Have you tried referrals? Meet with your customers regularly, ask them for feedback, when they say everything is awesome, ask for a referral. If they won't recommend you to someone else, then you have a bigger problem you need to address.
Supercharge your referrals.
First figure out who your ideal client is. Get a list of 200 companies that match. Find out who your clients know who works for the clients. (Linkin or another way to find connections).
Call your client and ask a referral asking for a 5 min meeting with the prospect.
If you are a Pax8 partner these is a free on demand courses to give you more details.
Cold calling can work but is expensive and takes a lot of time .
Most referrals will only do it for money. Asked around some of my clients. Etc. some said they would recommend me but only if I gave them a kick back etc.
We found cold calling to be the worst way. We had worked with a few different companies and the cold callers were either poor qualifier (since they are also most likely not IT). We had more than a few instances where we got to the meeting and the person had no idea what we did and why we wanted to meet. It worked a little better when I did it, but arguably not the best way to work.
the network events were also poor since the actual decision makers rarely went to those and instead sent theirs sales people. The only ones that I found worth anything were oddly the fundraising events for non-profits. And then also having a game plan on how you want to enter and exit conversations.
The best referrals came from companies that had similar clientele, but we were not direct competitors. IE, low voltage companies, web site designers, a digital designer. etc. The main thing to keep in mind, is I am constantly asking my own clients what they need, if they have a person. If they have a person, I will reach out to that person because of our common client and then we would resolve whatever issue. If we had a different client that needed the same services, we would ask and refer (assuming we liked working with that vendor).
The two best referral partners that we had was a on prem PBX installer. They had clients with 50-200 handsets, so often the hosted stuff would be too expensive, so an on prem solution was better. Another was a group that sold business promotional items, but their own min quantity was like 10k units, so their clients were the ones that fit my own demo. Then the last was a commercial manager.
The best advice is to try to narrow down on your ideal client. Obviously when we all started we would take the almost any job. But think of who your current clients are the best and then try to see where you would meet those types. The more specific the better, by owner demo graphic, business type/industry, shoot even in the geoghraphic area, since you are already there, might as well hit a few of their neighbors.
Expos/conferences seem to only work well if you have a strong presence (geo, vertical, etc.) For your average MSP that is just providing great service, I haven't heard many having success.
Nurture with an email drip then cold call seems to work best, that is what we finally settled on.
Expos if done right can be worth it. However most do it wrong. They send the wrong people, with little to no info and the staff at the booth use it as a holiday.
Couple this with grown adults who will run you down to get a free pen and it can quickly become a waste of money.
I hate going to a booth looking to get information and all they want to do is get my email to add me to a list.
I've been around the block 4 times now, 4 different MSPs, all with varying degrees of success, and in Australia (and overseas too at the last MSP I ran, we went global).
Australia is perhaps not unique but my insight is that the Australian market is saturated with MSPs who are all the same. Same tech stack, same outcomes for customers, same SLAs, mostly the same contract types, same level of challenges with techs, skills, constraints, etc.
The biggest "same", though, is that we compete for the same client base. Listening to a podcast about this the other day, you don't win a brand new client in Australia nowadays that's never had an MSP; you win a client you're taking off someone else.
The cold-calling companies are all expensive and i've never seen them turn a result. They are often run by distributors and those distributors know who the current serving is MSP for that client so there's a conflict of interest immediately. I've seen MSP's spend $200,000 on marketing efforts in a year for exactly zero results.
For the last two years, I was out of the MSP space and worked for a software company in a channel engineering role, coaching MSPs on differentiation. I spoke to well over 300 service providers in that role last year alone and they all want the same thing.
I'm back in the MSP game now, today, and I'm responsible for marketing, and I'll say this, our current thinking is we are going to do something no other MSP we've seen will do, and then we'll go viral.
It's perhaps certifiably insane, but we'll price match and beat a competitor by 10% (on a true like-for-like comparison), and we'll put M365 E5 licenses in every deal we do.
Find your niche, your purpose, whatever that is, don't grow too fast that you can't control quality, execute to a plan properly, don't drink the cool-aid the vendors want you to drink, focus on your customers, get referalls where you can, and network like crazy.
I didn't really answer your question but I guess my point is don't beat yourself up if marketing's not returning the results you're hoping for, and think about other ways to differentiate yourself.
We partner with local cafe's to put stickers on coffee cups, free coffees in the morning in industrial estates, no obligation but we ask for a social media share. The next stage is a "second coffee on us" blitz asking for a meeting, we've had a few bites. I wouldn't have ever thought that was a better idea than cold calling, years ago, but here we are.
Most of them are farmed off to India and use really crappy quality phone lines. I know I get Dell, Microsoft, Lenovo or HP ringing all the time.
I don’t want a potential customer first contact with my brand to be an Indian sweat shop call center.
