Becoming an IT Consultant? Ask Your Prospects These 4 Key Questions (YouTube Video)

Are you becoming an IT consultant?

Wondering how to get some great clients to get the ball rolling?

Make sure you know that not all prospective clients are created equal.

Learn 4 key qualifying questions that you must consistently ask every prospect, to build a great client list as you're becoming an IT consultant.

Computer Consulting Kit Home Study Course Sample Template Video Excerpt

Checking out the Computer Consulting Kit Home Study Course? This brief sample video excerpt on the Software Review Template for Client/Server Application helps you position yourself as Virtual CIO. Then learn more sample proven tips from the Computer Consulting Kit Home Study Course now at http://ComputerBusinessTips.com

Small IT Business Start-Up Game Plan for Avoiding Distractions

Own a small IT business? This short video helps you fend off freeloaders that can destroy your business, so you can focus on high-paying, steady prospective clients. Then learn more proven small IT business tips now at http://SmallITBusiness.com

PC Technician Business Tips

As a PC technician business owner, you really need to devote some time to working on more than just your technical skills. You must build relationships with your customers and clients so they will stick with you long term and contribute to your revenue.

Sending mailings to current customers needs to be part of your relationship-building activities and one of your marketing strategies.

Why?

The biggest reason is that your loyal customers already know you and believe in your skills as a PC technician. Your list of loyal clients already know, like and trust you – and this “know, like and trust” aspect of building relationships is the biggest obstacle to overcome when you’re trying to build any successful marketing strategy.

What should you say in your mailings to current clients?

1. Remind Clients that Their Data Needs Protecting. If you know a lot about virus protection, firewalls, passwords, data backup and power protection, mention these issues to your current clients … and remind them that they are at risk and should take advantage of your services to protect their data.

2. Offer a Discounted Technology Assessment Package. For customers that haven’t made use of your technology assessment package yet – and have just used you for emergency services break-fix services – you can offer a discounted technology assessment package. For example, if you usually charge $400, offer a special discount good through a specific date -- $299 or perhaps even $199. Think about including a bonus such as an entry-level battery backup unit or a surge protector … or just a CD or DVD of the last data protection seminar you held. Make sure you provide a free offer of some sort in your mailing that has real value to your customers. And by all means, you must impart urgency with a deadline.

Tracking marketing results is just as important as sending out mailings. So as a responsible PC technician business looking to really build relationships with clients, you need to track everything you do. Track responses to every mailing. Keep track of how many inquiries you got and how many ended up taking the technology assessment offer.

Results will help you predict responses to future mailings and make adjustments to get a better response rate if you need to. Remember that your audience of current customers is going to be more responsive than anyone else you target, which is part of what makes the strategy of mailing to your current clients so successful.

Make Your Current Relationships Stronger

When you own a PC technician business, you need to examine your existing customer relationships and determine more ways you can help them use what they own already. They probably have a lot of useful IT assets they aren’t even using, simply because they don’t know how much these tools could increase their productivity.

The important point is, direct mail and talking to your current customers doesn’t just help your customers get the most out of their current IT assets. This strategy also helps you get great long-term clients and build up your monthly service revenue base.

This article presented some tips to help you build real relationships with your current clients through direct mail. Learn more PC technician business tips that attract steady, high-paying clients now at the attached link.

Copyright (C) PCTechnicianBusiness.com All Rights Reserved

How to Become a Computer Dealer

Do you want to learn how to become a computer dealer in the small business space?

If so, you should understand an important reality -- most technology professionals that start small companies of their own don’t survive when they label themselves as “computer dealers.”

Why not? First of all, when you’re selling a commodity – in this case, a computer – you’re going to attract clients that are looking for “low, low prices,” and not anything particularly unique in the way of services.

You’ll run into some serious problems no matter what you do when you’re focusing on just a product sale. If you don’t offer “low, low prices, you’ll be priced out by competitors that do and make no sales. If you do offer prices that are low enough to attract the attention of small business owners, you’ll run yourself right out of business. Because as a small dealer (or any dealer), you’re already facing very low profit margins on computers in the small business space. And when your prices are barely above what it costs you to get the computers in the first place, you’d have to sell a whole lot of computers to come out ahead … probably more than you as a one- or two-person operation could possibly sell.

