Convert a business problem to an IT problem with ease

A basic truth of sales is that you need to associate your services and products with the pain-points of your customers, so that what you offer is thought of when those problems arise. IT managed services providers are selling high-level concepts when the client has manifesting pain-points: slow server, slow internet, outages, severe duty service, etc. But what can an MSP do for a client who doesn’t recognize the snags and hurdles they have? Let’s take a look at an easy 5 minute solution to this problem.

Your clients have their own jobs to do - generating more revenue and growth, reducing costs, enhancing operational excellence, HR, and so on. These are the concerns that the owner/CEO/president wants to see fixed.

Our job is to identify the pains within these concerns and ease them. We can easily find some around these areas: most business leaders experience issues around growth, competition, staff and managers. Where they see an obstacle is where they want to find a business solution.

For example, business owners once were fraught with IT technology problems. It was slow, unfunctional, and poorly serviced. It slowed their growth, inflated operation cost, and dragged down efficiency, so these CEOs solved their business problem by subscribing to Managed Services.

Unfortunately that means now IT is so problem-free for most companies that they’ve stopped seeing it as a business problem. They have reliable internet, often all the software they need, and stable workstations. IT is not hurting the company goals anymore, so it’s no longer on the agenda for most leaders. This is causing managed services providers some sales issues.

Ok, but we also know they are far from getting maximum positive results from Information Technology. There’s a lot of room for improvement in their reports, communication is somewhat distracting, and collaboration is usually weak. They have the necessary tools, but most aren’t using them to achieve much competitive advantage.

What if we stop asking our customers and prospects IT related questions, and try to find their real pain points? As we’ve shown, they’re no longer incorporated within IT services.

At least not directly....

Consider the idea of business growth. Growth calls for more sales. More sales can be achieved from new clients. Of course acquiring new clients requires processes, and processes can be automated with a CRM.

So there is an IT related solution here, but it is not directly attached to a pain-point, and the chain of connection from that point to the logical IT related answer is longer.

If we start with the pain-point, we can get to the logical IT related answer sooner. This process is the consultative sales process, but it requires a lot of skill to master the questions and guide the conversation.

We’ve seen patterns - of business problems and IT solutions matching indirectly - so we’ve created a process that gets from the pain to the solution faster.

This is what the "IT Competitiveness Graders" do.

Little surveys ask questions about potential business problems in a very relaxed way. The client answers yes or no for several named problems. After the survey, with 6-10 questions, we can see how many problems they have in various areas. We attach a little hint and some available education for every problem they identify, and give them a general score. In this case, they can "Grade" themselves in a variety of business concerns.

Let's check it out live, (it’s much easier), with an example Grader on productivity.

Take the grader to see how it works  You’ll receive a report with your grade just as your clients and prospects will.

There are questions on meetings, collaboration, managing emails, files, among others. These are business tasks. The client is able to review their scores and the potential issues. We’ve now converted their business problems to IT problems with IT solutions.

We can also use the graders on our website for prospecting. Salespeople can send them over to qualify clients. Account managers can use them before quarterly reviews to collect business problems. You can use the Grader scores and information in meetings to elaborate on the subject and make it a business solution - skip the IT part, nobody really cares. If we find the pain, we can fix it with a solution.

To put it simply...ask business questions and then turn them into IT solutions.

Proactive Customer Development: Leverage your QBRs

Most IT managed services providers are quite proud of how proactive they are, especially in terms of technical services like maintenance, antivirus, warranty, etc. However, if we look at their client's IT savvy, operational maturity, and  IT enablement, this is less true. Here are four easy tips to leverage Quarterly Business Reviews and implement the proactive mindset on a higher level.

If you do Quarterly Business Reviews (QBRs), you can start working on these items immediately. If you’re not familiar with the term, just imagine you’re sitting down with your clients regularly for an informative and engaging business meeting.

1. Preparation for the QBRs

Skip the infrastructure based preparation for now. Let's concentrate on their business instead. Check their industry, and consult with a couple of people...try to understand their pressing needs right now. It can be sales, marketing, cash flow, internal processes, anything that is not IT. For an easy introduction to this conversation let's use the business conversation tool from our free MSP 2.0 Quickstarter Kit.

Here’s an example: check their LinkedIn profile. Is everybody from the sales department using LinkedIn? How many connections do they have? There’s a chance they are not big on business social media. Let's download some intelligence about LinkedIn and social selling and put together a 5 minute session for the QBR.

Let’s add more: look for Slack as an online collaboration hype. Sidekick is a nice sales automation tool out there. Check out Do.com for managing better meetings. Let's put those items on the agenda as HOT products... see what they think and have a conversation.

