The MSP Retention Problem: Why QBRs Fail and What Smart MSPs Do Instead

The MSP Retention Problem: Why QBRs Fail and What Smart MSPs Do Instead

Tim Fitzpatrick
MSPs build their businesses on long term relationships, and many rely on QBRs and regular check-ins to maintain them. But too often, those meetings turn into routine status updates instead of conversations that actually strengthen the relationship and demonstrate real business value. In this episode, we explore the mistakes MSPs make with client retention, why the traditional QBR approach needs to change, and a few simple ways to add more value in every client interaction. Hi, I am Tim Fitzpatrick with Rialto Marketing, where we believe marketing shouldn't be difficult, and it definitely shouldn't be guesswork. Thank you so much for taking the time to tune in. I am super excited to have Melissa Hockenberry with First Things First back on the podcast for a second time. Melissa, welcome, and thanks for coming back again.

Melissa Hockenberry
Thank you for having me back. It's probably a good sign, right? I didn't upset you too much.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah, and vice versa, right? We both enjoyed it the first time. So there we go. I love it. So thank you for that. So when you were here before, we asked you our typical rapid fire questions, I'm going to ask you those again because it's been a while.

Melissa Hockenberry
Lots have changed. Lots have changed.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah. Yeah. Life is always changing, right? So when you're not working, How do you like to spend your time?

Melissa Hockenberry
I am currently taking every possible minute I can get to spend with my daughter because she has decided to go to school, 868 miles, not that I'm counting, away from home. So even if she's yelling at me, every minute, I will embrace with her.

Tim Fitzpatrick
That's it. Gosh, I was talking to somebody about this a while ago. It's like your kids do certain things while they're in the house, and at the time, it may frustrate you, but then it's like, No, I get to do these things. These are things that I'm going to miss when they are not here anymore.

Melissa Hockenberry
I literally just had a pastor this weekend say, What do you need to shine Jesus on? That you look and dread? He was saying for him, it's laundry. He has five kids, and they're all involved with sports and everything. He was just like, I have to remember, my kids have clothing, and they're healthy enough to be out and about doing things. It really is a mindset shift.

Tim Fitzpatrick
I know... My youngest, when she's out of the house, I know that I'm going to be saying to her, Gosh, I really miss picking up all your garbage.

Melissa Hockenberry
My daughter early on in this year, and I loved this phrase, she turned to me as she was driving me crazy with something in the kitchen. It was something like that. I think because I spend the hour doing dishes and then she comes and empties her lunch box into what was a clean sink for a small... And yes, she packs every day. She's very independent. It's very good. But I was just like, I love you and that's a phrase that I'll always be like, I love you and and here's where the challenge is. And so I started, I love you. And she goes, oh, just be honest, mom, you're going to miss my shenanigans.

Tim Fitzpatrick
There you go.

Melissa Hockenberry
Of all words, I'm like, yes, I am going to miss. So every once in a while, I'll just turn and I'll go, yes, going to miss your shenanigans.

Tim Fitzpatrick
There you go. That's it. What's your hidden talent?

Melissa Hockenberry
I think it's really... I have quirky knowledge, depth of knowledge and things that people would not expect me to be really into. I've been a huge fan of chiropractic since I was very young, and it has been transformative in my life. I do actually have a brother who became a chiropractor, so I have that. But I have bizarre little tidbits of facts and that thing in just areas that you would be like, What is your background? What did you go to school for? So I think it's those things is that when I become passionate about something, I go deep very quickly, and I think of the most bizarre facts to always give to people. So I think that's my hidden talent, to be savant-like on weird things.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yes, that's awesome. What's the best piece of advice you've ever been given?

Melissa Hockenberry
This one remains unchanged, and that was my geometry teacher in 10th grade who gave me the verse of 1 Peter, chapter 5, verse 7, it says, Cast all your anxieties on him. So I'm a very faith-based person. And as my life changes, as I come to a time in my life where as we speak, I have two parents that are failing in health in different states, All those things. I learn even more that that's really the best advice I get.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah, that's a good one. What's one thing about you that surprises people?

