When you are working in computer consulting, you are selling your personality, charisma and business knowledge. But your time is at a premium and you can’t afford to waste it. You have to keep track of every hour, whether billable, sales-related, prospecting or administrative.
How do you figure out what is worth your time?
Is It a Computer Consulting Emergency
If you need to get rid of those that will waste your time and be more efficient, you have to know their sense of urgency. Is it a server down issue that is affecting 27 workers and destroying productivity? Then it’s a pretty urgent computer consulting need.
It could be something much less urgent, like a broken PDA or something that affects just one person. Figure out what the situation is and whether it is a good use of your computer consulting time or not.
Identify the Budget
When you know what a company’s budget is from the beginning you can figure out if you are wasting your time. If a prospect has no money, you should not be continuing the conversation about computer consulting. Put them on a follow-up list for three or six months to find out if they have money in the future, but otherwise, let it go.
Computer Consulting and Tact
You can’t ask someone flat-out whether or not he/she is too broke to afford your services. You can, however investigate by asking questions about current computer consulting support or how a prospect has received it in the past. If a prospect has only used volunteers or moonlighters previously, you can guess this person does not have the money to pay you for your services.
On the flip side, you might find out a prospect is already working with another VAR – a competitor even – at which point you know the prospect would be able to afford your services.
What is the Level of Pain?
You need to ask yourself how much pain a prospect is in, and if you can offer an effective computer consulting solution that will fix it. This will determine whether or not the relationship is worth it, and whether a prospect – or you – will be wasting time by pursuing a relationship.
Blogged By: Computer Consulting Kit
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