Computer Consultants Secrets ™

If you want to know if prospects and customers are going to be good candidates for service contracts, you need to test out proving ground projects.  In fact, proving ground projects are an ESSENTIAL step to building the relationships necessary for service contracts to work.

What is a Proving Ground Project?

Proving ground projects are an initial step in the process of setting the stage for service contracts.  They are the first projects computer consultants complete with new customers that are not yet steady clients.  Consultants use them to prove they know what they are doing, are dependable and good to work with and offer good value.  They are also a time for computer consultants to figure out if their customers will be the right type to sign long-term service contracts.

Keep an Eye out for Warning Signs

If all goes well during the proving ground project, service contracts are a real possibility.  However, make sure if you are a computer consultant that you are very vigilant during the proving ground project so you don’t start a long-term relationship that is doomed.

Some warning signs include …

1.    Customers that change their minds constantly;

2.    Customers that are late for meetings;

3.    Those that are verbally abusive to employees … or to you as a computer consultant;

4.    Customers that feel “above” the rules of relationships.  

The main point is, you CANNOT rush into a relationship that involves service contracts until you figure out you truly can work well with a prospect or customer.  Proving ground projects can help you gauge expectations and how well things are going to work.

Today we talked about why proving ground projects are necessary before you introduce service contracts to computer consulting clients.  To learn more about service contracts, visit the attached link.

Added By:  Joshua Feinberg

Are you happy with all your computer consulting materials?  Having good services agreements samples to follow when creating your own documents can often help you improve how you do business and strengthen relationships with your clients.

When you have a good service agreement document (created from high-quality services agreement samples), you display professionalism and credibility, which are two traits your prospects, customers and clients will be looking for as you build a professional relationship.  Well-crafted legal documents help you break down sales resistance and get the high billing rates you deserve for your sophisticated IT services.  When you can better package your services, you close more sales and get more recurring revenue for your business.

Today we talked about how you can use services agreements samples to strengthen your IT consulting business and relationships with valuable clients.  To learn more about how you can find great service agreements samples to get you started, visit the attached link.

Added By:  Computer Consulting Kit

Having templates for your computer service agreements presents your customers and clients with an excellent display of professionalism and credibility, which is ESSENTIAL if you want to break down sales resistance and get the high rates you deserve for your very specialized services.

Besides creating a steady stream of recurring revenue for your business that can help you create a more predictable business, which other benefits can you receive from computer service agreements and templates?

1.    You establish mutually-acceptable billing charges that help you stay around long term.

2.    You clarify your responsibilities and the responsibilities of your clients up front to build better relationships.

3.    You set ground rules for when your company will get paid so you get paid in full and on time.

4.    You save money on legal fees; by the time your attorney reviews your support contracts, a lot of the work has already been done.
5.    You save a lot of valuable work time when you have computer service agreements and templates that give you a proven business blueprint.  You’ll never have to reinvent the wheel and will save yourself months and sometimes years of frustration and mistakes.

 
6.    You build a strong foundation for your business of steady, high-paying clients and NOT one-shot deals and cheapskates or moochers.  

7.    You provide a framework for building long-term, successful client relationships that will stay healthy for years.

8.    You design easier-to-support systems and encourage GOOD client behavior.

Today we looked at computer service agreements and how using these along with trusted templates can help you more efficiently run your business.  Make sure to sign up for the free sample excerpts about computer service agreements NOW at the Computer Consulting Kit site!

Added By:  Joshua Feinberg

The simple answer to this question about computer repair and national service organizations is, “Absolutely not.”

Why?  Basically, you’ll spend a great deal of money and more importantly TIME getting certified and learning cutting-edge technologies.  But, when it comes down to it, computer repair – hardware repair – is a commodity and can be an incredibly low-margin situation.  As hardware becomes more disposable and replaceable, less people even engage in real computer repair.  And, computer repair contracts and IT consulting contracts in general with national service organizations just don’t work.

