Small Biz Tech Talk ™

IT marketing using referrals is accomplished most efficiently by involving yourself in networking organizations.  IT marketing is about knowing a lot of people and gaining their trust.  If you are active in some organizations within your niche, you can accomplish these goals.

IT Marketing:  Three Types of Business Organizations

You should not join more than one of each type of organization within the following categories, but find your best fit and stick with it.

General Business Organization

This type of organization for IT marketing includes chamber of commerce, Rotary or Kiwanis or even a group like Le Tip or BNI.  This type of IT marketing organization is not targeted by industry, rather gives you a community of other small business owners and managers.  

User Group

If you decide that you are going to be a specialist in the installation of Windows-based networks, you might look for a user group that is a Windows server group.  Similarly, if some of your staff wants to specialize in security, a security group may be best.  User groups as part of IT marketing strategies give you people with similar interests.

Targeted Business Organizations and Trade Groups

This type of IT marketing organization is where you will find your target clients.  If you are looking for businesses in the medical field, go to medical organizations.  Also determine which events are coming up, including expos and if there are newsletters for you to read.  

IT Marketing:  Be Part of a Niche

When you are using referrals for IT marketing, you need to become part of a niche to get the highest quality referrals.  Who you know is much more important than what you know in the IT business.  You are selling services that are very technical, and of course you have to have technical expertise, but your ticket in is your people skills.

IT Marketing:  Relationships

In IT marketing, relationships are key.  Even if your technical skills are just so-so, relationships is what is going to get you long-term clients and qualified partners, subcontractors and other vendors.  Personal referrals are the key to a successful IT marketing campaign, and strong relationships will get you what you need.

Added By:  Joshua Feinberg

According to organized surveys conducted by SkillsMarket and the Association of Technology Staffing Companies (ATSCO), the salaries of IT consultants have risen 17% over the last 12 months.  The increase is reportedly the result of the expansion of public sector outsourcing and private sector mergers and acquisitions.  This survey measured IT consultants and their salaries from 2005 – 2006.

IT Consultants Survey Revelations:

1.    Consultancies have started to aggressively recruit IT consultants recently in order to prepare for the great amount of merger and acquisition business, but skills are still scarce.  Therefore, salaries for IT consultants are rising.

2.    Shortages of IT consultants have caused some consulting firms to worry about eventually having to turn away clients.

3.    The growth in mergers and acquisitions – which was at its highest level in six years in 2006 – has caused a demand for IT consultants that can install advanced IT systems.  

4.    Management IT consultants are also in demand in the public sector because companies are cutting back on salaried staff.  This means that public sector spending on IT consultants rose in 2006 by 33%.

For more information on this survey about salaries for IT consultants, visit the attached link.

Added By:  Computer Consulting 101 Professional Kit

A huge part of IT marketing is getting to know decision makers within small businesses that will be in charge of hiring you.  Your first task is to connect with your partner program representative.

The most effective way to expand your customer roster is to do even more IT marketing by going into the community to meet decision makers.  But how and where can you find these key people?

IT Marketing:  The Right Decision Makers

If you are going after small business owners and managers, you will most likely come into contact with a lot of branch managers from banks or executive directors from non-profit organizations.  These people are not necessarily the people you are looking for, nor are the big Fortune 1,000 company heads in your area.  

You need to know the exact type of decision maker you are trying to reach in order to be successful at IT marketing.  Finding the person most likely and willing to hire you will allow you to make the most of IT marketing efforts at organizations or networking functions, trade groups, meetings and seminars.  

IT Marketing:  The Importance of Partner Programs

Joining a partner program can help you be more recognized in your community.  If you join a partner program such as Microsoft Certified Partner, as a smaller firm you will have to get involved and find out the leaders of the program.

Talk to the field representative, get to know him/her, exchange business cards – do whatever you have to do to keep in touch and build your reputation as a proactive, interested member of the community.  Asking questions and brainstorming over coffee or breakfast is another great way to further your IT marketing strategy.

IT Marketing:  What Are the Problems?

You need to learn about community IT problems.  What are decision makers running into regularly, and how can you help?  Ask if there are people that are part of channel programs that might like to partner with you, for work quotes or non-competing skills.  Local channel representatives are a great source for IT marketing opportunities.

Added By:  Computer Consulting 101 Professional Kit

On March 16, computer business Hewlett-Packard announced that its board of directors had finalized plans to spend $8 billion to try to recover some of the company’s shares.  

HP stated that the computer business’ re-purchase of these stocks would help make up for some shares from employee stock options and get cash returned to stock owners.  This announcement was confirmed by a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The first quarter that was over on January 31, 2007 saw computer business HP buying back $2.3 billion of its shares, leaving $3.3 billion of funds available for future stock re-purchases.   

This latest stock purchase was unearthed at an annual computer business meeting last Wednesday.  Shareholders rejected a proposal giving investors the power to nominate board members of the computer business.  

Added By:  Computer Consulting 101 Professional Kit

Part of IT marketing requires you to be the main lead generator.  This important duty should never be given to anyone else.