What’s the answer to learning how to become a computer dealer successfully? First, you need to focus on services that will add value to your overall offering. These services will include comprehensive small business solutions and on-going maintenance for your client’s technology assets, a business model supported by on-going service agreements that provide tangible benefits to your small business clients and on-going revenue. Go way beyond the product sale and offer something that will set you apart from other commodities brokers and show that you really are unique in what you do.

The following 3 tips can help you learn how to be a computer dealer profitably in the small business arena.

1. Build Real Relationships. Developing a bond and a real relationship with your clients is critical to having a successful computer business. Your relationships are your assets. Success is not about the size of your customer list or about the revenue you get. It’s about the longevity and the long-term relationships you build with your customers. Your best clients could bring you a lifetime value well in the six-figure net profit range, so really getting to know small business owners is worth your time and will pay off in the long run. Remember, the relationship isn't just about selling a box. Not even close.

2. Manage Customer and Client Expectations. If you are running a small computer business, you’ll probably be handling sales initially, so you won’t have to worry that the salesperson talking to your clients will change, causing you to have to start all over again. When you avoid impersonal sales tactics and build personal relationships with your customers, you can much better manage the expectations of your potential long-term clients from the very beginning of the sales process. You won’t have to worry that a slick, hyper-aggressive impersonal salesperson is going to try to make a quick sale by misrepresenting the actual capabilities of your company.

3. Personally Train Your Sales Staff. As you learn how to become a computer dealer offering real value-added services to small businesses and not just products, you have to watch how you grow your business with well-trained staff. When your business gets some long-term clients and you find you need to hire additional staff members to help manage the sales side, make sure you train them properly so they are learning the tactics consistent with your best practices and ethics, so they represent your company well.

In this brief article, we talked about some critical ways to go beyond selling products and add real value with small business solutions for your clients. Find out more about how to become a computer dealer and attract steady, high-paying clients now at the attached link.

Copyright (C) BecomeAComputerDealer.com All Rights Reserved

Start Your Own Computer Repair Business

As you start your own computer repair business in the small business arena, you might think you need to spend a lot of time learning “sexy” networking product platforms, impressing clients with buzzwords and seducing them with the latest and greatest technologies.

In reality, many businesses you will serve – especially those with less than 25 PC’s – will have extremely modest networking needs that can be met with easy-to-install, relatively inexpensive and highly mature technologies. You can profit from repairing and maintaining simple networks, both before and after the initial installation. There are very easy steps you can take to keep your clients’ systems up and running through long-term, proactive repair and maintenance agreements.

The following 3 tips can help you build strong relationships with steady clients as you start your own computer repair business by providing simple, high-margin maintenance services.

1. Prune the Weeds on the Server. Without internal IT staff, the shared folders on your clients’ servers can get pretty disorganized, bloated and inefficient in as little as a few weeks. If you take an active role as network manager and go beyond just basic repair services, you can help your clients get off to a strong start by instilling specific best practices. Encourage your clients to help you tackle disorganized file server shared folders by appointing one person in charge of server folder structure and file-naming conventions. While implementing a LAN can help your clients’ scale up their personal productivity to company-wide productivity, once there are folders being shared on a centralized file server, things get pretty complicated. Encourage your clients not to just let anyone put anything in the computer “filing cabinet” and follow a uniform structure.

2. Assign Organizational Responsibilities to Your Clients. As you start your own computer repair business, you need to make sure your clients appoint an “owner” of each shared file folder and that this person has four key responsibilities: designing and maintaining an orderly set of folders and sub-folders; monitoring storage space use (checking the MBs and GBs) in conjunction with any quota or storage management tools that you’ve already trained them to use; purging and archiving obsolete folders and files; setting up and enforcing file-naming conventions everyone can follow easily. This job is usually a good fit for a department manager, supervisor or team leader. No matter what, make sure your clients choose someone that is very well-organized and detail-oriented … even if this person is not the most computer literate.

