In this episode of The Closer Interview Series, we invited Ray Orsini, founder of OIT to share some insights on his success with closing MRR contracts. He put forth some practical strategies that worked for him during his 10 year journey wearing the sales hat at his former MSP. 

He focused on targeting verticals, asking good questions and in building rapport throughout the sales process.

And outside of sales, the interview also shed light on the charitable initiatives he has at OIT and how they assist organizations with emergency phone services when in dire need.

All these helped him steer his MSP (now a VoIP services company) to success.

“You don’t have to chase everyone, chase only the ones you want to work with. That way you spend fewer resources on marketing. Consequently, your conversions will be higher.”

– Ray Orsini

How Ray Started Giving Back to the Society

• Ray developed an interest in IT when he was only 8 years old. He started helping his mentor, an IBM engineer through a program called Big Brothers Big Sisters – a youth mentoring organization
• After college, he wanted to join the mentoring organization but because he started his own business, he couldn’t
• Consequently, Ray initiated internships at his organization to mentor youth 
• In 2016, Ray took it further by establishing OIT Gives, a charitable arm of his organization with a dedicated budget and resources
• The organization gives free communications support to businesses that come under the wrath of a natural disaster

Challenges Faced While working on the Social Charity Initiative

• Getting across the message that the help is not for any marketing purposes proved to be difficult. The first response was ‘why are you doing it and if there is a catch?’
• To alleviate the problem Ray used his partners and friends to get the word out in the community
• Since technological support is provided to organizations, the onboarding process is similar to when a client is onboarded. This takes up a lot of effort

Unexpected Business Payoffs by Integrating Non-Profit Initiatives

• Employees get to decide between how much time they want to work at the organization and contribute to the non-profit. This gives them a feeling of giving back to society, making them feel good professionally, emotionally and spiritually 
• Clients and partners like to work with Ray’s organization because they are doing good work for the community
• 10 to 15% of businesses that the non-profit helps eventually end up becoming their clients
• Sets a good example in the community that organizations and people are doing good stuff without expecting anything in return

Preparing for the Sales Process When You Start as an MSP

• Put in place a concrete system to run your sales process 
• Identify a prospect, discover their pain points and build a personal relationship with them
• Once you have understood their problems, present them a solution and close the deal
• Keep evolving the system to make it more effective and competitive

How to Define Ideal Clients You Want to Work with

• List down certain benchmarks as to the clients you want to work with. The benchmarks could be a combination of industry, annual turnover, organization size, industry regulation, years into existence and so on of the prospects
• This lets managed IT providers profile clients who are investing in marketing and are certain to stay in the business
• The strategy can help managed IT providers create targeted campaigns that lower the overall cost of marketing and increase conversion

Building a Rapport with Your Clients

• Don’t be a hardcore salesperson but invest your time in building a personal relationship with the prospect
• Ask a lot of questions to get to know more about them. People like to talk about themselves and your prospect talking to you will let them open up to you
• Make them know you have shared goals by reiterating their problems and putting forward technological solutions
• Present yourself as a partner or fellow business owner, not just a service provider
• All these can provide two-fold benefits - close the prospect and make it easy to go back and have conversations in the future about technological improvements at their organization

Become Laser Focused on What is Going to Drive Revenue

• Focus on a vertical or industry that you understand and target clients in that domain
• Your experience and shared knowledge will let you strike meaningful conversations and deliver end-to-end solutions to the clients
• Find out what big organizations are doing and implement the same at your organizations. They’ve spent a lot of time and effort coming up with a process and replicating the same can be beneficial for your organization