5 Reasons You Lose Deals to Your Competitors
Are you struggling to sell Managed Services?
If you are struggling to sell services, don't worry, you are not alone. MSPs of all sizes are feeling the pinch when it comes to sales, so this struggle is not exclusive to you.
Factors such as increases in competition, frugal clients, poor product positioning, diminishing referrals and lack of overall strategy, cumulatively contribute to a continual decline in sales.
Leads are at an all time low and the cost of generating leads is at an all time high. In light of this, it is more important than ever to utilize ways to set yourself apart from the crowd, secure your role as an industry expert and thus, gain credibility from existing and future clients.
With referrals being fewer, and certainly further in between, it is increasingly harder to grow your business with any sort of consistency. And, SMBs are bombarded with sales and marketing messages from IT companies every day, making it increasingly difficult for you to land meetings with qualified companies.
This makes it imperative that you find a way to stand out from the competition and find a way to convert leads into clients. If you look like the current IT provider or, just like every other MSP out there, with similar service offerings, you are virtually giving the prospect a reason to buy on price.
If you want to put an end to the dreaded ‘Lead-Proposal-Closed Lost’ cycle you will need to become more effective at creating the vision of a higher value experience and demonstrate you have the ability to deliver that experience.
Does this sound like you?
"We'll be just fine once we find a way to get in front of more prospects." While this sounds logical, nothing could be further from the truth. Even referrals do not have the high close ratios which we came to expect for so long. And, leads generated by your own efforts are much more skeptical, with the industry average close ratio well below 30%. Because of this you must have a strategy and a process that sets you up for success.
DIFFERENTIATE YOURSELF FROM YOUR COMPETITION AND
BECOME SALES READY IN 30 DAYS
Why MSPs are not closing business enough
You provide a great service, the price is right, your marketing campaign is spot-on, yet very few deals are actually closing? Does this sound like your company? Sadly, a good offer often times isn’t enough to win a client over. Sometimes a lower level competitor gets the business. Why? Better sales techniques. In order to go from contact to contract, you need to be one step ahead of your competitors, especially as it relates to sales processes and techniques. Following are some helpful tips that will help you close the sale faster – and easier – than ever:
Differentiate yourself from your competition and become sales ready in 30 days
Create a fool proof meeting agenda
As a rule of thumb, business meetings with your prospects must be as efficient as possible. Not only does that help you present yourself as a professional, but it also significantly reduces the time it takes to close the sale. On the other hand, a disorganized meeting sends a very powerful message that you are not properly prepared. To make sure you’re showing off your company in the best way possible, have the meeting planned out from start to end, leaving nothing to chance.
Go over the important stuff early in the process
Perhaps one of the worst moments in a sales job is when after months of communication, you suddenly realize that you’re just not the right fit for the deal. As a result, you never close the sale, and all the time and resources you’ve spent go down the drain. To prevent this from happening to you, ask the important questions early in the process. This will ensure that you’re not wasting your time on a client that will never actually close the sale.
Provide more than is expected from you
After you’ve gained the initial interest from a potential client, you need to create a good image – and fast. A popular sales technique involves going beyond the expected, and surprising the client in a good way. The ways of achieving this range from free gifts and tokens of appreciation to informative emails that could in some way help the client in their business. All of this will attract their attention, and make you more appealing than the competitors.
Go beyond a “yes”
In many cases when trying to close a sale, you will get a verbal agreement, while the actual contract never gets signed. It’s important to make the phase between verbal and written agreement as short as possible. The longer your prospect stalls, the higher are the chances they’ll change their minds or find one of your competitors to be more suited for their needs. Let your potential clients know that you are serious about the deal, and that you expect the same from them.
To actually close the sale, you have to be attentive and meet the client’s needs. Using the sales techniques outlined above might be just the thing that “clicks” and makes your next prospect choose you over your competitors. In order to improve your chances of closing each deal, make sure you manage each and every deal per your stages in your sales cycle. This crucial step will minimize the time spent on bad deals and shorten your sale scycle on qualified deals.
Need more help? Let the team show you how to win more deals via better meetings and stronger qualifying techniques.
