Computer Consultants Secrets ™

You will not always get what you perceive to be “ideal” IT marketing results.  How can you create postcards that will avoid the common mistakes many computer consultants make?

An IT Marketing Case Study

Consider a consultant that says this:

“I’ve send out over 300 postcards that offer general computer troubleshooting services, automated online backup and wireless home networks … I bought lists of area businesses that were divided by revenue, credit rating, years in business, number of PCs … The wireless home network postcards went to homeowners that purchased their house for over $500,000 and the automated online data backup went to people that had recently purchased new business licenses …”

And the consultant’s results?

“The IT marketing results have been nonexistent. I haven’t received a single phone call or e-mail.”

The question is, what did this consultant do wrong?

Don’t Expect a Too Much Out of Your IT Marketing Efforts

You sent out “over 300 postcards?”  That’s not really very many in terms of an all-out campaign.  And it definitely isn’t enough to make for good statistics.  Don’t spend your entire IT marketing budget in one place before you know whether it works or not.  But don’t think you can spend the cost of 300 times one stamp for a postcard and get a landslide of response.  If you got no response from that type of IT marketing campaign, consider the reality of your numbers.  

What Should Your Postcards Include?

Your lists in the above scenario are probably not wrong.  But your copy might be suspect.  What are you offering?  Is your headline compelling?  Did you hit their points of pain and have a clear deadline?  Did you use a compelling offer that got them to pick up the phone, send you and e-mail or mail back a coupon?

The Bottom Line about IT Marketing and Postcards

Are postcards a bad media?  They are not!  In fact, they’re great, because no one has to open an envelope, which makes deciding to respond a lot easier.  You won’t have to deal with putting compelling information on an envelope to get someone to respond to your IT marketing strategies.

Added By:  Computer Consulting Kit

When you decide to become an IT consultant, you will find that small business IT support requires many different types of expertise, depending upon your niche and specialty.  Which expertise do you need to become an IT consultant?

There Are Experts for Every Type of Business

If you want to become an IT consultant for a big-enterprise organization, for example, you will find all types of experts, from level one help desk technicians to senior systems engineers all the way up to a CIO.  You will find a lot in between too, but each will be an expert within his/her own specialty.

When you work in small business consulting, you will find the same is true for your IT support contractors and staff.  You will have some technicians that can handle hard drive installation and LAN adapter installation.  You might also have some people capable of dealing with simple P2P networks or basic dedicated servers.  You may also have someone that works with server-class firewalls and setting up VPNs and intricate, advanced networking.    

People Skills Are Critical

A person that does well when he/she decides to become an IT consultant is either really good at technical things or really great at sales.  Those great on the sales end AND great on the tech end are rare.

The best technicians and engineers typically will have great people skills that will come in handy during big IT projects, i.e., when installing a 10- or a 25-node network.  When you have to coordinate a lot of vendors and solutions, a lot can go wrong, and you need to thus have great management skills to make it all work.  

Become an IT Consultant

There are many different traits that can help you succeed when you try to become an IT consultant.

Blogged By:  Joshua Feinberg

Virtual IT innovators Tek-Tools Software, based in Dallas, Texas recently announced a new product – Profiler for VMware – as part of the Profiler Suite that helps increase utilization capacity and performance in virtual IT environments.  The company, with offices in the U.S., UK and India is a top provider of virtual IT resource management solutions and works with customers of all shapes and sizes to help support business.

Profile for VMWare is a software solution that offers monitoring of VMware ESX hosts, virtual machines and storage and also helps create a monitored virtual IT platform for users.

Many customers have already been using the new Profiler tool as part of an early-release plan.  Using the system in production environments, they have been able to make their virtual IT plan more efficient.  Many have reported avoiding up to hundreds of thousands of dollars in unnecessary IT purchases because of improving the performance of machines and procedures.   

Some that have used the new virtual IT system state that while it offers flexibility, it makes the process of management more complicated.  A professional survey conducted in December 2007 by Enterprise Strategy Group stated that by virtualizing servers, many companies might have a problem tracking performance and may even cover up growth.  More than half of companies polled as part of the study stated that they have experienced a net growth of total storage volume since implementing new virtual IT plans. 

Profiler promises to help circumvent problems with virtual IT solutions by offering greater visibility of stored items and systems.  It offers greater capabilities for capacity planning, virtualization planning, performance monitoring and availability monitoring (tracking). 

For more information on Tek-Tools and the new virtual IT resource, visit the attached link.

Added By:  Computer Consulting 101 Professional Kit

You need to be ready to provide a description of your computer consulting business when you go to prospective clients so you know what they are doing before you get to the interview and are prepared to help fulfill their needs.  

Computer Consulting:  Research is Everything

You might spend 30-45 minutes researching prospects before a meeting, but this homework will help increase your chances of selling your services, either immediately or a week or two afterwards.  If you want prospects to agree to your computer consulting services, you have to build credibility and share information with them to show you care about their businesses.

What’s your excuse for not doing homework?  There isn’t one!  Google is easy to use, and all you have to do is type in a person’s name or phone number and address to find out everything possible about him/her.   

A Complete Profile for Prospective Computer Consulting Clients:

1.    What the business is all about;

2.    Which industry they are in;

3.    The types of services provided;

4.    The number of locations;

5.    The length of time they’ve been in business.  

What’s the Latest about Your Computer Consulting Prospects?

You will most likely find articles in the local paper about prospects that will show up in Google or when you go to the newspaper’s site and perform the search function.  Look for any extra background information to give yourself an added edge so you know what to expect in computer consulting.

Added By:  Computer Consulting Kit