Fear is a Powerful Influencer

I’ve personally been in the MSP space now for over 15 years. I’ve built many great relationships that after 5-10 years, still hold strong. Those people trust me, as equally, I trust them. For MSPs, developing and retaining these types of long-term, core relationships must be more than just a goal because it's crucial to their success. Certainly, these accounts create recurring revenue, but more importantly, their recommendations generate powerful word-of-mouth referrals (about the best form of lead you will ever get).

With so much manipulated information these days, it’s logical to doubt some of the online reviews that we read. We ask ourselves, “Are these for real?”. Without a doubt, the most convincing testimonials come from long-time customers who back up their opinions with real-world experiences. Whether it’s a simple case of tech support or life-saving disaster recovery, we crave authenticity. These kinds of reviews can make an MSP look very good in the eyes of those seeking managed services.

Where Fear Comes Into Play

Whether marketing our managed services with email campaigns, blogs, or podcasts, we may all tap into uncertainty occasionally as a way of getting our customer base thinking. It's not always unethical. After all, there are real security threats to consider and precautions to take. But I have a special contempt for those who would weaponize fear as a sales tool. Some vendors or even MSPs take the route of preying upon a lack of education to scare potential clients into switching service providers to a bigger or better alternative. But “bigger is better” doesn't always apply when it comes to service providers. This became clear to me recently when I witnessed a company take a wrong turn. An MSP I spoke with recently told me their shocking story:

" As you know, we're a successful MSP, doing business for around 10 years now. One of our core customers who's been with us since day one, and seemed committed to our partnership, recently stopped services. A powerful fear campaign had been launched by a large corporate MSP to capitalize on ransomware fear, and really a lack of technical knowledge. They were lured away by this large corporate competitor. The customer notified us that they would no longer be needing our services. "

Don’t get me wrong. Things happen. Businesses close, move, or change to the point where they must cut ties. But this customer went directly into the arms of a large corporate service provider. The promises of increased security, so-called special monitoring, and the latest buzzy technical terms won them over. What should have been the most obvious red flag for the customer was that this large provider came in with numerous promises without knowing the first thing about the client’s environment.

What do you suppose happened next?

Within the first 3 days, the new provider made mistakes. Errors regarding permissions resulted in a data loss scenario. Who did they turn to for help? The former, a smaller MSP. The one that knew their environment inside out and was at their back and called 24/7, 365 days a year.

There are other reasons that bigger isn’t always better. An MSP with a big name can also have a big target on its back. We see it all too often lately with large service provider RMM implementations being targeted because big names usually come with deep pockets. But the real takeaway here is that open promises by these large MSPs may be attractive to clients who are less educated on the technical side. It’s in an MSP’s best interest to continually educate clients on the value that their services provide. (Read about building trust with prospects to close more business.)

Fear from lack of preparation or adequate security is natural. But never let a lack of understanding on your clients' part be used to the advantage of large predatory MSPs.

The NovaBACKUP Managed Backup team is here to help MSPs like you implement a transparent, easy-to-understand backup-as-a-service solution for your clients. Our team is comprised of experts from the MSP industry, and we know what it takes to secure critical data per industry regulations. We invite you to speak with one of our backup experts about testing NovaBACKUP Managed Backup in your environment today.