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Joshua Feinberg Profile and Articles
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51). Computer Consulting: Weeding Out Time Wasters
When you’re in the computer consulting business, you’re selling your personality, you’re selling your charisma, and you’re certainly selling your business knowledge. Most specifically, however, at the end of the day, you are selling your time. You can’t afford to waste it. You need to be able to account for every hour that you spend, regardless of ...
52). IT Service Contracts: Qualifying Clients
Some clients are simply not the right type for IT service contracts. In this article, you'll learn how to determine if they are interested in these agreements.
Prepare to Screen Your Candidates
When you are preparing for the sales call, be sure that you ask enough questions to figure out whether they’re a good candidate f...
53). IT Marketing: Good Elevator Speeches
IT marketing requires you to give “elevator speeches,” or short little descriptions of your business. In this article, you'll learn how to get the maximum effectiveness from your elevator speech.
If you go to a chamber of commerce luncheon, you might find yourself (and everyone else) having to give their 30 second commercial. If there...
54). IT Marketing: Rewarding Referrals
People in some professions, like accounting, can be great people to partner up with. You may even be able to develop a more formal revenue sharing arrangement where your accountant would have a financial interest in connecting you with their existing clients. This could be in the form of:
o A finder's fee
o A referral fee
o...
55). IT Marketing: Your Elevator Pitch
An elevator pitch is basically a quick introduction that doesn't sound too canned. You want to work on fine-tuning something that is anywhere from ten to twenty seconds. You use this speech whenever you meet a prospect that you meet at any kind of event. Your pitch should talk about what your company does, what makes you unique, and why they want t...
56). IT Support: Are You Wearing Multiple Hats?
In the early stages of developing an IT support business, the owners typically wear all the hats: the sales hats, the technical hats, and the administrative hats, until the company has established enough of a client base that it can justify delegating certain things to a salesperson or a couple of different technical people. In this article, you'll...
57). IT support: Areas of Responsibility with your Clients
Many different responsibilities are included in providing IT support to your clients. In this article, you'll learn which areas need to be a part of your comprehensive services.
Coordinating Telecommunications Solutions
With sweet spot clients, you'll probably end up coordinating your IT support with the local telephone c...
58). IT Specialists: Are Non-Profits a Viable Market?
Yes, non-profits are viable. But there are certainly more financially rewarding sectors for IT specialists. Let's first take a look at the pros of non-profits.
o It's easy to reach non-profits because they belong to trade groups and you can get your hands on the publicly available directories.
o You can get a lot of tremendous e...
59). IT Service Agreements: Know Your Clients
In addition to knowing your skills and being moderately qualified, keep an eye on the size of companies you want to target for IT service agreements. Going after 60 stations, 100 stations, or 150 stations is not the best place to start.
Start Small
Start with something that’s more comfortable and more approachable for you...
60). IT Specialists: Finding Your Niche
Finding a niche is an important step in becoming an IT specialist. In this article, you'll learn about how to develop your niche.
A Horizontal Niche
Instead of all your ideal clients being in the same industry (a vertical niche), maybe you realize that most of your clients' main contacts are office managers. What do you d...
61). IT Marketing: Sell Your Expertise
How do you differentiate yourself from others in your local marketplace? One of the best ways is by focusing on your unique expertise in your IT marketing. Your clients are really buying you, not a box or a server or a software license. In this article, you'll learn how to differentiate yourself.
Don't Become a Commodity
...
62). IT Marketing: Using Speaking Engagements
Speaking at business organizations is another great form of IT marketing. In this article, you'll learn how speaking can help you connect with your potential customers.
Speak at Other Groups' Meetings
The great part of speaking at other people's meeting is you have a captive audience there. They're already going to the ch...
63). IT Audits: Your Existing Customers
Look among your existing customers to determine who are good candidates for IT audits. You can do this based on the number of PCs they have. Generally, businesses that have more than five systems are really good possibilities for IT audits.
You will be checking around for UPSs and data line protection, real surge protectors, the right ...
64). IT Marketing: Successful Seminars
An important part of your IT marketing is seminars. In this article you’ll learn how to get the most of the seminars you hold.
IT Marketing: Registration is Very Important
Most seminars that you offer should be free, but to make these IT marketing events successful, always require registration because you have limited sea...
65). IT Emergencies: Use Them as Ice Breakers
When prospective clients have IT emergencies, you have an opportunity. In this article, you'll learn that two important factors come together during IT emergencies
How IT Emergencies Help You
First, the customer feels the threat of having neglected IT issues. Often a new, widespread, and deadly virus hits, and the custome...
66). Computer Consulting: The Initial Consultation
You have to think of the sales process as more of like a pre-sales consultation and with an emphasis on consultation. You really want to convey your professionalism and stand out from the other computer consulting "professionals" out there who want to act like used car salespeople.
In this article, you'll learn that this can be done b...
67). IT Marketing: Ways to Grow Awareness of Your Company
In order to sell a solution, you have to build awareness that there is a problem. Once you have built that awareness, you need to build awareness that your firm can solve that problem. Then you need to build awareness that your solution is relatively pain-free, seamless, affordable, and gives companies good return on investment. This article will s...
