Your costs are adding up, and you’re not sure what to do. No matter what you try, you can’t seem to increase your MRR. It’s frustrating (trust me — I know from experience). Nobody likes being stuck in a rut, but there’s light at the end of the tunnel. You can sell more recurring revenue at a higher price now by developing your ideal customer profile.
Who’s My Ideal Customer?
There’s more to your ideal customer profile than company size and type. While these general qualifications do matter, to an extent, the non-negotiables (including your Technology Alignment Process and Super Power) matter more. In other words, the prospect must buy for our reasons, not necessarily theirs. Now, you’re probably wondering the following: How will taking Gary’s advice impact my first-time appointments (FTAs)? The answer is simple: You’ll be able to eliminate 50% of your FTAs. While this sounds counterproductive to selling more, it’s not — so let me explain.
What’s Your Current Close Ratio?
If your close ratio (the number of new MRR agreements you close relative to the number of FTAs) is less than 50%, the truth is the following: You weren’t going to be closing those deals anyways. If you decide to attend 10 FTAs, you’ll attempt to turn every piece of a pain they give you into a reason to buy if you try to sell to all of them. What will happen is you’ll spend half your time with unqualified prospects. You’ll create no sales separation with any of the prospects, and you’ll end up not closing many of the deals.
Stop Trying To Sell To Prospects For The Wrong Reasons
You probably have hundreds of names in your database, but you’ll convert only a tiny percentage of them to clients — and that’s okay; not all prospects are equal. Many of the sales questions I receive from TruMethods members revolve around one issue: They’re selling to prospects for the wrong reasons; they’re focused on the wrong points.
This is especially true when MSPs are attending FTAs. Let me say this loud and clear: Your objective when meeting with a prospect for the first time shouldn’t be to sell to them; that’s not why you’re sitting down with a potential client for the first time. There’s something more you need to consider. Whenever I attended an FTA, I had a single goal in mind: Decide whether I wanted to sell to the prospect sitting across from me — not everyone’s a fit. We closed a lot of business applying this simple approach to our FTAs.
Constructing your ideal customer profile gives your salespeople something to fall back. It allows them to consider what’s in play and apply a framework to every situation. Don’t waste your time with prospects outside of your ideal customer profile. Find prospects you want as clients, and you’ll see an increase in MRR today.
