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Monday, November 26, 2007

Get Rid of Computer Consulting Time Wasters

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

Saturday, November 24, 2007

IT Marketing: Direct Mail Pointers

Whether you decide to create IT marketing direct mail in the form of a letter, a flyer mailer, a big postcard or a regular-sized postcard, you need to focus on your headline and make it really eye catching. The same concept applies to your message.

When you know your prospects’ problems well and what they really want for their businesses, you can best target your IT marketing direct mail pieces.

IT Marketing: Benefits

You need to make your mailings very benefits focused in order to be successful. For example, you can say, “Learn how our computer consulting company saves dental offices $10,000 per year in saved expenses.” If you are mailing to other dental office managers, they will want to contact you to hear more! This means action on their part, and that you need to give them something to do.

You want to encourage them to request a free tape, report, consultation, needs analysis or something else of value that speaks to their points of pain. And then you want to deliver once they ask.

IT Marketing: Prospect Focus

Your direct mail needs to be specific about the benefits you offer. Avoid talking about “features,” and all the great things YOUR firm is. Get away from the “Me! Me! Me!” and talk about your prospects. You want to solve problems, not talk about how great you are when designing your IT marketing pieces. Most prospects don’t care which certifications you have or your associated vendor programs.

Prospects care about their problems and what you can do for them. So you need to make your IT marketing materials about benefits and prospects to get a good response.

Blogged By: Joshua Feinberg

Monday, November 19, 2007

IT Audits and Your Prospects

IT audits are the next logical step when you go on an initial sales call with a prospect. Unless your prospects have an emergency that needs immediate attention, you have to try to sell IT audits to get to the next level with IT services.

Prospects may have a very specific concern that is bothering them, at which point you have a place to start and an advantage because you have a potential emergency. However, many times when you go on a sales call, IT audits and half-day technology assessments are a good suggestion.

If It’s Fast, It’s Free

You can propose a very abbreviated version of an IT audit where you go in for half an hour and offer clients a basic list of items to look at further. But when you start to spend more than half an hour, look at hubs, switches, how the Cat 5 stuff is laid out, etc. you are extending yourself beyond free IT audits.

Longer Assessments Need to Cost Money

Longer assessments need to be billable and sold as IT audits or tech assessments. You need to arrive at an acceptable rate for these types of situations.

Blogged By: Computer Consulting Kit

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Finding Sweet Spot Computer Consulting Clients

If you want to do great business with your computer consulting business, you need to decide to work with the sweet spot of small businesses.

But how do you decide who fits into this category? How do you really figure out which prospects will bring you enough recurring revenue to be real sweet spot clients?

What Are the Signs of Sweet Spot Computer Consulting Clients?

Sweet spot clients are located no more than 30-50 minutes driving distance from your home base. You want to be able to get plenty of face time with them and get there quickly in emergencies. You don’t want to have to sit in traffic and waste valuable billing hours.

Finding Local Sweet Spot Clients

To get great computer consulting prospects, you can rent direct mail lists that provide information on businesses in the range of 0 – 50 miles or 0 – 80 kilometers. You can also join local organizations located within a half an hour or an hour of your business.

How Big Are These Clients?

Computer consulting sweet spot clients have 10 – 50 computers, 10 – 100 employees and a million to 10 million dollars in sales. You can also find sweet spot clients by going through local accounting firms and other trusted business advisors. You are going to fall into this “trusted advisors” category too, so you should position yourself right in the middle of it from the beginning.

Well-Connected Businesses

Sweet spot computer consulting clients have strong relationships with other business advisors, typically through outsourcing. They will have relationships with attorneys, accountants, advertising consultants, graphic designers and others, and so they already value the type of relationship you are trying to develop.

Get to sweet spot small business clients in computer consulting by going through companies with which they will work at networking events.

Blogged By: Computer Consulting Kit

Monday, November 12, 2007

Choose the Right Handheld Devices

If you want to advise your clients the right way when it comes to handheld devices, there are some tips you can follow that will help you avoid irritating tech support issues.

Handheld Devices: Be Smart!

You need to tell clients to be careful when they are thinking about buying new handheld devices that have yet to be proven on the market. There can be major design and software bugs that haven’t been fixed yet within the first three or six months after a product is released. Your best bet is to let someone else deal with the frustration of being an early adopter.

Also, get software, peripherals and accessories bundled with your handheld device purchase. This will save money and time on installation and improve your chances at compatibility.

