Upselling your MSP, whether through additional services, product upgrades or added users, is the key to growing account value. But what’s the best way to upsell your MSP, and how do you know you’re suggesting the right products and services for their business? For upselling answers, turn to your customer’s data.
Upsell Your MSP from the Beginning
Upselling isn’t something that just happens post-sale; the right information can help MSPs increase the initial value and service level for prospects before they’re customers. The pre-sales assessment is a vital part of any MSPs proposal process—it helps you decide which solutions are right for your customers and how to accurately quote and price your services.
“When you’re doing proposals, you need to know how to price your customer,” says Shawn Sailer, Liongard VP of Sales. “There’s nothing worse than signing up a new customer as an MSP that you undersold yourself, meaning you’re going to have to put in a lot more hours managing the customer than you’re going to receive in fees monthly. That’s why you want to make sure the numbers on your proposals are as accurate as possible, and then you can have the customers validate your numbers when you submit your proposal.”
You can also use your initial proposal as an opportunity to include things like Active Directory cleanup if you notice they have multiple open licenses for terminated employees. The more data you have about a prospect’s current systems, the easier it is to suggest solutions that address your customer’s needs and the greater your chance of closing the deal. With Liongard, you get a complete history of your customer’s systems so you can make informed decisions and create comprehensive proposals.
Go From Break/Fix to Fully Managed
Many MSPs struggle to convert their current break/fix customers into fully-managed partners. A lot of the time, this comes down to not having built a strong enough relationship with your client for them to trust more of their business with your MSP. But how can data help you win trust?
“With break-fix customers, or any non-fully managed customer where you don’t have that trust relationship, the value of an IT assessment is in the data.” says Scott Davis, Sales Engineer with Liongard. “It gives you an opportunity, as an MSP, to start a conversation with your customer and get on the same page in terms of goals. You can use the assessment to create a roadmap for your customers that shows them that progression of, here’s where we were, here’s where we are, but more importantly, here’s where we need to be in the future, and also, we have a plan to get you there.”
Liongard’s Unified Visibility platform gives you access to the data and reporting tools you need to create customer reports and roadmaps that help you crush your QBRs to increase services and account value.
Position Your MSP as a vCIO
Many organizations today are looking for more than just another vendor—they want a technology partner they can rely on to help them plan strategically, and they’re willing to pay more for partnerships with vendors they trust. To meet this more strategic need, many MSPs are now offering virtual Chief Information Officer (vCIO) services. A mix of both technology and business, vCIOs are focused on helping their customers achieve goals by providing advice and best practices about technology, resources, and personnel. Digging deeper for insights than a typical Account Manager, vCIOs deliver reports, help develop technology roadmaps and recommend tech upgrades or cost-savings opportunities.
“It’s about reassuring customers that you’re there for them and that you’re taking care of their business,” said Davis. “The customer has a trust relationship with their MSP and if you’re not able to show progression, what you’ve done and what you’re going to do, then it’s hard to build that trust.
By positioning yourself as an extension of their IT department, the customer will start to see your MSP as a partner they can count on to provide data-driven recommendations based on a deep understanding of their business goals. Liongard gives you the capability to view all of the historical data you need in a timeline so you can show exactly what work has been done and what impact it has had on the business. It shows progression and helps you demonstrate your value as well as highlight areas for improvement that your MSP can help address.
Start Upselling with Unified Visibility from Liongard
Liongard’s platform empowers you with the data-driven insights you need to increase account value and upsell your MSP. Schedule a demo for a personalized walk-through of our platform and discovery the power Unified Visibility can have at your MSP.