Speaker 1: One of the most effective things that you can do to grow your MSP and turn your customers into raving fans is learning how to communicate specifically to your prospects and to your clients, because it's very different than talking to your parents, talking to your friends, talking to family. It's, it changes the game and we're going to be covering all of that, how to be super effective. And by implementing these, you will legitimately see a nice step-by-step path to success because communication is key. If you've probably heard the term you have two ears and one mouth, you've got to do more listening and less talking. That is definitely coming into play in today's video. My name is Harrison Baron from growth-generators.com. We help MSPs grow, whether that's sales training, marketing or even some business operations in there as well. And like I said, we're diving into communication and I would like to effectively communicate that down in the video description or the podcast description are a ton of super helpful links. Those links could be to growth-generators.com forward slash resources, maybe growth-generators.com forward slash discord. If you want to hang out in the discord and a ton of others from free trainings and other helpful videos, I would highly recommend checking that out. So let's talk about efficient communication here. And I'm going to be talking about some tools that can 1000% help you when it comes to this kind of stuff. But the most important thing, and the first thing is, is when you're bringing on a new customer, even before they've signed an agreement, like you just spoke to them. I'm looking eagerly for a business card on my desk and I don't see one, but you're looking eagerly, you meet them, you get the business card. And then what, obviously you're going to go through and see if they're a good fit. But one of the important things to do is the person you are. When you first meet them is the person they're expecting throughout the entire process. That's not just the sales cycle. That's when they become a customer. That's when they decide, Hey, we're moving on at some point or another because that's normal in a business is turnover and they're going to leave. And they expect you to be that person. Hopefully that professional from the first initial meeting to the last interaction that you're having with them and even into power or better yet future interactions. They want to have this feeling that they're knowing that they're talking to somebody appropriate and that comes with standard and normal check-ins. If you don't like talking to people on the phone, you're probably going to want to start getting in the habit of talking to people on the phone and texting people. Now, how you choose to communicate is up to you. Whether that's smoke signals, if you're into that kind of thing, text message, emails, phone calls, but you realistically have to start communicating regularly. And after that first initial contact and setting the precedent, there is really understanding when they do decide to be a customer is listening to their needs. And I can't stress the importance of this enough is effective communication comes with agreeing body language, talking to some, making sure that they feel welcomed. And after you get through that, Hey, you're setting that principle up front. You have to make sure that you truly understand the need of your clients. Now in the MSP world, you probably have one up to maybe three for those that like to go crazy for plans that you recommend people go into. And you're trying to fit everybody into these plans. And that's good. That's kind of what you want to do in, in, in a lot of ways. But the thing is, is while everybody that, especially if you pick a niche can fit into that vertical a hundred percent, the most important thing that you can do is stop talking and start listening. I have said it on dozens of videos at this point, always have water because guess what? It takes a couple seconds to drink and that sounds crazy, but taking that time and letting your prospect, letting your, your, your basically target, your lead, your just, even as an existing customer listening to that and having them fill you with information, they want to be heard. But also on the second part of that is not only they want to be heard, they want to make sure that you actually heard them and your plan, regardless of selling them a plan, putting them into something, meets or exceeds their needs. I cannot stress it enough. They want to make sure and that could be whatever method of communication that could be talking eye contact, body language, openness, nodding, right? Making people feel like they're heard, but also following up with the email, following up with a text message. If you text your clients, this is important showing that you're taking notes and you want to genuinely help them. No, like I said, no matter where they're at in the process because they're going to have to go through upgrades, they're going to bounce ideas off of you. They want to know that you are hearing them. Even if you can't solve all their problems, them telling you makes them feel better. I promise you on that one. Number two, and this one is going to be a tough pill to swallow for some people, but first you got to hit the like button. I need you to hit the like button, subscribe button, notification bell. It helps me tremendously and I get to keep making incredible videos for you. But