One of my Optaros colleagues in Austin, Erik Smartt, recently posted 8 “Tips for ASPs.”
He’s put together a great list which should be required reading for any application service provider. It’s amazing to me how many managed service providers and large software companies make it terribly difficult to engage with them.
I’d add these two, which has the added benefit of making a top ten list:
- Remember your secondary (and tertiary) audiences. Some of the people inquiring about the services you offer are not directly prospects, but are important. As a consultant, I’m sometimes looking for information on a service on behalf of a client – I may not look like a good “lead” in your sales funnel but I might represent your perfect target. Or, I may just be trying to keep up to date with offerings in the field – but you want to make that easy for me so that next time I’m talking to a client I know what you’re capable of.
- Have real, specific metrics. What loads does the service handle, for your largest customers? What was your peak hour, day, week, or month in the last year? How long does the average implementation of your service take? (And if that isn’t a meaningful metric, what is – the shortest and longest in the last year?) Even if you can’t name names, being able to talk about the implementations other customers have done is critical.
