Computer Consultants Secrets ™

Business partnerships are a great way to start a mutually advantageous relationship.  Soliciting a business partnership can be intimidating at first.  Should you make a phone call, send an email, write a letter, etc…?  

We have used all of these techniques to solicit business partnerships, but we tend to like letters.  Many new computer consultants have asked us for a sample letter that they can adapt when introducing themselves to a niche technology provider they would like to enter into a business partnership with.  

We have put together a short, to-the-point template that can either go in a letter or email to a business partnership lead. Here is that text for a Mass 90 expert:

Subject Line
We’re looking for a great Mass 90 technology provider to partner with.  May use a "Mass 90 guru" to partner with, or something like that.  

Body of Business Partnership Letter
Dear ____________,
Hi.  My name is Bob from ABC Computer Consulting and we do xxxxxxxxxxxx.  Right now I’m looking for someone to partner with who is a real pro at Mass 90 integration with host space systems.  I found you through [or I was referred to you by] and as you read this, we have an active project where we need someone with your background.  We also have a number of similar clients who might need your services in the real near future.  

If you’re interested in working with us on this project and related future projects, please give me a call at __________ or email me at _____________ by ___________(date). Generally, the best time to reach me by phone is ______.  

I look forward to hearing from you.  

P.S. Text
Add your company Web site so the person you want a business partnership with can do some research on your company before he/she calls you.

Bottom Line on Business Partnerships
Business partnerships are an exciting development for your growing computer consulting business.  In order to solicit the best business partnerships, an introductory letter or email is a great technique.  Adapt the sample letter above when you are ready to approach a company for a business partnership.

In this article, you’ve been introduced to Business Partnerships. To learn more about how you can improve your knowledge about Business Partnerships, 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. 

Subcontractors are representing your business.  It is important that you manage your client’s expectations of the subcontractor to ensure you maintain a high level of customer service and satisfaction.

Tips for Managing Client Expectations with Subcontractors

• Be very, very, very up front about which services you are providing in-house, which services you are able to provide internally, and which services you’re going to work with subcontractors for.  

• Continuously reiterate your role as the virtual IT manager (virtual CIO, project manager, genera list, etc..) and define the subcontractor’s role as an occasional specialist.  Use the analogy of a dentist referring certain, very specialized work to an orthodontist to fully explain your situation with subcontractors.

• Let your clients know what kind of skills and background the specialty subcontractor brings to the table.

• Explain what the client should expect from the subcontractors and what they should not expect.  As you explain the subcontractor’s area of expertise, let the client know that this is the specific function the subcontractor will be performing.  Have them refer any other IT issue to you, regardless of whether the subcontractor is on site or not.

• Discuss the history that you’ve had with this particular subcontractor.  Talk about the type of projects that you’ve worked together on.  This will give your client significant peace of mind.

• If it’s a new subcontractor that you’ve never worked with before, you need to explain that too.  Here, let your client know that you still take full ownership of, and responsibility for, the project no matter what, and you’ll help to make sure that everything goes as smoothly as possible.  

• Let the client know that you demand the same level of professionalism, service and confidentiality from the subcontractor that you expect from your employees.

Bottom Line on Subcontractors
Subcontractors’ work is an extension of your firm’s services.  Make sure you are as up front and honest with your clients about your relationship with, and expectations of, the subcontractor.  By doing this you will ensure complete customer satisfaction throughout the course of the project being subcontracted.

In this article, you’ve been introduced to Subcontractors. To learn more about how you can improve your knowledge about Subcontractors, 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.

Subcontracting is something everyone in the virtual IT business needs to think about.  Your goal is to provide virtual IT services profitably.  To do this you have to consider all the soft costs that are involved.  

This means looking at the time investment to recruit contractors, subcontractors, and partners.  When you are thinking of subcontracting you really need to have a good base of steady clients that are on service agreements.  This steady income will give the luxury of time - time you need to do all the preparation for subcontracting work.  

Once you decide that subcontracting is what you need to do to move your business forward, the process can take four to eight hours and even more per subcontracting candidate you consider.  

Subcontracting is very much like recruiting and hiring an employee. When subcontracting you need to:

• search out subcontractors
• identify good candidates
• screen these candidates
• create a short-list
• verify references of contractors on the short list
• enter into a subcontracting relationship

Bottom Line on Subcontracting
Before deciding to use subcontracting in your virtual IT business, you need to make sure you have the time to do it right.  You can’t just hire any old subcontractor.  You need time to make sure the person you are subcontracting with is going to represent your company in a way that will get you more, and repeat, business.  Always look at the soft recruitment costs before going ahead with subcontracting.

