Tips on How to Find Leads for your Managed IT Services Business

May 02, 2017

Photo Credit: Gary Pica facilitating MSP panel at IT Nation 2016 breakout session.

How to Create Your Target Customer Profile (TCP)

Last November I participated in a one-hour breakout session at IT Nation led by Gary Pica, founder of TruMethods, and an industry leader in the MSP space. He’d brought with him a panel of MSP owners from all walks of life whom seemingly had nothing in common other than achieving great success in their business ventures. Through a series of questions and answers a theme began to develop. It became very clear how important it was to, “find what you’re good at – and stick with it.” Each of these panelists understood their target customer and through time became known as the experts in that particular vertical. These owners were not only charging a considerable amount more than their competitors for their MSP offering, but they had also developed incredible COI’s based on the level of service and value they were able to consistently provide to their customers.

One of the most critical pieces of running a successful MSP business is keeping the sales funnel full of qualified, interested prospects. However, before filling the funnel, you need to define a “qualified” lead. The best way to do this is by creating your target customer profile (TCP). If you don’t have a TCP, rest assured the best in the business have a firm grasp on theirs; and if you do have a TCP, are you sticking to it? Can you further refine it?

While there are a plethora of variables to consider for your TCP, here are a few to help you get started:

• What size customer are you after? What does that sweet spot look like keeping both revenue and service experience in mind?
• How are they handling IT issues today? Do they have someone in house? Currently outsourcing?
• What kind of radius do you plan to play in? When selecting your customers, do you have a preferred proximity? Keep travel time in mind for both your service techs (on sitework) and sales/vCIO roles.
• Do you have a vertical focus? Are your current resources experts in a particular field? If you were to conduct a local market analysis, is there a predominant amount of business in a specific channel? Are there a few channels currently being underserved?

The list goes on, but the point is to get a specific as possible without limiting your funnel too much. You should be able to identify within 3-5 questions whether or not your prospect is worth pursuing. Through trial and error it will become clear who you’re best suited to serve. This kind of decisive action keeps the funnel clean and worthy of your time.

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