Money is a bit tight right now for some, and many of my MSP clients have shared they are fearful of spending anything on marketing because of the massive uncertainty about the economy. I get it. But I also firmly believe that if you cannot make money without money, you can’t make it with it either.
To prove it, here are the first five in a list of 10 ways to generate more sales, secure more clients and fuel new business without spending a dime on marketing. Do all 10 and I guarantee you’ll drum up new business. ALSO: If you’re an MSP or IT services company, make sure you click here to register for the FREE virtual session I’m delivering at this year’s IT Sales and Marketing Boot Camp on the 4 Essential Marketing Oil Wells To DOUBLE Your Business this year.
- Sell More To Your Existing Clients: The single biggest source of new revenue is, and will always be, your existing clients. SO many businesses never fully monetize these relationships because their self-accepted “religion” is that all their clients are cheapskates, all their clients won’t buy X, Y or Z, “My clients are ‘different,’” etc. Bull. I’ve YET to get a single client who was unable to sell more to their existing clients when I’ve put together the offer and promotion. Not a single one. These MSPs are acting like the grown elephant who can be grounded simply by putting a rope around their ankle. When younger, they were chained to the ground, unable to pull the stake up. Now they’ve just accepted it to be true and have never tested the rope again. Right now, my members are ACTIVELY selling to their existing clients services and solutions to allow them to operate a “virtual” business – from Microsoft Teams and cyber security solutions to VoIP systems. But here’s how sales DON’T happen: A client won’t call you up and say, “Hey, bubba, I got some extra money lying around here that I don’t know what to do with. You wouldn’t happen to have anything I could spend money on, would ya?”
- Answer Your Damned Phones LIVE: I’ve harped on this with existing clients ad nauseam during the GOOD times. Now, when prospects are going to be far pickier, cautious and value-conscious, as well as less tolerant of bad sales behavior, you MUST find a way to get your phones answered LIVE by an experienced salesperson or highly trained admin. This I can guarantee: you are losing/will lose business if you don’t. A prospect with their hair on fire looking for a more responsive MSP is not going to leave you a message and hope you’ll call back. They’re Googling the next IT services company coming up right below you.
- Reduce Sales Friction: Right now, the car manufacturers are trotting out the “We’ll buy your car back if you lose your job due to the coronavirus” guarantee. This is the same offer they made back in 2010 during the heat of the recession that drove people into car dealerships to buy new cars when sales slowed. For MSPs, this may come in the form of offering to deliver managed services WITHOUT a long-term contract or the ability to get out of an agreement if they close their business or downsize without penalties. You might also consider leasing equipment and services (TaaS model) to help alleviate a big down payment on equipment, or selling block hours to ease the fear a prospect may have of getting locked into a long-term agreement. If this bumps your close rate by a mere 10%, and you’re getting just two opportunities per month at a 25% close rate (now 35%), that’s two to three MORE new clients. Bump it by 20% and you’ll get four to five new clients without spending more on marketing. An aside: Creating a better SALES process should be a top priority right now too, for this very reason. You will need to get more with fewer in the foreseeable future.
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- Use LinkedIn, E-mail And Phone Calls To Prospect: Personally, I think Sales Navigator is worth investing in due to the added features and search it provides; however, if you’re just strapped for cash right now, good old-fashioned LinkedIn connections and prospects are free ways to prospect. Like ALL marketing, you’ll need to make sure you have a good offer and message to get people to respond, but the actual MEDIA is free. Further, I would pair a LinkedIn message with a phone call and e-mail. Just this last week, one of my business development reps booked 41 appointments doing exactly this in a matter of eight days. No paid ads, no direct mail. Just this trifecta: Phone call, followed immediately by an e-mail, followed by a LinkedIn message. Rinse and repeat. (Shameless plug: This is another reason you want to join us for the IT Sales and Marketing Boot Camp; you’ll get campaigns and systems like this to take home and INSTANTLY use to drive IT services and MSP sales.)
- Host A Webinar With A JV/Promotional Partner: Several of my MSP members have taken my advice to reach out to city officials, local governments and industry associations to conduct free webinars on the topics of working from home, staying secure and other IT-related issues. The response has been incredible. All have been able to get these industry leaders, associations and government officials to ACTIVELY PROMOTE their webinar to their members and associates for FREE. You couldn’t buy that type of promotion in the best of times – now they are getting it for free and are driving HUNDREDS of leads inbound.
Next week, another five ways. Now, let me give you the real “secret” to achievement, accomplishment and wealth: ACTION. You don’t get rich (or stay in business) because you think about doing things. You get there by actually doing things. You get what you get by what you do. What YOU do. To quote Tony Robbins, MASSIVE action. Not tiny, hesitant steps. Not sitting and waiting until you feel ready and prepared. Not waiting for a sign or the perfect opportunity to open up. You MAKE opportunity and pave your own path, even if that means fumbling around in the dark with a flashlight, hunting. Some will read these five steps, shrug and go back to Facebook. Less work there, more fun. But where’s the profit in that? Maybe, just maybe, you’ll take action on one, maybe more?