Generating leads is the number one part of your IT marketing strategy and holds the key to your business future.  You should never name anyone (except maybe a spouse or business partner) the main lead generator.  Your clients are buying your service, your personality and your reputation.  They are also purchasing word of mouth, referrals and you as a total package, not as a commodity.  

Be Personally Responsible for IT Marketing

Personal service cannot be turned into a product, so you need to improve IT marketing techniques by making contacts within you area and telling them about your available services.  Don’t shortcut or delegate responsibilities unless they are technical parts of the solutions you are offering that can be given to expert staff.

When you are involved in virtual IT, you are the primary contact person.  People have to know you as the owner.  They have to have confidence in you when they hire you and believe you will provide them high quality solutions to their business problems.  Let people get to know you by taking charge of your IT marketing campaign and being the main lead generator for your company.

Added By:  Joshua Feinberg

This weekend’s CMP XChange solution provider conference featured an announcement by CRN of the 16th annual Channel Champions award winners.  This study for solution providers analyzes ideas about products and services.  Solution providers including VARs and tech integrators use the results to choose and evaluate vendors.  

CRN offers solution providers important information and analyses that help them improve and support their sales.  CRN has established itself as the most known and credible source for solution providers.

The CRN Channel Champions program for solution provider is the largest market study of its kind.  The study includes 2,000 solution providers answering questions about services between December 2006 and January 2007.  Solution providers are chosen from the subscriber list randomly and pre=qualified to make sure their experience was relevant.  The VARs and technology vendors selected by solution providers had to be only those with which the solution providers had worked.

Solution providers had to rate how critical the individual evaluation criteria was.  In order to get the total score for the particular vendor, the scores were ranked based on the relative importance of the criteria.

The full list of Channel Champions will appear in the May 7th issue of CRN.  For more information on this story for solution providers, including a list of the CRN Channel Champions, please visit the attached link.

Added By:  Computer Consulting Kit

You can help your overall IT marketing package by compiling strong testimonials from clients.  Creating an easy process by which existing clients can create testimonials for you will help you reap the benefits by giving you a selling point for your business.

IT Marketing Testimonials and the Credibility Factor

Believable, credible testimonials have to be completely real.  Testimonials have to include a first name, last name, job title, company name and a city and state at the very least.  Having this information included in testimonials shows professionalism to prospects.  

Testimonials provide an invaluable resource because people are more likely to believe what actual clients of yours say about your services than they are to believe what you have to say about your business.  People have faith in other people without a direct interest in your company when it comes to IT marketing materials.   

What Should Testimonials Have?

Testimonials should outline benefits and be written on your clients’ letterhead.  They should discuss the nature of the long-term relationship you’ve had with the client.  Testimonials should cite examples about how you have helped them get returns on their investments, your response time, reliability, emergency response time and your understanding of business needs and ability to work within their respective budgets.
 
IT Marketing and How to Get Testimonials

1.    Interview clients and guide them with specific questions.

2.    Draft pre-made testimonials for clients and email them to clients for review and any editing.  Then they can easily put it on their own letterhead and sign them.  

3.    Compile a list of five or six bullet points for clients to talk about in testimonials.  Put it in the form of a survey for easy use.

4.    Interview clients over breakfast and jot down some notes.  Type up the notes into the form of testimonials and then email your draft to the clients for review.  If they approve your rendition, you can have them put the testimonials on letterhead and sign for your files.  

Making the process of creating testimonials easy for your clients will give you the strongest IT marketing materials and gain trust from prospects to increase sales.

Added By:  Computer Consulting 101

Leading provider of solutions for value added resellers, Nortel today announced it would be offering new wireless LAN products that would help businesses use networks for location tracking, enhanced security capabilities and voice.  Nortel provides solutions to over 150 countries globally and offers services to value added resellers and enterprise networks that help connect people and speed up efficiency.  

The new voice capabilities offered for value added resellers are based on IEEE 802.11e standards and will help customers offer voice as an integral part of wireless networks.  Nortel is also introducing upgrades to improve security of LAN networks for value added resellers and their customers to better productivity and help businesses use their networks to locate people, company information and equipment.  

Nortel sees this new release as a jump on opportunities that are developing for value added resellers as mobile PCs, notebooks and PDAs become important to customers as voice devices.  These new features provided by Nortel can help create a more cohesive communication plan within companies.  

Nortel’s Asset Tracking and Management product will help businesses more efficiently use wireless networks to offer the location and to track as many as 10,000 items or people within the distance of one to three meters.  This product for value added resellers uses Nortel’s WLAN 2300 series and the Ekahau real-time location product.  Users of this system will not have to create a private network to track and therefore can have better deployment of resources.

The new security feature for value added resellers, the Wireless Intrusion Detection and Prevention (WIPS) solution will provide an upgrade for customers that is optional but provides superior security features.  

For more information on Nortel’s new releases for value added resellers, visit the attached link.  

Blogged By:  Computer Consulting 101 Professional Kit