Using Kutenda with Connectwise, Part 2

The second of two posts covering how managed service providers (MSPs) can benefit from using the features of Kutenda to enhance their use of the ConnectWise PSA. Read the first post here.

At the ConnectWise Summit, I spoke to many MSPs who use ConnectWise to manage the sales process. As I mentioned in my post last week, ConnectWise is really helpful for managing and tracking tasks for your sales team during the last 20 percent of the sales cycle. Kutenda helps with the first 80 percent.

That still begs the question: How the heck can you generate more and better leads for your managed services business? I had a conversation with Larry Walsh from Channel Insider just last week about the same thing. He basically told me that what he hears from MSPs is that yes, you need more leads. But you also need better leads. So lets talk about how Kutenda helps you generate more leads—of higher quality.

Generating more leads for managed services
How does your managed services business generate new leads today? Here are a few ways that you might use:

- knocking on doors
- cold-calling
- networking at local business functions
- referrals

All of these methods work, and depending on your personality and perseverance, they can work well. But, they all have one thing in common—they require person-to-person engagement. This limits the effectiveness of each of these methods because once you max out on dials (or doors), you have to hire another sales person to increase the number of leads you’re getting. Kutenda gives you a more cost-effective solution to use in conjunction with your other lead generation activities.

Question: If you could drive people who are already looking for your services to your web site to fill out a lead form, would you? Of course you would! That’s where search marketing (pay-per-click advertising, PPC) comes in. Running PPC is simply the fastest way to drive leads to your site. Even if you’re on page 755,343 of the Google search results for “Data Recovery,” you can get to the top of the sponsored results for that same keyword—especially if you narrow your target to your local geographic area. Kutenda’s PPC keyword research tool simplifies the process of selecting keywords for your ad campaigns. Plus, we also give you keyword lists and  ad copy for a whole variety of managed services (Help Desk, BDR, Managed Services and more), so you’ve got a head start in building campaigns to drive those leads.

Getting better leads for managed services
Let’s look back at the more expensive lead drivers again for a minute. Even if you get someone to engage with you from one of those methods, you may not close them all at this point anyway. Here are a few reasons why:

1. they’re not looking for a managed service (just want to deal with an immediate problem)
2. it’s not the right fit
3. it costs too much
4. they realize they can manage it in-house

Are these people still good leads for other services you offer? Might they convert to a customer in two, three or even 12 years from now? Yes! But most likely, you’ll lose touch with them because you don’t have an efficient way to nurture those leads into better leads over time. Again, this is where Kutenda helps.

Our MSP partners use ready-to-send email campaigns we provide to stay connected with these leads over time and nurture them into better (more qualified leads). By sending out regular email campaigns to prospects (and existing customers), you increase your chances of getting them as paying customers later down the road—of turning more of your leads into better leads.

What is a better lead?
What ‘better’ leads are is certainly up for interpretation, but in our world,  better leads are really leads that are more qualified—those that have first gone through 80 percent of the sales process. No matter where that lead comes from—referral, PPC, cold call, etc.—making them into a more qualified lead will improve your sales conversions. Using a lead nurturing system like Kutenda makes that lead qualifying process more automatic, allowing you to spend more time with those leads that are in the last 20 percent of the sales cycle. That is, by the way, when you put them into ConnectWise—so you can use Tracks to keep your sales people on task to close those more qualified leads.