geraldtongirl

For those who run a IT support business (small not a large corporation)

What form of advertising do you find to be most effective in attracting clients? Especially if you are on a limited budget.
Eg Internet, newspaper, radio etc

What have most people used to find you?
I'm in Australia so it might be a bit different to america etc

Thanks for your help

Zazula

Hello, geraldtongirl. What you're asking about, is a fundamental element in all businesses. And, especially with advertising, one can easily be carried away or misled, and then face the consequences (which typically are "money down the drain").

So, how can you avoid the pitfalls and follow the most appropriate path at all times? Always think "B2B", geraldtongirl, always think "B2B". And "B2B" stands for "Back to basics". You have to familiarize with the basics of promoting your business, with the basics of marketing, with the basics of public relations, with the basics of customer service, with the basics of business networking, with the basics of sales. It may sound it's a lot of stuff, but thank God it's not; you see, the basics of all aforementioned things are small single-page checklists - so, it's no big deal but surely well worth it!


Now, first of all, a few clarification points regarding your post:

a. Is a small business different to a big corporation when it comes to advertising? The answer is, surprisingly or not, "no - if we're dealing with the basics of advertising". You see, business size is only one parameter in the advertising equation; all other parameters are independent of size. You can learn from the successes and the failures of big-size corporate advertising - don't be intimidated or think it's beyond your own scope.

b. Which is the more effective advertising method? The point here is to move beyond "effectivity", and think only "efficiency". You don't simply want to achieve something (this is being effective); you want to achieve it with the optimum use of resources (this is being efficient).

c. How to best attract clients? Your ultimate goal is not to attract, but to keep clients. Customer loyalty is the top priority in all healthy businesses. A satisfied customer will bring you more business than you can imagine, and will ultimately help you build your professional reputation (which is the most valuable, yet intangible, asset you'll ever have). On the other hand, a dissatisfied customer can literally ruin your business and its prospects, can turn potential clients away from you and even influence current customers of yours into changing their minds. Always keep this in mind: It is ten times more difficult to gain a new customer, than to keep a current customer happy. And (that's the best one) by keeping your customers happy, you maintain an endless source of new customers being referred to you by your existing client pool.

d. But, Zazula, maybe I chose poor wording, yet what I actually meant was the same as you said - why did you make it such a big deal? Sorry, geraldtongirl, don't get me wrong here; I don't want to sound smart-aleckish and I have the feeling you're after the right goals regardless of how you phrased them in your question, but I know this one thing (which, by the way, is what I ultimately wanted to stress here): The words we choose to express ourselves, deeply reflect our way of thinking and acting. If we want to change the end result, the first, easiest, and most fundamental thing to do is to change the words we use. Never underestimate this. Talking "efficiency" all the time, makes you think and act "efficiency" all the time. And (that's the best one) it makes this in a seamingless and subconscious manner, that ultimately becomes an integrated part of your personality.


So, after all these, let us move to a few important points:

a. Never judge if a form of advertising is worth it, by looking at the price tag attached and evaluating whether you can afford it or not. Always link any advertising effort to the net income flow it is supposed to bring. Never trust anyone from the advertising industry in believing their estimations on what this amount will be. Exercise your own due diligence and build as much experience and sound judgement as you can, the faster you can, in order to be able to perform this evluation by yourself. Always remember: The fact that you can afford the 100$ one asks you, doesn't mean it's a sage thing to do if the best-case scenario is you're gonna get 50$ in net income flow out of this. If you think throwing 100$ out of the window is OK as long as you can afford this 100$, then please let me know so I start waiting out of this window... If the advertising person tells you that you should be expecting a ten-fold return (or whatever-fold return) from your campaign, press Shift+Delete followed by Yes in your mind and build a worst-case scenario yourself. Become devil's advocate and see what this possibility looks like. Better be safe than sorry, because an eager advertisee and his/her money are soon parted...

b. Read a few hands-on, non-academic books on marketing (advertising and sales are subsets of marketing), business networking and customer service. Read a reputable newspaper (preferably with sufficient financial content, as well) on a regular basis. Start scrutinizing all these resources in order to do as prospectors did in the Wild West: to locate the few gold nuggets between the lines. Please feel free to ask on book recommendations on any of aforementioned topics or what have you. I believe that people here in TSF can also provide unbiased opinions on training programs, as well. Be careful, though! There's no such thing as a genuine guru in marketing; only self-proclaimed ones. You see, marketing is a blend of theory and experience, it is half-scientifical and half-empirical (same as management and surgery). A marketing guru today will be scoffed at, the moment his/her fad fades away. So, refrain from immediatelly jumping upon any new trend; first make sure it is something you really need to do as part of your promotional strategy.