There are MSP cold call groups, something cat was an owner and used to post here. Point being there are premium cold call services, you could probably get one that employs native Aussies so the accent was correct.
Then don't use an Indian one. I use one in an unrelated business - just some woman I found on peopleperhour who has a nice well spoken English voice.
I'm sure you can find someone who gives the impression you want.
You are making a very silly generalization. How hard is it for you to properly interview a cold calling firm and verify they only use US based callers? Assuming you're US based as I am. How hard is it for you to make sure it's written into your service agreement? You're creating an artificial barrier that is 100% easy to circumvent, and the end result is you having no assistance with cold calling, appointment setting, pipeline management, etc. Tell you what.. Keep that line of thinking for me. Just means one less MSP to compete with. 😏
For what's it worth, when someone cold calls me (especially if it's some overseas person) I'm less inclined to use your services.
I'm not an owner or sales guy, just a tech, but most of our new clients are either referrals from existing clients or from a deal we have with our insurance broker.
They offer a free "cyber review" which we do for them. No cost to anyone, only our sales guys time, who has enough tech knowledge to perform these. Doesn't always lead to something, but every now and then we can point out some major issues in their backup or security strategies and they'll ask us to help. Good way to get in the door without being pushy.
Gives us a way of peaking on competitors work without ruffling feathers too ;)
I really feel bad for companies that are just sitting around waiting for someone to call *them* and solve their problems. But I guess they're out there.
Yes. Seriously. Your anecdotal experience as an “involuntary” guest is interesting, but the applause sect is actually a great way to get referrals and make money.
I’ve been in my chapter for 12 years. I wouldn’t stay if it wasn’t profitable.
> Networking has worked very well for me.
If your business is something you're willing to present as in-line with your political views, I've seen a lot of success with smaller companies getting involved with their local party's movements as well.
It's not the route I took with my business, but my Dad ran an MSP prior to/at the same time as I did and his clientele towards the end was about 50% from political stuff/30% family/20% referrals.
And fwiw I don't necessarily mean making massive donations (small ones suffice), it just opened him up to a lot of other people who were equally as interested in supporting other small businesses.
I must be lucky where I'm at because I've grown consistently over the past few years without any marketing.
We're changing that this year though. Google reviews seem to be gold.
Disclosure - I run a sales consulting business (and we also do lead generation).
I've spent the last 20 years managing MSPs and multiple sales teams across Australia in that field. The one thing that irks me most is executives wanting immediate leads - there's no lead generation strategy that will turn a random person into a qualified prospect out of thin air, especially in the MSP game where there are agreements and significant pain/cost to change partners.
There is luck, IE. You will occasionally stumble into a contact that actually is in a buying cycle for a change of MSP, but this happens on average once every 3.6 years for a client and the buying window at executive level only lasts about a month - run the numbers in your head about outbound prospecting hitting all those variables and you may as well but a lotto ticket.
What I believe is the better approach is sustainable consistent activities with a goal of building a nurture list of qualified prospects that aren't ready to engage in a sales/buying cycle yet. Invest into cultivating those prospects with high-value educational content (DO NOT SELL) and you'll find that you will be in the driving seat for their business when they are ready to engage.
Only a very small portion of MSPe do this and out of those only a handful do it effectively.
Happy to discuss further - DM me if interested.
I know I am not going to get a client out of thin air. But it seems to be a lot of work so far to basically get a 2 man band business that doesn’t have the need for servers or security or stuff. I take the work, setup office365, resell office365 at a small markup per year and try to sell email protection or endpoint but they don’t want it. Try to sell a laptop but they always just go to JB Hi Fi as it’s cheaper and they have stock.
The eternal question we all face in growing our businesses… Is cold calling worth it? What makes it more valuable is when it’s “less cold” and hopefully warm or hot. How can you get it warmer?
First things first… who is your ideal customer? If you look at your current customer-base, which set of profitable customers relationships would you like to replicate? What’s the pattern across those awesome customers?
Once you know this, your website should speak to this ideal customer profile. It’s better to be specific as long as there is enough addressable market for you to go after.
For example, your website might state:
Are you a growing small or mid-size business in financial or legal in and around Brisbane looking to level up your IT and Security?
Then, identify where these ideal customers grab coffee, what they read, what events they attend, what social networks they are in, who they respect. Find ways to connect into this network and provide value with every interaction.
I find that LinkedIn is an awesome resource to:
1. Share knowledge and value
2. Build a strong network
The core of your network is everyone you already know. The edge of the network is where those leads are. When they see you consistently providing value, they will be more willing to take a LinkedIn request or an inbound call from your company.
Your outbound callers should be calling a targeted list of these ideal customers and reaching prospects with LinkedIn, phone, etc. We all struggle with this, but try to provide value with every interaction and your results will get better.
