Why Tech Companies Suck at Risk Analysis

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Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3AyHCUd
Youtube: https://youtu.be/7uIOwxWU_HU

In the tech world, we tend to focus on the tasks that directly correlate to our work. But if we only focus on things like fixing firewalls and cybersecurity without understanding our clients - that is what makes tech companies suck at risk analysis.

That is not to say that what we do is unimportant. Our clients would not have hired us if they did not need our services. What is important is that we understand that to our clients, there is a difference between technical risk and business risk.

It is only natural that tech companies focus on technical risk. It’s what we do! But, you must remember that business risk will always outweigh technical risk to your client. Make it a point to talk to your customers. Understand what they see as risks and threats to their company, and then align your services with their needs. For example, if you have a client that runs a dog kennel, their main concern is the health and safety of the animals. If you only talk to them about everything you have done to improve their cybersecurity, your words will fall on deaf ears. But, if you can explain to them how improvement to their cybersecurity helps oversee all dogs that they are caring for and allows owners to safely access live streams of their pets from work, you have proven how your goals match those of your customers. Now your client has more features to sell to their customers, and you have opened the door for your business to provide additional services to build an ongoing relationship.

Aligning technical risk with business risk benefits you and your customers by providing a clear path to success. It helps your clients prioritize the factors that threaten their business and enables you to understand how your services help them meet their goals. Use this as a foundation to expand your business.

Business Risk x Technical Risk = Opportunity

When your client understands how the risks and threats to their business can be resolved by addressing technical issues, it allows you to cultivate your business relationship and the opportunity to offer additional services. In turn, it is your responsibility to ensure that you understand your customers. Focus on what your clients care about and what is most important to them. Learn how to identify the problems they face and then mitigate them to how IT can help prevent problems from happening. This strengthens the trust your clients have in you, provides direction for you and your client and creates a base on which you can expand your services.

Tech companies don’t have to suck at risk analysis. We just need to listen and understand how our work impacts client businesses and reduces the threats they face. Building client rapport is more than just doing a good job. Remember, we have conversations, not presentations! Take the time to understand what they value. Turn your risk analysis from sucking to spectacular!

Fix your Webinars

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Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3AyHCUd
Youtube:

Are you tired of boring webinars? Well, we are here to help! This week, we are discussing how to have more engaging webinars that will be more helpful for the audience.

When you watch a webinar, it was most likely an hour of listening to someone talk, right? Maybe there was a 10-minute Q & A at the very end that let a few questions get answered, but that isn’t truly engaging with the audience. When you’re just using a slide, people tend to lose focus because they know that the slides will most likely be shared to let them go through the information on their own time. When the whole webinar could be sent out as a video and people receive the same experience, you will most likely lose people’s attention.

Engagement is the goal when it comes to webinars. The sad thing is, we’ve been taught that learning looks like sitting in a big room and being talked at. Think about school. There is one teacher who stands at the front of the room and speaks to the class. Some teachers have it figured out and include engaging lessons or hands-on learning, but most students are stuck being lectured. The best students will come in after class for a one-on-one time where they can talk directly to the teacher regarding their confusion.

You should think about your webinar like that: a space for people to learn. How do people best learn? By engaging!

Here are some tips for having the best possible outcome for your next webinar:

1. Only have 20 minutes of material to present

Only have the goal of getting through about 20 minutes of your own content. This will allow you more time to answer questions and feel less pressure to rush through tons of different topics. Spend the necessary time on each item; don’t give people whiplash by trying to get through too much content in a short amount of time.

2. Have a second speaker

Bring another person up with you to have a more conversation-style presentation. This will allow you to bounce topics and ideas off of each other and will give the audience the sense of being part of the presentation and the conversation. Also, allow the conversation to be focused on what the audience wants to hear. Keep the topic relevant and on track, but use the questions and flow of conversation to dive deeper into the areas people most want to hear about.

3. Have one person monitor the chat box

The best webinars will have one person watching the chat box constantly, keeping track of questions and interrupting the speaker when necessary. This person can also comment and communicate with the audience while the speaker is presenting to keep everything flowing smoothly.

Ultimately, you don’t want to take your audience on a forced march. You want them to accompany you to the topics and conversations that will keep them engaged and focused. Pay attention to the number of questions coming in during your presentation. If there are too many than can be answered, then you have completed a successful webinar. Happy presenting!

