Sales Cures All

One of the best quotes I heard this past week at the Evergreen Leadership Summit in the context of Sales & Growth talent was from Johnathan Lamb , CEO of Wolf Consulting LLC :

Hungry dogs run faster

If you’re not growing, you’re dying, it sounds extreme but It’s true, if your MSP isn’t consistently adding new logos it’s a slow path to extinction. I use the "sales cures all" statement a lot, I first came across it listening to Mark Cuban talk, it’s an important mindset to instill a sense of urgency around growth within your organization. Building a culture of growth is important for any business, not just Managed IT Services businesses.

Lag Indicators versus Lead Indicators

I’ll use the Vancouver Canucks and hockey as an analogy. During the Sedin twin era, you'd think that the Sedins shots on goal was the lead indicator to determine the probability of winning the game. Turns out that was a lag indicator and the average TOI (Time on Ice) per game was the lead indicator of success. Put the average over 22 minutes, the Canucks had a much higher chance of winning. In Sales, analytics and tracking is equally as important as the performance stats in a hockey game. You need to know your activities, metrics, and then analyze what’s working, what isn’t, and double down on where you’re seeing results.

Feeding the ecosystem

Sales fixes a lot of problems downstream: project work, hardware sales, software licensing, consulting engagements, compliance work, capacity to perform salary increases, morale boosts, the list goes on. Growth is exciting and uncomfortable at the same time but new clients are the lifeblood of your business. While onboarding new clients can create a bit of short term pain, NRR (non recurring revenue) is a byproduct of MRR (monthly recurring revenue). Onboarding new logos unlocks additional revenue opportunities as you engage with new clients.

The Golden Circle

People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it. I’ve seen too many businesses position themselves as saying the same thing as their competition. If I were to pull up 5 random MSP websites right now, it’s most likely difficult to differentiate between them. A good exercise to go through is to reset your pitch and positioning, this is an exercise that should be done every couple of year as it’s necessary to leapfrog your competition. I highly recommend watching Simon Sinek 's Golden Circle video if you haven't seen it:

Lastly, I really enjoyed Jake Gregorich's "Ted Talk" at Lyra Technology Group Day on all things Business Development.

I can’t share all the details other than my main takeaway: Someone in your business needs to own growth, it cannot be a fractional part-time hat wearing role. Someone in your Managed IT Services business needs wake up on a daily basis and be obsessed about new logo acquisition and bring the pace on a daily basis or as Jake would say a “maniacal sense of urgency”.