The Managed Print Services business presents a great opportunity to grow revenue and profits. To execute on this strategy, you need to remove the barriers to success.
One of the biggest barriers to Managed Print Services (MPS) success may be the level of trust your customers have in your new offering. Your customers know and trust you as a source of copiers or print cartridges. However, do they see you as a credible source for managed print services?
Any time you come to a customer with a new offering, they typically have a level of suspicion. Questions of doubt immediately arise:
- Why are they wanting me to do this?
- What’s in it for them?
- What’s the catch?
- Do they know what they are doing?
Remove this doubt and you will enjoy success. Fail to answer these concerns and your will find it hard to close MPS sales.
Make Prospects Feel Comfortable
The key to closing MPS sales is to make your prospects feel comfortable with your offering. You must build belief in the value added by your program.
In the marketing world, we call this “positioning.” Here are some ideas on how to position your MPS offering correctly.
1. Present Unified Sales and Marketing Message
Calm the nerves of your prospects by presenting a unified message throughout the sales process. This begins with your website. Is it obvious that you are in the managed print business when prospects visit your site? Does the content on your site match the sales message. Your clients will visit your website during the sales process. Make sure that your site is an asset, not a liability.
The same message needs to extend throughout your sales materials. The initial presentation should be reinforced with your MPS brochure. Supporting documents like white papers can continue to reinforce this message. The content in proposal that you present should build on the sales message as well.
All of this content should be wrapped in a unified professional branding. If your materials look like a sales rep threw them together the night before, the impression is that you threw your MPS business together. Instead, invest in professional branding for your MPS program and weave this branding throughout your sales collateral.
2. Get the Message Out
Many dealers get into the MPS business and keep it a big secret. Every one of your current customer should know that you are in the MPS business. Several block-and-tackle marketing strategies can help you get the message out:
- Develop a regular newsletter that features articles and promotions about the benefits of MPS (and other key initiatives like color, solutions...)
- Put the MPS message in invoice inserts, service leave behinds, outbound shipments and in your on hold message
Your prospective clients (companies with 20+ printers) also need to know about how your MPS offering can help them reduce costs. Focus your marketing and advertising budget on these companies. Creative direct mail campaigns can be followed up with sales calls to get appointments.
3. Leverage Case Studies
Perhaps the most important thing you can do to position your business is to develop case studies. You want to make it seem like everyone else in town is doing managed print. Prospects feel a great sense of comfort when they learn that other businesses have adopted your MPS program.
Case studies can be presented in both a written and verbal format. Written case studies simply outline the challenge, the solution and benefits provided by your service. Make sure to introduce these throughout the sales process.
Verbal case studies do the same thing. I encourage every dealer to make sure that their sales team has a full repertoire of case studies that they can introduce throughout the sales process. “That reminds me of ABC company...”
In conclusion, make sure to properly position your MPS offering. This will help accelerate your return on the investments you have made in personnel and infrastructure.
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