Small Business Computer Consulting

In IT marketing, your job is to tell prospective customers about their problems and how you can fix them.  If you want to sell prospects a solution, you have to show them there is a problem.  Once you have established that, you need to tell them how your solution is pain-free, smooth, affordable and can give them a return on their investment.  

Holding seminars and providing valuable white papers can help you with IT marketing.  

Seminar Marketing and IT Marketing:  How Does it Work?

Seminar marketing is a great type of IT marketing because it is an easy and efficient way to build awareness.  Your salespeople don’t have to go out on many sales calls and spend valuable time with individual prospects.  Instead, you get a room full of prospects.  

Seminar marketing puts less pressure on your prospects.  If you provide good registration, follow-up processes and qualifications, along with a good invitation policy and calls, you can do a lot of business by holding seminars on important technology topics.  (Joshua Feinberg provides more  information about holding seminars in his Sweet Spot Clients Teleseminar Series).

White Papers and IT Marketing

A white paper or an e-zine can also help you with lead capture and follow-up procedures.  If you are running a direct mail campaign, for example, you can offer a white paper that you know targets will see as very valuable in order to get more responses.  You can create the white paper yourself or hire a copywriter to help you create it.  You can also just craft something out of literature from one of the reseller programs to which you belong.  White papers created from seminar information are also great for your IT marketing campaign.

IT Marketing:  Inform People

Advertise your white paper when you are doing display ads or direct mail pieces to give people a reason to call you or go online and ask you for something from your website.  Once you have a request, you have an excuse to get their information to help with your IT marketing strategy.

Blogged By:  Computer Consulting 101 Professional Kit

Solution providers have been following the announcement that Oracle filed suit against SAP, an archival company.  The lawsuit stresses that SAP has been allegedly viewing Oracle’s confidential customer-support materials using log-ins of shared customers between the two companies.  The customer log-in information apparently comes from SAP’s TomorrowNow solution providers roster.  However, outside solution providers say that this use of log-in IDs and passwords is legal and part of routine checks necessary to keep services running.

The lawsuit was filed late last week in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, California and is calling out SAP for using Oracle’s systems “under false pretexts.”  While using log-ins is a routine process, according to experts and other solution providers within the industry, the key to determination of wrong-doing will be figuring out if the uses of the passwords of more than 24 customers that were about to drop support services to go with SAP were authorized.  Other solution providers, including those from Rimini Street and NetCustomer state that their employees have committed similar acts to access account information at Oracle on behalf of their clients.  Most state it is very common.  

The lawsuit filed by Oracle does confirm that SAP’s employees have some right as contractors working for clients to use Oracle customer log-ins and passwords to get support materials.  But the case also involves a complaint that SAP employees downloaded materials besides just those that their clients could and should access.  Oracle’s product licenses clearly state that customers of the solution providers can only take support materials relevant to licensed products.  In January, 2007 there is record of, for example, just one of Oracle clients’ log-ins being used, presumably by SAP employees to access over 2,000 software and support materials that were not authorized.  

Solution providers and experts also state that this part of the lawsuit presents the question, “Why did users have access to materials they couldn’t legally take?”  It presents possible security problems for Oracle.  

For more information on this lawsuit related to the solution providers channel, visit the attached link.

Created By:  Computer Consulting Kit

Many people get their start in computer consulting and are able to make a decent additional living by moonlighting.  Moonlighting in computer consulting can give you the chance to determine whether or not you actually like the job before you begin a full-time computer consulting business.  

Computer Consulting:  Billable Hours

Computer consulting moonlighting helps you learn the importance of true billable hours.  As an example, you might spend 10 hours working, but can only bill for four, six or seven.  Only actually working and moonlighting computer consulting can show you the big picture of billable hours.  

What Are Non-Billable Hours?

Non-billable hours are a natural and necessary part of computer consulting.  Non-billable computer consulting hours are those used for marketing, business development, paperwork, organization, billing and collections and accounting.  

Until you are an actual owner of a computer consulting business, you can’t totally know you will enjoy it or whether or not you will be capable of running it.  

Computer Consulting:  Moonlighting Benefits

The most important benefit of moonlighting while still working at a day job is the decreased pressure.  If you find out you don’t like computer consulting, you have not lost anything because you still have a day job.  Moonlighting gives you a foot in the computer consulting door without requiring a huge commitment and without compromising your financial stability.

Blogged By:  Joshua Feinberg

GovernmentVAR magazine, a magazine published by the CMP Channel Group for solution providers recently announced it would be hosting a seminar about IT products.  The solution providers seminar will be on March 21 in Washington, DC and will focus on selling IT services to the public sector.  “Public Sector Channels 2.0” will offer speeches from solution providers and integrators that have been pioneers in top trends in federal, state/local and education markets in the U.S. 

The solution providers seminar will offer keynote speaker Vance Hitch, CIO of the Department of Justice.  He has been the CIO of the Department of Justice for nearly five years and manages the Department’s $2.1 billion IT program.  Hitch has previous experience with Accenture and 28 years of leading government organizations.

Jill Aitoro, GovernmentVAR senior editor will also head off a panel discussion featuring the top government solution providers.  The panel will focus on the evolution of the government channel.  Other panelists and solution providers taking part in the event include Steven R. Perkins of Northrop Grumman, Mac DeShazer of Lockheed Martin and David Hadsell, Vice President of Government Sales. 

