Making the most of your prospect meetings

So, you’ve bagged yourself a meeting with a new prospect, now let’s walk through how to make the most out of that meeting to give you the best chance of winning yourself a new customer.

Before you walk into that meeting do your homework, do some research about them as an organisation.

Learn what industry sector they are in, what sort of compliance challenges they may have, and their operational workflow, look at the news and find out what changes have happened in the organisation. LinkedIn can be a great place to learn the comings and going of staff, maybe they have a news page on the website, or maybe the local press, it is all dependent on the type of business they are. Some of that insight might help shape the starting point and the foundation of the meeting.

Take a q and a sheet with you into the meetings, something that can help keep you and them on track, your time in the meeting should mostly be spent – 70 to 80 percent – listening and 20- 30 percent talking, you want them to open up to you about what they need and want and what their pains and challenges are so you can spot the opportunity.

People love nothing more than talking about themselves and their business, especially if there is a moan or a grumble about their incumbent supplier or the service that they receive right now. Use a sheet with a number of open questions to allow you to walk them through that processes about them and their business, walk through what they have, what they don’t have, where their gaps are, and where the pains are, where do they experience issues are that slow them down on a day to day basis, give them complications and effect their profitability and efficiency as a business.

Ask them what they think they want and need, they may not know the specifics of the technical solutions or products they are looking for, but they will be able to share with you the challenges they have the gaps with their current service, maybe where things aren’t working quite as well. Perhaps open up opportunities where tech could help them that they haven’t even realised was possible. All of that info will allow you to shape a proposal that’s tailored to them, rather than just rolling out something that is the same stack for everyone that may not be suitable for every business.

Last but not least, ask them about the pricing model that they are on right now, how does their incumbent MSP, if they have one, charge them?  Not necessarily how much, some may or may not be willing to share that with you, but if you can appreciate the billing model they have right now, that will allow you to tailor your proposal so when you submit that to them they can see the wood for the trees, they can tell if they are comparing apples to apples or whether your pricing model is so different that actually your proposal might well confuse them once they are mirroring that with their existing contract from their current supplier.

Collecting all of this information and walking into the meeting prepared and armed with a structure will allow you to gather information and insight, you can walk away from that meeting being able to shape a proposal that would suit them and will stand you in better stead of winning them as a new customer. Best of luck in your meeting.

Thank you for reading, we hope you found this information useful – if you are an MSP and you’re looking to grow we’d love to help, please get in touch with our expert team and see how we can help you.