IT Sales: Beyond the Initial Call

The IT sales call should be mainly about making sure your prospect is well-suited for and in need of your services. If you don t use this call for that purpose, you can waste time with a prospect that does not actually want to hire you, rather simply wants to get free advice or information.
Don t Allow Too Many Questions
Prospects will often start out the initial consultation by asking you endless questions, and you feel like you can t even focus on your IT sales plan. You need to be able to know when to draw the line, and this should happen before you get pages upon pages of notes about their many problems. Stop them after they ve asked several questions and propose the next logical step to handle their issues. Typically the step beyond the IT sales presentation is to have either you, a systems engineer or a technician come back to their office and do a site survey.
The Site Survey
The purpose of the site survey is to take stock of your prospect s issues and organize them. You and the prospect will be able to decide an ordered list of priorities based on this survey. The site survey will involve a client report that notes where they are with everything in the office from security to software licensing and data protection.
The End Of The Initial Call
At the end of the initial IT sales call, ask the prospect if they want a site survey as you explain what it is and how it will benefit their business. Selling the site survey is the first attempt at closing the sale, and will prevent you from spending many hours only to find out that the customer was not even interested in your services.
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About the Author
Joshua Feinberg helps small business computer consulting firms get more steady high-paying clients. Sign-up now for Joshua s free one-hour audio training on Small Business Computer Consulting secrets at http://www.SmallBusinessComputerConsulting.com



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