The Importance of Vacations

Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2NHRRDl
Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3AyHCUd
Youtube: https://youtu.be/YWobWj0OcGU


Every single person is super unique, but we all have one thing in common: a need for rest and recuperation. You may be convinced that you can work and work and work with no breaks. In a world that is so fast-paced, we reward people that are hardcore and refuse to step back or take a deep breath.

Although hard work is great and should be rewarded, it’s also pivotal that you take breaks. You can only work efficiently for so long without resting. The longer you work on something with no break, the more mistakes you will make.

You’ve probably been in a situation where you’ve tried to solve a problem or fix something and the longer you stare at it, the harder it seems to come up with a solution. Contrary to popular belief, that problem will not magically become clear by spending more time staring at it. The best thing to do is put it away and come back to it in a little while. You will most likely find that time away makes the solution easier to figure out—maybe even obvious!

Your brain needs time to work stuff out and process. It is a muscle and should be treated with the same respect and care that you treat the rest of your body. Give it time to relax and put good stuff in so you can get good stuff out. Take working out for example. You can’t do your maximum lifts every single day or you will wear your body out. You have to give your muscles days to do light workouts in order to come back the next day and work hard. You also wouldn’t put the heaviest weights on and expect to be able to lift over and over without feeling completely tired and burnt out. And, after a workout, you have to stretch your muscles to allow the best recovery—basically, you have to take care of yourself.

Even if your company offers unlimited paid time off, it can be hard to take advantage of that. You want to get stuff done and you probably think the harder you work, the more you’ll get done. When you’re tired, your body goes into autopilot and simply plays the part. You may feel like you’re being productive when really, you’re getting as much done as you could.

Your brain needs a change of scenery. That doesn’t mean simply slowing down on work; it means you need to switch up what you’re doing. Find something that you enjoy like reading, playing video games or going for a walk to give your mind a much-needed mini-vacation. When you return to your desk, it will be easier for you to focus on the tasks at hand.

Vacations don’t just mean taking a week off and traveling. Taking 30 minutes or 2 hours every day to focus on something else or rest will help you put your distractions on hold. There is a value in dedicated away time that includes unplugging from your work, your phone and anything that might cause you stress.
You may think that this topic doesn’t pertain to you. But, if you find yourself snapping at people, eating or drinking more or having a hard time sleeping, then you are out of balance and your body is trying to overcompensate for your lack of energy. It’s time to take a vacation, trust us!

You should definitely still take that awesome family vacation in the middle of summer. But, make sure that isn’t your only vacation this year. Take time every single day to do something that will make your brain relaxed and make work more enjoyable. Humans were not created to constantly work. Relax and give your body time to recharge and focus!

How to Fire your client

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

Last week, we talked about how to fire an MSP. This week, we are discussing the equally uncomfortable task of firing a client. 

First things first, you want to make sure that firing your client is actually the best solution. It takes about 7 times more resources to obtain new clients than it does to maintain existing clients. You’ve spent a lot of resources and time to obtain this client in the first place. Is it really worth it to cut ties completely? 

The best way to determine if your client needs to go is to list your pain points with them. If there is a solution to one of your problems, then do that instead of firing them and see if the situation improves. If there isn’t a solution, then it is time to fire them. If you found that one of the problems comes from one engineer specifically, try switching their client to another MSP and determine if that solution solves the problem. 

When it comes to actually firing a client, there are two different scenarios that you will fall into. The first is the client is actually a good client, but you cannot service them the way that another MSP could. Say your MSP has developed a niche market for dental offices, but you have one client that does not fall in that category. The best solution is to check what you were supposed to be doing for them, refer a different MSP to take over that has that area of expertise and get everything ready for when that new MSP will take over. This can be a smooth and beneficial transition for both you and your client. 

If you are in a more difficult situation and dealing with a toxic client, the first solution is probably not going to work. If this is where you are at with your difficult client, it is important to be clear but polite. Come up with an exit date, print out everything necessary for them to look at or sign, tell them you are enacting clause 6B and nicely layout the reasons that you are leaving. Again, you want to do this without causing a scene or throwing a fit because that could give them a reason to make you do more work. Make sure you take a deep breath, slow down and be methodical. 