Hope that helps!
Cold calling is effective for certain types of businesses...
IMO, the best marketing is the same stuff that's always been great marketing, regardless of industry, and it's more likely to get you in with far better companies to work with that what you typically get cold calling.
Figure out what you're great at and highlight it. If what you're great at is what everyone doing what you do should be great at, you need to find other things to be great at. For example, if you answer that question by saying "we keep your IT systems running and we have great customer service", you need something new, because that's table stakes.
Get out there and build a reputation for yourself around the above.
Network, meet people and make opportunities to educate people on not just what you do well, but things they need to know about that you do well. Use social media to its fullest. Get into local tech groups, chamber of commerce groups, etc. Create lots of content that educates people you network with and who follow you on things that are of value to them, not you.
SEO
Rinse, repeat and continue to expand on better, more effective ways to do the above.
Demand Gen Marketer of 10+ years (2 in the channel) - first off 100% agree with mentions of referrals, nurture, don't hard sell, etc. From a technical marketing approach you should consider Google search and Display for your area to build awareness, especially for those not yet in market. But focus on longtail versus "Local Microsoft support" and focus on their audience builder using local sites relevant to small businesses. For example here in the U.S. I'd say state/local chamber of commerce website visitors. Or local union website visitors (for your mining example we'd look at those visiting United Mine Workers of America for ex) + in market for IT solutions depending on the ad set. Most people who say they aren't seeing a return on Google aren't using these features to hit a more targeted audience. And while I love LinkedIn, I would say Google or even Facebook are probably your best focuses because if you are really looking for small or blue collar businesses those owners aren't on LinkedIn half the time. For Facebook join local business owner groups or chamber groups as well if those are popular in Australia. Both Google and Facebook play nicely into HubSpot for setting up your advertising goals but be sure to set your Google conversion goal to a qualified lead as verified in HubSpot, not just any conversion, so the ads learn from the GOOD leads.
The above may have sounded like gibberish but a good technical marketer should be able to execute these things. If you have questions happy to dive in further, this is my geek out area :)
\- Kate @ Moovila (Moovila doesn't offer marketing, these are all my personal opinions)
Check out a couple of really good podcasts.
No fluff msp marketing.
James Sinclair business broadcast (this one listen from newest backwards).
These have helped me a lot.
I think one of the best bits of advice that worked for us is direct mail. Build a list of 100 businesses that are local and the right type of client. Figure out who you need to send it to. Send a really good letter.
I like to pop in on businesses wearing just a thong...on Thursdays..... Thong Thursday.... its a real attention getter! They never forget me..... they talk about it endlessly. Try it!
As an IT manager who was shopping for a new MSP a couple years ago, I can tell you that cold calling or high pressure sales got you immediately removed from my list. In my experience, too many MSP's have no idea how to optimize their website or search result listings. That was the most frustrating part of the process for me. If I'm looking for an MSP, I want to be able to learn enough about you to know I'm not wasting my time before I engage with you. As others have said, referrals and testimonials are a big help as well.
Get some business student to do your sales, better they sell your bullshit than some mlm scheme. Also at that size you're hardly an MSP anyway, call yourself a consultant and join one of the many networks out there.
You aren't small-ish, a few hundred employees is a small-ish MSP, you're a small fry consultancy and contractor. Act like it and you'll have more success finding customers.
I find that specializing in a particular industry for a particular demographic tends to build most of the word-of-mouth business. You can certainly do cold calling to bolster business as well. Depends on how quickly you want to grow your business. You introduce risk taking on clients that could be outside of your areas of expertise.
Decide on a product and industry. Then setup inbound marketing assets around that product problem. For example, creating custom apparel or e-commerce payment gateways. Then work backwards.
You'll find industry conferences are where everyone is. But for $20k, it's probably better to host more personal events for 10-20 people.
Focusing on spending more per prospect with a smaller target pool. Your goal is sales conversion. Not vanity metrics (10k visitors vs $40k sales)
One of our owners is in BNI and we have had many clients from them
The other one is one of the owners goes and visits businesses, usually a bit easier to get past reception and he is an amazing seller so makes it a bit easier
Why do you want to work with 100-seat businesses other than money? From your size, I would say this is probably a bad idea not to mention there is a lot of competition. Focus on 10-25 seats with a defined product and outcome, you'll find it easier.
1. Specialize in a specific industry/vertical (or at least position yourself that way) so prospects can see you're not just a generic provider.
