How Salespeople Close IT Projects Faster?

We’re all too well aware of the enormous amount of work that goes into the preparation phase of every client IT project. From the idea stage (we need to replace the server architecture) to actually being able to send a proper quote ($18,500 with labour cost) the MSP spends dozens of hours coming up with the IT project plan and the numbers. The hours are tracked as “sales” hours spending time on those quotes but at the end of the day most of those projects never take off. Everybody is bummed, the client calls off the opportunity, the team writes off the time to a “lost opportunity” category and life goes on. However there is a totally legitimate, battle-tested sales tactic that a few MSPs use to cut this unproductive and morale-draining busy work. Let's get into the details.

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What is the real problem?

Once you do the work and prepare the IT project quote, then three things can happen:

• Client loses interest during the process, the pain is not there anymore and the issue is pushed to “next quarter”
• Client realizes they have higher priorities seeing the $18,500 quote and saying “we did not budget it in”
• Client starts negotiating but eventually goes ahead

The real problem is that the client receives all the critical information needed for the decision only AFTER you’ve poured dozens of hours into the project scope and planning process, and when the pain and problems are likely not that pressing anymore. That leads to lost opportunities AND time.

The information came too late in the process and was probably much more precise than needed for actually making the decision.

How to fix this?

Salespeople use a process to overcome this problem. Their goals are:

• Strike while the iron is hot - “move things along while they’re in focus“
• Qualify the client’s budget against the solution - “are they ready to pay?”
• Make a “reversible” decision - “do not be pushy”
• Get a “letter of intent” from the client - “evidence of the priority”

They are not pushing people or being salesy. They want to deliver all the information to the client as soon as possible for decision making AND to get proper feedback, to enable them to invest in the opportunity.

They want to move the decision making way up in the process in order to qualify good opportunities and avoid those with less chance of success.

The two best practices they are using are the price testing and the pre-approval in order to move the decision event PRIOR to the excessive work of planning and quoting.

Step 1. - Price Test

The first thing to qualify a client for a certain project is a price test. This is a verbal agreement from the client that within certain conditions they are good to go. At this point it’s pretty hard to guess the right price for us (lack of proper scope) or to commit to any price. So they are qualified for the opportunity with a price test to make sure it’s worth the time.

They use a price range ($16,000 - $20,000) rather than a hard number ($18,500). This reflects the assessment of the magnitude of the work. It does not really make a difference if it is $16,000 or $20,000 to make the preliminary decision. But the client isn’t left guessing between $5,000 or $100,000 and has a reliable budget range.

Second, the salespeople cannot commit anything to the client yet. Instead of saying: “This would be about $16,000 - $20,000 to deploy the solution. Can you afford that?”, they’ll say “last time we solved this problem for a similar size organization it was about $16,000 - $20,000; is this in a range worth solving the problem?”.

You see the difference?

Managed Services Platform Tips

• The IT project roadmap is a perfect place to play with numbers in the budget sheet
• Predefined project templates help to vaguely scope the projects without extensive work
• As these projects are likely going to be custom feel free to add the templates to the roadmap and start editing with them

Step 2. - Pre Approval

Talking is useful but writing is a different level of commitment. Most clients do not realize how much work goes into the project preparation phase, and innocently send you to craft a proposal like they’re fishing. If they realized that this is a bigger commitment on your part, they might take this more seriously.

When companies are making their bigger deals involving a lot of work from both parties they sign a paper called “Letter of Intent”. This agreement is not legally binding but strong enough to demonstrate interest from both parties to invest more time and money.

In your case this is something like a “Pre Approval”. The pre approval requires only a number from the price test and a defined results and outcomes to solve the problem.

If the project scope is templated then you are able to get approval right away. If not you can write a quick brief and send for pre-approval.

Managed Services Platform Tips

• The proposal process is ideal for asking for pre-approval
• You can link your “Terms and Conditions” to the proposal to offset legal obligations
• You can use the note section to state that this is only a “letter of intent” and not legally binding

Conclusion

This is how you protect your time and resources and work only on IT project plans and quotes if both parties have agreed on the boundaries. Most managed services providers are operating in a high trust environment with clients. If the client is aware of the “additional work” needed to actually prepare a proper quote, understands the goal of a project and knows the potential investment, they can easily pre-approve multiple projects. That puts the tech team in a better position to invest more time in higher probability opportunities and not hustle opportunities with no potential for success.