Hanging on to an unhealthy client is not good for your team. If you are needing to fire someone, be intentional and fire them without dragging it out or raising their price in hopes that they will leave on their own. It’s best just to politely rip off the band-aid. 

Before you get to this point, it’s healthy to regularly go through your client list and make sure things are running smoothly. This can be a great way to avoid getting to your breaking point with clients. Along with regularly looking through your client list, it is great to talk to your engineers and account managers and see what they think of each client. Ask them which client they would fire and see what they say. This can give great insight into their experience and give you the information you need to determine if a client needs to go. 

The main thing to keep in mind is to make firing decisions that are in your team’s best interest. Have a transition strategy and plan and be deliberate and straightforward. If you do this, then firing a client will be much easier and your team will thank you. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let’s see how MSPs are making this happen.

COMMUNICATION ISSUE 1 -  TECHNOLOGY CONTEXT

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

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

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

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

How to fix: Apply Business Context

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

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

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

Communication Issue 2 -  Technology Assessments

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

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

How to fix: Business Assessments

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

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

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

Communication Issue 3 -  Technology Solutions

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

How to fix: Business Action Plan

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

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

Communication Issue 4 -  Development Projects

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

How to fix: Development Process

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

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

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

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

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

Business Relationships cannot be automated...

There are many tools and best practices out there to streamline, and automate technology conversations with RMM integration, ticket reports and asset management functions. The reason is that as most MSPs by starting their QBR processes they simply try to run faster to the wrong direction. The common mistake we see is they try to streamline a technology focused tactical conversation (important for them) rather than elevate themselves with strategic-business focused QBRs (important for clients). Let’s see the 3 reasons why it is the case, 3 impacts taxing these MSPs and the 3 steps to fix this quickly.

Do you engage the proper people from your client’s organization?

DowNload our Strategic QBR Client Mapping Tool 

If you are one of the fast developing MSPs this is totally normal to have tech conversations with clients first then move up to the executive level for business conversations. Staying on the “tech” level though raises many issues on the long run that leads to less profitability, lack of differentiation and competitive price pressure. Let’s check how to fix it with better QBRs.

3 Reasons

Wrong Process

Most of the Quarterly Business Reviews has not been developed from a strategic standpoint proactively. They started after losing a client or based on a negative client feedback. The team realized some sort of “regular meetings” needs to be taken place. That means the process usually ad-hoc, rushed and developed “by implementing a tool”. The main success criteriums of any account management process are missing and very immature. Implementing a tool gives a hope of structure.

As the MSP mature the development process shifts from ad-hoc to proactive.

Wrong Focus

As the QBR process starts shaping the most obvious conversation points are determined by the issues the team faced. Warranties were not discussed with a client, the client developed a technology debt or simply the client did not see the value and activities from the client. Therefore the to satisfy the audience reports are generated to so

lve those technology related issues with technology focused conversations.

As the MSP mature the focus is shifting from technology focus to business focus

Wrong Audience

Most MSPs are starting these conversations with the point of contacts to resolve the technology related issues. These point of contacts are usually office managers, power users or financial people. Their main focus is mainly tactical, not strategic. They are looking for solving day-to-day issues like replacing a computer of an employee. This is good for a start however elevating the conversation from tactical to business the audience needs to be different.

As the MSP mature the focus is shifting from tactical to strategic approach.

3 Negative Impacts that Taxing you

Stuck in a “tech box”

One major impact of not developing QBRs is to stuck in the “tech box”. That means simply that the client sees the MSP is a very good technical vendor rather than a business partner. Technical vendors are less strategic to a client therefore easier to negotiate or replace them in a long run. Becoming a high-value business partner is not a soft “feeling”, it does not mean that 5 star reviews and recommendations are putting an MSP to this spot. This means that the executives of the clients are constantly engaging the MSP with strategic business questions and consultation.

As the MSP mature it is perceived from client executives as high-value business partners

Perceived Salesy

The main issue we are seeing when we help an MSP to further develop their QBR is they feel the process is salesy. Showing the clients budget reports, bombs, warranty issues, subscriptions are teaching the client quickly is a QBR means spend more money. That connotation makes the MSP hard to actually solve those tech issues as they have no business context around those. Yes the MSP is a victim of the circumstances as without the client investing on technology they cannot really provide value. The MSP should generate a strategic layer on top of the QBRs to avoid the constant “sales” conversations.

