The Writing Side of Sales

The Writing Side of Sales
Importance of Amazing Collateral
1
Most Valuable Sales & Marketing Collateral
2
Managing Perception to Increase Sales
3
4
Sales Proposals vs. Quotes
Creating an ‘Easy-to-Sign’ Proposal
5
Agenda
Bundling & Pricing Strategies
6
Leveraging Financing & Rental Agreements
7
Use of Technology to Improve Quality
8
Create a Compelling Sales Proposal
9
Legal Clauses to Protect You
10
11
Outsource or Insource?
Importance of
Amazing Collateral
Importance of Amazing
Collateral
•
Nothing Happens Until Someone Sells
Something
•
Leads are precious; they’re difficult &
expensive to get; it’s a tragedy if they
don’t close
•
Marketing & sales materials give you a
competitive advantage
•
Create perceived value & differentiation
•
More value & differentiation creates a
competitive advantage & increased margins
The Writing Side of Sales
Most Valuable Sales
& Marketing Collateral
Most Valuable Sales
& Marketing Collateral
• Website
• Company overview brochure
• Business cards
• White papers & e-books
• Industry & solution sell sheets
• Client-facing presentations
• Quotes for hardware & software
• Proposals for services, including hourly,
managed services & cloud
• Network assessments & audits
• Marketing campaign elements
The Writing Side of Sales
Managing Perception
to Increase Sales
Managing Perception to
Increase Sales
•
Perception = Reality
•
A company that looks better, is better
•
A company that looks more
trustworthy, is more trustworthy
•
A company that looks like it’s worth
more, is worth more
•
Bottom line: professionalism
increases sales & margins
The Writing Side of Sales
Sales Proposals vs. Quotes
Sales Proposals vs. Quotes
• Quotes
• Used for ‘quick & dirty’ conveyance
of item & price
• Best for very low margin sales
• Proposals
• Reminds them you’re a trustworthy partner
• Convey solution description … in English
• Convey project tasks: shows you know what
to do
• Present solution components
• Eye candy makes all the difference
The Writing Side of Sales
Creating an
‘Easy-to-Sign’ Proposal
Creating an
‘Easy-to-Sign’ Proposal
• Reflect quality in everything the
client sees & gets
• Website
• Marketing collateral
• Sales collateral
• Sales person
• MSP’s office for a NOC tour
• Examples to follow
The Writing Side of Sales
Network Assessment
Backup & Recovery
Email Solution
There is no local backup solution is in place. This can lead to significant down time and data loss.
There is no offsite backup solution is in place. This can lead to significant down time and data loss.
There is no backup of databases using database-specific tools. Failure to properly backup databases can lead
to data corruption.
There is no backup verification process in place. This can lead to missed backups, corrupt backup images, and
loss of critical data.
There is no backup of images. This can negatively affect the recovery time of data due to the failure of a hard
drive, raid or partition.
There
no incremental
Hostedare
Google
apps emailbackups
solution.taking place. Using only full backups can be time consuming and take up
much more storage space.
There are no full backups performed frequently enough. This can result in loss of data or a long recovery
time if attempting to restore from a large number of incremental backups.
Monitoring & Alerting

Temperature, humidity and power redundancy are monitored.
Currently, there is no monitoring and alerting software in place. This forces a reactive response rather than a
proactive response. This negatively impacts business productivity.
Users notify non-technical, onsite personnel of active issues. This directly impacts business productivity due
to lack of automatic monitoring and alerting to IT professionals.
The Writing Side of Sales
Our Project Proposal Template
The Writing Side of Sales
<Company Name>
PC Management Marketing
The Writing Side of Sales
<Company Name>
PC Management MS Proposal
The Writing Side of Sales
<Company Name>
PC Management MS Proposal
The Writing Side of Sales
<Company Name>
Bundling &
Pricing Strategies
Bundling & Pricing Strategies
Bundle hardware & extended warranties
Bundle hardware & implementation
• 100% up front helps cash flow
Make comparisons difficult; drop the BOM!
Fixed fee vs. variable
•
•
•
•
Variable – favors MSP/VAR
Not to Exceed – only benefits client
Min-Max – somewhat balanced
Fixed – win-win, easy to finance, known
Discounts for term & pre-payment
Auto-renewal with annual price escalations built
into contract
The Writing Side of Sales
Integrating Services &
Hardware to Increase Margins
Move margin to services area … Less attention paid,
same impact to you
• Consider “wholesale cost” to reduce sales cycle,
guarantee lowest price on hardware
• Eliminates comparison of “apples to oranges”;
Amazon didn’t spend time & money developing
solution!
Move solution design & proposal development cost to
billable services section
•
No ethical concern for fixed-fee implementations
or variable
•
Hours charged have line for “solution
architecture”
The Writing Side of Sales
Leveraging Financing
& Rental Agreements
Leveraging Financing &
Rental Agreements
• HaaS
• HaaS is Rental Agreement
• MSP/VAR retains ownership after payments
• Complies with Microsoft SPLA hosting
agreements
• Enables bundling of maintenance
& managed IT agreements
• 4 year refresh cycle included
• Leasing
• Encourages, but doesn't require,
Lifecycle Agreement
• Enables bundling of maintenance
& managed IT agreements
.
The Writing Side of Sales
Haas Proposal
The Writing Side of Sales
<Company Name>
Use Technology to
Improve Quality
Use of Technology
to Improve Quality
•
Quosal, ChannelOnline, Quote Werks: all
automate professionalism & improve efficiency
•
Institutionalism of knowledge & reuse of
intellectual property
•
Integration with PSA tools & procurement
• Drive efficiency
• Automate internal & client communication
The Writing Side of Sales
Create a Compelling
Sales Proposal
Creating a Compelling
Sales Proposal
Make the First Page Count
Use Headings
Testimonials or Endorsements
Address the Risk Factor
Keep It Brief
Specific Call to Action
The Writing Side of Sales
Legal Clauses to
Protect You
Legal Clauses to Protect You
Keep yourself protected. Include in every proposal or contract:
 Exclusive agreement: complete & only agreement between you & client
 Liability: what are the limits?
 Resolving differences: specify determination of disputes
 Applicable law: what state’s law governs the agreement?
 Confidentiality: keep private information confidential
 Work-for-hire: client owns the work you do for them
 Transferrable: if you sell the business or contract
 Notices: how does a “notice” get delivered? In-person, email, mail?
 Enforceability: all other clauses are binding even if one is unenforceable
The Writing Side of Sales
Outsource or Insource?
Outsource or Insource?
Benefits of Outsourcing Marketing







Specialization in Marketing Yields Quality &
Results
The Cost of Unprofessional Marketing
Get a Higher Level of Expertise & Technology
Cost Effectiveness
Allows You to Focus on Running Your Business
Part-Time Amateur Markers Focus on What
they Do Best
Reduced Legal Risk
Just because you can, it doesn’t mean
you should.
Secrets to Creating Proposals & Marketing Collateral that Work
Questions & Answers
Andra Hedden
Marketopia
andra.hedden@marketopia.com
(844) 4u2-grow
@marketopiaTLM