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jleonard999
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Posts: 1
(11/30/01 2:03:24 am)
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Marketing direcly to clients without bork-does it work?
If borks can find a job for a temp web developer, why can't we?
So I've been sending email/letters directly to potential clients trying to find contract work.
If anyone else is doing the same, let's share marketing ideas.
Whom do you contact at a company?
What is your "pitch"?
How do you make contact - email/letter/phone?
Any success?
J Leonard - Seattle
Edited by: Janet Ruhl  at: 12/30/01 11:59:46 am
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swamy
Registered User
Posts: 48
(11/30/01 3:03:47 pm)
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That's the million dollar question..
If it is that's easy, there would'nt be any borkers.. But lot of people are
doing it and are successful at it. It takes persistence, good marketing and
networking skills, lots of energy, motivation, capacity to overcome series
of rejections besides doing what you actually do.
Reasons why borkers thrive.
Some consultants just depend on borkers to find contract and are happy to
share a percentage of their earnings. Other things like companies have
preferred vendors, companies don't want to do the dirty job of screening
prospective contractors, companies afraid of IRS.
If you can find a company who don't mind all of the above, you have a good
chance of finding your own contract.
Mass mailing don't work. From the earlier discussion in this board it seems that
networking have fairly higher success.
Hope this helps.
Swamy
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jleonard999
Registered User
Posts: 5
(11/30/01 10:22:40 pm)
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Re: That's the million dollar question..
Actually, I try not to mass email. I visit a web site of a prospective customer - discover that the site has old press releases, or bad links, or other problems. Then I write an email to the owner pointing out that I noticed these things and offer my services to come in an update their site. However, this is not working for me. I follow up with phone call.
Even though site give poor impression of company. I get no interest in fixing it "now during these tight times".
I also do a LOT of networking. But things are very slow in Seattle now. Lots of Dot Com layoffs.
There was a job posting for a large grocery chain who wanted someone with very specific INTRANET experience. I have done nothing but INTRANETS for Microsoft last 2 years. Had all the skills. Not even a response.
I phoned to find out what happened. They got 300 resumes!
He only went through the first 100. Picked out 10 names. Gave 4 interviews and hired someone.
Moral: If you don't get the resume to them for the first 100 names - you are out of luck.
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rickryan
Registered User
Posts: 6
(12/5/01 12:50:40 pm)
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Re: Marketing direcly to clients without bork-does it work?
I'm currently on a long-term contract (just got 2 year extension) with state govt but am going ahead an starting mail-outs to sell e-commerce and wireless web development projects. The way I see it, sure, budgets are tight now. However, if I wait till budgets are loosened then my competitors will be the ones getting the calls when projects do pick up.
I've used mail-outs, newsletters, brochures since starting 13 years ago and they've always worked, albeit a bit slowly. I'm doing a 500 piece mailer currently and have sent out a couple hundred so far. No phone calls yet. I'm thinking I'll try to do about 1000 pieces per month and expect projects (or at least leads) within 60 days.
Be glad to trade info with you.
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swamy
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Posts: 49
(12/7/01 1:40:25 pm)
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Thanks for the info.
How do you cope with multiple client projects if get them at the same time? I
assume you are one man company.
thanks
Swamy
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RMP 
Registered User
Posts: 1631
(12/7/01 3:19:43 pm)
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Juggling multiple projects
How do you cope with multiple client projects if get them at the same time? I assume you are one man company.
That's why I started expanding; when I finally landed a project I was trying to get, I had just gotten another contract, so I hired a friend to work it, then I realized that having multiple consultants is the best way to not only kick 1706 in the teeth but also even out the cash flow and get past the feast/famine cycle. Good thing I figured out some neat ways to handle the legal and tax issues involved in order to reduce the hassles and exposures. Otherwise it's usually too much trouble for a 1-person firm to expand like this.
Robert M. Pritchett,
President of Manager - RMP
Consulting Partners LLC
People -
Openings -
Benefits -
Fees -
Acid Test -
Umbrellas -
Per Diems -
IRS
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 Janet Ruhl
ezOP
Posts: 1164
(12/9/01 10:32:47 am)
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Re: Juggling multiple projects
RMP,
A couple questions about how you find and related to the people you expand with. We're facing this issue in Peter's business right now and it's not an easy one. (I'm also learning a LOT about fixed bid project management since managing is my role in that business and this is a large, fixed bid job, but that's another thread.)
1. People who sub to you have to be good, but if they are as good as you are, they often charge enough that you don't earn anything from bringing them in. The cheaper people may not do the kind of quality job that the client hired you to do. Finding a middle ground here is a huge challenge.
