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A STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE TO NAILING YOUR DISCOVERY MEETING (PART 2)

In part two of our step-by-step guide to making the most of your Discovery Meeting, we’ll dive right into the moment of truth itself.

DURING THE MEETING

The time to shine is now. You’re sitting across from a potential client and can’t wait to brag about all the ways you can help them and how great your company is. But it’s better to speak carefully and purpose than rush in with unfocused enthusiasm. So, remain calm and confident and steer the direction of the meeting where you need to go by taking the following steps: 

  • Do a Recap – As the salesperson, it will be on you to remind your potential clients why (to your best understanding) they have asked you to be here, and what ground has already been covered. So, to start the meeting, refresh everyone’s memory on how you’ve gotten to this point in the relationship. This not only helps remind the prospect why they wanted to meet with you but also helps ensure everyone is on the same page. 
  • Get Up to Date – Once they affirm, always ask the prospect if anything has changed within their company or their IT situation since you last talked. You want to make sure you are fully caught up with their current needs before moving forward. Follow up by confirming everyone in the room’s names, roles, and titles in case any personnel or hierarchy has changed. 
  • Get Them Talking About Themselves – Now that you know that you’re in the right place, with the right people, you’ll want to dig deeper. But rather than probe away with a million questions, the best way to achieve this is by turning the focus onto your prospect. Try to get them talking about their company and their goals for the future. Why are they in business? Where do they want their business to be in three to five years? Are they hoping to add locations? Expand their workforce? Try to understand how they see themselves and where they want to be so you can tailor your messaging accordingly. 
  • Get Them Talking About Their Provider – To understand what your prospect truly needs, you need to know what in their relationship with the current or previous provider has worked for them and what they’d like to see improved. But, to avoid the meeting turning into a gossip circle, you must start with the positive and then gradually work your way towards the more negative experiences. Whenever the prospect finishes telling you about an issue they had or is currently having, remember to follow up with, “Is there anything else you’d like to see improved?” Continue posing this question until they tell you there are no more, so you know you have gotten the whole picture.
  • Share Relevant Success Stories – Now, with the spotlight back on you and your services, you want to choose your message carefully. This isn’t the moment to jump in and spout off about all the great new technology you have at your disposal. Instead, you need to focus on relaying how you, as an MSP, have helped similar companies in the same or a related industry achieve success through your technology. It would help if you also talked about your company, how you’ve achieved what you have, and what you see coming from a technology perspective that may benefit them in the future. 
  • Check-In – Throughout this process, you’ll also want to regularly ask if they have any questions and if what you have relayed is clear. You’re wasting your breath if your prospect doesn’t understand what you’ve said and silently nods their head out of politeness or embarrassment.
  • Don’t Leave Without a Next Step – Hopefully, you’ve now found some common ground. So, take the initiative and confirm the next part of the process – a technical meeting. Explain this step by conveying to them that assessing their network is the best way to provide them with technological solutions to their business problems. 
  • Take a Tour – Although, during the technical meeting, the engineer will spend time getting a sense of the prospect’s network and configurations, if you’re on-site and the client agrees, take a walk through the office. See what you can learn by just looking around, and if possible, take a look at the server room and note how old or new all the hardware (computers, servers, routers, etc.) is. If you’re not on-site, ask if they can share any documentation that would give you a similar overview.
  • Confirm Your Next Meeting – Thank them for their time, set a date for the technical meeting, and once back in the office IMMEDIATELY make sure calendar invites and thank you notes are sent.

In the end, a discovery meeting is only one of several crucial moments in the sales process, but it can feel stressful if you don’t know how to navigate one. So, if you’re looking for more helpful tactics for sales meetings or even some professional sales training to elevate your sales team performance, contact our sales experts at OSR Manage today to find out more about how we can help.