What Are You Buying?

You should pay close attention to the vendor support options for handheld devices. Tech support and warrantees are not all the same. WHO you are buying something from is often as important – or even MORE important – than what you are buying.

Also advise clients to check for compatibility with their operating systems. If your clients’ offices are tied to a specific version of Microsoft Windows or any other operating system, you should advise them to buy handheld devices that can sync up their data well.

The Main Idea about Handheld Devices

You should insist that your clients purchase handheld devices that are well connected. USB interfaces are the easiest to configure and work with when you encounter problems and also offer the best performance. Steer clear of older, legacy serial interfaces when you can.

Added By: Joshua Feinberg

Saturday, November 10, 2007

Get the Computer Consulting Word Out

Your current computer consulting business clients, friends and family have to know all about your business. They should know which kinds of companies you serve, what you do and also that you are very appreciative of referrals.

When you ask really good open-ended questions, you might find thyat a simple discussion turns into a $10,000 or even $15,000 opportunity.

What Did You Overhear?

Sometimes you might overhear conversations in your computer consulting work that tell you someone needs your help. You may get a client asking on behalf of someone in accounting at the same business that is having the same problem over and over again. This is your chance to snag a new opportunity.

The Best Questions Are Open Ended

You need to get customers talking in constructive ways about your computer consulting business. Instead of asking them, “Are we doing a good job?” you can ask questions that lead to more than a “Yes” or “No” answer. For example:

“How are we doing?”

“How else can we help?”

“What do you like about the service we’re providing?”

“How can we improve?”

Take Information to Improve Your Computer Consulting Business

Any information you get from customers and clients can be used to make improvements and create new ways of working in relationships that can benefit both you and your computer consulting clients.

Submitted By: Joshua Feinberg

Monday, November 05, 2007

What's Your Computer Consulting Business Client Criteria?

If you are looking for high-quality customers and clients for your computer consulting business, you need to know some qualifying criteria.

Proximity

A prospect/customer/client for your computer consulting business should be within a 30 – 60-minute drive from your location. Proximity is also important to the networking events you attend and any part of your marketing campaign.

Client Size

When you are trying to find prospects for your computer consulting business, you need to find businesses with 10 – 50 PC’s. The concept behind this is that the prospect should be big enough to need a real server, which typically means the company has 10 – 100 employees and usually $1 million - $10 million in annual sales. You will need this information to help you with marketing activities.

What Should Prospects Use?

Potential clients should have their own e-mail domain, so you will want to know how computer consulting business prospects get and send e-mails in your first meeting. Ideal prospects will usually have a dedicated server or internet access and therefore, more sophisticated IT needs.

Are Prospects Serious about IT?

If you encounter a prospect without a dedicated server or Internet access or if they have a P2P server, you probably want to keep looking.

The Main Idea about Computer Consulting Business Prospects

Any prospective client you are targeting for your computer consulting business should be devoted to supporting his/her IT assets.

Blogged By: Computer Consulting 101 Professional Kit

Saturday, November 03, 2007

PC Purchases: How Can CD-RW Drives Help?

Your clients might be thinking about PC purchases of desktops or notebooks. But they need to think about the compatibility with a CD-RW drive, which accompanies any operating system and also most other pieces of hardware.

When you commit to a notebook, you are typically going to have to use parts that only work with a specific brand, make and model. If your clients want internal CD-RW drives with their PC purchases, they will most likely need to buy a specific brand and model directly from the manufacturer.

PC purchases that involve desktops give clients more options for adding the CD-RW drive. Regardless, getting the drives bundled with the PC purchases is the easiest way to manage it.

Think Ahead with PC Purchases

Your firm may be letting go of short-term revenue by recommending bundled PC purchases, but in the long run, your clients will prefer paying hourly rates for sophisticated work and not general installs, etc.

When you have the CD-RW drives installed at the factory, you and your clients can be sure they will work properly with the PC and the operating system.

The Benefits of a Warranty and Tech Support

Any good PC vendor should be able to stand behind the configuration that comes with a bundled PC purchase, and this means it will all be supported when clients need to call tech support.

One-stop shopping offers a great way to define responsibility and eliminate your clients’ pointing fingers at different people involved in more complicated PC purchases. The bundled CD-RW drive will be covered under a warranty.

Also, the cost of upgrading from a standard CD-ROM drive to a CD-RW drive when done at the time of the PC purchases is going to be negligible.

Added By: Joshua Feinberg