We are all familiar with the beloved bedtime story, “The Goose That Laid The Golden Egg”.  Of course most of us cringed when the countryman decided, out of greed, to kill the goose and get all the gold at once.

The reason I am bringing this up is because it was referenced in, “The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People”. It had a very nice twist that could have a bearing on the prism that computer consultants are looking at their IT marketing campaigns through.

Are they in-effect making the same fatal mistake and killing the Production Capabilities ( PC ) by having unrealistic expectation on IT lead generation Production ( P )? (more…)

If you’re starting up a new computer business and marketing to businesses then in many ways your situation parallels that of the early Pioneers.

While the promise of becoming rich from reoccurring revenue in the IT industry is plastered all over the internet, it’s important to be warned of the dangers you may face from savage Indians and a barren land.

The truth is that MSP Pioneers get the Arrows, read this and be prepared!

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It’s often said that you can’t judge someone until you first walk a mile in their shoes.

However, I have been standing on my soap box for quite some time judging managed services providers regarding their IT marketing skills and have yet to step into their shoes.

I have sought to rectify this oversight  by starting a computer support company from scratch in San Antonio.  My goal is to walk through all the issues facing a start-up IT firm, using the techniques I have been advocating. (more…)

When Horace Greeley coined the phrase, “Go West Young Man” , it was because the ‘West’ was full of amazing opportunities that would allow a young man to build a new life for himself.

I have coined the phrase, “Go Vertical Young Man” because similar vast opportunities are open to the computer consultant that realizes the power of building a vertical IT marketing campaign.

Now at first glance the computer repair market doesn’t seem to be wide open and rife with opportunity; but rather closed off and unfriendly to any new start up companies… (more…)

In the Greek legends the Titans ruled supreme until Cronus became fearful he would lose power and started making some bad decisions, namely eating his children.  It was foretold through a muse that one of his children would seize power from him and the rest of the Titans.  Perhaps this became a self fulfilling prophecy but either way Zeus lead the Olympians into battle and defeated the Titans, banishing them to Tartarus.  The message here is that if you’re on Top then you have to be very careful because there is always someone gunning for your position from behind.  In the case of the data backup world the current Titan is under attack from the new Olympians on the block, Axcient!

With out naming any names, the current title holder for selling BDRs in the managed services channel has taken some missteps of late.  Whether this has transpired as a result of over confidence by trying to take on too much or just simply because they took their eyes off the IT marketing and operations ball, I can’t say for sure.  What I do know for sure is that no god, country or company can stay on top forever.  The evolution of the markets is inevitable but the question that I propose is if and when a seismic shift might take place leaving the Olympians ruling the data backup world and banishing the Titans? (more…)

We have probably all seen some movie or TV show where there is either a tent revival flim flam man or a traveling snake oil sales man that puts on a hoax by having a grifter pretend they were cured by either the healing or the elixir.  Perhaps the grifter dramatically stands up out of their wheel chair or releases their crutches and exclaims, “I Can Walk!“  When other people watching the show see how this person was miraculously healed then they start forking over their money to the matchstick men.

Many people today are skeptics because of all the scams going on and I think computer business owners are even more cynical than most about any IT marketing claims they are presented with as evidence that they should buy some service.  I often hear computer consultants say that it doesn’t matter how many case studies, testimonials or references they see, they won’t believe it until they experience it for themselves.  What type of evidence should suffice before moving forward with a marketing decision? (more…)

It was once a wartime strategy to stealthily poison your enemies water supply at it’s source and thereby defeat your adversaries without having to fire a shot.  Later this term was used for another type of battle that was fought with words instead of weapons and that was debating.  You could proverbial poison the well of ideas of your opponent by making false claims or ad hominem attacks about them and turning everybody away from their beliefs.  This is exactly what has happened to the concept of using outsourced telemarketing to help grow a computer business.  Some IT companies have tried telemarketing and failed so they are spreading vitriolic poison around the industry.  The real issue to consider is if the isolated experiences of these people should cause every other technology firm to rule out using telemarketing for IT marketing.  Another question that’s worth considering is what might be the root cause of  those failures that have caused so much consternation?

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It’s a common expression that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks but what about teaching a computer consultant new IT marketing techniques?  The old ways that I am talking about are the tried and true method of selling prospects by conducting a needs assessment, where you try to identify pain points.  This is the approach that just about every IT guy is familiar with and for the most part they are very skillful at squeezing out the very last drop of issues and problems that a business which in pain is having.  The question that we are asking is how difficult is it to take the average managed services provider and teach them new sales techniques that put them out of their comfort zone?  The technique I am referring to is the ability to sell to a business that doesn’t have any immediate pain. (more…)

We have all seen the scene in the movies where the ‘deal’ is about to go down where one shady party has the money in a silver brief case and the other party has the ‘goods’ in their brief case, either secrets or some other illegal contraband.  Of course, in most cases since neither party trust the other the question arises as to who exactly is going to be the first to hand over their case to the other party and wait to get back what he wants in exchange.  Many times these exchanges in the Movies end with one side killing the other and taking both brief cases.  So how easy is it to make the same switch in the managed services sales process?  The switch we are discussing is where you have a proposal that the IT sales prospect wants, but they have the network audit information that you want.  This is where the marketing standoff usually begins and this ’switch’ almost never ends up happening! (more…)

Recently I was asked by a computer consultant  if we made any attempt to develop pain points on our outbound cold calls to end users.  The question seemed so strange that it took me a while to process and come up with a logical answer.  This question arose after we discussed the fact that most businesses are happy with what they have when it comes to computer support.  As a result we assume in our call scripts that our prospects are happy with what they have, before they have a chance to object and instead we have stated something they can agree with.  So I had to try and think about what might happen if we dropped that approach and instead start trying to develop some pain points on our IT marketing calls.  This would mean asking all the C-level decision makers if they have any problems with their current provider.  The question that we are raising is what would the effect be on the average contact if we took that approach?  Would we find more IT services appointments with prospects that had actually pain or problems or could it have the complete opposite effect that was intended and cause us to end with far less marketing leads? (more…)