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A STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE TO NAILING YOUR DISCOVERY MEETING (PART 1)

Sales people at a sales meeting

You’ve done it! Hours of hard work cold calling, crafting email campaigns, and pulling all-nighters have finally paid off. You’ve convinced a prospect to commit the time to meet with you, and you have an appointment on the calendar. But if you’re not prepared, the next step might feel even more daunting than the last. So how do you ensure that when that lead comes in, your perseverance isn’t all for nothing? In this two-part article, we’ll take you step-by-step through our favorite methods for nailing that hard-earned discovery meeting. And to start, we’ll walk you through what to do in the lead up to the big day:

BEFORE THE MEETING

Setting yourself up for success starts before logging on to your laptop or setting foot in the prospect’s office. Begin by ensuring all your calendar invites are sent and confirmed within 24 hours by all parties from each company. Then, the day before, always follow up again just to make sure the date still works for the prospect. Not only is this courteous, but you’ll find it increasingly difficult to keep your prospect’s attention if they’ve squeezed your meeting into their schedule on a day where more important matters have arisen. If you’re meeting is still a go, then it’s time to gather everyone from your team who will be in attendance and do a thorough, no-stone-left-unturned prep meeting. This meeting before the meeting should update everyone on how exactly you got to this point with the prospect and review the following topics:

  • General Information – What do you know about your prospect? Any info you may have gathered about who they are, where they are from, and what their interests, passions, and desires are should be discussed so you have a sense of where they are coming from and how best to connect with them.
  • Roles Within the Company – Is your prospect the primary decision-maker in their company? If not, can they influence decisions? Will others be joining them? Ask the same question for everyone in the room and try to get a sense of who will affect the final decisions within this organization. 
  • Pain Points – What problem is your prospect trying to solve right now? What made them set this meeting? Knowing precisely what the prospect currently needs to fix is imperative to figuring out the best way to approach your meeting.
  • Relationship with Current Providers or Vendors – Does your prospect currently have someone providing the services they are asking you about? If so, you must know what is working or not working with that relationship so you can keep the positives and not repeat the mistakes.

Using these questions, you can now set up role-playing scenarios to practice different outcomes and prep stories or anecdotes that might help you win over the room. Especially prep experiences you can share related to the given vertical your prospect works in. If you’ve had successful working relationships with five different law firms and you’ll be talking to a group of lawyers, practice relaying relatable anecdotes of your time working in this field to help your potential clients imagine themselves in a similarly successful partnership with you. 

Now that you’ve done your homework, you should be ready to step up to the plate when the big moment arrives. In our next section, we’ll jump right back in and talk about how to put all this preparation into practice once you’re face-to-face. But if you’re eager to learn more about how to prep your team for every part of the sale process and hit the ground running ASAP, reach out to us at OSR Manage today. We have the expertise and experience to help you build a top-notch sales team in no time.

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HOW TO TEACH NEW HIRES TO BE STRONG PROSPECTORS

Training new hires in sales

Undoubtedly, prospecting is one of the most challenging parts of the sales process. The thought of doing cold outreach to busy professionals is enough to make regular polite individuals break out in a cold sweat. And without a clear strategy and the proper techniques, your sales team won’t feel much better about doing so either. So here, we’ll explore some of the most effective techniques and strategies your sales team can employ so they can turn leads into opportunities and develop a database full of potential customers. 

LISTEN ACTIVELY

Sales reps are usually known to be a smooth-talking bunch. But when prospecting, it’s time for them to switch gears and be extra tuned in to potential buyers’ language, tone, and emotional state. Since they will generally be going in cold, we need them to be paying attention so they can gather information. Because when a prospect makes a revealing admission about challenges they may be having or a service they might be looking for, you cannot miss the opportunity to address it. If a prospect does so, have your salesperson reiterate what they’ve heard to make sure they are correct in their assessment and start a dialogue about the issues. Then encourage them to ask open-ended questions that might lead your client to share more details about their situation.