Melissa Hockenberry
I eat a lot. So you've only seen this part of me, but I'm pretty much this size, the whole size down. And everyone's like, how do you consume the food you eat, too? But that always surprises people. If I'm in a conference and I'm chowing down, then they're like, dude, are you just hungry today? And I'm like, no, no, this is me all the time.

Tim Fitzpatrick
This is me all the time.

Melissa Hockenberry
I'm a big, I'm a big heater, and I also love to cook. So people don't expect that, that I enjoy cooking and baking and that thing. So they're like, who wants to You're that size and you're that old. You must not eat. I'm like, I'm sorry, but I eat a lot.

Tim Fitzpatrick
I do. Yeah. You're blessed with the good metabolism.

Melissa Hockenberry
I am. Yeah. Yes.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Do you exercise, too? Not really? No. Okay. Now that everybody hates you.

Melissa Hockenberry
I keep saying people keep saying, give me... And it's true. I'll own it. I've already hit 50. People told me at 40, it would happen. They're like, well, if it didn't happen at 40, it'll happen at 50. I'm almost mid-fifties. So I really do think it's also because I have found... Here's one thing, so people won't hate me. I don't eat cheese. I'm allergic to dairy and cow's milk. And I'll tell you, when I cut that out of my diet, I lost 11 pounds. See the quirky facts that I'm full of? There you go. So I think that's one of the things. If you as a person are trying to lose weight, they're all like, Oh, and there's no way in Haiti I'm doing that. But honestly, cow's milk, it's because I was so sick, I get a flu-like reaction. It's a casein allergy. So anyway, it's not fun. It puts me into bed for several days. So it's serious stuff, and I take it seriously. But that is, I think, part of the reason I really eat what fuels my body. And that's what I've been forced to via age. So there are maybe people who hate me so much.

Tim Fitzpatrick
What people don't know is- Things for you, you can eat quite a bit food.

Melissa Hockenberry
Yes.

Tim Fitzpatrick
I mean, ...

Melissa Hockenberry
And that's a quirky fact.

Tim Fitzpatrick
It's hard to gain weight on vegetables.

Melissa Hockenberry
And I'm pretty... So people would also not realize that at one point my cholesterol level was 256. So I genetically have that against me. And so I have a mom who had a 360 after she had quadruple bypass and should not have lived through it, all those things. So I have these other elements where I'm like, okay, yeah, I eat. I can't say I eat what I want because if I wanted to, I'd eat a cheese pizza every night. But I eat what's good for me, and I can eat a lot of that. And like you said, once you get what's right and your body likes, it burns it. And then it's not so hard. It's just that our bodies don't really love soda and a lot of high-calorie sugar. That's right

Tim Fitzpatrick
That's right. Yeah.

Melissa Hockenberry
Our brains do, but our bodies do not.

Tim Fitzpatrick
That's right. What does success mean to you?

Melissa Hockenberry
For me, it's really It is living out God's will, knowing that I'm living in what I'm supposed to, what I was created for from a purpose standpoint. I think that's more generic than a lot of people think it is. Just as long as whatever task I'm being called to, it fits within that, then I can feel successful. Because sometimes the world is not going to give me the success that the world offers. But if I'm on the other front, I'm okay with that.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Where's your happy place?

Melissa Hockenberry
Anywhere with my family, in all sincerity. I like camping, really like camping. I like being a recluse when it's chilly outside. I'm not a cold weather camper, to clarify. I'm not that diehard of a camper. I'm not the let's go January camping, as my husband often considers. But I'm like, You go ahead. I'll stay here with the book. But with my family, especially as things transition, family becomes even more important these times.

Tim Fitzpatrick
What about the qualities in people you spend time with? What qualities do you value?

