By Jay Hess, VP of Operations and Compliance
“Everyone is in sales!” That is what echoed around the conference room from one of my former mentors. I used to believe that saying wholeheartedly. For the longest time this was probably true for the MSP industry. Everyone in the organization did their part to support sales. However, the landscape of society and sales is changing. Today, we must change with the new landscape, and now as a company here at Opal Business Solutions, we have shifted to having no sales team at all. Imagine my mentor trying to embrace this thought.
We have entered a world of advanced technological information overload. Much like the world, I am going to bring the information to you now, so try to stay awake. We no longer need to bring attention to what products and services exist. If anyone wants to find out what products or services are available from MSPs near them, they can search via the internet. They can read reviews, research company history, find pricing, discover other options, and even find clients to speak with about your company. They have done so much research on your company prior to you even knowing they were looking for the products and services you offer. According to the information overload on the internet, it can take anywhere from 5-20 touches for you to get a sale. The number varies based on certain criteria, but seven is a number that keeps arising. Seven quality touches will get them to remember you according to Dr. Jeffrey Lant’s ‘Rule of Seven’. While Jay Abraham states you must ask a person to buy from you seven times before they say yes, I would argue the potential client has already had seven touches before they choose to engage with you directly. At this point, they have no desire to get a pitch from a salesperson. They are beyond the game playing, and they want your best effort and people to communicate with them. You now get less than seven chances to ask them for the purchase, so don’t waste the time they have provided to you. Okay, that’s enough information.
Our new direction, and the direction for the MSP industry, means no SDRs, no sales pitch, and absolutely no salespeople. That is right, you heard me correctly, NO salespeople. This means our proposals may take a bit longer to polish, and they still might not be as elegant as some of our competitors using salespeople. However, they will contain the solutions. This is the key to this approach; provide the details and the technical steps needed to solve their problem. For this reason, we dismantled our sales team and now have our entire team speak directly with potential clients. We want potential clients speaking directly with the people who will be implementing the solution. When potential clients call our office, they will not get a salesperson, because we have no sales department or sales team. In spite of the fact we have no salespeople, I guess we actually ended up back where we started.
“Everyone is in sales!” I hope that echoes beyond our walls and throughout the entire MSP world.