c. Strategy? Did anyone say strategy? Now, what's the deal with that? Trust me, there's a big deal with your promotional strategy - so big, that it makes it a subject of paramount importance to you. When we people deal with important matters in our lives, we have the tendency to focus on tactics rather than strategy. Tactics describe how to make something done, and they come with many alternatives. Strategy describes what we ultimately want to achieve and what is the big picture around it. Tactics deal with partial battles, while strategy is the war itself. Your strategy will be the offspring of your mission statement and your vision. It is your top priority to identify your own individual strategy that you feel nicely with and reflects the way you wish things being done. Only after having spelled out your strategy, you can move on to identifying respective tactics - working the other way round, is like putting the carriage before the horse. There are many different tactics that will bring results; but if they are outside your strategic frame, then they're harmful to your business.


Hmm, I see that this post is becoming quite lengthy. So, I'll snip it here for the time being, and I'll continue with a follow-up, where I'm gonna deal with:
• Identifying your target group.
• Developing a niche market.
• Selecting smart ways of advertising.
• Keeping your clientele loyal to you.

If you have any questions (or need for clarifications / more resources) concerning what I've already said, as well as if you want additional topics to be addressed, please let me know.

__________________

geraldtongirl

Zazula,
That is a very informative post. I do believe in everything you say there.

The reason I asked the question is I am trying to setup a Mobile IT business around a current fulltime job (I can have afternoons off) and with a limited income. I am aiming more for the Training aspect of the business and software support rather then the hardware / sales side of the business although I can do both.
I am currently setting up a contract of sorts with a Perth based company to support their accounting software on their behalf in Geraldton (country town 5 hours north of perth).
I am limited in budget so I am going to try and piggy back my business off the business I receive through this other contract.
I was trying to establish which is the best way to promote myself without being flooded and not be able to handle demand due to my restricted hours.
Any ideas? I have already started to try and network and hand out cards to become known but haven't tried much else at this point.
I am interested to hear on what else you have to say in regards to marketing and some of this is new to me but not all.
Thanks for your help

crazijoe

I actually have a business such as what you plan. Except mine is mostly hardware, network and OS maintence. I currently have a full time job. But luckly I get out of work at 3pm. I currently have about 5 major business accounts that I maintain(servers, networks, workstations, etc.) and really don't want to go over that. I have it setup that I can remote into their networks if needed and maintain/service on the fly. I basically got established by word of mouth and did not do any advertising. My pricing structure is very competitive because of my limited hours.
The businesses I deal with (mostly doctor's offices) are very happy with my company because I do not bind them to any kind of maintanence agreement or contract.

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geraldtongirl

CraziJoe,
I assume then you just charge them for your time and maintainance you do on their servers etc. Like security updates, virus updates, configuration etc.
Do you have set time so they know how often you will check/maintain the network and then deal with any other problems as they arise?

Zazula

Hello again, geraldtongirl. As said earlier, we'll move on further with the basics. Thank you for clarifying the precise conditions of your endeavor, and we'll be using them to tailor the principles to your individual case. Anyhow, it will be beneficial for both you and other readers to become aware of the general frame of IT-business promotion, as well. It is also very fortunate that crazijoe actually has a business which is pretty much of the same character as the one you plan of launching, because he has consented that we use what he has done as an illustrative case study for what we'll be talking about here.


Identifying your target group

"Target group" is the primary group of people that something, usually an advertising campaign, is aimed at appealing to. For small enterprises or one-person businesses, the target group is actually the only group of interest (while bigger corporations can make money from people outside their target group, as well). Identifying your target group is a fundamental step, and in essence it comes easily and naturally when you have successfully determined your Strategy. If, for example, one wanted to sell the latest high-end consumer hardware, most probably this individual would focus on the gamers target group.

When you know what you're really after (i.e., when you've laid out your Strategy), you perform some common-sense research to see what's happening in your field of interest, so that eventually you match your Strategy to a typical prospect (a potential buyer of your products or services). Then, you break down this prospect's behavior and attitude into specific characteristics that they will help you separate this group from all other consumers. Whenever you launch any promotional activity from that point on, you evaluate it using the criteria derived from whom you are actually addressing yourself to. If our exemplary individual who identified the gamers as his target group, underlines in his campaign that the hardware he sells is compatible with legacy OS (Win9x/ME), he's spreading the wrong message - his strategy is to reach high-end, latest-technology, state-of-the-art system users; and typically these users won't be running a legacy OS.