Melissa Hockenberry
Yeah, definitely. Humility, integrity. A sense of humor is really important to me. And depth of character. Not everybody I hang with have to be the people that are going to be deep thinkers. But I like people who will go deep on meaning of life subjects and much bigger things. I really do. I really enjoy the people who have thought it through, maybe even wrest with stuff, wrestled with where their faith is, where their beliefs are. I appreciate that. So I just read a book that I'm not going to remember the name of it. It was called On Fire for God, but I don't remember the gentleman. But he is very opposite in how I view things. But I really appreciated. I still really appreciated the book. It's probably one of the longest books I've ever read in a short time frame, just because it was so different from my viewpoint. And yet the driving force, he was still not apathetic. I can't handle apathetic people. So if we It went on the other side, apathy, totally can't handle apathetic people. I'd much prefer to have a conversation with somebody who disagrees with me adamantly than somebody who has no opinion and really doesn't care. I can't deal with that.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah, I get that. Tell us more about what you're doing at First Things First.

Melissa Hockenberry
I've been doing it for a while. I know we talked back in October of '24, and so I was really just honing in on things. I started the business, officially launched it in February '23. But I'll say that I kicked in. Once again, it goes back to my daughter when she got her driver's license, which was in the summer of '24. My life started to get a little bit more specific, and I was able to focus more, and I wasn't an Uber driver anymore. When I did that, I started to see things about MSPs, as we mentioned, that they're in this a recurring revenue model. They're in this long term contract concept. That that's what they want. They want to have not be just in and out. They want to be a systems partner. But yet I didn't see intentional relationship building. I just couldn't see it. And I remember it was actually in '24 that I started to say to people, I'm either a delusional or I'm a visionary, but I think retention is going to become a hot topic among MSPs. And fast forward one year, I wasn't delusional anymore. And I was sitting at a table last fall with some of my larger clients that I connect with. And two of the largest came and said, we need to talk about retention. And this is just in a peer group, right? It wasn't a situation where I just hired on. It was I'm a facilitator in a peer group. And I was like, wow, okay, so I wasn't delusional. That's exciting. So I'm specifically helping MSPs understand how they look when we compare the foundation of of client retention? Do you even have a foundation to have client retention? And that starts in surprising places. And then working with them in small scale, I've done small scale projects where people are just looking to improve a business review. And what does it look like? And how do we make it a little bit better? And I've done larger scale things where we start from the very beginning to say, Hey, we lost six clients last year. And that's more than we've lost in six years. So what does this look like? And that's where I think the humility comes into play. It's important for me as a human to have humble people around me, but I think that's one of the most important characteristics for MSP owners. You got to believe that you don't know at all. If you believe you know it all, then you're probably not headed for a good direction because the smartest MSP owners I've met, they have good peers around them. They know that just like any leader, they find where their weaknesses are. And they might have arrogance in the fact that they've got a great team, but they don't have arrogance in themselves alone.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Somebody Somebody said this last week in a meeting I was in, and I've been thinking about it since then, and he said, Ego is the enemy.

Melissa Hockenberry
Ego is the enemy. A hundred %. Yeah, it is.

Tim Fitzpatrick
You never going to get where you want to go.

Melissa Hockenberry
And it's hard because I'll tell you, I don't know if it's just a female thing or it's my personality, but I have a lot of... Okay, it was a second guess, because I want to be doing the best for everyone. So it's hard for me because I'm like, I've got to be careful. I'm not egotistic. I'm like, But you got to also know your stuff. There's that blend. I think if young females in the tech industry hear that, they're like, Oh, I got to be... Or people with my personality. I wouldn't say it's always just females, but I tend to find it more in females. You can't feel like you can't at least be assertive about what you know. You just have to know you don't know everything. And there's a two different things.

The Mistakes MSPs Make with Client Retention

Tim Fitzpatrick
You touched on this a little bit. Let's dig into it. What mistakes are MSPs making when it comes to client retention? What are the biggest issues you see?

