PitchIT Volume 2

Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2NHRRDl
Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3AyHCUd
Youtube: https://youtu.be/xK0KEi-AKD8

Welcome to the second part of PitchIT with Sean Lardo of ConnectWise! We’re diving deeper into our IT world and how to provide your service to clients.

For those of us who work in IT, we know that our industry is ever-changing and growing. However, the growth that we’ve seen over the last few years has been exponential. When Covid hit, our services had adapt and expand in ways we did not anticipate. People had to stay home and run their businesses while out of the office. Innovation wasn’t what we wanted. It was what we needed!

Serving our MSPs is, of course, always at the forefront of our work. But how do we ensure they have the resources and understanding needed to do their jobs? The answer is simple, and ConnectWise has broken it down into 3 promises they make to their clients.

Be easy to work with
Invest in partner growth
Bring more innovations faster

Being easy to work with sounds simple, but it’s more than being friendly and showing up with a smile. You need to know your clients’ needs and develop solutions they can understand. Your clients deserve to know your company’s value and how it betters them. When people think of IT, their first thought is cybersecurity. But MSPs work with everyone from mechanics to bakeries by providing services from HR automation to accounting. Understanding what your clients want and need makes it easier for everyone to achieve their goals. Make it a point to know your clients and be personable! Ask them about their weekend. How’s the family? Let them know you care and are genuinely invested.

Investing in partner growth helps your client achieve their goals and keeps ongoing business by building stronger relationships with your customers. At MSPL, we believe in conversations, not presentations. Before meeting with a client, send them an agenda with your understanding of their needs, how you can address them, and how to move forward in the future. It tells your clients you are listening, invested, and have a firm grasp of their goals. Don’t use your PowerPoint or slides as the basis of your meeting. Use it to keep the conversation on track and address the topics that need to be discussed. An hour-long conversation should only require 20 minutes of slide show presentation. Tailor your conversations to your clients. Showcase your understanding of their needs, that you’re invested and how you can be of service.

Your clients want results, and they want them now! When you talk to your customers, you’re telling a story. Let them know how far they’ve come, where they are now and what the future holds. Each conversation needs to be better than the last. It allows your client to see how quickly you’ve improved their organization, where they are now, and the potential yet to come. Know your vertical, your space, and own it! New IT companies sometimes get into the pitfall of, “We can do anything!” but that’s not necessarily true. Sometimes a request goes beyond the scope of your abilities, and that’s OK. Be honest with your clients and help them find another venue to fulfill their needs, even if that means sending them to your competition. It shows the clients that you care and want to get them the best results as soon as possible.

Serving clients is the primary goal of any business, IT or otherwise. By being easy to work with, investing in partner growth and bringing more innovations faster, you are setting yourself and your customers up for success!

Talk like a CFO

Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2NHRRDl
Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3AyHCUd

As an MSP, you probably hate talking about finances, but, learning to talk like a CFO will help you be able to better connect with your clients. A CFO is focused on what financial actions are going to increase profits for their company, and you can use them as a resource. Let’s dive in!

First, you have to think about the CFO the same as the CEO: they are an executive who is trying to run a company. A CFO is looking at the revenue coming in and, although they are not responsible for generating that revenue, they are responsible for how that revenue gets allocated. It’s their job to manage expenses and make the right financial decisions for their company.

When an MSP comes in and talks to clients about products and services, the CFO is just thinking about it being another expense. You can’t blame them, it’s their job. Everything is looked at as either risk or reward.

To speak like a CFO, you must think about the financial aspect and how the company’s finances get managed. This means you should talk about products and services in context with how they are going to help the CFO’s company. This will let your client know that you are being thoughtful with your technology suggestions and thinking of your client’s return on investment.

With that being said, you can also learn a lot from your client’s CFOs — they are going to be one of your best resources when it comes to defining what’s going to help the company. CFOs have spent a lifetime learning what they know and you have to take advantage of that.

Ultimately, you don’t have to be a financial expert. The CFO is already filling that role.

MSPs sometimes show up to client engagements with the expectation that you need to educate your clients on technology. If we leave it in those terms, you are not going to get those meetings right. You need to show up and allow your clients to educate you on their business. Along the way, you are going to explain your role and make sure that your client understands how their technology is helping them, but the role of teaching your clients how you do your job is not what your main goal should be.

If you want to sell your clients fully on a product, you’re going to have to talk like a CFO. And, to talk like a CFO, you’re going to have to learn from one.

If you really want to get in with a CFO, tell your client contact that you want to understand how finances work at their company. Ask if you could have some time with the company’s CFO to chat about how ride offs work within their industry to see if there are any that you could help them take advantage of with your technology and services. This will knock their socks off!

You may not know anything about finances or taxes and you may hate the thought of talking about those topics, but you can sell your CFOs on what you’re trying to implement if you can show them why and how it will benefit their business and use their knowledge as a resource.

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.

