An MSP or VAR? Are You Going Into 2019 With The Right Team?,,,,,,,,,

With the Christmas hiatus nearly upon us  I’m sure the thoughts of many business owners are turning to the challenges of 2019; and many I’m sure will be asking themselves the following questions;

• How are we going to achieve the growth aspirations I have for my business?
• Have I got the right team in place to deliver these growth aspirations?
• Are We Ready For The Challenges Of 2019? 

In all probability the answer to all these questions will be governed by whether or not you feel you can achieve the level of growth required from organic growth and professional account management practices; and let’s not forget the importance that good account managers play in growing your business, by maximising the opportunity that all your current customers present.

However, as most of you are probably finding, as a model for continual growth, this can only get you so far and eventually you have to look at new business development to deliver the on-going growth required for your business; and unfortunately this presents you all with many challenges.

Those of you who read our previous posts; An MSP or VAR?,,,, Are You Aware Of The Scale Of The New Business Development Challenge? and MSP’S and VAR’s, Just Where Is Your Immediate Skills Shortage? will be in no doubt as to the challenges facing you in preparing your business to achieve the aspirations for growth that you may have, because invariably the aspirations can only be met by going out and getting more business; selling more of your products and more of your services, and this a totally different landscape to the organic growth landscape.

For those who missed the posts above, let me bring clarity to the challenge that this represents. Going out and targeting new businesses is a process that involves approaching a lot of businesses who, at that moment, have no business to give you, they don’t know you, haven’t heard of your company, who already have IT infrastructure in place and an existing service provider, and convincing them to overcome their natural lethargy to change and spend their hard earned money with you, in order to replace or update something they already have!

To make matters worse, and I promise you this is true, to top it all, the people you are approaching have absolutely no interest in their IT infrastructure, as long as it is working and enabling them to run their business. They have no desire to invest their money in their IT infrastructure, it is a cost of business investment that they try to avoid at all costs and unless it is necessary!

However, as daunting as that process sounds, it can be achieved, but unfortunately it requires a totally different skill-set to account management. Those of your who read my post; MSP’s and VAR’s; Account Management Is Not Selling, will now have an understanding of just how different this skill-set is, and unfortunately it is a skill-set you probably don’t understand, because you haven’t had to employ these professionals in the past.

And it is no coincidence that now, just as the IT Sector as a whole realises that these are the skills that are going to be required in order to survive and grow businesses, the new business development professionals choosing to come over to the IT Sector have the fastest rate of salary increase in the channel! Why? Well proven and successful new business development professionals are a very rare breed, they are already employed elsewhere and being handsomely rewarded for success, and like any commodity in high demand but scarce supply, prices are rising.

Thus my question in the title to this post; if you feel you have a good team, but not everyone required to deliver your objectives, it is a little like going out as a football team with no goalkeeper; regardless of how well everyone else does their job, you are going to lose, not because the 10 other players are not good at what they do, but because there is a very important member of the team missing.

So if, like many MSP’s and VAR’s, you are in this situation, just what is the answer? Well you either get involved in the very expensive race to acquire the individuals required or you look for an alternative solution, should you baulk at the prohibitive financial nature of acquiring them.

So if, like many MSP’s and VAR’s, you are in this situation, just what is the answer? Well you either get involved in the very expensive race to acquire the individuals required or you look for an alternative solution, should you baulk at the prohibitive financial nature of acquiring them.

And luckily all is not lost because help is available to the owners of MSP’s and VAR’s looking for the answers to the challenges that growing sales pipelines and delivering sustained growth present; because in response to these problems, Virtuoso Consultancy has launched a Virtual Sales Director service, specifically for MSP’s and VAR’s.

What does a Virtual Sales Director do?

• Set business development strategy in conjunction with business owner
• Define and implement the marketing strategy needed to support the business development strategy
• Manage an effective lead generation strategy
• Carry out first stage sales meetings or conference calls where required
• Put together sales proposals where required
• Deliver sales pitches where required
• Deliver events where required
• Manage sales staff (in-house or outsourced) where required
• Advise on and implement best practice sales and marketing processes

How Does Virtuoso’s Virtual Sales Director Service solve the problem?

Based on a number of days per week or days per month, Virtual Sales Director is an affordable alternative to employing a sales director, which gives MSPs and VARs access to a wide range of skills and experience.

Virtual Sales Director allows MSP owners to focus on service delivery, safe in the knowledge that an experienced pair of hands is running sales, business development and marketing.

My fellow directors and I have over 40 years combined experience in growing businesses, which included co-owning and running an MSP for 10 years during which time I grew the business from £900k to £3.5 million. As such we can deliver MSP-specific sales, business development and marketing strategy knowledge and experience straight to your door.

More Information

If you would like to find out more about our Virtual Sales Director service, please contact Jane Gatfield on 01189 471010 or by email at janeg@virtuosoconsultancy.co.uk.

MSPs and VARs: The Dangers of Over-Reliance on an Organic Growth Strategy

Most MSPs and IT companies that I speak to have successfully grown their business over the years through organic growth means - referrals, word-of-mouth, existing customers moving to a new company etc.

There’s no doubt that this type of growth is highly successful – the fact that you have been referred means your potential customer already feels as if they know you, has some level of trust in you and is generally in the zone where they are looking to buy – all of which already puts them typically 70%-80% of the way along the buying journey.

However, organic growth happens when it happens, it’s not under your control. And there are times when organic growth just isn’t enough. When, for example, you’ve just taken on a large investment in terms of staffing or infrastructure costs and need a sharp increase in recurring revenue to cover it, or when you are looking to sell your business and need to be able to demonstrate a strong pipeline of new business sales. It’s also only natural that, with the best service in the world, you will lose the odd customer over time – they go bust, they get taken over, whatever it may be that means you lose them. And it only takes this to happen at 1 or 2 key accounts for your business to become very vulnerable. 

New business development is an entirely different skillset to account management, (a subject I discussed in much more depth in this blog), and one that takes significant amounts of dedicated time combined with strong sales and marketing skills, as well as technical skills. For new business, you have to start the journey at 0% - finding prospective new customers, letting them get to know you, get to like you and get to trust you, and then to be in a position where there is a compelling reason for them to change their IT service provider to your company. In today’s competitive market-place none of this happens quickly or easily and it’s therefore little wonder that IT sales directors at MSPs now command salaries of £150k plus. And indeed attracting such an individual can be impossible, as there is such a shortage of suitably experienced candidates, which in itself has driven a 60% salary rise this year. It is not surprising then that many time-poor, overstretched MSP owners give up on new business development and take the dangerous route of relying entirely on organic growth.

A New Solution for MSPs and VARs

However, there is now another option, as in response to these problems Virtuoso Consultancy has launched a Virtual Sales Director service, specifically for MSP’s and VAR’s.

What does a Virtual Sales Director do?

• Set business development strategy in conjunction with business owner
• Define and implement the marketing strategy needed to support the business development strategy
• Manage an effective lead generation strategy
• Carry out first stage sales meetings or conference calls where required
• Put together sales proposals where required
• Deliver sales pitches where required
• Deliver events where required
• Manage sales staff (in-house or outsourced) where required
• Advise on and implement best practice sales and marketing processes

How Does Virtuoso’s Virtual Sales Director Service solve the problem? 

Based on a number of days per week or days per month, Virtual Sales Director is an affordable alternative to employing a sales director, which gives MSPs and VARs access to a wide range of skills and experience. Virtual Sales Director allows MSP owners to focus on service delivery, safe in the knowledge that an experienced pair of hands is running sales, business development and marketing.

My fellow directors and I have over 40 years combined experience in growing businesses, which included co-owning and running an MSP for 10 years during which time I grew the business from £900k to £3.5 million. As such we can deliver MSP-specific sales, business development and marketing strategy knowledge and experience straight to your door.