3. Stay Proactive as You Start Your Own Computer Repair Business. You must be proactive about providing services to your clients, no matter which repair services or maintenance services you provide. A few times a year, follow-up with some informal client training on procedures for helping your clients stay organized. And be sure to review the condition of the server shared folders with the internal guru and those in charge of folders.

In this brief article, we outlined 3 tips to help you keep repair services to your clients simple and effective, while still adding tremendous value to your clients' networks. Learn more ways to start your own computer repair business and attract great, steady, high-paying clients now at the attached link.

Copyright (C) StartYourOwnComputerBusiness.com All Rights Reserved

How to Become a Software Reseller

If you are working as a technology professional in the small business space and wondering how to become a software reseller, think carefully about how you are packaging your products and services.

The truth is, most technology professionals that want to resell software and other products solely in the small business space can’t expect to see very high, if any profit margins. This is why, if you want to make product reselling a part of your business, you need to think of other services you can provide to your valued clients. This might include on-going service agreements that will have you working with small business clients on a steady basis and bringing them real, total business solutions they can’t live without.

Here are 3 ways for you to learn how to become a software reseller successfully and profitably by building up the value proposition that you provide to your clients.

1. Create Sound Pricing Strategies. Make sure you set your prices for both products and services high enough to put you in line with other high-end technology professionals in your area... and even more importantly, so that your business is profitable enough to survive and thrive. You can’t sell yourself short or give away the store by charging rock-bottom prices. While low prices might attract the attention of some penny-pinching small business owners, this short-sighted positioning strategy will not attract the attention of the right kinds of long-term-focused small business owners. If you don’t set your rates and prices right from the beginning, you will find yourself with a client list full of cheapskates and deadbeats -- essentially those that really don’t appreciate or understand the value of your comprehensive IT solutions. Also bear in mind that if you set your prices and rates wrong at the beginning, you will find the process of changing your prices and rates nearly impossible, which means you'll basically have to dump your client list and start over. So make sure you create sound, sustainable, and profitable pricing strategies right from the start.

2. Leverage On-Going Service Agreements. In order to learn how to become a software reseller profitably, you really need to leverage your long-term client relationships and make sure those relationships lead to on-going service agreements. These agreements give you predictability and financial security for your business and your family, so you don’t have to torture yourself every month with “feast or famine” and jeopardize the long-term survival of your business. If you are too stubborn to implement service agreements, you'd better scale very large very fast (8-figure annual sales or more) or you will go out of business sooner rather than later ... really! So don't procrastinate. You need clients on long-term service agreements.

3. Get Your Prospects and Customers to Commit to On-Going Service Agreements. If you want to know how to become a software reseller successfully in the small business space, you need to set a goal of getting the overwhelming majority of your clients on long-term service agreements. This means you need to get rid of those prospects and customers that are on the fence or just want to cherry-pick you. If you have a lot of customers that only call you every once in a while or just rely on you for low-margin software and other products every few years, you need to really up the ante on your business model. Reselling can be a valuable part of your overall service offering, but you can’t survive without on-going commitments from your clients to provide them with regular services that they pay for on a monthly, recurring basis.

In this brief article, we talked about 3 reasons why you need clients on service agreements if you want to successfully and profitably resell hardware or software in the small business space. Learn more proven secrets about how to become a software reseller and get steady, high-paying clients now at the attached link.

Copyright (C) BecomeASoftwareReseller.com All Rights Reserved

How to Start a PC Repair Business

Many IT professionals trying to figure out how to start a PC repair business find themselves wondering, “How can I provide a service that will be valuable to my clients, without giving away the store for free?”

A lot of times those trying to start their own businesses give away way too many free advice and services in the beginning as they try to attract and keep clients. There are a lot of reasons why computer repair specialists give away too many free services. Often they lack confidence in their abilities and expertise. Or, they don’t have a grasp on the true expenses of operating their PC repair business. Or they simply have never been taught any other way.

The truth is, if you want to stay alive in the PC repair business, you can’t give away all of your valuable services for free. While the “give it to them free” philosophy might seem to be a way to gain and keep attention of new customers and clients, it’s not the best way to grow a business and will ultimately end up backfiring.

The following 4 tips can help you learn how to start a PC repair business without giving away the store for free, while still building trust and great relationships with your new customers and clients.

