Negotiating a fee to manage a client’s IT network is never easy. Even the most IT-dependent businesses tend to see IT as a cost center. Worse, sometimes you need to appease decision makers who question the need for the technology in place. The solution to overcoming both attitudes is the same: Show returned value on the investment.
That’s easier said than done, especially if the decision makers have little or no experience building an IT infrastructure. These tips will help you make an effective case for your services.
• Have a point person who can think like a CIO. Your sales team can take the conversation only so far. The client needs to discuss its needs with someone who has hands-on IT management experience for you to gain their confidence. This person is critically important to act on the following tips.
• Understand the client’s pain points. Take the time to walk through the client’s core business processes. You are looking for the areas where the client knows there is a problem. A common example is unreliable hardware. Many smaller businesses put off upgrades and pay for it later when the systems start to break down.
You also want to identify inefficient processes. Maybe the client wants its sales team to act on leads faster, or billing to happen in a more timely manner. Any relief you can promise to a known pain point is a good start to selling managed services based on value rather than cost.
• Calculate the time and money the client spends to support its IT infrastructure. This includes both direct and indirect costs. Many smaller companies rely on non-IT staff for some support, typically a power user who can do basic support or modifications. You want to tally the people cost of support and weigh that against your rate and the productivity gains the client will realize by freeing up staff.
• Illustrate the true cost of the “break/fix” mentality. It’s easy for a business to think it’s cheaper to call in IT help only when there is a problem. You need to show that a key benefit of managed services is to maximize reliability. When an IT problem occurs, a business incurs the cost of repair and the cost associated with business disruption. If a retail website goes down for a day, for example, that’s a day’s worth of revenue lost. Amortize and compare those costs against your monthly fee while you tout the business benefits you’ll bring.
• Look beyond what the client is asking for. Remember that most small businesses don’t have a lot of internal technical expertise. That means they may not be considering all the possible benefits they could be getting from their IT infrastructure. Any value you can add beyond expectations will help seal the deal, perhaps at a premium rate.
