Computer Consultants Secrets ™

VARs often work with a lot of different providers when choosing the right products for their clients. Recently, a group of VARs ranked Cherry as the #1 keyboard provider.  Cherry took first place in the 2nd annual “VSR Hardware Leaderboard,” a voting that started in 2006 and just took place again for 2007.  

157 VARs voted on which was the best-performing POS keyboard supplier. Criteria used to determine it was established by VSR.  Cherry also took first place in “Product Features,” Innovation” and “Reliability” categories.  A spokesperson for Cherry, Keyboard Marketing Manager David Michielli expressed the company’s continued commitment to point-of-sale marketing and stated that the company would continue to serve VARs and focus on VARs’ clients.

Added By: Computer Consulting 101 Professional Kit

In order to be successful with IT marketing, you need to know a lot of people, and these people need to trust you.  You can accomplish this goal by getting involved in organizations.

The following organizations can help you with your IT marketing techniques.  Don’t join more than one of each type, but you can use these categories as a guideline for choosing the best ones for you.

General Business Organizations

This category involves a chamber of commerce, Rotary club or Kiwanis.  It could also be a group like Le Tip or BNI.  This type of organization is good for IT marketing because it is a place to find a lot of other small business owners and managers.

A User Group  

If you want to specialize in installing Windows-based networks or security or some other specialty, you might want to think about this type of business group.  This type of group allows you to meet other people with similar specialties and interests.   

Targeted Business Organizations and Trade Groups

This category for IT marketing will offer the clients you seek.  If you are in the medical industry for example you can look at medical trade groups.  Determine which types of events are coming up and whether or not there is a newsletter.

Join a Niche for IT Marketing

If you want to get referrals and make connections, you need to get more active in your niche.  If you become a part of a niche, you will get better referrals.  When you are selling technical services, you have to have technical expertise, but really succeeding in the IT consulting world and with your IT marketing campaign is about WHO you know rather than WHAT you know.

Relationships Are Important to IT Marketing

What will really determine the success of your IT marketing campaign is relationships.  Sure, technical skills are important, but even if your technical skills are average, relationships with partners, subcontractors, vendors and anyone that can send you business will really pull you through to the end.

If you want to get more referrals with IT marketing, you will need to know more people.  Join organizations in different arenas to get more out of your IT marketing campaign.  

Blogged By:  Joshua Feinberg

Business process management (BPM) leader provides systems integrators and other companies and government agencies with software.  The company has won awards for its technology and services that help customers improve their businesses.  Lombardi offers products for systems integrators that is built on open standards and, according to the company helps with prioritization, planning, visibility and business processes.  Organizations have been helped by Lombardi to be more efficient and flexible and make better decisions for the future.

Lombardi has helped many major systems integrators and companies improve their way of doing business with great software options.  Customers of the company include Allianz Life, Aflac, Banco Espirito Santo, Capital One, Dell, El Paso Corp., Hasbro, ING Direct, National Bank of Canada, Sprint, T-Mobile, Universal Music Group and many other governmental agencies and other companies.

Added By:  Joshua Feinberg

If you want to get your computer consulting business going, you need to get organized.  Choose a company name, get your business cards printed and decide which types of customers you want to go after and where you will meet them.  

Your Business Cards

You need to get your business cards printed even if you’re not sure the information will stay the same.  Start your computer consulting business by handing out a few business cards to friends and family members.  

Spread the Word!

Whenever you get into networking situations, you need to take the opportunity to tell them about your computer consulting business and hand out cards.  These people will be part of your sales force.  

Your Business Community

You need to get active in local organizations and find out where small business owners will be.  Look for three or four trade groups – your chamber of commerce, user group or trade group or other group.

What Do You Know?

When looking for good networking groups for your computer consulting business, find an industry focus that you know well.  You can always branch out as your business grows.  But if you start with a niche you know, you will already have credibility and be able to develop a marketing message that will speak to people.   

Are There Enough Prospects?

Let’s say you have a nursing background.  You can focus your early marketing and business development activities on small doctors’ offices in your area if you think there are at least 500 – 1,000 prospects within an hour of your location.  Your knowledge of the industry will go far.  

With your specialized computer consulting knowledge, you should also think about branding yourself by putting your industry focus in your name.  If you add “health care systems” or something like it, your message will be clear.  

Added By:  Computer Consulting 101 Professional Kit

A professionally-administered survey from Dynamics Markets released earlier this week determined that only one in three IT projects meets expectations.  So what advice for a consulting business is there to help with this phenomenon?

Dynamics Markets surveyed 800 middle and senior IT managers in large companies in eight different countries for Tata Consultancy Services.  Nearly 70 percent of those responding said their managers and their boards still offer financial support, even for unsuccessful IT projects.  Common problems with projects were going over time, greater-than-expected maintenance costs and reluctance of business users to adopt the new technology once installed.

Because leading VARs found statistics did not quite match their experiences, they decided to release the following 6 pieces of advice for a consulting business looking to meet expectations of clients and thrive.

1.     Plan Well:  While no one can plan for everything that happens, this advice for a computer consulting business is critical.  Many IT providers might submit low project estimates just to get a job without thinking about the business impact of a poorly-planned project.  IT providers need to add extra time into each phase of the project to make sure it stays on track, and that clients are happy.  

2.     Add the Right Requirement-Gathering Procedures:  Projects typically fail because of improper requirements gathering.  The advice for a consulting business is to focus on project management and the management of implementation and know the difference between the two.

3.    Focus on Relationships:  Often projects fail because there is a lack of connection between the business needs and the IT goals of the project.  The solutions must match the business, and the consultant and the client must be on the same page about what is needed.  The advice for a consulting business is to stress relationship strength and build trust with clients from the beginning.