Melissa Hockenberry
So that comes out pretty quickly when you say, what do you do? Because I think people are not intentional about it. It's one of the reasons that intentional retention, com is how you can reach me because it is something that... And I think people are not intentional in general about their relationships. That's a totally different podcast. But I think this is something that is not hard to do, but it is not something people think about. We think about being intentional about sales. We talk about you got to be working your CRM. You got to have a call to action on everything. You got to be always listening. But we don't on the other side of it, because so many MSPs are working with a smaller staff, right? So they've got themselves. They might have a right-hand person as an owner. They might have somebody who's coming in, doing operational level stuff if they're lucky. But they go to techs and they go, maybe the next hire is that salesperson who takes over the sales thing, if that's not what the owner does inherently, if that's not their strength. But it takes a long time for them to go, Okay, who is actually taking care of the client on the long term. It often sits with the owner, and it sits with the owner in my mind, far too long because it's also, depending on your exit strategy, the longer that ownership and relationship sits with you, the harder it is to undo it and bring somebody in who can be seen as the connection so that if you choose to exit, that's one of the things I did work with an owner on. I did interviews with his clients to determine why do you love their company. And one of the things that they kept bringing him up, and he's like, I keep trying to pull myself out of it. I'm like, Right, but they trust you. And so it's a concerted effort. You have to be intentional to bring your people in to show. And so I think they miss out on that on on that opportunity to be intentional about it, to look at some internal things and say, are we foundationally ready for a good experience for our client? And they're not complex things. There's things like job descriptions that you need to have. They're not complex. They're just not fires, and so they often don't get addressed.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Look, I see the same thing on the marketing side. It's fundamentals. Fundamentals that most people skip. And I think part of the challenge, too, and MSPs are not the only ones that struggle with this, but on the marketing side, so many people think of the customer journey as a funnel, right? And at the bottom, once they buy, it like, Okay, great. They bought. But one of my mentors in the marketing space was John Jantz at Ductate Marketing, and he thinks about the customer journey as an hour glass. And so it starts at the top, and you have know like, trust, try, buy, repeat, and refer. So the bottom part of that hour glass is repeat and refer. And most people skip that. That is a critical part of the customer journey. Once you make the sale, you still have to do a lot of things right to nail that repeat and refer.

Melissa Hockenberry
It's hard, and I apologize to interrupt you. I think it's very much what you're saying there. And here's the thing, look at all the money you put into getting people to that bottom part of the hour glass, right? To think that you're not going to give, throw at least a little operational value, a little bit of your expenses towards keeping them there. And the thing that frustrates me is there's not a ton of research. It's all the same research when you go out and say, how expensive it is to acquire a new customer? And they're like, well, it's five to 25 times more expensive to acquire a new customer than to keep. I don't think any time a range is five to 25. People hold it as a fact, but it is true. It really depends on your industry. If you have a long sales cycle, that's going to push you towards that 25, right? But if you're turning pretty quickly, yeah. But five times, five times more expensive than to just retain. And I think it's hard because retention is, I say, relationship is retention and retention is revenue. So if you're working on... But I think a lot of people in the MSP industry, they don't see themselves as having great soft skills, and I get that. But I think there are things you can put into place. You can process some relationship. You can just be like, We do this every single time. Every single time we close a ticket, these are the things we do. This is how we greet clients, and this is how we prioritize. One of the things I talk to MSP owners about, I'm actually just working on a video series about this whole thing, is stop thinking of your employees as employees and think of them as internal clients. Because in reality, they are the first people you to take care of to have any hope of doing external client retention.

Tim Fitzpatrick
That's right.

Melissa Hockenberry
Right? So let's just... You don't have to call them that forever, but if you don't mindset shift... And the thing is, is then you can treat all of them the same, because in reality, there are going to be more profitable employees than other ones, right? They're going to be ones that you want to duplicate and ones that you think you should set free, right? There are going to be... You need to listen to them because in reality, between your internal and your external clients, the solution to the issues you're having are in their minds. I can guarantee you between that group of people, any challenge you have, somebody out there can help you fix it. But if you're not listening, and you need to respect both groups, right? So to me, it actually simplifies to just go, it's like I used to say when I managed, I have my daytime kids and my nighttime kids. In reality, I still cared about them. I still wanted to see both sets succeed. I still genuinely had a love for who they were as a person and making them So it made it easy on me. I'm not going to separate these two. I'm going to care for them as I would care for it a little differently, obviously. I wasn't going to go crazy and start feeding all my employees dinner. But you get the idea. It's easier to think, I'm just going to treat all of these people well, internal and external clients. And how do you do it? Well, there's definitely scalable ways to do that. Treating someone well isn't treating someone the same. That's one thing people have to realize when they start to look at client experience.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah. You know what? Again, the numbers, it depends on where you get these, but the cost to acquire a client in the MSP space is expensive. And if all they're focused on is generating more leads top of funnel and neglecting retention, which will increase the lifetime value of a client, that is a very high leverage lever to pull. If you can increase retention and increase lifetime value, oh, man, way more profitable, way more.

