The Network Pro decided in 2014 that it would only meet with presidents, CEOs, owners or partners in organizations with 40 or fewer employees, Studley said, after realizing that just 2 percent of its meetings with non-decision makers ever turned into purchases.

"We set a lot of appointments with the wrong people," Studley said.

Centers of influence tend to be warm sources for generating sales leads, Studley said. People with inside knowledge of how an organization works and what it needs from an IT standpoint include those involved with enterprise resource planning or electronic medical record implementations, setting up a phone system, outside HR consultancies and certified professional accountants, Studley said. 

Referral programs and LinkedIn are also great ways to kick up additional leads, Studley said, and solution providers should give referral sources some type of an award just for providing a name.

Even more important than generating additional leads is having a conversation with clients that goes beyond what you'd do differently from a technical standpoint, Studley said. Successful conversations focus 100 percent on the business side of the equation, he said.

In order to get past the standard client objection that their IT is "fine," solution providers must expand the definition of fine to mean not just "nothing is crashing" and also address issues surrounding predictability, performance, functionality, reduced risk, capital costs and productivity.

Since labor is the largest cost facing clients in every vertical except manufacturing, any change that increases employee productivity is bound to save clients money in the long run, Studley said. 

One good metric is "problems per employee per month" based on how a company's technology is being managed. Studley said The Network Pro is usually able to take customers from one to two IT problems per employee per month to just one per employee every four months, dramatically increasing productivity.

Studley likes to frame the conversation with customers in terms of the additional income generated as a result of increased employee productivity, compared with the additional (usually smaller) cost incurred by switching to a single monthly bill from The Network Pro. Solution providers should use the increased costs to their advantage as a signal of higher-quality service, Studley said.