4.    Manage Expectations:  This advice for a consulting business means that everyone involved in delivering the project (and receiving it) needs to know the plan for the project.  Project managers and consultants need to use good and realistic methods of measuring success at each stage of the project.  

5.    Communication is Key:  You need to communicate your plan from the beginning of a project.  Good advice for a consulting business is to think of you and your clients as a team and to focus on building relationships by communicating regularly.  Everyone needs to know what is happening at all times.  

6.    Spend Money and Spend it Wisely:  Small businesses need to invest in IT projects.  If the client does not have enough money to complete the project the right way, you need to put it on hold.  The best advice for a consulting business when it comes to getting clients to invest is to make sure they are capable before starting a project; don’t take on a project if you can’t do it the right way from the beginning.

Added By:  Computer Consulting 101 Professional Kit

Handheld devices – PDAs – allow clients to connect directly or indirectly to LANs.  This means that you need to treat remote connection of handheld devices the same way you would treat any other device, including a home computer or a company-owned notebook.  You need to talk with your clients about which sensitive data can be stored on handheld devices and which cannot to promote safety and security.   Handheld devices are small and much more easily stolen or lost than any other type of devices.  

Backup Procedures

In terms of data security, you need to develop backup procedures for handheld devices.  It’s very possible – and has happened! – to lose years of appointments and 2,000 customer names if you store important information only on a PDA and don’t back it up elsewhere.  Make sure you are taking responsibility for educating your clients on the importance of backing up their handheld devices.   

Connecting to Desktops

You need to consider how your clients’ internal gurus or your consulting firm will help users to connect their handheld devices to office PCs.  Clients could very well ban PDAs from the office or make users responsible for their own PDA support issues, but these options are not always the best.  Handheld devices are becoming really important to others in your clients’ industries, which means they probably need to start using them to stay on top of the competition.    

Other Damage Caused by Employees

Your clients probably also don’t want to give employees the responsibility of installing and supporting their own PDAs unless they are incredibly PC-savvy.  A user often will break some key software configurations when blindly accepting default settings.

If your clients need to use handheld devices, they need someone like you or a very great internal guru to handle their support issues.  

Added By:  Computer Consulting Kit

The computer business saw a lot of innovative new technology products introduced in 2007 that made business and personal computing more efficient.  Many applications were developed and new hardware was designed.  CRN recently narrowed the list of products it reviewed in the past year down to the best 10 of 2007.  The following offers a break-down of the 10 best computer business products and their categories:

1.     Security Product of the Year:  Sonic Wall TZ 180
2.    Virtualization Product of the Year:  VMware Infrastructure 3 (with Lab Manager)
3.    VoIP Product of the Year: Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007
4.    Wireless Product of the Year: Extricom Interference-Free EXWO-404 WLAN Switch
5.    Operating System of the Year: Microsoft Windows XP
6.    Application of the Year:  Tableau v3.0
7.    Desktop of the Year:  HP Compaq dc7800 Ultra Slim
8.    Notebook of the Year: Toshiba Portege R400
9.    Chip of the Year: Quad-Core AMD Opteron
10.    Smartphone of the year: RIM BlackBerry Curve 8310

For more information on this computer business story, including detailed descriptions of all the products, visit the link attached to this blog entry.

Added By:  Joshua Feinberg

Part of responsible IT marketing is giving good elevator speeches.  These IT marketing bits are short descriptions of your business that can be delivered at a chamber of commerce luncheon or any other networking event.  Your goal with your elevator speech is to give a 30-second commercial that really resonates and sets you apart from the crowd.  

Benefits Instead of Features

The most important part of your elevator speech is that it should focus on your firm’s benefits rather than just features.  For example, my elevator speech:

“Hi, I’m Joshua Feinberg from the Computer Consulting Kit.  We help small business computer consultants sell more services, build their businesses and run more profitable companies.”

If you are trying to sell to small businesses, your IT marketing elevator speech might look like these:

“My Company helps small businesses in the local area use technology more effectively.”

“My company helps small businesses in the area solve computer problems.”

Sincerity and Your Elevator Speech

With any IT marketing strategy, you need to be sincere.  You need to appear able to help people and have a real interest in hearing more about them.  When networking, you should try to let the person receiving your IT marketing message do most of the talking and establish yourself as a good listener.

Blogged By:  Joshua Feinberg

Solution providers recently got word from the CMP Channel and The NPD Group of which companies had made the Mid-Year CRN Channel Bestsellers List.  The NPD Group is a research firm that worked with the CMP Channel and CRN to evaluate the performance of solution providers and their technologies and technology companies and come up with a list of the best.  

This list helps solution providers decide which products to sell within their channel as well as recognizing popular technology categories and brands that are currently being sold.  Officially called the “Mid-Year CRN Channel Bestsellers” list, it shows the top five best-selling technologies in 22 different categories, including the leading “Channel Bestseller” within each category and the “Top Growth Bestseller.”  The top Channel Bestseller is based on market share data taken from January – June, 2007.  The Top Growth Bestseller is taken by the change in share during the same time period as compared to the time period of January – June, 2006 (the previous year).  

The CRN Bestsellers List provides a real technology resource for solution providers and helps them make product decisions and recommendations to clients, according to Robert C. DeMarzo, vice president and editorial director for the CMP Channel.  It’s also an accurate portrayal of companies that may not be sector leaders in overall market share according to standard research companies but still offer a lot of dollar revenue for solution providers.

For a complete listing for solution providers, visit the attached story.

Blogged By:  Computer Consulting 101 Professional Kit