In this article, you’ve been introduced to Subcontracting. To learn more about how you can improve your knowledge about Subcontracting, 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.

IT services outsourcing must be provided with an understanding of what functions your virtual IT business is going to provide.  You need to analyze the capabilities of an IT department and then compare that to what you want to offer.

After you know the functions your IT services outsourcing business will provide, you then have to decide what you want to do in-house, what you want to outsource, and what you don’t want to provide at all.  

Common IT Services Outsourcing Functions

• architecture design
• lab services
• corporate security
• data center
• help desk
• network administration
• network engineering
• PC floor support
• basic PC support
• procurement and purchasing
• project management
• business unit technologists
• software development
• training center
• WAN engineering
• Web team  

Most small business owners who use IT services outsourcing want the same technology advantages as their Fortune 1000 counterparts.  The challenge has always been how to build a solution around those wants and needs on a small business friendly budget.  That’s where your IT services outsourcing analysis comes in.

Once you figure out what your IT service outsourcing menu is going to be, then you build your business around it.  This becomes part of your business plan and your marketing collateral.  Your IT outsourcing services list should be accompanied by a features and benefits explanation and should identify what you will do yourself and what you will outsource to other specialists.

Bottom Line on IT Services Outsourcing
You need to make hard and fast decisions about your IT services outsourcing capabilities.  The services you don’t want to handle yourself can then be offered by authorized specialty contractors and the services you don’t want to provide are left off the list completely.  Before you even go into business, read through the common IT outsourcing services and decide what your virtual IT department will offer.

In this article, you’ve been introduced to IT Services Outsourcing. To learn more about how you can improve your knowledge about IT Services Outsourcing, 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 service contracts are an aspect of your business that you need to manage well.  You need to make sure you have a good system in place to sell the agreement and then track each client afterward.  The more professionally you handle your computer service contracts, the better your image and selling power will be.

When you go out to sell a computer service contract to a potential client, you should have your computer service contract all prepared.  Some people like a really detailed contract and others prefer to use a short, simple version.  At the other extreme are the people who go with a computer service contract that is basically a prepaid time agreement.  

Time Block Contracts
With these time-block computer service contracts, the client is purchasing your time.  The hope is that they will renew the agreement once the original block of time is used up. The minimum amount of information included in these agreement is as follows:

• Normal rate
• Discount given for prepayment of X number of hours at a time (i.e. 10% discount for prepaying 40 hours)
• Length of time the prepaid time block is good for
• List of services that can be performed with the time

From the point they sign a time-block computer service contract you need to push them on the consumption of time they pre-purchased.  You want them using your services and realizing how much IT assistance they need. This way you can sell them on an traditional year-long contract after the first block of time is used up.

When you have a business on a computer service contract like this, you want them to be using up the time blocks on a consistent basis.  If they aren’t then they are still in the customer phase.  They become a true client after they renew their first time block or they move to an annual contract.

Bottom Line on Computer Service Contracts
Computer service contracts come in many different styles. You have to choose the length and language that best suits your needs and your business model.  The main things to be concerned about when selling a computer service contract are (1) you have it thoroughly prepared before you go to sell it and (2) that you work very hard to ensure the full computer service contract is utilized by the client. This will help you maximize your return and turn the one-time contract customer into a long-term client.  

In this article, you’ve been introduced to Computer Service Contracts. To learn more about how you can improve your knowledge about Computer 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. 

Computer service contracts are essential to being able to find the time you need to develop your business.  You can spend much more time doing technical training for yourself or working on the business of acquiring new clients by making sure you have lots of computer service contracts.

The time and money you need to acquire new clients is significant.  If you are doing little jobs for new clients all of the time, you are wasting a great deal of your resources.  By concentrating on computer service contracts you can reduce your total client acquisition costs.  You can also free up the time you need to acquire the type of long-term sweet spot clients you are targeting.

With a computer service contract model, your overall profit margins are going to improve considerably because your client acquisition costs become a smaller percentage of revenue.  Let’s say you figure out that it costs you $500 to acquire a client.  Now, for $500, would you want to acquire a $1,000 a year client, or a $10,000 a year client? 

