Day in the life of a Managed Services Sales Person

We talk to one of our Managed Services New Business Development Team and ask him what his typical day is like ...

"I am responsible for the growth of our Managed Services contract base at DSP.

This involves speaking with key IT decision makers – Senior Managers and IT Directors, about how a Database or Application Managed Service could benefit their organisation.

An important part of the role is ensuring the efficiency of the sales cycle. Being a nimble small IT firm means pre-sales and solution/service architect resource is scarce and valuable. Therefore, a big part of my job is separating the ‘Wheat’ from the ‘Chaff’ by qualifying hard opportunities, and only bringing back prospects that have a real need for what we do.

My role, in no particular order includes

1. Write and prepare proposals
2. Qualify and filter prospective clients
3. Cold call and hunt for new clients
4. Meet and present dsp to new clients
5. Facilitate introductions for Pre-Sales, DBA’s and Practice Leads
6. Negotiate and agree contractual terms

Selling Managed Services is very hard! It’s more of a conceptual sale; and involves determining Need and Problems. Unlike selling an upgrade or hardware, where typically organisations have to do this sooner or later, selling managed services means understanding and identifying specific operational and business problems, finding the implications of these problems and determining if what we do can fix it.

This is what I like about Managed Services sales – the fact that it’s necessary to understand the woes of a prospective client, and more importantly be completely upfront and honest with them on our capability and how or if we can add value. It is honestly gratifying for me to get good feedback from customers after a contract is agreed and the service is in full swing. Having a customer say ‘it’s better than what I expected’ makes all the hard work, cold calling, pressure of targets and late night proposal writing worth it!"