1. Know Your Competition and the Prevailing Rates for Your Types of Services. A big mistake that many new and even well-established PC repair businesses make is setting rates too low -- usually way too low. Many of these people find themselves on the verge of going out of business very, very quickly. As you learn how to start a PC repair business, make sure that you know what your credible direct competition is charging. The truth is, if you set your rates too low or wrong at the beginning, you will have a hard time changing them. And if you are able to change your rates, you will probably end up losing a lot of your customers and clients in the process. So be sure to carefully set your rates at the beginning of your business to avoid having to totally start over again later.

2. Don’t Charge Less than Your Competitors. If you are competent, confident and know you have as much skill and talent as your competitors, there is no reason to charge less than your competitors. In fact, some people believe if you charge more, this is a sign you are really, really good. However, the point is not to see how much you can charge before you run yourself out of business. You just need to make sure as you figure out how to start a PC repair business that you don't sell yourself short. Even better, work with your accountant to develop a pro-forma Profit and Loss statement (a P&L), so you can figure out whether or not your planned rate structure is profitable sooner rather than later.

3. Do Your Homework and Provide Efficient, Professional Service. Show customers and clients that your firm’s services are worth every penny. If you build a solid reputation, and are marketing to the right kinds of small business decision makers, price will not be the main deciding factor for your target clients. With a great reputation preceding you, your customers will admire your confidence and work ethic and be happy about doing business with your company.

4. Focus on Your Company’s Service Agreement Plan. As you're thinking about how to start a PC repair business, make sure to consider how you'll develop a great service agreement plan that will bring in steady, high-paying clients and consistent revenue for your business. Even before you open your doors, you should have a plan for on-going contracts in place. A well thought-out service agreement program is mutually beneficial. It gives your clients peace of mind and you the opportunity to know where your next paycheck is coming from at all times.

In this article we talked about 4 tips to help you learn how to start a PC repair business on a solid foundation before you even open your doors. Learn more proven tips on how to start a PC repair business and get more great, steady, high-paying clients now at the attached link.

Copyright (C) HowToStartAPCRepairBusiness.com All Rights Reserved

Data Cabling Companies Partnering Strategies

Most data cabling companies face a choice of two distinctly different business development paths.

Some spend most of their marketing, sales, and business development resources pursuing large major bid opportunities with Fortune 1000 enterprises and government entities.

Other data cabling companies do a lot more in the small business space, where installations typically involve networks of anywhere from 10-100 nodes.

However it can be very difficult to profitably market to customers that really only need your services once… with perhaps some small add-on work a few years down the road.

This is because your customer acquisition costs can be quite high relative to the rather limited size of the job.

Think about it…. How much can you really afford to spend on marketing, sales and business development expenses when the upside potential of the projects is say $1,000 - $5,000?

That’s why for many data cabling companies that want to service small businesses, it makes more sense to partner with those technology providers that already have existing relationships with small business owners and managers.

How can you go about finding these movers and shakers that can not only drastically cut the length of your sales cycle, but also provide predictability and stability through constant referrals?

Consider these 5 ways to locate like-minded technology providers that are eager to work with data cabling companies like yours.

1. Look for Those Small Business Tech Providers that Don’t Do Cabling In-House. At the risk of stating the obvious, make sure those VARs, consultants, solution providers, MSPs, and integrators that you choose to partner with are complimentary to your core cabling skills, and not a direct or indirect competitor.

2. Check Out B2B Networking Events. Generally those technology providers that get involved with chamber of commerce organizations, lead sharing groups, and local expos are pretty receptive to building their businesses up on a variety of fronts.

3. Go Where Techies Hang Out. Often-overlooked, IT user groups can be a great way to network both with potential partners and those that routinely subcontract work to data cabling companies like yours.

4. Keep Your Ears Open at Training Events. Ever been to a reseller or channel partner event from an IT giant like Microsoft or Cisco? These confabs are often bursting at the seams with those technology providers eager for opportunity. The key thing… network with those who don’t fulfill the needs that you do.