In our situation we are finding that the amount of work and profit we get in return for what we pay subs varies hugely and that one low-paid person is earning us a lot more than the skilled high paid people are, though for some jobs we have to have the skilled people because they are the only ones who can do the job.
2. How to you keep your clients from hiring the subs directly? With all the whining here about noncompetes from the sub's perspective, it's a wake-up call to see it from the other side. This is a big problem if you sub is willing to work cheaper and there is ongoing work with the client that will outlast any noncompete!
3. Someone you pay on an hourly basis is not motivated to get the job done fast. This is a huge issue on our fixed bid job. For hourly work it's not as big an issue--except if the sub drags the job on to where the client ends up paying a lot more than they'd expected, in which case it is a problem.
4. It isn't until you sit down with a large spreadsheet and start figuring out what you can bill and what you are paying out that you get a sense of small amounts can turn into big amounts by the end of a project and mean the difference between profit and loss. You may be billing hourly, but your client is trying to stay profitable. When you see this from his perspective, you start understanding why so many highly paid IT people are out of work!
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Vanman123
Registered User
Posts: 101
(12/9/01 10:57:30 am)
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Janet, something may need clarification
3. Someone you pay on an hourly basis is not motivated to get the job done fast. This is a huge issue on our fixed bid job. For hourly work it's not as big an issue--except if the sub drags the job on to where the client ends up paying a lot more than they'd expected, in which case it is a problem.
Two things: If the person is not motivated then (s)he is not professional. You need someone else. Second, are you sure the job is being dragged on by the contractor or is there a management issue lurking here?
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Don Wallace
Moderator
Posts: 1862
(12/9/01 2:18:22 pm)
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Did "journeymen" EVER exist?
Janet,
Has any skilled service business ever utilized apprentices, journeymen, or helpers in a stable AND mutually beneficial, non exploitative manner?
Seems to me that some skilled trades and certain professions had the concept of "non business oriented helper" years ago but that concept has completely disappeared. You're either on the top, business owner; or you are a wage slave; or you are a contractor, who by everyone's explicit definition does not and should not fit in *anywhere*.
Bad, evil contractor!  (Well, this IS a contractor's discussion board...)
People who sub to you have to be good, but if they are as good as you are, they often
charge enough that you don't earn anything from bringing them in.
Four observations on this viewpoint (which I do essentially agree with):
a) To turn your observation around: how does the contractor know that *you* will manage the project well? Perhaps the best contractors charge a lot as a risk premium, allowing that they may be sucked into a low profit situation. Almost, virtually *every* IT subcontract that I've ever been a party to has been a mess caused by an irresponsible "prime" who postured to a higher degree of project responsibility and planning than they actually manifested in real life. If I had it to do over in several situations, I would have "raped" the prime contractor on rate, and likely never would have gotten the work anyway (which in the situations I'm thinking of would have been a "good" thing!)
b) I've gotten the direct pressure you describe from the opposite viewpoint on subcontracts. Most pressure has been from prime contractors who refused to acknowledge as in (a) that I understood the client's needs better than they did, who nevertheless had an ego, credibility, image, and power based rationale for treating me as the dumb lackey while glomming the lion's share of the billings. From the sub's point of view, the prime contractor can be a cheap jerk who won't pay what the work is worth. Who perhaps does not even possess the technical skill to even scope out the contractor's part, yet sits hard on the contractor on his or her rate alone with no allowance made for their own inability to estimate a fair bid price. Which leads me to..
c) Another way of putting it is that what was bid on the job does not provide a margin for management (your part) AND for paying a market rate for the deliverable work, much less a profit to you for lining up the work in the first place and being responsible for the whole project. Is this a failure to bid correctly?
d) If the contractor demands a rate that collides with that pro rata portion of the project price, including management and profit, then the contractor SHOULD be finding his or her own projects.
All I'm saying is that there's a reason for everything.
IE: experienced contractors who seem to basically know too much about how things can go wrong, can't be hired profitably for someone else's subcontract work.
Or can it ever work?
Thoughts?
- Don
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Janet Ruhl
ezOP
Posts: 1166
(12/9/01 3:48:32 pm)
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Re: Janet, something may need clarification
Vanman,
In our situation, the problem is that the sub is too professional. The job requires a "quick & dirty" level of finish. That's what the client wants and that's what the client is paying for. However two of our subs tend to be perfectionistic and tend to take too much time getting things to a level of polish that isn't called for. As they are being paid on an hourly basis, this has had to be worked out.