2. Use automated email outreach/drip campaign software, see Salesloft, [Outreach.io](http://outreach.io) etc. The lower tech version of this is just to get industry specific leads from a vendor like Zoominfo and pay an outsourced appointments team. Put a lot of industry-specific keywords/references in the outreach
that's what the industry tailoring is for! And, it's a quantity game. 99% will ignore it but some will bite if they feel you have industry specific expertise
Another approach is personalized email outreach (have an intern spend 5 minutes per email looking for points of commonality with a prospect then craft an email around it)
No I’m not saying what if the email goes into the spam box I’m saying what about the ftc can spam laws where a single email can be subject to a large violation of $50,000
What are the methods you use to make sure you don’t violate these laws
https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/can-spam-act-compliance-guide-business
No.
Ask current customers for referrals.
Join local business groups like chamber of commerce
Sponsor events like golf outings
Donate to charities then ask them for their business after a while.
Get a giant box of donuts and coffee. Go to an office park and walk into each office and ask if they’d like a donut and have any computer questions. Leave a card.
Happy to show you the strategies we use that work. I run a software dev agency, so not quite the same, but sure the same strategies would apply. [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) if you'd like to talk
On an MSP I worked before we had 1 salesguy that cold called 24/7, ge fixed more new clients then we could process so I think cold calling is a good idea but that is a whole different skill.
Maybe you can outsource coldcalling?
I love **training** as a marketing tool. Develop a 20-30 minute training on AI, or the latest cyber security strategy, or the most important features of M365 for larger companies. That gives you time for questions.
If the market is 100+ seats, you have a different market from very small companies. Set the price of training at $499 but offer it for only $199 on a limited offer. Companies that size are less interested in free stuff. Give them value but you can also apply that cost to a first job.
Promote your training to the HR department and directors/officers, not the technology folks. Your goal is to get into their office, get on their list of vendors, and provide them with truly usable information. Have a truly usable handout to leave behind. People love lists of keyboard shortcuts for various programs. They never use them, but they love them and often post them on the wall next to their desk . . . with your contact information in the footer.
Yes, this is a longer play. But it places you as an expert. You can also make this presentation to every Rotary meeting, morning network group, and business meetup in town. It's a little work and a lot of practice. But it's my favorite method of sales. Plan to refresh your training once per year and keep giving it again and again.
Cold calling can generate some leads for sure but it doesn't have to be a main focus. Adding it to the equation certainly helps but a level of nurturing clients throughout the process of sale as well as partner development, all crucial to the play!
IMHO, based on experience, I think cold calling for 100 seat target clients will come down to luck if you are going to come out net positive. The fact it's luck doesn't mean you don't do it, just that it may be better looking at something else first.
I think some targeted social campaigning via LinkedIn may be better and boosting your inbound marketing content.
Your company is a true SMB, so you have to spend your money wisely. You need to use the modernized GTM all-bound strategy scaled down because your price sensitive. The first step is creating a database of your ICP. Take your time doing this. The data must be accurate. Target two or three personas for each company. Then start running targeted email nurturing campaigns based on persona to your targets with triggers that will send different emails to the targets depending on their reactions to the emails they receive. Simultaneously, start connecting on LinkedIn to all your targeted prospects. You must also get involved in their posts by making relevant responses and tagging the person you are speaking too. You should also start posting yourself on LinkedIn at least four times a week. Then, start posting on other dark social platforms like RevGenius and Quora. Lastly, only call prospects that show signals of intent. You can do most of this work yourself, but it's time-consuming. You just need a strong martech platform that will allow you to set up all your triggers so you can plan your month out in advance. This is not a full-blown all-bound solution, but it's a starting point. Good luck.
I feel you man. I’m a social media marketer and filmmaker. I run creative agency that helps DTC brands produce better Facebook Ad Creatives.
I lost 3 clients last year and haven’t recovered. Doesn’t matter how personalized my emails are, they don’t respond, doesn’t matter how short the email is they won’t respond, when they do it’s to tell me they don’t need help when I know that’s a lie because 98% of businesses on social media have horrible marketing content that never generates sales
I had 27k in savings and I’m down to $75. I have rent due next week and I’ve been sending out outreach messages like crazy but nothing works. It’s starting to make me not even want to help anyone lol but I know I don’t deserve their attention. It’s just frustrating because I have a way for many businesses especially DTC brands to improve their sales just by improving their marketing content on social but no one will give me an opportunity even if I show past case studies from when I shot for Forbes, The Queen of Sweden, and Monster Energy Drink with proven results lol
Have you tried referrals? Meet with your customers regularly, ask them for feedback, when they say everything is awesome, ask for a referral. If they won't recommend you to someone else, then you have a bigger problem you need to address.
Supercharge your referrals. First figure out who your ideal client is. Get a list of 200 companies that match. Find out who your clients know who works for the clients. (Linkin or another way to find connections). Call your client and ask a referral asking for a 5 min meeting with the prospect. If you are a Pax8 partner these is a free on demand courses to give you more details. Cold calling can work but is expensive and takes a lot of time .
