Tips To Identify And Leverage A Wedge To Break Into Managed Services

By Matthew Adkins, Solution Architect, VanGuard Technologies, ASCII member since 2009

A few years ago, one of my vendors held an online event with author Randy Schwantz as guest. Schwantz had written two books about using “The Wedge” to displace your competitor’s and win more clients. After an hour on the phone, I was hooked. The very next week I used some of these techniques in a prospect meeting to ultimately get my competition fired and land the client’s entire business — a client from which I am still making monthly recurring revenue. I have used these techniques ever since with great success.

Think about how you sell managed services today. Sometimes you get lucky. Sometimes you walk in to a meeting with a prospect, he tells you his issues, and you say, “Would you like an order of managed services and an apple pie?” and 10 minutes later you have a signed agreement for $4,000 per month.

If only that were the norm. The reality of selling managed services is that you have likely been after this prospect for months with your marketing, and you finally got that meeting. They don't know you and you don't know them. You do everything right. You explain that your MSP offering is like a NASCAR pit crew for their business. You even use the all-you-can-eat Vegas buffet analogy. You hit all of their pain points. But they’ve been burned by a previous IT services company and aren’t ready to get married right away. Or cousin Bob “handles” their computers now and he does “okay.”

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