IT Business Development Blog - Latest Comments

Re: 14 Ways Information Technology Companies Waste Their Marketing Budgets

Tom "Bald Dog" Varjan — Thu, 02 May 2013 20:59:04 -0000

Christina, I'm glad it's helped a bit. Sadly, so many IT companies "waste" their money on forceful selling. But they'll learn bit by bit. As the saying goes, some people change when they see the light, and some when they feel the heat.

Enjoy!

Re: 14 Ways Information Technology Companies Waste Their Marketing Budgets

Christina — Thu, 02 May 2013 11:17:04 -0000

Tom, this is brilliant! You got to the very bottom of all problems that IT companies experience. You voiced many of my thoughts and put everything in a very clever way. Thank you for this outstanding article and for many others which I discovered today in your blog!

Re: Sales Lead Mismanagement In IT Companies And How To Remedy It

new homeowner lists — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 05:51:26 -0000

Yes I think this type of strategy can be helpful.

Re: Eight Advantages Of Premium Pricing Strategy And Eight Disadvantages Of Economy Pricing

Adolf Hitler88 — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 06:19:54 -0000

das is nicht so gut, ja

Re: 15 Ways Marketing Can Support Your IT Sales Success

b2b appointment setters — Sat, 21 Jul 2012 04:54:10 -0000

I have found some decent knowledge from here. Thanks for the wonderful content has been shared. You did quite a fair job with it. Excellent tips indeed.

Re: Three Practical Objections Against Cold-Calling To Sell Premium IT Solutions

b2b appointment setters — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 05:37:31 -0000

You have brought such an unique example of Carl Lewis upon us. Your post has created a significant impact on me.

Nice job.

Re: Some Thoughts On Lead Qualification

b2b appointment setters — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 05:14:54 -0000

I agree with some of these important points about lead qualification. You have created such an amazing source of information that surely can be useful.

Re: About Tom “Bald Dog” Varjan

Brandon — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 15:24:20 -0000

Tom,

I am new to your blog and find it very insightful. I find myself nodding and saying things like "he's spot on" and "thats so true"

I found your site by searching for an answer that you might be able to help me with. I seem to create opportunities just by the people I know and seeing the potential by placing the two individuals together. This leads me to my question:

I am in the middle of brokering a deal first let me give you a back story.

kevin works for a large company and is looking to satisfy his entrepreneurial spirit with very limited risk. He wants to start a company that provides a service that plays well with the company he works for. therefore the company can do well on its own or the company he works for can by it from him.

Bob developed a software that does about 70% of what kevin wants his company to provide. Bob doesn't care about money but rather he cares more about seeing his creations take flight.

I am the one that put the two together.

My question is what is the best way to be compensated on a deal like this. I invision it being some kind of hybrid of equity and cash for managing and moving the project along. The question is how much equity and cash and from kevin or from bob or from both. And then how do I put that in a proposal? Please help

if you wouldn't mind emailing me your thoughts I would greatly appreciate it at: Brandon@connectedlyfe.com

Re: About Compensating Information Technology Business Development People

Steve — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 22:44:38 -0000

Tom, I love your articles! What is your description of the differences between commission (apparently related soley to individual performance) and a team bonus? If a commission is based upon a percentage of new or recurring work, what is the bonus based upon? Thanks!

Re: Sales Lead Mismanagement In IT Companies And How To Remedy It

appointment setters — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 23:51:41 -0000

I also thinks that this type of mismanagement could be proved costly for any company. Sales lead management is really important process and we should take it as serious task.

Re: Sales Lead Generation in the Traditional Versus the Lucrative Way

appointment setting — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 18:45:05 -0000

Sales leads generation is very tough job for most of the sales person while some business invest money in SEO and PPC campaign to generate good amount of sales leads. But some time they are not able to achieve there ROI.

Re: Sales Lead Mismanagement In IT Companies And How To Remedy It

appointment setting — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 17:26:02 -0000

Generating sales lead is very tough work for sales person and may be he is got one lead in one or two days. So handling this leads is very necessary. This kind of mismanagement never expected.

Re: 14 Ways Information Technology Companies Waste Their Marketing Budgets

Tom 'Bald Dog' — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 13:28:51 -0000

>> it is very essential that for business marketing training sessions
should be deployed to learn about the core benefits that need to come
out from marketing for business...

And that's basically about gaining a deeper understanding of the market. Especially today, at the age of content. We have to know the market really well, so we can match our content to what the market is seeking.

Re: Three Practical Objections Against Cold-Calling To Sell Premium IT Solutions

Tom 'Bald Dog' — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 13:22:43 -0000

You have a great point and maybe I haven't done a good enough job to clarify it.