HANDLE OBJECTIONS

Inevitably when you reach out to unsuspecting individuals, there will be some pushback. The key to dealing with these objections is to prepare for them ahead of time, anticipate that they will arise, and then train yourself to – pause. While this may seem counterintuitive since you’re expecting to be hung up on immediately or shoved out of the door, pausing signals that the objection has been heard and acknowledged creating some room for you to move forward. This works because when potential customers feel they’re being heard, they’re also more likely to listen to what you have to say as well. Once you’ve created this space, you can then re-engage them by asking clarifying questions. These questions should be designed to gather tidbits of crucial information that you can hopefully use to reframe their concerns and get them to rethink their initial skepticism. Finally, if you make some headway, make sure your salespeople confirm that the objection raised has been addressed sufficiently, so everyone feels comfortable moving forward with the conversation.

IDENTIFY PAIN POINTS

As we converse, we’re always looking for pain points to be able to tailor our sales pitch to our potential customers’ most pressing issues. But surprisingly enough, the true nature of these pain points is often somewhat unclear to the customers themselves. So, in the same way that a doctor probes their patient to see what underlying issues are causing them to seek help, your sales team must also be trained to seek out the triggers causing the most pressing problems for your potential clients. And this returns to the concept of asking open-ended questions that help illuminate a more profound, broader view of their business as a whole. Because only once you truly understand the potential customer’s actual underlying issues will your salespeople be able to correctly identify and articulate the value of your best solutions.

LEARN TO ASSUMPTIVE CLOSE

Finally, a little bit of old-school sales talk can vastly improve your sales team performance when used correctly. For example, the assumptive close is a great sales technique that splits the difference between a soft close and simply letting your customers off the hook. When you assumptive close, you essentially “assume the sale” by presuming that the solution is so obviously helpful that there’s no need to actually ask the customer if they want to buy. For example, by asking, “Which one of our service packages would most interest you?” a salesperson creates momentum towards a sale, doesn’t leave space for a “no,” takes the pressure off the prospect to ask explicitly to buy something, and inspires confidence in the final product by making it seem like an obvious choice to purchase it. Although it may seem a bit pushy, the key to the assumptive close is to have built enough rapport before using it, so the question doesn’t feel stilted or awkward once it’s introduced.

If incorporating and drilling sales techniques feels like a bit of a stretch for you to handle in-house, perhaps consider getting quality help by partnering with OSR Manage. OSR Manage gives you a team of experienced sales gurus who can provide you with a complete blueprint to attract, train, and develop a stellar team of star salespeople. Contact us today.

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HOW TO EFFECTIVELY ONBOARD AND TRAIN NEW SALES TEAM MEMBERS

people attending a sales onboarding training course

Most MSPs excel at providing top-notch technical expertise to their customers. They work hard to guide clients through complex technological decisions, assess problem areas, and introduce effective solutions. In turn, they create strong relationships along the way and hope customer satisfaction will lead to new clients. But if you genuinely want to grow your business, you cannot simply rely on word of mouth and referrals; you’ll need to recruit and train a fiery and passionate sales team who relentlessly hunt down new customers for your business.

In stage one of our sales training guide, we’ll focus in on how to onboard and train new sales members once they’ve been hired so they have everything they need to boost your business into the stratosphere.

GIVE THEM THE BASICS

Hopefully, if you’re bringing in an experienced salesperson, they have blown you away with all the requisite charisma and tenacity to be the superstar closer you’re searching for. However, the truth is that if they don’t fully understand the MSP industry, all that talent and persistence will lead them nowhere. So, your first step must be to sit down and make sure your new hire has a detailed understanding of how customers interact with an MSP, what your MSP does differently than others, and how to speak knowledgeably about all the services you offer. Although some core sales principles apply no matter the product, you’ll want to give your new hire all the unique intricacies of the MSP industry so they  

TEACH THEM TO TALK THE TALK

In keeping with this same idea, it’s essential to ensure your sales team knows what they mean when they say you offer “virtualization services.” Though this may seem like simple common sense, many technologically minded MSP leaders will overlook the confusing nature of tech jargon because they are used to talking amongst each other. But new salespeople need to be brought up to speed quickly, so they don’t awkwardly land on their faces when incorporating IT lingo and terminology into their pitches. And don’t be afraid to start with the basics, as many salespeople may be hesitant to admit they don’t understand seemingly common terms and concepts. 