Sooner or later they are going to read about these software somewhere. If they get important IT based information from somewhere else, our position is redundant. We have to be the center of relevant knowledge on business IT.

2. Implement a killer agenda

Prepare a real agenda. Send it before the meeting, leave room for curiosity, and plan for it to be 60-90 minutes. Use do.com and demonstrate a well-organized meeting with a kick-ass tool. Put business issues into the agenda like "Suggested solutions for pressing needs: sales, marketing, cash flow." Include items to ensure we do not just talk, but act: "Clarifying the deliverables for the next Quarterly Plan," or "Review of IT Productivity Initiative."

It may even sometimes sound trivial, but you need to present it with a proactive mindset. We do not want them to have to ask us about training their users, or what is hot out there. We have to act before they find out about so many opportunities they could leverage from somebody else. We need to be the fountain of great information. Keep in mind you can use this one agenda, with custom modifications, for every client for the given quarter.

3. Forget Bomb reports

Bomb reports and infrastructure reports are fading into the past. Now we are on top of the game, and they should not have any critical issue with support. It can be mentioned in passing that every possible gauge is green and not to worry. They are paying us to keep them green. Don’t forget that customer behavior, motivation and problem awareness has changed dramatically. There are still of course companies out there without decent infrastructure. For them the traditional IT reports are a must, educating them and setting expectations. But sooner or later we solve those problems so we have to move forward. If their IT maturity grows, we have to adjust our reports as well.

There is a better way to use business type gauges: Graders, and Opportunity Sheets. These tools put together checklists on clients’ use of best practices, processes, and so on. We just check whether they are being used, and we can come to a conclusion whether they are working effectively.

For example, we check for productivity and ask about emails, best practices, file sharing, searching for documents, version control, etc. In just a few minutes they have a grade on a scale from 1-5. If they are missing three points then we let them know we should have a talk. Believe me, they’ll be much more interested in that than in expiring warranties and quotes for the replacement of devices that are working fine.

4. Campaigns to release peer pressure

Prepare for a campaign every quarter and your MSP sales and development goals can skyrocket. Imagine this: June is the month of security. We do benchmarks sets for every client who signs up as well as teach best practices, prevention for users, basic safety guidelines, and do a Disaster Recovery Plan with 30% discount.

The idea is to make sure everybody is on board. It’s easier to make it a campaign and do 10 DRPs with a discounted rate rather than selling individually. Also, it is easier to communicate the campaign through emails, and brochures.

Every month or every quarter, you need some unique flavor to show them your skills.

If you are a pro, you can create batched events for that. For example, classroom training, seminars for managers, users among your clients, launch-and-learn sessions for executives. Let's lead the community. When people see their peers working on the same things, they can feel more urgency to take action, and are often more actively involved in solving the problems rather than just discussing them..

Conclusion:

Change the conversation: be proactive about their business, not just their IT infrastructure. Let's move and shake them every quarter and create a community of IT savvy executives who you can lead to progress. If you do, your client base will give you the necessary growth without extraordinary new customer acquisitions, and your referral engine will fire all cylinders!

The 6 Reasons MSPs Tend to Over-Deliver

One of the most common laments we hear from IT managed services providers is over-delivery of too many different services. They feel they serve their clients more than needed and the services go unused by the clients. Account managers end up doing more IT consulting than they should, demands for IT consultation are unlimited, and the IT company invests time on IT projects that never start. Here we delve into the root of the problems and learn what to do about them!

Clients will start with questions like “What is the best application for this problem? Why are people not productive? How do we manage various IT related vendors?”, etc. However most IT companies do not have the right model for IT consultancy, and try to address those needs without a viable revenue model.

The result of over-delivery is diminished return on service investment. Not only do we do too much but at the same time we set unreasonable expectations with the client. We teach them that we do it for free, or that any request is covered already, and that blocks our ability to implement a profit model, if we even have one.

Let's quickly see the six causes of over-delivery and review a solution.

STRUCTURE, MANAGE AND AUTOMATE YOUR ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT AND VCIO PROCESESS

1. No Boundaries on Services

We have clear boundaries in regards to traditional tech related IT services, but the clients have new needs. IT Management related issues like application deployments and cloud transitions are increasing.  Deploying Office 365 to a small business office is more of a consulting job than deployment now. MSPs are missing a best practice for creating boundaries of what is included in the traditional service package.
 

2. Mixing Sales and Consultation

In many cases we do a IT consultation to sell something. They are interested in centralized management of IT, and we teach them about virtualization and all sorts of technologies to help them. What we do is IT consultation, but because we are selling the IT projects, we do not ask for it separately. This is fine until we close most of the projects and make money, but sets a precedent that we do free IT consultation.
 

