A Step-by-Step Guide to Launching vCISO Services

With 98% of service providers without vCISO services planning to offer them in the future (according to The State of the Virtual CISO 2024 report), there’s no doubt the virtual CISO model is gaining traction fast. The opportunity is significant, but many providers encounter challenges when trying to get started. That’s where many providers get stuck.

Launching vCISO services comes with unique challenges: technological barriers, uncertainty around skills and processes, and limited security resources. Fortunately, you don’t need decades of CISO experience to deliver high-value results. You simply need the right strategy and the right tools.

To make that first step easier, Cynomi created The Checklist for Launching vCISO Services – practical, actionable guide to help you launch fast, scale efficiently, and drive profitability.

Download the checklist now, or read on for some highlights that will help you build a strong foundation from day one.

Define Your vCISO Offering

Effective vCISO services start with well-defined goals. Many new service providers attempt to cover too much ground. Offering an all-in-one approach becomes difficult to manage and scale. In the vCISO Academy course on Building and Selling vCISO Services, Jesse Miller emphasizes that  a successful vCISO practice starts with a focused, well-structured offering that aligns with your capabilities and clients’ needs.

He outlines why it’s essential to clearly define your offering from the start, whether you’re offering governance and advisory services, intermediate compliance and risk management, advanced fractional CISO leadership, or all three. Having a clearly defined structure gives service providers confidence and sets the right expectations with clients from the start, so offerings can be effectively packaged and priced.

Establish a Strong Client Engagement Process

As Jesse Miller emphasizes in Your First 100 Days as a vCISO – 5 Steps to Success, a great client experience starts with a well-defined onboarding process. When the initial engagement is structured and intentional, everything that follows becomes easier to manage, more consistent, and more impactful. 

From the outset, it’s important to align on business goals, compliance needs, and past security challenges. Setting clear success criteria ensures your services stay focused and measurable. This not only improves delivery, it strengthens your relationship with the client from day one.

Conduct a Comprehensive Risk Assessment

As Will Birchett points out in the vCISO Academy course: Introduction to vCISO Services, launching vCISO services isn’t about having decades of experience; it’s about using the right tools to deliver structured, actionable insight. A well-executed risk assessment is a key first step in demonstrating value and helping clients understand where they stand. 

The priority is understanding clients’ security posture by performing a risk assessment using trusted frameworks like NIST, CIS, or  ISO 27001. A structured assessment lays the foundation for identifying vulnerabilities in networks, systems, and third-party vendors, allowing for a holistic security strategy that aligns with business objectives.

Develop a Clear Security Roadmap

Once you have completed the risk assessment, the next step is turning insights into action. Clients seek not only identification of gaps but also actionable solutions. Your roadmap should outline short-term and long-term security goals, including actionable remediation steps that align with compliance requirements and business needs. 

This approach helps clients stay focused, make informed decisions, and build confidence in their security strategy. This positions service providers as strategic partners, rather than a compliance checklist checker.

Demonstrate Value and Communicate with Stakeholders

Your work as a vCISO is highly valuable, but for clients to fully benefit from it, they need to clearly understand the impact. Especially in the early stages of a vCISO relationship, clear communication with business stakeholders is key to building trust and long-term engagement as emphasized in the Thinking and Communicating Like a CISO. 

Clients expect results, but many don’t fully understand what results can be expected from a vCISO service. To maintain client trust and secure long-term engagements, successful vCISOs regularly update leadership with security reports that translate technical risks into business impact. Effective vCISOs leverage automated reporting to clearly demonstrate measurable progress on the metrics that matter most to decision-makers.

Security is an ongoing process, and clients need to see how their vCISO contributes to their overall business resilience.

The Bottom Line: Starting Is the Hardest Part

Offering vCISO services is a smart, strategic step for MSPs and MSSPs looking to increase recurring revenue, expand into new markets, and deliver more strategic value to clients. Turning that opportunity into a repeatable, scalable business model requires more than good intentions; it requires structure, efficiency, and the right tools.

The Checklist for Launching vCISO Services provides a clear, practical roadmap to help you build and grow your vCISO offering with confidence. Whether you’re just getting started or looking to enhance an existing service, this step-by-step guide will help you launch faster and scale smarter.

Download the checklist now and take the first step toward a stronger, more profitable vCISO practice.