GET THEM A SCRIPT

One way to get off to a running start when incorporating IT terms and MSP knowledge into your sales pitches is to start your team off with some strong scripting. If you’ve previously been pitching your business on your own, you may be able to talk about your services endlessly and effortlessly on cue. But to replicate that comfortability with new hires, you’ll need to give them some written guidance in the form of sales scripts. Make sure to stress that these are only meant to be guides, so experienced salespeople don’t end up parroting you and sacrificing the personality and charisma that got them the job in the first place. 

TEACH THEM TO ASK THE RIGHT QUESTIONS

Along with the proper lingo, you’ll also need to arm your salesforce with all the critical questions you need to be answered, so they aren’t doubling back to retrieve important information they weren’t aware they needed to seek out. Think through what your business needs to know about new potential clients to serve them best. How many employees do they have? Are they currently in a contract with another MSP? Do they already have an internal IT department? Bullet point the essential information you’ll need from each prospective client to strategize and serve them best. Then, incorporate these questions into your script.

The truth is that most MSPs don’t have the bandwidth to tackle the sales process with the attention and energy needed to bring their business to the next level. If you’re struggling with a similar dilemma, perhaps think about getting quality help by partnering with OSR Manage. OSR Manage gives you a team of experienced sales gurus who can provide you with a complete blueprint to attract, train, and develop a stellar team of star salespeople. Contact us now. 

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HOW TO FIND THE PERFECT FARMER

Hiring the perfect farmer

If you’re a small or medium-sized business that is not currently utilizing the unique skillset of a sales “farmer” (commonly known as an account manager), you are most likely not maximizing your top-line revenue. While sales “hunters” are justifiably highly coveted for their ability to expand your client list, many companies fail to correctly value, retain, and motivate salespeople who can keep their current clients happy. Here we’ll examine just how to identify, hire, and utilize talented account managers that can maximize all the business you DO have.

IDENTIFY THE BASIC TRAITS OF A FARMER

To start, let’s examine what makes a great farmer. When people want to hire a farmer, they look for someone who can manage and expand upon existing relationships. In today’s ultra-connected world, where sales hunters have infinite ways to connect with new clients, we need farmers to make those connections personal.

So, how do great farmers do this? First, they build trust by connecting with everyone from the clients’ team, and create solid relationships top-to-bottom. Then, they regularly and generously listen to the clients’ needs, questions, and concerns, and seek solutions for those specific problems to make the client feels safe, secure, and in good hands. Finally, they know how to upsell and maximize these accounts by creating a direct line from the concerns their client has expressed to them to the products offered.

Thus, when interviewing candidates, we want to look for amicable, understanding individuals who feel familiar, reliable, and helpful.

EXAMINE CANDIDATES’ PERSONALITIES

It’s also helpful to examine the personality differences between sales hunters and sales farmers to look for the exact personality type we’ll need. According to specific research on this topic, sales hunters are typically promotion-focused, and sales farmers are more likely to be prevention-focused. This means that hunters are motivated to achieve goals, and farmers are motivated by avoiding losses.

Outlined in research by Halvorson and Higgins in the Harvard Business Review, the personalities of great farmers were described as follows:

Prevention Focused (Farmers):

  • Work deliberately and carefully
  • Accurate and detailed
  • Always prepared for worst-case scenarios
  • Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills

Promotion Focused (Farmers):

  • Risk-averse
  • Work slowly and deliberately
  • Get stressed by quick turnarounds and tight deadlines
  • Don’t think outside the box
  • Stick to what they know

Therefore, we can ask prospective candidates questions and score their resumes for clues regarding specific strengths and weaknesses to help scope out top-level farmers. 

