Small Business Computer Consulting

When you’re involved in computer consulting, you’re selling your time.  Because you’re selling your time, you have to pre-qualify each call you receive as part of customer service to determine if it’s urgent, budget-friendly and worthy of your help.

The computer consulting business involves selling your personality, your charisma and your knowledge of business.  However, the most important item you’re selling is your time, and you have to be able to account for every hour you spend, whether billable or non-billable, sales-oriented, prospecting or administrative.  How can you tell whether a service call is worthy of your time?

Computer Consulting:  Emergency or Not?

If you want to learn how to best use your time and work more efficiently, you need to know how urgent the need is as soon as you first hear from the client or customer, whether via phone, email or on site.  An immediate emergency, like a downed server that affects many members of a small business environment will present a greater sense of urgency than a malfunctioning link to a PDA.  Determining a sense of urgency is key to uncovering time wasters.

Computer Consulting Budget

You need to know what your prospects’ budgets are before you go into a project.  If the prospect is broke, he/she will not have money for your services and you should put the prospect on a follow-up list for three-to-six months to determine if the prospect will have money for computer consulting services later.

Computer Consulting and Tact

As a responsible computer consulting professional you can’t ask point-blank if a prospect is broke or has money to afford your services.  Instead, be tactful.  Ask if the prospect gets computer consulting support now, how he/she has received it in the past and determine whether the company has been previously using volunteers or moonlighters or more expensive support.

If you discover the small business is working with another VAR that is your competitor and would charge a legitimate professional rate, you know the prospect has the funds to afford you.  

Computer Consulting:  Pain is Important

The most important question to ask about computer consulting prospects and customers is, what is the level of pain and can you find a solution that will fix it?

Exploring the above topics when dealing with computer consulting prospects and customers will help you figure out how to eliminate those that will waste your time and give better and more efficient service.  

Blogged By:  Joshua Feinberg

The British government recently scrapped plans to build a giant new computer system that would help with national identity cards.  Instead of building one multi-billion-pound system, information will instead be stored on three separate databases.

While Home Secretary John Reid said it would save him money, others still see the ID card project as a huge undertaking.  All non-Europeans already in the UK will have to register fingerprints or iris scans from 2008.

The computer business project will take the National Identity Register (NIR), a controversial group responsible for updated seucirty 5.4 billion pounds over the next ten years.

Low Risk Security

Because the information will be spread across three IT systems, including the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) Customer Information Service that holds national insurance records, security will apparently be better.  Reid emphatically denies that IT companies have wasted millions of pounds preparing for the new system that never happened.  Still, the government has spent 35 million on IT consultants since the project began in 2004.  Apparently it is lower risk, more efficient and faster to rework the current infrastructure.

Computer Business:  Iris Scans

Biometric data will be stored on systems that are currently being used for asylum seekers and biographical information will be stored in the DWP systems.  Foreign nationals outside the European Union already in the UK will be forced to register fingerprints and iris scans starting in 2008.  Reid hopes this will help decrease the number of those staying in the UK fraudulently.  Those outside the European Union will not be able to get a National Insurance number in the UK without biometric identities.

ID cards are set to exist starting in 2009 and be required for anyone applying for a passport starting in 2010.  There has been controversy within the computer business about the impact on civil liberties.  The card itself will offer basic identification information such as name, address, gender, date of birth and a photo.  A microchip will hold all the biometric information.

Many experts in the computer business are still seeing the ID cards and the security systems as a financial disaster and are worried about what it could mean for money loss. 

Blogged By:  Computer Consulting Kit

If you want to sell a solution you have to use IT marketing to highlight the problem.  Once you’ve made targets aware that there is a problem, you then have to show how your firm can solve it.  Then you have to use IT marketing techniques that show how your solution is without pain, affordable and will provide an excellent investment return.

The Effectiveness of Seminar Marketing

Seminar marketing is such a great type of IT marketing because it builds awareness efficiently with large groups of people all at once.  You don’t have to send salespeople out on sales calls that could last hours and are only directed at individuals.  You get a room full of captive prospects.   

Low Pressure IT Marketing

Seminar marketing is the least intimidating form of IT marketing.  If you use effective registration and good follow-up, qualifications and a great invitation policy you can get a lot of business through IT seminars on important technology issues that are within our niche.

IT Marketing and White Papers

Another excellent IT marketing technique is to publish a white paper or an e-zine.  This strategy gives you a perfect capture and follow-up device.  For example, if you’re running a direct mail campaign, you can offer a white paper to give out for free that has a high perceived value to attendees.

You can either develop the white paper yourself or outsource it to a freelance writer.  You can also use something from a reseller program to which you belong.  If you do seminars on a regular basis, just offer an edited transcript or white paper about the seminar to help stick it in their memories and improve your IT marketing.

IT Marketing:  Advertise

Display ads and direct mail pieces can get the word out about your white paper.  This gives people a reason to call or to go online and request an item from you.  Once they do this, you can get their information and use it as part of your IT marketing strategies.  

Blogged By:  Computer Consulting 101

In order to encourage expansion in 2007 in the computer business, distributors are planning to look at global markets and new technologies and also work with the small and mid-sized-business market, according to experts.

Bob Dutkowsky, CEO of Tech Data, a computer business and distributor in Florida says that improving SMB reseller relationships and being ahead of technology trends and new products will help his company grow and be ready for the future.  Other computer businesses are following suit, operating under the mindset that those companies that move first will stay ahead.

