For MSPs with a national client base, joining a referral program can seem daunting. When you have 100+ accounts, where do you even begin?
When your MSP works with clients across the nation, you need a partner that knows how to approach your large book of business in an organized, collaborative way.
That’s why we’re here to help!
Print Partner works with hundreds of MSPs across the country, large and small. For our largest national clients, we’ve implemented strategies to help prospect your book of business for the best print referrals.
In this article, we’ll cover how we meet the needs of our largest clients, and what specific value we can provide to national partners’ service suites.
Dedicated Print Sales Manager
National MSPs often have gigantic books of business. So when you start a relationship with Print Partner and you begin considering potential referrals, deciding where to start can be a daunting task.
We want the referral process to be as straightforward and stress-free as possible, so we assign our partners to a right-fit dedicated sales manager that can meet the needs of your MSP and your client base - someone who can easily dialogue at an executive level to determine pain points and requirements that will help us drive value to their organization..
Our staff of sales professionals work with hundreds of MSPs throughout the country and have no trouble getting into the weeds to help you find the best opportunities for potential print referrals.
When we select a sales manager for your account, they can work closely with your team to help determine which customers might be ripe for introduction. They will also advise you on the status of any active/ongoing opportunities.
Prospecting Potential Referrals
Based on each client’s size, locations, employee count, and industry, your sales manager can determine whether or not they would be a good fit for a Print Partner referral.
We know that every MSP is different, and every organization has its own style of prospecting, which is why we hand-tailor the process to your needs.
Generally, we start the prospecting process by asking you for a list of your print-rich customers - customers with a robust print infrastructure whom you think could benefit from speaking with us.
When considering potential referrals, a good fit for Print Partner usually has two or more of the following characteristics:
- Over 100 employees
- Five or more locations
- Spends at least $500 per month on printing
If, for example, you work with 150 clients, we may gather a list of 20-30 print-rich prospects that meet the above criteria over the course of our dialogue.
Once we have a list of potential referrals, and with your permission, we’ll create unique PrintFleet agents for your engineering team to deploy and survey the selected clients' print environments.
PrintFleet allows us to quickly and accurately determine whether or not each client would be a good fit for us, giving us information on their print usage, the age of their machines, the performance of their machines, and a ballpark estimate of what their spending per month.
Gathering such information will prepare your team for introducing us, and it will help our team create a clear sales plan of attack.
Custom Marketing Campaigns
Our goal is to provide your MSP with all the resources you need to reach clients that could benefit from our print service.
MSPs with a marketing team will readily agree: you can only bombard your customers about security and BDR solutions so many times. We are here to help add fresh new messaging to your marketing arsenal to offer you another means of getting a dialogue with your customers.
Print Partner’s dedicated marketing team will consult with your key resources and construct messaging that best speaks to your client base.
There are a number of ways we can do this, whether it be flyers, brochures, or, most commonly, email blasts.
We have a number of templates we have successfully used with MSPs in the past, or we can collaborate with your marketing team to craft a message that will resonate with your target audience.
We’ll construct the language based on your organization’s needs and preferences, and then we’ll give you the language to email to your current clients.
Here’s an example of a potential email campaign you could send:
Hi [Prospect],
Did you know? 64% of small businesses are unable to track their print device cost nor can they track print usage. (Source: Small Business Trends)
We want to make sure we address every piece of technology in your office.
With that in mind, we will be performing a complimentary print review for each of our clients. We not only want to make sure your printer(s) are doing their job, but also ensure you are only paying for what you need.
Here's how it works:
- You send us a current copy of your existing print agreement.
- Our team reviews documents to find areas to reduce costs and maximize efficiency.
- We'll send you a print scorecard outlining areas where improvements are available.
- If appropriate, we connect you to our preferred print vendor for a full print assessment.
To get started and receive this print-assessment, click below:
[Insert CTA button, linking to a landing page on your website (that you create) that allows prospects to upload their print agreement for you to share with us to begin the assessment]
Whatever your angle, consider Print Partner to be a tool in your toolkit to co-create fresh collateral for your customer’s eyeballs.
Sales Process Support
After your sales manager has selected the best prospects from your book of business, your MSP will introduce us to a new referral, and we will take complete ownership of chaperoning the account through the sales cycle. This means we do the selling, the product delivery, training, and the support that follows.
For medium to large-sized prospects, we perform a thorough onsite analysis of their print infrastructure, known as the print assessment. Here’s how it works:
- We fly into town and meet with key stakeholders and decision-makers to establish the prospect’s print goals and pain points. What are their priorities? Are they looking to save money? Maximize efficiency? Reduce carbon footprint? Answering these questions will guide the rest of the assessment process.
- Our experts will perform an in-person walkthrough of the client’s offices to better understand their print needs. Our executives can dive into key accounts when needed to provide a fully consultative experience.
- We review all print devices, verifying their efficiency, error history and capabilities. Doing so will allow us to recommend which machines need to be replaced.
- We review invoices and the incumbent's current print agreement to get the “big picture” of your client’s print costs. We’ll provide our findings to them as a TCO (total cost of ownership). When we present the TCO, we use this meeting as a discovery session, checking if we may have missed any expenses in our research. Getting agreement with the prospect on the TCO allows us to establish the baseline to drive toward their previously-established goals.
- Finally, based on their goals and our findings, we’ll provide them with a proposal, outlining what they’re currently paying for print and what they could be paying with us. We’ll review if any machines need replacement and if new machines need to be purchased.
While many print vendors perform some level of assessment, our print assessments are uniquely thorough. Regardless of whether they choose to go with us or not, we guarantee that your customer will walk away with a better understanding of their print infrastructure than ever before.
Our parent company, Green Office Partner, has a team of executives with backgrounds in MSP and in sales, giving us a wealth of knowledge when it comes to closing your MSP’s referrals.
For more details on our print assessment, read: What is a Print Assessment?
Multi-Site Managed Print Service
As a national MSP, you want to make sure the partners you work with can service your clients throughout the entire country.
We specialize in multi-site clients, whether they be regional or national. Our parent company, Green Office Partner, manages over 10,000 devices across 48 states throughout the country.
We’ve found that national companies can often benefit the most from our all-inclusive managed print service suite.
When your client needs support, we have staff on-call to troubleshoot issues with them over the phone. And thanks to our partnership with national device manufacturers like HP and Xerox, we can coordinate delivery and support anywhere in the US when necessary, with a four to twenty-four-hour onsite SLA for repairs.
For multi-state clients, servicing all of their print under one umbrella can be highly beneficial. Standardizing print across locations leads to lower costs, more consistent print quality, and a higher level of efficiency.
To learn more, read: Why Your Multi-Site Clients Should Use a Single Print Vendor
Print Partner and National MSPs
When your MSP has a simple, streamlined method of prospecting new print referrals, everyone wins.
Your MSP will get referral bonuses, Print Partner will gain new business, and your clients will receive the managed print service and collaboration on support that they desperately need.
To make prospecting as painless as possible, Print Partner is dedicated to providing you with all of the resources you need. From prospecting to marketing to in-depth executive-level sales analysis, Print Partner has your back.
If you’re looking for a MPS provider that specializes in working with large, national MSPs with clients throughout the country, than partner with us, a Print Partner you can trust.
