IT business.

[david90]

I just started an IT business and I wonder if somebody could give me advices about building customer base. It's hard to get business when u have no reputation.

[armenh]

I just started an IT business and I wonder if somebody could give me advices about building customer base. It's hard to get business when u have no reputation.

It is called working your way up to the top, slowly but steadily. You can do this by providing quality service and support. Remember you must have a legitimate business in the first place that acts in a very professional manner. While doing this some advertising and hopefully if all is done correctly, some word of mouth will all help your business grow. By the way where are you located??

[david90]

I see that ur in LA. I'm in OC. I'm focusing on serving small businesses in the OC.

[armenh]

I see that ur in LA. I'm in OC. I'm focusing on serving small businesses in the OC.

You have a PM.

[EC44]

Give cheaper support to non-profits, set boundaries so you are not expolited for your cheaper support and hopefully via word of mouth you can start attaining customers.

One of many possible ideas.

[MortenK]

Depends on what kind of IT business I think. If it has something to do with repairing PC's, setting up networks for folks and so on, then maybe you should try putting in a cheap advertisement in the local newspaper.

If you are doing consultancy, grab the phonebook and talk to everyone you have ever worked with before (okay maybe not everyone, but the people you think could potentially need your service).

As another poster pointed out, you will need to do quality work, as then you will get mouth-to-mouth referrals etc. That will be slow at first, but often the pace will be picked up fast.

[The Stealthy One]

MortenK is absolutely right. Are you a full-fledged shop, or do you specialize in a few areas? It matters greatly - I've seen companies that only want a service provider willing to handle phones and copiers in addition to servers, software, security, workstations, etc.

An IT business is all about networking and proving your worth. Join your local Chamber of Commerce and Rotary. Offer to provide free services on a trial basis (for instance, ask a prospect to give you a call the next time a security issue occurs so you can fix it at no charge to show them what you can do).

[david90]

Thanks for helps! I think I will turn this thread into a blog and update it regularly. This will keep a record of my journey that it might help out other future IT businesses.

Lately I have been passing out fliers with a coupon for a free computer service to small businesses around my area (small businesses are my target). I must of passed out about 25 fliers with the free coupon but I haven't received a call yet. I'm not discourage but I am surprise that nobody called me yet since I'm offering free computer service.

You can see my ad here:
Computer Services (Promo offer)

Eventually I will post an ad in a newspaper but for now I stick with fliers.

What exactly is chamber of commerce and how is it suppose to help me?

Any suggestions/tips would be great.

[nonrate]

It is hard to get started without a reputation. I more or less have restarted myself, being an IT architect and now developing web applications. It doesn't matter that I provided solutions for some very large companies for IT solutions in the past, I have to pretty much start from scratch and build a new reputation.

I have found the following useful to start building my customer base:

1) Don't be afraid to tell. Tell everyone to buy your services. Family, friends, former colleagues. If they can't use you, ask them if they could give you contacts to those who could. If they have none to give out, ask them to drop your name if IT services ever come up. It may take months or years, but if you constantly remind these folks about what you do and your looking for work, that seed will eventually sprout. I've got business from people that have dropped my name because I constantly let them know (nag them) about what I do, and it's happened a year or so after I started annoying them.

2) Ask for the sale. One of the things people are great at is talking about the problems, even talking about possible solutions. But a lot of people are bad asking for the sale. If you are talking to a prospect, don't be afraid to ask for their business. One easy way I have found to advance that process is after a conversation about the possibility of doing business, I might say "I can solve that problem. Where can I send you a quote" --don't give them a chance to say "no", and you can do that in your phrasing of the question. At the end, ask for the sale, "Would you like to buy my service?". Do this 4 or 5 times and it will stop feeling uncomfortable to do it.

3) Have your shit together. Make sure your services are well defined and your website clearly conveys those services. Have your business cards ready to give out. Make sure people can get in touch with you. I have noticed people in IT services want to be able to get in touch with you on their time, which means right when they need you... yeah it sucks and is unrealistic, but you can solve the problem by allowing texting to your cell phone from your website, etc.

