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DIRECT MARKETING STRATEGY FOR WINNING IT TECHNICAL SERVICES BUSINESS
· In the early 80’s the IT professionals in many cases working directly with clients. At least 65% of the business was conducted directly between the IT professionals and the corporate accounts.
· Presently less then 5% sometimes less then 1% of all IT business is conducted directly between the IT professionals and the corporate accounts.
· We to much effort working thru brokers and not enough on direct marketing. The problem with working with the broking system is that at the end of the contract one is back to square one again.
· In order to achieve long term growth in the IT Consulting field one needs an investment in sales and marketing to incrementally grow and develop a direct client base.
| In many cases now, IT and Engineering Professionals have lost their ability to have direct client relationships with the corporate accounts for which they apply their trade to. |
 | Technical Professional have lost market share to fast buck marketing practices. |
| Extensive corruption in the procurement process. |
 | Federal Level 1706, Blanket Purchase Order Agreements, Corruption of key Leadership by major corporate interests. Etc. |
| Over time the commercial industry followed this direction also. |
| Corrupt Procurement practices in the major corporations utilizing IT Professional Services. Limit vendors steer competition to them. (Violates Anti-Trust Law Clayton Raleigh Act Exclusive Ties and Dealings – Steering of Competition) If you have a war chest go for it! See www.ftc.gov => antitrust@ftc.gov |
| Brokerage Industry has grown obtaining exclusive contracting agreements with major corporate accounts. These in effect lock out IT Professionals out of their own markets. Once they have exclusive contracts. These vendors scream to Congress that we have a shortage of IT professionals and need unlimited foreign labor to enable them to corner the market. They fail to mention the competition is American High Tech Small Business community! Which would keep business in America and create long term growth for the US economy. They even demand non compete agreements to continue this situation. |
| Foreign industries/interests have grabbed market share resulting in the lost opportunity for American Small Business to grow and develop products here at home. |
| Our primary business is Professional Technology Services. It is foolish to work in a market whereby one is not able to manage to have control of our marketing efforts. |
| How can IT Professionals deal with this situation and succeed in development of direct client relationships with major/minor corporate accounts? |
| When established, a successful marketing approach supports an environment that allows for long term growth, provides funds for internal product development and supports ongoing marketing efforts that can represent IT professionals without abusing them as the current environment presents to them. |
| How can IT Professionals win in this environment? |
| Yes but How? |
In the endeavors of man three types of war occur.
§ War of Nations – Fought in the Battlefield
§ War of Families – Fought in the family courts
§ War of Businesses – Fought in the Marketplace!
·
Yes, IT
Professionals are already in war for their jobs/careers and future of your
families and the nation are at stake here!
“The
unanimous Declaration of the Independent Businesses of America”
“When in the Course of global events, it becomes necessary for Independent Businesses to unite in order to increase their competitiveness and take control of their own destiny, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to unite. We hold these truths to be self-evident: That business entrepreneurs represent the heart, soul and future of America’s economic innovation and strength. That they have an inalienable right to fairness, freedom from economic domination, and a reasonable financial reward. That to secure these rights, Owners of Independent Businesses may unite in a manner that allows them the strength to compete on a level playing field with powerful corporate competitors. Just when mergers, roll ups and economic bullying threatened the whole idea of independent small business, company builders nationwide did the last t’hing anyone expected. Have they reinvented American entrepreneurship in the process? …
§
“We don’t want to be accountable to anyone but our clients
and our families”- Marisa Vallbona-Freeman Cofounder of Proconsultants Group
San Diego CA.
§ All Business operates with four forces working on them both internal and external at the same time. These forces are:
§ Economic – Internal Financials and External Business Climate
§ Political – Internal and External
§ Ethical – Internal/External
§ Social – Internal/External
§ In the process of Marketing it is important to know as much as possible about these forces working on a business if one hopes win the sales!
§ A Successful business starts local within 50 miles of extended family then expands regional, national and then international.
§ One measure of a firm’s success is sales per employee sales/employees. E.g. Goldman Sachs > $650K, MicroSoft > $450K, Lockheed > $100K.
§ How many IT professionals have this success?
§ The collective resources of the IT Consultants could make a major fortune 500 Corporation! We need to work together.
§ Pooling resources together is the answer! We need to work cooperatively in Marketing Endeavors. This can be approached by teaming up cooperatively to set up virtual marketing corporation(s) to pursue collective marketing efforts for bidding on projects. The objective is to pursue direct corporate federal and state accounts. If you fail the loss is small. For success the rewards can be extremely profitable. A little bit of coordinated shared marketing can go a long way for making everyone lots of loot!
§ Golden Rule – He who has the gold rules.
§ Customer is always right – When you make love to a gorilla do not stop until they are tired.
§ Old age and treachery will outdo youth and skill any day.
§ When you are marketing you are committing suicide to you bottom line but creating growth for future business.
§ When you are providing service to a client you are doing well for the bottom line but failing to support longer term growth.
§ No business is better then bad business. (Let the competition have them).
§ If your resources are tied in a money losing deal this is worse then no business. In this case your resources are not available.
§ Minimize time working with brokers maximize time working to build direct client relationships
§ When not working convert down time into marketing time. Dedicate this time to building direct client relations. When working prepare pursue further direct marketing during the next down time cycle. Here procure marketing materials have all this ready for when you have a slow time. Suggest starting with about 500 people over time plan to expand to thousands.
§ Clients have short term memory in 3- 6 months they will forget who you are. This means marketing needs to reinforce the awareness of your services/products to the client on an on going basis.