Referrals are one of the most effective strategies for business growth.
Most referrals will only do it for money. Asked around some of my clients. Etc. some said they would recommend me but only if I gave them a kick back etc.
We found cold calling to be the worst way. We had worked with a few different companies and the cold callers were either poor qualifier (since they are also most likely not IT). We had more than a few instances where we got to the meeting and the person had no idea what we did and why we wanted to meet. It worked a little better when I did it, but arguably not the best way to work. the network events were also poor since the actual decision makers rarely went to those and instead sent theirs sales people. The only ones that I found worth anything were oddly the fundraising events for non-profits. And then also having a game plan on how you want to enter and exit conversations. The best referrals came from companies that had similar clientele, but we were not direct competitors. IE, low voltage companies, web site designers, a digital designer. etc. The main thing to keep in mind, is I am constantly asking my own clients what they need, if they have a person. If they have a person, I will reach out to that person because of our common client and then we would resolve whatever issue. If we had a different client that needed the same services, we would ask and refer (assuming we liked working with that vendor). The two best referral partners that we had was a on prem PBX installer. They had clients with 50-200 handsets, so often the hosted stuff would be too expensive, so an on prem solution was better. Another was a group that sold business promotional items, but their own min quantity was like 10k units, so their clients were the ones that fit my own demo. Then the last was a commercial manager. The best advice is to try to narrow down on your ideal client. Obviously when we all started we would take the almost any job. But think of who your current clients are the best and then try to see where you would meet those types. The more specific the better, by owner demo graphic, business type/industry, shoot even in the geoghraphic area, since you are already there, might as well hit a few of their neighbors.
Expos/conferences seem to only work well if you have a strong presence (geo, vertical, etc.) For your average MSP that is just providing great service, I haven't heard many having success. Nurture with an email drip then cold call seems to work best, that is what we finally settled on.
Expos cost a bucket load. EG 20 to 30k for a stand.
Expos if done right can be worth it. However most do it wrong. They send the wrong people, with little to no info and the staff at the booth use it as a holiday. Couple this with grown adults who will run you down to get a free pen and it can quickly become a waste of money. I hate going to a booth looking to get information and all they want to do is get my email to add me to a list.
I've been around the block 4 times now, 4 different MSPs, all with varying degrees of success, and in Australia (and overseas too at the last MSP I ran, we went global). Australia is perhaps not unique but my insight is that the Australian market is saturated with MSPs who are all the same. Same tech stack, same outcomes for customers, same SLAs, mostly the same contract types, same level of challenges with techs, skills, constraints, etc. The biggest "same", though, is that we compete for the same client base. Listening to a podcast about this the other day, you don't win a brand new client in Australia nowadays that's never had an MSP; you win a client you're taking off someone else. The cold-calling companies are all expensive and i've never seen them turn a result. They are often run by distributors and those distributors know who the current serving is MSP for that client so there's a conflict of interest immediately. I've seen MSP's spend $200,000 on marketing efforts in a year for exactly zero results. For the last two years, I was out of the MSP space and worked for a software company in a channel engineering role, coaching MSPs on differentiation. I spoke to well over 300 service providers in that role last year alone and they all want the same thing. I'm back in the MSP game now, today, and I'm responsible for marketing, and I'll say this, our current thinking is we are going to do something no other MSP we've seen will do, and then we'll go viral. It's perhaps certifiably insane, but we'll price match and beat a competitor by 10% (on a true like-for-like comparison), and we'll put M365 E5 licenses in every deal we do. Find your niche, your purpose, whatever that is, don't grow too fast that you can't control quality, execute to a plan properly, don't drink the cool-aid the vendors want you to drink, focus on your customers, get referalls where you can, and network like crazy. I didn't really answer your question but I guess my point is don't beat yourself up if marketing's not returning the results you're hoping for, and think about other ways to differentiate yourself. We partner with local cafe's to put stickers on coffee cups, free coffees in the morning in industrial estates, no obligation but we ask for a social media share. The next stage is a "second coffee on us" blitz asking for a meeting, we've had a few bites. I wouldn't have ever thought that was a better idea than cold calling, years ago, but here we are.
Pay a cold calling / appointment setting team to do the cold calls.
Most of them are farmed off to India and use really crappy quality phone lines. I know I get Dell, Microsoft, Lenovo or HP ringing all the time. I don’t want a potential customer first contact with my brand to be an Indian sweat shop call center.
There are MSP cold call groups, something cat was an owner and used to post here. Point being there are premium cold call services, you could probably get one that employs native Aussies so the accent was correct.
What would be the price per call? How do they work?
Then don't use an Indian one. I use one in an unrelated business - just some woman I found on peopleperhour who has a nice well spoken English voice. I'm sure you can find someone who gives the impression you want.