Peter has worked with these guys before, and they are always this way, so he knew that the issue would come up.
In this case, there are complicating issues in that the subs have sent Peter a bunch of work in the past when they were busy and he was slow, so he owes them now when their work has dried up and his is flowing.
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Janet Ruhl
ezOP
Posts: 1167
(12/9/01 4:11:37 pm)
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Re: Did "journeymen" EVER exist?
Don,
The scope of this kind of job is much more clearly defined than the case in IT projects. As you probably know, I consider it madness to take fixed bid software-related contracts. However, this kind of project fits the criteria for fixed bids: Peter has done a lot of this kind of work in the past and knows how to estimate it. What's new is bringing in people to do some of the work. Fortunately, this isn't a huge part of the job--we're looking at a couple weeks of paying subs in a five month long job.
The only way to learn how to quote projects is to quote projects and then have to do them. There's no shortcut and that's why you run into projects where the prime is in over their head. They're learning--the hard way. Until you've tried it, it does look easy. The magic word in management is "communication." You have to continually make sure that everyone is working with the same expectations you are: the client, who has to feel that they are paying a reasonable price for the work their getting, the subs who have to feel that they're being treated fairly, and you, who have to feel that the people you're paying are giving you the work you are paying for and that you and the client are sharing the same expectations as to what the final result will be.
Peter has turned down a couple of other projects that were a lot bigger than this one precisely because he didn't feel that he had the skills to price jobs where over 50% of the work was done by subs. This particular job is a good learning situation because he's doing the lion's share of the work himself, but using enough help that he'll get more of a sense for how that works.
When he's in his 50s, he's not going to want to be running up and down ladders all day (which is another difference from IT) so he's going to have to learn how to manage other people or else find a new way of earning a living, eventually. There's a natural evolution in the building trades from being a paid coolie to running a business that employs five to fifty other people. He's seen a bunch of friends make the transition and hopes he can too. Those who don't do end up doing something else for a career.
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Don Wallace
Moderator
Posts: 1863
(12/9/01 4:39:39 pm)
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Not saying it's "easy"...
Just that honesty in IT projects seems to be as common as hen's teeth. I wasn't exploring your unique business situation as much as trying to draw parallels between another industry's practices and our own.
I read your other reply on the particular issue you are facing with certain subs that want to do perfectionist work while what is actually needed is quick and dirty "good enough." Sounds very similar to many situations I've faced, where (with all due respect to the fact that your business is quite different in nature) the client wants someone to do "good enough" while I am only interested in doing a quality job. The critical difference between SW and other lines of work is that very often in SW, "good enough" is almost as expensive as "to the nines".
My pet peeve in this industry is the universal posturing that someone "knows it all" when actually they've simply always been lucky and have never gotten burnt doing it a particular way.
Generally, when a contracting company in IT mis-estimates scope of a project, and there are some effective technical people staffing the implementation, then the poor schmucks that do the actual work get to carry the ringleaders on their backs. Each and every time.
No good deed goes unpunished, etc.
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Janet Ruhl
ezOP
Posts: 1168
(12/10/01 8:05:36 am)
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Similarities across service professions
Don,
The reason I have cited this non-IT project here on a computer board, is that I have learned over the past couple years how generic are a lot of the business problems faced by IT contractors.
I first learned this when a psychologist in private practice read my Computer Consultant's Workbook and told me how helpful it had been in building his practice! I heard something similar from other people in other fields.
Then, when Peter moved to this area in order to join our family, he was faced with rebuilding his business (which had been established about an hour and a half away.) We exploried a lot of the ideas I'd learned in the computer consulting business and found out which ones worked in his business and which didn't.
The only significant difference was the efficacy of mass market print advertising. This works for Peter because his target audience reads the paper he advertises in. In order to get print ads working for computer consulting, you would have to be able to find something that your target buyer/decision maker reads regularly, and even then, it's not likely that they'd buy computer consulting services based on an ad.
That said, one thing we learned there was that an ad that doesn't work at all can suddenly turn into a business builder if you analyze your results and uncover what might have been an unrealized problem in the way that ad is worded. We did this this past year and suddenly had an ad that was hauling in work.
In our case, the problem was that we live in a small town that has a peculiar telephone prefix which most people in the region did not recognize. They assumed that we were in another county and ruled us out. When we added a couple words that said "Serving [local town] and [another local town]" the ad started to work. Another improvement was to list a wider list of services. Peter still does the same work, but people are more responsive to a wider list of services.