MOTIVATE YOUR FARMER THE RIGHT WAY

If you can identify this personality type and these traits in a candidate, you’ve likely found yourself a farmer. But to make sure you get the most out of a great farmer and retain them over time, you’ll have to consider how you align their goals with their “motivation to avoid losses.” The best way to keep your sales farmer happy and motivated is to offer stability through an even work-life balance and career progression opportunities while avoiding long hours, high-pressure situations, and unorthodox methods or motivational tactics.

Do you need additional help identifying the traits of great salespeople, managing their distinct personalities, or motivating them to maximize their talents? Then, consider contacting OSR Manage, experts in all things MSP sales, to guide you towards building a top-notch team.

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HOW TO FIND THE PERFECT HUNTER

Finding the perfect Hunter

Every business needs one. But because of their unique skillset, a top-tier sales hunter can be nearly impossible to find. There are plenty of talented people within your sales team who can manage accounts, retain top clients, and grow existing business relationships, but even some of the most talented salespeople are not capable of prospecting, connecting with decision-makers, and acquiring new accounts at the rate that an expert hunter can. So how do you identify, attract, and keep these invaluable sales savants?

Here are a few ideas:

IDENTIFY THE TRAITS OF A GREAT HUNTER

Being eager to prospect and meet with potential clients just isn’t enough. If you’re seeking a hunter, you need to know the attributes that set them apart.

Great hunters thrive at:

  • Meeting new people, grasping the vision for their business and describing how your business fits that picture
  • Always keeping their sales pipeline full by constantly meeting new prospects
  • Utilizing a variety of techniques and tools (social media, LinkedIn, phone calls, e-mail, sales automation tools) to prospect
  • Sniffing out decision-makers and not hesitating to ask for an introduction or referral
  • Not seeking approval, being comfortable with rejection, and having the confidence to approach high-status individuals such as owners, CEOs, VPs, etc.
  • Keeping their web presence and social profiles immaculately maintained
  • Closing, not resting on their laurels, and sprinting towards the next opportunity ASAP

DEFINE THE TYPE OF HUNTER YOU NEED

Finding a candidate with the qualities mentioned above will help narrow your search and figure out who has the requisite skills, but before heading into an interview, there’s one more quality you should assess: Fit.

It’s pointless to hire someone with the right skillset if they’re not a good match with your company.

So, in addition to figuring out if they have the hunter makeup, assess how the candidate’s previous experience and abilities align with:

  • Your price point and brand image
  • The type of prospects you are looking to attract
  • The length and complexity of your sales process
  • Company culture and values
  • Your vision for their future within your company

ASK THE RIGHT QUESTIONS

When you head into the interview, you may want to adjust or augment the list of questions you ask when looking for a typical candidate for your sales team.

For example, when interviewing for hunters, be sure to incorporate some of the following questions:

  • How do you typically find new prospects?
  • Can you describe your usual sales process from start to finish?
  • What challenges have you personally faced when attempting to develop new business?
  • If we don’t provide you with leads, where would you find them?
  • You’ve been rejected at every turn. What happens next?
  • What challenges do you anticipate when attempting to sell our specific product?
  • What excites you about potentially selling our products?

LET HUNTERS HUNT

Finally, once you’ve hired your ideal candidate, you want to ensure that you don’t limit their potential by loading them up with additional tasks that shouldn’t be their responsibility. Hunting is a demanding enough job without being asked to walk customers through their new purchases, troubleshooting technical issues, or track orders. Assigning a sales associate to any tasks that will distract your hunter from their job frees them up to focus their energy on bringing you new business and will keep this invaluable new member of your team from wanting to jump ship.

If you are looking to attract and hire gifted salespeople who can grow your business exponentially, consider consulting with OSR Manage. With years of experience in every aspect of sales management, we can give you guidance on everything from sales training strategies to closing deals. Contact us now to find out more.

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WANT A STRONG SALES PIPELINE FOR SUMMER? START HIRING NOW.