Do you have an Annual QBR Playbook?

Although client meetings are getting shorter due to the remote environment, account managers need to pack more into each session. Flooding the client with too much information in a short amount of time leads to an overwhelmed audience, a lack of decisions and countless unorganized follow up meetings. The key is to be able to define all the talking points with the client and spread them out logically over the year. This sets a predictable rhythm for the account manager and the client so they can discuss all salient points and make decisions one step at a time. In this blog we review how to best distribute the topics over the year and the critical points of developing your Annual QBR Playbook.

Your QBR Annual Playbook is your game plan to specify the different topics, decisions and engagement over the year on the different QBRs. This playbook is developed internally and shared with the client to engender alignment.

Different playbooks should be developed for different client segments. If you have only one meeting with a client for a year (as they are small and have no budget for more meetings) you cannot really have a playbook with them. However if they actually have 2 or more meetings a year then a playbook can come in quite handy. We are going to review a 4 meeting QBR formula as this can be applied to medium and larger clients as well.

Are you a time-crunched account manager?

The QBR Annual Playbook helps you understand how your vCIO and Account Management team can maximize their productivity.

1. Decide on the Main Topics

The main topics with the client can be divided into three different areas regarding your service offering.

1. IT Infrastructure - everything about their devices, stack, services, vendors, infrastructure components and connectivity
2. Cloud Services - everything about their applications, cloud subscriptions, storage, integrations, adoption of applications and their Office Suites
3. Cybersecurity - everything about their policy, compliance, awareness, risks, best practices and staying productive with high security standardsThe fourth area is the strategic perspective that brings all these above into a bigger plan with goals, initiatives, budgets and updated services. This gives you the ability to plan with them over the year and get all they need organized into an IT Strategy.

You can shift these topics as you want, but those are the main points we see MSPs discussing in different shapes and forms.

2. Kickstart with Audits

Each quarter should start with an Audit. An audit is a great way to specify “what good looks like” and compare the current reality to that ideal. An Audit also promotes continuity with ever-increasing scores, so they can reflect on their plans while getting closer to the future state. These audits and scoring give a tangible feel for often abstract or unfamiliar topics.

By sending them random thoughts on Cloud or Applications, you can provide them a list of different categories of application types that help with different business problems. That helps them to see the big picture and understand how technology can help their business.

Audits also streamline the account manager’s efforts and gives complete transparency on which client stands on what level of maturity. These audits can be combined into one “IT Excellence” score which gathers the different topics into one number.

3. List the things to review

Often the amount of information you need to share with the clients can be overwhelming. Some QBRs go as planned, but many get sidetracked with rabbit-trail discussions so not all points get the desired attention. 

Listing the different items to review will give you an easier agenda for the meeting, and preparation of a follow up lets them review some items before or after the session. 

In some cases it’s really important to “remember” that you reviewed their security state and they decided not to move forward with a certain action item. If you just missed that review and something goes wrong you have nothing at hand to prove it, or let alone explain that you did not have time to cover that topic over the QBR.

This can be a simple checklist to make sure you track. It will also drive your meetings as they’ll understand you have a list to go through. This practice with a general audit of the topic can be very helpful to cut the time and get aligned and on the same page with all parties.

4. Keep the plans integrated

You need a good QBR system in place that provides a higher level of governance with a client. That means that if an initiative came around over a cybersecurity audit it would not become an ad-hoc project they have no budget to cover. Without a proper IT Strategy each QBR becomes a “sales effort” to get approval on projects, which will reduce engagement.

The IT Strategy part solves this issue. If you have those 3 major cost centers for them (they spend money on IT infrastructure, Cloud and Cybersecurity) then the 4th session is to plan and budget in general. That gives the eagle eye level of view of their “current scores”, “future scores” initiatives and budgets. So as this is planned a year upfront the Quarterly Business Reviews of the different topics helps to “fill the blanks” and get decisions on critical initiatives within their budget.

