Elevating IT - The Podcast For MSPs

MSP and audIT users Ty and Lisa share how they are selling and running business reviews. In this episode, they shared how they collect the data, how they sell, making sure business reviews have massive value, and how they use audIT. 

This was such a great discussion with channel legend Joel Zaidspiner from ChannelPro.    Joel shared what I believe to be some of the best advice for anyone in sales or selling.   And, their SMB Forum is coming up in Washington DC Sept 7th and 8th. Not too late to register. Use this special code AUVIP22.

In this episode of the Elevating IT Podcast live, thought I'd do something a little different. Calling this the 'Audible' edition where I am sharing a recent article written by audIT founder, Frank DeBenedetto.

4 successful MSPs share what is working for them to close more deals and increase MRR.

If you don't get this right during the sales process, it makes everything harder. And you may just lose the deal.  Get it right and your chances are as good as they can get. 

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times... Joined in this episode with Peer Group Facilitator and Business Coach, Mike Schmidtmann. We discuss how some MSPs are doing incredibly well right now. The best of the best have more business than they know what to do with. Meanwhile, some are struggling mightily.  This episode is all about what these top performers are doing to be able to literally turn away business and how you can do it too. What's in the episode: 3 mistakes MSPs are all making How to differentiate yourself. The 3 things every MSP says about themselves in presentations that does the opposite (and how not to do that) What one of our guest's clients did to raise their close rate from 20% to 60% What the average close rate is for MSPs and why anything above 60% is too high What you should focus on learning during fact finding to uncover the key to the sale

MSPs: Want more sales? Learn how to be an educational resource that easily drives new business. Miles Walker from Graphus shares his thoughts and insights on this super important topic.

Special guest Greg Durnan from Acacia Information Technologies LLC shares some successful strategies that bring in new business for his MSP.

Todd Billiar, Director of Global Channel Engagement at IT BY DESIGN joins Mike to talk sales talent for MSPs. Everything starts with sales. So, you have to have great sales talent and have to get creative in today's ultra competitive market. Not only do MSPs have to recruit great talent, they have to retain them and Todd shares the secrets in this episode.

This is actually the most killer content marketing strategy and MSP can use to attract a ton of new prospects and movie them down the funnel to the point they're clamoring to make an appointment with you. And, here's the cool thing…. no one is doing this. I see no MSP or I should say, very few MSPs using this tactic. And it's exactly what the SMB, small to medium business prospect is longing for.  Give them this kind of content and you will stand out, build instant trust and get more business from it. It's so powerful

The last deal you lost, what was the reason? Want to hear what most salespeople or owners who sell will answer that question with?

MSPs: Are you curious how your peers are selling? In this episode, I'm joined by Marc Umstead from Plus 1 Technology. Marc shares the behind the scenes on how he sells in his MSP.

This episode is super timely for MSPs trying to understand how to better sell as the world gets back to work. Post Covid selling may be very different and require some new skills. Sales legend Jim Ryerson, the Chief Acceleration Officer at Sales Octane has trained countless sales professionals over his long career. And in this episode, he shares some great post Covid sales tips.

Selling off of a quote or low quality proposal is a sure-fire race to the bottom. Want to charge premium prices, close more deals and provide the right solution? Stop selling off the quote. 

Frank and Mike are joined by Matt Solomon from Kaseya to talk about the upcoming MVP Growthfest. This year's special guest is the legendary Wayne Gretzky. MVP Growthfest 2021 on April 20th from 12pm to 4:45pm ET. Register for it at http://www.auditforit.com/mvpgrowthfest

Eric joins the fun today to talk about hiring your first salesperson and how to grow your team. We also talk about DattoCon and whether MSPs should get on the new app; Clubhouse

Mike Shelah is an expert at LinkedIn. More than just talking the talk, Mike is actively using what he teaches with great success in the MSP he sells for. This is an actionable system for prospecting on LinkedIn that any MSP can easily implement now.

Mark Knowlton is the CEO and founder of TechScreen, Inc., a SAAS that helps recruiters screen IT talent. Mark has been in the world of technical recruiting since the late 90s. On this episode Mark shares his perspective on communicating value to prospects and clients.

James Muir joins us to talk about is best selling sales book: The Perfect Close. 

Frank M. DeBenedetto rejoins the podcast after a short hiatus to share how his MSP ended the year and his thought for the upcoming year 2021.

John is the CEO of Executive Speaking Success and his large and small group trainings are recommended by executives from organizations like Johnson & Johnson Innovation Labs, NASA, Accenture, IBM, AirLiquide, Boston Scientific and more. In this episode John shares what it takes to really communicate effectively whether to a TED audience or in a one-on-one sales presentation.

Growth opportunities in 2021, overcomplicating technical services when selling, gaining confidence in your sales process, putting yourself in your prospect's shoes, keeping it simple and more sales strategies with Eric Torres, Director of Channel Development at Datto.

Alec Stanners, VP Of Business Development at bvoip, digs into his bag of sales and marketing trips to share some great growth strategies for MSPs. 