More Information

If you would like to find out more about our Virtual Sales Director service, please contact Jane Gatfield on 01189 471010 or by email at janeg@virtuosoconsultancy.co.uk

MSP's and VAR's; Account Management Is Not Selling!

“Then You Will Know The Truth, And The Truth Shall Set You Free!”,,,,,,,, 
As those regular readers of my blog will know, I’m not usually known for my biblical quotes but I thought this was very appropriate for today’s business development post; which is actually an updated version of one our most popular posts from earlier this year, the content of which is becoming prevalent within the IT Channel.

Now firstly and before everyone starts bombarding me critical messages about my statement in the title, I know, I know, of course account management is a “Form” of selling, but I had to get your attention and if you have got to this line, well I think we can agree that it has worked?

And before you get irritated with my tactics, there is a lesson in this exercise, and that is that you have got to work very hard to get the attention of your target audience if you ever expect to eventually get their business.  As an owner of MSP’s and VAR’s reading this post, you are my target audience and over the months I have subtly gained your attention and your interest and this has earned me ”The Right” to grab your attention with a deliberately provocative headline!

Not necessarily because it is right but because I know it will grab your attention, because it tugs at your emotions and your professional pride; in fact all the emotional areas we call the “Hallowed Ground” in new business development circles, which must be handled with respect and empathy when targeting customers, thus you will notice how having grabbed your attention, I immediately placated you, but by then you are interested and reading my post; has the penny dropped yet?

In most cases we have never met, not even spoken over the telephone yet, but I am speaking to you via this medium as one of my target customers. Many of you will have clicked through to my Business Development Blog, and our Website, both carefully written and constructed to add gravitas to what I am both saying and delivering, (professionally), because I know that in the B2B sales channel, (the channel that we both occupy), if I want to get your business, 3 very important things have got to happen during the journey of building our relationship:

• First; I have to get your attention! 
• Second; I have to gain your interest! 
• Lastly; I have to gain your trust! (Because only then can I contemplate asking you for your money!)   

And thus we return to the original title of this post and if I’ve done my job correctly you will have realised that all I have done in the text preceding this paragraph, is to subtly show you that, actually, there is much truth in that statement; in other words I am taking you, (as my target audience), on a journey of showing you that I know what I’m talking about, so I can begin the process of earning your trust, because without that, I will never get your attention, let alone your trust and your business!

And this is the journey we will take your business on with your target customers because “Account Management” is NOT selling to new customers! Although account management is a skill, in fact a very important one, (having worked hard to get customers, we must ensure that we don’t lose them and that the opportunities for further future revenue are maximised), if you are to continue to leverage them commercially and make the most of the opportunities that exist.

But speaking to existing customers, where a relationship exists and trust has already been built is a very different skill-set to obtaining new customers and taking them on a journey to where your business is managing their account. These customers don’t know you and worse than this, they will already have relationships in place for their IT infrastructure requirements, so if you want their business you are going to have to get over the natural lethargy to change, and convince them they should be giving you their business.

This is a very different skill-set to account management and thus my headline statement; because account management is many things, look at it in simple terms as “answering the phone” in the sales department, which is a completely different skill to “making the phone ring,” which in simple terms is new business development.

And as the sector transitions into and come to terms with, what we call a “Lethargy To Change” market, the 2 most important business models for an MSP or VAR are going to be the protection of your existing customers from competitors targeting them via their own new business development initiatives, and the targeting of the business currently held by your competitors. It is the ability to do this, the undermining of existing supplier relationships and the building of your credibility and gravitas with the customers of your competitors that is the skill that the industry is now paying so highly for; it has to, with the first purchase market now exhausted, the only model that remains is the targeting of existing businesses with IT provision and services already in place.

And this is what we at Virtuoso Consultancy do for our customers; In the last 36 months we have already constructed and delivered successful sales, marketing and new business development campaigns for MSPs and VARs operating in the Independent Schools, Pharmaceuticals, Legal, Recruitment, Accountancy and Financial Services sectors, to name just a few.  We have existing, highly effective and proven sales, marketing and business development campaign modules ready for your business that have already been utilised to sell many different product or services offerings; from traditional in-house infrastructure to cloud based solutions.

So, all is not lost because luckily help is available to the owners of MSP’s and VAR’s looking for the answers to the challenges that growing sales pipelines and delivering sustained growth present; The Virtuoso Virtual Sales Director, a service was discussed in great detail in our previous message; Introducing … Virtual Sales Director for MSP’s and VAR’s

My fellow directors and I have over 40 years combined experience in growing businesses and can deliver sales, operational, business development and marketing experience that is IT sector specific, straight to your door. We know how to build these models, they are “Current” and continually evolving, we know how to target and speak to the decision makers in your target markets and most importantly, we know how to grow your business and make you money!

If this has resonated with you and you would like to explore how we can help you achieve your growth aspirations, then please do not hesitate to contact Jane Gatfield on 0118 947 1010, or at  janeg@virtuosoconsultancy.co.uk

To read more posts covering all aspects of sales, marketing and business development for MSP’s and VAR’s, please visit our blog; https://it-business-growth-strategies.blogspot.co.uk/ 

As an MSP or VAR Your Current Business IS being targeted!,,,,,,,,,

As MSP owners’ thoughts start to turn towards 2019 and the challenges that the year will undoubtedly bring, I thought it worthwhile exploring an issue that not all of you will be aware of.

Those of you who know me and/or follow our blog will know that I have enjoyed a career seeking out opportunities in evolving markets and when those traditional markets are being put under pressure by third party businesses challenging the way business is done.

After many years of constructing and delivering successful sales, marketing and business development programmes for MSP’s and VAR’S, I can assure you all that market conditions have never been so challenging and that changes to traditional IT provision are changing the IT sector in ways that have never been experienced before.

 Those of you who read our post at the start of this year; An MSP Or VAR?,,,,, Are You Going Into 2018 With The Right Team, will be aware of some of the challenges being faced by the sector and how this is changing both the importance of certain roles within the business and the salaries being paid in order to acquire the skills you will need to acquire, in order to survive and grow in the current market.

The article discussed the importance of successful new business development professionals, not traditional account managers, and how these very rare and in demand professionals are now enjoying the highest rate of salary increase in the sector. So I thought it worthwhile exploring just what these professionals will bring to your business and the dangers that are posed if you don’t, and I can do this because I am one myself and know what will be required, so let me take you all on an imaginary journey, but one that some of your competitors will be going on.

Let’s imagine that I have I have joined your business and we are having our first strategy meeting, I would probably start with a presentation to you and the senior shareholding directors and the brief version would be as below;

Market Conditions

We have some major challenges; currently the market has a “Perfect Storm” forming over it involving customer fatigue, the relentless demand and transition to cloud based services, apathy towards some traditional products and services, lethargy to change and over supply in provision for services. Think of the market as being like a game of musical chairs, when the music stops we will all be fighting for a chair in order to remain in the game and unfortunately, there isn’t just 1 too few chairs, the rate of chairs available to players means that probably 35% of the companies currently playing the game will be out of the game when the music stops.

Difficult Choices

Someone once said to me that “A recession is defined by your neighbour losing his house, but that a depression is defined by you losing yours!” Just let that sink in for a moment because for many of you, and just like me, your business is your life’s work but it is an inconvenient truth that not everyone can survive this market and we are going to have to roll with the punches and get down and dirty, so don’t be shocked by the rest of this presentation.

The New Business Development Reality

OK, so now that I have set the scene, time for some realities as to what that means in a daily operational sense and in what I will be doing on your behalf when I come into the office. I will start by advising you of the mind-set of our customers because this will go to heart of how we move forward, because we have what I affectionately call a “Lethargy To Change Market” to target. It is termed thus because the first purchase market has been exploited, everyone has an IT infrastructure and services provision, so in essence our challenge is to target the customers of our competitors, undermine that existing relationship and convince them to change to our business.

