Top 10 Ways to Differentiate Your Products as an MSP

Look across the IT channel. What do you see? A lot of the same, most likely. If you removed the logo from your brand and services, would your MSP look or read any differently from your competitors? These days, there is an increasing amount of parity across products. You can invest so much in enhancements just to have competitors copy it. As a product or industry matures, parity increases exponentially over time. In this blog, we’ll explore 10 ways you can differentiate your MSP product offerings from the rest.

1. Learn to Get Leads

As a managed service provider, each decision you make is geared towards the improvement, growth and success of your business. We want you to learn how to obtain and retain your leads. There is a precise combination of things you must do to be successful. It’s a fine balance of learning to sell your services in a unique way and combining it with competitive pricing. But most importantly, you need to specialize in the services you offer so you can provide the most efficient services.

2. Invest in Marketing Collateral

Spread the word about your services to your leads. Marketing collateral is essentially all the media you will use to bolster and promote the sales of your product. Marketing collateral can be brochures, sell sheets or any kind of informational medium that serves as a sales support tool. It provides leads with a comprehensive outline of what you’re about and what you offer, plus it makes the sales effort easier and more effective.

3. Mind Your Mentor

Leverage the knowledge you need from someone who has dealt with product differentiating issues before. Having a mentor is a great way to give your MSP an edge over your competition. A good mentor will be familiar with the tactics used in your geographic area, as well as the ones in use nationally. This way, you can both bounce ideas off of each other and devise the best way to package what your MSP offers.

4. Sales Training is in Session

Now that you’re well informed about your services and you know how to present them, it’s time to learn how to make a deal. With sales training sessions, you can gather the tools you need to capture the interest of your prospective clients. There are many nuanced tips and tricks you will gain in these trainings. They’ll culminate for you to make your prospects feel well informed and reassured that you’ll continually deliver them value as a trusted business partner.

5. Close Better

You’ve gotten your prospects’ attention; now it’s time to have them sign the dotted line. Closing the deal may seem like it’s the final step in the process, but in reality, there is still work to do. The art of closing a deal is affirming in your client’s mind that you will meet or exceed expectations regarding the deal you both have agreed on. A closed deal should be thought of as an investment that must be tended to regularly.

6. Post-Sales Support

The deal has closed, the funds are flowing in and your team is hard at work to fulfil contractual requirements. But your work isn’t over. You need to remain in contact with your client and ensure that they’re happy with the current progress. See if improvements can be made and diversify your efforts in aspects that aren’t panning out in the most optimized way. This also provides you the opportunity to sell other solutions to better client results.

7. Best Practices

As a savvy MSP, you can provide the best experience to your clients by not only continuing to invest in the product but also in the partnership you have with your clients. Our experience has shown time and time again that even if a competitor offers a greater range of services at a higher price, you can still compete with less if the partnerships you establish are strong and beneficial to their bottom line.

8. Get Templates for Your Documents

Having an established and uniformed assortment of paperwork like proposal templates, service-level agreements (SLAs) and other contracts will expedite all business transactions and give your MSP a sense of established professionalism. You can use templates and modify them to precisely suit your needs over time.

9. Make Doing Business Easier

You may have a very challenging partner program with a lot of certifications and requirements, but over time they get bloated and are overwhelming for smaller resellers. Make it easier for smaller partners to do business with your MSP. Do regular audits of your processes and make sure each step is absolutely necessary and straight-forward.

10. Conferences

Put everything you know, all that you can offer and what you have already done on display for the world to see. Conferences are your all-in-one tool to teach current and potential clients how they can better run their business with your MSP by their side. This is your opportunity to gain a lot of new business. Give presentations that focus on the biggest concerns in the channel and how your solutions are perfectly dialed-in to handle them. Invite industry professionals to speak in support of the points you wish to make and have clients who have had great success from your services speak on your behalf.