As the MSP mature the QBRs are more touchpoints of the strategy execution

Perceived less engaging

After the first few QBRs the topics are settled and all around technology metrics and customer satisfaction and so on. Even if a client executive were involved on the QBRs they learn quickly that this is now on track and the second in command can handle these “boring” meetings. As the executives are detached from the opportunity to elevate the conversation has already gone. As the executives are not present most of the QBR stuck in the technology-tactical conversation which forces the MSP to “make it more streamlined”. This is where they implement more and more automation to actually get further from their goal is to actually engage executives.

As the MSP mature the QBRs have topics for engaging multiple audiences in the same time

3 Steps to fix

Identify the client roles

Use the MSPL’s 4 quadrant formula to determine the different roles to separate tactical / strategic and technology / business conversations. As you identify the CEO / Business vCIO roles you can map those roles to each clients and find who should be engaged with business conversations. You need to be able to sit down with the MOST senior executive at least once a year to get her perspective of their goals and to demonstrate your strategic value to them. Identifying those target individuals are the first step.

As the MSP mature the QBRs are engaging more senior people on the organizations

Map your talking points to roles

Use the QBR Kit #1 to identify all the talking points the different roles you have. Keep going with your tactical/technical conversations with the office managers and power users but make sure you create a new narrative with the executives. Use Kit #2 which has all the power questions you need to engage an executive and generate a strategic agenda outside of a QBR. This can be called a Strategy Meeting or Digital Transformation Annual Review. Anything related to a higher business level conversation. Create a scoring/audit mechanism to measure the different tactical elements of their business such as Security / Infrastructure / Office 365 / Applications and so on separately. These are separate audits you conduct in order to present all of this at once as a “Master Score” so they cannot see the details only the very high level.

As the MSP mature the high level strategic conversations are getting measurable

Run multiple layers

As you have a number / score for their strategy / digital transformation you are able to claim a spot for an Annual Strategy meeting in their agenda. As the context is their business and technology you have all the talking points making technology decisions in a business context. This high level conversation / report and deliverable is the single most important leverage you have to make all QBRs effective, decisions made and engage both the executives and the critical contact persons.

As the MSP mature the QBRs are becoming the execution of the Annual Strategies

Conclusion

Starting a QBR process is always ad-hoc tactical and technology focused. However you have a choice how to go to the next level. Once choice is to automate a wrong discussion and create a process which generates less engagement, price pressure and lack of differentiation. OR you develop a business conversation which elevates your discussion, connects to the key decision makers and helps you stand out from the crowd.

What to ask from executives on a QBR?

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

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

1. Personal related questions

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

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

2. Competitive landscape related

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


What to look for:

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

3. Clients related

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


What to look for:

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

4. Growth related

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


What to look for:

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

5. Marketing related

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

What to look for:

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

6. Sales related

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

What to look for:

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

7. Operation Efficiency related

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

What to look for:

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

8. Management related

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

What to look for:

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

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

Are you truly engaging your client executives and owners?

Download our Executive QBR Power QuestionS 

Lessons Learned: How to thrive during uncertain times

Throughout the pandemic and these times of uncertainty, we’ve seen various industries defaulting to panic mode. They don’t know what to do or what’s coming next, so they hold their breath, make decisions in the moment and hope for the best. Moving from one thing to the next without strategy has left these employees increasingly tired and unmotivated. 

In the technology world, we have a phrase for this practice that we hear multiple times a day: Firefighting. Firefighting means you’re spending your day putting out one fire after, always moving to the next issue with no time to plan ahead or create solid solutions for the future.

Being stuck in this firefighting mode comes with a big problem: burnout.  Always having something to do is fun at first; it feels like you’re coming in as a hero and fixing the problem. Then reality hits. You aren’t getting anything done, you’re just bouncing around from one thing to the next and creating recurring problems.  Fortunately, there’s a way to stop this, and that’s where Lessons Learned comes in.