Now this is an important moment of understanding for people because where else is the growth and financial security that this future growth provides going to come from? It is the only game in town, it is why everyone can’t win and why so many MSP’s and VAR’s will fail over the next 1 - 5 years. This may sound harsh and overly aggressive but sometimes the person delivering the bad news is the person you should be listening to the most.

In general the sector is waking up to this fact but does not know how to achieve this, because it has never had to operate in this way before, thus why genuinely successful new business development professionals are so sought after. But this can be achieved; I would reassure you at this point that we are ahead of the game and that I know how to target competitors businesses and undermine these existing relationships on your behalf. Sure there is much work to do and I will challenge your product and services offerings and perhaps tell you some harsh truths because the pace of development in some competitor offerings is astonishing but luckily, for now, they probably don’t know how to communicate that in a language that the customer understands and that adds value for the customer. 

As a successful new business development professional I will turn things on their head, change perceptions and put the customer at the heart of what we are doing, because as long as we provide solutions to the genuine problems our customers face, and we can communicate that, we will have a business, so all hope is not lost. It will only become lost when your competitors take the initiative and get hold of the skills required before you do, because then, they are targeting your customers and this will be happening to a lot of you reading this post.

So just what is the solution to finding the right new business development professional for your business? Well you either get involved in the very expensive race to acquire the individuals required or you look for an alternative solution, should you be able to find them first, but then baulk at the prohibitive financial nature of acquiring them.

Well, all is not lost because luckily help is available to the owners of MSP’s and VAR’s looking for the answers to the challenges that growing sales pipelines and delivering sustained growth present; The Virtuoso Virtual Sales Director, a service was discussed in great detail in our previous message; Introducing … Virtual Sales Director for MSP’s and VAR’s.

My fellow directors and I have over 40 years combined experience in growing businesses, which included co-owning and running an MSP for 10 years during which time I grew the business from £900k to £3.5 million. As such we can deliver MSP-specific sales, business development and marketing strategy knowledge and experience straight to your door.

More Information

If you would like to find out more about our Virtual Sales Director service, please email andrewb@virtuosoconsultancy.co.uk.

Alternatively if you’d like to find out more about our outsourced marketing services or business development consultancy for IT companies, please contact us on 0118 947 1010, email janeg@virtuosoconsultancy.co.uk or visit our website at www.virtuosoconsultancy.co.uk/IT_companies.

To read more posts covering all aspects of sales, marketing and business development for MSP’s and VAR’s, please visit our blog at https://it-business-growth-strategies.blogspot.co.uk/

DOWNLOAD THE WHITE PAPER 
This post forms a small portion of a white paper we have written covering The Art of The Approach, a specific sales based white paper written for the IT Sector. To request a copy please email andrewb@virtuosoconsultancy.co.uk

So Just How Is Your VAR/MSP Going To Grow Now That We Have GDPR?

A dramatic question I know but one that needs to be thought through, and with some urgency! Firstly let me further qualify the question above which refers to restrictions posed by GDPR, a piece of legislation that became law as of 25th May.

Now I don’t want to get too bogged down with the minutia of the legislation which is a huge and onerous extension to the data protection regulations that currently exist, just how it will affect all businesses, (ours included), in regard to the data that you hold for customers; because for many of you the penny hasn’t dropped yet, in regard to how hampered this now leaves your new business development and marketing initiatives. In fact “hampered” is the wrong expression, what I should have said is; “how it has brought all your new business development and marketing initiatives to an immediate halt!”

Those of you who have worked with us in the past and those who are still enjoying campaigns delivered by us will know just how much I bang on about data and the fact that “Data Is The New Gold!” With the recent furore surrounding Cambridge Analytica and Facebook, we should all be in no doubt about just how powerful companies holding large amounts of customer data are and in the coming years those without data, aligned to the necessary legal “Opt Ins,” are going to be left floundering and with no direction, in terms of being able to grow their business.

This may sound dramatic, and for those of you who haven’t read our articles written for campaigns in the IT, Automotive and the Real Estate sectors, warning about how the new breed of internet based businesses, (the likes of Purple Bricks and Carwow to name just a few), are first and foremost industrialised data collation businesses, let me take 10 minutes of your time to enlighten you on the one way journey your business is heading towards, and possibly without you realising it!

I think we can all agree that for most reading this article, referrals and repeat business from effective account management practices will now only get you so far, in terms of keeping revenues and bottom line profits where they currently are. In a trading landscape that is evolving at a frightening rate and where the first purchase market is now exhausted and at an end, the only model for new business development is going to be the undermining of current IT Services Providers who are currently ensconced with customers in your target markets.

Now this process is challenging enough, but before you can target a specific audience and market your products and services, you will require the means to be able to get your messages to them; and herein lies the problem, because without their data, especially their contact details, you will not be able to do this. Now in the past you could purchase a dubious list of contact email addresses, (I say dubious because I never found one that contained the actual contact details of any decision makers, therefore they were worthless), and if you really want to waste your money, you probably still could purchase one.

Unfortunately this list will be useless now and for 2 reasons; forget the dubious quality of the data you are purchasing, one of the many stipulations of GDPR legislation is the requirement for legally required “Opt Ins” before marketing messages can be sent to target audiences; so if you have no contact data and/or the contact data that you do hold does not contain the legally required “Opt Ins,” just how are your current marketing and new business development procedures going to move forward and build the campaigns required to grow your business?

What does this mean for your business, the people you employ in these roles? I don’t know and I can’t comment on an individual basis, but in all likelihood there is a huge job of highly specialised work to be done, in order to ensure that you have the ability to take your core offering out to new target markets, all of which is a highly specialised role and one that the sector is only now beginning to grasp!

So what’s the answer to this pressing problem of our time? Well luckily help is available; I can’t for obvious reasons put all the answers to this problem into this article, they are after all our valuable IP and form part of our Value Proposition, and as such also form part of our new business development consultancy services and initiatives. But what I can do is say that if you need to build a new business development campaign that is capable of targeting the decision makers in your chosen target sectors, then the first part of building the foundations for this process will be the ability to be able to contact and connect with these target high profile professionals.

I can also reassure you that we know exactly how to do this and to, at the very least, build your target data base of customer contact details, even if you eventually still end up running any subsequent campaigns yourself. And I don’t mean a database full of “Sales@” or “Info@” email addresses; no I mean the genuine individual email addresses of the decision makers within your target markets; the owners, managing directors, partners, senior directors or anyone who is likely to wield influence within the businesses you wish to target.

We can of course do an awful lot more than this, in terms of helping you to grow your business, but this process will be a very important step in the journey; you can have the most compelling marketing messages aligned to the most compelling product and services offering, but if you can’t deliver that message to anyone, you will end up being one of the world’s best kept secrets which will mean you are doomed to fail!

We know how to connect you with the decision makers required, how to approach them and to get their attention, so you can then go on to gain their interest and then to build trust with your target audiences; all of which will be required if you expect to ask them for their money!

If you would like to know more about our business development and consultancy services in this regard, please do not hesitate to contact either Andrew Banning at andrewb@virtuosoconsultancy.co.uk or Jane Gatfield at janeg@virtuosoconsultancy.co.uk alternatively please feel free to call us on 0118 947 1010.

For more information about our services please visit http://www.virtuosoconsultancy.co.uk/IT_Companies 

To read more posts covering all aspects of sales, marketing and business development for MSP’s and VAR’s, please visit our blog; https://it-business-growth-strategies.blogspot.co.uk/


DOWNLOAD THE WHITE PAPER 
This post forms a small portion of a white paper we have written covering The Art of The Approach, a specific sales based white paper written for the IT Sector. To request a copy please email me at janeg@virtuosoconsultancy.co.uk

Why Are Your Marketing Leads Not Converting into Customers?