• If it cost $500 to acquire a $1,000 a year client, half of your margins are gone for advertising and promotion expenses, and you’re only left with about 50 percent profit.  

• $500 in acquisition costs on a $10,000 a year client translates to only 5 percent; a whole different ball game there.  

With computer service contracts you’re going to get stronger margins and you can afford to spend more time and money in the right places.  Places like network marketing, seminars, speaking engagements, and targeted direct mail - all of the things that are time-consuming and resource intensive, but that have the highest return rates.  

Bottom Line on Computer Service Contracts
Building your business around computer service contracts gets you the stability and clients you need.  By using computer service contracts you are spending your time on the activities that produce the highest value:  working for and finding sweet spot clients.

In this article, you’ve been introduced to Computer Service Contracts. To learn more about how you can improve your knowledge about Computer 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. 

Overcoming objections is something you must know how to do well.  In the fist part of this article we showed you two specific examples of overcoming objections to an IT audit.  

In this second part we give you three more examples of expertly overcoming objections.

Objection 3:  Isn’t this an overkill for a company our size?

Overcoming Objection 3:  Well, if IT is important to you, think about this:  Would you go on a long trip if you didn’t first check out your tire pressure, oil level, and fuel gauge? Would you make a major real estate purchase without having an independent property appraisal? You really need to be able to have an independent appraisal of what’s going on with your IT systems.  What we’ve found over the years is that, what appears to be the issue on the surface is not what is causing the problem at all.

Objection 4:  Can’t you just throw it all away and start over?

Overcoming Objection 4:  That sounds good, but there can be a big danger in either buying too much or buying too little.  If you under-buy that means you underestimate your true needs and you just pick the cheapest alterative.  What inevitably happens is you have to throw away what you bought just a few months ago.  On the other hand, you certainly don’t want to over-buy.  That’s why we need to really understand what you need and then project where you’re going with your company and what systems will get you there most efficiently.  That’s what a needs analysis and assessment is all about.  

Objection 5:  Can’t our internal guru do some of this work to save us some money?  

Overcoming Objection 5:  Well if that is how you want to go, then I’ll tell you specifically what you will need for an untrained person to do the IT audit.  Then you can decide whether your internal guru can handle it.  There are six critical things you will need to do an audit yourself:  (1) a complete system documentation that’s up to date, (2) a maintenance history of what’s been done so far, (3) a support call log, (4) a list of the kinds of support calls that are being generated on a regular basis, (5) a complete up-to-date asset inventory, and (6) a history of any recent projects that have been undertaken as well as a very, very detailed list from you of what exactly needs to be done.  

This long list of items that the client surely does not have, is usually enough for them to decide that objecting is a waste of time.

The Bottom Line on Overcoming Objection
The key to overcoming objections is to be quick.  You have to know your stuff and you need to make their heads spin just trying to absorb everything you are going to do.  When they  start to realize they can’t possibly do without the audit and that they can’t do it themselves, then overcoming objections is a thing of the past.

In this article, you’ve been introduced to overcoming objection. To learn more about how you can improve your knowledge about overcoming objection, 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. 

Overcoming objections is a main aspect of sales. To be a successful systems provider you have to become an expert at overcoming objections to an IT audit.  

A time when overcoming objections is extremely useful is when you are trying to sell an IT audit.  There are no hard and fast rules when it comes to overcoming objections but there are some common objections you will hear.  The following are two objections and examples for overcoming them:

Objection 1:  Why do you need so much time to look around?

Overcoming Objection 1:  "I’ll tell you why we need so much time to look around.  Now, if I were your doctor and you were going for major surgery, would you want me to open up your chest if I didn’t first take an EKG and a chest X-ray and do some blood work? It’s really important for you and I to understand what it is that you already have.  We also need to be certain that your systems have been maintained over time and we need to know how they were installed in the first place.  Ignoring this inspection could cause a lot of problems such as emergency downtime and in extreme cases, data loss.  Any competent systems provider is going to insist on this same level of due diligence."

Objection 2:  But can’t you just start fixing what’s broken?