How might this apply to computer consultants? Well, for starters, it might suggest that promoting yourself to potential clients citing a wider set of related skills might be useful for attracting work that uses your prime skill. We find that often someone calls for something small that requires a lesser skill, but when they see that work completed well--and get exposed to Peter's infamous charm --they then give him a much larger job that requires his specialized skills.
Beyond that, it the big lesson is analyze why you didn't get jobs you applied for--particularly those for which you got an interview. Call back and find out why you didn't get a job. If the answer is price, well, that tells you something. (Peter loses a lot of a certain kind of job on price, and changed the list of services and towns cited in his ad to discourage the people most likely to buy on price from calling.) If the answer turns out to be something that represents a misunderstanding of what you could offer, then sharpen your sales message when you go out again.
Particularly in entrepreneurial selling, you learn the most if you can elicit some idea of what the person who beats you out on a job has to offer so that you can improve the way that you present yourself.
And of course, if the answer is that there is no work for the kind of skills you have--well, you know what you have to do then . . .
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RMP
Registered User
Posts: 1636
(12/11/01 5:08:48 am)
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Interesting questions, Janet
1. People who sub to you have to be good, but if they are as good as you are, they often charge enough that you don't earn anything from bringing them in.
Part of our profit comes from exploiting some unique tax advantages we have that allow us to get by with a smaller margin (effectively the consultant may wind up with less income that if he worked it directly but more or about the same after taxes). I like to ask our new members which is the better deal, you get paid $9 but only keep $6 after taxes, or you get paid only $8 but get to keep $7. And the services we do for our consultants are valued enough by some that they would rather work through us (and give up a few $/hour) than directly, so they can spend more time on their billable work and don't have to hassle as much with "other stuff".
Also, because of the increased risk in our entrepreneurial setup (like most umbrellas, closer to running your own consulting practice than being a FTE, perhaps even more so in our case), we tend to attract the more experienced consultants who can earn their keep. This greatly reduces the need for supervision, but I'm always happy to help any of our consultants that need it (or some of our other consultants will help or provide backup).
2. How to you keep your clients from hiring the subs directly?
Well, if the consultants find their own work (either with or without a broker's help) as most of ours do, there's no non-compete. Those who leave us sometimes come back after they get themselves in a jam over taxes (see a recent thread in another section) or to take advantage of our benefits or just because they're tired of the hassles. Sometimes we have short non-competes in the contract with the client (and if there's a broker, theirs will certainly have them). If we (e.g. one of our other consultants) find the contract for the consultant, of course we'll impose a non-compete too. Ours tend to be short and the marketing commissions decline over time, so the consultants feel less exploited and have less incentive to break them. They also appreciate that the commission goes to a fellow consultant rather than a broker. And our consultants who find work for each other appreciate the commission, of course.
If a client is going to rip off your people, they usually also try to rip you off in other ways or give some other sign of being cheapo tire kickers or clients from hell, in which case you're glad to be rid of them. But many clients do seem to prefer dealing with a larger than one-person firm, which helps us and our people.
3. Someone you pay on an hourly basis is not motivated to get the job done fast. This is a huge issue on our fixed bid job.
If we get a big fixed bid project, we'd probably parcel out the pieces as fixed bids too. We looked at an RFP recently, I announced it to our member discussion group, several interested consultants responded (each with technical skills appropriate for part of the work or good PM skills), we set up another Yahoo group for the team, and lots of email discussions and estimates floated around for a while. Ultimately we decided not to respond but it was fun to try and see a bunch of total strangers work together. We have had some team projects and want to find more.
4. It isn't until you sit down with a large spreadsheet and start figuring out what you can bill and what you are paying out that you get a sense of small amounts can turn into big amounts by the end of a project and mean the difference between profit and loss.
You've got that right. I may drive our consultants crazy with spreadsheets but they know exactly what they're getting out of the billing and why and the cost of each benefit or option they selected etc. It tends to reduce surprises later on and helps keep everyone from getting burned. Our consultants know that they only get paid when and if we do (or they pay a little extra for our factoring if they want it), so they know they have to do a good job, and they've been very well up to the challenge. They do seem to prefer this since it gets them a bigger piece of our billing and also more independence. We've been stiffed a few times but not very often, and it seems to have been a ripoff client or broker in almost every case (or a genuine misunderstanding) rather than a deficiency of our people (we have very few consultants who I wouldn't invite back). Our member discussion group is also handy for us to warn each other about bad clients or brokers and to recommend good ones, and since it's internal for company use only, I don't expect the kind of legal problems a public BBS would have to face doing this.