5. Ask Your Accountant or Attorney to Facilitate Introductions. Chances are, your trusted business advisors like your accountant or attorney have clients that are VARs, consultants, solution providers, MSPs, and integrators. So don’t be shy about letting your trusted business advisors know that you’d appreciate any relevant, appropriate matchmaking. After all, you do already have one important thing in common… you’ve selected the same trusted business advisor.

Most data cabling companies are either excellent marketers or destined to starve themselves out of business. This can be an especially daunting challenge if you work primarily with small businesses. In this short article, we looked at 5 simple, proven, powerful strategies for leveraging the existing relationships of other technology providers to get an instant foot in the door. To learn more about how data cabling companies can attract more steady, high-paying clients, go sign-up for the free tips now at the attached link.

Copyright (C) DataCablingCompany.com All Rights Reserved

PC Repair Contract Tips for Making Your Business Profitable

Do your offer a PC repair contract to your small business clients?

And if so, are you truly satisfied with the quality and quantity of small business clients that have signed-up for your PC repair contract?

If you answered "No" to either question, you need to start thinking about where the real money is when it comes to providing PC repair services. The truth is, developing a PC repair contract is almost always going to be your ticket to growing your business and attracting better clients. Having an effective, compelling, mutually-beneficial offering can make or break your business. So you need to focus on making yours as strong as possible.

If you are like many others in the PC repair industry, you might have some anxiety about implementing a long-term contract plan. You probably wonder about important issues like how you can get your clients to sign up for long-term services and which types of clients should be on on-going agreements, because after all, these contracts are certainly not for everyone.

The following 4 tips can help you make your PC repair contract offering a vital and rejuvenating part of your core business and marketing plans.

1. Leverage PC Repair Contract Agreements to Make Your Business Secure. Having a contract gives you predictability and financial security for your business and your family. This means you can stop torturing yourself each month with ad-hoc, one-shot repair services that put you in “feast” or “famine” mode regularly and jeopardize your company’s survival. You really need to get past your resistance to do the work involved initially in setting up your business model around long-term relationships. And don't procrastinate. The sooner your business can enjoy this more profitable and predictable way of operating, the better off you'll be.

2. Choose the Right Kind of Clients for Long-Term Business Growth. You need to find clients that will be a good fit for an on-going PC repair contract and target them with your marketing materials. When you properly qualify and pinpoint the best prospects for on-going services, you can focus your energy in the right places and avoid wild goose chases that lead nowhere and eat up valuable time.

3. Stop Dealing with Prospects that Just Want Freebies. When you fine-tune your business model and start only looking for those that will be interested in on-going contracts, you will stop attracting prospects that just want to cherry-pick your services and pump you for free advice. When you have a clear set of lead qualification criteria for what makes a small business prospect an ideal candidate for long-term services, you can see warning signs early enough to prevent losers from derailing the growth of your PC repair business.

4. A PC Repair Contract Will Help You See Red Flags. When you know exactly which type of client is good to work with long term, you will be able to spot hard-to-satisfy small business owners and will have the luxury to "just say no" before you get involved in a no-win deal.

In this brief article, we discussed 4 tips to help you understand why a PC repair contract is necessary for building a strong, profitable, stable business. Learn more about how to create a compelling, mutually-beneficial PC repair contract plan that will attract great, steady, high-paying clients now at the attached link.

Copyright (C) PCRepairContractSecrets.com All Rights Reserved

I.T. Contract Work and How the Rules of Engagement Have Changed

If you are looking for I.T. contract work you might be running into some challenges when it comes to finding viable clients. Why is this happening?

In recent years, the rules of standard I.T. contract work have changed dramatically. You can’t just slide by on being a highly-talented I.T. consultant anymore. You have to be proactive about looking for new client projects and opportunities. In this highly-challenging business environment, finding great clients is getting tougher and tougher. And unfortunately without paying clients, you really can’t build a business or a career.

Let's look at 3 ways to take charge of your IT career, so you can build stable sources of project revenue and more long-term relationships.

1. Make Finding New Clients a Priority. Finding new long-term clients should be a top priority. In times like now especially, you can longer afford to back-burner marketing and promotion. Are you prepared to not only survive, but also thrive in the coming months and years? Stop procrastinating and get to work building relationships with both peers and potential clients. This way, you can sidestep unpredictable I.T. contract work and move towards more steady, stable projects.

