Selling DR to SMB customers without underselling
The six objections you hear from small customers and how to answer them with data, not slides — without racing to the bottom on price.
TL;DR
The six recurring SMB objections on DR and how to answer them with data. The rule: no slides, no scare tactics, just concrete numbers from their business.
The 6 objections and answers
1. "We already have backups"
Answer: ask for three numbers. How long to restore the ERP from backup? Who does it when the sysadmin is on holiday? When was the last drill? Three vague answers = you have your opening to talk DR.
2. "Costs too much"
Answer: compare with the cost of a single day of downtime. A typical 80-employee SMB loses €60-120k per day in a total outage. The monthly DR fee is 1-2% of that number.
3. "It won't happen to us"
Answer: 2025 Confindustria data. 31% of Italian SMBs had a serious IT incident in the last 24 months. Ransomware, mistakes, hardware, floods: the cause changes, the impact does not.
4. "We'll think about it next year"
Answer: fine, sign for the month. Flexible onboarding, first month free. Find the minimum viable version (Sefthy Mini €30/month) and bring the customer "in".
5. "Our cloud provider already does it"
Answer: ask for a documented RTO and SLA contract. Microsoft 365, Google Workspace and big clouds have limited native backup and no real DR for custom data.
6. "Our techs will handle it"
Answer: good, and runbook documentation? Quarterly drills? The answer is almost always "we'll get to it". NIS2/ISO compliance asks for evidence, not promises.
A 15-minute pitch structure
- 3 min — business questions (downtime cost, critical processes);
- 5 min — recent real case (with permission from the involved customer);
- 4 min — concrete numbered proposal (fee, RTO, next steps);
- 3 min — open questions.
No 40-slide PowerPoint. Four slides are enough.
The price war problem
You will not win it. Differentiate on custom runbook, quarterly drills, certifications. The customer who picks only on price is the customer who will put you in the witness chair at the first event.
FAQ
What close rate should I expect?
Realistic for MSPs: 30-50% on existing customers, 10-20% on cold leads.
Is a free "DR risk assessment" worth offering?
Yes, great lead magnet. Half a day of work, positions you as consultant not seller.
To manage margin, MSP margin on DR. For fast onboarding, 5-day onboarding.
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