3. Mixing Project Management/Implementation 

Another fault in doing free IT consultations is that in most of our future projects we do not deploy anything in the technical sense. We keep doing the projects, but there will be less billable technology work. The client doesn’t separate the different types of work - a SaaS CRM integration (we do not deploy a server, just manage the project) from an On-Premise ERP update (we upgrade the servers that are behind, then implement the project). On the one hand we have to make money for the consultation and project management (because there is no tech related work), on the other we generate revenue by utilizing engineers.
 

4. Mixing Account Mananger and vCIO

Our account managers tend to manage the account health and satisfaction loyalty. Most of the time the job is about solving a technology based problem related to our services. However, clients do not naturally differentiate what is related to our services and what is not. Our account managers are thus likely to do additional consultative services as well (and often not realize it). In this sense, they are operating as a mini virtual CIO and managing the accounts IT related issues. The problem is that we do not charge for this service. Again we’re teaching them we do it for free.

5. No Clarity, Definitions, and Alignment

The contracts and other legal items of the engagement may not be suitable for managing a dynamic and adaptive service. The technologies and client needs are changing faster than those formulas. We usually need to adjust to the client’s real needs a lot after we start the engagement, so even if we have a solid contract on the service side, it needs to be flexible throughout the process. After a while some contracts can even become obsolete, unable to serve the common ground with clients and our services.

Another factor is that some clients signing these contracts do so blind. They do not take the contract apart word by word, but just trust the service provider. In most cases they were referrals, and this can cause a misalignment in expectations.
 

6. Lack of Processes 

Over-delivery can be caused by poor execution. We do not have well defined processes in place for consulting work, or if we do, they are not put into practice. It causes vague capacity plans, which we usually overshoot. We are not following best practices, and we tend to work on the same issues repeatedly, spinning our wheels and not moving forward.
 

Thoughts Toward Solution

We will consider a couple of ideas and thoughts about fixing the problem.  This is not a comprehensive description, rather just some ideas that will lead to the solution.

Act on the Changing Client Need

A change in the operations or processes of a client is an excellent opportunity to create a well-defined and entirely separate service offering for IT management and IT consultation.  We should separate the service, so everybody can understand why the traditional package does not have these items. We can still assure the client about what is in the background but if they have a need for more IT consultancy, then you can serve them in a better way outside of the MSP contract. We all have problems upgrading clients to something they might see as included in the service.  We need to have a clear new service with a very professional approach, and deliverables that have clearly visible impact. Reduce how often they assume “this is included.”

Create Boundaries with Mapping 

Mapping out the clients different IT management needs helps to craft services with boundaries. The client's CEO may need some ‘CEO coaching’ and you give them three 30 minute sessions, one in person and two on the phone. They may need to work on their processes - a ‘Process Efficiency Workshop,’ and you give them one meeting per month. They need more training on the infrastructure of what they have, so line up an "IT Enablement Training series" every two weeks with different topics. Each session needs to be a step to solving the problem rather than a series of attempts to make the entire accomplishment.
 

Standardization and Customization 

The great thing about LEGO is that you can build anything with standard blocks. The result is customized while the parts are generic. The same idea is behind creating standard workshops, brainstormings, and teaching sessions. You can teach your organization how to do them. Your clients have different needs, and you can solve those needs by using a custom mix of standard blocks of services and deliver the series of standard elements as a custom result. Of course this is where the mapping of defined boundaries can influence selection of these modular blocks.  You can craft your best offering based on standardized, tested methods.
 

Project Management is the Product

Project Management is usually misconstrued as a by-product - not the real goal, but to get results, we need to do it. If we turn this idea around and make Project Management a product, it helps us a lot. This means we first need to educate clients about the value of well-rounded project management, and we have to make it more tangible.  Implementing an easily put together productive Project Management method is crucial.  These methods help determine and define the deliverables which are needed in their service. The automation behind this can cause additional benefits like more clarity, reporting, etc; however, most of the PSAs (Autotask, Connectwise) have project modules and they do not give us any Project Management Frameworks to use. We have to have our own and implement it within our professional services automations project modules. 

Well Crafted Packaging

We can use a well crafted virtual CIO package with deliverables and processes to offer a service with clear outcomes and deliverables in a scalable way. The packaging has to manage all the changing expectations with all the needed tiers involved. The packages need to be a monthly recurring subscription like your MSP package and at least an annual commitment. Craft an annual delivery plan for the client showing all the deliverables solving their problems, guiding strategy, and exploiting opportunities. This will help them see the goals and what you do to help them achieve them. You can put some to work upfront, as well as have monthly and quarterly recurring tasks, and have fully budgeted hours for the year.  In this case, you can measure profitability the same way as you do for the MSP. 

