How to Master the Art of the MSP Proposal

April 26, 2021

An MSP sales proposal provides your customers with an outline of what to expect from your future partnership and forms the confirmation of your previous discussions and negotiations. A clear and effective MSP proposal can shorten the sales cycle and make the onboarding process far smoother. However, many MSPs don’t know how to create a proposal that will drive sales and encourage prospects. Therefore, we have complied six key features that make up a strong MSP proposal to guide you through the creation process.

Personalisation

Each one of your prospects’ businesses are unique, facing specific challenges with individual goals. As such, your prospects will want to feel that their particular needs are being accounted for within their MSP proposal. Therefore, your proposal needs to be tailored to your audience. Using the same basic template is fine, but the language and any specific details need to be altered to match your customers expectations, and any information irrelevant to a client needs to be removed. By reiterating what was discussed previously, context, pain points, desired outcomes, you will increase the likelihood that your customers feels heard and understood.

Outcome focused

The main focus of your MSP proposal should be the outcomes that your prospects will see as a result of your services. A frequent trap that sales people fall into is selling the specific details of their MSP’s services without mentioning how this will benefit their end user. Instead, you should centre your proposal around quantifiable offerings and how you will help your prospects achieve specific goals.

Various options

Providing an MSP proposal with only a single option is potentially limiting, both for your end-user and for your business. Providing a proposal with multiple options at various different price points allows your prospect to consider exactly what they want from you. If one option doesn’t suit their needs, they can evaluate the other offers you have presented. This helps to prevent them looking at options offered by your competitors.

Future focused outlook

It is important to establish early on that you intend to support a prospect in the long term. Highlighting this clearly in your MSP proposal demonstrates that you are committed to creating an effective partnership with their business, and that you can be relied upon now and in the future.

Avoid technical jargon

Filling your proposal with the details of your technical solutions can make it inaccessible for the majority of prospects. You should include the IT services you are providing in clear terms without weighing your proposal down with jargon. This will help prospects to identify the solutions they need without unnecessary confusion.

Clear terms

It is important to set out the terms of your services clearly before you begin working with a prospect. Include the services you intend to provide, the hours you provide support during, what devices and machines you will cover and your fair use policy. It is important to be transparent from the outset: if you charge additional fees for certain services or out of hours support, it will be more beneficial in the long term to highlight this early. That way, your customers are never taken by surprise and are less likely to churn.

Are you striving to deliver a modern sales and support experience to your clients? With Salesbuildr, you have all the tools you need to transform your MSP’s quoting and proposal process.

Salesbuildr is the ideal platform to help your MSP build the perfect customer journey. Salesbuildr is a web based quoting tool and self service storefront for Managed Service Providers on Autotask. With Salesbuildr by your side you can quickly create high-converting quotes, automate cross-sells and upsells, and reduce tedious and repetitive tasks by 80%.

Think about what this means from the perspective of your customers: faster, more personalised and better answers to information needs.

Your customer feels understood, is helped and feels special. These are the key elements that drive customer satisfaction and customer loyalty.

To discover more about how Salesbuildr can aid the creation of your MSP proposal, get in touch with one of our representatives today.