How to Hire a Good Sales Team

Good salespeople are hard to find. Anyone who applies for a sales job must think of themselves as being pretty persuasive. So, it’s no surprise that when you look for quality salespeople, you’ll find no shortage of candidates who know how to sell themselves. But that doesn’t mean they know how to sell your product to your customers. And considering the significant amount of time and resources you’ll be investing to hire, onboard, and train potential candidates, it’s imperative that you can identify the difference. In addition, the turnover rate for salespeople is extraordinarily high. That’s why it’s wise to take the time to identify the qualities that will put candidates over the top and make sure the person you hire is the right fit long term. Because if you hire the wrong person, you won’t just lose the time and money you’ve invested in the hiring process; you’ll also lose the relationships and sales a better candidate would have brought you.

 IN FACT, IT’S HARDER THAN EVER

But if weeding through a million charismatic potential candidates was beginning to worry you, there’s a more significant issue that might make that search even harder. With weekly jobless claims tumbling to historic lows and the “Great Resignation” giving job seekers more options and better bargaining power, you may not actually end up having a million options to choose from. And if your workload starts to outpace your ability to hire, employees who are subject to understaffed conditions are proving to be twice as likely to quit their job. All this adds up to an unfavorable situation for employers looking to staff and retain a workforce of talented and hard-working salespeople. Industry insiders even estimate that in today’s challenging hiring environment, it can take up to 90 days to find a qualified salesperson.

GOOD SALES TEAMS ARE LIKE ROME

In that, they are not built in a day. Regardless of the current climate, if you want to find the best candidates, you have a lengthy process in front of you. Once hired, the first 30 days of any sales person’s tenure will be spent training. After training, it will take anywhere from 3-6 months to develop their sales pipeline. So, you need to start looking for salespeople way before you need them. In fact, we think you should go even further. Shift your mindset to see hiring not as a short-term problem but as a long-term investment. Identify the right type of person and constantly be on the lookout for them. Build a pool of talent before you have vacancies. Don’t post a job listing and then hurry to hire someone. Be willing to wait for the candidate that checks all the right boxes. But start looking for them — now.

Looking for someone to help you attract and retain quality salespeople? Contact OSR today to find out how we help companies like yours build winning sales teams.

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INCORPORATING CYBERSECURITY INTO YOUR SALES PITCH

With high-profile data breaches filling the news, one would assume selling customers on cybersecurity upgrades would be an easy pitch. But unfortunately, while most companies enthusiastically state their grand intentions for strengthening their cybersecurity profile, few are willing to actually put their money where their mouth is unless the immediate benefits are made extremely clear. If your sales team doesn’t have an in-depth understanding of the security solutions they sell and can’t talk knowledgeably about how they’ll make an impact, positive results will be very hard to come by. Since it’s impossible to turn your entire sales team into cybersecurity experts overnight, here are the essential elements they’ll need to comprehend to connect the dots for your customers.

PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS

The security market is overflowing with a massive amount of fancy-sounding solutions with hefty price tags. And because cyber threats are constantly evolving, your customers are probably not up on the latest sophisticated hacking methods. So, your sales efforts must revolve around identifying and offering solutions for problems they are currently attempting to solve. Whenever your salesperson pitches a new product, they must understand both the problem it is designed to solve and how it solves that problem exactly. Then, they can then direct customers towards the most suitable solutions and help them understand precisely how they will benefit from the technologies they’re purchasing. If your salespeople simply memorize a few security buzzwords and some scary statistics, they might gather the random sale here or there, but when your salesperson can engage customers by acting as a trusted advisor who understands the security challenges they face, they will find much more success.

VERTICALS

Every industry and vertical has its own unique relationship to security. And many specific verticals have a complex web of regulatory requirements they must sort through and comply with to stay in business: a healthcare provider has different needs than an accounting firm when it comes to security and compliance. There is no one-size-fits-all sales approach to selling cybersecurity solutions. Training your sales team to understand the relevant laws, regulations, and security profiles for different verticals gives them the ability to be truly useful to their customer. If your salespeople can speak knowledgeably about how a particular group of upgrades can help a healthcare company comply with HIPAA or how a specific solution could help a financial company protect against fraud, they will immediately build trust. By directing these companies towards products that make their lives easier, they’ll provide real value instead of merely fearmongering about the latest cybercrime trends.

