The 5 TBR Killers

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[00:00:34] Hey everyone, welcome to the latest installment of MSP Business School. As always, I'm Brian Doyle and I'll be your host today. And I guess I'm also your guest today.

[00:00:44] We're going to talk a little bit about the five things that can kill a QBR today as part of our conversation.

[00:00:53] So again, from time to time I like to do these fireside chats and share with people some of the things that I've seen some of our clients struggling with over a VCIO toolbox.

[00:01:02] But really anybody who's doing business reviews or trying to stay engaged with their customers might be experiencing as well.

[00:01:09] So today we'll talk about the five biggest TBR killers. But before we do that, I'd like to say, you know, please if you liked our show, subscribe to it anywhere you get your podcast or check us out on YouTube.

[00:01:23] And you can find us at youtube.com at MSP Business School. Just subscribe there and you'll get notified anytime we have a new episode.

[00:01:31] And we do have some interesting things that we're going to start doing in between episodes as well. So you want to stay engaged with that YouTube channel.

[00:01:38] But today we're going to kick back over to the five QBR killers. And I want to kick off with one of the first ones that I see to be problematic for a lot of people.

[00:01:47] And that is getting the right people in the room. A lot of times when I'm talking to MSPs in my rollover VCIO toolbox, I hear from them things like their customers just don't care about the quarterly business review.

[00:02:00] Or I can only get my single point of contact the person I work with on the daily over there. They already know a lot of this information and we're not getting very strategic.

[00:02:09] So, you know, these are common concerns that I hear from the MSP community. And one of the challenges is getting those right people in the room. But the reason it's a challenge is because you're not bringing value for those people in the room.

[00:02:25] So if you haven't taken a step back, really look at your accounts and say who are those people that I would like to have attend a quarterly business review or technology business review with me?

[00:02:36] You know, what are those touch points that you want to have in the organization? If you're unsure what they are, you know, I'll kind of come from my perspective here.

[00:02:44] Obviously, I've got my point of contact and that person might be the business owner, but they also might just be a middle manager that has been assigned to us as kind of the day to day operator.

[00:02:54] So obviously their cornerstone to the business review. We want to get them there. Now if they're there, who's their superior? Who's above them that are part of the decision making process when you do present roadmap? Are those people in the room? That might be a senior manager.

[00:03:10] It might be the business owner. We want to get those people in the room as well. We of course want to have somebody from finance in the room as much as possible when we're delivering those roadmaps.

[00:03:22] We're really trying to give a big multi year view of what the budget and forecast is going to look like for our customers. And that's something that the CFO should be interested in, right? They will want to understand where those big inflection points are.

[00:03:36] Those those bigger cost items. So when you think about these different people you want to get into the room, one of the things that drive them and what are really going to help them get excited about coming to that meeting?

[00:03:51] I always say put yourself in the shoes of the person across the table from you. If you can't identify what makes them excited and what they need to know about from technology, then you got to step back and go ask some questions internally with your team as well.

[00:04:06] Business owners want to understand business outcomes. So if your QBR is not conveying how things are going to get more efficient, streamlined, more productive, thanks to technology, they're probably not going to come to your meeting and certainly not come back if they do come the first time.

[00:04:22] For the CFO, just as I mentioned before, we got to get them financial information earlier so they can take action and tell you where there might be roadblocks so we can work to a common solution together earlier.

[00:04:33] So these are things that we need to do to really get the right people in the room. And if you're running into that issue with your where your single point of conflict or contact and conflict might be the right word for that.

[00:04:45] You know, if they're getting kind of in the way of getting to those people, show them how this is going to benefit them as well.

[00:04:51] They have to bring that roadmap uphill. If we can do better job of showing those business outcomes, if we can help them look better in this process, we're really going to have more success getting this out in front of our getting those people to attend our meeting.

[00:05:04] So problem number one, getting the right people in the room. The second problem I want you to think about is keeping the meeting on track. How many of you have run into that situation where you go into the technology business review

[00:05:18] and somebody immediately brings up yesterday's problem, last week's ticket, and kind of hijacks the meeting process for the next 15, 20 minutes of your call, and you're not able to get back to the points that you want to make. Well, this happens often because of two core reasons.

