“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…)

“On this list there might only be one prospect that will say YES!” This is what one of my telemarketers told me when I was questioning why he hadn’t set very many IT sales leads that day.  I thought about his statement for a few minutes about and realized that what he was actually saying is that he thought that every one he called was already either not interested or was just waiting for him to call to say they were ready for a computer consultant to come up and give them a proposal for managed services.

As I was considering how I could respond in such a way so that I wouldn’t criticize him but be able to get him to realize that life is in ‘flux’ and that nothing is predetermined, especially in the IT lead generation game.  I realized that it wasn’t just my technology telemarketing agent that saw the glass half empty but that probably many of the computer services sales reps out there see the  marketing leads we give them in the exact same way, that they don’t have any influence on the outcome of their sales calls. (more…)

I feel like a mad scientist  whose creation has just come alive after ages of preparation and tireless effort!  Like Dr. Frankenstein, when the electric bolts shot through his creation, bringing it to life!  I have been telemarketing for managed services for over 10 years, but only in the last 5 years have I been able to expand and recruit a suitable team of  telesales reps.

Just as we have said to anyone trying to bring IT telemarketing in-house, there is a huge learning curve!   However, I’ve paid my dues and we now have the perfect IT lead generation machine and “It’s Alive!”

The Birth

I will tell you about the struggles that I faced, as well as how I faced these obstacles and overcame them.  The first problem is staffing; finding talented and skilled people. (more…)

All markets have life cycles, especially with technology.  As technology increases the life cycle for the latest and greatest innovations becomes shorter and shorter.  Note the i-Pod: 4 generations, in a little under a few years.

This same principal applies to the IT services marketing space.  In around 10 years, managed IT services has gone from an obscure idea that was rejected by most computer consultants to something that has been embraced by a majority of the market for computer repair.

In the last 10 years we have seen the reason for setting an appointment with a decision maker go from wanting to learn about managed services transform into largely just taking competitive bids.  It’s much like the insurance industry, where all the insurance companies all pretty much all offering the same product, but one might have a little more coverage here or a little lower price there.

This means that the marketing message for the computer business that has been offering managed services has become saturated.  So the burning question is, what is the way forward from here? (more…)

“There is no way we’re going to change our model and switch to a flat fee!” This is what I last heard from a computer business in Dallas over 8 year ago, after I had warned them the marketing direction was transitioning to managed services.  I had thrown down the gauntlet and said I was going to  stop providing any technology sales leads for them if they didn’t change.  I loved these guys at this firm and had learned a lot from them, but I was not going to flinch from my belief that I should only work with the best companies that offered the best value in the market.

Why would I mention this old battle about the flat fee model, since for the most part it’s been decided that managed services has won the battle and it’s taken over most IT consultants model.  It’s because I found myself in the office of the exact same firm I had provided IT Sales Leads for over 8 year ago.  They had been forced to offer managed services since the market went that way!  Instead of listening to me and being an ‘early adopter’ they instead waited as other computer services firm offering the flat fee ate out of their market share. (more…)

“Guarantee Sales! No way would we  ever make any promises that we could guarantee sales…. you would have to be crazy to guarantee sales for it services marketing.”  This was the response I got recently from an MSP Vendor, when I asked them if they made any guarantees that their clients would make sales by taking their sales advice.

If you’re a computer consultant and have tried telemarketing then you probably didn’t even get most of your appointments that were promised not to mention any Sales.  So many computer business owners have been burned by telemarketing firms.  Even though our firm has been able to get sales for many of our clients, this poison well has made getting ‘drinking water’ to grow our business difficult to say the least.  So we have carefully engineered our new Guaranteed Sales program to combat this negative view of telemarketing. (more…)

Recently I was on a conference call with a computer business owner discussing his marketing plans and going over our technology telemarketing plans.  After explaining the difference between prospects that have ‘Top of Mind’ needs versus prospects that have ‘Latent’ needs, he told me that this was basic information and he called it Sales Leads 101.  I was confused because most computer consultants that do marketing don’t understand the difference.  They normally expect the telemarketing team to find ‘Top of Mind’ it sales leads but they should be getting ‘Top of Mind’ leads through it lead generation by sending out post cards, email marketing, SEO marketing, referrals etc…  Then he hit me with a bomb, he said he could get a telemarketing firm for just $600 a month to get him 22 leads. (more…)

Motivational Books and Tapes have mostly become a cliche or worse are paid lip services by sales people.  Rarely do we see best practice motivational techniques really penetrating IT telemarketing or computer services marketing.  Something that is even more difficult is trying to convince someone who is totally foreign to these concepts and to even try them out to see if they work or not.

This is where I began telling my story about my son’s recent baseball game. He had a great hit in his first game, but since then he had not hit the ball and had only gotten points by getting walked. As we were driving to his last game we realized he had missed his last practice and it seemed things were all against him getting better results in this game.

The connection between my son’s game and visualization and a mantra are that this is the moment where I felt I might be able to introduce the concepts to my son and try to help him get better results. (more…)

We are pround to announce that MSP Telemarketing’s  Director, John Black, will be joining MSPU Kate Hunt in an up coming webinar.  We will be addressing the subject “Setting Expectation for Telemarketing”.  The webinar will take place March 9th from 5PM to 6PM.  If you have an interested in takeing part in this webinar then get the full details at the MSPU Website. (more…)

MSP Telemarketing is proud to host a FREE Event in March for computer business owners in Houston, TX.  The key speaker will be Brian Freistat from CharTec who will be talking about the new and exciting services offering called HAAS or Hardware as a service.  John Black with MSP Telemarketing will be addressing the group on Telemarketing Strategies that can help computer consultants get more success from telemarketing by avoiding some pitfall that most IT services marketing firms make. (more…)