In my previous blog, “I know we could have done a better job than the company who won the business!” I explored the reasons why resellers and MSPs can lose out to a less technically competent competitor at the pitch stage, and what to do about this. In today’s blog I wanted to explore a problem that we often get asked about at meetings, and which occurs earlier in the sales cycle, and that is why marketing leads do not convert into customers, and how to remedy the situation.

I think one of the common problems here is that most MSPs and VARs have typically been used to growing their business through “organic” growth (i.e. referrals, word of mouth, existing contacts moving to a new company etc). Because this is the type of prospect that MSP and VAR owners have typically dealt with, they expect the sales cycle to work in the same way with new prospects who are generated from their marketing.

In reality nothing could be further from the truth. A referral already knows you and your business either from first-hand experience (because they have worked with you before) or from recommendation from a trusted third party. This means that they already have a level of knowledge about your business and a level of trust in your organisation. The other important factor is that they’ve asked for a recommendation or chosen to contact you now – which almost certainly means that they’ve got business to give you right now.

When it comes to leads generated from your marketing activity, the situation is very different. Marketing is designed to generate a lead with a basic interest in your company/your products and services. But this is very different from them being sales-ready in the way that a referral would be.

For one thing there is a question of timing – given they will almost always have an incumbent IT supplier in place - are they actually in a position where they wish to or contractually are able to shift to a different supplier? As we all know, a change of IT supplier tends to be crisis driven, when there’s been downtime, a security breach or ongoing problems that have led to dissatisfaction with the current supplier.

At any point in time, probably 95% of your target customers don’t actually have any business to give you as they are either happy with their current supplier or contractually locked into their current arrangement.

Of course effective marketing is all about building desire for your products and services, setting yourself up as a thought leader in the particular verticals in which you specialise, differentiating your business, building USPs of genuine value to your target customers and subtly undermining your competitors. But that’s a big topic in its own right and one for a separate blog another day.

The other issue with new prospects is that although your prospective customer has seen your marketing, this only gives them a basic knowledge of your organisation and services. There is still a massive job of work to build the trust that’s needed for them to sign on the dotted line with you, because IT support, cloud services, managed services and security services all require the customer to make a leap of faith. This is not a one-off purchase like buying a car – this is a long-term partnership where the customer is trusting your organisation with their administrator passwords, their cyber security and effectively giving you access to all their business data and IP. It’s the difference between buying a car and handing over the keys of the car they’ve spent their life’s savings on. And in the case of those of you providing cloud services, your prospective customers are also trusting you to store all their data, so should you go bust, suffer a data breach or otherwise not safeguard their data, then they are actually risking their business going under.

It’s little wonder then that there is a huge process of building trust, and a long sales cycle to sell these types of IT services into new customers who don’t have prior experience of your business. In fact, if we look at the entire sales cycle, from generating a marketing lead through to closing the deal being the journey from 0% to 100%, then I would estimate that referral business is starting that journey at around the 80% point. And that’s where most IT company owners are used to starting the journey. Which means when they are starting at 0% they are unfamiliar with the process, and often give up early in the process, or in some cases don’t even carry out any lead nurturing activities at all, because they are treating a new prospect like a referral. This can lead to frustration that marketing leads don’t appear to be converting into customers, or in some cases the perception that they are the “wrong sort” of leads.

The big issue here is that marketing is only designed to generate a lead with a basic interest - they are not sales ready, so there must be a lead nurture sequence in place to convert them into a ‘sales ready’ client. Without this you will have huge leakage of leads - JUST simply covering this problem alone results in a huge impact on your bottom line in the long term.

There’s no doubt that this lead nurturing process – the journey from 0% to 80% - is highly time consuming though. It is also highly skilled work that needs careful strategizing, methodical planning and relentless follow-up.

However help is at hand for time-poor MSP and VAR owners, as lead nurturing is one of the services that Virtuoso Consultancy provides on an outsourced basis. My fellow directors and I have over 40 years combined experience in growing businesses and can deliver sales, technical, operational, business development and marketing experience that is IT sector specific, straight to your door.

We know how to build new business development campaigns and to drive them towards successful outcomes; the initiatives involved are “current,” continually evolving and proven in the demanding trading conditions of today, not in the past. We know how to target and speak to the decision makers in your target markets, but most importantly, we know how to grow your business and make you money!

If this post has resonated with you and you would like to explore how we can help you achieve your growth aspirations, then please do not hesitate to contact myself or my colleague Andrew Banning on 0118 947 1010, or email us at andrewb@virtuosoconsultancy.co.uk or janeg@virtuosoconsultancy.co.uk

For more information about our services please visit www.virtuosoconsultancy.co.uk

To read more posts covering all aspects of sales, marketing and business development for MSP’s and VAR’s, please visit our blog; https://it-business-growth-strategies.blogspot.co.uk/
 

MSP’s and VAR’s,,,, It’s All About The Cloud!

In our previous article, written by my colleague Andrew Banning, It’s The Cloud Stupid! we explored the business threats facing MSP’s and VAR’s especially in regard to ever increasing customer demand now for cloud services and how this is leaving the business models of many established MSP’s and VAR’s under threat.

The major concern highlighted in the article was the almost inevitable decision by one of the vendors, (almost certainly Amazon first with AWS), to go direct to VARs/MSPs customers and bypass the channel and I agree, this is very likely to happen.

When it does it will pose many questions, not only for the other cloud vendors but also the owners of MSP’s and VAR’s, whether they are already offering cloud services or not; but the audience for this article is the owner of MSP’s and VAR’s so let’s explore the threats and challenges currently faced by the owners of these businesses.

Now in terms of the challenges to come and the increasing customer demand for cloud based services, within the channel there are really only 2 types of business; those offering cloud based services and products and those who don’t. Now although those not currently offering cloud based services are behind those who do, that does not mean that they do not share the same challenges.

So just how do the owners of MSP’s and VAR’s prepare for what looks like the inevitable, the vendor model of taking cloud products and services direct to their customers? Well firstly there will be the battle for market share and the effective new business development campaigns required to take cloud products and services offerings out to targeted verticalised markets; but few will realise just what will be involved in building these successful campaigns, those that are going to be required in order to increase your customer base, but it will include all of the essential skills-sets and processes below:

• In the post GDPR world; the ability to build your target customer database which will also include the ability to find the contact details for the decision makers within your targeted verticalised market.
• Building a genuine and marketable USP for all your targeted vertical markets; one that will be perceived as adding value by your target customers.
• The ability to write and construct the content and direct marketing messages required to engage with your target audience, build trust and ultimately secure their business.
• Identifying the delivery platforms for your campaign messages and building the delivery schedule to ensure that your marketing messages get read by the target audience.
• Ensuring that you can analyse engagement with these marketing messages and follow up appropriately, in order to begin building and developing your relationship with your targeted customers.

And if all this wasn’t enough, for those not already transitioning their business to a cloud services provider, you have the building of the financial model required within your own business; remember, the cloud services model, although extremely lucrative does not pay in the same method as the traditional model of supplying and supporting hardware and on-site infrastructure business models.

Although there is much to do, the pace of change in our industry – and the need for adaptation of our business models accordingly, if we are to remain relevant and profitable - has always been a key challenge for IT services companies. And with the changes we’ve seen in recent years, with falling hardware margins, the advent of the public cloud, the opportunity for many VARs/MSPs to launch their own private cloud models and the ever-growing challenges and opportunities around cyber security, there has never been a time of more change in the industry.

But for those IT services companies embracing quickly the changes in demand from customers towards cloud products and services, there is the potential to secure a highly lucrative, sustainable “recurring revenue” business model and to also meet head on the business threats undoubtedly coming their way. The benefits of the monthly recurring revenue model are well documented and of course include enjoying a known and pretty much assured monthly income level which, (as you grow off the back of the new business development initiatives required to gain market share), lessens the constant pressure of finding new business every month.