Conclusion 

A profitable consulting business faces the same challenge as a beneficial MSP service - expectations of management and processes. The problem is common among managed services providers. The IT consultation is less tangible than the tech-related work. It is trickier to demonstrate the tangible deliverables of consultative services that are the basis of our profitable vCIO services. Designing services with clear outcomes crafted in a structural way is a critical first step.

STRUCTURE, MANAGE AND AUTOMATE YOUR ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT AND VCIO PROCESESS

What is the one business skill MSP leaders can teach their clients?

If you look at any well-run IT managed services provider, there are plenty of robust, systematized and documented processes in place. Service businesses are built on process management. Service desk, deployment, migration, and communication processes always require tweaking to be stay efficient, and efficiency is vital to a great MSP.

To enhance this process we use tools like PSA, RMM and dashboards full of metrics to quantify health and successful management. If you’re doing this you’re already in the top 1% of MSP leaders.

In all of this you must analyze processes, written process documents, education of your staff and colleagues, and staff metrics and management. Essentially you become a practitioner of business process management.

Most of your clients need that type of knowledge and experience to boost their companies as well. You can use these to kick off the business discussion and show some value in an area that is natural to you.

Now that we know you have the faculty let’s learn how to act as a IT consultant in the conversation. We have a sheet dedicated to “power questions” for this process in our MSP 2.0 Quickstarter Kit.

Try this: setup a meeting with one of your clients and focus on just one business area, using some of the power questions in the Quickstarter Kit. Choose something like sales, operations, logistics or procurement. Ask about their processes and procedures, where they feel they excel and where they struggle. I bet you can find a technology solution related to the latter. Don’t take my word for it, just try it. Have fun.

12 mistakes most MSPs make with their vCIO services

The virtual CIO phenomenon is not new, yet the promises of the role have not been realized across the industry. Some mature IT managed services providers who believe they have a functioning vCIO practice, on closer inspection, still show challenges with delivery, scalability and profitability.

While we could go in depth to identify the root of these problems, instead here we'll highlight the twelve most common mistakes MSPs make with their vCIO. At the end of this article there is a questionnaire where you can measure yourself against other IT companies.

vCIO Strategy, Transformation Planning:

Mistake #1. Packaing the MSP and vCIO contracts together

Selling the vCIO built into the MSP contract makes you Virtual CIO of the IT Infrastructure. In this there are two pitfalls.

First, the vCIO capacity of the contract does not scale with the size of the organization like the other MSP related services do. It scales up with the complexity, changes and developments of the clients. That means ball-parking a user based price for a virtual CIO is unlikely to be appropriate. This results in either the price being too much for the market (they don’t want to buy it), or the contract being more work than revenue supports (you don’t want to sell it).

Second, creating a solid offer on virtual CIO involves capacity time with a very expensive resource. That makes the MSP offering more expensive compared to the competition. For the client, the results and benefits of the "vCIO of the infrastructure" do not make much sense. Customers are apt to compare prices ‘apples-to-apples’ between competing managed services providers but rarely are the service offerings that comparable.

Virtual CIO can deliver a major competitive advantage. It needs a separate service offering with a distinct pricing strategy.

Mistake #2. Not creating the necessary budget to get results

Let's say we have a 50 seat "sweet spot" client set up with the needed virtual CIO core services like: yearly, quarterly, monthly and weekly cycles. This could eat up 70 - 170 hours easily with automation. (We refer to the virtual CIO here as a general one taking care of every IT-related business aspect: reporting, management systems, applications, budget, vendor management and so on.) If you use a base $150 hourly rate it could reach $2.000 service price per month or $40/user. Your MSP contract simply does not have the space for that.

Further you do not have the necessary processes or approach for that, and you can’t afford that much time, so you under-deliver on your promise of virtual CIO. This damages the concept and the possible future of the service.

Again, if you are not able to create the viable budget for the monthly recurring service fee and communicate the value, either you do not profit or don’t sell the service.

Mistake #3. Not using a framework to develop the system

The vast majority of the managed services providers we’ve been able to talk to do not use any framework for their virtual-CIO-related activities, so they don't have a system in place to successfully deliver them. Instead they operate as "consultants" or arm’s length managerial resources for infrastructure-like projects.

This means they are not able to implement a standardized IT management structure with proper plans, documents or databases that align services across the IT ecosystem. Nor are they able to streamline communication of the duties, tasks, deliverables and responsibilities of the virtual CIO correctly. This makes it hard to achieve the expectations of the client for the role.

