Working in the tech industry, the one factor that you've always been able to rely on is that there will be people out there who aren't really great with tech and will happily outsource it to someone more tech-savvy. Now imagine if that simple and long-accepted fact were no longer the case? How would it change the way that technology companies sell to businesses and the services they offer?
I attended IT Nation last week and some of the stats shared blew my overtired and slightly under-the-weather mind.
A new wave of business owners
A whopping 48% of baby boomer business owners and operators plan to retire or exit their businesses within the next one to five years
A whopping 48% of baby boomer business owners and operators plan to retire or exit their businesses within the next one to five years
The new owners will, for the most part, be individuals who have grown up with a mobile phone in their pocket and Google at their fingertips. Yes, they may have started out whiling away hours playing Snake on a Nokia brick, but, needless to say, their tech problem-solving skills, in most cases, are a step above those of most of the previously mentioned 60-78-year-old business owners.
Your new target audience is a research-driven, tech-native millennial or Gen Z who has adopted AI faster than you can say "ChatGPT 5."
Don't get me wrong - that doesn't mean they want to run their own software updates and system migrations. It most definitely doesn't mean we should inundate our websites, blog posts, and LinkedIn feeds with tech jargon. But the language we use to talk to them, the questions they will ask, and the features they prioritise will likely look quite different.
In fact, according to Canalys, 69% of businesses that engage an MSP claim to be technically proficient, but (and it's a significant caveat) 62% still seek expert advice.
Lifting the floor on tech skills
One of the interesting considerations for me is around how this impacts sales, marketing and customer service teams. Once upon a time, the account manager who would ultimately sit in front of the customer was often a non-technical person, as was the person writing the marketing copy and planning the campaigns.
Not at OLS of course, where the founder has been in tech her entire career (ditto 50% of the copywriting team), and one of the marketing execs was previously a level 1 tech... But I digress.
The question is, in this new world, will the next status quo mean upskilling every public-facing member of the team to ensure that they can out-tech the client base?
The question is, in this new world, will the next status quo mean upskilling every public-facing member of the team to ensure that they can out-tech the client base? Or does the nature of the support evolve to reward outstanding communication and customer support?
This second option is certainly one being explored in the industry, with one panellist mentioning an MSP where a customer service rep and a bot handle all client support calls. While the rep has no tech experience, she is able to solve many basic queries by asking the bot. If the issue needed to be escalated, it would be passed over to the tech team for further review and attention.
Marketing and comms considerations for the brave new world
- Understand your buyer and their goals so you know what success looks like for them in the next 3 months, 6 months, 9 months or a year - there is no one-size-fits-all solution.
- Establish their technical proficiency and consider whether it's worth segmenting your messaging based on this. Companies that assume that the buyer has little to no technical competency will be dismissed from the outset – instead, you need to meet them where they are at, from a technical standpoint.
- Rethink your communication channels to talk to clients in the way that suits them. That could mean online chat options for support issues, video and audio options for information sharing and personalised content that aligns with their goals.
- Continuously evolve your product stack to meet the changing needs of your clients. If you aren't leveraging automation and AI, they'll look for someone who is.
A big shout-out to Ryan Walsh from Pax8 (Meet the New Buyer: Be ready or beware) and James Davies from TSP Advisory (The World has changed; it's time to transform or exit) for their incredibly insightful sessions.