And of course the strength of your renewable contracts database is fundamental to the valuation of your company moving forward – this will be paramount to any investor’s decision to part with their money, whether you’re looking to ultimately sell the business or for an investor to fund your next stage of growth.

However, in order to get here there will be much work to do, both in terms of building and delivering the sales, marketing and new business development campaigns required to build your customer base, and in terms of understanding the immediate financial challenges involved in transitioning over time to a cloud services provider.

Luckily though help is available to the owners of MSP’s and VAR’s wondering how to overcome these business challenges and secure the future of their business. During the last 3 years my professional colleagues and I have been working consultatively with the owners and senior directors of MSP’s and VAR’s, constructing the strategies and building the highly specialised and verticalised campaigns required, in order to take public, hybrid and private cloud solutions to target verticals in the SMB sector, including the financial services, law, accountancy, independent schools, pharmaceuticals and recruitment sectors.

We have existing, highly effective and proven sales, marketing and business development campaign modules ready for your business that have already been utilised to sell cloud based solutions. We have also consulted on and built business plans for transitioning your business to a cloud services provider.

My fellow directors and I have over 40 years combined experience in growing businesses and can deliver sales, operational, business development and marketing experience that is IT sector specific, straight to your door.

We know how to build these models, they are “Current” and continually evolving, we know how to target and speak to the decision makers in your target markets and most importantly, we know how to grow your business and make you money!

If this post has resonated with you and you would like to explore how we can help you achieve your growth aspirations, or indeed in the process of transitioning to a cloud services provider, then please do not hesitate to contact myself or my colleague Andrew Banning on 0118 947 1010, or email us at janeg@virtuosoconsultancy.co.uk or andrewb@virtuosoconsultancy.co.uk

For more information about our services please visit www.virtuosoconsultancy.co.uk

To read more posts covering all aspects of sales, marketing and business development for MSP’s and VAR’s, please visit our blog; https://it-business-growth-strategies.blogspot.co.uk/

It’s The Cloud Stupid!,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

I read with great interest a recent article in the trade press about the growth in cloud services and current levels of demand from customers and what struck me as interesting, as a sales and operations professional with relatively fresh eyes on the sector; (after all it has only been 3 and a half years since I was asked to construct and deliver the first sales, marketing and new business development campaign for an MSP’s taking cloud services to verticalisied markets), is the fact that the market seems to be unprepared for the demand from customers for cloud services, in fact everything around an easy cost per month disposable IT model.

This general lack of unpreparedness is not unusual, I have seen this situation before in other markets, (especially the real estate and automotive markets), but I caution, it can lead to a vacuum for a new business threat to fill, and I think there is a real danger that this is about to happen in the IT sector. Invariably, as has been the case in the automotive and real estate sectors, this void gets filled by a new competitor, perhaps initially from outside or on the fringes of the sector; the threat that no one sees coming. As the real estate and automotive sectors are learning, this new business, the company perceived as the customer’s friend will enjoy positive sentiment and high levels of obligation from customers, and once they control large proportions of customers, they have the ability to further change customer behaviour to their benefit.

Over the last 5 years companies like Carwow in the automotive sector and Purple Bricks in the real estate sector have tapped into a demand from customers to do business in a different way, and the effect has been devastating on the businesses deploying what was, up until then, the traditional trading model. I’m not going to spend any time delving into the aggressive third party business models, who have been able to attack established markets in this post, (they are a thesis in themselves), but the reason for mentioning them briefly, is because I see the same vulnerability in the channel at the moment, in terms of traditional, (but becoming outdated), business models, and it is MSP’s that are potentially most vulnerable.

And why do I say this? Well if customers are driving demand for cloud services and quite understandably turning their backs on the in-house hardware infrastructure model, which is now looking rather old fashioned, the role of the traditional MSP is beginning to look threatened and rather redundant.

This statement will no doubt ensure I receive some comments from owners of MSP’s, those I read quotes from who continually go on about the value they add, and this might have been true in the days of building and supporting complex on-site IT systems. But if customers are moving away from on-site IT networks, (which are beginning to look like the typewriter compared to the shiny new home PC equivalent, which is the cloud based network), the opportunity for the owner of an MSP to “Add Value” or shall we be honest and term it as “Build in Margin,” could be coming to an end.

Let me explain why; I have always looked at the perilous relationship that exists between vendors and the channel, (not so much for the vendors, but for the MSP’s), and if I’m honest I always wondered why vendors spent so much time building relationships with businesses they can’t control, in order to build their success, and I always thought that commercially this just did not make sense; why are vendors not selling this themselves?

Now, having worked extensively in the sector during the last 3 and half years I understand the requirement for this unhealthy relationship, and I say unhealthy because I sense that in the main, this is how some vendors view this relationship. Now to explain this statement, let’s pretend that I am a vendor and then think what a vendor goes through when launching a new product. Although this is going to be simplistic, it will go to the heart of the problem and my frustration as a vendor.

So, as a vendor we have a tremendous new product and in order to take it to market I have to invest vast sums of money and time convincing individual MSP partners to take on board this new product and take it out to their consumers, whilst not knowing the circumstances surrounding their business, their embedded relationships with other vendors, or their customers; as a business model this is mad but hey-ho, up until now I have had accept this status quo!

But the cloud changes this; why? Well unlike Dell, who in the past tried and failed to go direct to customers therefore bypassing the channel, we now have a wholly different and more financially powerful business to contend with, Amazon. Let’s take Amazon as an example, who already have about 40% of the cloud market; now if I was Jeff Bezos, (and I am not), I would be thinking like the disruptors who targeted other markets and coming to the conclusion that the secret to my success may just be about getting the message out to customers, customers who are already hungry to take up my services, many of whom already have via MSP’s building networks using my cloud services.

I would then think that this is potentially leaving my future success in the hands of third parties I do not know and now that we have a product that doesn’t need supporting in the way that traditional in-house hardware infrastructure needs supporting, why don’t I bring this whole operation in house.

After all, I have the best marketing platforms available to me, (my own), a trusted brand to die for and no one understands my product like I do; and more, having been emboldened by the recent £600 Million contract signed by Amazon Business, (albeit not for cloud Services), I have proven beyond doubt that I can go directly to customers and bypass the channel.

So if cloud services are the way ahead and I already have a 40% market share, why don’t I leverage my commercial advantages and be the first to offer an “Easy-IT” model to businesses and customers based on my own AWS cloud offering? For sure there will be some investment involved, but what’s easier, trying to convince individual business owners with no loyalty to me, to sell my products or to sell and support them myself? In terms of a long term growth model it really is a “No Brainer!”

Should Amazon make the decision to go direct to customers with AWS, the decision I’m sure that you all hope won’t happen, (and who are you really trying to convince on this point would be my question to the owners of MSP’s?), the decision to market, deliver and support cloud services themselves, just who do you think has the deepest pockets in the dash for market share and in controlling customers requiring IT services?

In my opinion the dash for customers is well and truly on and funnily enough it should be both vendors and the owners of MSP’s who should worry about the potential threat from Amazon. If there is customer demand for cloud based IT services, which there clearly is, those MSP’s without a cloud offering are on borrowed time; not only are they selling to a diminishing market, they are doing so with no current ability to expand and take cloud offerings to verticalised markets, in order to transition to the safer haven of being cloud services provider.

As for those MSP’s with cloud offerings, well it is a dash for market share and building loyalty with customers before the inevitable branded vendor models hit the marketing channels; the days of waiting for customers to contact us and having no effective new business development campaigns continually running are over, if MSP’s want to survive.

For traditional vendors, well there is also a threat; the market share held by Amazon is huge and remember, they do not think like a traditional vendor, Amazon is expanding into the territory of the traditional vendor from the safe foundations of an already successful business, (and boy is it successful), so they are probably looking at the sector and the opportunity from a fresh perspective, that gleaned for their existing businesses and successes.

