SMB Nation is hosting  a marketing event in Las Vegas on Oct 22nd through 24rd that  will be a good opportunity for IT vendors and computer business owners to network and learn about new developments in the managed services space!  There is an astounding array of speakers lined up who have powerful information to share with you on how you can improve and grow your business.  It’s being held at the The Flamingo Hotel and Casino and we be a great place to mix business with pleasure! However, you might be wondering who is SMB Nation and why should I go to there event? (more…)

“Here is the Yellow Pages, Get Started!”  That was the complete training program I received at one company that I worked at many years ago.  Many companies don’t put any importance on training for their employees but spend plenty on IT.  Another company that I was employed at trained their telemarketers by having new hires just sit and listen to all the current telesales reps make cold calls.  Of course, there are some great businesses out there that put a high importance on training programs for their workers.  One good example of this was MBNA America, where I was employed, where they put their telemarketers through and 2 week paid training program.  I was a product of that training program and contribute much of my success to their training.  I am trying to keep the torch burning by putting in place the best training program for telemarketing at our firm.  We take training very seriously and we don’t just train our marketing reps, we brainwash them! (more…)

“Your price is way to high!”… That is what I have been hearing for the last 5 years, after we tell a computer business owner the pricing for our telemarketing service.  As we have said many times, computer consultants normally have spent all thier money after going to a trade show and loaded up on PSA software, RMM tools, Sales Training and Backup Disaster Recovery Solutions etc…  When they get back to their business they have no money left to pay for marketing.  In Addition, many IT people feel that selling and marketing are just not a priority because it’s not something that many of them understand.  Therefore, when they get around to calling us to find out about our marketing services, they tell us our services are too expensive.  What has compounded this problem is that there has been a few IT services marketing companies out there that have been offering rock bottom prices. This has made it nearly impossible for most IT providers to resit trying the lower cost solutions.  However, recently I have seen many signs in the market that tell me there is a new wave of changing attitudes towards spending on IT telemarketing. (more…)

I have been standing on my soap box for a while preaching to managed services providers what they should be doing differently in their marketing to achieve better results.  It’s a bitter pill to hear criticism about your marketing and painful to even think about making any changes… In a perfect world we could always do everything the same, while the world around us constantly changes.  I guess that’s what it was like in the movie “Time Machine”, when the protagonists would pull his level to go forward in time and see the world changing around him drastically, while he remained the same.  So I had fallen into the exact same mind set as many of you out there in the computer consultant industry.  Or even worse I was telling everyone else to change and I wasn’t willing to make any changes myself….  However, I can proudly announce that we have finally drank our own Kool-Aid about IT lead generation!

Drink Your Own Kool-Aid!

Well exactly what  have we been preaching that everybody else should change that we were not willing implement ourselves?  The first thing that comes to my mind that we have been suggesting to computer repair firms is that they should be willing to make a ‘No Risk Offer”, meaning that they should make a solid money back guarantee for the first 30 days of their agreement.  In fact, I can testify that the technology firms that were running our IT sales leads and actually took this advice, directly benefited their bottom line and never actually had any risk. (more…)

Every computer business owner dreams of striking a gushing sales and marketing pipeline that pumps out reoccurring IT Sales like clockwork!  In fact that is the reason most tech pros have adopted the managed services model,  so that they could build a nice revenue stream that could be counted on in the future.  Unfortunately, most technology providers are coming up empty handed from their marketing efforts or at least they’re not getting anywhere close to their dreams of becoming millionaires.  The burning question is how can you develop the perfect sales machine that churns out consistent sales every month?  We will consider in this article specifically how a computer consultant could conservatively generate $2,788,350.00 in reoccurring revenue over a five year period.

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“What if we could save you money?”….  This question has to be the number one question that salesman have used through the ages to try and close prospects.  It’s also been the primary vehical that most marketing professional have built their sales message around and used to drive revenue.  Granted even when companies say they can’t save you hard cost and that their services will actually cost more, the  rationale is still that you will save money in some other way. Normally companies that can’t show direct savings try to show savings to their prospects soft cost.  Computer business owners have primarily followed the latter path, trying not to show direct hard savings but indirect soft savings such as eliminating lost productivity or increasing productivity.  In the past I have always believed this was the correct path to follow in the marketing process for technology sales.  However, what if there was a way justify buying managed services other than saving money? (more…)

When you’re playing Poker you are stuck with the cards you’re dealt.  When your hand is called, you have to lay down and expose what cards you have as compared with your contender.  If you’re unlucky and get dealt only bad cards… then you lose.  Of course, when there is money on the line they call this gambling because you’re taking a chance on losing  your hard earned cash.  What if you could stack your deck, what if cheating was Legal?  While you can’t preselect the cards you want to play with in Poker game you can, however, when you’re putting together a managed services offer to begin marketing.

It feels like a poker game!

I make this comparison, because that’s how it feels when you’re in a prospect’s office or conference room, that you found from an IT sales leads campaign, and you are trying to find out what their technology situation is so you can offer something they don’t have or that you can do better.  The prospects always seem to have a poker face and can be very guarded about what level of services they have, who they deal with and what prices they pay.  (more…)

Imagine you’re an outfielder in a baseball game and you cross your arms and say that you’re only going to field the ground balls that come your way.  This is because you don’t like catching Fly balls or line drives and you refuse to go after any other type of ball that comes your way.  It’s hard to imagine a person with that attitude not being thrown off the team.  Why?  We all know that if you plan on winning, then you have to be prepared for what ever situation comes your way.  This logic applies to selling managed services as well!  Computer business owners should be willing to present their marketing offer to all the various IT situations that arise.

Recently I had a conversation with a computer consultant that was telling me he would rather have meetings with prospects that only had an in-house IT (more…)

We have a serious problem at MSP Telemarketing… our productivity has improved beyond our current client base.  This means we are now able to set far more appointments than we have clients to accept.   This should be a good problem to have, since most computer consultants are concerned and want to know if our it call center has the ability to set appointments fast enough.    So right now we are looking for computer business owners that want to grow their business with our marketing effort.

WANTED!

Unfortunately, we are not looking for just any random Technology firm to represent with our it lead generation service.   We have learned that many IT techs have marketing goals that are unrealistic!  We want to find the right firm that really understands that growing their business is going to mean a lot of hard work and that sales are not just going to fall into their lap.  The ideal client would need to be prepared to take a lot of face-to-face meetings and know that not every appointment is going to turn into a sale. (more…)