WATCH our free RECORDED webinar and we'll explore how to prepare

client meetings even more efficiently

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.

How to Schedule QBRs for Engagement

Most MSPs have a hard time not only engaging executives in QBRs but even being able to sit down with clients, as they don’t see the value they add to their business. The goal of scheduling a QBR is more about selling them the process, benefits and the results so they see the value and look forward to these events.

We are going to discover the minimum requirements of scheduling an engaging session with the right people in the client’s organization. As a result you are going to get more executive level decision makers in your meetings with higher anticipation.

UPSELL YOUR CLIENTS WITH STRATEGIC QUARTERLY BUSINESS REVIEWS AND IT STRATEGY MEETINGS

Define the Value and Benefits for the client

Without defining the value and benefit of the upcoming QBR people will be less likely to engage. You want to make sure you aim for the highest possible level in the organization, even just for the main contact person.

Consider these ideas from the client’s perspective to craft your message accordingly. We have found these messages effective if crafted properly:

1. The ultimate goal of the QBR - “IT is an integral part of the corporate operations. Our goal is to make it as efficient as possible and support the company goals effectively. To deliver continuous value to your organization we need direction, priorities and to understand your goals to serve you better.”
2. Benefits for the client - “During the session we are going to discuss IT Infrastructure, IT Cybersecurity, Office Productivity and Technology Strategy related questions. That makes the board aware of the opportunities to improve their business and achieve their goals.
   During the session we can review certain performance indicators, make decisions and answer questions. Then we generate action items we can distribute among the teams.”
3. Pain relievers for the client - “We made sure that this process is very efficient so we do not waste anybody’s time. We discuss business topics, priorities and directions with executives in plain english, to help us engage your team for the execution part.
   That means you invest 2 hours every quarter and you do not have to worry about the technology any further. We get the approval to go to the right direction in helping your business to excel.”
4. Cliffhanger - so they do not want to miss out - “During our session we are going to walk you through a specific best practice with Office 365 that’s saved thousands of dollars in productivity for other clients. We are going to let you know the top 3 cybersecurity tricks that hackers are using recently.”
   If you have your own templates such as above for your style, then you can always customize these letters with the client and add more specifics.

Productivity Tips with Managed Services Platform:

• Create a template of this email and add it to their report as a content widget so that you always have the last message on file
• Track the client’s roles in your QBR template so you always know who is responsible for what on the client side to deliver the messages accordingly

Client Experience Tips with Managed Services Platform:

• Record a short video on your phone, embed that to your content widget and send for a personal touch alongside the letter.
• Create a snapshot and copy the content to your email and share the report with them so they can see the previous Quarter’s topic, results etc. 

Issues, Risks:

• Your QBRs should deliver the value you highlight here, and as you mature the value is going to increase
  Do not over-promise, if the experience doesn’t deliver you might lose the executives for a while

2. Schedule the meeting professionally

Although the best way is to create an annual predefined calendar with each client, the individual meetings have to be always scheduled.

This part is very critical as the client always can make an attempt to skip the session - “everything is great we do not need a session now” - or worse, defer the session to a lower level employee without real decision making power - “let Jannie do this for me, I’m busy with other things”. Therefore reiterating the value and having the value proposition on hand is very helpful.

Using a calendar invitation tool is always great as it helps the client to pick the time from your calendar. However, it requires their diligent action to schedule the session so you might give up the control of the process.

A good tactic is to actually send them a direct invite 2-3 weeks in advance AND ask them to choose a different time if it does not work. Now there is a meeting in their calendar and they have to take action to cancel it or reschedule, but you avoid an open loop.

Productivity Tips with Managed Services Platform:

• Set the client touchpoints (Annual, Quarterly, Monthly or no Touch) for a client so that you will always keep track of who needs a meeting for a given month
• Block Days in your week for QBRs, like every Tuesday AM / Wednesday / Thursday PM so you can stack multiple sessions
• If you have the Client Engagement Score (CES™) module you can generate the specific activities based on playbooks upfront

Client Experience Tips with Managed Services Platform:

• Embed your Calendar Tool to a content widget so they can choose a time easily
  
  

Issues, Risks:

• It’s best to have a certain date pre-scheduled with every client in your calendar.
• Getting into an open loop can be easy, so be diligent in getting something on the calendar

Conclusion

Your goal is not just to get to their calendar to make sure we have the session with client executives. We want them to want you to be there with anticipation, being engaged and looking forward to the session with you.

To accomplish that you should craft the value proposition of the session and schedule the meeting professionally.

How to bridge the gap between cyber security technologies and business value

The borders of the network have disappeared, and people have moved out of the office with minimal focus on securing their remote environment. Ransomware events are increasing in both frequency and amounts demanded. Compliance and certification is getting more focus as governments move to support cyber security initiatives. The news is full of talk about security concerns. 

Despite all the trends favouring cyber security related services, the gap is still growing between the real value of cyber security Services and their perceived business value. 