Lessons Learned is one of those phrases that we see thrown around anecdotally, but rarely is it actually used in practice.  This is a pity because learning from your mistakes is what differentiates people who thrive during stress versus people who simply get through it. 

In an unprecedented and often difficult time like this, you have to make sure you come out on top. Here’s how: whenever you triage and fix an issue, you MUST schedule time to talk about it later. This is called a Lessons Learned. You will ask these three questions during the follow up:

• What went well?
• What went poorly?
• What actions do we have to take?

Lessons Learned: How to thrive during uncertain times

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Let’s look at these questions in more detail and explore how you can do it in practice. Implementing this Lessons Learned process will put you ahead of your competition when it comes to overcoming business challenges that have resulted from the pandemic.

• What went well? - During this question, you will mark down the things you always want to do. Remind your staff and yourself of what you consistently do well and what you want to continue doing.
• What went poorly? - What hindered your progress? You want to mark down what would have led to a better resolution.
• What action items do we have? - This is where you take action! Take what went well and document it so you can do it again. Take what went poorly and make sure it does not happen next time. Maybe you need a tool, maybe you need better communication, or maybe you need better strategy. Whatever it is, identify it and then put it into action.  

This may seem obvious and overly simplistic, but here is the problem: if it’s so easy, why haven’t you been doing it?  There’s no better time to implement this process than right now, because COVID-19 is still in full swing and issues will continue to arise and increase. You can answer these three questions in less than five minutes, but you often choose to not. One of the biggest reasons is that you plan to do it “someday”. “Someday” means you have no real plan.

So, here is the trick — you must schedule your Lessons Learned and dedicate an adequate amount of time to it. They MUST be on your calendar as soon as you finish troubleshooting, which means it needs to be part of your normal troubleshooting process.

It doesn't matter if it takes minutes and you jot down a few notes, or if it is an hour long meeting with multiple departments. However, you need to do it every time there is a problem.

This is the main action item from your first Lessons Learned.  Start implementing this three-step plan and stop putting out fires. Although this is a challenging time, you can still thrive!

Here is your first lessons learned:

• What went well:    You are triaging clients and keeping them running smoothly.
• What went poorly: You aren't following up on long term strategy to help your client’s success.
• Action Item:  We will be hosting a 1 hour webinar on September 7th to walk you through successful delivery of a lessons learned using an amazing tool that makes it easy.  Sign up today!

Lessons Learned: How to thrive during uncertain times

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How to transition to High-Value Business Partners during the recession

The narrative is about to change now. With the recession coming only high-value and proven partnerships are going to last. All fat is going to be on the chopping block. High-value strategic relationships with technology providers will be critical for all organizations. In this blog I teamed up with Rich Anderson to probe some thoughts on the opportunities and conduct a practical walkthrough with inspiration on how to actually do it.

1. What are the opportunities?

This crisis has been demonstrating to executives worldwide how technology readiness, agility and remote work are key to business. The expectation for service providers is shifting quickly from "give us computers to work from home" to "help our people adopt applications quicker, be more tech savvy and grow a culture of ready remote work." Here are some tips to transition to the high-value partner model as quickly as possible!

• How to shine as an MSP during the crisis
• Why adoption of technologies is now a must for clients now
• How to take credit if your clients were prepared
• Why IT can be again a visible and important business resource in the future
• How to show a plan and become a guide of clients
• How to redefine the narrative and become a business advisor
• How to communicate with different types of clients through the crises
• How to flatten the curve internally to cope with the overload of work
• How to become a coach, mentor and guide
• What is the role of leadership
• How to create a contingency plan for your MSP

2. How to make this happen?

Epic effort came from our team, members and Virtual-C to make this COVID-19 Remote Work a reality. Rich is sharing his process and thoughts on how to take leadership and clarify communication with the COVID-19 Remote Work Readiness Self Assessment Grader and Audit Report.

• How to generate a mini questionnaire to gather input from clients and prospects quickly
• How to qualify clients to run an in depth audit to create a technology roadmap to make them ready for remote work
• What are the key points of the readiness assessments?
• How to gather input and evidence from your tech team
• How to gather input and evidence from their users to strengthen your case
• How to fill the project roadmap with valuable projects

My Conclusion:

This is the time not to brake, but to push the pedal to the metal. Let's seize this opportunity! In spite of the current unprecedented stresses this is your time to shine and lead your clients through the crisis.

