By Bob Vogel, B2 Marketing
There is simply no getting around it. You MUST continue to acquire new clients. Even if you don’t have any plans or desire to GROW your company, no customer lasts forever, so that means winning new business just to maintain your current level of income.
Marketing and selling is hard work, and doesn’t come easy for the IT professionals I talk to every day. But I’ve found that a lot of the dread is fear of the unknown, and fear of failure. Marketing and sales is very much a numbers game. You need to kiss a lot of toads before one turns into a prince (or princess). That translates into a lot of rejection, and who likes that?
Here’s one thing to keep in mind that might help keep you motivated as you are seeking new business. Just about EVERY computer and EVERY network has SOMETHING wrong with it. It could be a major security issue, like a big open port to the internet or weak password on the firewall; or something minor like inactive users on the system, missing patches, or over-loaded disk drives.
The chances are high that your prospects have issues like these – and probably scores of others – that they don’t know about . . . even if they have a service provider that’s supposed to be taking care of them.
That all spells new opportunities for you . . . everywhere . . . all of the time. You can’t sit around waiting for your prospects to reach out to you, especially if they don’t even know they have issues. It’s up to you to proactively seek them out and reveal to them their problems. That’s how to take control of your own destiny.
There’s really no excuse not to do this, especially with inexpensive, purpose-built tools like Network Detective. It’s completely non-invasive – no probes, agents or software to install. It takes less than an hour to run… which you can “set and forget” while you spend time interviewing your prospect to understand their business. And it generates reports that you can quickly customize, brand as your own, and present to the prospect revealing the issues you discovered.
So, don’t take “no” for an answer when you reach out to your next prospect. Offer them a free assessment of their computing environment. Insist that 9 out of 10 computer networks have “serious” issues that go undiscovered and undiagnosed due to a lack of regular assessments. Assert your expertise in this matter. Convince them they have nothing to lose and everything to gain by having an independent expert take a look “under the hood” of their network. Persuade them to give you an hour to run your diagnostic tools at no cost and no obligation.
Do WHATEVER IT TAKES because once you get in the door, run your assessment and produce your reports, you’ll be in the driver’s seat. The worst thing that will happen is you’ll impress the heck out of the prospects, and you’ll be the first person they call when they are ready for a change. But the more likely outcome is that you will win yourself at least a project to fix the issues you discovered… and maybe a new client with recurring revenue.
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