Marcus Lemonis, the Business Turnaround King, spoke to our attendees at our 2021 Annual IT Sales & Marketing Boot Camp. He was so well received that he is back for 2022 by popular demand. Last year he shared the following advice:
Double Down On Marketing For Your IT Services Business
I’m going to strongly encourage you guys to get more active and double down on marketing for your IT services businesses.
I look at all the businesses that I’ve invested in, lent money to, or granted money to over the years: the grateful ones, the ungrateful ones, the happy ones, the pissed-off ones.
There’s a variety of them, but there’s a common theme—the ones that understand the importance of investing in their business, themselves, and their customers. Also, those who understand the importance of data, technology, and communicating with customers the way they want to be communicated are doing just fine.
On the other hand, there’s ones who believe they have all the answers and don’t need a CRM and don’t need to have a computer.
You laugh, but there’s a lot of businesses that don’t want to have a computer because they feel like Uncle Sam’s going to reach into the computer and take out the cash that they just recorded or didn’t record.
So what we have to do as a group in this room is give these businesses, which I won’t call small — I’ll call them local — a chance to do something different than they’ve ever done before.
Your job is to create a variable cost model for them that rewards you for your performance.
It gives you some sort of floor because you need that recurring revenue, right?
You need that recurring revenue, but it gives you a chance to earn them spending more.
No different than how we want to be treated as customers, right?
I’ll give you more money if I get something for it. If I don’t get something for it, I’m not going to give it to you.
When I talked to Robin and asked her about the industries you guys focus on, she mentioned Health Care, Manufacturing, Construction, Finance, Accounting, Legal, Architects, Nonprofit, and Engineering. So it sounds like a lot of professional services, right?
There was also mention of Printing and Graphics, Manufacturing, Government, Auto Sales, Country Clubs, Education, Transportation.
What did I not hear? I didn’t hear Retail.
What else didn’t I hear? Food or Hospitality.
Growth and Retention For IT Services Businesses
Here’s what I would ask you to consider from this day forward.
Any business that has the ability to grow their business from what you can do for them, has the ability to pay and stay.
I want to make that clear, that’s going to be our fun two words of the day: pay and stay.
Which is retention, that’s all that really matters in a business like yours, and in mine, retention is everything; the cost of acquiring a new customer is up and it only becomes profitable after you retain them for a while.
