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Don’t Sell ‘Remote Monitoring.’ Sell Solutions

“Why monitor a problem if you don’t fix it?” asks the narrator. It’s a good question, and one that should stay top of mind for home technology professionals looking to make 2017 a breakout year for establishing RMR through the sale of service contracts.

I recently saw a LifeLock commercial on TV that gave me a good laugh. A patient, sitting in an exam chair, is told by someone that looks like a dentist, “You have one of the worst cavities I have ever seen.” The “dentist” then tells his patient, “have a good day” as he pats him on the shoulder and spins to get up from his chair.

Image: Thinkstock
Perplexed, the patient, struggling to mouth the words through his cheek-retractor, asks, “Aren’t you going to fix it?” To which he is told, “Oh, I’m not a dentist. I’m a dental monitor. I just tell you when you have a bad cavity.”

“Why monitor a problem if you don’t fix it?” asks the narrator.

It’s a good question, and one that should stay top of mind for home technology professionals looking to make 2017 a breakout year for establishing RMR through the sale of service contracts. A core part of the value proposition behind these contracts are the remote systems management (RSM) appliances that monitor our client-networks for issues.

These appliances, which clearly provide a ton of value for home tech pros by vastly reducing costly truck rolls, still need to be sold to the client, who is ultimately the one paying for them. During these conversations, we should be careful not to sound like the “dental monitor” portrayed in the LifeLock commercial. In other words, don’t tell clients how quickly we can discover issues; tell them how quickly we can repair them, or in many cases prevent them altogether.

Clients will have little taste for sales pitches that focus on how deeply integrated our RSM tools are or how quickly they can notify us to an issue on their network. Clients will only care about one thing: how does this service make their lives better?

When properly explained, our clients should clearly see that an RSM appliance will vastly reduce the headaches they experience as a result of technology failures. By proactively monitoring their system, we can be notified of problems before our clients even know about them. Leaving the explanation at that, however, is like telling them that we can discover cavities. It says nothing about how we can prevent them, or how quickly we can repair them if they do arise.

The real selling point is that we can help our clients avoid the frustration of having a technology failure pop up unexpectedly; for example, discovering that their control system has fallen offline only after the entire family is already gathered for movie night.

The real value lies in the fact that an RSM appliance will allow us to remotely troubleshoot these sorts of problems before they ruin a family gathering. Or, in the unlikely event that we can’t resolve the problem, we can at least help them prepare a workaround, allowing them to enjoy their evening free of unpleasant technology surprises. These are the sort of real-world anecdotes that will help our clients understand the true value of RSM.

Finding success with RMR will require HTPs to come up with new ways of positioning ourselves in the market. In an industry with a successful track record of high-margin, project-based sales, this has already proved to be a difficult transition. As we look for effective ways to pitch our new service-based offerings we should remember the simple lesson this LiefLock commercial so effectively illustrates: Clients don’t want monitoring. They want solutions.

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