In this article we go after why MSPs still seem to be struggling to articulate the business value of higher cyber security standards, creating proper business development plans and capturing the market opportunity. That leads to all kinds of problems for clients, including not being protected. Bad executive decisions mean MSPs cannot monetize cyber security services and end up hurting their bottom lines.

We are going to go through the 4 main challenges creating the gap between the technology service providers and the clients. The interesting thing is that all the four major challenges are related to miscommunication. 

Just a step back before we jump in on the communication issues and the potential fixes. 

We all know that cyber security issues have increased because technology affects personal lives and businesses deeper and wider. 

Most of the cyber security related issues are invisible to users and business owners.

Most of these issues can not be solved by implementing another technology, but need to change user and executive behaviour.

That means solving the problem is not really a technology problem but a leadership one. Solving the issues won’t come by just implementing more solutions. They need to actually take leadership and guide the clients through this transformation.

Most service providers, though they’ve shown years of excellence providing best of class services, have no experience in stepping forward to lead people through behaviour changes.

Therefore the root of the problem to solve cyber security problems is NOT applying a technology solution but applying business leadership. The gap is getting wider between cyber security services and perceived business value as the service providers are applying more tech instead of more leadership.

Let’s see how MSPs are making this happen.

COMMUNICATION ISSUE 1 -  TECHNOLOGY CONTEXT

MSPs often see and communicate the issues from the technology perspective.

• firewall needs replacement
• MFA should be adopted
• stronger passwords need to be implemented

These are all technology related solutions and so they create a technology context for the conversation. Many of these are acute issues so the MSPs try everything to convince these executives to implement those solutions.

The problem is that clients get turned off, maybe seeing MSPs as pitching products and services taking advantage of their lack of knowledge. Of course this is the opposite of the original intent.

How to fix: Apply Business Context

If the communication generates a business context then MSPs can apply the solutions in the client’s frame of reference rather than their own. MSPs should ask questions to lead executives toward better decisions.

• How comfortable are you with your current ability to respond to a detected cyber incident?
• What does that mean to your reputation, client’s perception or the organization’s day if a ransomware attack could lock up your systems?
• What do you think your role as a business owner is in providing a secure and low risk environment to your employees, clients and stakeholders?

The result is a business conversation where the MSP can understand the executive’s thinking process and give their input about a potential false assumption or offer more help in understanding the potential impact of issues. The goal is not to convince them that cyber security is important but to furnish them with the perceptual framework so they understand the risks and their role.

Communication Issue 2 -  Technology Assessments

The market has been flooded with different kinds of cyber security assessments. The better ones follow a framework such as NIST CSF (US) / Essential Eight (AU)  / Cyber Essentials (UK). These assessment software solutions help MSPs to streamline and automate a conversation about cyber security, risk assessments and remediation plans. 

Although we believe this is the way to go, the major issue of these attempts is that it is driven by technology people in a technology context. These assessments check the security posture against various threats and try to convince executives to fix those with various technology tricks.

How to fix: Business Assessments

These assessments should be backed by cyber security frameworks such as NIST CSF (US) however the recommendations should be easy to understand business action plans for executives. These reports should be delivered by account managers and not technology people purposefully. If the results and recommendations are delivered from a business perspective there is always an option to go in depth with technology people. However the conversation stays on a business level in general.

The benefit is that the Account Managers are forced to look for the business use cases and can filter out the unnecessary tech talk from these assessments. Obviously the preparation of these assessments comes from the technology side but the presentation, and the leadership will be on the business level.

That gives relief to the executives of speaking the same language and forces the account managers to effectively communicate the business value instead of listing technology recommendations.

Communication Issue 3 -  Technology Solutions

Most cyber security assessments list an overwhelming amount of technology recommendations - systems to implement, hardware to purchase, upgrades, policy and compliance activities and other things an average client will not comprehend. This leads to confusion and confused people make default decisions. The default decision is obviously to do nothing. This is very easy to do as most of these technology recommendations yield benefits that are not tangible.

How to fix: Business Action Plan

Instead of listing recommendations such as: “Implement Multi Factor Authentication Solution” which is a “solution” to a business benefit narrative to “Prevent unauthorized access even with a password breach”. Or Instead of “Security Awareness Training” which is a solution to a benefit “Building a Cyber Vigilant Employee Culture”.

Now you are able to list those benefits as projects, and you can list the activities behind the projects such as implementing technologies, but the narrative is business friendly. That communication encourages better decisions and demonstrates the benefits of the initiatives instead of leaving clients confused by a plethora of technology solutions. 

Communication Issue 4 -  Development Projects

Many MSPs are longing for a “big bang” revolutionary cyber security project to be purchased by the client. The assessment remediation projects can be done from the technology perspective in weeks or months. They try to sell the project and probably try to move the client from a low maturity to a super high maturity level quickly. Yes, when companies had to face lockdowns they reacted and adopted change quickly. However if external forces are not that powerful the adoption of change is very slow.

