I'm frequently asked by MSPs considering our outbound prospecting services.
"Derek, what guarantees do you have that this will work?"
"Can you guarantee 4 appointments every month?"
In this article, I tried to answer these questions. It's how we believe guarantee conversations ought to go when it comes to outbound prospecting, and that's whether it's with us, another vendor or even with an internal BDR hire.
Acknowledging the MSPs Perspective First
In my experience, most MSPs that ask about guarantees do so in the first 15 minutes of speaking with them. This caught me off guard at first. Scared me. When I started, I had limited MSP-specific outbound experience and so I was genuinely nervous about making promises.
Now's a different story. We have 5 years of MSP outbound data for many MSPs. The mistakes have taught me more than the wins. In addition to experience, we also understand the MSP's context.
Every day, MSPs are responsible for protecting their clients and themselves from cyber attacks. The last thing they need is to increase their risk profile by spending limited marketing resources on something that doesn't pan out.
In fact, many MSPs have tried outbound prospecting before and failed, and so the question around guarantees is understandable.
How MSPs Deal with Guarantee Questions
A quick story first.
Let's say an MSP's Business Development Representative lands a first appointment with a local manufacturer. The prospect has 150 employees, a main office and 2 plants where they make widgets.
During the first appointment the CFO asks the MSP.
"Well, I'm nervous about ransomware. It's rampant in our industry. If we go with your entire security stack, can you guarantee we won't get ransomwared!?"
I could be wrong, but I don't think the answer "Yes, Mr. Prospect." Because even the most protected organizations and governments can't stop a determined hacker.
However, if you are well prepared and have a good response (talk to Jennifer or Jesse and then practice with Robert), the MSP would educate the manufacturer to the point where he or she would acknowledge the need for a paid risk assessment. Because without an assessment, how can anyone understand their current risk posture vs their desired risk posture?
And after the assessment is complete, even then, you still couldn't guarantee they won't be breached, only that there are different risk levels they can buy. The lower their risk tolerance, the more they will have to pay.
The biggest risk? Is doing nothing at all.
So how does this apply outbound prospecting? A lot actually.
How Simple Selling Manages Outbound Risk
So back to the beginning, when an MSP asks us about guarantees, here is my response.
"We cannot guarantee 4 appointments in March or December or any given month because it's impossible to control the prospects we connect with. Sometimes a prospect will want to talk and most won't, no matter who's calling them.
However, we can reduce the risk of outbound failure substantially, but how much depends on your ICP (ideal client profile), risk comfort level and budget.
Something very important here is that we always have skin in the game. For example, easy exit clauses, penalties for fewer appointments, and since we now have historical prospecting data for our MSPs, we also include Activity-Level Guarantees (similar to your Service-Level Agreements) -- as the saying goes, "it's a numbers game".
With all that said, not all MSPs are alike. We don't just send proposals without first doing our own due diligence to understand your unique context, goals and differentiation."
