Quarterly Business Reviews (QBRs) are vital for building long-term client relationships and ensuring their IT strategy aligns with their business goals. But how can your vCIOs get your clients truly engaged? Simple: Have your vCIOs lead a Strategic Alignment Session with them once a year.
What is a Strategic Alignment Session?
A Strategic Alignment Session is a focused meeting where you ask questions and—most importantly—listen. The goal is for your client to do 95% of the talking. This session is designed to help them open up about what’s really going on in their business. Let’s face it: people love talking about their businesses!
By having this session before working on their IT plan, you can better understand your client’s current challenges, upcoming changes, and how technology fits into their strategy.
Why It’s Important
- Understand Their Business: Your clients’ needs are constantly evolving. This session gives them an opportunity to share what’s coming for their business—whether it’s expansion, new hires, or changes in their offering—so you can align their IT with these developments.
- Identify Challenges: By simply asking what’s not working, you’ll uncover pain points your client may not have thought to mention in regular QBRs. These insights help you prioritize what to focus on in your IT planning.
- Evaluate Technology Use: Go through each of the client’s applications to understand how they are using them. Are these tools still meeting their needs? Could they be improved, or do they need to be replaced? This exercise ensures that your IT recommendations are current and relevant.
How to Host a Strategic Alignment Session
- Set the Stage for Listening: Make it clear that this session is about them. You’re there to understand their business, not to talk about your services. (see our template email)
- Ask Open-Ended Questions: Encourage the client to talk about their business goals, frustrations, and future plans. Some example questions could be:
- “What’s coming for your business in the next 6-12 months?”
- “What challenges are you facing right now?”
- “How are your current tools and applications helping or hindering your team’s success?”
- Dive Into Their Tech Stack: Once you’ve covered business goals, shift the focus to their technology. Go through each major system they use and ask:
- “How are you currently using [application]?”
- “Is it meeting your needs? Where is it falling short?”
- Listen Actively and Take Notes: This session is about understanding, not selling. Your goal is to capture all the details so you can build an IT plan that truly reflects their needs.
- Never Ever Interrupt: You want your clients to talk, so let them. Never interrupt! Just take notes so that they continue to speak. The more they talk, the better!
Download our Strategic Alignment Cheatsheet
Get our Strategic Alignment Cheatsheet to guide you through these sessions and make them as effective as possible.
The Result
By the end of the session, your client will feel heard and valued. More importantly, you’ll have the foundation to create an IT roadmap and budget that aligns with their business objectives. This approach leads to better recommendations and, ultimately, stronger client relationships.
Next steps
- Conduct a Technology Audit with Propel: Start by using Propel to perform a comprehensive technology audit. This will uncover gaps and identify areas where your client’s IT setup falls short of your standards and best practices. This will give you a clear foundation for building a tailored IT plan.
- Prepare a Roadmap and Budget Quickly & Easily with Propel: Propel significantly speeds up the process of creating IT roadmaps and budgets, automating much of the work so you can focus on aligning IT with your client’s business goals. What took hours can now be done in minutes, with more accuracy and less effort.
- Engage Clients with Real-Time Collaboration: Propel’s new web presentation view transforms how you present your roadmap and budget. During the meeting, your client can suggest changes on the fly, and you can instantly show how those changes impact their IT strategy and budget in real-time. This level of interactivity keeps your clients engaged and makes the planning process more collaborative and transparent.
Simon is the President of S3 Technologies, a leading Canadian MSP he co-founded in 2003. He built and scaled the vCIO team which eventually lead to him co-founding Propel Your MSP in 2018 to help MSPs with their vCIO services.