How to fix: Development Process

Seeing cyber security as a “never-ending development process” instead of a “one-off project” gives many advantages. The MSP does not have to force all changes quickly, they can distribute the projects over months and prioritize the low hanging fruit. It also allows the MSP to bring up cyber security-related initiatives to sign off quarterly. That makes it a standard agenda based on the bigger roadmap. So account managers do not have to convince executives all the time, but help them take one step at a time to establish a less risky business over time.

As you can see, these 4 communication challenges and potential fixes are nothing but a change in your perspective.

• think about the client’s point of view
• have a business conversation instead of technology presentation
• enforce a benefit narrative rather than a solution narrative
• think about a slow burn culture change instead of a quick revolution

That turns you into a true advisor, sought after business partner and a communication expert. It will enable you to secure all your clients, reduce your business risk and make your business more profitable.

If you cannot break those old habits then the gap will widen between your technology services and the perceived business value your clients see. That leads to endless arguments with your clients about why they need to invest more in technology and a stagnating and less profitable business.

What to ask from executives on a QBR?

Most MSPs enjoy great personal relationships with office managers and technical contact people because of their regular work together. As executives are not part of the operation it is very important to know them better, understand them better and build strong relationships with them through the only touchpoint you have: Quarterly Business Reviews.

In this article, we check the 8 most important areas you can cover with your executives to get more engagement.

1. Personal related questions

Why ask:
Essentially every business decision executives make root back to personal priorities. If you understand them better as a person, you understand their business better. That gives you the opportunity to offer better guidance and become a trusted advisor for them personally.

• What they are worried about
• What are their personal challenges
• What personal goals they have

2. Competitive landscape related

Why ask:
Their competitive landscape is their playing field. Their competitors, their differentiation, their value proposition and how they compare to others are very important to know. This helps you to find solutions for them to become more competitive.


What to look for:

• What is their competitive advantage
• Why are they winning clients over the competition
• Why are they losing deals to the competition
• How their market is changing
• Any opportunity they see in the market right now

3. Clients related

Why ask:
Their clients are their source of revenue, so client requirements are very important. Understanding their challenges with their clients can help you come up with valuable ideas. How for example technology can enable them to communicate faster, better and easier with them.


What to look for:

• Who are their best clients and why
• What makes their clients happy
• How do they communicate and collaborate with them

4. Growth related

Why ask:
Knowing their past growth and future forecast is critical to see where their business is going. If they have healthy growth, expansion is on the horizon and they need to scale and have resources for developments. If they have growth issues then they might be cautious with budgets but investments in technology might unlock their growth potential.


What to look for:

• Past growth targets and actuals
• Future predictions, goals and forecasts
• Internal and external bottlenecks of growth

5. Marketing related

Why ask:
Their marketing channels have dramatically changed over recent years by the introduction of social media, eCommerce platforms and the changes in consumer behaviours. Understanding the adoption of these new marketing trends is important to see where technology can help them to build their brand, generate leads and promote their products better.

What to look for:

• How they are leveraging social media and eCommerce platforms
• How they are getting leads and how the channels have been changed over the years
• What are their online marketing strategies

6. Sales related

Why ask:
The ability to constantly sell services and products determine the top line of the organization. If the top line is healthy the bottom line can be healthy, as well. If sales are growing that encourages executives and they become more optimistic and open to IT-related developments. However, with a lack of sales, they are more conservative on general IT spending but always interested in how technology can boost their sales.

What to look for:

• Effectiveness of their sales process
• Visibility, transparency of sales with information, report and accountability
• Bottlenecks of sales

7. Operation Efficiency related

Why ask:
Every organization is full of internal challenges. Broken processes, client experience issues, productivity challenges or growth pains. The quest for operation excellence never stops. This is the easiest topic to engage executives: what is broken and how do we help fix it? It can be a report, an integration, a new application or just better communication.

What to look for:

What processes are broken and why
What is the single most painful bottleneck of the company
What part of the business process generates the most noise in the organization

8. Management related

Why ask:
Every executive leads other people. Managing expectations, meeting with others, communicating, leading projects, accessing information and making decisions are their everyday life. Most of their personal frustrations and excitements are about their management role. Anything that can help them be more productive and become better leaders are a priority.

What to look for:

• Management challenges
• Personal productivity issues
• Communication, collaboration and project management issues

Covering these topics regularly with your executives puts you in a position where you are able to solve their Business Problems. That leads you to become a trusted advisor for them.

Are you truly engaging your client executives and owners?

Download our Executive QBR Power QuestionS 

How to craft a perfect QBR Process

Quarterly Business Reviews are tricky. Some clients are not engaged with your QBRs and require a different approach, some clients don't justify the time spent on a QBR every quarter, and some clients are more mature and need different reports, even some demanding complete technology roadmaps and updates...do you need a custom QBR template for each client?! If there's no one fit-for-all QBR process or template it seems that scaling Account Management and vCIO is going to be near impossible, since every client is different.

