Why is word-of-mouth not enough?
Many computer consulting business owners and managers mistakenly
bet their entire business’ future on word-of-mouth “advertising”… which
is EXTREMELY dangerous!
Why? It’s nearly impossible to scale-up or
forecast the results of word-of-mouth marketing.
In other words, with word-of-mouth marketing you have
absolutely no idea when the phone will ring, how full or empty your
booking calendar will be in the coming weeks or months, whether you’ll have
enough cash coming in to meet payroll, or even if you’ll be able to afford to
stay in business. So becoming dependent on word-of-mouth marketing is not only extremely
dangerous to your business… it can be fatal to your business.
Since most computer consulting business owners and managers
don’t even know how to properly measure where their leads, prospects,
customers, and clients come from, it’s hard to tell if word-of-mouth is even
the referral source, or something else entirely.
So while it’s nice to have word-of-mouth referrals, they
should only be considered a bonus and never counted on as if they were a
scalable or predictable source of leads.
Throughout the Computer Consulting Kit™ Home Study
Course, especially in Module 1, you’ll learn all about how you can use
field-tested, PROVEN marketing and lead generation strategies to get more
of the best, STEADY high-paying clients in your area onto your firm’s
client list.
Just as important, you’ll learn field-tested, PROVEN strategies
to very quickly break-the-cycle of becoming overly dependent on unpredictable,
word-of-mouth marketing… just like 176 computer consulting businesses, from all
over the USA, Canada, UK, Australia, and around the World, have…regardless of
levels of experience, from complete beginners… all the way to those
with a decade or more in computer consulting.
Also don’t forget that you’re fully protected by
our famous 10 Times Return-on-Investment (ROI) Money Back Guarantee.
“You’ll Make or Save AT LEAST 10 Times Your Purchase Price”. Or,
we’ll Buy Back Your Computer Consulting Kit™ Home Study Course AND
Write You a Check for up to $500.00... Just for Giving the Computer Consulting
Kit™ Home Study Course a Fair Shot.
What's wrong with placing an advertisement in the phone book and waiting for the phone to ring?
There are five huge problems with betting your
entire business on placing an advertisement in the phone book and waiting for
the phone to ring.
First, when a suspect or lead calls you, you can bet with
almost 100% certainly that this suspect or lead is calling at least a
half-dozen other computer consulting businesses. And because this is a
relatively unsophisticated buyer of IT services, you can bet one of their main
deciding factors will be price (i.e. who’s the cheapest?). So you’re
immediately forced into a profit-destroying bidding war if you want that
business.
Second, because anyone has access to the phone book,
there is absolutely zero targeting going on. So even though you may
primarily be looking for small business prospects with the potential to become
your next, STEADY, high-paying clients, your phone book advertisement
will attract a large percentage of business-to-consumer (B2C) prospects, as
opposed to business-to-business (B2B) prospects. Throughout the Computer
Consulting Kit™ Home Study Course, you’ll learn why it’s extremely difficult
to build a profitable computer consulting business by catering to the B2C
marketplace.
Third, callers from a phone book advertisement are reaching
you way too late in the sales cycle. In order to build-up your
company’s value proposition, credibility, and justification for a premium rate
structure, you plain and simple MUST reach prospects much, much earlier
on in the sales cycle… so prospects never even contemplate
“price-shopping”. You’ll learn field-tested, PROVEN ways to do so
throughout the Computer Consulting Kit™ Home Study Course.
Fourth, in order to win more of the best, STEADY,
high-paying clients in your area, your marketing and lead generation activities
must be targeted. However, because phone books are so widely available, the
demographic they attract is almost like anti-targeting.
Fifth and finally, for many computer consulting businesses,
the annual fee to advertise in the phone book, which even when paid in monthly
installments, is simply SO high relative to their overall annual
marketing budget, that placing an advertisement in the phone book is a VERY risky
“bet-the-whole-farm on one horse race” scenario. For example, if a
small advertisement is $10,000/year and your entire marketing budget is
$10,000/year, what’s your backup plan for when the phone book
advertisement doesn’t pull? With most other marketing campaigns, you
can typically run small measured tests before scaling up. Because of the nature
of phone books, running small measured tests is virtually impossible.