WHEN TO CALL FOR BACK-UP

Regular training sessions, industry research, and product demonstrations can all drastically assist your sales team in its quest to connect to customers. But the point of these isn’t just to make them sound smarter in conversation; it’s to build trust and give customers confidence in their guidance. You mustn’t place so much pressure on your employees to be knowledgeable that they start to exaggerate their expertise. In the end, they are salespeople and not IT experts and should be allowed to double-check details with experts whenever they are unsure. Make sure to let them know there’s nothing wrong with saying something like, “I’ll need to check in with one of our engineers to get the exact data for you. I can have that information to you in a day or so” if they need some back-up. They should understand that they can potentially undo all their previous positive gains and irreparably damage the trust they’ve built by speaking out of turn when they reach the limits of their new knowledge.

If you’re wondering how to find the time and resources to train your sales staff on all the latest cybersecurity trends, threats, verticals, and industry compliance requirements, consider reaching out to OSR Manage. Our expert IT sales professionals can provide your salespeople with the education and sales management needed to approach any sales pitch with supreme confidence.

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HELPING YOUR SALESPERSON SELL SECURITY

With cyberattacks skyrocketing since the COVID-19 pandemic, there is currently no hotter buzzword in the MSP landscape than “security.” But even though companies understand they should be spending a considerable amount of time and money upgrading their cybersecurity profile, many are still hesitant to fully commit when it comes time to open up their wallets. If you’re finding your sales team can’t convince customers to pony up when it comes to protection, here are a few ways to help them connect.

INCREASE THEIR KNOWLEDGE

One of the main reasons salespeople have trouble persuading customers to upgrade their security measures is because they don’t know what they’re talking about. Generally speaking, a severe lack of cybersecurity knowledge plagues MSP sales teams and, in turn, causes them to shy away from discussing the subject in detail. Without this understanding, they are left unable to overcome objections and explain why the upgrades and features they are pitching are important when customers push back. If your company invests in the latest cybersecurity bells and whistles but has salespeople that can’t discuss these technologies in detail with your prospects, what good are they in the end? This is why technical training is a crucial piece of the puzzle in getting your clients to buy in to raising their cybersecurity profile. Because even if you have access to the best possible tools, you must be able to explain them in layman’s terms, or they will be rendered useless.

GET THEM TALKING IN TERMS OF RISK TOLERANCE

Aside from cybersecurity knowledge, the other prominent challenge salespeople face is that prospects tend to be driven by incident response rather than proactive solutions. This is because many companies read about high-profile hacks and believe they are small enough to fly under the radar. They talk a big game about being security-focused, but when push comes to shove, they defer to crossing their fingers and thinking, “it won’t happen to me.” However, if salespeople’s only response is to constantly warn about potential disaster scenarios, they may come across as fear mongers who are just chasing a buck. What salespeople need then is to frame the conversation surrounding security in a sober and realistic fashion without sounding alarmist. The best way to do so is to open up a discussion about risk tolerance. For example, a salesperson can simply ask prospects the question, “On a scale of 1-5, what is your tolerance for risk?” and now have a reference point for future conversations about security. Since we all use the risk vs. reward framework in our daily lives to assist us in making tough decisions, this way of discussing cybersecurity provides an easy way to engage in challenging conversations about the gambles companies are willing to take without leaning on paranoia.