In this article we show you a method to assess the complexity of your QBR needs and the time you can afford to run those meetings. Then we introduce three different types of QBRs with all the major agenda points, and we'll show you how those QBRs look in an example.

So you'd like to get set up and running quickly with your QBRs to generate client engagement and opportunities with Project Roadmaps?

The vast amount of selection of report templates, widgets and software functions can be overwhelming when you start. We put together a quick guide to let you choose not only the templates but the best approach and software functions as well.

STRUCTURE, MANAGE AND AUTOMATE YOUR ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT AND VCIO PROCESESS

Prerequisites:

Before we jump in, just a reminder of the four roles of Client Engagement. If you have not yet read the article you might start there. The four roles that make you a high value business partner

A quick refresher: The idea is that there are four critical roles your company needs in order to engage a client. These roles are distributed among Strategic/Tactical and Business/Technology domains. The challenges is to make sure you command all domains and communicate priorities with clients. This is a basis of planning and designing a QBR.

With respect to the four roles in your QBR there are communication agenda items for each:

What we are going to address here is which role and which agenda should be covered with the different types of clients and circumstances.

Walkthrough:

In this video we are going through the 3 steps that will find you the best template for your QBR.

1. How to do a quick self assessment - now you know what approaches you might need
2. How to choose from the three approaches - now you know what the different approaches do
3. How to perform each approach - now you know what topics are covered and how

Step 1: Self Assessment

Not all QBRs are created equal. Each MSP has their own way to interact with clients based on their current situation.

To choose the right template for your QBR you must first assess your current situation to determine the best course of action.

Assess the Complexity Scale

You should decide whether you have small, medium or high complexity in regard to QBRs.

Average Client Size

• • Large client 75+ seats (high)
  • Mid size client 25-75 seats (medium)
  • Small client 25- seats (low)

The larger your clients are the more complex their business and IT environments can be. This requires assembling more complex reports delivered to different stakeholders.

Your Team Size:

• • A Team delivers QBRs (high)
  • A single Account Manager or vCIO delivers (medium)
  • The MSP Owner delivers (low)

The bigger your team is the more communication, alignment and internal documentation is needed to stay productive.

Audience:

• • Business Focus and Technical focus with multiple stakeholders (high)
  • Mostly Business Focus with Executives (medium)
  • Mostly Office Managers or IT Coordinators (low)

The more people involved throughout the QBR process the more alignment, communication and documentation is needed to get ideas and approvals across.

Decide the Complexity: High / Medium / Low

Considering your answers decide whether you need a Small / Medium or High Complexity approach.

Assess the Effort Scale

You should decide how much time you would like to allocate on the development and the maintenance of the QBRs. This helps to make sure that the process is conducted efficiently and won't be wasted effort.

Time for learning and implementation

• • Less than 3 hours of initial implementation time (low effort)
  • 3-7 hours of initial development time (medium effort)
  • 7-10 hours of initial development time (high effort)

While it is possible to edit and customize the templates, we recommend you start by using the templates as provided. Once you've learned the basics, then, if you have the time and or resources, spend time on customization. 

Preparing a client report:

• • Less than 30 minutes per QBR (low effort)
  • 1 hour per QBR (medium effort)
  • Up to 2 hours per QBR (high effort)

The more time you can dedicate to a QBR the more widgets you can use and the more software functions you can leverage to generate more engaging processes with clients.

Maturity of the current processes:

• • You have a current process in place with automation (low effort)
  • You have a process but need better automation (medium effort)
  • You do not have a current process / best practice (high effort)

The more mature your current QBR process the less time you need to develop your processes and deliver them.

Decide on the Effort: High / Medium / Low

Based on your answers decide whether you have a Small, Medium or High Effort approach.

2. Three Approaches of QBRs

Based on the Complexity / Effort scales, choose which template you'd like to start with.  

Basic QBR

If the effort is medium or low and the complexity is medium or low we suggest you use the Basic QBR.

The process uses a simple IT Infrastructure Audit with a generic MSP IT Infrastructure Health Assessment. It helps to quickly assess a client, prepare the report, farm projects and handle all tactical elements ad-hoc.

• Simple and ideal for ad-hoc meetings
• Very quick adoption time (2-3 hours)
• Great for technical related conversations
• Can be done irregularly once or twice a year
• Farming projects to a roadmap
• Very quick preparation time (~30 minute)

Advanced QBR

If both the effort and the complexity sit in the middle we suggest the QBR report template and simply removing or hiding most of the widgets.

The process uses more content widgets to make recurring meetings possible such as meeting agenda, executive overview, what's new, technology landscape and widgets with embedded technology reports such as Brightgauge.

This can leverage the tool's Snapshot feature to show progress over time.