Disposable Hardware

As an example, think about a $600 consumer-grade PC.  Who will spend money on computer repair for this type of hardware when it has passed its warranty point?  And who will spend money to fix an out-of-warranty $400 laser printer?  Not many small businesses would do this, and neither would national service organizations.  

Low Labor Allowances

National service organizations usually will be dealing with warranty repairs on pretty inexpensive hardware … so how much labor allowance will be available for computer repair on a $1,200 laptop?  A lot of big hardware vendors are usually close to going out of business.  Unless you’re Dell, HP and IBM and are a vendor, you probably will be depending heavily on these low-end repairs to stay in business.

What is the Profit Margin on Computer Repair Contracts?

Think about it – you will probably not make much more than $50-$200 (at the absolute MOST) on a computer repair.  So what is a better choice?  Finding small businesses in your area that need high-level, sophisticated IT planning and services very regularly.  

You Won’t Make a Profit with National Service Providers

When you are a subcontractor for a national service organization, you won’t be able to efficiently run your business.  You will be in eight different offices each day instead of one or two.  You will be told that you only get $65 for even a complicated, lengthy computer repair instead of billing out at $100 or even $150 per hour.  It’s just not practical, and your computer repair business can’t last that way!

Added By:  Computer Consulting Kit

You need to know your strengths with IT consulting and be qualified, but you also want to think about which types of companies you want to target with IT support contracts.  And when you’re starting out, you probably don’t want to go for huge businesses with 60 – 150 stations.  

Start Small with IT Support Contracts

You want to start with approachable small business sizes that work with your particular skill set.  You will probably want to target those with 10 – 30 PCs and one or two servers.  They will not be dealing with WAN connections and will mostly use Windows and Office.  Don’t get into larger small businesses until you get your feet wet.  

Communication is Key to IT Support Contracts

You have to stay in contact with customers regularly through e-mails, phone calls or drop-ins if you want to manage customer expectations and build the kind of relationships expected with IT support contracts.  You will most likely be in touch at least twice a month.  

Surveys Can Help Evaluate Service Agreements

If you sent surveys regularly (once a year or more!) to gauge the success of the IT support contract relationships you develop, you will get a better idea of how to build your business.  Send surveys a couple months before renewal and even as much as twice a year or quarterly.  You can make surveys informal, but you need to keep asking how you can improve and continue to provide stellar service with IT support contracts.

Blogged By:  Computer Consulting 101 Professional Kit

Unless you are an amateur, you have to stop going for one-shot deals and get started on IT service contracts.  Do you want to be sitting by the phone waiting to get called once or twice a year by a large number of customers?

No.  You want to be proactive and work with people that will take your advice about their IT issues.  You want people on IT service contracts that will make long-term fixes to make their networks reliable and efficient and improve their ROI on IT investments.  You want a set of clients that will work on strategic planning for the future of their businesses.

One-Shot Deals

Professional businesses will require IT service contracts.  You need to make good IT service contracts a critical component to your business in order to build a solid business foundation and get the recurring revenue you need for the future.  

The Importance of IT Service Contracts

IT service contracts give your business real value.  You get recurring revenue, and you get clients that want to work with you.

Why is recurring revenue so important?  Because the clients that want to have long-term relationships with you are the ones that will let you invest and grow your business.  Without long-term, steady IT service contract clients, you can’t truly plan growth or make hiring decisions.  You can’t really make any decisions about the destination of your business.

What Should You Do?

You need to really think about only taking clients that will need IT service contracts and really understand the value of having one.

Blogged By:  Joshua Feinberg

When it comes to providing clients with IT support, you have a lot of responsibilities.  There are specific areas that you need to include as part of your IT support services.

IT Support:  Coordinate Telecommunications Solutions

When it comes to sweet spot clients, you will most likely have to coordinate IT support with a local telephone company.  You will probably work with either a CLEC (competitive local exchange carrier) or an ILEC (incumbent local exchange carrier).  Research the types of connections you need and check out dial-up networking solutions.  You also have to be prepared to coordinate tech support with an ISP.