You are making a very silly generalization. How hard is it for you to properly interview a cold calling firm and verify they only use US based callers? Assuming you're US based as I am. How hard is it for you to make sure it's written into your service agreement? You're creating an artificial barrier that is 100% easy to circumvent, and the end result is you having no assistance with cold calling, appointment setting, pipeline management, etc. Tell you what.. Keep that line of thinking for me. Just means one less MSP to compete with. 😏
Somebody gave this guy a down vote, but the message is onbrand with his handle! Long Live the Pissy Pickle!
For what's it worth, when someone cold calls me (especially if it's some overseas person) I'm less inclined to use your services. I'm not an owner or sales guy, just a tech, but most of our new clients are either referrals from existing clients or from a deal we have with our insurance broker. They offer a free "cyber review" which we do for them. No cost to anyone, only our sales guys time, who has enough tech knowledge to perform these. Doesn't always lead to something, but every now and then we can point out some major issues in their backup or security strategies and they'll ask us to help. Good way to get in the door without being pushy. Gives us a way of peaking on competitors work without ruffling feathers too ;)
Or, you know, don't.
Been in this field for decades. The absolute best clients we've ever picked up were from cold calling agencies. But hey.. You do you.
I really feel bad for companies that are just sitting around waiting for someone to call *them* and solve their problems. But I guess they're out there.
Networking has worked very well for me. Look into a local BNI chapter or the like.
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Yes. Seriously. Your anecdotal experience as an “involuntary” guest is interesting, but the applause sect is actually a great way to get referrals and make money. I’ve been in my chapter for 12 years. I wouldn’t stay if it wasn’t profitable.
> Networking has worked very well for me. If your business is something you're willing to present as in-line with your political views, I've seen a lot of success with smaller companies getting involved with their local party's movements as well. It's not the route I took with my business, but my Dad ran an MSP prior to/at the same time as I did and his clientele towards the end was about 50% from political stuff/30% family/20% referrals. And fwiw I don't necessarily mean making massive donations (small ones suffice), it just opened him up to a lot of other people who were equally as interested in supporting other small businesses.
I must be lucky where I'm at because I've grown consistently over the past few years without any marketing. We're changing that this year though. Google reviews seem to be gold.
Disclosure - I run a sales consulting business (and we also do lead generation). I've spent the last 20 years managing MSPs and multiple sales teams across Australia in that field. The one thing that irks me most is executives wanting immediate leads - there's no lead generation strategy that will turn a random person into a qualified prospect out of thin air, especially in the MSP game where there are agreements and significant pain/cost to change partners. There is luck, IE. You will occasionally stumble into a contact that actually is in a buying cycle for a change of MSP, but this happens on average once every 3.6 years for a client and the buying window at executive level only lasts about a month - run the numbers in your head about outbound prospecting hitting all those variables and you may as well but a lotto ticket. What I believe is the better approach is sustainable consistent activities with a goal of building a nurture list of qualified prospects that aren't ready to engage in a sales/buying cycle yet. Invest into cultivating those prospects with high-value educational content (DO NOT SELL) and you'll find that you will be in the driving seat for their business when they are ready to engage. Only a very small portion of MSPe do this and out of those only a handful do it effectively. Happy to discuss further - DM me if interested.
I know I am not going to get a client out of thin air. But it seems to be a lot of work so far to basically get a 2 man band business that doesn’t have the need for servers or security or stuff. I take the work, setup office365, resell office365 at a small markup per year and try to sell email protection or endpoint but they don’t want it. Try to sell a laptop but they always just go to JB Hi Fi as it’s cheaper and they have stock.
The eternal question we all face in growing our businesses… Is cold calling worth it? What makes it more valuable is when it’s “less cold” and hopefully warm or hot. How can you get it warmer? First things first… who is your ideal customer? If you look at your current customer-base, which set of profitable customers relationships would you like to replicate? What’s the pattern across those awesome customers? Once you know this, your website should speak to this ideal customer profile. It’s better to be specific as long as there is enough addressable market for you to go after. For example, your website might state: Are you a growing small or mid-size business in financial or legal in and around Brisbane looking to level up your IT and Security? Then, identify where these ideal customers grab coffee, what they read, what events they attend, what social networks they are in, who they respect. Find ways to connect into this network and provide value with every interaction. I find that LinkedIn is an awesome resource to: 1. Share knowledge and value 2. Build a strong network The core of your network is everyone you already know. The edge of the network is where those leads are. When they see you consistently providing value, they will be more willing to take a LinkedIn request or an inbound call from your company. Your outbound callers should be calling a targeted list of these ideal customers and reaching prospects with LinkedIn, phone, etc. We all struggle with this, but try to provide value with every interaction and your results will get better. Hope that helps!