Overcoming Objection 2:  "Yes and no.  The repairs you’ve requested, if we take what you’re saying at face value, may end up causing more harm than good.  If we don’t take time to figure out what’s really wrong, we won’t know whether what we’re doing is helpful or not.  A big part of this whole audit process is figuring out what’s right and wrong so we can pinpoint the real cause of the trouble.  Without the audit, there’s a good chance you’re going to end up wasting a lot of time and money and still not have a really good solution.  Our goal is to figure out what is going to cause the least disruption and what’s going to be the most cost-effective solution to your current problem.  You are reporting a pain symptom and the IT audit is designed to determine what is causing the pain."

The Bottom Line on Overcoming Objections
Overcoming objections requires a good understanding of what it is you are trying to sell.  The key to overcoming objections is your knowledge and confidence.  Make your answers strong and convincing and you will become much better at overcoming objections.

In this article, you’ve been introduced to overcoming objection. To learn more about how you can improve your knowledge about overcoming objection, 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. 

IT audits can be a difficult sell.  In order to overcome resistance you need to approach the sale from a features and benefits perspective.  You need to be able to answer the, "Why do I need an IT audit?" type questions.

Once you are clear about the benefits of an IT audit you can use them proactively in your advertising and marketing.  Including a features and benefits list of your IT audits is an excellent addition to fliers, postcards, emails, and other marketing strategies you use.  

So let’s first get clear about the features and benefits of an IT audit:

Features

• I will review your existing network
• I will look at your PC configurations
• I will examine your telco circuits
• I will critique your IT policy.
• I will analyze your existing data security and data protection measures
• I’ll tell you about some of the more common data loss risks

Features are great, but they don’t get to the heart of why a client should agree to do an IT audit.  The "whys" are the benefits. To get to the benefits you need to answer the client’s question, "So what?"

Benefits:

• You’ll be able to understand what it is that you already own
• You’ll become aware of inherent limitations of what you own
• You’ll understand the weaknesses in your systems
• You’ll learn about untapped potential that you could be using more efficiently
• You’ll be able to get stronger benefits out of your existing IT assets
• You’ll be able to take steps to prevent expensive disruptions and unplanned emergency downtime
• You’ll be better able to safeguard and control your intellectual property  
• You’ll be made aware of any potential exposure to hacking, sabotage or viruses

The value added information regarding the IT audit is what defines a benefit.  

The Bottom Line on IT Audits
IT audits are best sold from a benefits perspective.  Rather than listing all the things you’ll do in the IT audit, what you need to do is explain all the things the client will get out of the IT audit.  

In this article, you’ve been introduced to IT audits. To learn more about how you can improve your knowledge of IT audits, 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. 

Testimonials are an excellent technique for marketing your business.  Potential clients respond very positively to other business people’s impression of you and your service.  As part of your business practices, you should try to get clients to write testimonials for you to use later.

The key thing about testimonials is to try to get your clients to write about the things you want to highlight.  If they are into writing a testimonial for you, then it should not be a problem to ask for a specific message.  

For instance, as new IT consultant charging top end rates you may find potential clients wonder why your rates are so high.  These leads have probably been in touch with moonlighters and found that their rates were much lower than yours.  

Rather than having to convince these clients that you are worth the high rates, a testimonial from another client is most helpful.  If you ask the client to give you a testimonial around your rates, you can steer them to come up with something similar to this.

"You now, when I started working with ABC Consulting Firm, I thought they were a little bit pricier than some of the other options that were on the market, but, I’ve been totally blown away by their level of professionalism and their response time.  It’s definitely worth whatever they charge.  They’re amazing and I would strongly recommend them."

Testimonials can center around a number themes including:

• cost effectiveness
• professionalism
• response time
• trustworthiness
• ability to improve efficiency
• ability to save money

The Bottom Line on Testimonials
If you can get testimonials that talk to the kind of objections potential clients are making, then you are in an excellent position to win the business.  With a testimonial you aren’t tooting your own horn, someone else is doing it for you.  Testimonials add an incredible amount of authenticity to your message.  Make asking for testimonials a regular part of your business operations.

In this article, you’ve been introduced to testimonials. To learn more about how you can improve your knowledge of testimonials, 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. 

Pricing strategy is something you have to consider right from start-up.  Your pricing strategy is not something you can easily change later on.  This is why making sure you have the correct pricing strategy is so critical.

Your pricing strategy is an element of your business that your clients count on.  If you change your mind on your hourly billing rates or how you are charging, your clients are likely to resist.  If your pricing strategy changes significantly, you risk losing your clients all together.