Are you a bad MSP?

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Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3AyHCUd

In your job, you most likely assume that you’re doing well. Why wouldn’t you? But, if most people think they’re performing well, how do we actually gauge that and test performance? It’s really easy to talk about what makes a good MSP, and that’s generally what we like to focus on. This is a touchy subject, but one that can really benefit you in your pursuit to be a great MSP. So, let’s get started with how to see if you are a good or bad MSP!

The first thing to look at within your MSP is client retention. If your clients are only staying with you because of an iron-clad agreement, then you may have a problem. If you’re only keeping clients because you’re the cheapest bid in town, that is also a red flag. You should be offering a value to your clients that would make them want to stay with you, no matter what. Client retention should not come from force or a constant effort on your part to convince them to stay.

If you can provide an easy out for your clients and they choose to stay, then you’re doing well. We always stress conversations with your clients, and this is a great way to talk about your value and what you provide for them. You shouldn’t have to beg them to stay!

The next thing you should dive into is whether you are continuously improving. If you’re not growing, you’re dying. Essentially, continuous improvement is the cornerstone of what makes you a good MSP. Do you know if you are operating better than you were last year? Do you have the metrics to analyze to see that growth? If you haven’t improved or don’t have ways to track data, then you’re a bad MSP.

If you answered no to the following questions, it probably doesn’t feel like you’re doing badly. Generally, a lack of improvement happens from ignorance or pride. The best thing to do is identify what could be improved within your organization. It doesn’t have to be monumental changes—just small steps that will help you grow in the long run.

The third and final metric is whether your clients are in your lane. Basically, are your clients looking for the type of MSP that you are providing when looking at both services and culture.

People are always looking for different things, and there are a ton of options for MSPs. The thing to look at is what you are providing your clients. Do those services line up with what your client truly needs? If so, great! But, if not, it is time to refer them to another MSP that will align with them better.

Let’s say you work really well with schools, and that is your niche. Almost all of your clients come to you knowing that and looking for high-quality services that might cost a bit more but will align with the education field. If a hospital comes to you looking for the cheapest option, chances are they are not going to be a good fit for you. As a good MSP, you would refer them to another agency that will be able to serve them best.

Use metrics—customer retention, continuous improvement and whether you align with your clients—to test whether you’re a good MSP. If you aren’t, then it’s not too late to improve in each of these areas! If you are doing well, then maximize those skills!

Powerpoint Costs You Clients

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

If you’ve ever walked into a room, gave a lecture and then walked out and wondered why no one bought your product, this one is for you. 

Here at Humanize IT, our motto is conversations, not presentations. If you’ve been with us for a while, you’ve probably heard us talk about that a ton — and, for a good reason! We want you to have the best conversations with clients, and that means it’s time to get rid of PowerPoint. 

First things first, you have to get out of the mindset that presentations have to be information overload. Your meetings should be all about the technology that you’re hoping to implement or the solutions that you find. These conversations have to be about what the client needs and how to get there. Your client most likely doesn’t care what type of technology you’re selling them, they just want to know how it’s going to help them and what the outcome of that tech is going to be. 

So, if you’re going into a meeting and starting with all the talk about tech, you’re going to lose people’s focus. Instead, start by asking a question and engaging with your audience. The best way to have a successful meeting is to ditch PowerPoint and craft a conversation to accomplish your goals. 

Think about a car salesman. When you go to a car lot, you’re not instantly bombarded with presentations and spreadsheets about car performance. The car salesperson generally asks you about what you’re looking for in a vehicle, what you like to do for fun, they ask about your family — ultimately, they get to know you more personally. Then, when all the personal information is grabbed and the relationship is set, they show you the vehicles that they think might work best for you and your needs.

That’s the best way to have a meeting as an MSP, as well. Go in and get to know your clients, find out what they need and why and then, at the very end, go through your solutions that you have come to a conclusion on. Your clients want to feel seen and they want their situation to be understood and these types of meetings will be the best way for them to feel that. 

Now, don’t just go into a meeting completely unprepared. It is best to come with a framework for what you will be talking about as well as some way to collect notes on what your client is saying. This will keep the conversation on point and allow your client to know that you are understanding and taking into consideration what they are saying. 