Demand Generation

Mistake #4. Not attracting the right audience

Demand generation needs to target the right audience. The virtual CIO job is best suited for companies with 50-150 office workers. If the MSP wants to target a 20-30 or even a ten-seat client, there will likely come a painful realization of the lack of interest and of financial background. Those in higher tiers are left to figure out some system for managing IT. We can go there, but with coaching and support, as a complement the CIO or the IT manager.

Mistake #5. The wrong content

The partner of the virtual CIO is not an office manager, not the CFO or COO. The partner of the virtual CIO is the president/director/CEO - the top-level manager of the company. We know that placing this role that high is a challenge for the average technology-oriented service provider, like most MSPs, but it needs to be there.

Most CEOs are not interested in backups, new MS Office versions or the cloud in general. They spend their time on increasing cash flow, boosting sales, organizing their companies, servicing their clients, and developing their management team. The MSP’s marketing content has to reflect those perspectives and turn those opportunities into solutions supported by IT.

This content has to be consistent across the website, emails, blogs, calls-to-action, in lead-nurturing drip email campaigns, in LinkedIn and other social media communications and in marketing collaterals: ebooks, guides and whitepapers.

Mistake #6. No clearly defined buyer’s journey

The buyer's journey covers the process that a prospect follows, from the first access of content to becoming and remaining a client. While a lot of MSPs have a decent website with a blog most of these blogs lack a call to action - no next-steps for the prospective customer, such as a downloadable e-book on the relevant topic.

These websites talk about available services instead of highlighting vision, possibilities and opportunities. The sales meetings are wired not to serve the clients and create instant value, but to "qualify" the techs - a focus on our opportunities instead of theirs.

The lack of a well designed buyer's journey will fail to attract the right prospect (the CEOs) to the website and assure them they will find the kind of service that will focus on their opportunities. The content needs to attract, engage and interest the right prospect with the wide scope on the business - make them eager to initiate contact and get a demo or have a meeting with the MSP.  

Sales

Mistake #7. Not using consultative sales

Consultative sales is all about selling solutions. In solution selling our approach is not geared toward what to sell to the client. Instead we have a process to ask the thought-provoking questions that reveal overlooked opportunities and potential benefits. It is a process of discovery, of business opportunities where the MSP's solutions can help achieve their vision.

Virtual CIO is not a boxed product so it doesn’t have a standard price. Deep understanding of a customer's business is required before the solutions can be presented. Selling without context and understanding will put the virtual CIO in a very ineffective position, making it difficult to manage expectations.

This method is slower and takes more time, but necessary for engaging the client and crafting the offering within their business context. However exploiting business opportunities, and supporting them with technology solutions will mean more and higher value sales.

Mistake #8. Not selling the vision with stories

The virtual CIO's purpose is to make the client’s business more competitive in its marketplace, with the use of technology, to drive more revenue, cut costs and maximize the business continuity.

These general terms have to be in the context of the client and industry; we cannot really engage the client without selling the vision of competitiveness: being a better company, producing more revenue, and surpassing their competitors.

To sell the vision we have to craft compelling stories that grab the imagination of the CEOs.

Mistake #9. Not confronting reality with numbers

The reality of the situation - the hard data on the current state of business maturity, people, systems and numbers - sets the tension of the proposition. This tension helps make the buying decision.

The “score” needs to be readily attained and easy to understand in order to be compelling. That is why a business IT questionnaire that measures a company’s competitiveness with IT is a must. Without this, even if the vision is clearly defined, there are no quantifiable parameters to achieving it.

Imagine having a vision to run a marathon: a good start would be a full physical assessment. Make clear how hard you have to train, the time frame and the resources you’ll need to accomplish your goal.

Delivery

Mistake #10. Not using vCIO tools like automation or collaboration

Most MSPs are trying to use their existing PSA solutions like Connectwise or Autotask to manage their virtual CIO activities. It just doesn’t work, period. Again, the MSP 2.0 virtual CIO does not just focus on infrastructure. The virtual CIO has to manage people, processes and systems while communicating with the team, vendors and customers.

Most virtual CIOs do not have an integrated approach to managing all their activities in one place, or a system in which they can store all the IT management-related documents, memos, projects, databases, plans, budgets, and so on. Missing an integrated platform wastes a lot of valuable time for the virtual CIO.

Mistake #11. No clear differentiation between onging and project activities

Just as maintenance teams are separate from project teams because of different utilizations, focus, experience, etc.,  so should be the virtual CIO team.  

One virtual CIO needs to manage the core virtual CIO cycles, like yearly planning, quarterly activities, monthly follow-ups, reports, weekly meetings, and so on. An average virtual CIO could manage 10-18 clients, depending on the complexity of that focus.  