• Add a regular cadence
• Clarity on progress and value
• Accountability with logging the meetings

Expert QBR Approach

If your team is large and your clients are demanding or you are offering this process as a part of a paid engagement we suggest to go all-in. The modular report builder is going to give you many options and functions to use. Again, you can start small and add functions along the way.

Scorecards can be used for getting insights from internal resources, users or their executive team through simple questionnaires, and pushed into scorecards. 

Service Review widget is a way that you can associate service bundles to your clients and review the offered services one-by-one. This is a great way to officially review your services with high maturity and demanding clients.

• Very versatile approach for handling very complex use cases
• Can be branded to your organization for use as an internal report (for internal IT teams)
• High level of PSA integrations allows you to develop very efficient workflows
• The report can be version controlled by an admin and lower permission users can only complete reports
• Combining with the Client Engagement Software overall Client Engagement Scores can be generated

Conclusion

Finding the right way to craft and effectively deliver your QBR requires the following:

• Understanding your Client Engagement roles
• Understanding the QBR agenda for each role
• Understanding what level of complexity in QBRs your clients require
• Understanding how much effort you can put behind a QBR
• Choice of an approach (or multiple if needed)
• Designing the agenda items
• Building a dynamic report that reflects the required outcomes

It might be intimidating but for Managed Services Clients you just need to go through the decision making process and pick our pre-built templates. Customize what you need but always consider the required time of development and delivery implications of those developments.

How to help executives make strategic decisions in the bathroom

The two most prevalent trends in client engagement are the increased frequency and remote delivery of meetings. We see, however, another trend that may surprise you, and its impact is as significant in your client meetings as in your sales meetings.

The power of the traditional printed collaterals, pdf reports, and personal influence is fading from future decision-making processes. This trend shows that your client executives and prospects might be making strategic decisions sitting on the toilet….

I do not want to bury the lead. Our tool is used to prepare, deliver and follow up important client meetings. We measure engagement with shared reports and we’ve just found out that the majority of follow-up items from client meetings such as QBR Reports, Strategy Reports, and Sales Proposals are opened on mobile devices. 

This shows not just a surprising shift in engagement, attention span, information processing and decision making in general, but should send a wake-up call for every client-facing employee: the way to win deals, approve projects and upgrade contracts is not just doing the same thing in zoom.

Every account manager, vCIO and sales executive should rethink how their processes can help them succeed not just in the next 30-60 days but the years to come.

Here are 6 quick tips to think about in this new era of decision making:

1. Pro setup is not a luxury

At Managed Services Platform we’ve been performing ONLY remote meetings. We have first-hand experience with closing new clients more easily and showing off our services with confidence when the quality of our media - visual and audio - is non-amateur. Even your client’s trusted technology company loses credibility if your setup looks like home-movies brought to work.

• Pro lighting front (led lights for $150-400)
• Pro 4K webcam ($150)
• Pro Microphone ($100)
• Pro Background (well lit greenscreen or photo backdrop)

Ask us in chat and we’ll send you a good setup Amazon shopping cart example.

2. Add more engagement to remote meetings

Sales and client meetings are all about human influence. Shifting this experience to remote meetings can introduce a suite of barriers to the communication. Often the sound is choppy, body language doesn’t track, and your audience feels disconnected. Here are a couple things you can do to keep the realism in your remote meetings:

• Send an agenda ahead so people can prepare… even if it’s in the meeting invite
• Send any pre-work the other party needs to do in advance
• Ask questions frequently through the meeting

3. Follow up with a short video

Yes I know you can record a session with zoom and send it to the client. But this is like expecting them to read the 40 page proposal you'd have sent them in the past. This ain’t gonna fly. Let’s record a quick video with your webcam and put that into the report like it was designed for it.

• Use https://www.vidyard.com/ or https://wistia.com/soapbox  which will help you record your video inside your browser, share the screen and share with a client in a minute
• Keep it under 5 minutes long
• Summarize the findings of the meeting and the action items
• Make sure anybody who wasn’t an attendee can understand the video (as we hope they  pass it onto a teammate for follow up)

4. Create collaterals to promote quick decision making

Now your executive is likely watching your video while cooking dinner with the kids jumping around, or while walking the dog. You can’t count on deep concentration from your audience, and they want a shortened decision-making process. What you need them to do is send an email back with the word “Yes”.

• Send a complete report as a reference only
• Ask one question in one email right in the subject line so they can answer yes or no
• Put only the additional information like parts of the report that are related to the question into the email
• Do not get wordy - send a clear goal and calls to action

5. Always close the loop

Never finish a meeting without setting up the next one. This is Business 101 but in this remote work era calendars are full and chaotic with mixed family commitments and disrupted routines.