Mike is joined by two amazing MSPs to talk business this week! Mike, Eric and David talk about what's happening in their businesses today.

How you present yourself, makes all the difference as to how you are perceived. From how you present yourself in person, in writing and in your sales presentations. At audit, presentation is very important to us, obviously. MSPs use audIT to make the technical information they gather understandable to non-technical clients. We know that the way MSPs present makes a big impact on their sales success and bottom line. I recently interviewed author Anne Janzer for the Elevating IT podcast. Anne has written several books on writing and marketing. As well, she coaches non-fiction authors. Anne’s book; “Writing To Be Understood” caught my attention. The book does a great job of illustrating the importance of simplifying communication. In this interview, Anne shares a ton of great information and tips on how to speak to non-technical people in a way they can understand. Which if you follow the audIT blog or are an audIT user, is extremely important to being able to close more sales.

Randy is an old school, long time sales pro who has evolved in ways he never would have imagined. 

With years of sales and channel experience, John has deep knowledge on selling IT services and offers some great advice in our 'Thanksgiving Special'. 

This is the first in a series of episodes where I interview sales professionals that are not in the channel. Today I chat with Eric Bam, VP of Sales And Marketing with Perfect Crust Pizza. Eric is a true sales pro and delivers piping hot sales tips!

How's your presentation skills? Do you hate presenting? Today, Frank and Mike talk about presentation skills for MSPs

John Fazio is the Director of Sales at Zorus, Inc and a former trainer with Sandler Training. John has an amazing background in sales and shares all in this episode.

Frank M. DeBenedetto shares how he's managed to scale up his MSP during difficult times all while running another business (audIT)

Selling IT services to new and existing clients opens the door to liability issues for you and your clients. Find out from guest expert Justin Reinmuth how to make sure your MSP and your clients are protected in this ever changing and dangerous landscape.

Frank and Mike talk to MSP and audIT user Brian Benton from Xccelero.

Talking about up-selling and retaining clients. Michael's overall client retention average is 10.7 years and their top 50% of clients average 18.1 years. AudIT is a part of that equation as over 95% of their clients are full stack. They use AudIT to continually engage with their clients and highlight the areas that require improvement.

Founder of audIT, Frank DeBenedetto, shares how he's grown his MSP with this secret.

In addition to being President & CEO at bvoip and Bardissi Enterprises, George Bardissi is a master at selling. I'll be grilling George to share his strategies to help MSPs promote their business and sell IT services.

Mike is joined by Paul Redding from Compliancy Group to discuss how selling HIPAA can be easy and profitable.

This week Frank and Mike chat with guest and audIT user Eric Buhrendorf, CEO of EVERNET in CT.

The sale is going great and it looks like you're about to sell a new managed services client. Then... an objection. Everything comes to a hualt and the sale is derailed.  On this episode, Frank shares the common objections he and other MSPs deal with and how to overcome them.

Frank shares one of the toughest times in his business and how what felt like a massive setback propelled his business forward.

This is the final part in our discussion of the book Gap Selling. The last 'Truth Bomb' is that no one gives a BLANK about you...

Where are they today? Do you know their current state? Do  you really know it? And do you have a way to show them the difference between that and where their future state can be?  This is something you have to deeply understand in order to get the sale that generates the most MRR. Listen to learn how.

In this episode we talk about the word you have to understand the answer to. It's everything! If you want to close the sale, this is a word you need to know how to ask and how to extract the right answers. 

To get people to change and say yes, you need to make it emotional. Change is an emotional decision. In this episode we dive into how to manage and trigger emotions in the sales process to get people buying.

People buy change but they also hate to make a change. This makes it very hard. But it doesn't have to be. Here's how to fix that. This is part 4 of our series. Listen live every Friday at 2pm EST on the audIT Facebook page or Youtube channel. 

Ultimately, people are buying change. This is part 3 of our series.

The more value, the more money and easier it is to make the sale. This is part 2 of our series.

Frank and Mike talk about what MSPs should be focused on when selling. This is part 1 of a multi-episode discussion.

Problem… agitate… solve…  It’s a tried and true technique I first learned about from Dan Kennedy many years ago. The idea is to bring up the problem/pain. They agitate the daylights out of it. Think about this as picking a scab then pouring a bunch of salt into it.  It’s simple taking the problem/pain and talking about how it’s even worse than they thought. Then, you reveal your solution. Which is the answer to the problem/pain.  If you do a great job of getting them to see the problem and feel the pain, they will really want the solution and want it right now. The stronger and more obvious you make the problem/pain, the more their desire goes up. 

It's the Friday before a holiday. So Frank and Mike are having drinks while sharing all the details of the brand new Rapid Assessment category and template live now in audIT. This is a great tool to use in getting prospects to set an appointment. Then quickly closing them to a deeper assessment.

I had the privilege of being joined by 3 great MSPs and audIT users. They joined me to talk about selling IT services and how they are using audIT. The panel: Paul Havens – CEO of IT Haven Angel Rojas – CEO of DataCorps Technology Solutions Bob Coppedge – CEO of Simplex-IT and author of two books on Co-Managed IT services