While distribution executives wouldn’t offer any details about sales and earnings projections for 2007, they stated they thought the economy would resemble the economy in 2006.  Experts state that the next couple quarters will resemble a typical fourth and first quarter as customers deal with technology products.  The distributor channel of the computer business will be the key to growth.

Many distributors will be focusing on the following areas of business:  the SMB market; the consumer and commercial markets; mobility; services and the Asian market.  Because Asia is becoming a factor in business growth, computer businesses’ involvement here will become important.

For more information on plans for the computer business in 2007 with specific figures for major companies, visit the attached link.

Added By:  Computer Consulting 101 Professional Kit

If you want to be successful at IT sales, you have to get past the first call and lead prospects to the proceeding steps of the IT sales process.

The IT sales call – the initial consultation – is a way to qualify your lead, and if you don’t treat it that way, you could come across a lot of prospects that just want to use you for free knowledge but have no intention of paying you for real services.

So how do you move to the next step in IT sales?  

No More Games of “20 Questions”

Prospects will probably call as part of IT sales and ask you interview questions.  While this is at least in part normal, when they start asking too many questions, you may lose focus on IT sales and find yourself getting your brain picked instead.

You need to stop these questions before they get out of hand, probably at about an hour.  Inform prospects you have quite a few issues to go on and propose a logical next step.  Moving onto the next step of IT sales could mean having you, your systems engineer or a technician spend some time conducting a site survey.

IT Sales:  The Site Survey

The site survey is a great next IT sales step because it lets you inventory prospect issues and get through them systematically. You can work with the prospect to determine what needs to be addressed first, second, third and so-forth.  A site survey should also include a client report that documents everything from security and software licensing to data protection and anything else.

A Summary of Getting Beyond the First IT Sales Call

Once you sense the IT sales call is ending, ask if your prospect would like a site survey and explain its benefits clearly.  This is a first chance for an IT sales close and can prevent hours of wasted time answering endless questions.

Added By:  Joshua Feinberg

On Tuesday, CBT Nuggets announced a new training program for IT consultants that will help them better manage Microsoft’s popular program Small Business Server 2003.  Small Business Server 2003 is Microsoft’s ultimate small business solution providing network services that include centralized file storage, e-mail, database management tools, resource sharing, website hosting, network security solutions and many others.  

The videos for IT consultants will teach them how to administer and distribute SBS 2003 and are also for small business owners that want to save on consulting fees by managing the software themselves.  This series of resources will also help IT consultants and professionals that create solutions for small businesses in all industries.

Another resource offered by the training program videos for IT consultants is a map to the objectives of the exam for Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) on SBS 2003.

The subjects in Exam-Pack 70-282 – Small Business Server 2003 are explored in 15-30-minute video clips so the information can be quickly obtained and used.

A sample video from this Small Business Server 2003 series can be seen on the CBT Nuggets website with examples of the instruction and format of the training.  CBT Nuggets offers training for IT consultants for certification exams based on major platforms.  The training is for IT consultants at every level of experience.  

Added By:  Computer Consulting Kit

To provide virtual IT support, you often need to be a generalist, but to be successful in the IT industry you have to be an IT specialist.  As an IT specialist, you will have to provide the following very generalized services: network design; procurement services; management; phone company interaction; interaction with web hosts and ISPs; configuration, testing, integration, customization, training and troubleshooting problems.  

The truth is, as an IT specialist you will still be doing everything, which is technically being a generalist.  But, while you might have to be a generalist, you don’t necessarily have to be a generalist for everyone in the world.  If you are an IT specialist by carefully choosing the right clients, your marketing efforts will be much simpler.

Be Selective with Clients

You can be all things to some people by providing a complete solution.  You will offer virtual IT services and be a place for them to go for all their needs.  You take responsibility for all your clients’ needs, but still are selective about what kind of clients you pursue.

An Example for an IT Specialist:  Real Estate

If you’re specializing in the real estate industry, you have probably worked with commercial real estate firms in the niche, and might be a top IT consulting professional in that field.  You will have testimonials and references to show the work you’ve done in the field and will come across as an IT specialist in the real estate world.   

Specializing Does Not Mean You Have to Have Much Experience

Finding a niche can just involve having one or two clients you’ve had for a year or two.  You may have started migrating an older DOS industry application to a 43-bit or to another web-based application.  Work over an extended period of time will give you mastery of the line of business applications, which is often the difference between you and anyone else in the IT industry.

What is It to Be an IT Specialist?

You don’t have to have very much experience in the IT industry to become an IT specialist.  But the specialization is necessary to being a successful marketer of your business.

Blogged By:  Computer Consulting 101

Computer business IBM’s partner Jeskell, Inc. announced on Thursday it would be appointing Steve Rogers Vice President of Professional Services, a brand new position for the company.  Rogers will be providing IT consulting and managed IT services to government, commercial and educational institutions throughout the United States.

Rogers has more than 20 years experience in the computer business with IT services.  He has worked with IBM, Chevron and as a VAR and independent consultant.  He was recently IT director for PDL BioPharma and also worked at Pocket Real Estate, a handheld mobile and wireless solutions provider for the real estate industry.

Jeskell, Inc. spokespeople say the computer business will be strengthened by Rogers’ IT consulting experience.  They hope he will be able to expand the operations of the company and help strengthen its partnership with computer business IBM.

Added By:  Computer Consulting 101 Professional Kit