68). IT Marketing: The Benefits of Direct Mail Postcards
The great advantage to using direct mail postcards is you don't have to worry that they'll get tossed in the trash without being read. They are already opened. Additionally, postcards are less expensive than other types of direct mail thereby saving on your IT marketing budget. In this article, you'll learn how to make your direct mail postcards wo...
69). IT Sales: Stopping the Free Consultation
It’s critical to make sure that your IT sales call doesn’t become an extended free consultation. You’re not there for unlimited brain-picking. In this article you'll learn how to move the sales call to IT sales.
It’s not about proving how smart you are or proving your technical expertise or showing all your certifications. You’re only...
70). Technical Staff: Challenge Them
Encourage your technical staff to learn about higher-end networking solutions. Remember, higher-end solutions are generally worth more per hour. Most of your technical staff will have the skills to set up small LANs, do troubleshooting, cleanup jobs and desktop rollouts. But in this article you'll learn why you should also start booking up some of ...
71). IT Marketing: Using Your Elevator Pitch
Elevator pitches are effective, quick ways of practicing your IT marketing daily. They key is to say something memorable and quick, and to use it whenever appropriate. In this article, you learn how to make your elevator speech stand out for effective IT marketing.
For example, you get in the elevator on the 20th floor and you see a ma...
72). IT Specialist: Better Than a Generalist
Now how do you become an IT specialist, when to provide virtual IT you need to be a generalist? As an IT specialist, you will still need to provide a lot of different services. You may be:
· network design
· helping clients with procurement
· managing relations
· dealing with the phone companies, the Web hosts and the...
73). IT Service Agreements: Identify Your Terms
IT service agreements require advance planning to inspire confidence in your customers. You need to know what benefits and prices you will offer to your customers ahead of time. This will be your compelling case for why your future clients need to be on IT service agreements.
Make a Rate Card
A rate card is a simple one-pa...
74). IT Specialist - Information Gathering is a Must
IT Specialists must reach their intended audience to be successful with their marketing. As you'll learn in this article, your first step needs to be gathering information about your niche.
IT Specialists Should Study What their Niche Clients Do
For instance, to reach small medical offices, get up to speed on the business ...
75). IT Marketing: Improving Postcard Response
One of the biggest mistakes that I see when people are doing postcard mailings is there's no urgency. What does that mean? That means that even if I'm interested in hiring you, there's no compelling reason to do so now. I will just file your card away with my other computer related stuff.
Now if I got that postcard and it said this co...
76). IT Sales: Move them From Free to Fee
When you are in the process of your initial IT sales consultation, it is likely that you will be asked to take a look at something while you are there, For example, they may say, "We've been having a problem with this router. Could you just take a look at it please?"
Don't Risk Doing More Harm
What should you do? If it onl...
77). IT Service Agreements: Living Up to Your Promises
If you are new to the service model, you may be concerned about your ability to live up to your IT service agreements. Let’s assume that you have eight clients who will book $165,000 in yearly revenue. The greatest fear for many new consultants is getting significant IT service agreements and not being able to support their clients in the short-ter...
78). IT Marketing: How to Ask for Referrals
Referrals are a great way of IT marketing. In this article, you'll learn how to ask for them.
The Question
The key IT marketing question to ask your clients is “Do you know anyone else who could benefit from our services?” Write it down on your hand. Write it down on your PDA. Look at it every morning before you talk to c...
79). Virtual IT: Grow your business by providing ongoing service
Virtual IT: How It Can Benefit Your Business
Most successful small business computer consultants position their companies as virtual IT departments? Why? Because providing virtual IT to your customers gives you steady business. In this article, you'll learn why providing virtual IT to your clients can benefit both you and your customer...
80). IT Sales: Moving Beyond the First Sales Call
The IT sales call or initial consultation is mostly about qualifying the lead. If you don’t, you may waste a lot of time on prospects that just want to pick your brains and really have no intention on hiring you. This can happen real easily when you’re moving into small businesses IT sales. In this article, you'll learn how to move on to the next s...
81). IT Sales: Handling the Initial Call
IT sales calls can be handled with ease if you prepare adequately ahead of time. First, do your background research and get a sense of the urgency of the situation. Then you will be able to increase your odds of closing IT sales by finding out what your clients' biggest needs are. In this article, you'll learn why you need to be the solution to the...
82). IT Marketing: Join Organizations to Build Relationships
IT marketing requires knowing lots of people and getting them to trust you. One way to do this is by joining and becoming active in a couple different types of organizations. In this article you'll learn the three different kinds of organizations that most computer consulting businesses do really well in.
Don't join more than one of ea...
83). IT Sales: Discover the Urgency of Their Needs
During an initial IT sales consultations, you want to take your clients to the next step, like a site survey. Sometimes prospects will jump right on that. But, what if they say, "I’ll let you know; I’ll get back to you," and that’s as far as you get? You shouldn't even get to this reaction. In this article you'll learn how you need to find out how ...