In order to see success in meetings, you must have conversations with your clients and get rid of the PowerPoint. That way, you leave room for your client to talk and that is what will sell.

Holidays

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Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3AyHCUd

The holidays are here and that means that you might be figuring out who has to work over this time and who gets time off. If you’re an IT professional, you might be hoping to get a moment of peace and quiet in an empty office over the holidays. 

As IT professionals, we want to celebrate the holidays, but there are always projects that can only be done over a day off. Take Thanksgiving for instance. You can eat with your family on Thursday but then come in on Friday to do a major rollout on things like phones or swap out a couple of servers. This is sometimes the ideal situation for IT professionals. You can still celebrate with your loved ones, but you also get to really get stuff done without interruption or calls coming in. A quiet office is also a great break from those loved ones after a holiday spent together.

Say you came in on the Friday following Thanksgiving and got lots of stuff done. This allows you to monitor that progress over the weekend and fix any bugs or problems that might take place without interruption still. 

These holidays can become like custody battles. While many professionals are trying to get time off for the holidays, IT professionals are typically debating over who gets to work certain holidays or periods of time following the holidays in order to get done with everything they’re hoping to. 

This is called change management, which is super important in the IT world. The holidays are generally where we center this change management. Weekends work alright, but holidays are the best time to make big changes and implement new technologies.

Holidays can be a conflicting time as well. The personal side also comes into play. Family is very important, and spending time together is what the holidays are all about. Balancing this family time and also getting stuff done for work can be a complicated game to play. If you absolutely love your job, this becomes even more difficult. But, if you can learn to balance these two things, the holidays will be both a special time of togetherness and a time of solitude work. 

There is another aspect to holidays that most people don’t think about, and that is the fact that, worldwide, we all celebrate different holidays. Some holidays are universal while others are very specific to a region and it is important to keep these in mind when deciding when to work and when to take a break. You might also be able to let another take care of what you’re trying to accomplish if they are in another region and working when the United States is celebrating a holiday.

If you’re a business professional, it could be beneficial to have a conversation with your IT staff and figure out if they actually want the time off over the holiday season or if they would benefit from working one or two days in order to work in a quiet office, uninterrupted.

Thanksgiving 2021

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

Happy Thanksgiving week! To celebrate this special time of year, Elijah, Adam’s son, guest-starred to chat about Thanksgiving and conversations. Let’s dive in!

Knowing who you are talking to and getting on the same page as them is very important for having meaningful conversations. While sipping on Fanta, Elijah shared his love for My Little Pony — something he and his dad watch together. This is a shared experience between the two that allows them to further and deepen their relationship. 

Whether you are talking to someone that has advanced degrees in finance, history or engineering, or it’s your 10-year-old son who’s just awesome, you have to find ways to relate to them. It’s important to look at client and co-worker relations in this same way. Create personal friendships with those that you are around and further your work ability and skill in return. 

Remember that you can have conversations with anyone, no matter what their background is. You can create shared experiences wherever you go. Whether it’s hanging out, drinking fanta or talking to a business owner, the most important part is creating relationships and being thankful for those relationships — this will make sure that you always be able to build memories that you can fall back on. When you talk to someone, it doesn’t have to only be business all the time. Create memories so you can work with and for people you know well and have a relationship with and enjoy spending time with. 

Adam is extremely thankful for those types of relationships, as well as being able to buy a business, go on trips and spend time with family and friends. As you enter Thanksgiving celebrations, be thinking of how you talk to your family and friends and maintain those relationships. Then, bring that charisma into your working relationships.

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.

5 reasons MSPs do not have predictable IT sales

If you are reading this blog, it’s likely that you’re the best managed IT service provider in town, you have the most mature offering, hire and train the best people, and have the best internal processes an MSP can imagine. However, it’s also probable that your sales are just not at the level you want them to be. You are not alone. Even the best MSPs have issues with sales. But underperformance in sales is only one symptom of the problem. The root cause is that your sales are not predictable, and this leads to all sorts of issues. Let's dig into the cause, then see what you can do, then develop a plan to make this happen!

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In the good old days, referrals from your clients came in like clockwork. With your client's testimonials, you were able to close 80-90% of the leads you generated. The competition was weak, and it was pretty easy to communicate why your service offering is superior. IT problems were obvious to clients and business owners wanted to solve those visible issues to grow their business.