If there is no appetite from other vendors to go direct to customers, but someone like Amazon go direct to customers, then vendor partner programmes are going to have to be able meet head on the challenges that may be coming their way.

An interesting and thought provoking discussion for sure and over the next 2 articles I will expand more on the challenges facing both vendors and the owners of MSP’s. Should you be a senior professional at a vendor or the owner of an MSP, and this article has raised some questions that you would like to discuss, over the last 3 years we have worked with both vendors and MSP’s to deliver strategies for taking cloud services to verticalised markets.

So if this post has resonated with you and you would like to explore how we can help you achieve your growth aspirations, then please do not hesitate to contact myself or my colleague Jane Gatfield on 0118 947 1010, or email us at andrewb@virtuosoconsultancy.co.uk or janeg@virtuosoconsultancy.co.uk  

For more information about our services please visit www.virtuosoconsultancy.co.uk 

To read more posts covering all aspects of sales, marketing and business development for MSP’s and VAR’s, please visit our blog; http://it-business-growth-strategies.blogspot.co.uk

How Valuable Is This Professional To MSP’s and VAR’s?

I wanted to explore today what, in all probability, the most valuable member of staff in these market conditions would look like to the owner of an MSP or VAR; that illusive senior employee and business strategist with the skillset and experience that just does not exist, the professional who is expert in both the technical and sales aspects of the business, who knows how to maximise and deliver the industry myth of excellent service delivery coupled with the commercial realities of maintaining a constant sales pipeline, keeping track of all the customer projects and support requests, whilst also maximising productivity within the engineering department and maximising profitability.

On top of that they are the industry expert for growing your business and profits from increased levels of sales; not just by maximising existing opportunities for growth from effective and continual account management, (whilst also protecting your existing customer base from aggressive approaches from your competitors), but by having the experience and knowledge in these demanding trading conditions, of knowing how to get you new customers and avoid being in the expected 35% of businesses in the channel that will fail in the next 2 -5 years, as has happened in the US.

And it is these skills that are so valuable and in such demand because the trading landscape has changed so much over the last 3 – 5 years. The new business development procedures of the past combined with organic growth and referrals, will just not be enough to survive in the “New Normal” and worse, if you don’t have the skills to grow in these harsh and challenging conditions, you will probably be managing your business into decline, so selling it at the sort of valuation you would want to receive is not an option either.

So in order to deliver on all this promise just what would be the skills-set of this highly desirable professional? Well I think it would encompass the core skills below:

The delivery of new business development campaigns; In-depth commercial understanding of how the commercial trading landscape has changed for MSP’s and VAR’s over the last 5 years and the strategies now required in order to continue to grow profits; asked to write a White Paper on this process for those trading in the IT Channel, a copy of which can be obtained by following this link: http://www.virtuosoconsultancy.co.uk/white-paper

With the first purchase market now exhausted they will be an expert in the current trading conditions and during the last 3 years will have continually built and delivered the successful campaigns required to undermine the stature of existing suppliers within target markets; this process will have necessitated an in-depth level of commercial ability and acumen in the following processes:

The building of “Value Propositions” that have commercial value; The ability to identify how products and services offerings can be packaged and taken to target verticals where they have genuine value to target audiences, and in a language that they understand, so they are going to be perceived as the solution to actual problems by the target audiences.

Market research and transitioning into new markets of immediate opportunity; Panoramic and in-depth understanding of the market, the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors and how to build and exploit your commercial advantages; as well as the ability to assess the legislative and economic factors to find and exploit new markets of immediate opportunity, combined with the approach that will be required in order to ensure success. This ability will also be combined with an in-depth knowledge and high levels of experience with vendors and their campaigns, how to build and exploit these relationships with vendors and to identify immediate market opportunities from new product launches; in terms of integration into existing products and services offerings, and taking a competitive commercial proposition to target markets.

GDPR and data collation specialist; The importance of data to the successful business, as we move into and tackle the challenges of operating in the channel today, must not be under estimated. Not many businesses will have the databases required to begin to build new sales campaigns; to do this in the new post GDPR trading landscape any business will need to be an expert in obtaining the contact data for the decision makers within their target markets and know how to run marketing campaigns that are GDPR compliant, as without these operational abilities, your business will be unable to deliver messages about your business to anyone. This individual will bring this immediate expertise to your business and the opportunity to turn this situation to your commercial advantage.

The construction and delivery of successful marketing campaigns; The inconvenient truth is that the marketing landscape within the channel is extremely challenging; apathy prevails with target audiences, who already have an incumbent IT supplier in place and there is little desire to change. The owners of MSP’s and VAR’s must appreciate that whilst their business represents their life’s work, their target audiences do not care. This individual will be an expert in building and delivering, (from the ground floor up), the highly targeted content based and direct message campaigns required to begin to engage with target audiences.

Expert at undermining existing relationships of supply; Highly experienced in the trading dynamics at play within target markets; with the first purchase market now exhausted within the UK, all businesses within the channel are effectively competing to increase the size of the market they hold, and this presents a market dynamic that thus far, the owners of VAR’s and MSP’s have not had to come to terms with. The reality is that, in a market where all the businesses you are targeting have existing relationships of supply for their IT services, then the only growth model prevailing is that of undermining existing relationships of supply. This individual will bring the commercial knowledge of this process immediately to your business and the ability to be way ahead of this curve and gain a commercial advantage on your competitors.

Protecting your business from aggressive competitors; If we accept the market trading reality then we must also accept that our competitors will be looking to target our existing customer base with their products and services offerings. They will be looking to exploit every weakness and take advantage of any situation, especially when things go wrong. Therefore to protect your current level of income, initiatives must be put in place that revolutionise the delivery of your current services offering and protect the income you currently enjoy, from these aggressive approaches. This individual will bring that expertise straight to your door.

Building your brand within your chosen markets; Highly experienced in the effective use of content marketing, direct marketing, e-campaigns and the effective leveraging of social media platforms, in order to raise awareness and to get your message over to your target audiences.

Building and developing winning sales teams; Whether that be for account management or in new business development functions, this individual will bring experience that is “Current” and the ability to immediately increase the revenues enjoyed from account management procedures, aligned with the ability to build, develop and manage the new business development sales teams capable of generating and exploiting new markets to their full potential.

Expert at sales enquiry management; Fully versed on all the processes required for the successful nurturing and follow up process, in order to take new target customers along the journey from managing initial engagement with campaigns to the successful sale. This will involve an enquiry management process encompassing all the integral points of contact required, in order to obtain new business including: identifying genuine engagement, (including engagement with electronic campaigns), managing electronic engagement, developing electronic engagement to the first conference call and meeting, developing the desire for your products and services, identifying “The In” and developing that towards the successful sale.

The writing of successful proposals and delivery of the winning pitch; This individual will have read enough overly “Tech Laden” proposals to know exactly why so many resellers fail at this stage. Therefore they will ensure that the correct qualification of the customer’s needs and requirements takes place before any proposal is written, because they will then be able to identify the “Drivers “ at play and the customer’s desired outcome. This individual will appreciate that it is this process of qualification that then makes it possible to construct a proposal that delivers exactly what the customer requires, in a language that the customer understands. More importantly this individual will be an expert in the delivery of the proposal to the relevant board of directors, able to answer the inevitable questions, make the process more personal, deliver the “Wow Factor,” build obligation and therefore secure the sale.

Exploitation of lucrative co-selling opportunities with vendor campaigns; The technical pace of development with vendor offerings is relentless. However the vendor rarely knows the “Real World” commercial value of what they have developed, how to take it to verticalised markets or how to integrate it with a suite of other product and service offerings to create a solution that adds real value to the end user. Having worked extensively with vendors this individual will know how to find and leverage the right products and vendors, build strong relationships with them and develop lucrative co-selling opportunities that maximise the revenues available for the VAR or MSP.