AVOID SELLING FEAR, UNCERTAINTY, AND DOUBT

When selling security, the goal for your sales team should be to get the customer to understand that proactive security features aren’t an upsell. Everyone benefits when a company buys the smoke alarm instead of waiting to call the fire department. By setting a clear risk vs. reward assessment framework for future conversations with a risk tolerance assessment, salespeople can now avoid the potential pitfall of selling through negativity. Utilizing this discussion point, they can constantly update their customers about the level of risk they are taking on by declining new security features or upgrades without sounding pushy. And if customers want to decline the latest security upgrades due to skepticism or budget concerns, your salespeople don’t have to scare them into continuing the conversation. Instead, they can spin the discussion positively, offering to navigate prospects towards a healthier risk tolerance rating down the line.

When selling security, the name of the game is building a knowledgeable sales team that can pitch prospects on proactive measures without bringing negativity and fear into the equation. To provide your team with the highest quality training and support when it comes to security, consider working with OSR – contact us today.

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HOW TO HIRE AN MSP SALESPERSON

If you’re an MSP owner, you know you need a strong sales team to stay competitive. But that doesn’t mean you know how to identify and attract rockstar salespeople. Because many MSP owners aren’t sure what to look for in a salesperson, they end up hiring a charming relative or someone with an impressive resume and then hope for the best. Unfortunately, these traits don’t always transfer to the sales world. So, how do you make sure you’re hiring only the most promising candidates? Here are three surefire ways to help identify talented salespeople.

BUILD AN EXTENSIVE INTERVIEW PROCESS

The first step to finding the right people is developing a robust and thorough system for vetting potential candidates. In our experience, we find that many companies typically only interview a sales candidate one to three times. This is simply not enough. The MSP sales process is a marathon that requires perseverance, professionalism, and positivity all the way through. Therefore, to test those qualities in your candidates, your interview process must reflect this. We recommend doing four to five interviews to find people who can maintain consistency in their attitude, energy, and answers, culminating in one final “culture fit” interview with non-sales-focused team members to make sure the candidate’s personality is a good overall match for the company.

LOOK FOR THE RIGHT QUALITIES

In the end, vetting and recruiting suitable candidates is about risk mitigation. Your company’s risk of seeing a significant downturn in business is augmented each time you hire a salesperson who has trouble closing. So even though someone may seem impressive at first glance, you can’t skimp on your process just because you get a good feeling about them. You must remain diligent in looking for the right signs:

  • Tone, Cadence, Empathy, and Active Listening – Do you enjoy talking to this person and will your potential clients? A good candidate should keep things light and not spin towards negativity regardless of the topic at hand.
  • Superlatives – Start at the bottom of the resume (college) and work your way up. Ask them, “If I were to call your previous manager and ask them to tell me one thing you’re amazing at and one thing you need to improve on, what would those be?”
  • Transitions – Good candidates will generally have a track record of sticking with companies for more than two years and have sound, non-negative reasons for transitioning from job to job.
  • Consistency – It’s important to repeat important questions in follow-up interviews to note if the candidate will remain consistent in their answers. Especially look out for embellishments or changes in quotas and other metrics.
  • Follow Up – End every interview by asking if the candidate has any other questions. If they don’t ask what the next steps are, they won’t have the persistence to follow up with potential customers in the same way.

ASK “BLOODY NOSE” QUESTIONS

The worry with salespeople is that the best sale they ever make is the one that gets them the job. So, it’s crucial that you test your potential candidates’ resilience in the face of adversity by asking what we refer to as “bloody nose” questions. “Bloody nose” questions are purposely uncomfortable questions that force candidates to remain resilient and optimistic when faced with critique. The point here is not to be offensive, cruel, or catch people off guard. It’s simply to see how a candidate will respond when pushed to engage in potentially awkward conversations around their perceived weaknesses or limitations. If they can spin these perceived negatives into positives and continue selling themselves, they will do the same when potential customers challenge them about their concerns with your products and services.

Remember, if you wouldn’t buy from the person you’re interviewing, neither will potential clients. Reps in the MSP space receive far fewer appointments than in other industries, so they must know how to close once given the opportunity to. If attracting, vetting, and training great salespeople still seems daunting, contact OSR Manage today to learn more about how our years of experience in this area can help your company bring in more business.