In a good economy, increases of five to fifteen percent are about as much as you can get away with.  If your pricing strategy is off more than that, then it is usually easier to replace clients than to try to pass through more than a $20.00 - $25.00 an hour rate increase.  

If your pricing strategy absolutely must be changed in order to remain profitable, that means you are now faced with finding new clients.  These new clients will be brought on board under the new pricing strategy but at what cost?  The price of client acquisition is, on average, anywhere from $500 to $1,200.

Rather than incurring these unnecessary costs, it is much better to begin with the correct pricing strategy from the beginning.  That way you can pass along minor increases in the same way any business does.

Bottom Line on Pricing Strategy
Pricing strategy is one of your most important considerations.  It will have long term effects on your ability to remain profitable.  If you choose wrong in the beginning, the mistake is not easily repairable.  The cost of losing clients later is not worth any perceived benefit of bringing on clients early using the wrong pricing strategy.

In this article, you’ve been introduced to Pricing Strategy. To learn more about how you can improve your knowledge about Pricing Strategy, 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. 

Positioning has an impact on most aspects of your business.  Perhaps the largest impact is on the rates you can charge.  The reason for this huge impact is that your positioning decision largely determines who your competitors are.  This in turn influences the clients you attract when you first start out.

Positioning is all about client perception.  If your clients see you as one of the top service providers, you will be able to charge top rates.  If for some reason your positioning has put you on par with the moonlighters and part-timers, your rates will suffer.  

Along with the rates you can charge, positioning also influences the type of client you attract.  Position effects things like:

• The size of the client
• The clients’ budgets
• The type of work contracted
• The type and length of service contracts

If your positioning attracts the micro businesses, they’ll have a smaller revenue base, a smaller IT budget, a fewer number of PCs and that all means you’ll make less money. You have to distance yourself from the moonlighters and the low cost providers by charging higher rates and building up a reputation to justify them.

Positioning yourself as a discerning, professional, and very astute provider will attract the sweet spot clients you want.  The ones with the deeper pockets, larger IT budgets, and more sophisticated needs.  

Bottom Line on Positioning
Your rates and the clients you attract are closely tied together and tied to your company’s positioning.  Make a conscious effort to position yourself in the elite group.  It starts with charging high end rates and then slowly building a reputation to back-up those rates.

In this article, you’ve been introduced to Positioning. To learn more about how you can improve your knowledge about Positioning, 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. 

Pricing strategies are often based on what other people in the industry are doing.  Typical pricing strategies used are charging an hourly rate, a fixed price rate, a per PC or server rate, or some combination of the three.  Before you decide on your pricing strategy, however, you are wise to check out what your competitors are doing and then try and emulate them.

Before you start your analysis of your competitors’ pricing strategy you have to be very sure you have identified your true competitors.  A big, and common, mistake is tying to emulate a supposed competitor’s pricing strategy only to have it fall flat because that company is not a competitor at all.

There are lots of quasi-competitors out there but you don’t necessarily want to use their pricing strategy as a basis for your own.  The acid test for determining if a business is a true competitor is this:

When you turn the question around the answer is much clearer.  You might start off thinking Dell is a direct competitor, but when you ask yourself whether Dell sees you as a direct competitor, suddenly you realize that you are not even on Dell’s radar screen.  Dell would consider the collective of small business systems integrators as a competitor - but one company out of those hundreds of thousands?  Not likely.  

Copying Dell’s pricing strategy would be disastrous.  The influences on their pricing strategy decisions are vastly different than yours as a small business owner.  

The other issue to consider when deciding which competitors’ pricing strategy to follow is their level of IT business knowledge.  You don’t want to emulate people with low skills or poor business sense.  Ask yourself:

• Do they really know what they’re doing?
• Do they have a history of running a profitable business?
• Do they have a sustainable business?  
• Do they have a scalable business?  

Bottom Line on Pricing Strategy
Before setting a pricing strategy you should check out what your competitors are doing.  The key, though, is to make sure you are analyzing the pricing strategies of true competitors and worthy competitors.  If you want to put yourself in the top echelon you need to emulate those who are already there.

In this article, you’ve been introduced to Pricing Strategy. To learn more about how you can improve your knowledge about Pricing Strategy, 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 business software is an area where many new network consultants get overwhelmed.  There are so many great products out there that it is hard to decide which computer business software to invest your time and money in.  