[00:05:40] One, we haven't properly communicated the why for this meeting. We haven't shared with the people that are sitting in that room that this is meant to be a strategic session. We want to look more at the big picture.

[00:05:51] We want to better understand what it is that they're trying to achieve. Those key initiatives are going after and obstacles on the way to success. So we can better look at the technology and see how that's going to support those objectives going forward.

[00:06:05] So if we're not helping them understand that this is meant to be a big picture event, yes, we're going to talk about, you know, obviously some performance metrics and some issues during the course of this meeting, but that's not the primary focus.

[00:06:17] We haven't done a good job of educating them. So I always like to say set a clear agenda. Really help the customer know what that meeting is going to be about and what the cadence of the meeting is too.

[00:06:28] And you really should have that mapped out in advance and try to stay on that track from meeting to meeting so the customer knows what to expect as well. The other thing I do suggest is also circulating that agenda prior to the meeting itself.

[00:06:43] So if you now have that agenda built out, send it out to your primary contact so they can circulate it, give you feedback, see if they want have anything that they want to add to that meeting and really make sure that they understand what this is all about.

[00:06:57] It's really about setting the right expectations going into this meeting. So both sides know what it's about. We want to really focus the discussion and this will help guide you by having that agenda and really setting the tone for this being a strategic meeting.

[00:07:11] It'll really help us guide the meeting through that process, and it's really going to allow the customer to be prepared to give us input as well.

[00:07:19] So if you're not setting an agenda or at least kind of giving a customer an outline of what that meeting is going to be, I suggest you do that to keep the meeting on track.

[00:07:27] Now back to that original statement where I said they come in with something that they want to discuss. We certainly don't want to ignore that, but we want to really set up with them, hey, that's great.

[00:07:37] I know we might have to do a deeper dive on this particular issue. Let's table that for the end of this meeting so we can let those that don't need to be a party to that discussion leave if need be.

[00:07:48] Or let's set up another meeting where we can get the right resources, including those from my team that I need to really help reinforce that issue and get them online as well.

[00:07:57] So this really helps us kind of build out the importance of this meeting, keep it on track and keep things on schedule. And that takes us to our next point, which is really bringing consistent data points from meeting to meeting.

[00:08:12] One of the biggest challenges for folks doing technical business reviews is what should I bring in that report? And trust me, guys, I have done everything you can imagine in delivering technology business reviews throughout the years.

[00:08:28] I've brought in the big reports, pulling a lot of stuff from the RMM system and those kind of places and gotten that big thud factor on the desk when we drop it.

[00:08:37] And I've seen people go eyes glaze over, but more importantly, not even know where to look first.

[00:08:43] And then I would run into situations where they would look at their PC and start asking questions about red variables there that had nothing to do with what we were trying to convey during that meeting.

[00:08:53] So we really want to make sure that we're bringing consistent data and talking points to each meeting and more importantly, really making them things that can be repeated from meeting to meeting so that they have a better understanding of what to expect and what is good and what is bad for meeting the meeting as well.

[00:09:11] Now, of course, we might want to do a little bit of data tailoring in this process. We might want to bring more condensed reports when we're sitting with an executive group or if we're in a co-managed group, we might expand the technical discussion a little bit wider.

[00:09:25] So look at your audience and kind of tailor it, but I think you need to have kind of a standard approach process for delivering your meetings. So we have a tool in the world of BCIO Toolbox that starts with a performance review and some KPIs.

[00:09:39] We then go into where we are against our overall strategic plan. We talk to the gap analysis and scorecard, to our asset management and what assets might be going out of life cycle, and that drives the roadmap.

[00:09:52] So we're going to be meeting our customer knows that's going to be the meeting flow. That's the story I'm going to be telling to them.

[00:09:58] And then we can really stay consistent from meeting to meeting where they can see how things are improving and how things are changing over time.