Melissa Hockenberry
Definitely. And in this age where usually it's going to play against you because if something goes wrong, somebody is going to go out there and scream it. If you're actually carrying a great level for your clients, that is something that's... We're in a benefit that it's so... Some services are so poor right now. It takes It takes nothing. I follow an author, his name is John Acoff, and he's like, The bar is set so low, you can just step over it. And it's very true, and I think that's also true in technology. If you can be the technology provider who takes even just the tiniest bit of time to demystify some of the words you're trying to say to your clients. That's one thing I say to people. You get in on a business review and you're talking about something that you have to replace. And I'm like, Do you have... I just recently, I I've done a service for a client where I listened to three hours of recorded business reviews. And through those business reviews, I'm like, here's your strengths, here's your opportunities. And it happens very quickly because it's pretty innate to me. I can very quickly hear and see things that they might be missing because this is where my strong suit is. I've been in client services for over 30 years, essentially every job I've had. But when I talk to them about it, it's like, Okay, so you need to be able to clearly show the client what a firewall looks like. Let's just go to the vendor and see if they have a picture that explains it in human terms. Heck, describe it to ChatGPT and have it create a diagram for you, or find the most close analogy to whatever you're trying to do. Because I'm seeing these business reviews that are not in person, and they're just in my mind, because I'm not a technologist, I can quickly put myself in their client's seat. Now, I've lived in the software industry for over two decades, and worked with MSPs for over two decades. So I get their side, and I have the benefit of still being like, Let me turn off any technology brain that I know and go, This makes no sense. And we've talked about it for 10 minutes. Where's the picture? Where's it? So I think that's it. And the company that does that, because I'm not seeing or hearing anyone do it, they're stepping over the bar. They're going a little farther. One thing I hear a lot from MSPs now is the huge huge entities that are coming in and swipping up their clients. I'm like, well, they're not taking time to be personable because that's not in their model. So how do we do this? How do we just make you a little bit more personable? And it's easier than they think.

Why The Traditional QBR Approach Needs to Change

Tim Fitzpatrick
In a larger organization, most clients tend to feel like just a number, a cog. So this is not a difficult thing to differentiate from a large player. So like you said, the bar is low. We just need to do the simple things really, really well. You started to touch on this. I want to dig into QBRs and quarterly business reviews, because this is a big thing that's talked about in the MSP space. Are you doing quarterly business reviews? What needs to change in their approach? You started to touch on this, right? The first thing is... Unless your clients are technical people, unless your ideal client is a CTO or a CIO, do not talk about firewalls. Or if you do talk about firewalls, give an analogy so that they understand what the hell it is.

Melissa Hockenberry
Definitely.

Tim Fitzpatrick
So what other things do you have to share here? Because I'm seeing a lot of people talk about how to structure QBRs at this point.