Robert M. Pritchett,
President of Manager - RMP
Consulting Partners LLC
People -
Openings -
Benefits -
Fees -
Acid Test -
Umbrellas -
Per Diems -
IRS
Edited by: RMP at: 12/11/01 5:12:54 am
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Coachdan
Registered User
Posts: 4
(12/19/01 9:16:21 am)
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Re: Marketing direcly to clients without bork-does it work?
Before making any contact to any company, I would first sit down and define who you are as a company. Write this down in a notebook. Asking self questions or having another person ask you detail questions about you and who you are and who is your company. Do a brain dump on this one. No editing.
Second, profile your client. What type of client do you want to service? Demographics and all!!! Be very detail. If you don't know, write down what you feel based on who you work for in the past. Then ask yourself, "is this the client I REALLY want to give service to?" Be very detailed.
Now go define your niche. Have 2 or 3 niches is find. Start with 1 and focus on that. Market to that niche. Poof!!! 100 percent of your potential clients is that niche. Example: Say you provide software to Banks. Going to events who have bankers, speaking at associations of bankers, write articles to newsletter that bankers read, you get the idea. Focus,Focus, and Focus.
The major problem with marketing is the focus. Contractors prefer to carpet bomb it and that may be only 10 to 20 percent of their niche. I say go for 100!!!!
Good luck
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rickryan
Registered User
Posts: 10
(12/19/01 12:40:05 pm)
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Re: That's the million dollar question..
>Mass mailing don't work. From the earlier discussion in this >board it seems that
>networking have fairly higher success.
On the contrary, mass mail DOES work in this industry. I have 13 years in this biz that contradicts your statement. You have to realize that you can't just send out a few hundred pieces of mail and expect to have jobs lined up next week.
For a one-man consultancy I'd suggest 500-1000 pieces per month for at least 6 months. Also, another trick is to make them informative, not just sales pieces. Give the prospect some info that they can use and tie that back to your expertise. This is the secret in making mail-outs work, IMHO. If you're just gonna send flyers that say "I'm a programmer, call me when you need something" you're wasting your time. If you go along the lines of "new web tool creates sales for ABC Company" or "Wireless devices in the real world" then you're on to something. Give away some information and help them learn how to use technology to make more money and I guarantee that clients will put money in your pockets.
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swamy
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Posts: 51
(12/19/01 8:35:01 pm)
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Thanks for the information
Well said. I appreciate the suggestion you gave. It gave me new perspective
for mass mailing. I am certainly going to incorporate it.
Regards
Swamy
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Janet Ruhl
ezOP
Posts: 1222
(12/20/01 9:09:21 am)
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Re: Idiot Marketing Error
Jleonard,
My site is the target of dozens of emails from people who try the same, "Your site sucks, let me fix it" approach. All they do is annoy me!
Starting off by insulting your prospect is a poor way to begin. Plus, the people who write me these notes clearly have no idea of what my site does, who it appeals to, or why they are there. I don't need flashy graphics, which is usually what they tell me is missing.
Then there are the people who mail me "drive your counter ballistic" spams. My counter is ballistic. What I'd really like to do is convert a bigger percentage of hits to sales. If someone can prove to me that they can do this--with a solid track record and references I can check--they might actually attract my attention. Unfortunately all the web designers I've run into seem to hang up on providing the flashy graphics or the search engine tricks to raise hits--most of them irrelevant. Not surprisingly, many of these web designers are now back in college or looking for work.
What can would be marketers learn from this?
1. Start out any marketing effort by building empathy with the prospect. Showing respect for what they do is a good place to start. LEARNING what they do before you open your mouth is even better.
2. Making wild, and unsupported claims won't convince anyone that you can help them attain their goals. And you have to KNOW what their GOALS are to be able to do that.
3. Clients will pay for things that clearly increase their profits. Perhaps in boom times they'll waste their money on "keeping up with the Joneses" B-S, but if you are going to be successful, you won't sell that. You'll sell something that puts so much more money in the client's pocket that they are happy to give you a chunk of that extra for your services.
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thatguy2
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Posts: 11
(12/20/01 9:20:05 am)
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I thought self marketing was the only/preferred way
As I have been thinking about consulting for the past year now I assumed that the way most people do it is on their own..
Finding and working for their clients independantly.
Is this not the case for the most part?
and why not..
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jleonard999
Registered User
Posts: 8
(12/21/01 2:34:54 am)
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Re: Idiot Marketing Error
Wow. Let's put an end to this thread as it is now getting out of hand! Somehow, I've wound up being painted as a spammer and mass emailer who know nothing about marketing! C'mon lighten up a little here.
