and for an hour in the morning and an hour at night, you watched the news— there weren’ t 200 stations delivering nonstop news like today, both live AND on demand.
“ How you respond to the facts of your business, not the facts themselves, is what will determine your success.” – Robin Robins
According to Paul Cissel, TMT ' s Expert In Residence on MSP financials and exit strategies, best-in-class MSPs are spending north of $ 27,000 to get a new customer. That’ s a fully burdened cost of ALL dollars spent on marketing and sales, including your staff, CRM, website, etc. I suspect that number is higher.
Given that the average MRR is roughly $ 2,200 to $ 2,500, you’ re going to go negative for the first six months or more before you see any return. Worse yet, smaller MSPs whose customers may be spending less than $ 2,500 per month can’ t even afford to show up on search or pay for ads because the math just doesn’ t work.
Respond, Don’ t React
So what are we to do about this?
Well, the key word here is respond, not react. How you respond to the facts of your business, not the facts themselves, is what will determine your success. You can choose to simply see this“ as is,” maybe a little aggravated and p. o.’ d, but not to the point of grabbing your blankie and sucking your thumb doing nothing.
So gather around, folks. There are measures to be taken to reduce risks and make the game more winnable. There are hard“ rules” that need to be followed if you want any hope of continuing to grow in this economy. But the facts are the facts, and we can’ t change them. We can only play the hand being dealt to the best of our abilities.
1: Your Message to Market Match MUST Be Exceptionally Interesting
The new currency for marketers is ATTENTION.
Many of you reading this remember a time when we only received information via the“ big three” news stations: ABC, CBS, and NBC. Newspapers were delivered once a day via paper,
Today, it’ s estimated that the average person is exposed to anywhere between 4,000 and 10,000 ads per day. They’ re in every social media feed, podcast, TV show, etc.
Add to that the constant screen sucking of your email and various other digital devices. With ubiquitous internet, social media, news, and apps, we’ re living in a 24 / 7 / 365 connected world that is creating an environment where your prospect is massively overwhelmed and intensely distracted, caught up in a hundred other conversations, living in constant stress, mentally“ fidgeting” because they have a million pressing things pulling on their attention.
It ' s not just that they won’ t pay attention to a boring, poorly communicated message that doesn’ t instantly deliver the answer to“ what’ s in it for me?” They physically can’ t. Their minds are wandering nonstop.
That’ s why all sales pros and marketers have to work a lot harder just to get someone to notice them long enough to deliver the pitch. As an MSP, your competition is no longer the other MSP down the street. It’ s the millions of more aggressive sales- and marketing-driven companies that are willing to pay more money and put more focus on securing your prospect’ s attention.
In this environment, you CAN’ T be weak with your messaging or off with your message. The No. 1 sin right now is being off target, spraying and praying. The No. 2 sin is being BORING.
The sales rep who FINALLY gets to the decision-maker on the phone or face to face in person better be exceptional at delivering a powerful, well-thought-out, concise statement that really hits home for that prospect. Otherwise, you’ ll instantly get dismissed, sometimes never getting the chance for a second try.
2: Go OFFLINE to Get Customers
This is not a welcome message for many MSP owners who, like me, prefer to hide in the shadows and work behind a computer entirely on my own where human interaction is minimized. I hate leaving the cave.
But the simple truth is digital is too crowded; the cost of getting and staying on top is unsustainable for most. It’ s estimated that only 0.4 % or less of your Facebook audience will see your organic posts. LinkedIn is slightly better, but not by much. YouTube optimizes for what the person is already watching, so very little“ new” is introduced, and over 2.6 MILLION new videos are being posted DAILY.
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