The 3 Types Of MSP Prospects (You Make Money In The Middle)
Think your job in sales is to talk to people who are ready to buy? That's just order-taking, and there's not much commission in that. In this episode, I break down the three categories every MSP prospect falls into: the red zone (won't buy no matter what), the green zone (ready to buy regardless), and the yellow zone where you actually make your money. The yellow zone is where real sales happen. These prospects could say yes or no, and your job is to close the gap between where they are and where they need to be to buy. When you understand this, objections and pushback become part of the job instead of frustrations. This mindset shift will transform both your results and your experience in sales.
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Welcome to Repeatable Revenue, hosted by strategic growth advisor , Ray J. Green.
About Ray:
→ Former Managing Director of National Small & Midsize Business at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, where he doubled revenue per sale in fundraising, led the first increase in SMB membership, co-built a national Mid-Market sales channel, and more.
→ Former CEO operator for several investor groups where he led turnarounds of recently acquired small businesses.
→ Current founder of MSP Sales Partners, where we currently help IT companies scale sales: www.MSPSalesPartners.com
→ Current Sales & Sales Management Expert in Residence at the world’s largest IT business mastermind.
→ Current Managing Partner of Repeatable Revenue Ventures, where we scale B2B companies we have equity in: www.RayJGreen.com
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Transcript
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if you are looking for, are waiting for people who are ready to buy in sales,
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you may have a fundamental misunderstanding around what the job is,
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talking to people who are ready to buy is order taking.
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if you're in sales like some bad news, there's not a lot of commission, there's not a lot of comp.
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in the business of taking orders.
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Why? Because it's not a very hard job. You're talking to people who are ready to buy. There aren't very many objections. There's not very many obstacles that you've got to deal with. The people are a hell of a lot nicer, and there's just a lot more people capable of doing that job.
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But
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if you're in sales, then what I'm gonna do in this video is break down the three main categories when you're looking at prospects,
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why almost all of your money comes from one of those three buckets,
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And exactly what your job is to move people who are not ready to buy in to the buying pocket. All right, let's dive in.
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right. So I was reviewing a sales call recently with somebody who was selling MSP services, and we listened to three calls in total. There was
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a, you know, qualifying call and there was a long discovery call. Then there was a proposal on a presentation. Basically the process that we that we usually recommend for, for most
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MSP is
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and at the end of it, the, you know, they had identified some pain was a qualified buyer in the sense that it was a it was a in their market, you know, qualified prospect like nothing.
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No red flags like not out of there vertical, all that stuff. And there were some motivations to buy. Okay. Like there were, there were some, some challenges they didn't like the current provider, blah, blah. So they get to the end and they, they make the pitch. And, you know, the person says,
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you know, hey, we need to think about it or we're not, you know, not quite ready, you know, this and that.
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after listening to I asked the salesperson, so, so how do you think this whole whole process went, like, tell me, tell me your assessment of it. And they said,
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I think it went really well. You know, I did find the some of the pains, I found some of the problems, you know, did what you'd coached on some of these things.
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But they just weren't ready to buy.
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as a dude, nobody is ready to buy.
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of course they're not ready to buy. If they were ready to buy, you'd still be a customer. You know, you'd send them, you'd send them a form. I wouldn't need to put you on
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three different sales calls. And, you know, pay you the healthy
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amount of money to talk to somebody who was ready to buy,
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you're talking to them because they weren't ready to buy.
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So of course they weren't ready to buy.
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the whole reason sales exists is because
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people aren't ready to buy.
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there's a gap between where they are today and, you know, where they need to be in order to, to purchase in order to make the decision to, to move forward.
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Our job in sales is to close the gap
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And that's why some salespeople can make more than a
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neurosurgeon, because it's not an easy job. It's not taking orders.
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It is figuring out all of those things, especially in a consultative sale
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and getting actual results. Now.
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If you look at all of your prospects that you're working right now, they fall into one of three buckets.
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One bucket on this end over here is going to be people who are not going to buy no matter what.
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It's the red zone.
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You can be the best salesperson. You can coach them through the decision. Your solution could be perfect. You could follow it like the whole process to a team. Do everything you're supposed to do.
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They are cheap. They are broke. They are the kind of person that can't make a decision to save their life.
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They are cynical. They like whatever it is, okay? Like no matter what, you do not going to happen.
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On the other hand, you've got the green bucket.
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these people are going to buy almost no matter what. These are ready to buy people.
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Right. Like maybe marketing's done its job.
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Maybe it's a super strong referral. Maybe there's there's a whole list of reasons, but that by the time they get to you, it's basically a lay down.
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And those are great. And sales like I mean we we love those are like boom. All right. Like fast sales cycle. Like this one was pretty easy. Good confidence booster. Awesome.
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You know where you really make your money to the bucket in the middle which is the yellow bucket. The yellow bucket are the people who are
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not a hard no
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they're in the market.
