Sales standard operating procedure for customer service

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you hi this is Karl with another SOP video for managed service providers and today we're going to talk about the network checkup or the network analysis I don't really like the idea of calling it a network audit a lot of people freak out about that they think oh no I got to get a bunch of Records and so forth the thing about the network checkup is it's a way for you to look at a clients or prospects system and determine with what they should do it's great for use in the sales process because here's the thing everybody has two kinds of issues issues they know about an issues they don't know about the network checkup allows you to enlighten them about all those things they don't know about so let's talk about the network checkup process it starts with something like I have a 68 point checklist that you can get at sm ebooks com or you might have some other checklists or some road map system that you've used in the past you can use the cloud readiness checklist if you're looking at cloud stuff but basically you start with something that gives you a list of everything that is going on in their system on the server on the network and so forth so that you have a place to start the conversation and there are six pieces 6 important pieces to the network checkup process number one is that you have to have a quick chat with the client so you come in and you say why am I here today right because they called you for a reason you might have been pushing this for months and months and months but at some point they heard the message and said all right let's bring him in let's let's talk to him about this and they have a reason for that and it might be that they're dissatisfied with their previous IT consultant it might be that they know that they have an issue it might be that the server reboots every thursday at two o'clock there may be all kinds of things but you have a quick chat with them but you don't go into detail about your programs your pricing or anything else at this time number two you do the actual server checkup and that means you go through the list your 68 point decklist or whatever and you look at how much free disk space you have you look at their error logs to see what's going on there you look to see how fast their network is you look to see if all of their Nick sir in proper order so forth and so on number three now you do more of an interview so the interview is literally tell me about your system how old is it tell me about your company how much money do you make believe it or not when it gets to be about the third or fourth question on the list and you ask people what is your annual revenue they just tell you it's not a secret most of them are very happy about it right oh well yeah we were 1.2 million last year and we're hoping to be 1.5 this year whatever so you have some idea of whether or not they can afford your services it's a question worth asking don't be afraid of it and then you ask about all the other things that are going on so are you growing are you shrinking are you going to be moving offices what's going on in your future because that's going to make a difference when I look at whether or not your system meets your needs current and future number four you put together a report now the report is something you're going to do at your office you're going to put it together you want to write up here's what I saw in the server here's how much free disk space you have here's what's going on in the error logs here's what's going on with the patch state of your systems and so forth and so on it's very important that you only provide this report in person the cost of the free report is that they have to meet with you in person and you will talk to them about their network so you're not going to email it you're not going to fax it you're not going to send it by yak train you're going to hand-deliver it at a meeting if they will not schedule the meeting you will not give them the report period remember this is part of your sales process so if they're not willing to meet with you then there's no point in you giving them the report the only thing it will do is give them some information and an opportunity to say oh that's not a good fit oh he didn't understand this oh we don't want to pay for that whatever never provide an opportunity for someone to say no without you being there personally and talking to somebody who's a decision maker finally number five and number six number five you actually make a proposal you say here's what we think you need to do given your network blah blah blah you don't need to upgrade for two more years but I think you should do this your machine is two years old but here's the deal I think it's a great time to double the RAM it's never going to be cheaper very soon the RAM on that machine is going to be more expensive I think you need a faster network card blah blah blah whatever it is that you think they actually need you put together a proposal for that now there are two labor rates on that proposal one is if we just do the work and you're willing to do the work then that's one labor rate but there's a better labor rate available only to people who are on managed services so if they want to sign the deal to get on managed services and provide gold silver or platinum support for their system then they get the preferred labor rate because now they're close friends and not just some stranger who walked in off the street and finally number six you have the contract so when you get to this point you slide the contract across the table you hand them a pen and you say just sign here we can get started right away and that's what you do with a network check up there's a lot more to the whole sales process and we're going to talk about that in another video but this little piece if you can fine-tune those six steps and just work a little bit a little bit a little bit on each one of those pretty soon you will have them all polished and you will be a selling machine this is Karl with another recipe video wishing you absolutely the best of luck in your managed service business you