If you are able to assess your client's current position, communicate that effectively, then generate a vision and plan for them to move into the future, then you are recession-proof, and your business can only come out of all this stronger!

Why vCIO Programs Fail

The industry is changing, you need to evolve or be left behind by your clients. The next step to MSPs is vCIO, but how do we get there?

I have spent the last few years coaching MSPs on how to create successful vCIO programs. There is a consistent message across every single MSP:

“We want a vCIO program but have not been able to get it going”

BE A BUSINESS PARTNER, NOT JUST AN MSP

I want to dive into why this is happening and what you can do about it. But first some history:

Technology has been around since before the wheel, helping us do things easier. When computers first came around they were used to help process data more efficiently. Businesses used these devices to solve problems and disrupt industry. When we first started out you could make a killing doing PC support because everyone was trying to use this technology they didn’t understand.

Then as more professionals entered the marketplace and technology needs evolved we shifted focus to mostly server and network support with PC support still being a staple because labor for that is now very cheap. Then things started moving off premises as business applications moved to the cloud. What this means is there is less infrastructure to maintain on site and it is more and more common to see larger companies outsource IT support.

So what we have seen is support move from PCs to Servers to the Cloud. Now what?

While technology used to be something that companies used to differentiate themselves or create unique opportunities, it now plays a critical role in their business. Things that are critical to organizations, are managed strategically, at the executive level. Your clients are making strategic IT decisions today, the problem is often times they don’t have the right people utilizing the right information to make those decisions. Strategic MSPs deliver services that allow them to take a seat at the table to help manage technology to meet the needs of the business. In other words you need to bring strategy to the table. This is what the vCIO does. But you already knew this, otherwise why are you reading this blog? What you want to know is “How do I get there?”

Here is the problem I keep coming across: MSPs think that strategy is desiging out a product life cycle.

While this is a great best practice, you will end up losing customers if you focus on it.

Your customers don’t care that you have a plan for upgrading firewalls on a schedule, nor do they care about your plans to deliver next gen products. What they care about is the same thing you do: Making Money.

In order to do this you have to do something that most IT professionals avoid like the plague. “Business Strategy” You know, all those boring business classes that you make fun of and meetings with random people that go nowhere, you need to learn it and apply it to technology. You get to become a manager. This means regularly scheduled meetings that focus on business talk.

I often refer to myself as a business consultant with a technology focus. The reason for this is because I need to present what I do to business leaders. They understand the business consultant, they are someone who helps a business solve problems. I just do it from a technology standpoint.

By setting the table like this I am able to get them to focus on strategic sessions that do not talk about technology but rather what problems are facing the business as a whole. I do this through 2 main items:

• Project Discovery: SWOT strategy sessions but any business strategy framework will do. You just need to learn about the client’s problems and opportunities facing their business.
• Audit: The next thing you do is learn their technology and business. Some standard audit will do, just as long as it is consistent. I recommend a technology stack audit and Porter’s 5 forces analysis for the business audit.

Once these are done put this all together and pitch your technology solutions and explain the SPECIFIC business problem it addresses. If you ever say “Because it is getting old” you are losing your client. If you mention firewalls or servers...you are going to lose your client. What you need to say is “We will allow sales staff to process more clients by implementing technology to increase their access to the salesforce platform” THEN you can mention the technology that will do this. Maybe it is a virtual workspace, or maybe you are implementing a more robust WAN, it doesn’t matter at that point because you have already won the customer over.

Technology is a business augmentor

This is the core message you need to get to your clients. You want to frame everything you do in this light. By understanding their business and technology, you will be able to pitch solutions that will deliver a service that makes a difference. Your clients will brag about how you helped them disrupt their industry, develop a world class classroom or break through the glass ceiling.

In the end, stop talking about technology’s gadgets and gizmos. Start talking about business strategy and how to make your clients money!

Virtual C engages clients to increase the success of their IT delivery. Want to learn more? 

BE A BUSINESS PARTNER, NOT JUST AN MSP