Client portal implementation is a critical process that can enhance IT insights and improve the overall client experience. With careful planning, it can offer personalized views, provide high-value marketing collateral through lead gen, and even incorporate mock budgets for added benefits.

Welcome to the first blog post of 2023! Humanize IT is taking a look into the crystal ball to see what the New Year will bring.

In order to adapt to any new year, MSPs must look at the economy and the events that are coming up, and align the company accordingly. Based on this, we predict that in 2023 services are going to be the most important thing MSPs can offer.

We are nearing the end of the year, so you know what that means: it’s time for 2022’s Lessons Learned. Lessons Learned is an opportunity for an MSP (or any business!) to discuss the actions they can take to either mitigate a problem or increase success. It’s best conducted at the end of the year so that you can thoroughly analyze everything that happened during the previous 12 months.

You’re probably assuming that Lessons Learned focuses on mistakes made during the year, and what you learned from them – hence, “lessons learned.” While pitfalls are definitely a central topic of discussion, the successes of the year are equally as important to talk about. When things are going well, do you understand why? You need to pinpoint the key to the success you have reached so that you can continue it into the new year.

Last week, we discussed the issue of clients who are seemingly always avoiding their meetings with you. This week, George Miller is joining us again as we get further into the topic and share solutions for MSPs to have better meetings with their clients.

To ensure you’re going to have a great meeting with your client, the one thing you really need to prioritize is knowing the person that is going to be sitting across the table from you. What’s important to them? What are their key initiatives?

Are you trying to figure out why your clients regularly avoid meeting with you or constantly reschedule just to doze off when the meeting actually occurs? This week, Humanize IT invited fellow PitchIT contestant George Miller to join us in discussing this head-scratching topic. George is with the cloud software company Cloud Readiness and has a 40-year background working with MSPs. Throughout his experience with MSPs, he’s been a part of a great number of meetings, and he has learned quite a bit about how to make your client meetings successful and engaging.

Before we dive into the “how,” let’s talk about the “why.” Why do your clients avoid your meetings, and what is it that makes meetings so dreadful?

Let’s admit it. Those of us in IT tend to be reclusive. It’s in our nature to “avoid” seeing the customer and instead do our work at our desks - after all, it’s where are able to accomplish the most. However, let’s consider stepping away from our desks and seeing what we can accomplish when we choose to be present with our customers.

The power of physical presence is severely underestimated in the world of IT. You’re still able to get just as much work done whether you’re present with your customers or if you’re at your desk in your office - the key is to change the perspective of your to-do list.

We’re all passionate about something. At Humanize IT, our passion is helping MSPs have better conversations - not presentations - with their clients. Imagine how much better an individual’s passion for something could be if they collaborated on it with others.

Collaboration is key to discovering new ideas, improving concepts, and bettering discussion. You have to remember that you’re not the only intelligent person in the room. When you are willing to collaborate with other smart individuals in the same room as you, you are able to create an even better product than if you were to attempt it on your own. If you were to decide to take the venture alone, you would be left with only your own ideas; we don’t even want to think about all of the value lost if you chose to not receive input from others.

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

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

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

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

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

The new year is coming and we are starting it off with new content! In the new year, we really want to focus our attention on MSPs because some people don’t even know what MSPs do and how they can help a business grow. We’re going to provide tons of MSP-related content — here’s a sneak peek into what 2022 will bring!

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

We’re all too well aware of the enormous amount of work that goes into the preparation phase of every client IT project. From the idea stage (we need to replace the server architecture) to actually being able to send a proper quote ($18,500 with labour cost) the MSP spends dozens of hours coming up with the IT project plan and the numbers. The hours are tracked as “sales” hours spending time on those quotes but at the end of the day most of those projects never take off. Everybody is bummed, the client calls off the opportunity, the team writes off the time to a “lost opportunity” category and life goes on. However there is a totally legitimate, battle-tested sales tactic that a few MSPs use to cut this unproductive and morale-draining busy work. Let's get into the details.