One final thought… most small business computer
consulting firms run around all week telling their prospects, customers, and
clients how important it is to be proactive about IT planning. Taking a
card from this same deck for your own business, you need to get proactive
about planning how your business will acquire its prospects,
customers, and clients… to give your company the best possible edge for
winning over the best, STEADY, high-paying clients in your area.
What's wrong with direct mail?
Nothing is inherently wrong with direct mail. However, many
computer consulting business owners and managers think direct mail is the
“silver bullet” or “magic bullet”. But it’s not!
First direct mail to small businesses takes a lot of
expertise and a lot of capital. And unless you’re in a very tight
niche, direct mail can take an enormous amount of capital, relative to
the typical marketing budget of most small computer consulting businesses.
Most small computer consulting business owners and managers
simply don’t have the time to learn how to be professional advertising
copywriters or the budget to hire one (typically heavy thousands even for small
campaigns).
In addition, by the time you get started with list rentals,
printing and postage, most small computer consulting business owners and
managers simply don’t have the kind of advertising budget needed to do a
full-blown small business campaign in their local marketplace (typically a few
thousand dollars per mailing, 6-8 times a year.)
As a result of the steep learning curve and unusually
high capital requirements, there are usually MUCH MUCH better ways to
generate leads for most computer consulting businesses that are MUCH, MUCH
easier to those new to marketing and MUCH, MUCH easier on all firms’
marketing budgets.
That said, there are some times when direct mail works extremely
well, as is the case often with follow-ups and house-list mailings. However
those who want you to believe that direct mail is the “perfect” lead
generation vehicle for most small computer consulting businesses are selling you
a “bill of goods” and empty promises.
The only real exceptions are those computer consulting
businesses that focus on very tight niches (small business isn’t a niche) and
those computer consulting businesses with a minimum of $1,000,000 in annual
service revenue… which excludes the overwhelming majority of small computer
consulting businesses.
Don’t be fooled by supposed “gurus”, who’ve NEVER
sold and installed a small business network in their lives… or who are slick
professional motivational speakers, or burnt out Ivy-League MBA’ers. Also
don’t be seduced by training efforts that are focused exclusively or primarily
on marketing. Those who’ve NEVER sold and installed a small business
network in their lives may
** THINK ** that getting you in the door is
enough to get you the best, steady, high-paying clients in your area. BUT
IT’S NOT! Not even close! We’ve seen SO many computer consulting
business owners and managers “crash and burn”, drop the ball, or at the
minimum leave a TON of money on the table by subscribing to a “marketing is
all that matters” shortsighted school of thought.
Throughout the Computer Consulting Kit™ Home Study
Course, you’ll learn field-tested, PROVEN marketing and lead generation
techniques that are much easier to implement, much less expensive
and much less risky… just like the 176 field-tested, PROVEN computer
consulting business success stories, from all over the USA, Canada, UK,
Australia, and around the World, that you’ve read about here… regardless of
levels of experience, from complete beginners… all the way to those
with a decade or more in computer consulting… talking about, in their
own words, the tremendous measurable, quantifiable, benefits
they’ve received from these field-tested, PROVEN tools, resources, and
strategies… in terms of helping them get more of the best, steady high-paying
clients
in their local areas.
And remember, you’re fully protected by our famous
10 Times Return-on-Investment (ROI) Money Back Guarantee. “You’ll
Make or Save AT LEAST 10 Times Your Purchase Price”. Or, we’ll Buy
Back Your Computer Consulting Kit™ Home Study Course AND Write You a
Check for up to $500.00... Just for Giving the Computer Consulting Kit™ Home
Study Course a Fair Shot.
What does it cost out-of-pocket to implement these marketing strategies?
Most of the field-tested, PROVEN marketing
strategies described in the Computer Consulting Kit™ Home Study Course can be
implemented for as little as $100 to $250 per campaign. (Many of the marketing
and lead generation strategies can even be tested for MUCH less than
$100.)
This means for even very small computer consulting businesses, it’s very
possible and economical (and of course very desirable) for you to have several
marketing campaigns running simultaneously, to give your firm, a steady
influx of high-quality, highly-targeted leads, prospects,
customers, and clients.