Often working with less mature clients raises the “we have no budget” problem, as they do not plan for expenses on cybersecurity or applications. We have no place on this blog to go into the details, but there is a quick hint to generate a placeholder budget with them over the year: use an “industry benchmark” IT budget as a placeholder for their spendings. You can pick a percentile of revenue for a ballpark and reference for low maturity (5%), medium maturity (7%) and high maturity (9%). That establishes a “reasonable” budget where their IT spending should fall. 

This helps to have those detailed discussions spread over the year and not get into the “sales” conversations every quarter.

Conclusion

Managing your client’s technology is not easy. It takes time and effort from both sides. You are the leader of technology so your role is to create a framework for them to review, decide on and implement development projects to make their IT work for their business. Creating an Annual QBR Roadmap gives a framework and drives those crucial conversations.

Are you a time-crunched account manager?

The QBR Annual Playbook helps you understand how your vCIO and Account Management team can maximize their productivity.

5 Steps to Run Effective Client Meetings Remotely!

Without the ability to meet in person and present your ideas, it may be difficult to keep your clients engaged in IT support services. Spending on IT may not be seen as essential when your clients are struggling. But when has technology ever been more relevant to the success of business and the economy?

How will you communicate your value and the relevance of your services or are you prepared to risk losing MRR right now?

In speaking to our members we have learned what makes a client meeting engaging while working remotely. I put together a quick guide for you outlining the most effective features they have been using in remote client meetings.

 1. Gather information effectively

Share the audit / assessment widget of the report through a link with your technicians. They’re able to complete the current state and make notes so you have a better picture of the status of your clients’ environments. The Service Review widget also helps your techs quickly go through services and highlight issues in a simple RED/YELLOW/GREEN and notes format. You can send a scorecard survey to your clients to gather information from key stakeholders. This way you get more buy in for the meeting as you involve them to the conversation early on. We also recommend importing all current projects and opportunities from Connectwise to your project roadmaps before the session.

2. Brief before the online session

Recording a quick screencast with your webcam turned on is a simple but very powerful way to engage your audience ahead of the meeting. This also saves a ton of time. You can embed the video in a content widget on the top of the report and then use the public share function to send it to your clients by email. Make sure you hide all sections and widgets which are not necessary to share prior to the meeting. Do not overwhelm your audience. You can protect, rebrand, personalize and track engagement by using a link shortener service.

3. Present the report through the online meeting

 If clients are not involved during a remote meeting, they will start multitasking, checking emails and becoming less engaged. Use the report’s interactive functions (scores, project roadmap, infographics etc.) to make this more interactive. You can use the scorecard functions just like “webinar polls”. Send the scorecard questionnaire links to them during the session which they can complete as you talk. Then show them the results to get input and more engagement.

4. Generate action items

 This is more critical than ever to get actionable outcomes from the meeting to ensure accountability on both sides. Use one content widget to have the agenda items in front of you, and list all the action items they need to do and your team will do after the session. It might be obvious but facilitating online sessions and taking notes can be sometimes challenging. You can find a task creation ability on the top of each widget. It allows you to keep the widget’s content on the screen and add the tasks at the same time. 

5. Follow up effectively

 Share the meeting recording after the session, but the best way is to record a quick debrief video right after the meeting and embed it into the report. Then you turn every quick note into specific action items you can share internally and with the clients. This way everybody understands the context and also you can see who watched the video and for how long to get some feedback about the engagement. Use the Task widget to summarize the next steps and export them to PSA tickets. If you use connectwise you can sync the complete project roadmap with Connectwise opportunities and projects.

By following these steps you can turn your in-person QBRs, Audits and Strategy meetings into effective, productive and profitable remote sessions. You’re the hero to your clients’ businesses right now!

Remote Work Readiness Insights from MSPs

Thoughts from our Covid-19 Remote Work Readiness Webinars

We're certainly living in unprecedented times right now. With many businesses looking to stay productive while sending staff home to work, there's never been a time when technology has been so crucial to the economy. Now is the time for MSPs and IT Solutions Providers to leadership with technology solutions that will save their clients. 

