giving them 24-7 computer support for a flat, fixed fee is a FACT, not a result or even a benefit. Guarantee they will never have to deal with annoying, time-wasting computer problems ever again is a result. Promising that they will gain "complete peace of mind" that their computer network is safe from viruses, hackers, software corruption, hardware failures, etc. IS a benefit.
#2. Guarantee your service. Most business owners have more references to bad customer service, disappointments, and shoddy work from vendors than they have good experiences. Therefore, most buyers tend to expect the worst. That’s why so many people rely on referrals; they don’t trust the marketing and advertising that most people send out. But it’s not because they don’t trust marketing at all – it’s that the message is so vague, so general, and so NOT full of promises, guarantees, or benefits, they have no other choice but to assume you (or any other vendor for that matter) are just like “all the rest.”
After all, what do “fast” response times mean? What do “qualified” technicians mean? Words like honest, reliable, best, professional, and quality are weak adjectives that EVERYONE uses in their marketing; and they do it for one of two reasons:
Reason 1: They have absolutely nothing unique or special about their products and services so they use completely unspecific, unquantifiable terms to avoid having to reveal that fact. Here’s a tip: If you are struggling to write specific, quantifiable reasons as to why you are better than the competition, you probably aren’t and you need to work on your product or service first.
Reason 2: They are simply ignorant about what it takes to write great marketing communications or too lazy to figure it out. Either way, they deserve the fate reserved for those business owners who stubbornly or stupidly refuse to become great marketers: starvation.
Advertisers hide – even flat out lie -- with generalities. Take Papa John's tag line for example: “Better Ingredients, Better Pizza.” That is simply not a quantifiable or truthful statement. I know of at least two other pizza restaurants in my town alone that provide a far better product. As a national chain, how can they truthfully make that statement?
I cannot tell you what YOUR specific message needs to be for your managed services program. That has to be based on what your customers want, what your competition is failing to deliver on, and your own capabilities. BUT, I would strongly suggest that you invest some time into figuring this out if you have any hopes of developing a marketing message that actually WORKS.
For more information on this topic, and a free audio training program to answer the 7 most important questions about marketing managed services, go to:
http://www.managed-services-marketing.com/freecd/
Take managed services for example. If you are the owner of a small business without the luxury of having a competent, full-time IT person monitoring and maintaining the security and health of your network, it’s a no-brainer. Besides, the #1 complaint you’ll hear from most business owners is, “I don’t have enough time in the day.” That being the case, why would ANY business owner spend one minute of their time dealing with or tolerating computer problems when they can hire you to take that monkey off their back? It just doesn’t make sense. Time is money, right?
Plus, there isn’t a person alive today that hasn’t felt like smashing their computer with a hammer at some point. Possibly even on a weekly or daily basis. Psychologists have even come up with a term to describe the incredible levels of frustration people feel with their PCs: “computer rage.” What business owner likes to have more worries, more stress, or more problems to deal with? No one! That’s why they pay people to do their taxes, clean their office, process payroll, design their web sites, and so on.
So why isn’t anyone responding to your web site or other marketing campaigns about managed services? I bet I know…
Chances are you’re NOT communicating the RESULTS your managed services program will deliver in a clear, SPECIFIC, or deliberate way. Specificity is not only one of the fastest ways to grab and hold a prospect’s attention in advertising, but also to differentiate yourself from the competition. That’s because 99.9% of the advertisers and marketers in the world are very unclear and vague about what they can actually deliver to a prospect. And truth be told, many of them really can’t be specific as to why a prospect should buy from them because they aren’t delivering a product or service that is all that good in the first place.
Telling a prospect that you fix and support computers for small businesses is about as interesting as watching paint dry. Who cares? What’s so compelling about that? That's a statement, NOT a result.
Imagine your reaction to an accountant sending you a letter that simply started out with, “Dear Sir, I would like the opportunity to introduce our company to you. We do bookkeeping for small business owners in the city. We’ve been in business for 5 years and do our best to provide quality services to our clients…” Who cares?
Now if they started out the letter with...
“It’s a documented fact that one in four small business owners will be audited or in financial trouble with the IRS leading to $43,700 in penalties and interest. It’s also a documented fact that 94% of the small business owners who get nailed by the IRS invited the audit by making one of four common mistakes on their tax forms and reporting. Had they not made one of these tiny oversights, they would be practically “invisible” to the IRS auditors. What makes this even worse is that almost 100% of the mistakes are made by the CPAs and tax preparers these business owners hired to avoid IRS trouble in the first place! That’s why I’m writing you today. Since you are the IRS’s #1 target, I want to offer you a surefire way to avoid the most common tax and accounting mistakes that trigger IRS audits, penalties, and fines. My name is…”
Yes, it WAS a lot longer, but you can see how being specific AND focusing on the reader would instantly suck the prospect into your message and get them flat out excited to call your office. As my marketing mentor Dan Kennedy always says, a marketing message can never be too long, but it can be too boring.
So here’s what you need to remember when developing your marketing message to sell your managed services program:
#1. Sell RESULTS. Giving them 24-7 computer support for a flat, fixed fee is a FACT, not a result or even a benefit. Guarantee they will never have to deal with annoying, time-wasting computer problems ever again is a result. Promising that they will gain "complete peace of mind" that their computer network is safe from viruses, hackers, software corruption, hardware failures, etc. IS a benefit.
#2. Guarantee your service. Most business owners have more references to bad customer service, disappointments, and shoddy work from vendors than they have good experiences. Therefore, most buyers tend to expect the worst. That’s why so many people rely on referrals; they don’t trust the marketing and advertising that most people send out. But it’s not because they don’t trust marketing at all – it’s that the message is so vague, so general, and so NOT full of promises, guarantees, or benefits, they have no other choice but to assume you (or any other vendor for that matter) are just like “all the rest.”
After all, what do “fast” response times mean? What do “qualified” technicians mean? Words like honest, reliable, best, professional, and quality are weak adjectives that EVERYONE uses in their marketing; and they do it for one of two reasons:
Reason 1: They have absolutely nothing unique or special about their products and services so they use completely unspecific, unquantifiable terms to avoid having to reveal that fact. Here’s a tip: If you are struggling to write specific, quantifiable reasons as to why you are better than the competition, you probably aren’t and you need to work on your product or service first.
Reason 2: They are simply ignorant about what it takes to write great marketing communications or too lazy to figure it out. Either way, they deserve the fate reserved for those business owners who stubbornly or stupidly refuse to become great marketers: starvation.
Advertisers hide – even flat out lie -- with generalities. Take Papa John's tag line for example: “Better Ingredients, Better Pizza.” That is simply not a quantifiable or truthful statement. I know of at least two other pizza restaurants in my town alone that provide a far better product. As a national chain, how can they truthfully make that statement?
I cannot tell you what YOUR specific message needs to be for your managed services program. That has to be based on what your customers want, what your competition is failing to deliver on, and your own capabilities. BUT, I would strongly suggest that you invest some time into figuring this out if you have any hopes of developing a marketing message that actually WORKS.
For more information on this topic, and a free audio training program to answer the 7 most important questions about marketing managed services, go to:
http://www.managed-services-marketing.com/freecd/
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