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They're, you know, they're thinking about it. They're capable of saying yes. They're also capable of saying no,
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they are the people that we as salespeople make all of our money on
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everybody in the green marketing can take care of that, right? The business can take care of that, like a form on the website can take care of that. Red. Not even worth investing the time when the energy yellow is where we've got to unpack the problems, the pains, the psychology, the the benefits, the obstacles, the objection.
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Like all of those things.
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And figure out what we need to do to close the gap from where they are to where they need to be to buy.
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Once you grasp that, once you understand that and really accept it as a salesperson, once you say my job is not to talk to people in the green, like those are just a bonus. That's the cherry on top of this job. And my I know I'm not going to convince everybody, but I know that the vast majority of my time and my energy is going to be invested into people in the yellow.
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I'm going to be primarily talking to people who could buy
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but are not ready to buy. And what I need to do as a salesperson is put on my Sherlock Holmes hat and figure out what what are the clues? What do I need to understand? What do I need to do in order to close this deal
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And because I know I'm working with people in the yellow, I know that I'm going to get objections. I know that people are going to have questions, and I am not going to look at the objections, and I'm not going to look at the questions, and I'm not going to look at the concerns or even the obstacles in the process
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as reasons to say, well, they're just not ready to buy.
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I'm going to look at those as part of my job, like part of my job is actually addressing those things. If you have objections, phenomenal. Like you're still having a cool, that means you're not in the red,
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that's the area I want to operate in. And that's the area we as salespeople get paid to operate in. And so when you have that expectation, what it does is it reframes how you see the the challenges that come up in the sales process.
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When someone says, I've got to think about it,
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the person that understands I operate here like this is roll up my sleeves, put me in coach.
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Now I'm actually working because they've expressed some type of objection.
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the best salespeople lean into it. They know what's going to happen. They're prepared for it to happen, and they lean into it and they address it.
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Say other salespeople are like, well, you know, not quite ready. I guess I'll check in in three months or in six months. What's going to happen in three months or six months,
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are we just like crossing our fingers?
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We're saying, well, it wasn't like it wasn't a green. So, you know, they weren't ready to buy. And what I'm going to do is like, kick the can and I'm going to hope that something their current provider sucks terribly like, or they get hacked or there's something like something happens that's going to sell for me. Nah, man. Like that's when we sell,
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this mindset shift, I think is so massive for for people who excel in sales and crush it consistently and don't hate their job in the process because they don't see all this is like, oh man, another another person with objections.
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They're like, yeah, of course there's objections.
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that's like a truck driver getting pissed off about having to stop and get gas.
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Like part of the job, man. Like, that's like, if you don't like it, you should you should not do it,
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And, you know, the thing is, the salespeople that understand that that understand I operate in the yellow will have not only better results, they're going to have a dramatically better experience selling as a whole because they accept the parts of the job that are parts of the job, instead of fighting the obvious things that are going to be parts of the job.
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that's where we earn our keep is when we're working in the yellow. Now, if we get some stuff in the green, fantastic. Great. Like, we'll take those.
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We'll, you know, chalk them up like they're fun. Wins are great, but that is not the nature of
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the actual role, the what we do
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what that will do. Like as you as you accept that and as you understand that is it will reframe your entire thought process around sales in general. Right? Clear your your day to day job.
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Now, if on the other hand, you hear this message, you're like, dude, that that sucks. I actually don't want to stop and get gas all the time. Like it's then
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okay, like, but then go get an order taking job like that's that is not sales.
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next time you are going on a deal, the next time you are going to pitch, the next time you're going to sell or close something, think about it this way.
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Listen, I'm going to get some objections, okay? I'm at what are the objections that I'm likely to get? How can I be prepared for what those are going to be like? We know what they are like. Oh, I've got to think about it. We have you know, it's it's too expensive. It's I'm going to stick with my current provider.
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Like, you know what they are.
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like, how are we not prepared for that? Right. Like, so go into it. Expect those things on the front end. Prepare before you even go on the next sales call. Like, hey, I'm ready for these. Like I know, like doing this is like playing catch man. Like you're you're throw me the ball.
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I'm completely pressured. I got my glove ready to rock and it will get you better results. And I promise you it will change. Just kind of your your attitude and your morale that you that you have with yourself about the nature of of sales in general. So I hope this has been helpful. It was interesting conversation and something that I feel really passionately about because I've seen it with sales teams over and over and over again.
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The people that excel know where they operate and know how they earn their money, know how they earn their keep, and why they earn as much as they do as salespeople. And that's what separates them from everybody else. So
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if you like the video, go ahead and subscribe to the channel. You can also check out my newsletter, send out, sales tips and business growth tips every single week.
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The link for that is in the description below, and I'll see you the next video. Adios.
::Unknown
You.
