IT Skills Assessment Worksheet for Computer Consulting Businesses

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Looking for an IT Skills Assessment Worksheet for your computer consulting business? This Computer Consulting Kit briefing video describes the IT Skills Assessment Worksheet. Learn more when you sign-up for free tips now @ http://www.computerbusinesstips.com

Free Phone Support? Are You KIDDING Me?!?

Lately I've been hearing from an alarming number of computer consultants that are getting roped into, bullied into, whatever you want to call it... providing FREE phone support for customers.

Are you TRYING to become a non-profit organization?!?

Or did you leave your assertiveness "hat" back in 2005?!?

Look... even in the best of times, many of your customers will avoid scheduling a PAID service call if they can mooch a FREE phone support call. That's why EVERYTHING that the Computer Consulting Kit(tm) Home Study Course teaches strongly advises against giving away free phone support, or even discounted phone support relative to on-site service, remote management, or other off-site projects.

I don't care how much business they've given you in the past. Or how much they "intend" (pretend? promise? what's the difference!) to give you in the future. (If you need a refresher, head on over to YouTube and listen to Janet Jackson's 1986 still G-rated hit "What Have You Done for Me Lately")



Free phone support doesn't work.

If customers insist on overstepping boundaries like this, and they're too small to be on an annual support agreement, sell them a prepaid time block.

If the thought of prepaying $500's worth of phone support sends them running for the hills, so be it.

Your time is your inventory. Stop allowing it to be "shoplifted".

Your time needs to be spent primarily on

1. Billable work
2. Marketing/sales so you can recruit more billable work
3. Management and administration

Providing free phone support doesn't fit into any of those 3 priorities.

How are YOU dealing with this issue? Or were you smart enough to deal with this issue YEARS ago like we've been telling you all along?

Computer Consulting Fees Rate Card Overview - Computer Consulting Kit briefing video

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Wondering about Computer Consulting Fees and Rate Cards? This quick overview briefing video introduces you to why you need a Rate Card to explain your Computer Consulting Fees. Learn more when you sign-up for free tips now @ http://www.computerbusinesstips.com

IT Marketing & Targeted Lead Generation Intro/Tips from Computer Consulting Kit Home Study Course

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Looking at the IT Marketing & Targeted Lead Generation Module for the Computer Consulting Kit Home Study Course? Get a quick intro to its content. Learn more when you sign-up for free tips now @ http://www.computerbusinesstips.com

Computer Consulting Kit - IT Audit Consulting Report - Template Briefing Video

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Looking at the Computer Consulting Kit? This short Briefing Video describes the Summary of Findings Report for Small Business IT Audit Consulting. Learn more when you sign-up for free tips now @ http://www.computerbusinesstips.com

Managed Services - It Ain't an ALL or NOTHING Proposition

Following up on the post last week on "Managed Services Hype, Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt", I wanted to share with you an interesting, thought-provoking article that I saw a few months back from Michael Vizard.

Vizard, as you may know, is a very well-respected, former CRN top-dog editor and veteran InfoWorld editor.

So when he wrote a piece on managed services for eWeek's Channel Insider, it caught my eye.

Go check it out and let me know what you think.

Solution Providers Need to Appreciate a Diversity of Business Models

Managed Services Hype, Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt

Are you getting tired of being told that if you don't reinvent your business and become a managed services provider that you'll be "extinct"?


And then ground up into fossil foil?


What a load of you-know-what!



Many people in the computer consulting and more broad IT services industry are being fed a complete load of self-serving baloney by PR people, ad agencies, and disguised spokespeople (even some that I might loosely consider "colleagues")... become a Managed Services Provider or small businesses will no longer want you.



There are a few problems with that.

1. To afford the R&D to develop your own managed services product line, that completely replaces time & materials based Small Business Virtual IT consulting, you typically need a seven-figure business to have a big enough client base to support that heavy five-figure annual R&D.




2. Providing limited scope managed services to non-technical small business owners creates an enormous managing-expectations challenge. Hey it's not a server problem, it's a workstation problem. No buddy, it's not the workstation hardware, it's the OS. No way, no how, it ain't the OS, you gotta call your ISP. Welcome to human ping-pong ball syndrome. A really bad way to develop trust and long-term relationships with small business clients.




3. If you resell someone else's managed services, there goes your profit margins. Remember back when you could make a few bucks selling produts?!?




4. If everything, or just about everything you do, can be delivered without face-time, why do your small business clients need you. There are certainly lower-cost providers ready to deliver managed services facelessly in lower wage nations. (which supposes of course that non-technical small business owners would even "take the bait"... most wouldn't... relationships are everything)




5. And you might even have to give up account control. They say one of the reasons you study history is so it doesn't repeat itself. I still remember aggressive account enroachment issues like the kind that caught CRN's attention back in 2001. Do you really think human nature and greed has changed that much among ISV's, IHV's, OEM's, ASP's, and MSP's? Watch your back!