Quick Wins: Ryan Grimes from My IT Indy Trademarks His Unique Approach to Paid Sales Discovery

–Carrie Richardson, Partner, Richardson & Richardson Consulting

Paid Sales Discovery As A Competitive Advantage

Many business owners are reluctant to bill for their time when it comes to paid sales discovery. However, the process is labor intensive and requires a significant investment from both parties. Paid sales discovery is possible, and is being executed on successfully by many companies, including our featured WIN guest.

Recently, I had the opportunity to sit down with Ryan Grimes, CEO of My IT Indy, a renowned Apple certified and Microsoft Silver partner, on our podcast, WIN – What’s Important Now?

Ryan shared valuable insights on business growth and hiring new employees, technology solutions, and the importance of providing excellent customer service. Let’s dive into the key takeaways from the interview and explore how Ryan helps other business owners navigate their business challenges while optimizing their technology infrastructure.

Current Business Challenge: Growing Gracefully

One of the primary challenges Ryan and his team are currently working on is achieving “graceful growth”.

My IT Indy prides itself on delivering exceptional customer service, going above and beyond for their clients. To maintain this high level of service, Ryan emphasizes the need to expand their team strategically while ensuring that the quality of service remains uncompromised. Small businesses often face the dilemma of determining the right time to hire additional employees, considering factors like revenue, training costs, and service requirements.

Growing gracefully involves finding the right balance between scaling the team and maintaining service excellence.

Current Business Opportunity: “Working On His Business” Instead of “In His Business”

Ryan launched his business in 2004. As the business has grown, Ryan has slowly started delegating more and would like to continue to build his team in a way that will allow him to extract himself from being responsible for providing client technical support, as it is the most time-consuming aspect of running his business.

As a business owner, it’s crucial to recognize when your time could be better spent on strategic initiatives rather than getting involved in day-to-day operations. By hiring a new team member with a higher degree of certification, particularly in cloud technologies, Ryan aims to delegate technical support responsibilities effectively.

This transition will allow him to focus on other strategic initiatives at My IT Indy, like sales, marketing, networking, and overall business growth. Ryan’s priority is hiring a new technical asset, but they’re not going to rush in to hiring just to fill an empty space. Ryan’s building the team that will support his transition from owner-operator into owner, and this requires investing both time and treasure. The right fit will be essential for his success!

Leveraging Online Resources: The Tech Tribe

Ryan highlighted the value of leveraging resources like The Tech Tribe, a comprehensive (and beloved!) platform for connecting with and learning from other IT professionals.

Founded by Nigel Moore, The Tech Tribe provides a wealth of content, including guidance from industry experts, training materials, and marketing resources. Ryan specifically mentioned the LinkedIn sales process, which helps entrepreneurs establish a prospecting process and create engaging content. By saturating the internet with relevant marketing materials, businesses can increase their visibility and attract potential clients who actively seek solutions to their technology needs.

Recent Achievement (The WIN!):

My IT Indy recently trademarked “Technology Therapy Sessions,” a paid discovery service for new clients.

These sessions offer an opportunity for in-depth discussions about clients’ technology setups and challenges. By engaging with employees anonymously, Ryan and his team gain valuable insights into potential roadblocks and inefficiencies within an organization. Through a thorough assessment, My IT Indy can identify areas of improvement and provide tailored solutions. In one instance, they helped a client uncover over $100,000 in potential savings by addressing technology-related inefficiencies. This allowed them to increase their monthly rates significantly.

Listen to Ryan’s full podcast interview here!

Looking to Implement A Paid Sales Discovery Process?

With the success of their newly developed paid discovery sessions, Ryan’s margins have increased and he has spent much less time in unqualified sales discoveries. That’s a big WIN!

The first sales appointment can lead to a huge time suck for many owner-led sales organizations. Many of our clients were conducting first sales appointments that were poorly qualified from day one, which led to them creating proposals for deals that weren’t ever going to close. On average, the time spent on just one prospect for an I.T. firm that is doing proper sales discovery can add up to several days of owner time. Days!!!

Most business owners don’t have 16 hours to devote to a prospect that is not going to buy from them, yet they continue to conduct sales meetings with poorly qualified prospects. If this sounds familiar, Richardson & Richardson would like to help you make some changes to your sales process – potentially including helping you adopt a paid sales discovery process.

Finding an interested lead, securing the appointment, preparing for the sales appointment, driving to and from the sales appointment, conducting the meeting, preparing the proposal, then trying to secure the closed deal after the proposal is delivered…the time adds up. Add in more stakeholder meetings, team discussions around the proposal – soon you’re buried in unpaid work. Paid sales discovery prevents “tire kicking” or “price shopping” poor-fit prospects from taking that valuable time.

A great place to begin is with our Sales Health Assessment. First, you’ll fill out a short, guided assessment. Once completed, you’ll spend 90 minutes with Ian Richardson, reviewing your findings. Together, you’ll stack rank the issues with your current sales process, and discuss any “quick” fixes that can be applied immediately.