Podcast featuring Jennifer Bleam
So obviously there needs to be a sale in there that needs to be a markup and there needs to be margin there and, and some profit. I love making it required. Here’s the challenge. And again, there is this threshold, and this is part of why the clients that I work best with are above the half million-dollar mark. It’s very, very easy for me to say, “Hey Vince, just make it required.” But if you only had 40 clients and you didn’t have lead flow. And I said, “well, just make it required.” If they say no, then you politely or not. So, politely let them leave. Invite them to seek an MSP elsewhere. Maybe you introduce them to your worst enemy and you’re like, “go work with them.” But if you are on very thin margins or if you have exactly the team, you need to support those 40 clients and there is no wiggle room and you don’t have any more leads coming in the door.
You know, you’re not filling the top of that funnel. I can say, “yep, Cybersecurity should absolutely be required, but it’s not my belly that’s not getting filled tomorrow when you can’t cut my payroll check.” So again, below that half million dollars mark it’s a tough thing to simply require. I think it’s the right thing to do, but if you require it and then you don’t make that sale, or if you require it and you lose that client, there needs to be a ‘then what’ well then what we have a robust pipeline, we’ll just close another deal. That’s fantastic. But if the ‘then what’ is “I’m going to have to fire a team member.” It’s a little bit of a different situation. So, it it’s hard I agree. I think it should just be required and this is what our price is.
And if we begin with the end in mind, the end is that we want to sell, manage services and manage security to everyone and it’s not optional. And maybe there’s an optional compliance module or a compliance thing, then that if that’s the end, then begin with that end in mind and reverse engineer it. Why can’t we do that now? Do we not know how to articulate the value? Are we not bringing in the right type of leads? You know, maybe the leads were getting, they don’t have two pennies to rub together. And so, but if you say that is our goal, what is stopping us from reaching that goal? And we reverse engineer it, then we fix the root problem. It’s kind of like a root cause analysis, right? Is the problem lead flow or is it wrong leads? Is it a poor sales process? Is it all of the above? Is it great leads? And our process is okay, but the piece of our process is that we don’t know how to articulate the value of cyber security. And so, I love that, if every MSP or even 60% of the MSPs said, my second half of 2022 goal is going to be that by December 31st, we have 100% of our clients on our preferred cybersecurity offer. And we will never, again, deviate from that. That would be a huge win.