Another virtual CIO has to manage the individual projects separately. It needs a different personality, different skills, tools and different daily and weekly routines.

Mistake #12. IT-related service instead of business-related service

In a quarterly session, discussion should include questions about the client's cash flow, marketing initiatives, sales performance, internal projects, and competitor's moves first.

Then it can become a session with reports on the execution of the IT strategy, the quarterly plan, and the plans for the next quarter. It should not be focused on the technology roadmap or IT-related issues, problems, and challenges. It has to be focused on the business, processes, numbers, and business terms.

This can be difficult - there are so many cool IT projects an MSP can propose to a customer - however the conversation needs to remain about the business benefits and business accomplishments.

A successful CRM project is a great example. It highlights the improvements on sales collaboration, alignment, processes and results, instead of talking about the features of the technology solution.

Summary

Please check for these possible flaws in your practices. To improve on those, we strongly suggest signing up for the MSP 2.0 Quickstarter Tool. It has the tools to market and deliver the virtual CIO role right. If you would like to know more about the modern vCIO approach, let’s check this page.

Why inbound marketing works for MSPs

Let’s begin with what makes inbound marketing great in general. It draws your target audience to you, so you don’t have to go to them. You become a trusted authority on your subject matter in your market. The concept is simple but there are some key points I see people often overlook.

First and most important to remember when you’re building your inbound marketing campaign is that you need to be continually adding to the content your audience is looking for. Your MSP’s clients are out there right now trying to find ways to make their businesses more efficient for less money.

If you’re not providing them the information they’re looking for, your competition will. Even if they aren’t actively shopping around for your services they are seeing articles, blog posting, and comments on their social media feeds. There’s a good chance you’re reading this right now because you saw it in your LinkedIn news feed. This is how inbound works.. 

We at Managed Services Platform feel that you should be speaking to the C-level executives who have the authority to buy your services. They probably care about virtualization about as much as they care what brand of light bulbs are in their office (not much). They only care how their business can make more money and expend less doing it.

Let’s make sure we construct our content with that in mind. We’ve ditched the sales pitch, now we’re ditching the tech talk. Here’s a great example:  The MSP 2.0 Service Offering in the 7C IT Management Framework. See how that provides lots of great insight a CEO could be interested in? Did you notice the most important part at the end? The often overlooked Call To Action!

If consistent quality tailored content is the first thing to remember for inbound, having a great call to action is the last. Everything else fits in between. Always think “where is my reader going next?” This is known as the buyer’s journey. Let’s define our buyer, then provide them a road map to not only finding us, but to find out what’s distinct about us, and hence to buying our services.

Follow these steps to be sure your inbound campaign is working:

1. Define your ideal client. Often your business will have several. Usually they are a CEO, CFO, CIO or COO. They have the purchasing authority to buy your services. Write content that speaks to them.
2. Define how they will go from finding your to buying from you. A typical buyer journey goes something like this: they see and choose to read an interesting article you published on linkedIn, then follow your call to action and subscribe to your blog. A few blog posts down the road they follow another call to action and download a checklist. This generates an email from you offering a complimentary report on their IT competitiveness quotient. Now you get to show them how your MSP can give them a competitive advantage in their market. You just found a new customer.
3. Create and distribute great content with blogs, emails, social posts, infographics, quality landing pages and a responsive website.
4. Always have a call to action that moves the viewer along the journey as you defined it.

Our first book: MSP 2.0 - The Managed Service Revolution

I have to admit we haven't done a lot of blogging lately and there hasn't been a lot of new content, sorry. We do have an excuse: we have completed a book about the MSP 2.0 business model.

We got your awesome feedback on our content- thanks - including the observations that our ideas were all in little pieces, lacking real connection. We needed a more comprehensive and linear format to digest this new concept, and thought that the best way to do so was to write a book. Have a look at what we have to offer in this format, and how you can become a contributing part of the story.

The concept of this book is first to analyse the current situation and then to create the practical but holistic approach to make MSP 2.0 a reality. We wanted to deliver a business-minded explanation about the industry we are in. We have an MSP (Hauser Canada) that we plan to make successful over the next 5-10 years. Everyone sees the problems and the turmoil in the industry, but not the complete solution. We didn’t want to talk tactics, or how to sell the cloud, how to price, or package better. We wanted to show a very viable strategy toward the next evolution of the MSP model and what is needed to move quickly on that path.