IT Support:  Test

Your firm will probably have to know about vertical industry applications.  You will either have to bring in the vertical applications or test them at the request of your clients before they make an investment.  You are responsible for telling clients how the application will fit into their networks.  

IT Support:  Guru and Employee Training

Whether you want to be involved or not, part of IT support is conducting formal end-user training.  You will probably have to train small groups when you add new applications.  Also be prepared to provide informal training with the internal guru, who in turn can train the rest of the employees about more mundane issues.  

IT Support:  Predict Disaster

Part of IT support is dealing with disaster recovery planning, which includes regular data backup checks, virus scans, power protection and other security items.  Don’t forget that part of IT support is maintenance.

IT Support:  The Main Idea

Your problem-solving and strategic-planning skills are your best tools for clients.  You have to deal with everything IT when it comes to clients, write it down and really get organized so you can take a proactive stance with IT support.  

Blogged By:  Computer Consulting Kit

Service level agreements may be very formal or consist of a few sentences in your service contract.  Whatever format it takes, there are some things that you need to consider before constructing your service level agreement.   

The first thing to take into consideration when forming a service level agreement is anticipating how often you need to be on-site.  You need to know your time commitment in terms of taking care of their needs.  How many phone calls, how many emails, or things like that is the client going to need in between visits?

Example:

If you have a client with five work stations and one server, you will probably be on-site once a month for two or three hours.  Additionally, you will probably provide an hour or so of phone support over the course of the month.

So for your service level agreement you should figure on providing about four or five hours a month to take care of on-site and phone support as well as all the miscellaneous follow up issues that emerge.  Remember too, with service level agreements, if the client has any upgrades or projects, that is above and beyond the agreement.  

The second consideration is how to sell a service level agreement.  Essentially you need to give clients a compelling package of benefits.  Here are some examples:

• If your rate is $125 an hour then if they have a $500 per month service level agreement, your rate effectively drops to $100 an hour.  

• In addition to the hourly savings, service level agreements should also include your being available to come onsite for emergencies.

• Consider offering a service level agreement that provides weekend or evening work without charging them extra.  

• Include a little bit of proactive maintenance to clients on service level agreements.  

Bottom Line on Service Level Agreements
Your main consideration with service level agreements is to anticipate how much time a client will typically need based on their applications and servers. The second issue to address is how you will get clients onto service level agreements in the first place.  Offering a package of soft benefits above and beyond just the dollar benefits, is the best way to entice clients to sign up for a service level agreement.

In this article, you’ve been introduced to Service Level Agreements. To learn more about how you can improve your knowledge about Service Level Agreements, just click here now to get access to a free one-hour audio training program on 5 Easy Ways to Grow Your Computer Consulting Business. 

Phone support is just as valuable a service as your on-site time.  Many new computer consultants think that using a two tiered rating system for on-site versus phone support is a wise pricing model  We’re here to tell you this is a mistake.

Why do computer consultants think they should charge less for phone support in the first place?  Well, they say, gee, there’s no travel time, no gas, no mileage, no tolls, and no parking.  They think, I can even provide some of this phone support on days when I’m working in the office at home and I’m sitting in my sweats.  

But if you think about it, this just sets you up to lose money.  What are the types of things people call for phone support about?  Aren’t most of their phone support issues things that probably should be done on site, by you anyway? Is it really a good idea to be walking people through certain tasks and projects over the phone?  

Most of the time, what you are providing through phone support is more appropriately done by you either remotely or at their business.  If you start providing services using phone support but charging less for it, what you are doing is creating an incentive for your clients to use phone support more often. In order to maintain good control, you need to be doing the work yourself.  

The other issue with two tiered pricing for phone support is that it creates a confusing billing process.  You never want to introduce a second billing rate for a client.  Your proposals will be more difficult, your invoicing will be more difficult, and your accounting will be more difficult.   

Bottom Line on Phone Support
Phone support is just as valuable as any other service you offer. Don’t make the mistake of undervaluing it based on the fact that your overhead is reduced by providing it.  Consider that a bonus for you - one that you don’t pass on to the clients.  When clients see two rates it confuses them and then they start figuring out ways to save themselves money.  Sooner or later, that client is going to be using phone support much more often - you don’t want that.

