The annual review that sells next year.
The scenario:
Most client reviews look backward: tickets closed, uptime achieved, SLAs met. Useful, and forgettable, because it tells the client what they already lived through.
The review that changes the relationship looks forward: where their business is going, what breaks on the way, and what to fund in which quarter. Do it well and next year’s projects are agreed before January, without a single sales conversation.
The prompts:
In your AI tool of choice.
STEP 1 - Prepare the ground
You are preparing a year-ahead strategic review for an MSP client.
Context:
The client: [size, sector, systems, tenure, current spend]
What we know of their plans: [growth, hiring, moves, new systems, anything from conversations]
Our unfunded recommendations: [the list they have deferred]
Build the preparation brief: the three business questions to ask the client before the meeting, the risk and lifecycle items due next year (hardware ageing out, license renewals, support endings), and the deferred recommendations reframed against their stated plans rather than our concerns.
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STEP 2 - Build the roadmap
Produce the year-ahead roadmap draft: quarter by quarter, each item with the business reason, the cost band, and what it unblocks. Three tiers: must do (risk and lifecycle), should do (efficiency and resilience), and later (growth enablers). One page. The client should read it as their plan, not our quote.
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STEP 3 - Run the meeting
Design the 60-minute agenda: ten minutes their year ahead in their words, fifteen on the roadmap walkthrough, twenty shaping priorities together with them moving items between quarters, ten on funding rhythm (what lands in which budget), five closing with the one next action. Include the follow-up note template sent within 24 hours: the agreed roadmap, the owner per item, and the date of the first check-in.