0:00

If you're fixing ad hoc one off like break, fix problems for your prospects and then they ghost

0:05

you. After you mentioned managed services, I'm going to show you how a short, really targeted

0:11

five email sequence can help you restart conversations by shifting their mindset, giving

0:17

them some education, and nurturing them along the way. Without you as a salesperson having to do all

0:23

the heavy lifting. Let's dive in. So let's coaching an MSP seller recently who had a very specific

0:28

issue that they brought to us. And it was, you know, hey, we had this prospect, they had a server issue.

0:32

It was a break fix problem. And we went in, we fixed it. And you know, the thought was, you know, if

0:38

we fixed this really quickly, if we show how good our team is, if we show the quality and the

0:44

caliber of our customer service, we will have earned the right to talk about managed services.

0:48

So they went in there, they did their job, they fixed it. And then when they started to talk about

0:53

managed services, crickets, they got ghosted immediately afterwards, which was really confusing

0:59

to them because the prospect was super grateful. The initial emails were like, hey, this is awesome!

1:04

They were quick to pay like it was. They were on top of it. They were happy and they were confused,

1:10

right? The person that the MSP seller was confused. Why couldn't we have the conversation about

1:15

Maynard services? And here's the thing. After you fix something, it's really important to realize,

1:21

first of all, just the psychology that goes into that. They no longer feel any pain, right? Like they

1:26

feel relief. Now, you know, as a as an MSP person, as an IT person, as a tech person,

1:33

you know that pain is temporary. Well, if you're if you're just being reactive, it's just a matter of

1:39

time before you call us back with something else. Like, you know that it's temporary. They don't. So

1:45

what they have is full on relief. You know, they're thinking, hey, this is awesome. Like. And by the way,

1:52

really grateful to you for fixing it. Now, what I'm not going to tell you is don't do this. Like I'm

1:57

not going to tell you. Fixing break fix is a bad idea to move people or migrate people,

2:04

or transition them into managed services. The last thing you want to do is have somebody call in

2:09

with an IT problem, which means it is important. It's critical they're making some investment in

2:15

it, right? There's some infrastructure, something going on, and you have a live person on a phone

2:21

with a problem, with a pain. The last thing that you want to do is say, go talk to another IT

2:26

provider, right. Like go talk to somebody else. And let's hope that they don't have a

2:32

process or a system in place to migrate you or sell you into to managed services more effective

2:38

than us. Right? So you don't necessarily want to do that. Taking the break fix problem is not the

2:42

problem. It's what you do after you've solved that problem. The reality is, I've talked to hundreds of

2:48

MSP sellers and most people will follow up once. The follow up twice, you know, was was

2:55

just following up here. You know, we we fixed the server. We did, you know whatever it was XYZ wanted

2:60

to have a conversation about how to prevent this in the future. You know, could we. Could we chat

3:04

this time? Could we, you know, do an assessment? Could we do this? Could we do that? They follow up

3:09

once or twice and they don't get a response. And so they move on and they move on because they

3:16

know like hey, this this person is qualified like as a prospect. They're qualified. Like it's a

3:20

business that we could we could help. Maybe they're in our industry or they're the size of

3:24

company that we work with, or they're in our geography, like so technically they're qualified,

3:28

but they're not ready to buy. Right. So there's no real intent in terms of managed services at the

3:34

moment. So they they, you know, do one follow up, do two follow ups after they have fixed the problem,

3:40

they stop following up because as a seller you don't want to be you don't want to be annoying,

3:45

right. Like the last thing you want to do, you're like, listen, this person doesn't understand

3:49

managed services. They don't understand what we do. They don't get the value. They're not going to

3:54

appreciate the investment level. They're not going to appreciate the price. And it's just it's not

3:59

worth my time as a seller to keep trying to follow up and keep badgering these people and

4:04

keep annoying them. There's too big of a gap between where they are today and where they need

4:08

to be for me as a seller to really pursue this. So after 1 or 2 attempts, I'm just going to I'm going

4:14

to leave that and I'm going to I'm going to let it go with this pool of prospects. You kind of

4:18

have two options. One is you can say, we're just going to let it go, right? Like we one, we

4:25

only deal with high intent buyers if the opportunity, not the prospect but the

4:31

opportunity is not qualified. Meaning good company. We could service them but there's no intent. So

4:36

there's no actual opportunity. There's no actual deal. We're not interested in that. Right. So we're

4:41

just going to kick the can on that. That's option one. Option two is you build a system

4:48

that helps nurture them, that helps move them from where they are. The gap right, like that helps move

4:55

them from where they are to where you want them to be. And most MSPs do option one by default, and

5:01

it's because they don't have a system in place. Right. So they make that follow up. They make the

5:06

second follow up, and they say too much effort. Like it's not the juice isn't worth the squeeze

5:11

on this. I'm moving on. So by default you're choosing number one. Smart MSPs are choosing

5:17

number two. And that's exactly what I advise them to do. Now, the system isn't rocket science here.