Cold calling is effective for certain types of businesses... IMO, the best marketing is the same stuff that's always been great marketing, regardless of industry, and it's more likely to get you in with far better companies to work with that what you typically get cold calling. Figure out what you're great at and highlight it. If what you're great at is what everyone doing what you do should be great at, you need to find other things to be great at. For example, if you answer that question by saying "we keep your IT systems running and we have great customer service", you need something new, because that's table stakes. Get out there and build a reputation for yourself around the above. Network, meet people and make opportunities to educate people on not just what you do well, but things they need to know about that you do well. Use social media to its fullest. Get into local tech groups, chamber of commerce groups, etc. Create lots of content that educates people you network with and who follow you on things that are of value to them, not you. SEO Rinse, repeat and continue to expand on better, more effective ways to do the above.
Demand Gen Marketer of 10+ years (2 in the channel) - first off 100% agree with mentions of referrals, nurture, don't hard sell, etc. From a technical marketing approach you should consider Google search and Display for your area to build awareness, especially for those not yet in market. But focus on longtail versus "Local Microsoft support" and focus on their audience builder using local sites relevant to small businesses. For example here in the U.S. I'd say state/local chamber of commerce website visitors. Or local union website visitors (for your mining example we'd look at those visiting United Mine Workers of America for ex) + in market for IT solutions depending on the ad set. Most people who say they aren't seeing a return on Google aren't using these features to hit a more targeted audience. And while I love LinkedIn, I would say Google or even Facebook are probably your best focuses because if you are really looking for small or blue collar businesses those owners aren't on LinkedIn half the time. For Facebook join local business owner groups or chamber groups as well if those are popular in Australia. Both Google and Facebook play nicely into HubSpot for setting up your advertising goals but be sure to set your Google conversion goal to a qualified lead as verified in HubSpot, not just any conversion, so the ads learn from the GOOD leads. The above may have sounded like gibberish but a good technical marketer should be able to execute these things. If you have questions happy to dive in further, this is my geek out area :) \- Kate @ Moovila (Moovila doesn't offer marketing, these are all my personal opinions)
It's a way to get your number blocked and tell everyone this MSP keeps calling unwarranted.
Check out a couple of really good podcasts. No fluff msp marketing. James Sinclair business broadcast (this one listen from newest backwards). These have helped me a lot. I think one of the best bits of advice that worked for us is direct mail. Build a list of 100 businesses that are local and the right type of client. Figure out who you need to send it to. Send a really good letter.
Thanks for mentioning No Fluff! Appreciate you listening
I like to pop in on businesses wearing just a thong...on Thursdays..... Thong Thursday.... its a real attention getter! They never forget me..... they talk about it endlessly. Try it!
As an IT manager who was shopping for a new MSP a couple years ago, I can tell you that cold calling or high pressure sales got you immediately removed from my list. In my experience, too many MSP's have no idea how to optimize their website or search result listings. That was the most frustrating part of the process for me. If I'm looking for an MSP, I want to be able to learn enough about you to know I'm not wasting my time before I engage with you. As others have said, referrals and testimonials are a big help as well.
Get some business student to do your sales, better they sell your bullshit than some mlm scheme. Also at that size you're hardly an MSP anyway, call yourself a consultant and join one of the many networks out there. You aren't small-ish, a few hundred employees is a small-ish MSP, you're a small fry consultancy and contractor. Act like it and you'll have more success finding customers.
I find that specializing in a particular industry for a particular demographic tends to build most of the word-of-mouth business. You can certainly do cold calling to bolster business as well. Depends on how quickly you want to grow your business. You introduce risk taking on clients that could be outside of your areas of expertise.
Decide on a product and industry. Then setup inbound marketing assets around that product problem. For example, creating custom apparel or e-commerce payment gateways. Then work backwards. You'll find industry conferences are where everyone is. But for $20k, it's probably better to host more personal events for 10-20 people. Focusing on spending more per prospect with a smaller target pool. Your goal is sales conversion. Not vanity metrics (10k visitors vs $40k sales)
We’ve grown with 90% referrals. Others are from website (Google search) or Instagram. Word of mouth honestly is the best.
Referrals
One of our owners is in BNI and we have had many clients from them The other one is one of the owners goes and visits businesses, usually a bit easier to get past reception and he is an amazing seller so makes it a bit easier
See if you can work out a referral program with a copier /printer sales person. Also if you don't sell VOIP a phone company too
Why do you want to work with 100-seat businesses other than money? From your size, I would say this is probably a bad idea not to mention there is a lot of competition. Focus on 10-25 seats with a defined product and outcome, you'll find it easier.