[00:10:07] And that's really where we start developing some of the trust in our relationship as well, because now we're getting more concise with our reporting. We're showing business outcomes, which of course is tantamount to getting those right people in the room that we talked about earlier.

[00:10:23] And we're really helping them understand the whole meeting flow. So think about what you're presenting to your customers. Make sure it's not performance overkill.

[00:10:33] So I think that's the way, you know, when I brought those performance and reports in the beginning of my career, they loved them the first time because they hadn't seen them yet.

[00:10:41] Got all the pretty colors and crafts and charts on it. Second meeting though, they immediately would look at it and go, OK, good. We're tracking.

[00:10:48] Third meeting, it was like, hey, I've seen this data before. What's in it for me? What does this really mean? Are we improving or is this just the way it is?

[00:10:56] Maybe we don't even need you guys if that's just the way it is. Right. So we got to make sure that we're tailoring that message as well. All right. The fourth thing that you got to be concerned about is being too technical in the reports.

[00:11:11] The audience sitting across from you, you know, the MSP community largely serves business professionals. Most of the people sitting in the room when we're giving a business review are not IT pros.

[00:11:26] Now, of course, that might be different if you're in a co-managed situation. But by and large, we're talking to business people. So if we go too deep down the rabbit hole on technology, we're going to lose them.

[00:11:39] We're going to lose them. And that's going to prohibit them from wanting to come back to another meeting. Now, that said, what we do is technical by nature. Right. So we do have to look at how we're going to be technical or share

[00:11:52] technical information with the customer in a way that helps them understand from a business perspective. I'm going to use just a very broad kind of approach here and let's talk about multifactor authentication.

[00:12:05] Obviously, multifactor authentications evolve to the point where it has to do at this stage of the game. But as you know, a lot of our customers were very resistant to going to MFA for a long time because it was just one more step into getting to

[00:12:19] the productivity stage of where they want to be each day when they log into their computer. But we need to help them understand what multifactor authentication really is and why it's supporting them. And again, think about the business outcomes in your mind.

[00:12:34] Hey, Mr. customer, the way the reason you want to implement multifactor authentication is because it's not only identifying the password, but is the person supplying the password really who they say they are by sending this code, do something personal to the user and having them implemented in.

[00:12:53] We're now doing a double check and reducing significantly the risk of somebody hacking into our systems, potentially steering, stealing our data and causing us a monetary loss, a data loss, a downtime event or even reputation risk.

[00:13:11] Right now we've been able to take that technical concept pivoted around and talk about a business outcome. And that's really something that we need to focus on immensely when we're talking to a business audience, help them understand the why this is a problem.

[00:13:27] Now, in a few moments we're going to talk about, we need to share the why also when we're delivering on the roadmap.

[00:13:33] But just think here, when you got something that feels a little too technical, feels like you're getting in the weeds, assume for certain your customer feels that way.

[00:13:41] And if you take that approach where you feel that customer feels that way on the other side, you'll be able to bring it back to a more business conversation with your client. Now, the final item that I want to talk about today is showing not showing business outcomes.

[00:13:57] This is probably the number one problem that I see in every business review when somebody comes first to us. They're going in there and they're taking this opportunity to really build a relationship and be more consultative and really making it feel like a sales call.

[00:14:14] We're showing them a roadmap for nothing more than this is money that we would like to get. That's the perception from the other side of the table. And the reason is we're not tying this back to business outcomes.

[00:14:25] Now, in the world of ECIO Toolbox, the way we do that, of course, is building a joint strategic plan with our customers. And that joint strategic plan lets us catalog the things that our customers are trying to attain.

[00:14:37] What are those key initiatives they're going after and the obstacles on the way to, you know, whatever they perceive success to be and better understanding that so we can be a better partner.

[00:14:47] It gives us an opportunity to showcase our leadership because we're the ones bringing the IT goals into their plan. And we're helping them understand where we see gaps that they need to fill within their environment.

[00:14:59] The win for the customer in building that strategic plan is we now shift this what felt like a sales call into more of a consultative process. Now we've created a check and balance system when we build our roadmap items.