And I'm not writing messages that say "you site sucks, let me fix it". I'm not insulting customers with spam. I don't even do flashy graphics. And I do a LOT of research before contacting any company - look at the web site, read newspaper articles, drop by their building, get their catalogue or sales literature etc.
Once again, I am not doing MASS mailings with the same canned message to everyone! I'm sending out highly targeted letters and messages.
Each letter is individualized to a specific customer, mentioning specific suggestions and benefits including QUOTES about saving money and selling more products/services which I know have worked for other companies like theirs.
And I'm certainly aware that business will not buy anything unless they can cut expense or increase sales! As for those who suggested I go take some marketing classes, I have 20+ years as a marketing manager in other fields!
I concentrate on business solutions and INTRANETS. Solutions like e-commerce, putting product data sheets on line to cut printing costs, getting sales person expense reports submitted online to save on processing costs etc.
Sales letters, personal letters, brochures, advertisements, and cold calling are all part of the marketing mix in "other" fields than web consulting. I was hoping to trade ideas on what works. Apparently, everyone in the forum is either getting clients by referrals or networking ONLY. So none of these other techniques are working for anyone?
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Janet Ruhl
ezOP
Posts: 1225
(12/21/01 10:55:25 am)
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Re: Idiot Marketing Error
Jleonard,
I'm sorry if I confused you with the far too many idiots who spam me. Your message did not make it clear what you were doing and there are far too many web-page improvement spammers out there.
But that said, didn't you say that your emailing wasn't working? Could it be that your potential clients are, like me, burnt out because of the hail of spammers?
I don't think there is any way for anyone to cold call via email right now because of spam. You can continue a relationship begun through some other mode but only if you can make that clear in your message title. Even then, with the epidemic of Viruses, most people are taking a "purge first, worry later" approach to email that might in any way be questionable.
Since they're also taking a similar approach to paper mail after the anthrax scare, it looks like a phone approach or a face to face approach is all that is left.
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Don Wallace
Moderator
Posts: 1901
(12/21/01 1:32:34 pm)
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Clearing the air - I've done it too - doesn't work
jleonard999,
Please let me try to bridge this gap of rhetoric.
Janet was IMO too presumptive in assuming the nature of your solicitation - she came on too harsh w/o knowing exactly what you said in your offerings.
But hey - you know something - SHE was offering YOU advice on why something you did should not work! And did YOU take it well? Case in point!
However, her message should be heeded: constructive criticism is basically a form of consultation. Consultation should NEVER be offered without the specific request from the client or prospect. If the prospect does not request help, then manifestly, they *DO* believe that they are alright already. That's why it doesn't work.
As the old Vulcan proverb went (so quoted in Star Trek VI  ) "only Nixon could go to China". You may have been Nixon in this context, but you still will get the boot almost every time.
Now, it doesn't matter if they totally suck. Part of operating ANY business is building up a wall of denial that blocks out both negative criticism as well as well-intentioned help. Most businesspeople suck, run their businesses poorly, not to MENTION their web sites and other technical operations, and succeed primarily by luck and perserverance. You won't find disciples in THIS group! 
Example: I work as a freelance software developer, with 21+ years of career experience across many, many successful implementations. You would not *BELIEVE* the level of denial operating in software development organizations. Even with my s***loads of experience, many good references, good vibes from clients and peers, etc, I am eternally "the arrogant @$$hole guy that sticks his nose in things where they don't belong" whenever I cross the line of offering unsolicited advice. So I don't. A compant that doesn't want my advice or help can frigging well sink in the night as far as I'm concerned, UNLESS they ask me and trust me to help them!
A typical dialog along the lines that you describe in my domain goes as follows, which is why I've stopped doing it.
Me: "Your Frammis needs the following to make it complete and solid: bla bla blah".
Them: "You're insulting us! Don't you realize the man-years we needed to do this? After all, none of us are C++ wizzes! We have a company to run."
Me: "I am very sorry. No insult intended. I just meant that I specialize in help companies do yak, yak, yak".
Them: "We can handle that! Why do you think we have programmers on staff already!?"
etc etc.
Basically, we're just describing human nature and defensive reactions.
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jleonard999
Registered User
Posts: 7
(12/21/01 5:06:20 pm)
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Re: Clearing the air - I've done it too - doesn't work
Don,
Point well taken. No one likes a messenger with bad news, I guess. Even when they want to help make things better.
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traef06
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Posts: 14
(12/28/01 6:14:48 pm)
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Targeted mailing 101
Okay, here it is. The low-down on marketing letters. I don't claim to be an expert but I've been doing this for over 18 years.