According to spokespeople for the event for solution providers, those attending the seminar for solution providers will gain insight into the future of the government marketplace in order to help them strategize and grow their business plans.  The event is free of charge, but seating is limited.  The breakfast starts at 8 a.m. at ZOLA in the Le Droit Building.  For further information, solution providers and technology professionals should visit the attached link. 

Added By:  Computer Consulting 101 Professional Kit

Before you go on your initial sales call, you have to be ready.  When you are going to meet a client for the first time, you need to do your homework to get the best results from the meeting.  

IT Sales:  Prepare for the Call

You need to do your homework before you go on an IT sales call.  If the prospective client is worth the driving time and the hour or more of time spent talking to the client, he/she is worth 10 or 15 minutes of research time.

Before you even get to the point of doing research as part of IT sales, pre-qualify the potential client so you can be sure you’re spending the time well.  Answer the important questions about size of the company, platform and the industry.  

IT Sales Means Selling Services Rather Than Commodities

Doing background research on a potential client will help you immediately manage expectations.  They should know immediately that you are selling solutions and not a computer.

If you want to sell products in the future, that is fine, but don’t start off talking about white boxes, notebooks, web licenses or peripherals.  You should make your focus on services obvious, or the prospect may start price hunting.  

Select Your Own Clients as Part of IT Sales

If you make the fact that you provide services obvious from the first IT sales call, you are on the way to a strong relationship with a potential future client.  Interview clients as much as they interview you, and be very selective so you know you are getting a client you will enjoy working with on a long-term basis.  

Added By:  Computer Consulting 101

Computer business Network Appliance, Inc., specializing in advanced network storage solutions recently declared it had been named by Fortune magazine as the most admired company in the computer peripherals division.  NetApp’s score was 8.10.  It was judged based on eight different categories; ability to attract, train and keep talented staff; innovation; financial viability; corporate asset usage; social responsibility; management quality; investment value over the long term; product and services quality.

Network Appliance is a worldwide computer business leader in unified storage solutions.  It was begun in 1992 and continues to be an innovator in data management and provides technology products for partners that make the management of data simpler.

Fortune’s computer business list is available in the March 19th issue, which will hit newsstands on March 12.  The list can also be viewed online at Fortune’s website.  

The “Most Admired” category is a high honor because it recognizes the overall business reputation of the winning computer business.  The survey conducted to determine this category represents a polling by Hay Group of the 1,000 largest U.S. companies and the top U.S.-based foreign companies.  

The top 20 list of most admired companies was created based on the opinions of 3,322 executives, directors and analysts that selected their top 10 favorite companies.  This honor represents a great achievement for computer business Network Appliance.

Added By:  Joshua Feinberg

A good elevator speech is a necessity for any thorough IT marketing plan.  An elevator speech is a short description of your business that you can deliver on the fly when encountering prospective clients.

A chamber of commerce luncheon or any other IT marketing event provides an opportunity to deliver a 30-second elevator speech.  If you have more than one other IT service companies at a particular event, you need to make sure your elevator speech is as memorable as possible to improve your IT marketing campaign.

IT Marketing:  Stress Benefits with Elevator Speeches

Your elevator speech needs to concentrate on the benefits you can give to prospects.  It needs to quickly and specifically address the needs of the particular type of clients you serve.

For example, if your IT services business serves small businesses, you might say, “My company helps small businesses in the local area use technology more effectively.”  You can also replace “use technology more effectively” with “use technology to grow their businesses,” “use technology to drive down costs” or “use technology to increase productivity.”

IT Marketing:  Sincerity is Key with Your Elevator Speech

You need to make sure you present yourself sincerely when delivering an elevator speech at any function.  Part of the way to do this is to show how you can help people by expressing an interest in what they have to say.  When networking as part of IT marketing, let the person you’re talking to do the talking and actively listen to what they have to say.

Added By:  Computer Consulting 101 Professional

Asian experts claim that computer business Lenovo could be laying off 1,000 employees around the world.  The Chinese computer business has reportedly made a plan to get rid of some positions in the United States and China.  The story was released on Tuesday by Reuters and in the South China Morning Post.  Though no sources have been named in the announcement and company representatives have refused comment, sources say some employees would be reassigned while others would lose their jobs entirely.  

U.S. cuts by the major computer business would most likely affect the operations in Research Triangle Park in the U.S., where 75 percent of the U.S. employees work.  Already 330 have been laid off from this location by the computer business.  

Computer business Lenovo has been working hard to improve IBM’s PC business since purchasing the company for $1.25 billion two years ago.   The reports of lay-offs suggest that the company is not doing as well as expected with cutting costs and improving the PC revenue loss.  

While the different reports did agree on the number of employees that would lose jobs, they were not congruent in terms of where these lay-offs would take place.  A Hong Kong-based newspaper stated 400 positions would be lost by the computer business in China, whereas Reuters noted losses mostly in the U.S.  The computer business employs 24,500 people:  19,000 in China; 2,000 in the U.S.; 1,700 in Europe and the rest in other areas throughout the world.  

The lay-offs potentially mean that computer business Lenovo could save $150 million annually by spending $50 million to $75 million for severance and other benefits to those losing their jobs.  Spokespeople for the computer business have not confirmed the reports, nor have they denied them.  

Other analysts are stating that they do not necessarily think this latest restructuring of the computer business will take place, as they see Lenovo as doing well at recouping losses and moving forward.  Profits have risen 23 percent to $57.7 million recently and its U.S. presence has increased thanks to targeted marketing.

For more information on this developing story about computer business Lenovo, visit the attached link.  

Blogged By:  Joshua Feinberg