Staff development; building winning teams and a succession plan; Vital if you are to grow and to succeed! If you are going to grow you have to have the ability to find and develop the right people within the roles required, and these cannot be self-taught because they do not exist in the sector. If you are ever going to be able to enjoy the fruits of all your hard work and retire having sold the shares within your business, someone will need to build this succession plan on your behalf involving developing the team of likeminded and committed professionals who understand the journey and “Buy In” to the business and its vision. Without this you will never be rewarded for all your hard work; This individual will bring the ability to deliver these skills, along with the desired outcomes, straight to the front door of your business.

Expert in both traditional in-house IT systems, as well as transitioning to cloud services and managed services; If your main focus today is with on-premise networks, this individual will know how your business can target the markets who cannot or do not wish to transition to cloud at this stage, whilst planning and strategising the eventual transition to cloud services for both your business as well as your customers, to the commercial advantage of your business. Equally, if you are already in the process of transitioning to MSP, MSSP or cloud service provider, this individual will know how to make the financial business model work, guide you through the transition profitably and identify and target customers for your new products and services.

Project managing technically and politically complex IT projects to successful completion on time and on budget; Excellence in service delivery is paramount to building the reputation of your business and keeping your customers tied into you. This individual will provide expert project management skills to your business having brought the most technically and politically complex customer projects to completion, successfully, on time and on budget. From complex, high-stakes financial services infrastructure projects, to replacing the entire network infrastructure at the U.K.'s most expensive independent school, to multi million pound ERP implementation projects, they have extensive experience in bringing people and technology together to deliver successful and profitable IT projects for all parties concerned.

Deep technical understanding; Having the benefit of a technical background, with over a decade of hands-on network engineering experience, this individual fully grasps the technical complexities of designing, building and maintaining effective networks, and are fully versed in technologies from vendors such as Microsoft, VMWare, Citrix and many security vendors. As such this individual can design, specify and price networks and managed services that will both deliver your customer's objectives and make you money. They will also have an immediate grasp of your products and services, how they work and what problems they solve for your prospective customers.

Detailed understanding of the commercial and practical realities of running a successful and profitable engineering department; This individual will fully understand the people and organisational challenges of running an effective engineering department that is also highly profitable. As such they bring experience, business processes and procedures that will ensure you are getting maximum value from expensive technical staff and infrastructure that serves to maximise overhead absorption and therefore maximise profits, whilst also delivering the highest levels of service management to your customers.

Now you might be tempted to say that this person does not exist and that even if they did, they would be such a “One Off” and of such commercial value that, in reality you could never afford to employ them, and I would agree. But what if I said that these skills and this experience are in fact available to you and right now, and on top of that they are available on a flexible and part time basis as and when required for your business?

I can say this because this is exactly the level of experience contained within our company and thus available to you, and effectively this is no different to what we do for all our MSP and VAR clients; which ultimately involves us going on to work on a flexible basis around the needs of their business and supplying the skills and expertise required in order to succeed on their behalf.

In the last 36 months we have already constructed, (from the ground floor up), and delivered complete and successful sales, marketing and business development campaigns for MSPs and VARs operating in the Independent Schools, Pharmaceuticals, Legal, Recruitment, Accountancy and Financial Services sectors, to name just a few. As well as building sales and marketing campaigns for developers of “Game Changing” software applications.

Should you require, we have immediately available and existing, highly effective and proven sales, marketing and business development campaign modules ready for your business that have already been utilised to sell many different product or services offerings; from traditional in-house infrastructure to cloud based solutions.

My fellow directors and I have over 40 years combined experience in growing businesses and can deliver sales, technical, operational, business development and marketing experience that is IT sector specific, straight to your door.

We know how to build new business development campaigns and to drive them towards successful outcomes; the initiatives involved are “Current,” continually evolving and proven in the demanding trading conditions of today, not in the past. We know how improve your productivity and how to target and speak to the decision makers in your target markets, but most importantly, we know how to grow your business and make you money!

If this post has resonated with you and you would like to explore how we can help you achieve your growth aspirations, via our flexible business development consultancy approach, (supplying expertise required as and when it is required), then please do not hesitate to contact myself or my colleague Andrew Banning on 0118 947 1010, or email us at andrewb@virtuosoconsultancy.co.uk or janeg@virtuosoconsultancy.co.uk

For more information about our services please visit www.virtuosoconsultancy.co.uk

To read more posts covering all aspects of sales, marketing and business development for MSP’s and VAR’s, please visit our blog; to https://it-business-growth-strategies.blogspot.co.uk/

“I know we could have done a better job than the company who won the business!”

How many times have I heard this from the owners of MSPs and VARs!

And you are probably right.

It’s galling to lose out to a competitor, especially one you suspect cannot technically deliver the standard of service that you can.

But the fact that you didn’t win the pitch means that you didn’t manage to communicate to the prospective customer that you would be the best organisation to meet their needs. Someone else stepped in with the glossy brochure, the slick presentation and an ability to convince the customer that they could meet their needs, such that the customer signed on the dotted line with them not you.

Whether or not your rival can technically deliver is a moot point. Because they won the business, not you. And yes you have the consolation that if that supplier doesn’t deliver, then perhaps in a year or 2 years time you’ll get the opportunity to re-pitch to the customer.

But wouldn’t you have rather won the business now?

Virtuoso Consultancy work with IT companies to help them achieve new business success by:

• Writing/re-writing your sales materials to be compelling to your target customer
• Qualifying and understanding customer outcomes
• Putting together compelling pitches
• Strategising leads to maximise the opportunity
• Understanding the politics at play
• Proposal writing
• Mentoring business owners and/or sales teams
• Presentation writing and/or delivery
• Effective sales follow-up processes

Being from a reseller background, with extensive experience in how to strategise leads and design winning sales pitches, including a conversion ratio of 70-80% of first meetings into customers, we bring a wealth of commercial experience to MSPs and VARs.

Whether you need us for a few days a week, a few days a month or for a one-off project, we can help you win more business.

If this post has resonated with you and you would like to explore how we can help you win more business, then please do not hesitate to contact myself or my colleague Andrew Banning on 0118 947 1010, or email us at janeg@virtuosoconsultancy.co.uk or andrewb@virtuosoconsultancy.co.uk.

For more information about our services please visit www.virtuosoconsultancy.co.uk

To read more posts covering all aspects of sales, marketing and business development for MSP’s and VAR’s, please visit our blog; to https://it-business-growth-strategies.blogspot.co.uk/

Why No MSP/VAR Owner Needs to be Time-Poor Again!

Having been an owner of a VAR/MSP myself, I know all too well the constant demands and stresses that fall on the shoulders of IT company owners to constantly keep all the plates spinning. Whether it’s service delivery, customer issues, managing staff, technology that doesn’t quite “do what it says on the tin”, delivering complex IT projects, ensuring the sales pipeline is on-track, keeping up with ever-changing technology and evolving the business accordingly…. the “to do” list is endless for the owners of MSPs and VARs and can often seem overwhelming or even insurmountable.

It’s little wonder then that there is little, if any, consistent time to develop the business and many projects fall by the wayside, or spend months on the backburner, as there’s just not enough hours in the day or headspace to move them forward.

Trying to remedy the overload can be complicated …….. finding people with both commercial and technical skills, not to mention the organisational ability, to take on some of the owner’s “to do” list, is not easy. And even if you do find that rare skills mix, getting people up to speed with your business still needs significant amounts of time before you can start to divest some of your to-do list to them. Then there’s the financial investment in that individual, which will inevitably be significant, coupled with the question of whether you need that particular skillset on an ongoing basis, or whether it is just needed to cover a temporary peak in workload.

