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Computer Business Plan Tips for Getting Great Client
Author: Joshua
Feinberg
As you are writing your computer business plan, you need to think about a very important question: WHO will be benefit from your services?
Many computer business owners make the mistake of chasing after prospects that only need services now and on a short-term basis. What you should be doing however is marketing to those prospects that will be with you for many years to come and bring you predictable, steady revenue. This is the core, but potentially $100,000+ difference between transactional-oriented cherry-picking, one-shot-deal customers and long-term, steady, high-paying great clients.
Although many mistakenly use the terms customer and client synonymously, it's a huge oversight because of their enormous differences in long-term potential to your computer business.
They fail to see how working for fly-by-night customers will leave them scrambling to make their next buck and dissatisfied as they move from customer to customer, never establishing solid, mutually-beneficial relationships that can make computer consulting work more rewarding and successful.
Consider the following 4 ways to build a computer business plan around the needs of great clients, rather than one-shot deal customers. - Think About Customer and Client Acquisition Costs. As you are creating your computer business plan, think about the time and money that will go into your marketing campaigns. Customer or client acquisition costs are simply defined as those time and out-of-pocket expenses that can be directly traced to the acquisition of new customers or clients. In order to measure this correctly, you need to have controls and techniques in place to help you measure where your customers or clients originate.
- Track the Origins of Your Customers and Clients. Tracking
where your customers and clients originate is critical to understanding
how to get more of the clients that will stick by you long
term … and less of the customers that have no interest in building
long-term relationships. For example, when you send out a postcard
or other piece of marketing collateral to a set of leads or
prospects, you can send them to a Web site landing page to
fill out a form, register for a free seminar or request a free
CD. If you use a special URL and landing page, you easily can
count how many clicks you got and how many sign-ups you got.
Then after the campaign, you can measure which percentage of
sign-ups got qualified, which ended up becoming customers or
clients and finally, how much new and eventual revenue can
be traced to these specific new customers or clients from that
specific campaign.
- Measure How Much Time and Money Goes into Seminars and Relationship-Building Events. You
need to know how much time and money goes into the seminars
that you hold for your prospects, customers and clients,
so you can understand the cost of acquiring a real client...
and even more importantly, understand exactly what a really
great client is worth to your computer business. As a simple
example, think about what would happen if you invested
$1,000 and 16 hours of time (that you value at $100 per
hour) planning, marketing and holding a seminar event.
From this, perhaps you got a new customer that spent initially
$400. Then, that same customer might become a steady, high-paying
client on a $12,000 per year on-going service contract.
This basically means you spent $2,600 in money and time
finding a new client that was worth $12,400 in the first
year of your relationship. The client acquisition cost
was $2,600. But what if you didn’t push on-going service
contracts, and that client just spent $400 with you once?
Then, that $2,600 cost was certainly not worth the trouble.
The customer vs. client mindset makes all the difference
in your computer business plan.
- Target Clients with Your Marketing Activities. Unless
you have a huge Fortune 1000-sized marketing budget,
you have to work smarter when it comes to marketing.
You have to focus on small businesses that are most
likely to become steady, high-paying clients. There’s a world of difference in the lifetime profitability potential or lifetime value between customers and clients. As you design your computer business plan, you can’t afford to market to any companies that don’t
have the potential to become steady, high-paying clients.
The targeting and lead qualification becomes mission
critical.
In this article we gave you 4 tips to help you build your business around getting great clients rather than one-shot-deal customers. Learn more about creating a computer business plan that will get you great, steady, high-paying clients now at http://www.ComputerBusinessPlans.com
Copyright (C) ComputerBusinessPlans.com All Rights Reserved
About the Author:
Joshua Feinberg is the author and editorial director of the Computer Consulting Kit Home Study Course, which helps computer consultants, VARs, integrators, solution providers, and managed services providers get more of the best, steady, high-paying small business (SMB) clients.
Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - Computer Business Plan Tips for Getting Great Clients
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