You want to be able to expand your capabilities but you don’t want to sink too much time or money into any computer business software purchases until you know you have a market for them. Because computer business software is an investment, you need to think carefully about the programs and packages you purchase.

If you think in terms of whether the business computer software will attract and appeal to sweet spot clients, you are thinking on the right track.  You want to ask yourself, "If I invest eight hours in learning this and invest a few hundred dollars in some training or not-for-resale product, am I going to make it back?"

There are two computer business software products I recommend you look at seriously for sweet spot clients. 

• Microsoft Small Business Server (SBS)
• Novell’s Small Business Suite

Why I Recommend This Computer Business Software:

• Both of these computer business software products are inexpensive buy-ins.
• You’re not going to have to spend a lot of money to get a demo or not-for-resale copy for you to learn with.
• For a few hundred dollars you’ll have most of what you need.
• With both types of computer business software, you should be able to take eight to ten hours and feel comfortable installing it, breaking it, and then reinstalling it.

I recommend that you just pick one of them.  Don’t try to support both types of computer business software at the outset unless you already have really strong skills on both Windows and on Netware, and you want to support both of them right off the bat.  

Use the computer business software you choose to run your own business.  Sooner or later, probably within a month or two, you’ll feel comfortable enough to do a simple installation for a client.

Bottom Line on Computer Business Software
Always think of computer business software as an investment.  You need to make sure you will recover, and then make a return on, the time and money you put into acquiring and learning new computer business software.  If you stick to Microsoft Small Business Server (SBS) and Novell’s Small Business Suite at the start, your computer business software investment should pay off pretty quickly.

In this article, you’ve been introduced to Computer Business Software. To learn more about how you can improve your knowledge about Computer Business Software, 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. 

IT consulting services come in all shapes and sizes. When you first start a business it is often difficult to decide which IT consulting services to offer.  Should you sell what you know, sell what is trendy, or sell what you think people want?

The best way to figure out what IT consulting services to sell, and the products that are needed to support them, is to sell, service, and offer the IT consulting services that your prospects NEED.  

Sounds pretty intuitive, but what typically happens is businesses start-up offering IT consulting services that their prospects want.  A need and a want are two different things.  The IT consulting services that a business owner thinks he/she needs are not necessarily the IT consulting services that are actually needed.  

Think about this–if your prospects want an air conditioner, do you sell it to them in January? No, in the winter months, unless you’re in the far south, you sell space heaters, car battery warmers, down comforters, and hot chocolate.  The same goes for IT consulting services, you sell them what they need right now, so that they can continue to operate effectively.  By selling IT consulting services they need, you will cover the wants in due time.

Now, when you are dealing with a non-technical business owner or manager, their needs may be quite superficial.  That’s ok.  If they perceive that they need IT consulting services to fix their lockups, improve their sluggish performance, find out why they can’t log on, or why they’re losing drive letters - provide those services.  

Once you prove to them you know what you’re doing, then you can sell them the IT consulting services you know they need to reach peak performance. Basically, you want to sell aspirin for their aches and pains. You can’t even start to sell the IT consulting services that you’re trying to sell them –productivity tools, security tools, hardening, intrusion detection, collaboration, connectivity, wireless VPNs– until you’ve fixed what they perceive their IT aches and pains to be.  

Bottom Line on IT Consulting Services
When you start thinking about what IT consulting services to offer you need to think like your prospects.  Try to understand what they need and separate that from what they want.  Be careful to remember that non technical buyers will have legitimate surface need that must be addressed. Offer IT consulting services that cover both the basic fixes and the long term solutions and make yourself an invaluable asset to the businesses for which you provide IT consulting services.  

In this article, you’ve been introduced to IT Consulting Services. To learn more about how you can improve your knowledge about IT Consulting Services, 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. 

Direct mail advertising is a marketing technique you will likely use in your virtual IT business.  Because this type of advertising can be expensive, it is best to know the ins and outs before you begin.

Direct Mail Advertising Tips

• It typically takes at least three to five pieces of direct mail advertising before you get a response, and sometimes a lot more! To improve your response rate, you should be using a highly targeted direct mail advertising list.  

• To obtain a highly targeted direct mail advertising list, rent one that has some common element: industry, occupation, etc…

• Once you have a highly targeted list, write a headline for your direct mail advertising that hits the target audience’s hot buttons. With a good headline and good copy there’s no reason why you can’t up the standard 1% response rate into the 3% - 5% range.  