number two is you have to set expectations. Now those expectations are realistically whatever you want them to be, but you have to set expectations. I've talked about contracts in the past and don't worry, they work hand in hand. A contract protects you, but also protects the customer that they know that they're going to be spending their hard earned money on your services. Yes, it's a business exchange, but in that contract, guess what it outlines expectations as crazy as that actually sounds like you have to set clear expectations. You also don't want to do what I see consistently is salespeople promising the world only to under deliver. It is much easier to under promise and over deliver. Even if you know you could do something or you're like, ah, it's an easy layup. Sometimes maybe it helps to embellish a little bit and make it seem like you're working a little harder. But in all honesty, you got to set expectations and setting that bar as weird as it sounds, as low as you can, and then for you to rise and greatly exceed those expectations is always going to be good. But regardless of what that is, what you tell the customer or the prospect is really important. Not only how you say it, but what you actually say, and in this case, setting those clear expectations, what they can expect working from you, working with you and what they can, what they can feel like, what is going to happen in the business. And also it's important for them to set expectations of you in a weird way. Hey, this is how I want people to maybe not approach me, but Hey, this is this side of the business and they're a little more sensitive. And this is this side of the business and not in a bad way. They're just going to be ripping through car. Salesmen are the prime example of this. When they have customers, they want things resolved. Other departments, accounting, legal, maybe they're a little slower. They're a little less excited to get work done depending on who you are, but you got to set expectations right off the rip and throughout that, that journey that you're going through with that customer. Number three, you got to be proactive. Proactive does not just mean that you're doing patching on their computer, that you're running antivirus like ESET or putting things in the system or making sure that there's nothing bad going on or foul play or whatever it may be. They want to truly, truly know that you are being proactive and it's not just proactive work. It's proactive communication. Yes, you're going to do the work. That's what they're paying you to do. I hope you're doing the work. But as in a weird way, the customer just sits there and goes, I'm paying thousands of dollars a month. Hopefully, hopefully they're doing the right thing. I mean, my computers seem to be working. That's what they want, but you still have to let them know, Hey, by the way, we did some virus scans last night. We made sure that, I don't know, backups were done correctly. There's a long list of things that you can tell your clients and especially your prospects. As you're going through with that, it doesn't have to be all about the actual client. It could be through the prospect phase and then becoming a client through that sales phase and being proactive. Hey, just want to let you know, a little reminder about our upcoming meeting. This is what we're going to be covering. Boom, boom, boom. Maybe you want to bring some questions down. You have to be proactive through that entire process. And they regularly update your customers, regularly update your prospects. It sounds crazy. But once again, two ears, one mouth, people love to feel like, Hey, they're getting the, most people would rather have more information. Most, not all, but the vast majority, especially the ones spending the money. They probably just want to know what's going on. They want to feel like they're getting their money's worth. We know they're getting their money's worth, but they don't always know that. So being proactive off the rip is super important and following through that entire process is good. Trust me, ping the customer, make sure they got the email, even if they didn't open it. And I just want to talk about really quickly being proactive. Once again, you guys already know I love go high level. There is an affiliate link down below. It helps out the channel tremendously, but you can email market. You could set drip campaigns as they're going through the sales process. Guess what's going to happen. That's proactive sales. The same thing happens on your RMM and PSA side. You're going to be making changes, but going the next step setting up your system to be able to send out those notifications and maybe even reminders for yourself to say, Hey, you should pull a report and send this to them and walk them through it. There's a great program that I absolutely love. I'm actually going to just pull it up here, but it's called loom. If you don't know what it is by now, you probably should. You don't even have to call the client. You can send a video message. Nowadays, you can run a report and have an analyze that report with them step by step through the entire process. It's a beautiful, beautiful thing when it comes actually down to it. But I would highly recommend the, the, the, the feeling that customers are going to get knowing that you sent them a five minute video is tremendous. And guess who's not doing that? Probably every single person that they