5:22

Like, the system is a five email sequence and you can make it seven. You can make it six. Like five

5:27

is just like a sweet spot for me, where I feel like I have enough space to, like, make a case to

5:34

make a strong argument, to get a couple different angles, like in that argument. So that's I can I

5:39

can help educate somebody on the process and move them from here to there. You can make it more

5:45

emails. You can make it fewer emails. Completely up to you. I pick five like it's a good, solid, sweet

5:50

spot for me. And you know, I say, you know, after five, six, seven emails probably you're just like,

5:56

you know, hammering somebody. So, you know, take five emails, right? And in this specific instance, what

6:02

you can do on a on a break fix client is create a specific sequence in your CRM and

6:09

create five emails. The first email is something like a case study. The case study that I would

6:15

share first is something around a customer or business who didn't think they needed an MSP,

6:21

right? Like so. If you can capture some some testimonials or some of their own verbiage or

6:25

some of their own wording, perfect. If not, you can, you know, paraphrase where they were at with

6:31

things and you highlight how this particular company didn't think they needed an MSP, they

6:36

weren't big enough, or they weren't going to be a target, or they didn't manage enough money or

6:40

whatever vertical you're in, like, you can, you can, you can fill in the blanks. But the purpose of

6:45

this case study is to highlight this is a company that didn't think they needed an MSP. And then

6:52

they discovered all of these vulnerabilities that they didn't know they have. They learned about the

6:57

exposure. They learned about the costs that are associated. If you get if you get hacked. If you

7:03

know, you get if you're the victim of a phishing scam, if somebody interrupts the, you know, the

7:07

invoicing system, if you're in construction. Like there's all sorts of things that you can

7:11

highlight here and you're, you're you're basically demonstrating company. Didn't think they needed an

7:16

MSP. Learned about their vulnerabilities, made the switch. And this is where they are now. And this is

7:23

how things are running. Right. So that's that's email number one. Email number two is something

7:29

around the chaos factor right. Like break fix is very reactive. It's like kind of like a hair on

7:35

fire mentality. In fact they should know this because they just came to you with a specific

7:40

issue with a relevant issue just like this. So it's reactive, results in a lot of firefighting,

7:46

results in a lot of frustration from employees, results in loss, productivity results in, you know,

7:52

client issues, results in like all of the things that, you know, are associated with a reactive

7:59

culture and a reactive environment, and tying that back to the business impact, right? So it's

8:05

demonstrating. It's educating. Hey. Reactive. It actually has a huge impact on your

8:12

business. And here are some of the ways through money, through morale, through

8:18

productivity, through, you know, money on growth. Money on costs. You know, you've got productivity

8:24

issues. You've got morale issues. You've got all sorts of things that you can tie into, like what

8:30

is the reactive environment versus the proactive environment and what are the benefits. The third

8:35

email that I would send would be around the real cost that's associated with, you know, break fix

8:41

type of environments. Okay. So you can use I'm sure you've got a ton of examples of how reactive

8:48

it is more costly to a business than the than being proactive. Because and you know,

8:55

this, you know that one of the biggest issues that people have when they go from break fix to to

8:60

managed services is this feels more expensive. Can you demonstrate in an email how it's not like

9:07

the hidden cost of a reactive IT environment, right? Like what's the cost of, you know, of of an

9:13

outage? What's the cost of server going down? What's the cost of anything like that? What's the

9:19

cost of what are your employees having access to your stuff and then taking your stuff? I was I was

9:24

part I was a CEO of a company that had an employee that we terminated that had access to

9:30

stuff. Now, this was years ago before I knew about it. So forgive me now a lot of stuff was tied to

9:35

his personal Gmail. We had one of our our corporate dashboards that was tied to it, and he

9:40

came in. He wiped out our corporate dashboard, like wiped it out. It was on his personal Google email.

9:45

And this is and this was a $15 million a year company. And so I very quickly learned about the

9:50

cost of that. All right. I've now got to hire somebody to go stop that, because he's got all the

9:56

data and rebuild it at the same time, not to mention the opportunity cost that's happening in

10:01

between. Right. So can you highlight something like that in an email? The fourth email may be

10:05

something like highlighting a strategy gap between companies that are using it as an asset,

10:12

like a strategic asset to grow and to to build the business versus people that are looking at it

10:17

as an expense. And what are the what are the costs and the difficulties of keeping up with

10:23

cybersecurity? What about in an evolving world where you've got, you know, AI changing how people

10:28

are hacking your shit every single day, and new phishing scams coming out every single day, and

10:33

the amount of money and resources and time that you invest into staying up to date and all of the

10:38

platforms and the programs and tech that you use to invest and how trying to manage that on your