Melissa Hockenberry
Yes, it's everywhere. And I feel like, Oh, why am I? I'm pretty passionate about this. I'm like, why does this have to be my passion point? Because everybody's talking about it and you're like, How do you break through the noise? First of all, kill the queue. I think I'm just going to get a hashtag that says kill the queue. First, stop calling it something that is based on a time bound element, because when we start to say how do we do this scalably. When I start to work with the client and think about what I would call a client communication cadence, which I want to touch on the fact that I'll sidestep for just a second. When somebody would engage someone like you, Tim, I'm amazed at the MSPs that don't use their marketing content for their existing clients. And why would you not repurpose that? Especially if somebody is developing it for you, it's good stuff. Go ahead and throw it in your client. And you should be able to do both because it really should be about education. It really should be about your offering. Things that they may not even sign on for this little amount. So anyway, but I don't want to get too off topic, but the business review, yes, kill the queue. And I would call it more of a strategic a session or a strategic review. And stop talking about yourself. When I sat through these hours of calls, I'm actually looking if there's anyone in your audience that's interested in this review. I'm looking to do more of the recorded business interview review because I'd like to get a greater breadth of what does it actually look like? Because when I sat in on this, I was like, oh, it's painful for me. I'm like, they're going through. There's so many tickets we resolve. They don't care. They don't care. They I don't care. I just kept saying that, and I wasn't trying to be mean. And I understand why they're seeing that as value. And yes, it is. If your client has signed on, this is something that's really important. So you bring them through the CRM, you win it. Then the CRM, you should document Why did they really sign with us? Make sure you are clear. Don't assume. Hey, we are so excited to have you on board. Can you tell me right now before we even jump into this, what are the most important things? Why did you come with us? What made the difference? Get that documented. And that is the thing that is worth reporting out on. If they say, Our other MSP was horrible in resolution time. They were just terrible. Well, don't just report your resolution time. Report that, Hey, remember your old MSP? We've noted that was their time. Here's our time. So continue to make that comparison that was important to them. But don't just talk about that if that wasn't something that was important to them. Maybe they only gave up because somebody dropped the ball on the project. So just make it I break it out. I talk about a ticket touch base that you could have more often. So have that meeting where you talk about tickets, but have your service delivery people in on that. Have somebody who can answer the question the client has. Then we talk about an audit. So have the audit of... Because people are like, Well, I've got to audit. I've got to look at licenses. I've got to look at devices. I totally get that. If you sent them an email with those reports that said, review this report because it could save you money, they might just do that outside of the meeting and if they don't do it, I'm a big fan of send them a report with a little video like we're doing right here. There's tons of tools where you can be like, here, hey, here's your audit. This is what we found. A five minute. And these are the actions we need you to take it. Maybe you send them a link where they can approve those actions or whatever. But think about how you can automate. Pull those things out. I'm not saying you don't do those because I know that those are important to your business as an MSP owner, right? But pull that out. And then I talk having an invoice conversation as well. So once a year, just be proactive and be like, Hey, let's go through this. Make sure you're still understanding everything. And then if you have clients who are just more argumentative about it, maybe that's something that is quarterly or monthly, right? You just take 15 minutes. But then when you actually sit down with them, it's about strategy. It's about people say to me, How do I know if I'm in good? I say, Well, if you can't tell me the top three to five goals of your top 20 % of your clients, their goals not their strategy, not their technology goals. I mean, maybe some of them are. Their business goals. Their business goals. If you can't tell me that, you should stop saying you're a partner because what partner in business doesn't know the goals of the business they're in partnership with. Talking about the tech is that

Tim Fitzpatrick
Talking about the tech, you're a vendor, right? Yes. When you start to have real business conversations, and when you understand what their business goals are, then the MSP can tie that back to, Oh, well, if that's a goal, we need to think about these things from an IT standpoint to make sure that you're prepared to get that, right?

Melissa Hockenberry
Exactly.

Tim Fitzpatrick
And not everything is going to tie back to IT. But if it does, you can help them remove any potential roadblocks before they happen.

Melissa Hockenberry
Yes. And I'm thinking on the fly, which is what I do often. But I think even taking those goals, I would say, yes, they're definitely in your CRM. But if this is one of your top clients, maybe it's something where you put it in a project or something where you can start to, or maybe it's a user defined field in your PSA, whatever, you can start to tie anything to those goals. So you can report out at the end of the year, Listen, we know these were your three goals, and here's what we did to help you get to those. Maybe some of them you're going to do nothing. Maybe it's just like, I know I have people who will say, Well, we've lost people, but we've only lost them because they went out of business or they did this or did that. And I've had the conversation actually on other podcast of like, I know it might sound crazy, but if you've been connected to somebody and they felt like you were close enough that they could turn over their financials or just say to you, It doesn't look good. And you could say, Listen, I have this great business coach that they directly help organizational leaders like yourself. Can I introduce you? They work with anyone. And no, I'm not saying that's going to save their business, but that's a step, right? And if you're truly a partner, a friend, you're going to do anything. And if they trust you, they're going to have that conversation with you early because they're going to know you've been a resource for good things in the past. That weren't just technology. And that's really when you have it. If anyone ever had that conversation with a client, I'd love to hear it. So reach out to me because I think that's when you know you have ditched partner or you've ditched vendor and you've moved into true partnership.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Ditch the queue, strategic business reviews, and correct me where I'm wrong here, but when you think about structuring your strategic business reviews, focus on the overall business goals and how what you do as an MSP can support them in reaching those goals.

