For MSPs selling compliance
A prospect names a framework, SOC 2 or HIPAA or CMMC, and a technical firm starts scoping, because scoping is the thing you are good at. Forty minutes later you have a number and no idea what is driving the purchase. So you price a scope instead of a problem.
Managed service and security providers who have added compliance to what they sell, usually alongside a platform partner.
The platform gave you a product, a console and some co-marketing. It did not give you a way to sell it, and it was never going to. That part is yours.
Technical firms are trusted because they are competent, so the instinct in a first call is to demonstrate competence. Somebody describes a problem and you start solving it out loud. That instinct built your business and it costs you compliance deals.
Discovery first, because it is the only one that can still rescue a deal you are in the middle of. The other two decide next quarter.
Worked on your live deals, not in the abstract, so the first thing it does is change how a deal you already have ends.
What you are selling, said so a stranger can accept or decline it. Most technical firms describe a capability and hope the buyer assembles the offer themselves.
Where the next ones come from when referrals are thin, then your team running all of it while I watch and correct.
Outcomes worth stating are the ones you can check. Six questions most firms cannot answer today. On day 91 you answer all six without me.
Why did you lose the last deal you should have won?
The review names which row was missing and on which call it went.
What is driving the deal you are in right now?
The trigger, the date they are held to, the cost of missing it, and who signs.
Why is your number that number?
An answer that survives being asked twice, and that does not live only in your head.
What can somebody buy from you on a first call?
A paid first step small enough to say yes to and still worth delivering.
Where do the next five deals come from?
A scored list against a written filter, rather than a hope that referrals continue.
Can somebody other than you run a deal review?
They already did, for thirty days, with me correcting them.
A close rate, a number of deals, or a revenue figure. I do not control your market, your capacity or who picks up. Anyone quoting you those numbers is quoting you a feeling. What is promised above is the process and the instruments, because those are the parts that are mine to deliver.
Running, in your hands, whether or not we keep going. There is no license and nothing switches off.
The questions that get asked before a scope exists, in order, with the follow-up that gets a real answer rather than a polite one.
Your work packaged into decisions a buyer can make, priced, with the reasoning behind each number written down so anyone on your team can defend it.
What a good lead looks like for you specifically, as criteria you can score against, plus the tells that a deal is going to stall before you have spent three weeks on it.
Firms that match the filter, scored, with the reason to call attached to each row and a file you load into whatever you already send from.
The answer to "what does this cost", to "we already have somebody", and to the two others that actually kill deals. Every one of them says when not to send it.
The same questions on every deal, and only the ones due at that stage, so a review is a measurement rather than an opinion. Stacked, it shows what is improving.
Written down now rather than raised later, because a program whose ending is vague is a subscription wearing a costume.
Day 90 splits two ways, below
Every instrument stays where it is, filled in with your deals, running. Nothing is licensed, nothing phones home and nothing expires. Your team already ran it for the last thirty days, which is what makes this a real option rather than a gesture.
No exit fee, no clawback, and no clause that makes leaving expensive.
The month buys the standing work: reviews, building deals after calls, and me on email when a live one needs an answer today. Fifteen hours a week is the ceiling, not a quota.
The 3% is only on deals I sat in on, at project value, paid once at close. Not on renewals, not on ongoing management, and not on anything you closed without me, however much I helped beforehand.
Thirty minutes, one live deal, and a straight answer on whether ninety days of this is worth it to you.
Book the call| In | Out |
|---|---|
| In Discovery worked on your live deals, with a written review on each inside a day | Out Me sitting on your live sales calls |
| In Your offer packaged and priced, with the reasoning written down | Out Making the calls for you, at any point |
| In The fit filter, the target list, and the message each segment gets | Out Running your outreach tool day to day |
| In CRM work so a reply becomes a deal instead of a note nobody reopens | Out Anything to do with the compliance work itself |
| In Your team running all of it in the last thirty days, corrected as they go | Out A license fee, ever |
Why the sales calls are out. Reviews run off the recording or off what the CRM holds. Being in the room is what the continuing arrangement is priced for, and if it sat in here one heavy selling week would eat the program, starting with the handover.
Why the outreach tool is out. You get the filter, the list and the messages. Whoever presses send, presses send.
And none of it touches the compliance work. You are already good at that. This is the sale in front of it.
A retainer pays me the same whether you get better or not, which is how one quietly becomes a person you pay to sit in on calls. Ninety days that end with you not needing me is the only shape where the handover is my problem rather than a nice idea.
The 3% afterward does the same job from the other side. In the room when it closes, I am paid. Not in the room, not paid, however much I helped before it. So it is on me to show up, and on me to say the thing that stops you dropping the price to end a call pleasantly. A flat fee pays me the same whether I say it or stay quiet.
This makes the person already running them better at it. It does not replace them, and after ninety days it is not supposed to be me either.
The first thirty days work on live deals. With nothing live there is nothing to review, and you should come back when there is.
Ninety days of this pays off only if compliance is a lane you intend to stay in. If you are still deciding, decide that first.
Playbooks are cheap and there are good ones. This is your deals, your pricing and your CRM, which is the part a document cannot do.
Thirty minutes. Walk me through a compliance deal you are in the middle of and I will tell you what I would do next with it. If that is worth nothing to you, neither is the ninety days, and you will know inside the half hour.
John Serrantino. Twenty nine years in one category, most of it selling technical work to people who did not want to be sold to.