By Bob Vogel, B2 Marketing
Everyone seems to be jumping on the network assessment bandwagon… and it’s no wonder why.
If you are in the business of providing IT services of almost any kind, it goes without saying that you need to have your finger on the pulse of your clients’ networks and IT infrastructure.
Whether your main relationship is consultative, or you are “down in the weeds” in a managed services contract, network assessments have an important role to play throughout the client lifecycle.
The obvious use case that most people think of is to use a non-invasive network assessment as part of a new biz pitch. Kurt Bullock, president of Bridge Technology Group, explained why:
“I really think it gives me the upper hand when I walk in the door ESPECIALLY if I am bidding against other firms. They can’t produce anything near what we show up with on the first day!”
But even if you don’t use a free assessment as a lead-generation tool, you’ll want to run a network assessment on any new referral client before you commit to your pricing proposal… just like Wes Boggs of L Seven Solutions:
“We use it for a quick evaluation before any MSP proposal goes out now. It is fantastic. No more customers telling us they have two servers and finding out later they are running 8 VM’s on those two physical boxes.”
And with the low cost associated with subscription-based network assessment tools, paid network assessments can be extremely profitable. Alan Edwards of Whitehorse Technology Solutions revealed:
“The last assessment I did was for a client in a different city. Assessment, customization of the report, two 30-minute calls = a $3000 check!”
In addition to performing general network assessments, these same tools can be used to perform quick yet comprehensive IT security assessments and MS Exchange assessments. So, you can run them all at the same time as part of a high-end IT audit. Or, you use them separately as part of specialized services – such as a managed security service or an MS Exchange migration.