Melissa Hockenberry
Yes, 100 %. And here I'm going to take this one step further because I know I've heard that said elsewhere, right? So I'm a listener and I'm going, that's great, Melissa. I've heard it six other times. And that's all the further they go. How do I do that? I'm going to tell you, you start to get a bank of questions that pull out more information from a client, okay? So again, I could probably give you some of these, right? You could give them a scenario. I'm a pretty technical person. I need to have a relationship conversation about what These are some of the questions I could ask. But one of the ones that I love is just, what are you most excited about in the next six months in your business? What are the things that you don't think you're prepared for? What are the things that you... If we were sitting together a year from now and you had the greatest success, tell me about that success. What does it look like? And use those questions, right? And then the other thing I would always say is if it seems like it's a quick question, tell me more. It's a three-word phrase. I was on an empath. I was actually listening to an empath webinar, but I commented at one point because they were talking about what are those things that open up? And Kyle had used a great phrase of tell me more. And I'm like, I love that phrase, right? If somebody is just starting, tell me more. What else can you elaborate on that? Can we paint a better picture on that? Now, those all might be words that they're like, I would never say those. Well, start with those, and you're going to find the ones that work for you and are in your language. But that's That's how you become more strategic. I actually am building right now a question bank to share with MSPs of like, Okay, tell me which ones worked for you. These are the ones I think could work. Go ahead and use it. Because I do think it's about giving people words. If we're in situations we don't know, there's incredible power in words. We don't know how to get started, but boy, if you have a set of words, I can at least say it. It's a question, and then it's on them. And then I can sit and listen and take notes, or I can, as I love, if they're okay with it, have a listening device place, so I don't have to take notes. I can really just be... One of my clients has that. He's invested in a... I don't think it's all that expensive, in just a really good recorder. So if they're out to lunch or whatever, it can focus on the conversation right in front of them, and then he can go back and transcribe it. But he can be fully engaged in what are they saying. And when you can be in person, that's also huge. I hear a lot of people, I have all my clients, I'm like, Well, have you ever heatmapped them? Are there two or three that you could hit that are some of your bigger or mid-sized clients, and you could actually go in person? Because there's so much to be said for body language, and there's so much to be said for presence in building trust. Trust is foundational in the process.

Tim Fitzpatrick
I think, too, it's important for them to keep... For MSPs to keep in mind, the more you do this, the more comfortable it's going to get. It's a conversation. What are your business goals? What's keeping you up at night? What roadblocks do you see ahead? It is a business conversation, and you just listen. Because the other thing where you can become a partner is, man, they may share stuff That you can't do anything about. But guess what? You may know two other people that can help them with that. And you're like, Hey, I can't help you with this, but I know these people. Do you want me to make a connection? That's how you become a partner.

Melissa Hockenberry
And I have to say that, Tim, you and I have just connected on podcast, but you have been so helpful with connections. When I think, when I start to think about the people I know that you connected me with to have a conversation with me on a podcast, there are so many that come back to you. And that's a phenomenal thing. And I think it's a skill. And they'd be surprised that they have in their toolbox that they're like, sit down and list out some of your clients, some of the people that you know. Maybe it's not even a client. It's just a friend or a neighbor or your wife's cousin or whatever. I mean, do know that the person has the integrity that you have. You don't want to point them to somebody you don't trust. But consider the fact that you've vetted that person and you're like, yeah, that's a great person. Let me go ahead and point them to that and have that conversation. And also, don't hesitate to talk about the good things in their business, because inherently, people's good will also turn to, Oh, well, we did this successfully, but you know what? We never got this done. We quickly are naysayers in what we're doing. So even if all you can talk about first because you feel more comfortable having the positive, don't hesitate to say what's going right. Because that going right, you might say, oh, we just maybe they're nonprofit. We just got a grant that's going to allow us to hire five more people in this other location. Cool. I'm going to make note of that because we're going to need to help you with that. What's that going to look like? So talk about successes as much as you talk about obstacles.