In this article, you’ve been introduced to Phone Support. To learn more about how you can improve your knowledge about Phone Support, just click here now to get access to a free one-hour audio training program on 5 Easy Ways to Grow Your Computer Consulting Business.

Computer maintenance contracts are one area of your business where you may want to consider using a price-fixed model.  Time and materials pricing is almost always going to be better for you, but many clients respond well to fixed price computer maintenance contracts.

So, if you insist on doing a price-fixed computer maintenance agreement, there are some items you must make sure you cover off.  You want to protect yourself as much as possible and the only way to do that is to write up a good and tight computer maintenance agreement.  

If you don’t have tight provisions, the well-intentioned and even well-trained internal computer guru (the guy you set up as the go-to guy in your absence) will make mistakes.  This guy will cause you to come out to do some computer maintenance on things you didn’t bargain for.  You don’t want to be spending too much time fixing things that shouldn’t have been broken in the first place.

You can’t afford to take that risk, and this is why your computer maintenance agreement must be solid.  Here are some issues to consider when drafting a fixed price agreement for computer maintenance:

• Will training be included?
• Are you responsible if an ASP goes down?
• Are you responsible for expansion as the company grows?
• Are you responsible if they get hit by a fire or flood?
• Are you responsible for computer maintenance if someone hacks into their system?
• Are you responsible for ISP or phone company outages or issues with the web and/or email hosting companies?    
• Does your computer maintenance agreement cover issues arising from office politics or crossfire? Trust us, this happens!
• Does your computer maintenance cover patches, updates and upgrades?
• What happens if there’s pirated software?
• Have you built in computer maintenance time to cover user error or even negligence on the part of users or the guru?
• What happens if there’s internal sabotage, theft, or unauthorized software downloads?
• Are you taking into account viruses and worms in the computer maintenance agreement?   

Bottom Line on Computer Maintenance
Before considering offering price-fixed computer maintenance, you have to think about all these issues.  If you don’t cover off the contingencies, clients that have fixed price computer maintenance agreements will shift every burden under the sun to you.  You can’t afford to absorb those costs so think long and hard about offering price fixed computer maintenance.  

In this article, you’ve been introduced to Computer Maintenance. To learn more about how you can improve your knowledge about Computer Maintenance, just click here now to get access to a free one-hour audio training program on 5 Easy Ways to Grow Your Computer Consulting Business. 

Service agreements will raise your monthly income and help your clients view you as a business advisor rather than someone to call when their computer freezes. This relationship will also allow you to sell them on proactive solutions, which will also raise your bottom line. 

Read on to find out how one of our computer consultants was able to benefit by implementing service agreements:

"Mentally I progressed from a one man band working out of a garage to professional business to business technology solutions provider working as part of a client’s organization. I have had the Computer Consulting Kit for 6 weeks or so and it told me things I already knew but never realized I knew it. It therefore gave me belief in my product which has meant I can comfortably add value to my services and charge for time I was giving away before. It’s too early to put a dollar figure on related revenue though I have, however, amended my contracts and have had 2 takers so far which restructures my time, which in turn will generate more income."
Nigel Webb, Xytec Services Ltd
Sittingbourne, Kent, UK

The Bottom Line about Service Agreements

To learn more about service agreements, click here now to get access to free tips and an audio training excerpt on service agreements.

Putting service agreements in place can help steady your income and give you peace of mind. Having the right firms and know-how to approach customers is half the battle.

Read on to find out how one of our computer consultants was able to grow his business by implementing service agreements:

"We moved from a ‘break-fix’ mentality to booking clients on some level of a monthly service agreement. It gave us the confidence to approach our clients… and the forms, etc. to look professional. This earned us $20,000."

Kevin Smith, Solutions Unlimited
Spartanburg, South Carolina

The Bottom Line about Service Agreements

To learn more about service agreements, click here now to get access to free tips and an audio training excerpt on service agreements.