2. Plant the Seeds for Your Future Business Development Activities. To be a great I.T. provider, you need to focus on real ways to grow your business. This means you must engage in activities like networking and targeted marketing and stop spending all your time learning about gadgets or racking up large numbers of certifications. Success with I.T. contract work is largely about building and maintaining long term relationships.

3. Know which Goals Help You Succeed in I.T. Contract Work. In order to build a successful business based on strong relationships with steady clients, you'll need to start making a dent on getting more word-of-mouth referrals from contacts, customers and clients; looking for revenue opportunities that surround you as you do business; preparing targeted marketing materials that will boost the number of prospects you convert into lucrative clients; uncovering your prospects’ biggest problems and showing how you can solve them in sales calls, and leaving your competitors in the dust by providing stellar customer service that builds tremendous client loyalty.

In this short article, we talked about 3 tips to help you get the most out of I.T. contract work opportunities. Learn more about how you can get great, steady, high-paying projects and I.T. contract work now at the attached link.

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Become a Software Reseller that's More Than Just a Box-Pusher

Do you want to become a software reseller for small businesses? If so, you need to know how to do it without coming off as a box-pusher or commodity-broker.

Many that decide software reselling will be a part of the services they provide to small businesses make the major mistake of focusing on the products they sell in their marketing materials. The truth is, if you do this, you will become just a commodity to your small business clients. And you’ll just attract customers looking for dirt-cheap prices and not real solutions to their technology woes.

Your best bet if you want to become a software reseller for small businesses and make an actual profit is to make sure your marketing materials, and your business as a whole, are focused on sophisticated solutions and not just the software you sell. The best small business prospects and clients will usually want you to be an insurance policy for their technology assets. This means you need to provide long-term services, not just short-term fixes and software solutions to your clients.

The following 3 tips can help you become a software reseller that's actually profitable.

1. Play Up the Value of Your Consulting Services. To build real client relationships with steady service revenue, make sure small business owners have a way to get a one-stop IT support solution for your company . Simple software sales will not accomplish this goal. Even if you want to make software reselling a part of your business plan, you need to play up the value of your consulting services and make sure you are focusing on important issues like data protection and security when selling software.

2. Help Clients Secure and Protect their Data. If you want to become a software reseller for small businesses, be sure to weave security and data protection bullet-points into your sales presentations. You may find that some of your prospects are using peer-to-peer networks. This just isn’t going to fly if you’re going to build a dependable, secure, reliable solution for your clients. Educate prospects on the inherent peer-to-peer limitations like share-level access control, lack of granular access levels, and no meaningful audit trail.

3. Stop Using Software Reselling as Your Loss-Leader. If you want to profitably become a software reseller, focus on selling fully-integrated IT solutions and not just being a software reseller. Remember, you only have one chance to make a positive, professional first impression on your new prospects. If your prospects perceive your company to be nothing more than glorified box-pushers, it's pretty tough to overcome that limiting perception. Rather that using software reselling as your loss-leader, consider focusing your marketing activities on the problems you solve for clients as a software solution provider.

In this article, we discussed 3 tips to help you become a software reseller without becoming just a product-pusher or commodity-broker. Learn more about how you can attract great, steady, high-paying clients now at the attached link.

Copyright (C), BecomeASoftwareReseller.com, All Rights Reserved

IT Maintenance Agreement Tips for Smart Computer Consultants

Does your computer consulting firm currently offer an IT maintenance agreement option for long-term clients? If not, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity to build great relationships with steady, high-paying clients. Plus done right, these offerings grow the annual revenue base of your company, so it can last well into the future.

Many computer consultants fail to understand the importance of why you want every client to be on some kind of an on-going IT maintenance agreement. A long-term agreement helps your clients, because it gives them peace of mind... peace of mind of knowing that someone is keeping their systems running all the time, solving their big IT business problems, and making their companies more efficient and productive. But what’s really in it for you?

Here are 5 big reasons why you should focus all your business growth efforts on IT maintenance agreement clients.