• Use an online scheduling tool and open it during the meeting
• Don’t wait until after the meeting or let them pick later (they won’t)
• Make sure you set the agenda and the time for the meeting before you leave

6. Increase the meeting frequency because meetings are cheap!

Imagine doing a meeting remotely with 1 minute to set up and 1 minute to close. You no longer need to travel 30 minutes, park, get in the building and find a coffee. Conducting quick 15 minute follow up calls is easy and cheap. These meetings generate focus on you and on the decisions they need to make. So let’s set up quick sessions to give them this focus time.

• Increase the meeting frequency with short sessions 
• Set up recurring weekly sessions until the decision is made
• Put in the effort to use the meetings wisely so you’re not wasting anyone’s time

Even if you’re still doing client meetings or sales meetings things have been changed fundamentally. These are quick tactical tips that you can expand on. It’s just as important to polish your remote meeting style in the new era to ensure your clients make the decisions you’re professionally advocating.

Why the better MSPs work the less perceived value they have

For a while after our session with Sea-Level something was bugging me. We pondered a conundrum in this seminar: why can’t MSPs not become the victim of their own success? Why does a smooth service have to lead to disengaged clients? How can the MSP remain the hero not justhen the client has problems in their day-to-day operation but even when those problems are gone and the technology just works, and they stop noticing the value of the services? 

After many 1-1 discussions we came up with an answer. The issue comes into clear view from a distant overhead, as does the solution. Now having been able to create a model that explains the problems, the solution is far less difficult to manage.

We are going to break down the problem into 3 stages each with a brief explanation.

Develop and operate a scalable and structured

account management and vCIO operation in 30 days

The Model of Perceived value and Maturity

We are going to use a little model here. On the vertical axis you see the level of the Client’s  IT operation maturity. The more mature the IT operation, the fewer problems will arise. This is where MSPs commonly focus their energy to ensure reduced ticket noise and a smooth IT operation. The operation maturity is climbing not only on the MSP’s side but on the client’s side, as well.

On the vertical axis you can see the Client’s Perceived Value of the IT services. As you see you are a victim of your own success. The better IT you provide to the client the less value they perceive from Technology Services.

This model is not about the net value that they got but their perceived value. There are three distinct phases along the journey. Let’s tackle one at a time.

Phase 1.: Constant IT Problems

This is the phase in which most MSPs have made the initial sales deal. The prospect had low IT maturity with minimal in-house or outside resources. They were fed up with the problems. When their MSP came on board perceived value of the services skyrocketed. The MSP was able to bring order, standardize operations and improve the quality of their work.

In this case the value was entirely in Technical Services and was very obvious to them. Nobody had to sell the value.  Everybody has it laid out in front of their relieved eyes.

Phase 2.: Reduced IT related issues

Now after years of your hard work it seems that IT is no longer on the board meeting agenda as it no longer generates issues. Everybody is working efficiently, the discussions with the MSP become “business as usual”. Some problems arise occasionally but are mostly within development projects and aren’t emergency issues. Complacency grows and clients start to see the MSPs more as a service provider rather than a hero.

Now in this phase, the value is even more clear from the MSP’s perspective. The work is harder, more processed and very high maturity. But this is exactly what prevents problems from germinating and if the client has no metric to evaluate the MSP other than “problem, issue resolution” then the perceived value will start to fall. Cruelly, their net value is rising while perceived value declines.

To maintain your well-deserved perceived value to the client in this phase is no longer a technical service-related task, but communication-related. This is the phase when the MSP needs to establish a proper Account Management / Technical Account Management practice to be able to communicate the value of the services. These are the technical reports, and roadmaps to be able to show to the client the hard work the MSP is actually doing. Nothing fancy, just let them see what they are paying for. Without introducing Account Management, the perceived value will diminish. That is the beginning of accruing an Account Management Debt.

Phase 3.: No IT related issues

The next phase is where very few MSPs can increase the perceived value without stretching the boundaries of the initial Managed IT Infrastructure Contract. In this phase, the IT infrastructure is not just good enough, but probably overshooting their need. Just think about how much advantage most aren’t taking of their Office 365 subscriptions outside of email. 

The client’s IT maturity cannot be raised more without them actually implementing applications and leveraging the opportunities of technology. This part is hard as now the client’s willingness will essentially decide what’s next.

This is the place where churn becomes likely even with very satisfied clients. Why? Because they start shopping for “cheaper” alternatives. The majority of the developments have been done and no more technology projects are on the horizon. They start feeling less value in their services.

This phase is no longer just a technical and communication related one. If the MSP cannot connect the application of technology to their business then the client will not see value or opportunity within IT. If the IT only keeps firewalls and emailing with Office 365 then it will not be seen by them as a real business relationship. 

The MSP has to establish a business conversation with a client to be able to stay relevant. The client management team should believe in the future and the opportunities that technology can bring to the table. This requires a true IT consultancy mindset and services. Without a business consultancy, digital transformation or business vCIO mindset and services the perceived value will stagnate at best.

Your Decisions:

1. Treat Clients differently based on their maturity: Check your client base and determine at which stage you are with them. 