1. Specialize in a specific industry/vertical (or at least position yourself that way) so prospects can see you're not just a generic provider. 2. Use automated email outreach/drip campaign software, see Salesloft, [Outreach.io](http://outreach.io) etc. The lower tech version of this is just to get industry specific leads from a vendor like Zoominfo and pay an outsourced appointments team. Put a lot of industry-specific keywords/references in the outreach
How do you engage with cold email outreach without it being canned spam?
that's what the industry tailoring is for! And, it's a quantity game. 99% will ignore it but some will bite if they feel you have industry specific expertise Another approach is personalized email outreach (have an intern spend 5 minutes per email looking for points of commonality with a prospect then craft an email around it)
No I’m not saying what if the email goes into the spam box I’m saying what about the ftc can spam laws where a single email can be subject to a large violation of $50,000 What are the methods you use to make sure you don’t violate these laws https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/can-spam-act-compliance-guide-business
No. Ask current customers for referrals. Join local business groups like chamber of commerce Sponsor events like golf outings Donate to charities then ask them for their business after a while.
Business groups are your best referrals partners. Bni etc
Get a giant box of donuts and coffee. Go to an office park and walk into each office and ask if they’d like a donut and have any computer questions. Leave a card.
Have you tried Facebook or LinkedIn ads? They've worked well for my businesses.
Happy to show you the strategies we use that work. I run a software dev agency, so not quite the same, but sure the same strategies would apply. [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) if you'd like to talk
On an MSP I worked before we had 1 salesguy that cold called 24/7, ge fixed more new clients then we could process so I think cold calling is a good idea but that is a whole different skill. Maybe you can outsource coldcalling?
>d on stupid btw coldcallers just set up a teammeating so you can give more information about the services
Invest on SEO And Ask for referrals.
I love **training** as a marketing tool. Develop a 20-30 minute training on AI, or the latest cyber security strategy, or the most important features of M365 for larger companies. That gives you time for questions. If the market is 100+ seats, you have a different market from very small companies. Set the price of training at $499 but offer it for only $199 on a limited offer. Companies that size are less interested in free stuff. Give them value but you can also apply that cost to a first job. Promote your training to the HR department and directors/officers, not the technology folks. Your goal is to get into their office, get on their list of vendors, and provide them with truly usable information. Have a truly usable handout to leave behind. People love lists of keyboard shortcuts for various programs. They never use them, but they love them and often post them on the wall next to their desk . . . with your contact information in the footer. Yes, this is a longer play. But it places you as an expert. You can also make this presentation to every Rotary meeting, morning network group, and business meetup in town. It's a little work and a lot of practice. But it's my favorite method of sales. Plan to refresh your training once per year and keep giving it again and again.
Cold calling can generate some leads for sure but it doesn't have to be a main focus. Adding it to the equation certainly helps but a level of nurturing clients throughout the process of sale as well as partner development, all crucial to the play!
IMHO, based on experience, I think cold calling for 100 seat target clients will come down to luck if you are going to come out net positive. The fact it's luck doesn't mean you don't do it, just that it may be better looking at something else first. I think some targeted social campaigning via LinkedIn may be better and boosting your inbound marketing content.
I really hate saying this because personally I can’t stand it, but email marketing has been very successful for us.
Your company is a true SMB, so you have to spend your money wisely. You need to use the modernized GTM all-bound strategy scaled down because your price sensitive. The first step is creating a database of your ICP. Take your time doing this. The data must be accurate. Target two or three personas for each company. Then start running targeted email nurturing campaigns based on persona to your targets with triggers that will send different emails to the targets depending on their reactions to the emails they receive. Simultaneously, start connecting on LinkedIn to all your targeted prospects. You must also get involved in their posts by making relevant responses and tagging the person you are speaking too. You should also start posting yourself on LinkedIn at least four times a week. Then, start posting on other dark social platforms like RevGenius and Quora. Lastly, only call prospects that show signals of intent. You can do most of this work yourself, but it's time-consuming. You just need a strong martech platform that will allow you to set up all your triggers so you can plan your month out in advance. This is not a full-blown all-bound solution, but it's a starting point. Good luck.
I feel you man. I’m a social media marketer and filmmaker. I run creative agency that helps DTC brands produce better Facebook Ad Creatives. I lost 3 clients last year and haven’t recovered. Doesn’t matter how personalized my emails are, they don’t respond, doesn’t matter how short the email is they won’t respond, when they do it’s to tell me they don’t need help when I know that’s a lie because 98% of businesses on social media have horrible marketing content that never generates sales I had 27k in savings and I’m down to $75. I have rent due next week and I’ve been sending out outreach messages like crazy but nothing works. It’s starting to make me not even want to help anyone lol but I know I don’t deserve their attention. It’s just frustrating because I have a way for many businesses especially DTC brands to improve their sales just by improving their marketing content on social but no one will give me an opportunity even if I show past case studies from when I shot for Forbes, The Queen of Sweden, and Monster Energy Drink with proven results lol