1. Stability for You and Your Business. An official consultant-client agreement gives you a stable foundation on which to grow your business. Even just a few clients on long-term maintenance contracts give you great results and helps you to know that you can expect a certain amount of minimum service revenue each and every month.

2. Predictability. What’s more predictable and comforting for you as a computer consultant than knowing which clients will be paying the bills, when they will be paying them, and exactly how much they will be paying? You can’t get the same kind of predictability in computer consulting from pay-as-you-go customers and one-shot deals that you can get from those that sign on-going agreements.

3. Regularity. When you have IT maintenance agreements in place, you get clients that see you on a regular basis. This way, you can develop deep and trusting relationships with people that can be a joy to work with. Plus regular clients on IT maintenance agreements allow you to put your skills to good use.

4. Confidence So You Can Grow Your Business. Once you add on-going agreements to your business model and see the results in the form of regular, recurring revenue and strong client-consultant relationships, you will feel that final push to go grow your business confidently.

5. Immediate, Obvious Prioritization of Services. If you currently find yourself wondering how to decide which of your clients deserves premium services, wonder no more. With a well-developed IT maintenance agreement, you know which clients are truly on your side and in a relationship with you long term. And these loyal clients are the ones that will get your attention when you have several customers pulling you in many directions at once.

In this brief article, we looked at 5 big reasons why you need to add an IT maintenance agreement program to your business. Learn more about how you can attract great, steady, high-paying clients with a well-planned IT maintenance agreement now at the attached link.

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IT Marketing Ideas that Attract More Great Clients

Are you looking for some IT marketing ideas to help you really get noticed by potential clients? Perhaps you should start looking beyond all the generalist tasks you are doing as a trusted technology provider for your clients … and start positioning yourself as a real IT specialist.

Why? Well, the truth is you don’t need that much industry experience to position yourself as an IT specialist. But specialization can make an enormous difference in your marketing results, your hourly billing rates, your sales call closing rates, and your clients' lifetime value.

Of course, there are a lot of IT marketing ideas that can help you position yourself as an IT specialist. But the key is identifying something you enjoy doing that many small business owners in your area need. Finding a specialty helps ensure you won’t just look like everyone else providing technology services.

Consider the following 5 IT marketing ideas to help you attract and retain great clients for your business.

1. Be Choosy with Your Clients. If you are like many others in the small business IT consulting field, you are probably doing everything for your clients, including tasks like network design, procurement, project management, dealing with phone companies, Web hosts and ISPs, deciding what to buy and inspecting it when it comes in, and doing configuration, testing, integration, customization, training and troubleshooting. Wow, that's a lot of hats to wear! Your Virtual CIO role as the person that does everything certainly makes you a generalist in some respects. But who says you have to be a generalist for everyone under the sun? IT marketing ideas that really work involve you being all things to only some of the people in a particular niche. You provide true IT consulting solutions and show your clients that the buck stops with you. You become accountable for everything your clients need. But most importantly, you must limit the scope of the kind of clients you pursue, usually by industry niche.

2. As an IT Specialist, You Can Market More Cost-Effectively to Your Niche. Marketing to a niche is actually easier and a lot more affordable than virtually any other IT marketing ideas. You will know exactly where to advertise when it comes to trade publications. You will be able to stop wasting time and money on generic ads in the newspaper, phone book or on the radio. When you understand your specialty and the needs of your niche, you will be able to come up with a marketing message that speaks directly to your target audience and really resonates. All of a sudden you become very valuable to potential clients and find yourself getting a warm response to your sales letters, postcards and any seminars you give.

3. Picking a Specialty Niche Doesn’t Always Require Extensive Experience. Finding your specialty and your niche can be as simple as having two or three clients, in the same or similar industries, who you’ve been working with for a year or two. Perhaps you’ve been doing a project such as migrating an antiquated MS-DOS-based industry-specific application to a 32-bit or to a Web-based application. As you go along, you may get to know a specific applications through work with a client or two. Now that you know that specific application, you most likely stand out from other consulting firms that those that use this industry-specific application could call.