So wouldn’t it be great if there was a way time-poor IT company owners could push forward with all the projects and business development work that is on their “to do” list, and actually really move the business forward at a rate of knots? Well this is where Virtuoso Consultancy comes in.

We are a safe and experienced pair of hands into which you can place one or more of the items on your “to do” list – safe in the knowledge that within our organisation we have the commercial, technical and project management expertise to deliver that piece of work, on time and to brief, with only minimal input from you in the form of an initial briefing.

Here are some examples of projects MSP’s and VAR’s have outsourced to Virtuoso over the last 12 months:-
• Business Development and marketing campaigns – building and running from the ground floor up.
• Content writing – website content, sales pitches, proposal documents, tenders, service catalogues, case studies, marketing collateral, data sheets etc.
• Development of lucrative relationships and co-selling campaigns with vendors.
• Market research/due diligence on a new product, new target market, acquisition or new idea.
• Financial modelling around transitioning to a managed services or cloud provider model.
• Efficiency and profitability studies.
• Coaching and mentoring of sales teams to maximise performance.
• Running that elusive in-house project that has never reached the top of the to-do list because there’s been so much chargeable customer work that has taken precedence.
• Project Management of technically and politically complex customer projects at times there are not enough in-house resources available with the right skillsets.

These are just some of the services Virtuoso Consultancy offer to time-poor MSPs and VARs, who need a resource who is immediately up to speed and will just get on with the job and get it done with minimal input needed.

My fellow directors and I have over 40 years combined experience in growing businesses and can deliver sales, technical, operational, business development and marketing experience that is IT sector specific, straight to your door. Whether you need us for a few days a week, a few days a month or for a one-off project, we can help take the strain and get your “to do” list back on track.

If this post has resonated with you and you would like to explore how we can help you get your to-do list back under control and achieve your growth aspirations, via our flexible business development consultancy approach, (supplying expertise required as and when it is required), then please do not hesitate to contact myself or my colleague Andrew Banning on 0118 947 1010, or email us at janeg@virtuosoconsultancy.co.uk or andrewb@virtuosoconsultancy.co.uk.

For more information about our services please visit www.virtuosoconsultancy.co.uk  

To read more posts covering all aspects of sales, marketing and business development for MSP’s and VAR’s, please visit our blog; to https://it-business-growth-strategies.blogspot.co.uk/

Why Every MSP/VAR needs a Super-Hero!

Well firstly let me apologise for the none so subtle play on some imagery but I wanted to explore what a business superhero would look like for an MSP or VAR; that illusive employee with the skillset and experience that just does not exist, the professional who is expert in both the technical and sales aspects of the business, who knows how to maximise and deliver the industry myth of excellent service delivery coupled with the commercial realities of maintaining a constant sales pipeline, keeping track of all the customer projects and support requests, whilst also maximising productivity within the engineering department and maximising profitability.

On top of that they are the industry expert for growing your business and profits from increased levels of sales; not just by maximising existing opportunities for growth from effective and continual account management, (whilst also protecting your existing customer base from aggressive approaches from your competitors), but by having the experience and knowledge in these demanding trading conditions, of knowing how to get you new customers and avoid being in the expected 35% of businesses in the channel that will fail in the next 2 -5 years, as has happened in the US.

And it is these skills that are so valuable and in such demand because the trading landscape has changed so much over the last 3 – 5 years. The new business development procedures of the past combined with organic growth and referrals, will just not be enough to survive in the “New Normal” and worse, if you don’t have the skills to grow in these harsh and challenging conditions, you will probably be managing your business into decline, so selling at it at the sort of valuation you would want to receive is not an option either.

As an exercise, here is the core skills section taken from a CV for you to read, in order for you to assess whether or not you feel this person actually exists, let alone whether you could employ them and what you would have to pay? In summary some of the skills this individual will possess are listed below;

Core Skills and Experience

• Formulating and delivering effective and successful new business development strategies.
• Panoramic in-depth understanding of the market, the strengths of your competitors and how to build and exploit your commercial advantages.
• The ability to build genuine USP’s that are of value to target audiences and aligned to target verticals of immediate opportunity.
• Recognised within the channel as the new breed of sales and new business development professional required, in order to overcome the commercial challenges of the current trading landscape, they will have been asked to write a White-Paper covering the new business development challenges faced by the sector; a copy of which can be found by following the link below.
• GDPR strategist capable of obtaining and collating data of decision makers at target customers, building the target database that money can’t buy!
• Market Research, to include transitioning into and targeting new markets of immediate opportunity and building your genuine USP or Value Proposition.
• The construction and delivery of marketing campaigns designed to build trust with target audiences whilst undermining relationships with the provider of existing IT products and services.
• High level of experience in building brands and the effective use of content marketing, direct marketing, e-campaigns and the effective use of social media platforms.
• GDPR strategist and specialist in building GDPR compliant marketing campaigns. • Building and developing winning sales teams, whether that be for account management or in new business development functions.
• Expert at sales enquiry management who understands the nurturing and follow up process required to take new target customers along the journey from engagement with campaigns to the successful sale.
• The writing of customer centred proposals and delivery of the winning pitch.
• Exploitation of markets and the development of lucrative co-selling campaigns with vendors.
• Staff development; building winning teams and a succession plan.
• Project managing technically and politically complex IT projects to successful fruition on time and on budget.
• Deep technical understanding.
• Detailed understanding of the commercial and practical realities of running a successful and profitable engineering department.
• Expert in both traditional in-house IT systems and in transitioning to cloud services and managed services. 

Now you might be tempted to say that this person does not exist and that even if they did, they would be such a “One Off” and of such commercial value that, in reality you could never afford to employ them, and I would agree. But what if I said that these skills and this experience, along with all the skills and experience contained within the attached CV, are in fact available to you and right now; and on top of that they are available on a flexible and part time basis as and when required for your business?

I can promise this because this is exactly the level of experience contained within our company and thus available to you, and effectively this is no different to what we do for all our MSP and VAR clients; which ultimately involves us going on to work on a flexible basis around the needs of their business and supplying the skills and expertise required in order to succeed on their behalf.

In the last 24 months we have already constructed, (from the ground floor up), and delivered complete and successful sales, marketing and business development campaigns for MSPs and VARs operating in the Independent Schools, Pharmaceuticals, Legal, Recruitment, Accountancy and Financial Services sectors, to name just a few. As well as building sales and marketing campaigns for developers of “Game Changing” software applications.

Should you require, we have immediately available and existing, highly effective and proven sales, marketing and business development campaign modules ready for your business that have already been utilised to sell many different product or services offerings; from traditional in-house infrastructure to cloud based solutions.

My fellow directors and I have over 40 years combined experience in growing businesses and can deliver sales, technical, operational, business development and marketing experience that is IT sector specific, straight to your door.

We know how to build new business development campaigns and to drive them towards successful outcomes; the initiatives involved are “Current,” continually evolving and proven in the demanding trading conditions of today, not in the past. We know how improve your productivity and how to target and speak to the decision makers in your target markets, but most importantly, we know how to grow your business and make you money!

If this post has resonated with you and you would like to explore how we can help you achieve your growth aspirations, via our flexible business development consultancy approach, (supplying expertise required as and when it is required), then please do not hesitate to contact myself or my colleague Jane Gatfield on 0118 947 1010, or email us at andrewb@virtuosoconsultancy.co.uk or janeg@virtuosoconsultancy.co.uk

For more information about our services please visit www.virtuosoconsultancy.co.uk

To read more posts covering all aspects of sales, marketing and business development for MSP’s and VAR’s, please visit our blog; to http://it-business-growth-strategies.blogspot.co.uk/

DOWNLOAD THE WHITE PAPER
This post forms a small portion of a white paper I have written covering The Art of The Approach, a specific sales based white paper written for the IT Sector. To request a copy please email me directly at andrewb@virtuosoconsultancy.co.uk