3 CRM Considerations for the Busy MSP

As a managed services provider, you wear many hats. Unlike the corporate set-up where you have a team behind you, you are largely on your own. You have a MSP firm to run, but you also have to find new clients. You are responsible for the marketing, sales, and operations of your business. Are you relying on your CRM to manage all of these?

Sure, a good CRM helps when it comes to managing your leads, but it lags in areas such as sales and marketing. It’s time you thought beyond your good old CRM. Here’s why…

No marketing and selling experience

Let’s face it, marketing and sales are not really your forte. IT is your core competency. That’s why you are a MSP and not a marketer or a salesperson. And that’s absolutely fine, but when your business demands that you play the role of a marketer and a salesperson almost every day, you probably need some help.

Your business relies a lot on relationships

Most MSPs operate locally and rely on word-of-mouth to gain new business, so it’s very important to build strong relationships with prospects and customers. This means staying in touch with them at regular intervals to keep the referrals flowing. And if you think that occasional holiday e-greeting can do the trick, you would be wrong.

You’re short on time

You have a lot going on. Most likely, you are so caught up in your business that you have no time to devote to business development. Between client meetings and day-to-day tasks, you rarely get time to focus on something new. You are aware of opportunities slipping through your fingers but you are not in a position to grab them because your hands are too full already.

So…apart from your CRM what do you really need?

As a busy MSP strapped for time and resources, what you really need is the right combination of marketing and sales tools that work in tandem with your CRM. The ideal combination would include: (1) management, segmentation, prospecting and nurturing tools for your leads, and (2) sales and marketing tools including sales/marketing personalization engines, social media automation, and asset tracking systems.

CRM Integration—the missing piece in the puzzle

The final element is ensuring that the above mentioned tools integrate seamlessly with your ConnectWise PSA™ (formerly Manage) account. Your ConnectWise PSA account is your information bank for data about your leads and existing customers. Hence, it is imperative that any sales enablement tool you invest in allows for smooth flow of key information to and from your CRM platform. Ideally, you should have access to all your contacts, lead data, marketing and sales assets, and lead prospecting programs from your CRM account.

Add value, not just solutions

It’s time to change the way you look at yourself and your business. What prospects want is a value-adding partner they can count on to provide the best possible IT advice and assistance at the right time. To be able to do that, you need something more…a LOT more than just a CRM.

The Mindmatrix sales enablement platform integrates with the ConnectWise CRM to provide MSPs with all the sales tools they need to close leads faster—directly from the ConnectWise PSA interface. The integration now happens at five levels, making ConnectWise PSA a single point of usage for sales across collateral, playbooks, contacts, campaigns, and operations.