A Few Simple Ways to Add More Value in Every Client Interaction

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah, I love it. So what are some of the simple steps MSPs can take to add value to their client?

Melissa Hockenberry
I think a lot of it comes, it's going to come down to the owner starting to be that that personable open-ended questioner and setting that tone. And also just, I always say, enable your team to gather intel, if there's not a better word. If you do actually have people who go on site, encourage them to start to pay attention to more things around the client. I gave a presentation a couple of years ago. It might have actually been in 24 about your clients are not an NPC. I was at MSP Geekon, and they're very big gamers. And I said, hey, I just want you guys to realize this. And I started to talk about how even people who are very technically minded can still execute at a level of getting closer to somebody on a relational level. What do I see around an office? What do I see? What's on their screen saver? And they don't have to do anything with that information. Just bring it back and tell someone, even tell somebody who's an admin, to put it, not a cis-admin, just an administrator, an office coordinator. Hey, here's what I learned, or take a quick note and text it to somebody, or teams messaged it or whatever. These are the things I learned about them. This was the sports team I saw in their office. Just so you're starting to get at a more relational level. And it can be You actually can reward it. I used to say you could call it a treasure hunt and the people who do it better. But enable your team to know we're not just there to learn their equipment and devices, we're there to learn more about them. So if you pick up things that seem superficial, Don't dismiss them. And some people will say, my teams are never going to do that. Okay, well, cool. Then look at your budget and figure out when you can get a client success person on staff, even a part-time person, to start to look at those things because those relational things are what are going to keep people with you. It's the trust that you're building. It's your understanding. But it really does come at an owner's level to first say, okay, we're going to start to look at this open-ended. I'm not saying, toss everything out you do in a QBR. I'm saying, Don't put it in your face-to-face time because that stuff can be served online in a meeting or in a report with a video introduction or a video walkthrough.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah, that strategic business review time is incredibly valuable. Valuable time. It is.

Melissa Hockenberry
You have to look at it that way. You have to look at it like, what changes because you met? If we knocked out, Oh, we won this project, or they're upgrading to this, or if we couldn't talk about technology at all, after you had that meeting, how would you answer, What is going to change because you met? And if the answer is no, outside of any technology, it's like, okay, well, any vendor could supply that technology. If you can turn around and go, oh, well, I gave them three referrals to some people. So they're going to reach out to this guy because they're really struggling with how they're presenting themselves in their market, or they're going to reach out to this individual because they need a little coaching on a financial side, or their accountant's failing them on tax returns or whatever. Whatever it is, those are relational things. So if you had to say what's going to change because we met and you couldn't mention technology, how much would you have to talk about?

Conclusion

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah, I love it. It's awesome. I always enjoy connecting with you, Melissa. I really appreciate you taking the time. Where can MSPs learn more about you?

Melissa Hockenberry
I'm posting on LinkedIn. I do videos there, but they can also just go to my YouTube channel, which is just the FTFTAC. That's the handle on the YouTube channel, and we'll see I love the content I've been doing for several years. But I'm working currently on pulling together a Client Retention Essentials course that will give people a few videos and then actually an activity to push them to walk through the things that I think are foundational in intentional retention.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah. Awesome. I love it. We'll make sure all those links are there. All you MSPs out there, go reach out to Melissa. She knows what she's doing. And you can't ignore retention. You got to be intentional about it. So reach out, connect. Melissa, thank you so much. I appreciate you. Those of you that are watching and listening, I appreciate you as well. If you want to connect with us, you can do that at rialtomarketing.com. The other resource we've got is at marketingenginescorecard.com. We're helping clients build their marketing engine to create more predictable growth. And if you want to know which parts of the engine are holding you back, that's where you can do it. It takes less than two minutes, so go take advantage of it. And till next time. Take care.