Over time your potential clients have been increasingly able to solve their visible IT issues. The market is saturated and it’s now very hard to differentiate. Compounding all this is dramatically decreasing opportunities coming from referrals.

This leads to several issues: 

Coming in second against "trunk slammers" who win your well-deserved deals by undercutting your prices. It’s frustrating because you know the service quality will be lacking, and the client will be unhappy.

The new website with expensive marketing materials even promoted by paid advertisements did not yield results. Leads are coming in from all over the place but your well-crafted marketing campaigns.

You hired an IT sales expert or inside sales lead generation company, but the calls were unqualified and you couldn’t convey your message, so most conversations didn’t lead to sales.

"Building an MSP is hard enough, and business owners should have a predictable sales process to fuel the company internal process and service developments."

What are the main reasons for IT sales being unpredictable?

I know you want to jump into the solutions, but the major part of solving a problem is understanding the causes. Let's go quickly through the main issues:

1. You want Control but your IT sales is too reactionary

You may have noticed a trend of business owners getting motivated to switching IT providers or replacing internal IT when "SOMETHING" happens. It can be anything. Their IT guy leaves them, their IT provider finally dropped the ball and they’re fed up, or they’ve realized that they have outgrown their provider. 

The key is that "SOMETHING" has happened, which leads to the need for a new provider. After this "SOMETHING" has happened, they google the local managed IT service providers, and the IT sales activity starts without delay. 

This "SOMETHING" is out of your control. It can’t be triggered by you, but without it none of your MSP marketing and IT sales activities can start effectively generating predictable demand.

That leads you to invest in MSP marketing and IT sales, but with no control over meager demand being generated for your services.

2. You want to solve real problems but prospects look only for "Better IT"

"If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses" - Henry Ford

Your prospects are no different. You have been solving root problems they do not even understand need to be addressed. They don’t know why the world needs security policies, an IT roadmap, or moving legacy things to the cloud. They want "better IT", whatever it means. Your sophisticated approach can be intimidating and let them feel "we are not there yet". But eliminating those issues would create "better IT" eventually.

Your "trunk slammer" competition can cater to their needs with deceptive communication. Not that they are bad guys, but they can address the client's needs very inexpensively. Yes, they’re soothing the symptoms, but not curing the disease, because their methods are very cheap. That never actually achieves "better IT" so they keep changing providers, and repeating the trial. That can engender a negative view overall - "IT guys are all the same... they just don’t get it".

That all means you lose deals even though you are the clear choice for the discerning business and were confident at the IT sales meeting that you got this.

3. You want to solve business problems but "they just don't get it"

Remember how IT sales used to be much easier when your value was more obvious and naturally presented? They had slow computers, and you gave them fast computers. They had slow internet, you gave them fast internet. They had devices, cables, and applications all over the place and you uncluttered it. Primarily your solutions were DIRECTLY addressing their obvious tangible pains.

Unfortunately, your other values such as proactive support, IT Roadmap, unified stack, employee education, and security policies don’t perform so DIRECTLY. They have to burn calories to understand why an IT roadmap and a lifecycle management plan lower the cost of their IT investments. They just don’t see any of this as clearly as they understood the faster computer benefits.

Now you’ve become disconnected from most of your prospects. You feel like there are no "ideal" customers out there anymore.

4. You want to Differentiate but the "other IT guys" are all around.

"To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail." - Anonymous

Your marketing and sales effort is geared toward the "problems" and "pains" you can solve. And no wonder all your competition promises to solve the same sets of problems. As more providers start up, more people are fishing in your pond. As fewer clients can perceive the less obvious IT problems, the smaller the pond is.

However, there is another pond. A pond which is getting bigger and is still mostly undiscovered. It takes courage to leave the pond everybody is fishing in for an empty pond nobody seems to be interested in.

This pond is full of mature, financially stable companies with leadership teams that have already invested in IT, and have no VISIBLE IT problems. They have their managed IT service provider already and they are happy with it. 

However, these companies are suffering different problems that seem unrelated to IT infrastructure, like weak employee productivity, lack of excellent internal communication, the management team lacking proper data in their weekly reports or the need to automate many cumbersome processes. These are NOT VISIBLE IT problems, but you can solve them, and communicate this to generate interest.

