Losing deals to cheaper MSPs? Try this on…
Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams just paid the NFL $35,823 for wearing the “wrong” brand of cleats. He insists on using Caddix instead of the NFL’s approved Nike, Adidas and Under Armour brands because he believes they give him an edge. He also refused to cover the logo. Twice. Hence the fines.
And yes, the league takes this VERY seriously. Apparently the NFL employs roughly 64 uniform inspectors whose job on game day is to notice and report every infraction, no matter how small. They probably make great HOA presidents as well, but I digress…
What’s cool is that Caddix isn’t paying him to wear the shoes. No endorsement deal. No sponsorship. Williams calls them his “science cleats” because Caddix designs its studs to reduce non-contact knee and ankle injuries, which matters a LOT to a quarterback who had just come back from a hamstring injury.
Better still? The Bengals quarterback Joe Flacco (a guy on a DIFFERENT TEAM) announced that if Williams got fined again, he’d pay it himself, because he’s worn the cleats for years and is so convinced of their vision that he became an investor. Now a growing cohort of NFL players have switched to wearing Caddix without being paid a dime.
Here’s the point:
When your customers would rather pay fines than switch to a competitor’s product, you don’t just have a marketing campaign. You have the single most valuable asset any company can secure. A REAL raving fan club. Not brand preference.
Brand INSISTENCE.
When I ran TMT, a few people made fun of what I built, saying my company was a “cult,” implying our clients were gullible. Other peer group leaders who shall not be named trashed us endlessly, often calling our campaigns “unprofessional” while copying everything we did. Others called TMT just a “sales machine” that happened to help a few people. Ha.
Haters are proof it worked.
Building that level of loyalty requires far more than a slick marketing initiative – and our members were certainly NOT gullible idiots. We had to work hard to win their loyalty, and we never disrespected them, took them for granted or assumed they would always be with us. We EARNED their loyalty every, single day. We lived by the mantra my mentor Nido Qubein taught me: Be transformational to your clients, not transactional.
Okay, so HOW do you do this?
First, you have to deliver meaningful, unique value to your customers: something they simply cannot get anywhere else. Caddix didn’t win with fluff. They figured out a patented stud system for their cleats that reduces the chances of non-contact knee and ankle injuries like ACL tears. To a pro athlete, even a slight drop in injury risk is worth paying for. That’s MEANINGFUL value because of the consequences of an injury.
Second, they built their shoes for a very specific customer who obsesses over every detail of their game and will pay top dollar for an edge: pro athletes. Win them, and everyone else follows.
That’s what MSP business owners never seem to grasp – price is NOT the biggest driver of a buying decision. It’s a consideration. More accurately, it’s the tiebreaker. People choose on price when, and ONLY when, the options in front of them look the same or LESS optimal.
Williams had three other options. Every one of them carries an approved logo and costs him exactly ZERO in fines. He picked the expensive one anyway, because he saw a difference that mattered to him: protecting the knees and ankles critical to his career.
Now consider your prospect. She’s got three proposals from three MSPs on her desk. All three promise “proactive 24/7 monitoring.” All three have a “responsive help desk.” All three are her “trusted technology partner.” All three have a stock photo of a smiling guy in a headset who looks NOTHING like you. Or your techs.
What’s she supposed to do, flip a coin? Assume higher fees means higher value? No. She does the rational thing and chooses the one she feels she can trust without spending more than she needs to. That’s not a cheap prospect. That’s YOUR failure to convince her that your recommendation and fees are the smarter, safer option.
Which brings me to what I call the Cover-the-Logo Test. Take your website, your proposal, your sales deck and your last three emails to prospects. Cover your logo. Slap your competitor’s logo on instead. If nobody could tell the difference, you’re a commodity, and commodities get bought on price. And blaming the prospect for being cheap is a lot like blaming the bathroom scale for being rude.
Your prospects aren’t cheap. Or stupid. They’re confused. Stop looking like everyone else, deliver real value, and the price objection takes care of itself.
Nobody pays a fine to stick with an interchangeable, mediocre product.
If your marketing fails the Cover-the-Logo Test, that’s exactly what I fix. Hire me and we’ll build the marketing and sales system that makes you the obvious choice, regardless of price, and turns prospects into clients who would rather pay more than switch. Book a private consultation to get started.