• If they are in phase one, you need to push awesome technical solutions. 
• If they are in phase two, you need to add high-touch account management to be able to communicate the given service value. 
• If they are reaching phase three, then brace yourself…you need to introduce a new way of thinking and sets of services to generate business value outside of the technology focus. It’s that or create many mechanisms to lock them in even as their perception of value declines.
  
  

• Defensive Strategy - shoot for the clients on Phase 1 and 2 then monetize the opportunities along the way. Once they’re reaching Phase 3 do whatever it takes to keep them even with a declining engagement
• Offensive Strategy - do not even try to sell to Phase 1 clients but focus your efforts to catch Phase 2 clients. Invest in development services for Phase 3. (vCIO, Application Management, Cyber Security Compliance etc.) Then go out to the market and steal clients from MSPs playing the Defensive Strategy. How? Simply offer the client’s executives “business value” with IT strategy planning sessions and Digital Transformation services.

Conclusions

The trends are obvious. 

1. Fewer and fewer small and medium businesses will be in the Phase 1 stage.
2. There will still be a great deal of clients in Phase 2 but the competition will be very fierce here.
3. More and more clients need higher-level IT services - it’s a real emerging market with little competition. Here the challenge is service development and a consultative sales process.

None of the options is easy to manage but all are predictable from the big picture standpoint.

Managed Services Platform Account Manager Report 2019

In our previous blog post, we reviewed how we typically see our vCIO community members from 2019, so now let’s look at another report regarding our other active community of more than 700 account managers that are working with us today.

Generate client engagement with five qbrs in 30 days

Like in the case of our vCIO community, the language composition shows a clear majority of English-speaking countries. 62% are from the United States, 10% for both Australia and Canada, and 5% for the United Kingdom and New Zealand respectively.

The most active movement of account managers is concentrated in the United States, Eastern Coast. However, the most numerous account manager nucleus is scattered in California, North Carolina, and Texas. The largest city groups are in New York and San Francisco; furthermore, we should mention Toronto, Canada and London, UK as well.

Considering that the most active account manager groups are scattered throughout the United States, its no wonder as to why their educational experiences aren't centralized in any American university. However, at the beginning of the list, classic technical education centers can be seen: Berkeley, Stanford, MIT and Harvard.

The account manager function is related with technical account management topics like sales, information technology, engineering, support and only partially related with business management topics such as IT consulting, business development, finance and project management.

Between the groups and forums, hot topics are more technology-related than any other; virtualization, Microsoft Office 365 and recently cloud computing, NIST cyber security. It should be noted that smaller MSPs usually deliver these services through outsourcing or assistance from an MSSP or CCSP partners. In order to develop these transformations internally for MSPs, we have launched our “Build a Better MSP” expert guide program with a wide range of building business solutions for the SMB space. 

Unfortunately, only a small minority of account managers feel the importance in developing their business management skills, like consulting, communication, decisiveness, problem-solving and leadership. The technology dominance usually happens when owners of MSPs with less than 15 employees perform the account management role themselves, among many others. And most of these MSPs are challenged with the commodization trap of their service offering. So they look for new cloud or security services that can differentiate themselves from other MSP competitors. 

Regarding their experiences, we can say that qualified and veteran account manager experts are a majority in managed services providers with more than 15 employees: 70% have more than 10 years of experience in the technology market and the other 21% have between 6 and 10 years of experience. That’s why they have a high percentage of account managers at seniority level positions. The other reason that account managers find themselves in senior level positions, as mentioned further above, is that CEOs are usually the  executives of small MSPs with less than 10-15 employees, but are also often the Account Managers as well.

Often small MSPs do not have dedicated Account Managers, while the mid-size MSPs with more than 15 employees are challenged with MSP Account Manager turnover problems, because more than 50% of them have less than 2 years experience with the organization. That's why MSP owners try to give their account managers a clear playbook of activities that they can manage and fulfill with clients. Likewise, they would visibility gain access into their account manager activities.

So what are typical and successful MSPs like with account management services?

• Small MSPs usually have resource problems because the owners or executives try to provide account management services themselves, among many other roles, which is the reason why they can not be full-blooded professionals who don’t always have time resource problems. 
• Account managers are dedicated professionals from a mid-sized MSP with more than 15 employees but owners of these businesses are challenged with employees for which the solution should be developed into a scalable business consultative service with processes, predefined segments and tools that support their executive and monitoring demand. 
• Account managers have strong technological backgrounds and interests, but only a small minority are interested in developing their consultative and business-related skills. However, like vCIOs, should feel comfortable talking with small to mid-sized business executives, and last but not least, they should understand how to put technological solutions into a business solutions context.

Be sure to download our growth guide below, and for more information on how to build, strengthen or create a more efficient Account Management offering, check out our account management Growth Solutions here on our homepage.

• vCIOs in United States
• vCIOs in New Zealand
• vCIOs in Australia
• vCIOs in Canada
• Managed Services Platform vCIO report