If you want to really grow your computer consulting business, you need to get out and do some IT marketing in the community through networking. You need to meet other people that are decision makers for small businesses.
If you’re targeting the small business owner and manager, you will meet a lot of branch managers from banks (just as an example) … but these won’t really be the decision makers you want to target. You might also meet executive directors from non-profit organizations, but they will not have very much money to spend on IT services. You might also meet people that work for Fortune 1,000 companies with branch offices in your area, but again … these won’t fit your needs.
You need to target the right decision maker with your IT marketing efforts to get the most out of the trade groups and organizations in which you participate.
IT Marketing and Partner Programs
If you want to increase your community presence, join a partner or reseller program. You can join the Microsoft Certified Partner Program, for example. But if you do, you need to be proactive, particularly as a small firm.
Find out who your local field representative is and shake hands, exchange business cards, etc. Make a connection with your field rep. by checking in regularly, sending emails every couple weeks and giving them updates. You should feel free to ask the person questions and brainstorm. Get together for coffee a couple times per year to talk to them about industry and market trends and opportunities as part of your IT marketing efforts.
IT Marketing and the Real Problems
Ask your field rep. if there are any big problems right now that are going around. Does your rep know of any ways you can help with these problems? Or are there any people that belong to channel programs that might like to partner with you? Take full advantage of relationships with local channel representatives to help you find opportunities within your community and develop a truly targeted IT marketing plan.
Added By: Computer Consulting Kit
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Saturday, April 26, 2008
Sunday, April 20, 2008
IT Sales and Your Unique Offering
You need to offer unique benefits to your prospects, customers and clients if you want to be good at IT sales.
Proximity and IT Sales
As an example, say ABC Consulting moved to a 27-story building stocked with high-end firms and near many other buildings that are all within a two-minute walk. In this case, the obvious unique benefit would be proximity. This company would be able to respond quickly and get things done better, faster and cheaper than others that are farther away.
Your Unique Benefit and IT Sales
You need to sell service agreements and lead with a guaranteed response time if you have the proximity benefit. You can afford to make a promise to be there within 60 minutes of a server down emergency during regular business hours and even offer something like $100 off the bill for the month if you are even a minute late. You can do this because you have no travel time and no reason NOT to be there.
How Would You Find These Businesses?
If you are in the situation like ABC Consulting, you need to identify local businesses. Do a survey that you mail to every owner or CEO in the building and in neighboring buildings. You can also offer a “bribe” of a gift certificate or something of value to get them to return the survey promptly.
Survey Questions to Help with IT Sales
1. How many PCs do you have?
2. How many employees?
3. How do you currently get IT support?
4. What do you dislike and like about your current support?
5. What is your biggest business challenge?
6. What is your biggest IT challenge?
You need to use the survey to get people to tell you what they want and also get an idea of who will be interested in your services and responsive to IT sales.
IT Sales and the People that Know People
You should make nice with the local shoe repair person, the Chinese or pizza delivery person, the mail carrier, UPS person and FedEx driver. If you know everyone, you will be able to easily network yourself into local offices through the people that see people every day. Your contacts will already be in touch with the people in charge.
Stress your unique benefit as an IT company to get more IT sales.
Added By: Computer Consulting Kit
Proximity and IT Sales
As an example, say ABC Consulting moved to a 27-story building stocked with high-end firms and near many other buildings that are all within a two-minute walk. In this case, the obvious unique benefit would be proximity. This company would be able to respond quickly and get things done better, faster and cheaper than others that are farther away.
Your Unique Benefit and IT Sales
You need to sell service agreements and lead with a guaranteed response time if you have the proximity benefit. You can afford to make a promise to be there within 60 minutes of a server down emergency during regular business hours and even offer something like $100 off the bill for the month if you are even a minute late. You can do this because you have no travel time and no reason NOT to be there.
How Would You Find These Businesses?
If you are in the situation like ABC Consulting, you need to identify local businesses. Do a survey that you mail to every owner or CEO in the building and in neighboring buildings. You can also offer a “bribe” of a gift certificate or something of value to get them to return the survey promptly.
Survey Questions to Help with IT Sales
1. How many PCs do you have?
2. How many employees?
3. How do you currently get IT support?
4. What do you dislike and like about your current support?
5. What is your biggest business challenge?
6. What is your biggest IT challenge?
You need to use the survey to get people to tell you what they want and also get an idea of who will be interested in your services and responsive to IT sales.
IT Sales and the People that Know People
You should make nice with the local shoe repair person, the Chinese or pizza delivery person, the mail carrier, UPS person and FedEx driver. If you know everyone, you will be able to easily network yourself into local offices through the people that see people every day. Your contacts will already be in touch with the people in charge.
Stress your unique benefit as an IT company to get more IT sales.
Added By: Computer Consulting Kit
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Computer Consulting Staff: Which Skills Are Necessary?
What do you do if you or any other members of your computer consulting staff don’t have advanced technical skills? All you need to do is devote a little time to self study in order to best serve your sweet spot clients.