With the help of our Member Community and Virtual-C, we put together a few tools to help MSPs clearly articulate the value of their remote work technologies and support. We see it as 3 primary areas of focus:

1. Effectively communicate with your clients that there are remote work solutions which will allow them to keep their businesses running.  This is done by auditing your clients current remote work readiness.
2. Create an action plan, with clear deliverables and defined steps that both the clients and your team can understand and follow. This is done by creating a roadmap of projects for deployment.
3. Manage your teams resources and triage clients needs using readiness self-assessments. This is done by letting clients answer a short survey to gather insights into their perceived needs so your team can focus on those in need. 

We hosted a couple of webinars and asked approximately 100 MSPs their thoughts on remote work readiness from their clients' perspective, and their own.  Here's what we learned. 

In looking at remote work readiness from the clients' perspective, MSPs were split between feeling their clients were unsure or feeling somewhat prepared with help.  

From the MSPs perspective, it was overwhelming that there is a great deal of work to do in getting the clients working remotely.  

IT will undoubtedly be an essential service throughout this difficult time. By uniting our communities and empowering businesses to survive, you will be the hero. 

The IT budget spreadsheet you never find time to build

Have you always wanted to sit down and design a great budget spreadsheet that clearly explains IT spending? One that your clients will understand, complete with pretty graphs?

Here you go!

Clients want clearer and more predictable budgets. This will help their financial departments find tax write offs and adjust spend appropriately. However, they do not know what most of the line items are in their IT budget!

One of the major reasons that IT shops do not have budgets is because of a gap in knowledge. Engineers are not trained as accountants and vice versa.

This easy to use budget template bridges the gap by allowing a breakdown of IT costs to allow for more engaging conversations such as why managed infrastructure helps stabilize budgets!

This includes

• Easy to use Excel Budget Template
• Explanation of how to build a budget for your client
• Explanation of forecasting and basics

Setup a quick consultation call to learn how to generate an extra $13,000 Annually

How much time should you spend on account management activities?

Are you spending all your Account Management resources on your noisiest clients? Does this mean some clients are being overlooked and underserved? What’s the best way to segment your clients and assign the appropriate resources?

Denes spends a few minutes explaining the best practices and how you can setup Client Experience Playbooks to empower your team to always deliver the best experience, that drives MSP client engagement.

Generate Client Engagement with 5 QBRs in 90 days

Bring your reports to life with embedded applications

There’s no arguing that interactive experiences are a lot more fun than just being handed a pre-canned report. The best meetings all share 1 inherent quality: They tell a story that the audience wants to participate in. Now you can structure an impressive, engaging client meeting and consolidate lots of great information in a relevant way using 3rd party applications.

Some of the innovative and successful ways we see our members use 3rd party applications:

• Always have definite next steps setup with your client/prospect by setting your next appointment using Calendly or MS Bookings.
• Review advanced budgeting spreadsheets in an interactive way.
• Embed contracting documents for review
• Customer satisfaction scores to be able to show actual end user feedback.
• TypeForm and SurveyMonkey can allow you collect pinpointed information and share it.
• Powerpoint lets you tell an even more interactive report while you leverage your vendor partner’s extensive marketing materials. Check out the free solution set from Info-Tech Research Group with 11 embeddable example powerpoint presentations.
• The king of marketing...VIDEO! Record a personalized meeting summary with Soapbox, embed, and share your reports to your clients to really take the experience you offer to the next level.

Now you can structure an impressive, engaging client meeting and consolidate lots of great information in a relevant way.

Use meeting themes to selectively change up the topics. Why not build out your reports so each quarter you review all the relevant projects and compliance issues, but have themes such as:

• Q1: Backup & Disaster Recovery - embed your DR reports from Continuum or Datto here, then offer a lunch & learn around data management best practices
• Q2: Policy & Compliance - Review security policies as embedded word or PDF documents. This is a great time to offer end user training to avoid ransomware and phishing exploits
• Q3: Innovation & Learning - Show embedded videos from Microsoft so your clients can see the value of adopting these applications. Now you’re bringing real business value to drive productivity for your clients.
• Q4: Budgeting and IT Strategy for the next year - take your client through a goal setting exercise to uncover their real business priorities using a 10 Points Spreadsheet or SWOT analysis.

Since you can build out your reports with all sorts of embedded applications to keep them fresh, each of your engagements will feel like a whole new kind of meeting that your clients will actually want to participate in.