4) Loss lead. This is going to be debatable to most people, but to start, you may need to offer to do some projects at a reduced cost to get started. To make sure you can use standard rates and not get locked into low-end relationships, on your quote, put the price you would normally charge with a crossout and a "first time buyer" discount of whatever you want.

5) Most important --do a fucking awesome job for your customers. This is the key to building a good reputation. They will remember and appreciate it. Be honest with them about problems you run into and if the time-lines are going to go beyond what they or you thought, be up front and let them know about it. Let them know if you are taking on something you may not have 100% experience with so you don't get stuck in a position where you can't deliver on time without them being aware of it.

6) Make it easy to buy and easy to understand. Constantly survey your clients to find out what seems ambiguous with your offerings or services and correct them. Do it with people that don't buy. I did this once on a failed bid and was told the main reason I didn't get the job was not price (that it was competitive), but that I had typos in my proposal. Yeah, image means a lot.

Selling your kind of IT services means you will usually work with non-computer literate people. These folks don't want to hear those of us that speak in gigabytes. They also want to buy services they understand. You may not need to lace the initial offering with all the technical jargon, just the benefits. Then, in smaller print you can put the technical info, so there's a record of technically what you're offering, and information for the more savvy buyer to feed off of.

Hope this helps.

[jonathanfigaro]

I think you just have to work from the bottom like the rest of all the successful people in your field of interest. Putyourself out there and start to creating opportunities, instead of wait for one " if that's what your doing".
One tip of advice " Go out and Make a reputation of being the best in your field, no matter what you have to do, because successful people don't make excuses, they make MONEY'
So go out there and Make MONEY

[david90]

I must of passed out about 25 fliers but still no calls yet. I think that's too little for a hit. Will continue to try.

[The Stealthy One]

I don't think flyers are the right way to go about this. Think about it - would you want to hand over your mission-critical IT systems to a company that hands out flyers for marketing? I can guarantee you that your prospects are going to be looking for professional contacts and professional sales presentations. A flyer cannot and does not convey professionalism in a business like this. It works for some things, but not for IT consulting.

[david90]

I don't think flyers are the right way to go about this. Think about it - would you want to hand over your mission-critical IT systems to a company that hands out flyers for marketing? I can guarantee you that your prospects are going to be looking for professional contacts and professional sales presentations. A flyer cannot and does not convey professionalism in a business like this. It works for some things, but not for IT consulting.

So what do you think will work? So where do i go to do sales presentations? The reasons I'm doing flier right now is I'm trying to start small and work my way up. Since i don't have customers, I have a lot of time to pass out flyers. I'm planning to do some direct mailing.

What industry are u in?

[The Stealthy One]

You need to start cold-calling organizations which are prospects, or working connections and relationships you might already have. Again, flyers present a very cheap image for an IT consulting business. Here's the cool thing: when I was in this field, and once we had a good base of clients, most of our additional business came via word of mouth. So once you get your first few clients and have more work than you can handle (), you can focus less on marketing because your existing clients will tend to refer new prospects to you. Of course, this is all considering that you are offering great service.

[david90]

I'm still passing out fliers. I have 100 copies and I'm going to pass it all out just to see what happens. I haven't gotten any calls yet and I think it's because of the following reasons:

1. Economy - small businesses are not expanding thus no new workstations.
2. Computer at existing business just doesn't break down. (Mine works for years with no problems)
3. No reputation.

Currently, I don't think advertising computer repair/upgrade service is good because the price of new computers is cheap. To me, a repair must cost at least $60 to make it worth my time. I see some people charging $30 per repair and to me it's not worth it.

Instead of marketing to existing businesses, I think I need to find a way to market to people who is setting up or is thinking of starting a business. I volunteered to teach a computer course at a non-profit organization and I heard that there are people who take the class for business purposes. Perfect opportunity?