The two most prevalent trends in client engagement are the increased frequency and remote delivery of meetings. We see, however, another trend that may surprise you, and its impact is as significant in your client meetings as in your sales meetings.

The power of the traditional printed collaterals, pdf reports, and personal influence is fading from future decision-making processes. This trend shows that your client executives and prospects might be making strategic decisions sitting on the toilet….

I do not want to bury the lead. Our tool is used to prepare, deliver and follow up important client meetings. We measure engagement with shared reports and we’ve just found out that the majority of follow-up items from client meetings such as QBR Reports, Strategy Reports, and Sales Proposals are opened on mobile devices. 

This shows not just a surprising shift in engagement, attention span, information processing and decision making in general, but should send a wake-up call for every client-facing employee: the way to win deals, approve projects and upgrade contracts is not just doing the same thing in zoom.

Every account manager, vCIO and sales executive should rethink how their processes can help them succeed not just in the next 30-60 days but the years to come.

Here are 6 quick tips to think about in this new era of decision making:

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.

We are currently living through a period of uncertainty we'll never forget. We are going to go through this together. Like many of you, we are trying to do what we can to help our customers and the larger community navigate this challenging time. Here are details on plans that will hopefully help, as well as a sincere ask from us for your input on what more we could do.

Communication is everything now. You can leverage two tools to communicate clearly your clients and prospect's readiness for remote work. A COVID-19 Remote Work Readiness Audit and a COVID-19 Remote Work Readiness Self Assessment help regain your relevance to your clients and prospects. Demonstrate clarity, direction and professionalism with clear communication.

For a while after our session with Sea-Level something was bugging me. We pondered a conundrum in this seminar: why can’t MSPs not become the victim of their own success? Why does a smooth service have to lead to disengaged clients? How can the MSP remain the hero not justhen the client has problems in their day-to-day operation but even when those problems are gone and the technology just works, and they stop noticing the value of the services? 

After many 1-1 discussions we came up with an answer. The issue comes into clear view from a distant overhead, as does the solution. Now having been able to create a model that explains the problems, the solution is far less difficult to manage.

We are going to break down the problem into 3 stages each with a brief explanation.

We asked last week during our webinar with Sea-Level Operations: What are the symptoms of Account Management debt? Low perceived value,  communication breakdown, and churn were included in 100% of the responses. Most interestingly 77% of the time churn was mentioned without prompting. During the session we analyzed this situation and identified the crucial methods to prevent potential churn. We are going to highlight the 5 major activities Account Managers can do to accomplish this.

A new customer of Managed Services Platform called us the other day: “Guys, I have a concerned client and risk going into a meeting completely unprepared. I want to do it professionally so they see I am fully organized on their needs, that I can get my ideas across and have an engaging meeting with them. Oh.. did I say I have only one hour?”. We helped this client shift from being reactive, defensive and unorganized to professional, confident and prepared by assembling their personal committed overview ready for the meeting in 30 minutes using our pre-built templates and software. This is how the risk was turned into opportunity.

The Managed Service Provider business model is a complex one and comes loaded with all sorts of challenges. One of the biggest issues is being able to drive predictable growth for the company and to build an operational maturity that can manage that growth at the same time. You’re beset from both sides: MSPs will suffer from their growth being slow and all effort will go into desperate tactical marketing and sales efforts. They’ll also struggle if growth is too fast and all efforts are spent on a tactical fix of their service delivery. 

Progressive MSPs have deserved a strategic answer to move from the reactive firefighting mode to a proactive business building model. Let’s review how to solve this problem once and for all.

The Managed Services business was created from the traditional suite of desktop management, backup, network and server support. Most MSPs now are offering various services outside the traditional managed infrastructure scope: application management, additional cyber security or virtual CIO services. This is the evolution of managed services, and the right way, however many MSPs have just reactively added some of these services to stay relevant to their customers and protect the core MSP services. They might call themselves "your IT department." Let's check out why it’s a problem and what to do about it.

What would it feel like not just having great and engaging meetings with clients but being able to become true business partners? Progressive MSPs has been started because when the Quarterly Business Review (QBR) meetings aren’t focused on the “Client’s Business Review” but the “MSP’s Business Review” then engagement drops and the relationship gets mired in the technology partnership level. Although it raises a concern about the scalability of the process - as account manager employees seem to have trouble engaging executives with real business discussions - there are best practices that can be applied to empower employees to elevate the conversation.

In this blog we collected five great conversation starters that will generate huge engagement among high-value client business owners and executives. Your growth need not stagnate just because you as a business owner are the only one who can deliver these meetings.

As a Technology Provider, you’ve undoubtedly encountered the symptoms of your clients' "Technology Debt." This is the manifestation of the inherent costs of perpetual support for less-than-optimal technology. This is a drain on both you and the client. Client Engagement Debt is a similar concept that encompasses the implied cost of not having enough quality Account Management, Technical Account Management, vCIO or IT Consulting activities with your clients. This costs you money, erodes trust, loses opportunities and even lowers the value your clients see in your services. Let’s take a look at how much debt you have and how to get rid of it this year.

Good news for you as a Managed Services Platform member! Unlike you, the majority of your MSP competitors are still

• Not delivering consistent high impact QBRs to their clients, and let them wonder what they’re paying for
• Not delivering visible business value, only trying to look like it
• Not adopting new services such as cybersecurity, vCIO or Application Management
• Not winning deals with profitable clients, only growing with low margins with a demanding client base

As a member of the Managed Services Platform, you’re way ahead. Let’s quickly review how you’ve been ahead of the curve in 2019 and how you’re going to be even more competitive next year.

Check out this quick summary of the updates in 2019 and what is coming in 2020!