MSP 2.0 Business Building: October 2013

First awareness of your service:

Since you are doing such a good job as an MSP you basically disappear. You meet the client quarterly, the technicians are not seen very often, all 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 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.

Second expectation:

As you may have realized, building up the service offeringsof a solid MSP is not an easy task. It took years to build, optimize with all of the trials and errors. That is why you have a full expertise in this field. But your client knows very little about what you are doing. They are expecting the results, and they do not really understand how and why it is working. But again, they have expectations. These expectations have nothing to do with the services they have ordered. They did not order the service; they ordered the results, the experience you had promised. Well, they have signed the contract, but, what do you do if the CEO complains because your company has charged them 4 hours for setting up his home cinema system with the NAS at his home?

Third alignment:

If awareness and expectation are met, there is alignment. Either you can align the system from bottom up, case by case using trial and error, or, if an issue comes up you may fix the expectation or the service awareness. That is a very unpredictable and slow process. The other way to do it is from top to bottom. That means, you have to see the big picture and break it down into details. Usually, it seems impractical, so the client does not have enough patience to go through the process altogether.
The solution is a mix of both.

But just imagine:

With ReframingYourClients you are able to

collect all the necessary issues that should be aligned (bottom) in a questionnaire
analyze it from both parties' perspective
have a workshop where you are able to present the differences
have the conversation about how to fix misalignments in an action plan
set up the proper awareness and expectation to be able to set the relationship to the next level

To be aligned with the client is the first and most important step for developing a fruitful relationship. But there are further steps you can use to increase your credibility to WOW your clients all the time.

See:

Sales techniques:

vCIO researches:

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:

Sales techniques:

vCIO researches:

Monday, October 7, 2013

Clients do not know what we are doing for them

First awareness of your service:

Second expectation:

Third alignment:

But just imagine:

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Hard to upsell to existing clients

First, it is the problem of priority:

Second, it is the problem of awareness:

Third, it is the problem of context:

But just imagine:

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