Without finding the right pond to fish in, you are lost in the noise and have no chance to differentiate.

5. You feel you got the deal this but the prospect goes dark on you.

The last issue is not something new for you. Engaging with you takes a bold move from your prospects. They need to trust they can give you the keys to their kingdom, they need to invest in their infrastructure, they need to talk to the MSP they’re leaving, exposing them to security risks, they need to face some internal challenges of adopting new processes and come to terms with why they are paying twice what they did before.

The barrier of entry and the switching of costs are enormous for your clients. I know you try to offset this with "free onboarding" or very generous project prices upfront. But this is a fact that the better your services are, and the better your solution stack is, and the higher your maturity is, their switching cost is going to be even higher. The switching cost can be the sole cause  that kills your deal.

Without the experience of being a client, they do not understand why they should be a client. It’s a Catch 22.

Without being able to engage them with low-risk, low-switching cost engagements, your competition might steal your deals as the perceived switching costs might be way lower.

What can you do to make your IT sales predictable?

This article is geared toward the realization of the problem rather than the presentation of the solution. But I do not want to leave you hanging without any hint of what can be done. So here it is in a nutshell.

1. Elevate the message

Your IT Infrastructure, Cloud, or even cyber security theme do not provide the necessary differentiation and the leading edge you need. 

Your theme has to address the pains and problems of executives, not the subject of your service offering. 

Your theme has to be exciting and forward-thinking enough to attract the business owners who have NO VISIBLE IT problems yet. 

Your theme has to make your competition puzzled and too scared to even try to copy. 

I am not going to spoil anything here, and you know why.... because we do not want to educate your competition, right? More later...

This elevated message helps you to build a marketing and sales funnel that actively attracts your ideal target clients. It makes lead generation more natural and has conversations with prospects without requiring the "SOMETHING" to happen to them to look for providers.

2. Implement a IT Consultative Sales Funnel

IT Consultative Sales Funnel is a very special funnel. It is a thorough, slow, and step-by-step process to educate your prospects and provide value along the way. It is not for the impatient ones. The IT sales process consists of a well-crafted landing page leading to a well-crafted lead generator leading to a well-crafted call to action, then to a well crafted first conversation to a well-crafted consultation meeting and then a well-crafted proposal leading to a well-crafted paid consultation engagement leading to well-crafted processes to expand to ongoing services. 

Wow... this is a process of eight different well-crafted things... you might feel overwhelmed. The exciting thing is that as the process is linear, pushing people to the top of the funnel and optimizing the steps to help them get through is pretty simple. Also, it gives you a unique process, and is invisible to your ever-catching-up competition.

3. Kickstart The IT Sales with Specific Campaigns

Your IT consultative sales process has enormous advantages: 

It can be applied to any part of the sales funnel. It can be at the top of the funnel for people who don’t yet realize they have problems down to prospects with whom you had some engagement recently and lost a deal.

It can be applied to existing clients as well. As the process has consultative elements, you can perform those events with them for client engagement or even expansion.

It can be a great source of referrals. Not to become a client directly but referrals to get more qualified leads into your IT consultative sales funnel. You can distribute this funnel quickly to your clients and ask referrals for the consulting engagements. (like your consulting sales process has an attractive lead generator, or you have a Workshop of any kind that can be referred to). This can be viral, meaning the leads can be generated automatically based on your IT consultative sales activities. Just like, you may remember, for dropbox.

With only parts of the IT sales funnel ready, you can kickstart campaigns for prospects and clients to start fueling your referral engine. 

Plan to make a predictable IT sales funnel

I know this is a lot to take in—many new concepts from the "SOMETHING" to different ponds to fish in and entry barriers. There are many new concepts from fueled referrals and IT consultative sales. I know... this is good news... the more overwhelming this is, the more difficult it’ll be for your cheap competition to emulate.

Also, you might feel this is a "ton of work" you cannot commit to.

But you have a choice to make. To step back now or to push this further. Ignore the opportunity or move and learn more. If you are the brave type, if you are like the cutting edge, if you are thinking forward, you know this is worth exploring further. We know you need a plan to put this together and have a process to implement the ideas.

A blog can’t cover it all, and we wanted to do more...

