Never lose another client to a cheaper MSP

When you’re in a competitive industry like managed services, it can be easy to get trapped into a race to the bottom. You jump on a discovery call with a potential client and they say “Why should I pay for your services when John cheap RMM down the road can offer me the same thing for 20% less money?” Suddenly, you’re offering discounts, incentives, or retainer agreements that cut your revenues, just to get this client through the door. It’s no way to scale a business.

Here’s how to attract the right kind of client network – the ones who value relationship building over saving a few dollars each month.

Your website is often your first (or last) impression

Creating a strong website is important for a number of reasons. First off, having the right keywords and readable content (including on mobile devices) will help you to gain a higher ranking by the search engines. But this can only get you visitors.

In order to turn these visitors into prospects and then customers, they need to like what they see when they get there. Of course, they are going to be swayed somewhat by the cost of your endpoint management services. That’s why at Atera we offer per-technician pricing, to make it easier for you to hand over those savings to your own customers.

However, if a customer is looking for the lowest value price tag – they aren’t your ideal client. You want to use your website to show the value of your services, to provide the perfect customer education, and to let the visitor get a feel for you as a company to see whether you would make a good partnership together.

Remember that you’re not a necessary evil

First, think about the language that you use. This will make a real difference in showcasing that you’re not offering “fix it” services, but instead you’re in the business of building trusted relationships.

“Obviously you would LOVE to manage IT yourself in-house, but it’s just so expensive and difficult, and in today’s day and age, when the risk of cybercrime is increasingly great, and environments are getting more and more complex, you can’t ignore the need for managed services. That’s where we come in.”

Does this sound appealing? We didn’t think so. Many MSPs make the mistake of marketing themselves as something that the client has to do. This can’t help but make the prospect feel resentful before they even get in touch.

Instead, look for the value in what you create, and create a message that gives the feeling that they are gaining something amazing, not taking on the best answer under the circumstances.

“Do you wish you had more hours in the day, and could focus on your core product, service or business value rather than managing IT-related headaches? Do you have an IT skills gap that you can’t afford to fill? Are your IT costs spiralling, but you can’t figure out why? That’s where we come in.” Suddenly, your visitors are realizing how you could add to their business.

Believe it or not, you might actually be too cheap

In some cases, reducing your pricing can actually hurt your image as an MSP. Consider you take your car to a mechanic to fix a persistent rattling coming from under the hood. If the mechanic takes a look and says “I can fix that for $5” you’re not likely to have much trust that they know what they’re doing. There is such thing as being “reassuringly expensive!”

Richard Tubb even recommends that you try raising your prices if you notice that you’re being undercut on price in post-sales call feedback. This can feel counter-intuitive, but it’s very possible that your prospects just don’t believe you’ll give them what they need at such a low price per month.

There are three main ways to price your services:

• Cost-based pricing: How much will monitoring and managing the client environment cost you? Now add a margin to cover your time and overheads. This is the easiest to explain, but also comes with a cap on the margin that you can offer yourself.
• Market-based pricing: What are other MSPs doing? This is simple to justify, but can leave you in the situation where you’re competing with other MSPs on price, and trying to undercut them just enough to attract prospects. Not a comfortable place to be.
• Value-based pricing: Here is your sweet spot. Think about what you’re offering, and how much that is worth for the client. Let’s say you specialize in cybersecurity. How much is it worth the client not to have a data breach or a cyberattack? It’s priceless, and so suddenly you can set your prices wherever you want.

Believe in your value – and follow through with your monitoring and management software

To feel confident using value-based pricing, and to be able to appeal to clients based on their pain points, you need to be very clear on what you offer, and how you’re going to fulfil that role for the customer. There’s no point saying that your team are digital transformation specialists if you don’t have any cloud expertise on staff.

Don’t tell prospects they can reach you any time of day in real-time, if actually your SLA doesn’t include 24-hour support. Instead, focus on what your core offering really is, and how that is going to help the client to reach their own goals.

When you’re building your website, it’s important to optimize for SEO, but it’s also important to optimize for the kind of clients you’re looking to attract. Speaking to your value, charging what you’re worth, and offering customer education so visitors understand what they’ll be getting can all move the needle on getting those clients to sign on the dotted line.

Scripts are a great way to increase your revenues, letting you free up time to provide more strategic value. Check out this article to learn more.

Up your RMM solution marketing game

You’re great at what you do (patch management, network monitoring, the whole shebang!) but perhaps marketing isn’t your forte. Have no fear, we wrote a whole blog about how to successfully market your business as a managed service providers (MSPs). It includes tips like promotions you can offer without hurting your business, how to spruce up your website, and more!