V-A-L-U-E !!!
What people want in return for their attention is value. What's in it for me? Is the mind-set people have when reading mail.
Make your letter catch their attention, give them something of value and leave them hanging.
Network security is huge right now because it hits the FEAR button. (FEAR is Raef spelled backwards)
You can start a letter like:
I’m writing to introduce myself and to bring to your attention some interesting information.
My name is Tom Raef and I’m a computer consultant who specializes in network security. Are you aware that without your knowledge or explicit permission, the networking technology which connects your computer to the Internet may be offering some or all of your computer's data to the entire world at this very moment!
You’re probably thinking "Hey, the Internet's a huge place, right? No one's ever going to notice me." But technically savvy intruders are using high-speed
"Internet Scanners" that can probe thousands of computers within a short time! Nothing would make them happier than lifting your confidential information through your computer's connection to the Internet.
Many company’s have a false sense of security because they have a firewall, however, the technically savvy intruders actually use information gained from your firewall to go around it and attack your systems.
It sounds straightforward, but there is one significant obstacle to meeting a simplified set of objectives – very few companies have the resources necessary to properly assess their information protection and availability needs.
Assessment -
• What is on the network?
• Identification of all network devices, applications and services
• Identification of who has access to what
Asking the right questions is a suprisingly simple process, but the amount of data that is generated in even a small organization is intimidating.
The initial assessment, screening, cleansing and monitoring are only the beginning. An effective security management program must be continual in order to be cost-efficient and meaningful.
I would like to offer my services for your security management needs. My years of experience in networks and network security makes me uniquely qualified to properly assess your current situation and provide ample direction to cleanse and protect your existing environment.
To assist you in your security needs, I have created a specialized report titled “10 Ways to Protect Your Network”. This report details 10 methods of protecting your valuable data from a malicious attacker. These 10 methods have been carefully researched by me and are fairly basic, yet the majority of networks have not been protected by these steps.
This report is available to you after we meet to discuss your specific security needs. I will be phoning you in a few days to arrange a mutually beneficial meeting time, please accept my call.
Thank you in advance for your consideration.
Thomas J. Raef
e-Based Solutions, Inc.
This letter has worked quite well for me. I have considered shortening it but when I sent it out the first time I got such a good response I decided not to touch it. As a matter of fact many of the people who contacted me before I could call them referred to my letter as a "report".
I guess it was long enough and compelling enough and touched on the right nerve, that it made them call me and not wait for my follow-up.
I've also had good response from law firms looking to migrate to Windows 2000 or XP next year. I've actually booked some project starting in Q2 - 2002. Whether the clients actually keep their word or not remains to be seen.
I contacted them with phone calls and my message was "My name is Tom Raef, I'm a computer consultant and I'd like to know what your firms plans are to move to Windows 2000 or XP?" To which the receptionist usually put me through to the top MIS person.
I then repeated my message and I would get into a conversation about Active Directory, multiple domains, etc. After a few minutes, they would ask what my experience is and then we'd set a meeting. At the meeting they were more interested in hearing about what I've done with 2000 or XP rather than interviewing me for the project.
I'd lead them to the point of agreeing to use me for their project. One has authorized my agreement.
I believe these campaigns have been successful because I found "hot" buttons that equated to value of some sort. The first one the value was security. The second one was new technology and an experienced person to guide us through the maze.
Anyway, I just thought I'd throw my two cents in.
Thomas J. Raef
www.consultantsadvocate.com
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Janet Ruhl
ezOP
Posts: 1254
(12/29/01 11:00:13 am)
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Excellent Letter!
Tom,
Your letter manages to highlight the client's need, provide a solution, and project a professional image all at once.
Nice work!
The problem for a lot of computer consultants is that they don't see how their skills connect with the client's needs and so they create skills-focussed rather than problem-focussed pitches.
That said, it is often much harder to come up with this kind of approach when what you do doesn't tie into a hot button like security.
What are some OTHER customer needs that people here have focussed on successfully in their marketing efforts?
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traef06
Registered User
Posts: 15
(12/29/01 12:32:01 pm)
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Hot buttons!
What we as computer consultants need to realize is that every project we work on provides the client with some benefit.
We need to understand what benefit that is.
If we're working on a development project, maybe redesigning a brick and mortar company's web site for better communication with their dealer network, we have to ask ourselves, "why is the client paying me all this money to do this?"
By understanding why our clients are paying us to do what we love to do, we'll understand more about what other companies need.
