People naturally hate change. If you’re pursuing a prospect who already has a regular IT provider, they will often be reluctant to make a change, even if they’re unhappy. Prospects would much rather tolerate problems from “the devil they know” than take a chance with “the devil they don’t know.”
That’s why it’s critical to drive a “wedge” between the prospect and their current provider. Once you gain their trust as an expert and sow doubt about their existing MSP, your sale is one step closer to success.
Employing the wedge technique, if needed, occurs during the discovery meeting, which is Step 2 of the 5-Step Process to Closing an MSP Sale. In this article, Sitima Fowler and Ray Green, MSP sales experts who teach this process, explain how and why to use the wedge technique, which they adapted from the book The Wedge by Randy Schwantz.
Driving a Wedge [Question] Between Your Prospect and Their IT
Usually if a prospect has an IT provider, the reason they’re meeting with you is to negotiate a better price or quality of service with their current MSP. But you don’t have to sit back and let yourself be used or hope that your sales pitch will be convincing enough to bring the prospect aboard.
Instead, ask wedge questions that can cause prospects to doubt their current provider—and turn to you instead.
She Said: Most people are so comfortable that, even if they don’t love the service, they’d rather stick with what they’ve got than make a change.
The purpose of the wedge is to further develop the prospect’s dissatisfaction with their current provider and help them see areas where they’re being underserved. But don’t bad-mouth competitors! Instead, it’s more powerful to ask questions that allow the prospect to come to that realization themselves.
He Said: You’re trying to uncover unresolved problems. The prospect might be operating under the assumption that everything’s OK with their current service—and it might be, depending on their understanding of what IT support should be. Through your questioning, you can draw out some problems they’ve just been accepting. You’re not creating the pain; you’re helping the prospect understand that there’s a problem they weren’t aware of.
For a role play of how to implement the wedge technique, see the video below.
The Takeaway
The next step of the wedge technique, the takeaway, is designed to relay how significant a problem is to the prospect. However, it isn’t your job to explain it—it’s to ask pointed questions to allow the prospect to come to that conclusion on their own.
She Said: The takeaway allows the prospect to discover the consequence of inaction. For example, if cybersecurity is your “wedge” and the prospect says they don’t get that from their current provider, the takeaway would be: “Oh, maybe it’s not a big deal then, because not every company gets ransomware. And if you did, you’d just pay a fine and lose a few days of productivity, right?”
Suddenly, the prospect is going to “get” why cybersecurity matters. The takeaway seals the deal. You’re using it to remind them of the consequences.
He Said: Exactly. Both the wedge question and the takeaway are really powerful. When you help the prospect realize these things on their own through a series of questions, instead of telling them with a sales pitch, it’s more credible.
Putting the Wedge into Practice
Here’s an example. The wedge question is, “When your IT person conducted the last test restore of your backup—sort of like a fire drill—so you knew for sure you could be back up and running fast in the event of an emergency or ransomware attack, how did that process work?”
She Said: You’re creating a picture with words, making it very clear what the service should look like. Now this part is critical: The wedge technique only works if you assume the prospect already has the service. If you phrase the question like a salesperson would—“But does your provider do THIS?”—they’re not going to tell you anything more.
So, if the prospect then says, “We’ve never done that,” or something similar, the takeaway would be: “Oh, so is running a fire-drill test restore of your network to make sure you can be back up and running fast not something that’s important to you?” You’re telling them what the consequence would be.
He Said: You’re planting seeds of doubt with these questions. But resist the urge to start selling; you’re still in discovery. If the prospect says, “Our provider doesn’t do X,” this isn’t the time to say, “Oh, we do that, and we do it better than so-and-so.” Keep your response subtle; maybe sound surprised. A little “hmm” or “oh” will take you a long way.
Make Your “Wedge” Unique to Your MSP
The “Picture-Perfect” technique will help you create the perfect wedge questions to highlight what your MSP does best. With your leadership team, put together an image of the ideal circumstances under which the prospect could be doing business—one that you provide.
She Said: Every business is different, right? Your business may not do certain things, but you may do a lot of things that other MSPs don’t. That uniqueness is going to become your wedge.
He Said: Focus on your unique selling proposition and come up with a few go-to wedge questions to use—things that differentiate you. You can create questions that highlight what you do, all by asking how the prospect’s provider does that thing.
Dig Into the Pain—You’ll Get the Gain
When all is said and done, you should create a wedge question that correlates to each major pain point your prospect is likely to bring up. This includes things like response time and security.
This is why it’s essential not to skip any steps of the discovery meeting process. Each step builds on the previous, further building your rapport with the prospect and exponentially increasing your chance of making a sale.
If you missed Fowler and Green’s previous column, be sure to read Discovery Meeting Sales Strategy: Find Your Prospect’s Pain Points.
