Five easy ways to improve your MSP
From improving website lead generation capabilities to switching from proactive to reactive support, IT Support Marketing's Paul Green runs through five marketing and development activities MSPs should be focusing on
There are only three resources you have at your personal disposal while trying to grow your IT support business: t ime, energy and money.
None of us have enough of those to do everything that needs to be done. There are hundreds of things you could do to build your business. But seeing as you will only ever get a limited number of those things done, you might as well focus on the ones that make the biggest difference.
Here are five activities I recommend that you focus on. These aren't the most interesting things to do, but they will give you the biggest return on investment.
1) Improve your website's lead generation abilities
This is a never ending task that you need to stay on top of. That's because your website is the single most important marketing tool you have ever had.
People who Google "IT support YourTown" are the hottest prospects. Because people only do that when they are getting ready to buy. They are telling Google they have a need or a want that must be filled.
Getting people to your website is just the first hurdle. Then you need to get them to take action - buy, or book a consultation. This is where your site is most likely to let you down.
Most IT support websites are boring. They contain the same dull information as all the other IT support websites. In fact, with many you could swap the name of the business for another and the website content would still appear to be correct!
Few IT support websites answer the critical question: Why should I pick you instead of your competitors? What's in it for me? What really makes you different?
An effective website - one that turns traffic into clients - is one that has:
- Unique content that could never be used by another business
- Lots of pages answering all the questions prospective clients have, using benefits not features
- A clean fresh modern design
- A clear call to action: How to buy or book a consultation
2) Introduce a six-monthly strategic IT review
It's important that you get to know your clients and their needs/wants as well as you can. The strategic IT review enables you or your team to find out more about your clients' businesses now. And in the future. The review is ideally a private discussion between you and your client. Perhaps over lunch.
What do they like? What don't they like? What minor problems do they have that they might not want to "waste anyone's time with"? What worries do they have? Have they noticed a change in their IT set up? Is there something they'd like to do with their IT that they feel they can't?
The more information you have about an owner and their staff, the more service and product solutions you can offer. Which is why this needs to be done with every owner every six months.
This will help you build up an information profile for every client that will ultimately help you sell more (without being seen to be selling), and personalise their experience. The more their IT support company meets a client's needs and delivers the things they really want, the less likely they are to be attracted away by a cheaper competitor.
3) Nudge up selective fees
There are some prices that should be left well alone. Software fees, backup costs - what are known as front end prices (because they are prices that people compare). It's crazy to lose a new client just because you are £10 more expensive than a competitor.
Instead, look for areas where you can nudge your prices up in a way that clients won't really notice. If you can add £5 or £10 to the cost of a back end service that 99.9 per cent of your clients won't notice, then that money will drop straight to the bottom line. And extra profit is good, as you can either take it as extra personal income, or reinvest it in the business.
4) Make support proactive, not reactive
Proactive support, and related communication, is the simplest but most powerful retention marketing you can do.
Unless their computer is sick, most people don't think about their IT support company a great deal. So if you fail to communicate with them, they will not proactively chase you for a support. Instead they will do nothing.
And when a problem arises, they will ask what they've been paying for all that time.
Schedule time every week for engineers to look at each client, and make any proactive updates. Ideally you'd do a weekly or monthly summary email, telling the decision maker what you've done on their behalf - and how you reduced their staff's downtime, without even being asked.
They might not read all the details. But over time they will form a strong opinion that your service is proactive and can be trusted.
5) Staff training and development
This final area is ignored by so many business owners, yet it is critical. The simplest way to do this is to give every key member of your team 121 access to you at least once a month. Hold informal 121s off site, make them about 30 minutes long, and focus on 4 simple questions.
What's gone well since we last met? What's not gone so well? What do we need to do more of? W hat do we need to do less of?
Over time they will learn to trust you and develop a closer relationship with you. This helps you keep your best people and develop them to take on some of your workload. Which gives you more time to work on your business and get more of these important tasks completed.
Paul Green is the founder of IT Support Marketing, a business growth and marketing organisation. He is the author of "Updating servers doesn't grow your business", a free paperback book to help business owners improve marketing and profitability. You can get a free copy posted to you by visiting www.itsupportbook.co.uk