Convert More Clients: What Motivates MSP Prospects

You have reached the point where you have your prospect in front of you, and now it’s time to pitch your services. How do you maximize the chances of your prospect signing the dotted line?

In this article, we’ll share how understanding your prospect’s motivations increases your chance of a conversion.

The prospect was motivated enough to make time for a meeting with you; what was the driver? 

Is It Fear?

Maybe they saw a news article of someone in their niche getting wiped out by a ransomware attack.

Or a similar business received massive fines for not being compliant in an industry with strict compliance requirements like medical.

Sometimes, people who have “built their towers tall” and made lots of money fear losing everything.

Whatever the case, fear is a massive motivator.

If fear is the motivator, sell the removal of that fear. Don’t talk about your tech stack or even features. Sell how they can sleep better at night knowing their business is compliant, their IT is protected as it can be, and the risk of losing everything is minimized.

Does a Box Need to be Ticked?

Sometimes, an employee has been assigned a task they need to get done. They may not know anything about IT, but they have been told the business needs to solve its compliance issues. So they must go out, find some contractors, make it happen, and report back and say, “All done, Boss”.

Find out what this task is. There is no point in selling the benefits of cloud collaboration when the objective is to “tick the box” and make the business compliant.

You can even ask, “What made you reach out to us? What were you hoping to solve or achieve?”

One of the big concerns of employees is choosing the wrong provider because it will come back to them when it all blows up. They want comfort that they are making the right decision.

Do what you can to demonstrate competency. Tell the prospect about your other clients and how you solved similar issues. 

Do They Need to Solve a Specific Problem?

Some prospects have a specific problem that needs to be solved, such as having a partial work-from-home workforce and encountering issues with collaboration. They may be emailing the latest spreadsheet version around and encountering mismatches rather than just collaborating on the same one in the cloud.

This pitch would be more about the benefits of the cloud and switching to something like Microsoft 365.

Find out what their problem is, and make your pitch about how you can solve it.

Be Dynamic

Don’t go into these meetings with rigid pre-planned scripts as if you were pitching on the show Shark Tank. Listening to a salesman’s speech about points you don’t care about is awful. You end up tolerating it until they stop.

Instead, ask lots of questions, figure out their point of view, and adjust your pitch accordingly. If you need a bit of a script to avoid muddled words, make it modular.

For cybersecurity, you can mention a client who had a breach and called you in to save the day.

For compliance, talk about how you keep up to date with all the compliance changes in that industry so you can always keep your clients compliant and sleep better at night.

Objections Tell You The Points You Missed

If your prospect has any objections, they are directing you where your pitch needs to go. It means there is a fear that needs to be alleviated, a box that needs to be ticked, or a problem that needs to be solved. A good pitch is customized to the person.

Being effective in sales meetings requires understanding your prospects’ motivations. A successful pitch resonates with your prospects and demonstrates your ability to provide solutions tailored to their unique situation.