communicate with except you now, and it's free. You can send out 25 videos. They don't need to remember it for 10 years, but this is loom. It's a Chrome extension. Hopefully you use Chrome and unless you don't, which would be weird. Um, but for the most part, everybody uses Chrome. You can get their extension. It works pretty flawlessly. Having good microphones helps in a, in a high quality camera, but I get it. Not everybody's got that and that's okay. But showing people, sending them a video, here's a great example of talking through the video. You can share your screen just as I am and that will light somebody up. And once again, they're past MSPs have not done it. They're the people that they work with. Haven't done it. You're going to be the only one and it doesn't have to be five minutes long. It might be one minute long, but I tell you what, it's probably a lot better than reading an email. So next is you have to figure out more than one channel to email or better yet to communicate. Email is the most common. Obviously we have phone calls, we have text messages, go high level will actually allow you to send text messages through the platform, but get creative with it. Maybe it's leaving a note on somebody's computer. There are so many different options that you can have with effective communication. It doesn't even always have to be from you. You could pass on the communication to maybe a coworker. So when that person calls in, they can give that reminder. That's what we can do in PSA and RMM tools. You can have that say, Hey, by the way, when you're checking the notes, make sure you mentioned this to the customer. This is tremendous. There is a whole client portal that you can set up to feed that client information, but you have to go in this case, multi-channel. There's really no way around it in today's day and age. Phone calls are great, but not everybody's on their phone. Not everybody's looking at their text messages. They want an email. They want something. They're waiting for them. Number five, an effective communication. You gotta be transparent. There's lying, which I rarely ever recommend if at all recommend. And then there's extending the truth a little bit. You gotta be, you gotta effectively communicate. You gotta be transparent when it comes to certain things. Lying, almost never a good idea. Stretching the truth might be able to bail you out in certain situations, but you still don't want to go to that point where you're lying. You might want to maybe embellish a little bit. That's totally fine, but you still have to be transparent at the end of the day. And you gotta be honest. I feel like honesty goes a long way in business. And if you're honest with people and you work hard and they see that you're working hard, hopefully with effective communication, that's going to go tremendously further along, but transparency, Hey, where things are at, what's happening, what's going on will always win you more business. I have had plenty of projects that I've sold that have gone awry. Things didn't ship. Things didn't come in. Somebody broke something. It was getting installed. Wasn't installed in time. Trust me. It's just a part of business, but the difference is is being transparent and effectively communicating what's going on and next steps. Sometimes there's nothing that you can do. You might just have to wait on a third party. That's stuck. That stinks. It's nobody wants to deal with that, but being transparent about it is always going to win you more in the longterm. I really preach it in business. It's almost always a good thing. And last but not least is going to be effective communication, right? You want to actively listen. You want to show appreciation, smile. It's okay to be happy at work. Most people should be. But when you go there and you're meeting with prospects, people remember how you make them feel and good, effective communication strategies or effective communication tactics work tremendous and implementing that, creating a strategy around it will work. I can pro I can confidently tell you pre pandemic, I could look at somebody directly in the eyes for 20 minutes. I wouldn't even think about it. And I loved it. Shoulders back, smiling, laughing, having a good time, no matter what it is, always a firm handshake or a hug, whatever people are into at that point. After the pandemic, I still myself, just because I haven't been out in the world in that long and working on more effective communication because I've gone so far into the digital world. And now that I'm getting back out again, it's something I am still working on. So for somebody that talks to a camera for a living, trust me, I get it. It's not the easiest thing, but it's working on it every single day, taking these tips, putting them into play. And by you doing all these things, I promise you people are going to remember how you made them feel. They felt like they were heard. And when you go through the sales process, the process, the prospecting service or the prospecting side of it and then the actual service desk side of it, you're going to have significantly better results. You're going to have longer retention of those customers. And that's truly where the magic happens. And those customers that you have are going to be raving fans. Do me a favor, hit that like button, subscribe button, notification bell. I love the heck out of you guys as always. And I'll see you guys on the next video. Bye.