• To find out what your target audience would be most interested in, poll some of them.  There is no point sending out direct mail advertising if your offer is not appealing.

• Use postcards for your direct mail advertising rather than letters.  You can get them out the door faster, there is less copy to write, you’ll save money on the printing, you’ll save money on the postage, and you can mail more often and more pieces.  

• Set up a system to track and measure every single inquiry on the mailer.  This way you can determine if the inquiries are coming after the first, second, third, etc.. piece of direct mail advertising received.

• Use a two-step sales process.  Get them first to raise their hand by making an inquiry and then you take over and do a more rigorous qualification after that.  

• Make your direct mail advertising date-sensitive.  This forces a response sooner rather than later.

• Send out a small, 500 - 1000 piece, test sample. This way you can make changes to the direct mail advertising copy or change your list before you make a big investment.

Bottom Line on Direct Mail Advertising
Direct mail advertising can be an effective tool.  The key to maximizing your return with it is to be smart about it. Use the tips above to create a direct mail advertising campaign that will get you the results you need.  

In this article, you’ve been introduced to direct mail advertising. To learn more about how you can improve your knowledge about direct mail advertising, 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. 

Seminar topics are difficult to think of.  We know that hosting seminars is an excellent way to network and use relationship marketing.  The problem lies in figuring out a seminar topic that will appeal to the clients in your sweet spot.

When choosing a seminar topic, people in the IT business typically choose IT related topics. This is one of the biggest mistakes I see people make.  The folks who are interested in technology related seminars, are other technology based businesses.  If your seminar topic is on Voice Over IP, you’ll get a bunch of audience members in the same business as you.  

You don’t want your seminar topic to attract your competition; you want it to attract potential clients.  You do this by offering seminar topics that focus on business problems. Especially business problems you can solve.

An excellent way to think of seminar topics is to focus on an industry.  Determine what you can you do to help the businesses in the industry, and, voila - you have a seminar topic that will attract the audience you want.

If you’re going to do something for a general audience it will be harder to hit their hot buttons, but you must still focus on seminar topics that are important to a business owner.  

Seminar Topic Themes and Ideas

• Designing a "hipper" network
• How to shop for the best file server
• How to improve IT security
• Increase your productivity with IT
• How to maximize your return on investment in IT
• Protecting against computer viruses
• How to make sure your firewall is adequate
• How to make sure your wireless network isn’t exposed

Bottom Line on Seminar Topics
In order to come up with great seminar topics you have to think like your target audience. Ask yourself what the average small business owner is going to be most interested in. Design a seminar topic around a general business issue, or get really targeted and focus on a problem plaguing a particular industry. Either way, ditch the technology related topics and concentrate on business related seminar topics.  

In this article, you’ve been introduced to seminar topics. To learn more about how you can improve your knowledge about seminar topics, 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.

Sales pipelines are an important concept in business marketing.  At any one point you will have different people in different phases of the buying process:  your sales pipeline.  How you market to these people varies.  When you know who, and how many, you have in your sales pipelines you can plan your strategies effectively.

Essentially there are two different categories of sales pipeline:

Guaranteed Sales Pipeline
Your guaranteed sales pipeline tracks the guaranteed work you have lined up for the month.  In this sales pipeline the sale is already a done deal, you already have a deposit check,  a signed agreement, and all you have to do is the actual work.

Anticipated Sales Pipeline
Your anticipated sales pipeline includes the people that you think have about a 75% certainty of closing within the month.  In this sales pipeline you don’t have a signed agreement or a deposit check… yet.

Once you start tracking who is where in your sales pipelines you can use that information to formulate your business strategy. 

• Your sales pipelines show you whether you are in great shape or you don’t have enough capacity. Do you need to hire contractors, do you need temporary or full time staff, etc…?

• You can see by looking at the numbers in your sales pipelines whether you need to start taking more decisive action to get more people into your funnel.  Do you need to do more follow up, networking, referral marketing, seminars, direct mail, etc…?

Bottom Line on Sales Pipelines
Your sales pipelines are what allow you to be proactive rather than reactive with your business decisions.  If you know how much work you have in your guaranteed and anticipated sales pipelines you can make smart business decisions that help move your business forward.  By organizing your sales pipelines you can stay on top of your future opportunities and make the most of them.

In this article, you’ve been introduced to sales pipelines. To learn more about how you can improve your knowledge about sales pipelines, 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.