We observed that while there is proven prosperity in the MSP program, on the ‘break and fix’ model, but we didn’t have a complete business strategy. It has been a long process to change the model, and most IT managed services providers still have a majority of these contracts. Our goal is to clear the slate and see what’s next:

Introduction:

The MSP 2.0 business model is a great blend of the MSP fixed-fee model combined with the much broader scope of IT Consultancy. This book illustrates that new model such that you can see how an MSP can build a scalable business around it.

Chapter 1: Business Focus or Technology focus:

Many IT companies says they are "Business Focused" but what does that really mean? What are the prerequisites to be able to make that claim? What is behind the value proposition?

Chapter 2: Why the MSP 1.0 model is broken?

Unfortunately, the initial Value Proposition of the IT managed services providers is broken. Nobody really cares about the infrastructure any more. It is a commodity, like electricity, and thus the subject is not part of the C level conversation. 

Chapter 3: Opportunity of the MSP 2.0 model

Meanwhile a substantial untapped potential is arising from the client side: the quest to be more competitive with the help of IT...to grow faster, service clients better, and communicate more efficiently. How do you address this huge opportunity?

Chapter 4: Why is it so difficult?

Do you remember how hard it was to switch from the ‘break and fix’ model to the MSP? There are two major obstacles along the way to implementing the MSP 2.0. This is going to be work too, but there are shortcuts.

Chapter 5: Requirements of the next generation program

If we want to tackle this in a systematic way, what do we need to address - the hurdles along the way we need to prepare for eliminate? What should be the scope for such a program, and what types of components should it have?

Chapter 6: The first Complete MSP 2.0 program

The complete program has many layers, like the framework, education, software, community, business building, and processes for each and every stakeholder. The client, who gets the value, the virtual CIO who delivers that value, and the leader of the MSP who is building the business.

Chapter 7: The Client Perspective

What does the client need to achieve competitive edge? Reduce the complexity of the IT, create transparency and a systematic approach to progress, ensure accountability, and effective collaboration.

Chapter 8: Virtual CIO Perspective

What the Virtual CIO needs to deliver is value in a scalable and efficient way: quick client discovery, implementation of core vCIO services and an IT management framework, effective management of IT Projects including collaboration with the clients.

Chapter 9: The Leader of the MSP perspective

What does the leader need to build a business? A Transition Blueprint Program, Self Assessment, Business Model Analysis, Creating the MSP 2.0 Value Proposition, Inbound Marketing Engine, Lead Generation engine, Predictable Sales, and Implementing the Virtual CIO services.

Chapter 10: The Roadmap for success

What is the typical roadmap for IT managed services providers of different maturities, size, and service offerings? What are the foundations and services needed to implement immediately and grow quickly?

STRUCTURE, MANAGE AND AUTOMATE YOUR ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT AND VCIO PROCESESS

Monetizing Client Apps and SaaS Solutions the Smart Way

If you’re like me, you’re often evangelizing cool applications, services, and vendors to your clients. You have a cool feature on your Todo application, or you were able to integrate your CRM with LinkedIn, or you just collaborated with your team with an awesome project management tool. We spread the idea because we are advisors by nature. The question is how can we capitalize on this habit? How do we create service offerings around SaaS-based applications?

I hope you have read our monster blog article about the business model changes of the MSP. In this model there is an item called "Marketplace" in the partnership section, there are revenue streams called "Marketplace Commission" and "3rd Party project management," and there is an activity called "Resell Vendors, Applications."

The idea here is quite a common practice among IT managed services providers - finding a problem on the client side and helping them with an application. After deploying, manage the usage, subscription, and processes of the application. IT companies are mostly infrastructure providers, so they do these types of activities but in an ad-hoc way. What’s new here is the proactivity and a defined structure for these types of services.

PROBLEMS - VALUE PROPOSITION

Your clients have probably been using a lot of cloud-based applications for a while now. The average 20- to 50-seat company solves niche problems with niche applications. Some examples are sending bulk emails, using surveys on websites, organizing meetings and schedules, taking notes, sharing files, managing online marketing and sales activities, and automating processes.

The problems they have are the following:

• Finding out if there is an application for the specific problem (discovery services)
• Finding the right application for the problem (evaluation services)
• Buying the application or managing the procurement (negotiation services)
• Deploying the application to devices (deployment services)
• Creating the necessary processes (process management services)
• Integrating the application to other systems (integration services)
• Teaching the application to people (educational services)
• Supporting the application (support services)
• Managing the billing (vendor management services)

So, in a way they have the same problems they had in the good old days except they now with "technological" problems like installation, server setup, etc. We usually refer to this as an "IT management" problem. Usually clients simply swipe their cards to get access to applications in no time. They don’t know or understand that buying an application is only 10% of the entire process. It is easy to get onto this slippery slope. Users buy applications, then have problems, stop using them, and conclude the technology failed. The trick is education and storytelling.