Your case in 7 points:
1. You want to launch a part-time, afternoon-only, home-based, single-person, IT business.
2. You want to provide your services strictly at your customers' facilities or remotely.
3. You are not in a position to invest in your business launch, regardless of how justified that would be.
4. You will be mostly focused on services (software training & support) rather than products (software & hardware sales).
5. Your full-time job will be to provide local support for an accounting-software company, and you don't want to do anything that could potentially hurt or jeopardize your full-time business.
6. You do not want to be overwhelmed by workload; you wish to keep it to the same level as your daily output.
7. You do not want to have incoming requests you won't be able to handle due to your limited working hours.


Turning your case into your Strategy:
(the numbers correspond to the paragraphs above)

1a. Launching a part-time, afternoon-only, home-based, single-person business can be really tricky; unless you become fully aware of your constraints. And becoming aware is just the beginning - even more important is to always remain aware of your constraints and of the way they dynamically change over time. (For example, you might initially be able to allocate five hours to your part-time job daily, but after assuming higher responsibilities in your full-time job and two kids later, this might be completely unrealistic.) When identifying your constraints, do not be overly optimistic - even simple things in life can go astray sometimes. Also, take your full-time job into account: will you be required to visit Perth and, if yes, how often? Two additional things you have to do here is to learn how to prioretize and to identify your allies.
1b. In order to learn how to prioretize, you need to understand two fundamental things: First of all, not all things have equal value or importance - this is most commonly known as the 80/20 Rule or Pareto Principle. (E.g. you tend to use 20% of MS Word commands or 20% of your wardrobe in 80% of the time.) You will thus need all the time to focus only on the most important or valuable things, and discard all the rest. I fully recommend that your read The 80/20 Principle by Richard Koch. Don't get too tied in numbers, just get the feeling as far as Thinking 80/20 is concerned. The second thing is you'll need to optimize your time management. You won't have any time to lose - so you'd better make sure you'll be using it in the best of ways. Koch's book will greatly help you here, as well, and I'd only add Eat That Frog! by Brian Tracy, which deals with self-employed persons' biggest enemy: procrastination.
1c. You also have to identify your allies: these are the persons, entities or circumstances that favor or aid your endeavor. They include the person who will pick up the phone at your home when you're out of reach through your mobile and talk to that client of yours, the person who will receive a fax at your home and understand it is of urgent nature and call you immediately, the friend who will babysit your kid for free, the customer who will persuade other people to come to you. In this category you'll also add any organizations that will promote your business at no or minimal cost, as well as your certifications and referral letters. Aah, and don't forget, TSF is your ally, too.

2. You need to select companies or entrepreneurs that will want their training to be conducted within their own facilities. This is not always the case, so it will be an upfront criterion for screening prospects. Moreover, you will need to make sure (and I don't mean simply taking their word for it) that your customers feel really comfortable and satisfied if the vast part of support is conducted remotely. From what I've seen, all of them are happy when they get phone support on the spot, but some also demand their IT-support guy to show up every now and then in their facilities, in order that they feel better (although there's absolutely no reason for such a frequent physical presence), so prospects of this kind should be left out.

3. Believe it or not, being on a very limited budget is actually an advantage. You will be forced to do only the smartest of all promotional moves available, and this is what anyone should want in the first place - but when the money is more abundant, it always tends to slip into less meaningful and efficient campaings.

4. You are after an intangible sellable (services), which means two things: First, you can't sell it until you turn into something tangible to your prospect. Second, it requires a much higher level of sales abilities, because there's no product present to speak for itself. The most common mistake IT people do is their fallacy that learning how to sell is an inferior deed, destined only to salespersons and similar unsophisticated life forms. The same holds true for all highly-educated or highly-specialized individuals, especially if they come from an academic, scientific or technical background. I'm really sorry that I have to say nothing could be further from the truth. It is so sad to see exceptional professionals to have measly business because they refuse to acquire a minimum level of sales skills. *Reality check: No, the world WON'T beat a path to your door if you build a better mousetrap.* There isn't a single person in this world who wouldn't benefit by obtaining knowledge on sales - and this goes much further than the self-employed and includes all employees of all backgrounds and job descriptions. Selling means "to make people want what we want them to want", but it is NOT manipulation or unethical persuasion. Application of sales techniques is what we do in order to make our kids brush their teeth or behave themselves. I highly suggest you to read the books You Can't Teach A Kid To Ride A Bike At A Seminar by David Sandler and Body Language by Allan Pease.