4. Size Up the Market Size When You Think About Your Specialty Niche. One of the best and most important IT marketing ideas is to make sure you do your homework before you decide who you are going to serve. As an IT specialist, sometimes you will have to turn away potential clients, which may be counter-intuitive to the idea of growing your business. However, you are not really turning away any really viable clients. Instead you are making room for, almost like a kind of de-cluttering of your client list, and honing in on a segment that will be a good fit for your solutions and bring you a good source of high-margin, long-term, steady service revenue.

5. Develop a Marketing Message that Fits Your Specialty. Don’t try to speak to the masses with your marketing materials. You can’t possibly create a message that will resonate with everyone. And if you do, you will find yourself competing on price and reduced to a commodity. A well-defined specialty helps others know exactly what you do and for whom you do it. Plus focusing in on a well-defined niche avoids those prospects that would just call 30 companies they found in the phone book, looking for the lowest, dirt-cheap price.

In this article, we discussed 5 IT marketing ideas to help you become a specialist, so you can attract more great new clients. Learn more about how you can attract great, steady, high-paying clients with more proven IT marketing ideas now at the attached link.

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Computer Business Name Ideas for Small Business Virtual CIO's

Are you trying to come up with a strong computer business name? If you are having trouble landing on that perfect way to brand yourself, think about one of the most critical concepts of running a successful computer business... your role as a Virtual CIO for your clients.

When you build your entire business around being a Virtual CIO for local companies, you get the advantage of working on end-to-end solutions that need to be maintained and expanded on over time. And when your company name reflects this concept, you help build a brand for yourself that attracts steady, high-paying clients that recognize the importance of computers to running successful businesses and will need you for many years to come.

The following 4 tips will help you understand your role as a Virtual CIO, so you can decide on an effective computer business name that reflects your unique expertise and attracts the best small business clients.

1. Know What CIO Means. If you are going to choose a computer business name based on the idea of the CIO, you of course will have to understand what this concept means. In a medium-sized or enterprise-sized company, you will almost always find a CIO or chief information officer on payroll. Although this person is not generally as important as a CEO, a CIO is still a trusted business manager, trusted for his/her extensive expertise in technology. Because you are working with small business clients that have a lot of IT challenges but are too small to have a full-time CIO on payroll in most cases, you become a Virtual CIO for your clients. You may wish to reflect this concept in your computer business name, so you immediately communicate the problem you solve for your clients.

2. A Virtual CIO-Related Computer Business Name Helps Position Your Firm in the Marketplace. You can’t make the Virtual CIO concept an afterthought when you are coming up with your full brand, including your name, logo and business plan. Why? Because how you position you and your company makes an enormous difference on the hourly billing rates you can command with your clients. A strong name based on your mission to provide end-to-end business solutions should convey that you are an expert and the only rational choice for your target small business prospects.

3. Be Prepared to Deliver the Goods as Virtual CIO. If your company had complicated financial needs that included expanding payroll, looming strategic acquisitions or expanding to a different business model, would you feel more comfortable getting advice from a freelance bookkeeper, a freelance accountant, a freelance CPA, or a freelance Virtual CFO? Of course, you would want someone that is an expert in more than just one area of finances and could give you the total package. The same thing applies with your small business clients and the whole Virtual CIO concept, which is why you need to build your computer business name around it. A small business that has a need for things like a high-end database management application, a mission-critical point of sale network, a highly-visible e-commerce site, regulatory IT requirements, and a need to integrate the systems of a recently acquired competitor needs you to be that end-to-end, one-stop solution.

4. Being the Virtual CIO Self-Selects the Best Small Business Clients. When you brand yourself as a Virtual CIO, you help create a decisive strategy for targeting and qualifying small business prospects. A name based on the Virtual CIO concept helps you show you want to be involved with your clients at high strategic levels. It also pretty much guarantees that you will work on projects with very measurable business results and ROI and command the highest hourly billing rates in your area for your services. When your name reflects the idea of truly sophisticated technology solutions, you help build a client roster primarily with those small businesses that need to retain your high-end, premium Virtual CIO services, vs. plain, ordinary break-fix repair and systems integration with no long-term potential.

In this brief article we discussed 4 tips to help you understand why you need to choose a computer business name that supports the whole Virtual CIO concept. Learn more about how you can attract great, steady, high-paying clients with an effective, highly-compelling computer business name now at the attached link.

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