My favorite story for this is Evernote's business-card-scanning feature. This is a nearly-free tool that can scan business cards, send LinkedIn invites on the spot, and then populate their CRM application with the contact data. I usually go through the process with clients/prospects and explain how it works and that it’s very affordable, because very few people use and leverage its true functionality. They just get it and use it, but the non-obvious features are going undiscovered. After this story, they understand what they are missing. This is a small reframing :-)

The value proposition here is to make your company more effective and vital by harnessing applications.

SERVICE DELIVERY

The delivery side is not rocket science, and very close to what traditional IT managed services providers are doing. However, to do it seriously, there are a couple things to think about:

Problem - Solution library:

Creating the problem library means you collect all the non-obvious problems you could solve with applications. Populating a CRM with Evernote’s business-cards-scanning feature is not an easy one to realize; it might be connected to a CRM through Zapier's integration feature.

You should create a knowledge base of the different business pains of CEOs and package your solutions for that. I bet you have a couple of geeks in the team who know every cool and popular service and app around.

There are also ready sales in managing people, meetings, delegating tasks, managing calendars, personal effectivity tools with the integration of mobile devices. Here, you could offer a bundled solution with to-do applications and shared project management tools, etc.

Integration method:

To make the process happen, you need to use a cloud-based integrator platform like Zapier to connect Evernote and the CRM application. It’s a pretty neat tool - you just drag and drop the two applications you want to connect, select your triggers and actions and you’re ready to go.

Partnerships:

Most of these applications have a partner model. That means if you sell them, you receive a commission. The best win-win way to use it is to share this commission with the client. In this case you remain independent, while still getting the client to choose your recommended provider - they enjoy the benefits of a discount and trust of your partners.

Pricing and packaging

There are many options here, but sooner or later you are going to shift to the managed model, which is very clear and easy to enroll.

Just think about it—they want to buy this service for the same reason they would want to buy a cloud based-application: as a service with a monthly flat fee, a package of their choice, and within their budget.

This is a flat fee based on application per user. You could use Light, Medium, and Pro classifications based on the difficulty of the application. For example, a ToDo app is classified as a Light app while an Online Marketing Tool is classified as a Pro app.

Then, you need to categorize your services, for example into Silver, Gold, and Platinum. The Silver covers basic services, but the Platinum includes integration with five other applications. A must-have is the hard edged definitions of the service, clearly stating what is included and what is extra. This is critical to smart delivery of the service.

At the end you are going to get a decent sized spreadsheet with all the applications and all the packages. The big idea is to aim at managing all their applications, so consider a quantity discount.

Of course, for bigger projects like a CRM or Accounting Package, you could always use the "3rd-party project management" method to monetize on the evaluation and implementation after the application of a flat fee. These are not just "apps"; these are serious business applications.

CONCLUSION

There are huge opportunities in the application world because even when there are no technical problems it doesn’t mean MSPs have nothing to do. There is plenty of work that can propel the success of our clients but they aren’t aware of it...the apps come from the cloud, so they must be ready to go with no more concern.

Teach your clients to build their own marketplace, deliver services, and create more recurring services!

Webinar Takeaways on Selling IT Security and Compliance

It was a really engaging talk with Steve Rutkovitz CEO of Choice CyberSecurity. He is a very successful MSP practitioner specializing in IT Security and Compliance.

We were talking about MSP challenges, strategies, IT consultative sales processes, IT security and compliance opportunities and partnerships, and I learned the following:

Generate client engagement

with five cyber security roadmaps in 30 days

• there are surprising similarities between the mainframe to PC era shift and the PC to Cloud era shift
• To become a successful MSP one of the most important traits is having best-in-class partners
• When you move up streams, you have to make sure you are able to manage management type people
• You have to develop a solid marketing / sales engine to teach your clients and prospects
• The Challenger sales is a great way to leverage the natural teacher inside IT managed services providers
• You can sell NIST Cyber Security and Compliance solutions without doing the delivery side
• The business model of selling IT security solutions through a partner
• The best foot-in-the-door tips and tricks to get front of CEOs
• The complete MSP sales process from “access to address” that maintains the IT security issues
• The natural advisory mindset of IT companies and the potential contained within
  
  

Thanks to Steve Rutkovitz for the wisdom and the honest, straightforward answers. I believe his thoughts could help IT managed services providers in any size and any maturity. You can bet this won’t be our last discussion with him.

Nist Cyber security Framework Quickstarter Pack

MSP Game Changer IT Sales Ideas From The Book - The Challenger Sale