Break What’s Working
One technique you can do to help build skills with your computer consulting staff is to get a hold of not-for-resale (NFR) copies of products you want to sell, install and service and then work with the product in your “lab.” Go through some basic installations and broken installations with your computer consulting staff (particularly lead technicians and engineers) and get them comfortable with the software.
Installations Are Fairly Easy to Handle
In previous years, it was harder to install things like Novell small business suite or the IBM equivalent … even the 1997 introductory Microsoft Small Business Server. But now these programs are easier to install than ever, and your computer consulting staff will not have to have incredibly advanced skills in order to manage them.
Which Skills Does Your Computer Consulting Staff Need?
In order to best serve clients, your computer consulting staff needs strong PC hardware skills, the ability to deal with P2P setups, an understanding of TCP/IP, an awareness of POP3 and SMTP. Additionally, your computer consulting staff needs to know how to work with basic SOHO routers.
Make sure you share the knowledge among your employees and that everyone is cross training each other. This way, no one can ever extort money from you, blackmail you, try to get huge raises or bonuses or take your clients. Your company’s internal know-how will all be equal and this will keep everyone on your computer consulting staff happy and loyal.
Added By: Joshua Feinberg
Break What’s Working
One technique you can do to help build skills with your computer consulting staff is to get a hold of not-for-resale (NFR) copies of products you want to sell, install and service and then work with the product in your “lab.” Go through some basic installations and broken installations with your computer consulting staff (particularly lead technicians and engineers) and get them comfortable with the software.
Installations Are Fairly Easy to Handle
In previous years, it was harder to install things like Novell small business suite or the IBM equivalent … even the 1997 introductory Microsoft Small Business Server. But now these programs are easier to install than ever, and your computer consulting staff will not have to have incredibly advanced skills in order to manage them.
Which Skills Does Your Computer Consulting Staff Need?
In order to best serve clients, your computer consulting staff needs strong PC hardware skills, the ability to deal with P2P setups, an understanding of TCP/IP, an awareness of POP3 and SMTP. Additionally, your computer consulting staff needs to know how to work with basic SOHO routers.
Make sure you share the knowledge among your employees and that everyone is cross training each other. This way, no one can ever extort money from you, blackmail you, try to get huge raises or bonuses or take your clients. Your company’s internal know-how will all be equal and this will keep everyone on your computer consulting staff happy and loyal.
Added By: Joshua Feinberg
Saturday, April 05, 2008
Should You Buy an IT Consulting Franchise?
How do you decide whether or not to buy an IT consulting franchise? Your decision depends upon weighing the pros and cons!
The Pros of an IT Consulting Franchise
1. You get the convenience of being part of a larger company.
2. You have an immediate peer support network as part of the company.
3. Your franchise comes with pre-set tools and resources.
4. You have people set up to help with problems.
The Cons of an IT Consulting Franchise
The biggest problem with entrepreneurs when it comes to a franchise is that there is a lot of money required for startup. On top of this amount, you need to pay a percentage of your revenue (a royalty) every month to your franchiser. And you will have some restrictions when it comes to the direction and scope of your business.
IT Consulting: A Business of More Time than Money
Starting a regular IT consulting business will typically be a low overhead investment … but it will require a lot of time and effort! You may take up to six months (or more) to get enough contacts, prospects and projects in your sales funnel to get to a 50 or 60% utilization rate (20-24 billable hours weekly).
When Will You Get IT Consulting Revenue?
Even when you put forth substantial effort with marketing, three to six months is a good guess of how long it will take you to get some cash flow to sustain you. If you decide to have staff members with good technical expertise, you might need years.
You need capital to start an IT consulting business so you can pay your expenses. Keeping a low overhead can eliminate a lot of stress, which is why you should think long and hard about whether or not a franchise is right for you!
Added By: Joshua Feinberg
The Pros of an IT Consulting Franchise
1. You get the convenience of being part of a larger company.
2. You have an immediate peer support network as part of the company.
3. Your franchise comes with pre-set tools and resources.
4. You have people set up to help with problems.
The Cons of an IT Consulting Franchise
The biggest problem with entrepreneurs when it comes to a franchise is that there is a lot of money required for startup. On top of this amount, you need to pay a percentage of your revenue (a royalty) every month to your franchiser. And you will have some restrictions when it comes to the direction and scope of your business.
IT Consulting: A Business of More Time than Money
Starting a regular IT consulting business will typically be a low overhead investment … but it will require a lot of time and effort! You may take up to six months (or more) to get enough contacts, prospects and projects in your sales funnel to get to a 50 or 60% utilization rate (20-24 billable hours weekly).
When Will You Get IT Consulting Revenue?
Even when you put forth substantial effort with marketing, three to six months is a good guess of how long it will take you to get some cash flow to sustain you. If you decide to have staff members with good technical expertise, you might need years.
You need capital to start an IT consulting business so you can pay your expenses. Keeping a low overhead can eliminate a lot of stress, which is why you should think long and hard about whether or not a franchise is right for you!
Added By: Joshua Feinberg
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