I was sitting on the other line listening to a client’s pipeline management call when I could not hold back any longer. My role was to observe the format of the call and determine ways they could improve. The client, a security integrator, had just started promoting a hosted access control service about a year earlier, and I kept hearing the same strategic theme from the manager: “Let’s bring in the hosted services to differentiate ourselves.” Over and over again, he preached about their hosted services as being the savior to closing the sale. After I heard this about three times, I had to interrupt – even though my mind was screaming for me to shut up. After all, my objective was to assess the format of the meeting, not the content, but I couldn’t help it.
The integrator kept committing one of the most common mistakes in selling hosted services – or any services that may be different to your customer: They were trying to sell to sell the benefits of the service before teaching the customer about the service.
A large majority of your customers will not move forward with a new service without being educated. Regardless of the benefits offered, they will stay with the services and technology that they have been using forever. Selling is hard, but managing change is harder. When you attempt to sell hosted or managed services to new customers, you are managing change.
Make sure you proactively teach your customers about this change now, months before a potential opportunity – if you wait until the proposal is due, then it will be too late.
How to Teach Your Customer
The first step is to select a topic that will interest your audience, position you as an expert, and help you sell more RMR services. For one year, educate your marketplace on this single topic – examples may be hosted services, managed services, long-term maintenance agreements, etc. Unless you have a unique message or lesson, try to avoid commodity services like alarm monitoring or tests and inspections. Above all, make sure your topic is relevant and interesting.
After selecting your topic, you must deliver the education material to the audience in various methods. Some customers like to meet with salespeople; others like to attend events; and some would rather just read the information. By delivering your content in different ways, you will eventually touch each of these people in their preferred method of learning.
Here are five ways you can teach your customers about the services you provide that generate recurring revenue, and become the perceived expert along the way:
1. Personal Meetings. There is no better way to teach your customers than meeting with them in person; or as my friend Phil Bomeisl of Security 101 says: “belly-to-belly.” Your presentation could be to review a whitepaper, presentation deck, case study or article. The goal is to teach your customer – not to sell them. A good session could be “The pros and cons of managed video monitoring services.”
Action item: Select your top 20-40 clients and prospects, and set a goal to meet with each of them over the next year and deliver your educational presentation on your topic.
2. Public Events. Some of your customers will not make time to meet with you, but they will attend a public event – especially if food or drinks are being served. A public event could be an open house at your office, a reception at a country club, or a luncheon at a shooting range. Try to mix in some fun with the education. For example, you could ask the country club’s golf pro to give a 20-minute lesson before you and your team deliver the educational program on your topic. Finish by offering an hour of free range balls.
Action item: Plan a public event three to five months after you launch your teaching campaign. This will give you enough time to plan, but will make it official since you will have a date. In fact, insist on paying a deposit to the location – this act will really commit you. If you can involve a manufacturer partner and not dilute your perception of expertise, they are likely to pay for most of the event.
3. Speaking Opportunities. Do you want to increase your IQ by 25 points? Speak in public. Of course, your IQ does not really increase, but the perception of your expertise skyrockets. If you can become a regular on the speaking circuit at civic organizations, professional associations, and other meetings where potential customers and influencers are in attendance, then you will create a reputation of being a subject matter expert.
Action item: Identify three groups that have regular meetings and need speakers, and reach out to the coordinator. You will be surprised how happy they will be to hear from you, and they are always looking for speakers. Make sure the audience is composed of potential customers or influencers.
4. Educational Articles and White Papers. Those customers that never agree to see you usually love reading helpful content on their own terms and at their own pace. Do not act like every other salesperson and insist on being there and presenting in person – continue to tactfully send substantive material on your topic. Whitepapers, case studies and articles relevant to their type of business will be appreciated – whether they ever thank you or not. Remember, our goal is to teach our customers and become the perceived expert.
Action item: Once you know your topic, research and find at least two articles and one whitepaper that you can share. As you move through your education campaign, you will find more and more pieces to send to your customers. Don’t become a pest – if you can drop them a link to helpful content once every month or so, your customers will become more and more educated on your topic, and you will be the one who is teaching them.
5. Social Media. If articles and whitepapers are the destination for your customers, then social media networks are the modes of transportation. For every five-page white paper, I can find 20 teaser posts for LinkedIn or Twitter. You need to have the capability to provide a hyperlink to your article or whitepaper, and it is ideal to include it on a section of your own website. Example posting: “What is the number-one challenge of remote video monitoring? Click here to learn.”
Action item: Select two to three social media channels to share your knowledge with your customers, such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, specific LinkedIn groups, etc.
Don’t Wait
Consider these five actions and the outcome after one year. Imagine how warm your customers will be on the new service you share with them after all of these activities!
Let’s assume you chose hosted access control as your topic: You have personally delivered educational content to your top 20-40 customers and prospects. In the spring, your company hosted an event at a skeet shooting range in which you brought in a guest speaker from Amazon Web Services, and you held an open house at your office in the fall in which you had three customers share lessons learned from making the shift to hosted services.
You spoke at the local ASIS meeting, three Rotary meetings, and twice at the local BOMA gatherings – making you a highly-demanded speaker in the community. You have gotten into the habit of sharing intelligent and useful articles with your prospects and customers, and you have distributed an educational piece to a potential buyer more than 500 times during the year. More than 100,000 impressions have been made through LinkedIn and Twitter by sharing valuable articles and whitepapers on hosted access control.
When you consider this level of proactive and smart activity, it just makes sense to start teaching your customers about your services now. If you wait until there is a live project, then it is too late and you are no different than any of your competitors. Get out there now, teach your market and become the go-to expert on your RMR services.
Chris Peterson is the founder and president of Vector Firm (www.vectorfirm.com), a sales consulting and training company built specifically for the security industry.
Other Articles in this Series
This article is the fifth in Chris Peterson’s “Selling RMR” series. Look for the sixth in SD&I’s May 2017 issue. Here are links to the previous articles:
- Target: RMR www.securityinfowatch.com/12075581
- How to Grow RMR Sales www.securityinfowatch.com/12128511
- Selling RMR: Train Your Salespeople www.securityinfowatch.com/12174883
- Selling RMR: Hold Your Salespeople Accountable www.securityinfowatch.com/12197329
