Friday, March 21, 2008

Naming Your Managed Services Offering

Here's a really quick, but very important marketing tip for your managed services offering...

Give it a good name.

A big mistake a lot of MSPs make is calling their managed services program "managed services." That's akin to a bottled water company labeling their product "bottled water."

Instead, name it something like the "Ultimate Computer Care" plan or "Effortless IT" or the "Peace of Mind for Your PC" plan. Don't just call it the generic name for what you do.

After all, you want to brand your service with your name...not give it a generic name that everyone else uses. Not only is it boring and unexciting, but naming it "managed services" instantly catagorizes you as just another MSP, or as a "no-frills" provider of managed IT services.

Just look at all the major brands in the supermarket. Wheat flakes are "Wheaties, The Breakfast of Champions." Bottled water is "Dasani" or "Penta" or "Aquafina." Colgate, Crest, and Rembrant don't name their products "toothpaste." The only company that does that is usually the no-frills, cheap supermarket brand.

Bottom line, if you want to differentiate your services from the competition, start with a good name.



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Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Are You Neglecting This Critical Success Factor In Your Managed Services Marketing Campaigns?

If you are struggling to sell more managed services – or if you want to get in the game and start promoting managed services to your clients – listen up.

I’m consistently seeing one big mistake being made over and over again by computer consultants trying to sell managed services that is killing any chance they have of successfully convincing new (and existing!) customers to sign on the dotted line.

Plus, it’s not a mistake that is obvious to most like the omission of a headline, offer, urgency, or testimonials. I suppose that is why so many people are omitting it from their marketing campaigns.

What is it? Talking about the actual service (features) INSTEAD of the results (benefits). Yes, I know you've been told this a million times...sell benefits not features. So why are the vast majority violating this rule?

Let me shed some light...

First off, the only reason people buy anything is purely for self-serving reasons. They don’t buy stuff because they should, because it’s the right thing to do, the smart thing to do, or because they really need it. If that were the case, we’d all buy (and eat) healthy food, take our vitamins, adequately invest our money for retirement, and kick a very long list of bad habits that keep us sick, broke, and fat.

Do you know why most people go to the dentist to have their teeth cleaned? The primary motivator is NOT to be healthy or to prevent tooth decay. Those are the logical reasons. People are primarily motivated to go to the dentist for a cleaning because they’re afraid of having a nasty, stinky mouth. Toothpaste marketers figured this out years ago. If you market toothpaste as a way of preventing cavities, you’ll sell a bit; but if you market toothpaste as a cosmetic that will whiten your teeth and freshen your breath, you’ll sell the product like hotcakes.

So what does this have to do with selling managed services?

First, you have to ask yourself, what would motivate someone to buy? Obviously if someone is experiencing constant problems with their network, they are more likely to buy because they are in pain. For this type of client, you have to demonstrate why they should trust you to solve their pain over all the other options they have available. By the way, this is why I strongly recommend a stay-in-touch marketing system for all unconverted leads. Since you don’t know when their network is finally going to break, you want to constantly stay in touch with them so they think of you when it eventually does OR when their current IT person has finally committed the “last straw” and they are fed up with the lousy service they are getting.

But what about the client who is NOT experiencing problems? Why would they buy? What would motivate them to “fix” something that ain’t broke?

In a sense, they need to be “scared straight.” They need to be educated about the devastating problems that can crop up when a network is not maintained, secured, and monitored. They must feel uneasy about the security of their data and the health of their network and actually “see” how a fatal crash would affect their business. Next, they have to be convinced that YOU are the one who can actually help them avoid all of this.

Yet the managed services marketing I see is all about what managed services is and what it does - 25-7 support, everything's covered, spam filtering, network security, etc. That is not going to convince anyone to do anything. Heck, most won’t take 3 seconds to read your flyer. If you want them to read your marketing and actually act on it, you’ll need to take the time in your marketing – either through seminars, teleseminars, audio recordings, long sales letters, or free reports – to educate the client in a powerful, convincing, and interesting way.

If you do that and constantly hammer your message home over a period of time, they will (eventually) reach the tipping point when they will buy. I don’t know when that is and some will take much longer than others, but the key is to consistently do the right things, in the right way, long enough to have impact.


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Wednesday, March 5, 2008

"All Inclusive" Managed Services Contracts: Decide Your Position

At a recent Master Mind Meeting with my MSP clients, the topic of legal contracts came up, and their importance in not only protecting a managed IT services provider from liability, but also their role in the sales process.

What really amazed me about the discussion was how many managed services providers DON'T have a MSP contract in place with their clients, or simply use a template they received from one of the various MSP providers such as Kaseya, N-Able, or Zenith Infotech.

With the vast differences in state law AND the incredible differences in business policies, deliverables, and promises made when selling an "all-covered" managed services agreement, not having a good solid legal contract in place is very dangerous.

If for no other reason, a good contract will help you decide your position on various situations and educate the client up front on what is and isn't covered to avoid confusion and anger directed towards YOU for 'nickel and diming' them over a service they THOUGHT was 'all inclusive.'

If you leave this up to the client's imagination, they may make the incorrect assumption that you are responsible for a major network upgrade, a move, or for supporting a line of business application that you didn't install and don't know anything about.

For example, have you clearly defined in your client agreement....

- Who is liable in the event of extended downtime or data loss?
- If the client disables their anti-virus or causes some other damage to the network that requires hours of work to repair, are you responsible to fix it?
- If you didn't install it, do you have to support it?
- Corrupt software and faulty hardware; do you have to suppport it?
- End user training and help desk: is it included or billable?
- What about employees using their home computer to access the network; do you provide support for them?
- What if the client doesn't pay, or pays late? Are the services cut off? Does interest accrue on the amount outstanding?
- What about remote offices? Do you bill for travel if you have to go onsite? Can you bill the client for 'remote hands'?

These are just a FEW of the topics that were discussed at my meeting and ones that you should decide your position on BEFORE agreeing to deliver an "all inclusive" managed services contract to a client.

If you want more information on this topic, I would recommend going to http://www.mspcontracts.com/ to get a free audio interview I did with IT attorney Greg Phillips. It's absolutely free folks -- no strings attached. And this is one area that you can never be too informed about!


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