[00:15:13] If we can't show alignment to the goals, it's probably something that shouldn't be in their plan, at least not yet.

[00:15:18] So this really gives us an opportunity to help them better understand the why behind each project and really get to make a more informed, more confident decision about go or no go.

[00:15:29] And then the world of ECIO Toolbox long term as we start completing those objectives, we're able to start seeing how this is how the technology plan is meeting the business need and quantifying our progress against it.

[00:15:43] So when you think about that in those terms, what we really want to understand here and all of you guys are getting this information at some point in time from your customers in these conversations, you're absolutely getting some of these strategic initiatives.

[00:15:56] But most of you are not leveraging them throughout the life of the relationship. And what's beautiful about this process is if you understand more about where the customer is going, and now we start layering those products and services into our roadmap that we want to share with them.

[00:16:11] Instead of it feeling like a sales call feels more like an educational event. Hey, Mr. Customer, the reason you want to implement this firewall is it's going to help support our ensuring that we have a strong security posture objective.

[00:16:26] And it's going to make sure that we can achieve that compliance requirement that we have in front of us. It's also going to get rid of those aging systems that we agreed we need to get out of our environment to make sure that we're fully supported.

[00:16:39] And finally, it's going to better protect the data that you do hold on site because we're not going to have older unsupported firewall hardware in there. So now we'll make sure we have the latest hot fixes and those kind of things to keep everything up to date.

[00:16:53] Do you want to adopt this into your plan? So now we've given them the why statement and really guided them to why they should consider this project. And they can make that more confident decision and not just take us on blind faith.

[00:17:08] And, you know, when I was younger in my career, I used to really enjoy that blind faith because I'm like, it's great. Our customers trust us. They just do what we say that we're going to do. But then we all know technology is what technology is.

[00:17:22] You're going to have those days where technology just doesn't behave well. And when those things happen, a little bit of that trust erodes and we have to win it back.

[00:17:31] And if we're at a critical juncture where we're trying to get the customer to exercise on a plan, sometimes we can't get that done because we've had this stumble that was out of our control and we haven't talked to a greater plan to begin with.

[00:17:43] So thus it becomes a sales friction object. So we want to make sure we're removing those gaps.

[00:17:48] And the way we do that in the roadmap and delivery process is by building better business outcomes, helping the customer see the outcome and then helping them quantify back to us whether or not they're feeling those outcomes that we projected in their process.

[00:18:04] You know, in the goals that they've put out there as they start implementing those projects. So it really becomes a nice opportunity to get that feedback loop in a quarterly business review the next quarter.

[00:18:15] Again, always trying to dangle that carrot on why we want these people to come back each period. So those are some of the five major things that if you don't approach them right can kill your TBRs.

[00:18:28] Again, I'm not saying that you can't have successful TBRs, you know, with a different methodology.

[00:18:34] But what I am saying is if you don't get the right people in the room, those people that are making decisions, coming consistently to those meetings, keeping it on track and getting your point position with them, you're going to see sales friction when it comes time to do the projects.

[00:18:50] You're going to have those 11th hour conversations about budget gaps. So I really encourage you to, you know, to go out there and think about your TBRs. Don't just wing them and think about them and say what's the story I'm looking to tell when I'm out here?

[00:19:04] And how can I bring a more interesting kind of meeting to our customers so they become more immersed in that conversation and they really become a part of it as well. And it does foster that two way conversation.

[00:19:18] So hopefully this helps you understand some of the TBR killers out there. If you have any questions for me, of course, feel free to hit me up either on LinkedIn or connect with me by emailing me at bdoyle at bciotoolbox.com.

[00:19:32] As always, I want to say that we will be publishing this podcast and you can get that anywhere. You can download your podcasts, including Apple, Spotify and Amazon Music, of course.

[00:19:43] And if you want to see my smile and face, come see us on YouTube and then subscribe to the YouTube channel, youtube.com at MSP Business School. Guys, I want you to have a terrific week.

[00:19:55] I want you to go out there and make the most of it and I'll see you again next week.