10:43

own is asinine, right? Like it's like, can you can you create some messaging around the strategy gap

10:49

between a company that's doing it this way versus a company that's doing it this way? Right. Like one

10:54

is almost risk by design and one is, you know, being proactive and, you know, having the strong

10:59

infrastructure and everything. And then, you know, maybe email number five is something like a

11:03

disaster story. It's the flip side of the first case study. It's somebody who, you know, originally

11:08

said, we don't need MSP stuff, right? I actually like this one for the fifth email on purpose said

11:13

we don't need, you know, managed services. We got this. And then they came back. Right. Because they

11:19

said, we got this. And it turned out they didn't. Right. Like something happened. It was a it was a

11:25

breach. It was ransomware. It was a, you know, a server going out. It was a critical client issue.

11:32

It was something that came back, bit them in the ass. And they said like, all right, gotcha. Like

11:36

we're we're back. Like, can you share that case study? And the reason I like that when it's fifth,

11:41

by the way, is because if you've gone through one, which is kind of like the more positive story, and

11:45

you've gone through two and three and four and you're still not there, then you know something

11:50

that's like the disaster story. It's not fear mongering, by the way, when it's real. Like if it's

11:56

real, it's not fear mongering, it's responsible. It's education. It's telling people this is the

12:02

reality that is out there today. So can you share a story where somebody you know. Originally said,

12:07

yeah, came back and you know, and then, you know, said, okay, we're ready to go and where they are

12:12

today. Now, when you send these emails, what you're not doing is you're not pitching like, you're not

12:18

saying, hey, like, here's specifically why I'm making this case, by the way, book of calls that

12:23

you can buy or shit. What you're doing is you're trying to make this email valuable and

12:28

educational in and of itself. The way that I actually frame this for a lot of our clients is,

12:32

can you write an email that's shareable? Right. Like, can you write an email that's so good that

12:37

when somebody reads it, they go, huh? You know, my buddy Joe and Jane should see this too. They

12:44

let me forward it to a couple people, like, can you write an email that is so valuable on its own

12:49

that it's worth consuming, and they get some degree of insight. And by the way, that also

12:56

positions you better positions you as a better like a stronger expert. Your status goes up for a

13:01

whole lot of reasons, but you're also making deposits instead of making withdrawals. Now, it

13:06

doesn't mean don't have something in the email that says, if you want to talk to us, you know, here,

13:12

like don't make it difficult to to talk to you, but don't make it a sales email like it is a it

13:17

is an educational email that is designed to say, I am teaching you this. I am sharing this with you

13:23

as as an insight. And if you come to the conclusion that you would like to reach out, then

13:29

you know somewhere on the email, make it super, super easy, frictionless. But don't make that the

13:35

purpose of the email. Make the email something that I would want to forward to my friend. Now, in

13:40

this case, with the person that we were coaching, we we installed that that sequence. Now it was it

13:46

was like a week and a half too late. Like I like to get these things faster, but it was like a week

13:50

and a half too late. But we installed the email. We said, let's, let's write this thing out. Let's, let's

13:54

knock it out and let's put it into a sequence. Let's send it out about once a week is what we

13:58

did. You could do once a week, once every other week. I'm not a huge fan of like if you're if

14:02

you're going to fire them like sending him every other day because that just screams I'm trying to

14:06

sell you. I'm trying to close you instead of I'm trying to educate you. I'm trying to nurture you.

14:10

You want to remember? The goal is they're here. You're trying to get them here, right? Like. And you

14:16

don't have to necessarily accelerate it, like, you've email's doing the work. You're going to

14:20

push a button in your CRM and it's going to go, so what is the most effective way to get them there.

14:27

Okay. So we sent it. Four weeks later he gets a call. It says hey, we're curious. You mentioned

14:34

in one of the emails that they that you do security assessments. How much are those? Now we

14:39

have an opportunity. We have taken a prospect who's qualified and turned it into an opportunity

14:46

that is qualified. And the best part is they showed up with higher intent. They showed up with

14:52

better education, better understanding, better knowledge, and they showed up thinking that

14:59

he and they as a company had more credibility Because they aren't just now in the

15:06

market. They're in the market because of them. Right. Like they had the opportunity to educate

15:11

them and bring them there, which improves their credibility and improves their status and

15:15

dramatically improves the likelihood of them closing that deal. Now, here's the thing. Like this

15:19

is a five email sequence, and it's not a magic wand. It's not going to work on everybody. Right.