Other "hot" buttons right now are server migrations - from Novell to Windows 2000, e-mail migrations - from GroupWise to Exchange 2000, Lotus Notes to Exchange 2000 with collaboration; contact management - modifying Outlook to incorporate more features; data-warehousing - getting more usable information from existing data.
Microsoft's .NET is coming on stronger. Do any developers know the advantages of Web services? Can we migrate existing applications to effectively and efficiently utilize web services, whether or not they are Microsoft's or Sun's?
Can we easily explain the advantages of XML? If you talk about XML and only mention MSXML4 and never talk about "effectively collaborating with vendors as well as customers" you're missing the boat.
We need to be reading every White Paper and Case Study we can find. This will teach us about how other companies are obtaining benefits from new technology.
Can any network engineers out there explain the advantages of Active Directory? Can any developers explain the benefits of ADSI?
Where in an organization could we efficiently use Linux?
Developers - can you setup and manage Visual SourceSafe or any product similar to it? Can you explain to a development manager the shortcomings of VSS? What would you recommend?
Deriving benefits are the hot buttons clients are looking for. We need to focus on VALUE, not technology just because it pays us well.
Our industry is full of publications. Many of these contain valuable information for us. They'll tell us what our clients are interested in.
As DBA's can we optimize the performance of queries? If so, what kind of benefits will a client realize and how soon if we were to work on their databases?
Janet, you're right, too many of us focus on the skills and not on the benefits clients realize as a result of our work. The benefits are what the clients want to see, not our skill sets.
I know of a few individuals who have received projects over more experienced consultants simply because they focused their entire message on benefits whereas the more experienced consultant focused on their skill set.
Clients want benefits. When we start providing those, we'll keep making the kind of money we were used to when the economy was good. In a bad economy clients need the benefits derived from technology even more. They need to produce more output with fewer resources.
Enough of my ranting.
I hope this helps someone.
Thomas J. Raef
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 Dinosaur
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Posts: 2219
(12/29/01 4:49:50 pm)
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Re: Targeted mailing 101
Great letter. In the spirit of making the good better, I suggest some grammar improvements. Now, it is true that good grammar and literacy in general are less and less prevalent and therefore less and less important to a prospect. But why risk offending the one person in 100 who will notice bad grammar?
You write "Many company’s have a false sense ..." The plural of "company" is "companies".
And "My years of experience ... makes me uniquely qualified ... " The subject of "makes" is "years", so "years make" is preferred.
To elders like me, who actually learned grammar in grammar school, bad grammar and misspelling literally jump off the page and drag our attention away from the message.
Over what hill? I don't remember any hill! |
traef06
Registered User
Posts: 16
(12/29/01 9:45:16 pm)
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Touche'
Oh wise one, I bow to your knowledge.
You're right, in my effort to get the message out to this discussion, I typed the letter into this box when I should have cut and pasted it.
The letter I sent out had "companies" however, I did miss the years makes. So I owe you a round of gratitude.
Grammar has always been my downfall. My late father would always critique my work, being raised in a Jesuit surrounding made him an expert in grammar.
Thank you.
Did you find the letter useful? Even with it's issues?
Let me know.
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Janet Ruhl
ezOP
Posts: 1258
(12/30/01 11:53:17 am)
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Re: Hot buttons!
That's a GREAT list of hot buttons! Thanks.
Some other reasons I've seen a client choose one person over another for a project:
1. Friendship. It seems obvious, but if the client really likes consultant A and consultant B gives him the creeps, it isn't going to matter whose skills are the stronger--particularly if the project means that the client is going to spend a lot of time with the consultant.
2. Local vs distant. If you're going to be there after the project is over, you've got a significant advantage over the guy who comes in, does the work, and then vanishes. If the client has been burned by someone who disappeared into thin air leaving a bunch of ongoing problems with the software or hardware, your permanent address may be as important as your skill set.
3. Responsivity. How long does it take for the client to get a hold of you? If you only answer your emails or phone calls once a day you may lose the job. This sounds simple stupid too, but you would be surprised how many people put off responding to calls from clients when they think that it might be a problem.
The client often starts the entrepreneurial consultant out with a small annoying project to see how they handle it. If you are the one who calls right back when a problem comes up and comes in and fixes it as soon as possible, they're more likely to give you the big job that comes up later, rather than the "more qualified" consultant who made them wait three days to fix the trivial (to the consultant, but not the client) issue.
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traef
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Posts: 1
(1/2/02 4:08:59 pm)
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Re: Hot buttons!
Responsiveness is important. As a matter of fact I was awarded a project this morning after the client told me I was the most responsive consultant out of three she interviewed.
Follow-up is important.
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