We created a 7 Day Video Series to go into the details. Why 7 days? Because you can leverage a 5 Step Framework and a 2 Step Implementation Process. We want to give you time to digest all steps separately and let the different action items sink in. It will provide you with a quick but comprehensive look at the actions that need to be taken for predictable sales.

Why did we do that? We believe that MSP owners have been working too much too hard on their business and deserve more predictability. One thing that seems out of control for you is sales. We want to help solve this problem so you can predictably grow your business. You can provide predictability for your employees and their families and get rid of the anxiety of being unable to control your business's primary source of fuel: new clients.

Accelerate Your Growth with the new features just released

I am happy to introduce the sets of software features, updated templates, expert guide content and super specific programs to accelerate your growth! If your Account Management is not producing project revenues, your vCIO is not getting paid for advice, your Sales people are not getting leads or your cyber security services are not being sold then this release is for you! This is what we are going to cover:

1. New Software Features for Growth
2. Expert Guides for Growth
3. Role Specific Programs for Growth
4. Quarterly Sprints for Growth

1. New software features for Growth

One competitive advantage can be to build your MSP faster, design and communicate services better, create better client experience and become a high-value business partner.

Integrating these functions into one platform will generate momentum and even solving one bottleneck at a time keeps that momentum building. You don’t need to master everything all at once - just one at a time - then ride the momentum to reap the results as you move on to the next bottleneck.

New Features to Help Inspire High-Value Client Conversations

During the 2019 Q4 release we were focused on making you a master communicator as an Account Manager, vCIO, Technical Account Manager, Owner, Salesperson or even as a virtual Chief Information Officer.

Click on the circles!

Some of the major focus areas:

Sections: Organize your reports better into sections, open them for clients and focus on the content you are about to deliver or their decisions you want to support.

Questionnaire: Get involvement by conducting questionnaires up front. Use the results for an audit, checklist or a general progress report. More involvement leads to more commitment.

Calculators: Turning vague ideas into specific numbers, percentages or dollar amounts will facilitate communication. Use calculators with clients together for clarity and collect evidence to support their decisions.

Snapshot: Taking occasional snapshots will build a story about the problems they had, the solutions you provided and the growth they achieved with your help.

Integrations: Use more tools from your stack like BrightGauge, Office365 or SmileBack to pull out detailed data whenever you want to underline your message or show evidence.

Audience: Communicate to the right audience by selecting client side roles such as CEO, CFO, Office Manager or IT Coordinator. Log the meeting based on their seniority and collect Client Engagement Scores.

Infographics: Get your ideas across with modern visuals, interactive drawings, timelines, processes or charts. Customize your own graphics or embed auto updating partner infographics for changing content.

Scorecards: Simplify things with quick ratings. Gather user feedback, executive opinion or even the internal team's perception of scorecards. Send surveys or complete within the report and showcase scorecards.

New Features Help You Focus and Boost Productivity

The other big focus is on your execution efficiency with the 2019 Q4 release. There’s dashboards show aggregated information, a renewed Connectwise integration and many small workflow related UI enhancements to do more with less.

Click on the circles!

Standard Adoption Score Dashboard: Have a quick glance at the current rate of the adoption of your technology stack. You can set different scores for different segments and measure with attention to your diverse clientiele.

Growth Score Dashboard: Identify the amount of revenue in your deal pipeline and where revenues are stuck. Find out why you can’t move from planning to approval or why projects aren’t closed and billed.

Client Engagement Dashboard: Keep tabs on your high-value clients and be confident they all have regular meetings and are engaged. Even a substantially cheaper offer won’t undermine your value and they’ll stay.

Master Roadmap Portfolio: Forecast workload, budget and analyze projects together to be able to push certain initiatives further or close them faster to meet your resource allocation needs.

New Connectwise integration: Generate Connectwise opportunities and projects from the platform and keep those opportunities and projects synced with your PSA and your roadmap. This is a true two-way integration to sync account management with the service team.

Task Library: Simplify operations and communications by predefining tasks needed to meet the technology best practices. Connect library items to your scores and auto-generate tickets in Connectwise.

Multiple Seniorities: Assign different client-side roles to your contacts to make sure you have all types of conversations you need with the strategic, tactical and technical business roles. 