Coke, McDonalds, etc. sell low-priced impulse items. Even in this plastic-driven world, most people carry enough plastic to buy those items on an impulse.

Education-based direct response marketing is just just more effective when selling 5-7-figure complex solutions. It's the quality of the direct mail campaign that also shapes the company's image.

Thoughts?

Re: Three Practical Objections Against Cold-Calling To Sell Premium IT Solutions

Clamdobber — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 18:12:13 -0000

Hey, I just saw your faq on Direct Response vs Image Marketing. You're exaggerating the uselessness of image I'm pretty sure, I think Coke, McDonalds, Milk, the City of Las Vegas, etc. would agree. Like, sending a flyer telling people why they should come to Las Vegas will never ever work as well as those commercial spots with the headline "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" as artful and vague as those commercials were. This is true no matter how good a writer you are, and how catchy the headline is on the flyer or whatever.

Direct Marketing has its place, when done well and not like a car salesman or get-rich-quick scam,

but any B2C industry that wants to go beyond their own neighborhood or a small corner of the internet, will need to at some point create an image, and invest in it.

Re: 14 Ways Information Technology Companies Waste Their Marketing Budgets

Tech Frill — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 01:24:28 -0000

it is very essential that for business marketing training sessions should be deployed to learn about the core benefits that need to come out from marketing for business, the extent of role of marketing would depend on the nature of business.

Re: How Do We Know If We’re A Replaceable Vendor Or A Trusted Technology Advisor And A Respected Technology Authority? Part 1

POS Equipment — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 02:19:15 -0000

Hi,

Its great article guys.

I liked it.

Thanks

Re: How Can Marketing Automation Replace IT Salespeople

Matt Williams — Sat, 11 Jun 2011 06:44:02 -0000

I just stumbled upon your page and I was greatly interested with your post. Any way I’ll be subscribing to your feed and I hope you post again soon.

Marketing Automation Software | Sales Force Automation

Re: How Do We Know If We’re A Replaceable Vendor Or A Trusted Technology Advisor And A Respected Technology Authority? Part 1

Harold — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 17:07:09 -0000

Great article(s). I work for a POS Equipment company, and have noticed a shift away from most of the 22 traits you outlined. Makes me very confident that we're headed in the right direction!

Re: 22 Overlooked Warning Signs from Problematic Prospects And Clients

Tom "Bald Dog" Varja — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 19:46:27 -0000

Mike,

I think there are people who are genetically against prevention and enjoy the excitement of remedial action.

So, they don't do anything to prevent their back yards from flooding, and wait until it's infested with alligators (brought in by the flood), and then enjoy to get busy "taking care of business".

I think it's some kind of masochist behaviour, and they enjoy because it makes them impressively busy. It's the conventional wisdom of western society in general that if you're very busy, you must be very successful.

Re: 22 Overlooked Warning Signs from Problematic Prospects And Clients

Mike Shafer — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 18:31:52 -0000

Tom,

Great points and one in particular I can identify with is the "friends" relationship.
I have a client for whom I have done an extensive amount of IT support but wasn't always done formerly with contracts in place. The friends factor entered here for sure to my significant detriment.

When we met in 2002 the client was working from an old "white box" computer running Windows 98 (1st Edition) and using an AOL dial-up account.
I got them squared away with good workstations, a Linux file server and a firewalled DSL connection. For web presence I registered their company name for a dot-com domain and got a decent web site up and running. The site has placed page one on Google SERPs for key terms we want for the past 5+ years and have generated a fair amount of business.

Being I come from a business background I strongly pushed for a financial control system for a small manufacturing location they have but was told no as they didn't see the value in investing about $2000 in my designing the system and putting the software in place. The job was actually worth closer to 4000-5000 USD but I was willing to discount to have this sort of project on my resume.

In the end it has cost them an estimated $150,000 USD in losses due to theft and mis-management by the plant manager and an ongoing issue with US tax authorities which will probably end with costing another $40,000 USD between back taxes and legal fees.

Interestingly, as you point out, the owner still doesn't admit the advice I gave on this and a number of other issues was "all that valuable." The fact is if they had acted on it they would have saved several hundred hours of time spent with lawyers and accountants and saved close to $200,000 USD as per above.

The discovery I made in all this is the owners don't properly value their time so they don't properly the value the time and expertise of other professionals. For example the "budget" (read inexpensive) accounting firm they hired is a major factor in the problems they are having with US tax authorities. That $75/month or so they saved by not hiring a more competent accountant doesn't look like much of a savings now.