With service agreements in place, your income will go up, and, best of all, it will be consistent. With the right forms and contracts, and some presentation skills, you can increase the number of clients you have on service agreements. 

Read on to find out how one of our computer consultants was able to substantially add to his billing by using service agreements:

"Thanks to the support and insights of Joshua Feinberg’s Computer Consulting Kit, we have been able to bill nearly 350K this year. This year, we began to use the service agreements portion of the Computer Consulting Kit and have really exceeded our expectations. It has been challenging but rewarding. The Computer Consulting Kit helped us to have the courage and skills to approach existing clients and ask for the agreements. Many clients are willing to sign an agreement if you have a good approach and can explain the benefits to them.  The Computer Consulting Kit helped us to structure the agreements in such a way. RTS has increased revenue by nearly 100K this year, and much of that ($50,000) can be attributed to having a service agreement in place with several clients. Thanks Joshua!!"

Tony Snider, RTS Computer Services
Placerville, California

The Bottom Line about Service Agreements

To learn more about service agreements, click here now to get access to free tips and an audio training excerpt on service agreements.

Service contracts are key for the busy computer consultant. They will help you to manage your time when you have many clients all needing service at once.  By setting up computer service contracts you will be able to maximize your utilization rate while still having enough time to deal with client emergencies when they crop up.

When you have a bunch of clients who all have an emergency of some sort you can’t be everywhere at once.  To deal with this you need to narrow down the list of who you are obligated to respond to emergencies for.  You do this by creating computer service contracts.

A service contract business model is so important because what you are doing is forcing the people you service to make a decision.  Are you in or are you out?  Your service contract model weeds out those who are just testing the waters.  Without a computer service contract it is you who decides if you can handle their emergency or not.

By using computer service contracts you can manage everyone’s expectations effectively.  Those who have a service contract know they are top priority.  Those who don’t, know that you have clients with service contracts and that they are the ones who are dealt with first.

The Bottom Line on Service Contracts
Service contracts keep expectations in a nice neat package.  You don’t have to stress about trying to be everything to everyone.  You can concentrate on providing top quality service to those clients you have a service contract with.  The rest will simply have to wait in line.

In this article, you’ve been introduced to service contracts. To learn more about how you can improve your knowledge about service contracts, just click here now to get access to a free one-hour audio training program on 5 Easy Ways to Grow Your Computer Consulting Business.

Service agreements are very important to maintaining a consistent income. Once you transition customers from paying for a service here and a service there, you will substantially increase your bottom line. 

Read on to find out how one of our computer consultants was able to increase his monthly billing substantially by using quality service agreements:

"I got more customers on service contracts instead of ‘pay as you go’. This generated at least another $2,000 per month ($24,000 annualized) that we would not have been receiving. We used the Computer Consulting Kit’s service agreement for all our customers. This saved us untold hours in trying to put one together ourselves."

Peter Till, Huff Technologies, Inc
Jacksonville, Florida

The Bottom Line about Service Agreements

To learn more about service agreements, click here now to get access to free tips and an audio training excerpt on service agreements.

Service agreements are beneficial to your clients and to you. They also bring consistency to your billing and accounting procedures, which benefits your bottom line.  

Read on to find out how service agreements saved a lot of money for one of our computer consultants:

"I was able to package and sell service agreements easily with the help of the materials provided by Joshua Feinberg’s Computer Consulting Kit. Keeping track of what I just sold was an entirely different matter. Before this, I had lost literally thousands and thousands of dollars in unbilled agreements and services because I didn’t really know how to manage them properly. This (doing this the right way) gained me $30,000."

Jason West, Eulera Networks, Inc.
Laguna Hills, California

The Bottom Line about Service Agreements

To learn more about service agreements, click here now to get access to free tips and an audio training excerpt on service agreements.

Service agreements are a key component of IT consulting businesses. Instead of spending countless hours trying to perfect the agreement through trial and error, instead, go with a proven system. With the right service agreements, you’ll be able to serve your ideal clients and maintain a steady income.