Expanded New Templates: Updated templates for the Client Engagement Excellence Program are ready for you. A brand new Quarterly Business Review with visuals, dashboards and partner content will help you get inspired and build the report that will support your goals.

2. Expert Guides for Growth

Choose a role you want to explore further and watch the short video for inspiration. Expert guides will walk you through how to grow your business with that role. 

How to grow with Account Management

Sell High-Value, standard projects with a proactive process - by Myles Olson

How to grow with vCIO

Drive Strategic Conversations and take on the execution by Adam Walter

How to grow with Technical Account Management

Develop Technology Standards and get all your clients to adopt - by Skip Ziegler

How to grow with Sales

Generate qualified leads and differentiate with client experience - by Mark Woldman

How to grow with cyber security

Make cyber security make sense to clients and offer packages they can buy - by Caleb Christopher

How to grow with Focus on Execution

Create structures for AM/vCIO, keep the team in focus and ensure accountability - by Elissa Kulczycki

3. Role Specific Programs for Growth

We are introducing role specific SMART goals for you to accelerate your growth with one role at a time.

• Account Managers: Generate $100.000 project revenues in 10 strategy driven QBRs
• How to grow with vCIO:  Upgrade 3 clients to a paid stand alone vCIO package with $3.000 MRR 
• Technical Account Management: Approve a Technology Roadmap with all key clients to adopt your Technology Standards
• Sales: Get in front of 5 high-value prospects and close 2 deals with $5.000 MRR
• Cyber security: Upgrade 10 clients to a paid stand alone cyber security package with $25/user/month
• Managers: Structure your Account Management and vCIO Operation with Client Engagement Score
  

4. Process for a Sustainable Growth

Growing your business can be done with quick high-intensity bursts. These results unsustainable growth with short peaks of results. We want to make sure you have a long term vision, break those to quarter long rocks you can deliver. Those rocks are focusing on one area, fix the bottleneck and keep it sustainable. Then you move your attention to the next goal but build on top of the previous efforts.

1. Platform Orientation Meeting - if you have no membership yet, let's start exploring your goals and discover how the platform might serve your growth
2. Growth Readiness Assessment - assess your readiness of growth and identify the bottlenecks holding you back preventing your breakthrough
3. Smart Growth Action Plan - build a SMART goal and plan your next steps to achieve those goals with an action plan
4. Execute your Rock - do it by yourself, pick an expert guide's education or engage with a 1-many or 1-1 program to make things change
5. Repeat - go back to the drawing board, choose your next goal and get started on the next quarter.... 

Grow your enterprise one quarter at a time

Hope you are excited to get your MSP to the next level and start building your SMART goals and action plans!

5 Reasons You Lose Deals to Your Competitors

Are you struggling to sell Managed Services?

If you are struggling to sell services, don't worry, you are not alone. MSPs of all sizes are feeling the pinch when it comes to sales, so this struggle is not exclusive to you. 

Factors such as increases in competition, frugal clients, poor product positioning, diminishing referrals and lack of overall strategy, cumulatively contribute to a continual decline in sales.

Leads are at an all time low and the cost of generating leads is at an all time high. In light of this, it is more important than ever to utilize ways to set yourself apart from the crowd, secure your role as an industry expert and thus, gain credibility from existing and future clients.

With referrals being fewer, and certainly further in between, it is increasingly harder to grow your business with any sort of consistency. And, SMBs are bombarded with sales and marketing messages from IT companies every day, making it increasingly difficult for you to land meetings with qualified companies.

This makes it imperative that you find a way to stand out from the competition and find a way to convert leads into clients. If you look like the current IT provider or, just like every other MSP out there, with similar service offerings, you are virtually giving the prospect a reason to buy on price. 

If you want to put an end to the dreaded ‘Lead-Proposal-Closed Lost’ cycle you will need to become more effective at creating the vision of a higher value experience and demonstrate you have the ability to deliver that experience.

Does this sound like you?

"We'll be just fine once we find a way to get in front of more prospects." While this sounds logical, nothing could be further from the truth. Even referrals do not have the high close ratios which we came to expect for so long. And, leads generated by your own efforts are much more skeptical, with the industry average close ratio well below 30%. Because of this you must have a strategy and a process that sets you up for success.

DIFFERENTIATE YOURSELF FROM YOUR COMPETITION AND

BECOME SALES READY IN 30 DAYS