Aside from the coronavirus and presidential politics, the thing that keeps topping headlines is cybersecurity. It's mostly bad news, of course, but the silver lining is that breaches amount to free marketing for MSPs, MSSPs, technology vendors and consultants in the field.
Here’s the bottomline: cybersecurity may be great for the IT industry as a whole, but it’s not automatically great for your company.
So then, how can we ensure your MRR gets a real kicker from it?
The answer is counterintuitive -- we need to forget about cybersecurity in order to leverage it.
We need to stop doing things that are hurting our funnel and start doing more things that will help it.
Cybersecurity seems a lot like dieting. At first it sounds like the answer, but deep down we know it won’t last.
“Let’s create a cybersecurity script for the sales team. This ought to get us new clients.”
Oh, wouldn’t it be heaven if it were really that easy?
Back when I played two varsity sports in college, there were no shortcuts for staying fit. No one could run sprints for me; no one could hit the weights on my behalf; I had to do the real work myself.
So what did I need to stop doing to make myself a better athlete?
Downing pints of ice cream every week was one thing, and not getting enough sleep was another. I knew if I stopped eating junk and stopped staying up so late, my workouts wouldn’t just be for break even any more.
Similarly for an MSP, there are certain activities that need to stop and here’s a hint on what I mean.
Today, there are an average of 7 decision-makers involved in the B2B buying process. And, 50-90% of the journey is complete before a buyer interacts with a sales rep. Spotio.
In other words, whether we like it or not, most of the decision-making by SMBs happens without a phone. SMBs don’t want an outside interruption to make up their mind, they want to self-diagnose, then ask peers and research online, and finally, talk to humans.
In other words, to fix our funnel we must stop selling so much and start marketing more.
Think about your current strategy. Does it lean towards sales activities or marketing?
If you’re only cold-calling and attending events, then you’re missing 50 to 90% of the potential market.
Jumping back to my college days, there is no way in hell I would have lifted weights without counting reps, or run without tracking time. Tracking my workouts wasn’t a genius move on my part; it’s normal and expected of any serious athlete.
So then, isn’t it crazy that for small businesses, more than half are perfectly okay to run sales and marketing without tracking?
According to Keap’s 2020 Small Business Marketing Trends report, when asked “Are your marketing efforts effective,” get this: a little more than half of the respondents declared “I don’t know” (43.6%) or “No” (7.5%).
The reason sales and marketing performance is still misunderstood by so many is because it's not as simple as hitting start and stop on a watch.
But here’s the good news.
The tools for tracking are available.
The people with experience are available.
Therefore, all that’s required is your will to combine them