5. You have to know fully and exactly what the Perth-based software company expects from you and how they approach evaluating your performance. You have to know if your contract restricts certain kinds of activities from your part. (If you are unsure about the contractual lingo, I could help there, too.) Moreover, you need to anticipate what will happen in case you service a client whom you got to know through the Perth-based company; i.e. what will happen if a customer of yours has problems with the accounting-software conpany (would that influence your business with him?), or if he is discontented by your services (this could be unjustified but, still, would he go and complain to the Perth company and hurt your relationship with them?). My suggestion is to approach an affable and knowledgable guy inside the Perth company and chit-chat if they would feel better in case you, their local representative, were an IT-traing & support person of excellent standing. If they say "yes" (which is probable if you phrase it this way), that would mean they understand that you have to maintain this business of yours and, instead of having any problem with that, they would be very happy and supportive!

6. This is a direct outcome of paragraphs 1a-1c above. Determine what this "daily output" of yours is, screen your prospects well, prioretize everything with solid criteria, remain self-disciplined, avoid time drains, work smart, use everyone and everything that could be on your side, and go for that 20% which brings home the 80% of the bacon...

7. Here you'll have to identify if there are prospects who clearly won't have a problem with your "hours of operation", and others who possibly would. See if there are professions or market segments where their operating hours match nicely yours. Anticipate the worst-case scenario for a customer who doesn't get serviced as expected because his request fell outside the operating-hour period; what would that be?


A successful implementation - Crazijoe's case study

1. Crazijoe settled to a manageable amount of workload by selecting a set number of similar major business accounts which, because of their structure, have a more-or-less predictable level of manhour work presently and in the future.

2. He is able to leave his full-time job at a set convenient time every day (except in emergencies, but that's understandable), which allows for his personal-business deployment.

3. He selected businesses (doctors' offices) that have an extensive operating time period during the afternoon (i.e. exactly when he is available).

4. The similarity of the businesses he assumed care of, allows him to be far more efficient and to be proactive when it comes to introducing solutions (from lessons learned in one of his customers) to the rest of them. This turns him into an important consultant of his clients, increases his credibility to their eyes even more, and lets him plan identical implementations with ease and predictability.

5. This specific line of business (doctors) has an idiosyncratic attitude and office-setup that do not necessitate for his physical presence there. He is free to perform remotely as big part of his duties as he likes.

6. He took the time to find out first what his target group likes and what they don't. He saw that they do not like being bound by maintenance contracts, and that they were ready to counterbalance his limited operating hours with a more competitive pricing policy. As soon as he saw this, he offered it to his prospects and sooner or later the desirable results came. He started and kept delivering, and this created a positive reputation for him - and that was the killer app which brought to him all the business he wanted.


*Personal note: After all these, Crazijoe, maybe you should consider being called "Sagejoe"*

__________________

crazijoe

The only time I do maintence is when I have to go in for a problem. I usually check event logs, make sure their back up device is working properly, etc.. Normally at least something does arise about 3 or 4 times a month per office.

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geraldtongirl

Thanks Zazula. The points you showed me are very true.
I do have contact with the Perth based company that would help me and I have full access to their helpdesk at any time required so hopefully no problems arise around my service levels. I am really the 2nd level support but hoping to provide other services to the same company through my support of their accounting software but if they don't take my help up it still wouldn't be a problem. They are also very aware of my restricted hours but I may be changing that in the near future.
I will take note of what you are mentioned and see if I could aim for the correct type of target market.

geraldtongirl

Crazijoe,

Do you ever feel that there are areas that you don't understand enough about when supporting networks?

I have 6 years IT experience in support, diploma and A+ certifications as well as attended many courses like Windows 2003 server, networking, 2000 server etc but have been slack with doing exams for MCP.

Although I know alot there are some areas that are a little vague. Do you have some sort of support that you can refer to if you need assistance above what you know besides this forum of course? Or are you confident and never really felt that way?

crazijoe

I'm usually pretty confident in what I do. I like a challange every so often to keep me on my toes. The internet is a big resource for infomation. Plus the forums are a major help.
One of my computers at home is loaded with virtual server. I pretty much keep a mini domian on it with a server and small group of workstations. I mostly use it for a testing environment.
I did upgrade my MCSA to 2K3. I had to take the test twice. The first one was a wakeup call. I had to clean a lot of cobwebs in my head. There are things on server that you set and forget and I forgot a lot.

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geraldtongirl

I might try Virtual Server and use it for testing.
I like a challenge too as it makes you think.
Thanks for your help