Imagine sitting in an operational meeting with your accountant. They are telling you about reconciliation and collecting receipts. They then tell you how many transactions took place and where they need clarification on spend. Bored yet? I am typing this and I am bored…
This is how your clients feel when attending your quarterly or monthly operational meetings on connectwise tickets. The SLAs and project status are important to YOU and they are kind of important to the business but the method in which you are portraying information is wrong. How do I know this? I have been an IT professional for over 20 years. Today many clients will ask me to sit in on meetings with their MSPs to help them understand what is going on. It truly is horrible, clients have just accepted that this is the way things are.
Lets go a bit darker now. The truly sad part is that even the account manager and techs are bored in these meetings. They are viewed as a necessary evil because someone told them that a MSP best practice is to meet with the client on a regular basis and give status updates. So here you are, in another boring meeting, wishing that it were time to leave.
“Everyone is miserable but you keep moving forward
because it is what you are supposed to do.”
Now lets flip the tables for a second, that is right, just grab the top and flip the whole thing over. Screw what you are supposed to do, let's talk about what you want to do.
What you want to talk to your client about is the new tool that is available and how it will help their business. You want to talk about how if they would just upgrade their internet most of their problems would vanish. You want to convince them that you can help their business thrive in spite of their restrained budget.
Guess what. Your client wants this too! Your client WANTS to talk about how you can empower them to do better things. Your client WANTS you to show them how to best use their technology budget to empower their company!
So how do we get from the boring operational meetings to stimulating meetings? Have a conversation about the future. Stop talking and presenting about technology today and change focus to 6 months from now. Ask your client what their biggest problem is today. Ask them what the biggest event coming up is. Ask questions, ask a lot and listen. Then take some time and think about what they said and ask yourself some honest questions about how you can help them.
Do you know what this is called? Strategy. Forward thinking contextual conversations that marry technology and business goals. This is how you create engaging meetings that really focus the client on where they can be.
Do you know what happens to MSPs that do this? They grow a crazy amount because now their clients are actually engaging in conversations. Whether you are meeting annually, quarterly, monthly or weekly. By changing from presentations to conversations you are able to get their attention.
Want proof? During your next client meeting ask this one question “Tell me about the next 12 months here” sit back and listen. I can cite many MSPs who will talk your ear off about how they started conversing with their clients and have so many projects that their biggest problem is getting them all on the schedule! I can cite MSPs who went from small contracts to $15,000+/MRR clients because they listened!
Stop the monotony, turn your presentations into conversations today!