Check out this shared, read only, interactive report with some examples of content you can embed.

Use the calendar booking app to schedule your 1-on-1 orientation and let us help you deliver a unique and powerful client experience.

Stop Dumping on your Clients

Today let’s investigate how to deliver incredible client experience in your meetings. But first, we have to inspect what we expect from the meeting. 

Most account managers spend hours, or days, putting together a hodge podge of different reports. These often come from various systems with the goal of turning out some kind of relevant justification for the client to stay, and spend more money (upsell). I call this the “garbage dump” approach. The content will change from AM to AM and is usually biased to support what they are comfortable talking about. Too often this is stuff like ticket counts, uptime, resolution time, back ups totals, etc.

Unfortunately, this usually results in the client trying to avoid the meeting or end it as quickly as possible. 

Bring real business value to your clients by making the meeting flow in an easy, comfortable and professional way.

Storyboard it! Make the experience interactive. Ask questions and listen. Now you can diagnose and offer solutions to your clients' problems. As the client gets more comfortable with you, they will share more business problems that you can solve. Now your clients will be engaged and inspired to take action.

This also takes the pressure off you and your account managers to get “creative” in a live setting. Top performers, from athletes to actors, spend thousands of hours practicing. This is so they don’t have to “think” when they deliver a world class, record breaking performance. How prepared and polished is your deliverable, before the "big game"?

Apply this same approach to your business. Instead of trying to make sense of a bunch of reports, follow the storyboard. Use sections (widgets) to ask questions, keep notes, review previous meeting minutes and embed relevant 3rd party content.  Set yourself up with success by making it easy for you and the client to move to the next steps.  Your process is your deliverable.  Your deliverable is your process.  Your account management is now systems driven!

How many touch-points do you think make for the best client experience? Schedule a time with use and let us know.

Success Resources

Try this:  Embed a calendar booking tool like https://calendly.com/ or MicroSoft Bookings into your report. This way you always have definite next steps and don't have to chase the client.

Read this: Building a Story Brand by Donald Miller

How do you proactively plan projects and upgrades with your clients? Let us know and schedule a time to chat with us about delivering the best account management.

Smart Shoppers Won’t Buy What They Think They Already Have

There are collectors, like Jamiroquai singer Jay Kay with exotic cars, Imelda Marcos with shoes and Donald Trump with golf courses, but most of us try to economize, and don’t go shopping for something we already own.

This scenario comes up often in the MSP world: someone in your team (maybe even you) goes to an event and comes back raving about a new product, solution or service they can deliver to all of your clients. It’s shiny and new and can solve all kinds of problems. The one problem left, of course, is getting someone to pay for it.

The obvious course is to sell it to your client and make a profit from the sale or from implementing and supporting it. This is how businesses work, right?

But wait, didn’t you tell your clients that everything is included for a flat fee? If everything is included, how do you make money while offering new solutions?

Most reports for MSPs look back trying to validate what you’ve already sold and delivered. How many tickets were closed, viruses were thwarted, patches were patched, backups were backed up….boring. Smart shoppers won’t buy what they think they already have. Why not show them how stagnant technology adoption means their business loses a competitive edge and accumulates technical debt over time.

Differentiate yourself from other MSPs and their status-quo offerings using forward looking reports and conversations focused on their competitive edge through technology and how you can enhance it.

By highlighting the gaps and risks, they’re a lot more likely to bite on something like multi-factor authentication, password management or team collaboration tools - any emerging technology that can help their business applies. Since all of these start as implementation projects, and turn into managed services, you’ve just won some new one-time revenue and increased your MRR. All you did was help your clients understand where they could reduce risk and create a win for their business. That’s client success beyond IT!

Check out this video where Denes & Myles discuss this and let us know how you pre-qualify new solutions to your clients, or if you’d like some help. Happy MSPing!

Calculating the utilization and profitability of a vCIO

How many clients can a vCIO viably service, and what is the utilization rate? How much revenue does a virtual CIO need to generate? What is the W2 goal rate for a virtual CIO? Many questions like these need to be examined if we want to structure our virtual CIO services successfully. Let's use the vCIO calculation sheet to figure it out!