The Line of Safety – Why Is It Important?
Managed Service Providers are constantly working (or should be if they are not!) to differentiate themselves in the eyes of the market and their most valued customers. However, for many MSPs, standing out amongst increased competition in commoditized markets has been and remains very difficult. For those feeling uncertain about their future in the market, one small yet important facet to gain control over is to identify those people at your customer accounts that are above the Line of Safety. This can be a relatively easy way to stay ahead of the competition by making sure your teams are operating and communicating with the right individuals.
What is the Line of Safety?
The Line of Safety is the level in an organization above which roles are empowered to independently solve a problem. In this context, being “empowered to independently solve a problem” means that the role has resources and budget available to be used at their discretion. It follows those below the Line of Safety would, therefore, require the approval of someone above the Line of Safety to make a significant purchase or assign resources to achieve the desired outcome.
Note that the Line of Safety can vary by problem, role, and organization. Many naturally assume that the Line of Safety is drawn at the Executive Suite. However, not all roles below the executive suite are below the Line of Safety, and not all executives are above it for every situation. For example, a complete back-office technology implementation project that requires alignment across the executive suite. In this case, only a few executives or the CEO may be empowered with the budget, resources, and organizational trust to make the decision to undergo such a project. In comparison, a Sales Director or Vice President could be empowered to make the decision to implement a new CRM and would, therefore, be above the Line of Safety for that particular project despite not being a “C-Suite Executive”.
Why is Operating Above the Line of Safety Important?
Operating above the Line of Safety allows your market and customer facing teams to align better to the true needs of your customers. Buyers above the Line have an in-depth understanding of their organization’s most pressing needs; therefore, gathering their viewpoint provides you and your team with the information needed to cut through the clutter in the marketplace. A few specific examples of how different functional teams benefit from operating above the Line include:
Sales and Account Management:
- Faster Sales Cycles – Working directly with those who have the power to approve a purchase means that only one person at the target customer has to fully understand and buy into your solution. Rather than needing to move higher in the customer’s organization to get buy-in by his/her boss, or additional stakeholders, and pitching the solution again, it is all approved (or disapproved) in one motion. Naturally, this saves a lot of time and energy of your scarce resources.
- Improved Control and Visibility of a Sale – When trying to move up the ladder, sales teams are often reliant on their first contact to represent the problem, gather interest, and secure next steps with others. When working above the Line, you have more control and a better understanding of how the purchaser is actually feeling.
- Larger Deals – Targets above the Line of Safety are trusted by their organization to make large decisions that may affect a variety of departments. This naturally increases the budget that they have available.
- Account Growth – a key success factor to expand your existing accounts is to broaden your relationships with additional buyers other than the one that was first to say “yes”. And to do this, you must identify who else is above the Line and then build the strategy to get them to say “yes” as well.
Service Delivery:
- Lower Risk Projects – Solutions-oriented projects that are sold above the Line have a lower associated risk. The buyer has had their expectations set by you (no game of telephone); they can assign internal resources to support the project, and they are interested/invested in the success of the project as a purchaser rather than an overseer.
- More Complete Understanding of Their Challenges – Because these buyers have a higher-level view of their organization, your service delivery teams can more fully understand the challenge(s) they are solving and how it fits into the customer’s strategic goals.
- Access to Other Executives – Through completing a project with stakeholders above the Line, you and your team will get access and exposure to others above the Line, increasing the opportunity to grow your account.
Portfolio of Products and Services:
- Proactive Customer Issue Resolution – Operating above the Line helps identify issues before they are encountered. For example, an executive explaining how they intend to use the hardware/software that you are providing can help your team set expectations and proactively identify challenges and ways to mitigate them.
- Added Market Insights to Define Portfolio Strategy – You have a better purview of where the market is headed and therefore how to adjust your strategy.
- Less “If you build it, they will come” Requests – MSP owners are often told by their sales or marketing teams that if a new product is added that there will be a number of customers ready to buy, only to find that they still struggle to close deals for the desired product. When operating above the Line, you avoid this misalignment because your teams are working directly with buyers and, therefore, have a much stronger understanding of whether they would actually buy “something new”.
Marketing:
- Stronger Messaging – When operating above the Line, marketing teams have a better understanding of customer needs, and as a result, feel less like they are taking shots in the dark with their messaging and perform better overall.
- Influential Use Cases – Use cases with insights from high-level buyers resonate stronger than use cases from lower-level roles. Buyers above the Line also represent their challenges using language that other executives in the marketplace understand.
- Enhanced Market Insights – Working above the Line provides additional information on where the market is headed and gives access to executives to provide expert opinions.
Conclusion
Operating above the Line of Safety is critical for every MSP that is looking to succeed in a competitive market. However, the difficulty is not realizing that your business needs to work above the Line of Safety; it is getting every part to target, think, operate above the line and stay there. After all, it’s not just your business that wants executive attention. In an upcoming blog, we will explain how to get your organization above the Line of Safety and how to stand out amongst the competition.