Hard to upsell to existing clients

First, it is the problem of priority:

It is very hard to grab a leaders’ attention.  If you are able to have a meaningful conversation with them, the follow-ups are quite difficult as they are very busy, do not call you back, or they keep postponing meetings. It is because IT usually is not in the top 3 priorities of most clients. Usually, you are not even in contact with the CEO but the CFO, COO or other second level officers.

Second, it is the problem of awareness:

Usually, they see the value of your services, but they do not really understand what you are doing exactly. Since you are doing a good job as an MSP you basically disappear. You meet the client quarterly, the technicians are not seen very often, and all of the issues in the ticketing system are solved quickly. That is why you are hired. However, after a while it may pose a possible risk as that they do not experience  that you are "working". It has nothing to do with reports and such things; they are just not in a position to be able to judge the amount of work and your level of commitment to ensure that their system is up and running. 

Third, it is the problem of context:

Most of the SME clients do not have any IT strategy in our definition. Maybe you have developed some sort of a "strategy" for them for the IT you are taking care of. However, in its global sense of the word, it very rarely exists. IT strategy is a global vehicle, driving the company to be more competitive with the help of IT: how it helps to cut costs, how it helps to build better services, products to serve clients better than the competitors and earn more revenue, and also, how it helps to preserve the credibility with full business continuity and security. So the problem is that there isn’t any context around IT, so most decisions are based on feelings, immediate actions and needs.

But just imagine:

With ReframingYourClients you are able to

• measure their competitiveness with IT, and have benchmark to shake them up
• identify the real business problems they are facing, which is always a priority  
• have a business conversation that ensures a short-medium-long term context to your services and offers 
• make them aware what you are currently doing for them, and put it in a business context
• set targets for future scores and make  an action plan and budget to reach those targets
• grab many opportunities for each customer   because the projects are in business context
• help to align everybody to execute the action plans, so you will be visible all the time

So no worries about priorities, awareness and context. You can change the game fast and easy.

See: 

• The MSP 2.0 service offering in the 7C IT management Framework
• Cracking the code of the future of the MSPs
• The process of becoming the Trusted Advisor [video]
• Why clients need more consultative work from MSPs lately? [video]
• MSP 1.0 vs. MSP 2.0 [video]
• 3 ways to segment the market for MSP services to get the best result [video]
• How to decide who to transfer from Time and Material to MSP contract?
• Why MSPs are struggling on sales nowadays?
• The 3 building blocks of a remarkable MSP sales process

Sales techniques:

• Want To Know the Performance of Your MSP Competitor's Online Marketing?
• Breakthrough sales method to dominate your MSP industry
• Three easy B2B sales process hack, very few sales people use

vCIO researches:

• Research: World of vCIOs on Linkedin
• Research: among MSPs offering vCIO services
• Research: Information Managers in Canadian Oil Industry