15:24

Like it's you're going to have this break fix issue. You're going to create a sequence when they

15:28

leave, when they don't, you know, respond to your first or second reach out, then you're going to

15:32

trigger the sequence. The sequence is going to go to work at the end of the sequence, you should

15:36

have a task that says call this person back. Right. Like after that 50 mil goes out, you know, after,

15:41

you know, 2 or 3 days, you should have a task that's automatically generated that says, call

15:45

this person and you should call them and you should say, hey, how's that server going? And by the

15:50

way, you know, anything else that we can look at to ensure that that doesn't happen again and be more

15:55

proactive about this? You know, maybe we have a free assessment something like and make your

15:59

offer right. It's not going to work on everybody. It will work on a percentage of people though. and

16:04

in in the MSP world a few deals meet. It makes a lot of difference in terms of revenue, so the

16:11

small percentage is worth the effort. The kicker though, is this works on a lot of things. People

16:17

think that content is just a top of funnel machine, right? Like that. We're supposed to publish

16:21

content on social to get more leads. We're supposed to publish content to drive more demand.

16:26

And that's a great use of of content, right. Like, that's I mean, we use it for, for that purpose. It's

16:32

like and it works really well. But content is actually arguably more valuable in the

16:39

middle and the bottom of the funnel than it is at top of the funnel, because it can be more targeted.

16:44

It's it hits harder. The receptivity tends to be higher, the open rates tend to be higher. The and

16:51

because, you know just a little bit about them right in this in this situation, you know what's

16:55

keeping them from getting here. So you can create the messaging that's very targeted to do

17:02

exactly that. And you can do this with anything, any issue that is recurring in your

17:09

business in the sales process, if you run into price objections, price resistance frequently. Well,

17:15

do you have a sequence that's set up to trigger in the background that helps people understand

17:20

why cheaper is not better? So that after they tell you know that you've got information, you've got

17:26

targeted content that's designed to help them understand why cheaper is not better. Like, do you

17:32

get ghosted after discovery? Do you get like, whatever it is, like you can like sit down and

17:37

name your top 3 to 5 issues and say, hey, you know what would happen if we created a

17:44

simple sequence for each one of these things? And every time the seller ran into it did their part

17:48

like did everything they could, just said, let's give it a shot, right? Let's push the button, let's

17:54

let content do some of the work, and then let's give them a ring. After that, they've had a chance

17:59

to do that. This is the exact same strategy that people are using in our SDR accelerator, our

18:05

fractional management program to five x the results of everyone else. We dug in, we said, hey,

18:11

what's going on? Like, what are you doing this? Oh, well, every time the SDR has a disposition, it

18:16

triggers a certain thing. The STR is required to say which disposition it is. They're not ready

18:21

right now. They have a current provider. They don't need it. They don't know whatever that is. And it

18:26

triggers a very specific sequence that then goes through. Now theirs was a little bit longer. It's

18:31

like three months and the stars calling after three months. Well, they're calling a very

18:35

different list, I promise you, than everyone else. So this isn't just a break fix issue. This is how

18:41

are you using content? How are you using automation? How are you using the messaging and

18:45

strategy to sell asynchronously for you? Because the best part is, as a sales person, this is

18:52

working for me in the background, right? Like, I'm I'm going, okay, I don't have to call every single

18:57

week. I don't have to badger this person. I don't have to do these things. What I can do is I can

19:02

let this do some of the work for me. And then when I call, in some cases, I'm calling a warmed

19:08

up prospect and it will change the game for you. My recommendation? You know, name the very specific

19:14

sticking point, right that you are you are targeting in this case break fix. Okay, so somebody

19:20

ghosts you after breakfast. Let's name that as the problem now. All right. What are my best

19:26

arguments for that person? Like, if I could sit down that person and say, okay, hear me out.

19:33

Here's my argument for this and here's all my evidence for it. Like, this is the best case that

19:38

I've got. Like, get all that together, right? So name the sticking point, get all your evidence and your

19:43

arguments together. Then plug that in and sit down and write a five email sequence. Again,

19:50

don't make it salesy. Make it value add. Make it educational. Make it something that they want to

19:56

share with people. Write those emails. Then fourth, plug them into your CRM into a sequence. Make sure

20:03

to add a task for yourself or for your salesperson to call at the end of that sequence,

20:08

and then fifth, track it, and then sixth. I guess just repeat that whole damn thing for all of the

20:14

major sticking points and see what happens. So I hope that helps. Really, really good way to to be

20:19

using content in addition to using content for, you know, top of funnel lead generation, everything

20:23

like that. And if this has been helpful, feel free to do 1 or 2 things. We've got the MSP Sales

20:28

Toolbox, which is a collection of resources, templates, playbooks, frameworks, you name it, things

20:34

that we use with clients. We drop them in periodically into the toolbox and we update that

20:39

frequently. You can have access to that for life for free. That is at MSP Sales Toolbox. Com the

20:45

links below as well. And then you can also join my weekly newsletter on email. The link for that is

20:51

in the description where we share more sales advice, sales tips, things like that. So, um, I will

20:57

see you in the next video. Thanks for watching audios.