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Lead Generation is the most crucial step in your IT marketing. In this article, you will learn that lead generation is the future of your company and the most important strategic activity you should be working on.

Be very careful delegating this task to anyone except possibly a spouse or business partner. Your clients aren’t buying products from you. They’re buying your service. They’re buying your personality. They’re buying your reputation. They’re buying word of mouth. They’re buying referrals. They’re buying you.

IT Marketing: Your Personal Responsibility

Your personal service isn’t something that can be commoditized and that you should think lightly about delegating. You need to increase your IT marketing by making the contacts in the community and getting the word out that your services are available. There’s no easy way to shortcut it. If you’re going to delegate anything, delegate some of the technical parts of handling those accounts to your staff.

The key thing to remember is being virtual IT means that you’re the single point of contact. People have to get to know you. You’re the owner. You’re the personality. You don’t want to be selling a commodity. You want to be selling you–you incorporated, your company incorporated as consulting services, network support services, virtual IT services, however you want to position it. But in order to do that, people have to get to know you personally and you’re going to have the most continuity when it’s you.

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Joshua Feinberg, co-owner of Computer Consulting 101, gets computer consulting businesses more steady, high-paying consulting clients. Now you can too. Just sign-up now for your free access pass to these field-tested, proven computer consulting secrets at Computer Consulting 101.

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An elevator pitch is basically a quick introduction that doesn’t sound too canned. You want to work on fine-tuning something that is anywhere from ten to twenty seconds. You use this speech whenever you meet a prospect that you meet at any kind of event. Your pitch should talk about what your company does, what makes you unique, and why they want to consider you. In this article, you’ll learn why elevator speeches are so important for your IT marketing.

The Elevator Speech Defined

In theory, the term “elevator speech” originated based on this scenario: you’re getting into an elevator with someone on the 20th floor of a building and by the time you get to the ground floor, your pitch should be fast enough that you could both exchange them. You should have something that you are very comfortable saying, almost like a reflex, that you don’t hesitate with.

Practice It

Write it out on an index card and keep it in your pocket. Look at it while you’re sitting at a traffic light or before you go into sales calls. The more you work on it and the more you can rehearse that with your spouse or the people in your store, the more it will become reflexive to you. The key is developing an IT marketing elevator speech that is something you feel comfortable delivering.

As you get out and do expos and seminars and go to the chamber events, you’re going to be very tired of saying the same thing. But you have to be able to continue having the same enthusiasm and the same energy level with every person you meet in order to help your IT marketing efforts.

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Referrals are a great way of IT marketing. In this article, you’ll learn how to ask for them.

The Question

The key IT marketing question to ask your clients is “Do you know anyone else who could benefit from our services?” Write it down on your hand. Write it down on your PDA. Look at it every morning before you talk to clients. Get very, very used to asking that question. “Do you know anyone else in your circle of friends, family members, business associates, colleagues, vendors who could benefit from our services?”

IT Marketing: Teach Your Clients How to Recognize Potential Referrals

You need to train your good clients to recognize the telltale signs of someone needing your services. For instance, they are on the phone and hear them complaining about their slow computers. Or they can’t email back because their system is down again. Those are golden leads for you. You need to let your client know that you would sincerely appreciate the referrals.

Create a Client Survey

Another way to get referrals is by surveying your customers at least once a year. While doing so, you can ask them to list some people they know that might be interested in your services.

You can also do something a little more regularly like a statement stuffer. A statement stuffer is a card or flier you put in with your invoices. This card talks about how you appreciate referrals and what kinds of businesses you work with and that they should keep you in mind.

Referral Rewards

If you want to kind of grease the skids and get even more of this going, think about starting a formal referral program. Let them know that you will reward them for referrals that turn into customers. Some rewards could be:

o $100 credit on their account
o $100 gift check

o $100 to the charity of their choice

Rewarding clients for helping you with your IT marketing is a great way to get referrals. The key thing is, ask for referrals and ask for them often.

The Bottom Line on IT Marketing

One of the best forms of relationship IT marketing is asking your current clients for referrals to other businesses that can use your services.

Copyright MMI-MMVI, Small Biz Tech Talk. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}

Joshua Feinberg helps computer consultant business owners get steady, high-paying clients. Learn how you can too. Sign-up now for Joshua’s free audio training program that shows you how to use field-tested, proven Small Biz Tech Talk tools.

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