84). IT Marketing: Use Trusted Business Advisors
Another way to get your name out there for IT marketing is through trusted business advisors. These are people that small businesses look to for advice. Their customers put a tremendous amount of trust in the reliability of their recommendations. In this article, you'll learn how a referral from them can be worth their weight in gold. These might c...
85). IT Specialists: Branding Your Company
As IT specialists, a big way to differentiate yourself is to make sure that you're branding your company. Focus on selling your company name with its new industry twist. In this article, you'll learn why branding your company is so important for IT specialists.
Don't go in flashing the certifications and vendor logos because that redu...
86). IT Marketing: Postcard Case Study
Sometimes you won't get the results you hoped for with your IT marketing. In this article you will learn about some common problems with postcards and how to avoid them.
IT Marketing: The Case
“I've sent out over 300 postcards offering general computer troubleshooting services, automated online data backup and wireless ho...
87). IT Specialist: Replicating Your Client Successes
Often, the best way to be unique as an IT specialist is to narrow down your industry focus. Though it may sound like a daunting task, this article will show you how it can be quite simple.
"Model" Your Best Clients
Find more clients that are just like your current best clients. To do this, take your active client list and ...
88). IT Marketing: The Multi-Pronged Marketing Approach
Approach your IT marketing and advertising with a multi-pronged approach. Think about your retirement account or your investment portfolio. Would you really want to put all of your money into one stock? You probably wouldn't have wanted it to be Anderson or Enron! As you'll learn in this article, you don't want to put all of your marketing eggs in ...
89). IT Marketing: Join Organizations
In IT marketing, personal referrals you're going to find are by far the most powerful way to get great prospects. Personal referrals are already in a lot of ways pre-sold and they already trust you. In the IT services business, unlike just selling a product, trust carries a tremendous amount of weight. In this article, you'll learn how to get more ...
90). IT Marketing: Who Should Be the Lead Generator?
Lead Generation is the most crucial step in your IT marketing. In this article, you will learn that lead generation is the future of your company and the most important strategic activity you should be working on.
Be very careful delegating this task to anyone except possibly a spouse or business partner. Your clients aren't buying pr...
91). IT Sales: It's about Relationships and Benefits
IT Sales aren't automatic--you have to put in the time and effort to make the sale. In this article you will learn that showing your clients the benefit of your services and developing a relationship with them will help your IT sales.
What Benefit Can You Give Them?
If your prospect has an IT problem you can't solve, the...
92). Computer Consulting: Should You Buy a Franchise?
You can approach the decision whether or not to buy a franchise in many different ways. There are many pros and many cons with franchise organizations. In this article, we'll explore the pros and cons with franchise organizations in computer consulting.
The Pros
o You get the trappings of being part of a larger company.
93). IT Sales: Put Your Best Foot Forward
Prior to making the first IT sales call to your client, you need to prepare for it. In this article you'll learn how to get ready for meeting with a client for the first time.
IT Sales: Do Your Homework
Before you even arrive at your first IT sales call with a client, make sure you've done your homework. If the prospectiv...
94). IT Sales Calls: Getting Past the Gatekeeper
IT sales calls require connecting with the right person in order to be successful. However, getting past the gatekeepers is no easy feat. In this article, you'll learn some techniques to help get you in touch with the person you need to for your IT sales calls.
IT Sales Cold Calls are Difficult
How do you get past the sec...
95). IT Specialist: Why Narrow It Down?
If you're trying to grow your business, why would you turn away potential clients? In this article, you'll learn that as an IT specialist, your marketing efforts are less about turning away other clients and instead about finding if you have enough prospects to market to.
If you know that your best clients are small accounting offices,...
96). Computer Consulting: Finding Prospects Among Your Leads
How do you narrow down your leads and find your prospects? In this article, you'll learn some criteria that will help you narrow down your computer consulting leads and take them to the next step.
One is finding your industry focus. You must laser beam your target market. You need to stand out tremendously from the crowd because every...
97). Computer Consulting Training: Should you get this or clients first?
A big question when starting out is comparable to the chicken and the egg dilemma. Do you get computer consulting training first and then look for clients? Or do you look for clients and then get the relevant training. In this article, you'll learn why it's best to do them both at the same time.
How About Both?
When guid...
98). IT Marketing: Mailing to Your Current Customer Database
Doing a mailing to your current customer database is a really great place to start. In this article, you'll learn why this IT marketing strategy can be so effective.
Your Customers Already Know You
Doing an IT marketing mailing to your current customers is a great place to start because, for one thing, you already own the...
99). IT Service: Handling Prepaid Blocks of Time
The prepaid block of time is different from the service agreement. The IT service agreement is specific about the kinds of things you will do – maintenance, upgrades, etc. The prepaid block of time is simply that – time.
For example, the customer recognizes that your normal hourly rate is $100 an hour. In return for prepaying 20 hours...
100). IT Sales: It’s All About Relationships
Developing the bond and the relationship with your clients is very important. In this article, you'll learn how your relationships are your assets with IT sales. It's not about the size of your customer list necessarily. It's not even about the revenue. It's about the longevity and the long-term relationships you build with your customers.
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