Your sales team should be able to recommend procurement solutions to help customers overcome budget constraints.
Recession or not, uncertainty is holding steady as economic growth decelerates. This means your customers are likely holding onto POs and pushing purchasing decisions to the side as they wait for a clearer vision of the future. Will interest rates fall? Will inflation relief finally come? Will we return to a pre-2020 economy? Will the election affect the economy even more?
According to the 2024 State of the Industry, published by NSCA and Commercial Integrator to share data on topics like backlog, profitability, margins, and recurring revenue, more than 40% of integrators say their project backlog is down from last year.
Well over half of respondents (65%) shared views of the business climate that are a bit tempered:
21% say it’s good, but growth is slowing
32% say it’s good, but there’s room for improvement
7% say it’s fair
5% say it’s challenging
Only 5% of companies reported an excellent view of business. What would it take for you to join that elite group?
It starts by driving revenue with RMR (recurring monthly revenue) when traditional technology project work slows down.
Offer More than Technology—Propose a Tech Purchase Plan
Most organizations can’t gain traction with managed services because their sales teams don't understand—and can’t communicate—the value that managed services brings to their clients.
In this wait-and-see environment, there’s no doubt that some of your sales are on hold due to lack of capital. These critical factors can turn almost any organization into a budget-challenged company (or at least a budget-conscious company).
If your customer is hesitating, then you should be ready to explain how to overcome that financial hurdle. Remember: If your sales team members truly act as advisors and consultants, then they should not only be able to recommend the technology solutions that cultivate business outcomes, but also the procurement solutions that connect them with the technology they need, even when budgets are tight.
Managed services offer your customers many other benefits in this economy, too.
1. Redirect Resources Away from Maintenance and Toward Innovation
By making it easy to pay for technology on a monthly basis, you’re essentially enabling your customers to outsource a variety of services and tasks: system maintenance and management, software and hardware upgrades, troubleshooting and response, etc.
This helps them reduce costs across their business. Their in-house team members don’t have to spend time on these tasks. Instead, the company can reallocate funds and resources to innovative initiatives that drive revenue growth.
With an elastic labor force, your team is there to solve their problems or answer questions when needed, without adding to overhead. This may also mean they don’t have to worry about hiring or maintaining onsite support.
2. Play It Financially Safe
Even in a downturn, all kinds of organizations—from schools and hospitals to manufacturing plants and financial institutions—need technology to stay competitive.
RMR gives your customers a way to play it safe in terms of finances during this tumultuous time—without giving up the technology they need.
Cash can be the firewall that protects them during periods of economic inactivity—and you can help them establish that financial protection. While traditional technology investments require significant upfront funds, paying for technology on an ongoing basis via smaller monthly payments can help your client minimize capital outlay to preserve precious resources.
3. Respond to Economic Disruption
RMR can make your customers more adaptable to whatever happens during a downturn. Instead of investing in new hardware, software, or training when they need to change direction, your client can simply call on you to adjust service levels or adopt new technology.
As needs change based on the economy, they’ll be able to scale their technology up or down as needed. This empowers them to pivot their strategies quickly, knowing they’ll always have resources to back them up.
How Revenueify Prepares You for Managed Services
Current economic conditions are ideal for managed services. When traditional technology projects are going to be slow, you can still drive revenue with RMR.
Revenueify has resources to help your company prepare for this transition.
Ready Your Team with Sales Training
We help integrators, IT companies, copier companies, construction companies, and other technology-based industries train their revenue organizations to lead with outcome-based sales strategies that support successful selling of managed services.
Whether you've built a managed services practice and need help gaining traction, or you don't have a program in place yet, we can help you get to the next stage.
Build a Business Foundation for Managed Services
To make sure your managed services program doesn’t fail, we help you get the right people, processes, structures, and products in place first.
Once you’ve built your foundation, you will be able to sell managed services confidently and successfully. We’ve seen it happen over and over again.
Our REVUP Assessment helps you answer three questions:
How ready is our company to sell managed services?
How do we compare to integrators that successfully sell managed services?
How do we make managed service happen?