Read on to find out how one of our consultants benefited from service agreements:

"I added a new client worth $10,000 a year. The Ultimate Service Agreement™ as a template was invaluable. The structure you provided based on your experiences with other consultants using best practices saved me tons of mistakes and time. I just followed your advice and it worked wonderfully."

Michael Brinson, Brinformation Technology
Mesa, Arizona

The Bottom Line about Service Agreements

To learn more about service agreements, click here now to get access to free tips and an audio training excerpt on service agreements.

The most profitable and stable way to be successful in your computer consulting business is to sign your clients up for service agreements. They can help keep your cash flow steady and keep your business profitable for the long haul. Sometimes, completing a "proving ground" project can entice your customers to sign service agreements.

Read on to find out how one of our consultants benefited from service agreements while putting his clients at ease:

"I have a customer that I was tasked with installing a new Web server for an in-house developed Web printing application that was a first for the industry. With the project management and service contracts in place from the Computer Consulting Kit, the project was expanded to include a Microsoft Small Business Server (SBS) system and 5 additional Web servers. It also appears that it will turn into an option to be sold to their clients as a package that will include me going in to install a Microsoft Small Business Server system for their customers - most of which are running peer-to-peer networks. With the project management and service contracts in place from the Computer Consulting Kit, I was able to acquire additional projects which yielded me $30,000 in additional consulting revenue."

Craig Ramsey, 404 Consulting
Raleigh, North Carolina

The Bottom Line about Service Agreements

To learn more about service agreements, click here now to get access to free tips and an audio training excerpt on service agreements.

The most profitable and stable way to be successful in your computer consulting business is to put your clients on service agreements. Service agreements can help keep your cash flow steady and keep your business profitable for the long haul.

Many of the respondents in the survey found the sections of the Computer Consulting Kit on service agreements, including the templates, most helpful. When service agreements are designed and presented correctly, your clients understand that service agreements are truly a much better value for them.

Read on to find out how one of our consultants benefitted from service agreements:

"I recognized what was pulling us down and preventing our company from realizing our potential: We moved to 100% service contract business model and haven’t looked back since. It gave me an insight into how better to manage my customers, get rid of the low balls and get into the Sweet Spot Clients. It helped bring in $3,000."

Tom Cole, Admin Associates, Inc.
Newark, Delaware

The Bottom Line about Service Agreements

To learn more about service agreements, click here now to get access to free tips and an audio training excerpt on service agreements.

At one time, the notion of computer tune ups as part of PC support contracts would have been an almost laughable proposition. After all, the perception is that computers are computers, and they work until they fail.

As a growing segment of the population has come to rely upon peak performance from their computers for years on end, computer tune ups by consultants who offer PC support contracts have become more than essential.

Get the Most From Your Machine

Unlike automobiles, computers have a multitude of parts–not just physical pieces, but software as well. As such, the top computer optimization firms must employ both low- and high-tech measures including PC support contracts to help you get the most from your machine.

The fact is, truly professional tune ups that are part of PC support contracts include everything from cleaning and dusting internal fans to diagnosing and fixing registry and memory problems.

Maintaining A PC Is Cheaper In The Long Run

Fortunately, a select group of certified computer technicians who offer PC support contracts can fulfill this need. These technicians have combined decades of experience in every sector of the computer industry plus an unflagging commitment to customer satisfaction.

With PC support contracts, the best of these firms can accomplish more than buying a new computer might. Best of all, they can deliver on issues covered by PC support contracts at a fraction of the cost that replacing your computer would require.

Avoid Frustrations with PC Support Contracts

In a computer-intensive environment that moves forward at a relentless pace, the time to investigate computer tune ups as part of PC support contracts is now. If you choose to engage in PC support contracts, you may find yourself at the helm of an all-but-brand-new machine in less time than you might think.

If you choose not to engage with consultants who offer PC support contracts, you will likely consign yourself to the sort of computer frustrations we have all become accustomed to.

The Bottom Line about PC Support Contracts

In this article, you’ve been introduced to pc support contracts. To learn more about pc support contracts, click here now to get access to free tips and an audio training excerpt on pc support contracts.