Why is selling managed services not all it's cracked up to be?
The problem with managed services is four-fold.
First, if you decide to sell some other company’s managed
services to your clients, you’re giving up a big chunk of the
profit (in many cases unnecessarily) and run a very real risk of losing account
control.
Second, if you decide to productize your own services into
“managed services”, you make it much easier for your prospects,
customers, and clients to compare prices…and shop prices… which can put tremendous
downward pressure on your profit margins.
Third, most small computer consulting businesses don’t
have anywhere near the necessary economies of scale to justify the R&D and
marketing expenses needed to design and run a full-blown managed services
product line. (If your computer consulting business is on track to doing
$1,000,000 or more in service revenue this year, you can ignore this last
point.)
Fourth and finally, selling managed services interferes
with your ability to be an effective virtual CIO because you’re training your
clients to treat your company as a “utility”… much like they’re used to
with ISP’s, Web hosts, and telecommunications providers.
Why does the Publisher exist?
The Computer Consulting Kit™ Home Study Course and its
publisher exist because computer consulting businesses need an independent way
to get their companies more of the best, steady, high-paying clients… without
the hidden-agenda of being pigeonholed into a channel program agenda.
Why is there an inherent conflict of interest for channel publications and channel programs? Why doesn't the Publisher accept outside sponsorships?
The problem with most channel programs, and the limited
educational resources they provide, is that channel programs want you to become
an extension of their sales force… evangelists for their products.
Your company’s overall profitability and viability becomes a VERY distant
second priority to big hardware and software vendors… as long as you’re out
there pounding the pavement with THEIR message and THEIR products.
The Computer Consulting Kit™ Home Study Course takes a very
different approach. You don’t lead with a vendor’s product or platform.
You lead with your company, your branding, and your value
proposition. This gets you in much earlier on in the sales cycle, where
it’s much easier to maintain healthy profit margins… because you’re
NOT being forced into a commodity-broker stance.
When a training company, conference organizer, seminar
producer, print publication, or online magazine accepts outside advertisements
or sponsorships from channel programs, there will always be a conflict of
interest… because a channel program manager’s job is to convince you and
seduce you into building your entire sales and marketing process around their
product and their platform.
That approach worked 10-20 years ago. But it no longer
works today. You need to first and foremost look out for your own
business interests. Once you have your foot in the door with client
opportunities, it’s perfectly fine to have your preferred platforms. But
in this day and age, no one should be “leading” their sales pitch
with anything but their own consulting company’s value proposition and agenda.
The publisher of the Computer Consulting Kit™ Home Study
Course does not believe in selling you out for the sake of a
couple of quick bucks.
And that’s the reason why you’ve seen 176 field-tested, PROVEN success stories, from all over the USA, Canada, UK,
Australia, and around the World, at all different levels of experience, from complete
beginners… all the way to those with a decade or more in computer
consulting… talking about, in their own words, the tremendous measurable,
quantifiable, benefits they’ve received from these field-tested, PROVEN tools,
resources, and strategies… in terms of helping them get more of the best, steady
clients in their local areas.
Also don’t forget that you’re fully protected by
our famous 10 Times Return-on-Investment (ROI) Money Back Guarantee.
“You’ll Make or Save AT LEAST 10 Times Your Purchase Price”. Or,
we’ll Buy Back Your Computer Consulting Kit™ Home Study Course AND
Write You a Check for up to $500.00... Just for Giving the Computer Consulting
Kit™ Home Study Course a Fair Shot.
Immediately Downloadable
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help you get started faster, the Computer Consulting Kit Home Study
Course is available for secure immediate download.
As soon as your Computer Consulting Kit
Home Study Course is paid for in full through our Verisign Class 3
Secure Server, you'll in most cases get immediate download access
to all of the sample document templates, audio training programs, Module
workbooks, and special bonuses, typically within 10 minutes of your
purchase... in many cases, even sooner!
And
don't forget, you're even fully protected by our famous 10 Times
Your Return-on-Investment (ROI) Money
Back Guarantee.
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