§ Team up with other IT Professionals! Consider teaming up with other IT Professionals to rotate the marketing efforts within an cooperative IT marketing team.
| Marketing War is a matter of vital importance to the Corporation the province of financial success/failure is at stake here. |
| Estimate/Scope situation. Know your team’s abilities and that of the competition you are up against. |
| All warfare is based on deception! – when capable feign incapacity; when far away appear near (keep the client aware of your services); Offer enemy bait to lure them; feign disorder and strike him. (dilute his business with increased competition and then strike); When the enemy concentrates, prepare to deal with him; when he is strong avoid him. Anger his management and confuse them; Pretend inferiority and encourage his arrogance.; Keep them under strain and wear them down; When they are united divide them; Attack when they are unprepared; Hold onto something your enemy cherishes and you will control them. |
| Waging Marketing Warfare – Victory is the objective! If this is long delayed marketing is blunted and morale depressed. When engaging in protracted campaigns the resources will not be enough to endure. There has never been a protracted war for which the Corporation benefits. (Except in Guerrilla Warfare! This is what you are doing!). Think of yourself as a pack of Hyenas watching the Lions (brokers) have a feast (Client IT business). Maintain the marketing presence with the client wait for the entrenched brokers to make a mistake be ready to take advantage here. |
| Offensive Strategies – Generally taking the corporate/industry resources intact is the best policy; to ruin them is inferior. (This is what has occurred to the IT Professionals now!). To subdue the enemy without fighting is the art of greater skill then winning in hundreds of battles. Supreme importance is attack of the enemy’s strategy! Next best disrupt the alliances. Next best attack his sales force efforts. If a Corporate Sales Force Leadership is impatience they will burn up their market resources ineffectively. Your aim must be to take all under heaven intact. As a small concern the objective is ongoing Guerrilla Warfare let the competition realize they have encountered their Vietnam in dealing with you! |
| Sales Force Strategies – When your sales force outnumbers the competition ten to one surround them. When five times the strength attack them. If double divide them. If equal engage (fight) them. If weaker be able to withdraw (Guerrilla Warfare) With a smaller force be able to elude the enemy. An owner of a brokerage firm can bring misfortune to their sales force. If they ignorant of when to expand/retire sales efforts or ignorant of proper management of sales force. Ignorant of command problems. Ignorant of technology being managed. If the sales force is confused suspicious of competition this leads another’s firm to victory. |
| Several circumstances can predict victory – Know when to fight and when a fight will fail (e.g. avoid direct head-on with an approved vendor – indirect is better). Understand how to use both large and small marketing forces. Ranks united in purpose will succeed. One who is prudent and waits for the enemy who is not; will win. One with a well managed sales force without Corporate meddling will win. Know your enemy and know your own abilities will ensure victory in deciding where to fight. Without this understanding you are in trouble. |
| Sale force energy – use standard effort to engage and the best to win. One skilled in use the best resources has infinite marketing resources. A skilled sales force sees opportunity from the situation and exploits it. If they are weary keep them busy. If reckless let them trip up. If sacred capture them. Quick tempered make them a fool. If compassionate harass him. |
| Sales Marketing Maneuvers – Make the devious approach most direct and turn misfortune to an advantage (When you have lemons make lemonade). |
| Sales Battlegrounds - These are classified as accessible, entrapping, indecisive, constricted, precipitous and distant. In accessible ground the party who gets their first has the advantage. In cases where the client access is easy but is hard to deal with is entrapping let the competition burn their resources here. If situations where the sales opportunity is equally disadvantageous for both either lure them to your position or leave their lure walk away let them come after you. When the forces are half out attack. If you occupy constricted ground block the passes (Approved Vendor). If the enemy first occupies the ground and has a lock then market elsewhere. However, if the doors are not locked proceed. (Use your intelligence here). |
| Reward Marketing your competition intelligence gathers well! Candidates to employ – Individuals worthy of but deprived of corporate advancement. Others who have committed errors and have been punished. Seek out competitions intelligence agents who have come to scope out your marketing activities and entice them to work for you. Types of agents (Native - Employees, Insiders – Sales Reps, Double Agents, Expendable- pass back misinformation to competition, Living – return with information). Most important are those that provided details about the competition’s corporate product/marketing strategy. REMEMBER be ethical in your own conduct at all times. |
| When you hear from you sources about business won by the competition identify who are the decision makers to work with this will enable you to come into play the next time. E.g. another shop placed someone in a firm track it down! |
| Evaluate your skills and dreams/visions |
| Make Marketing Plans & Implement them. |
| Network, look for teaming alliances |
| Define your marketing strategy |
| Business Cards, Letters, Web Presence, Brochures, Pens, Calendars, Tee Shirts etc. |
| Get a contact manger – e.g. ACT/Goldmine. Manage marketing activities like transactions save contacts and activity notes in the database. |
| Follow up all prospects, Maintain a business relationship with the key decision makers in the firms. Send update letter, etc. |
| Keep in Touch with clients even with a non compete you can keep in touch! |
| Develop a market resource develop 5 new contracts per day – 2500 per year! Due this for years. |
| Get a answering service/paging voice mail/telephone set up the virtual office |
| Save contracts in PDA keep cell phone/pager with you on the road. |
| Set up an 800 phone call forward to cell/pager/answering service. |
| Obtain Sales leads databases e.g. Daltons, CorpTech etc., Stock Financials Reports etc. |
| Establish relationships with suppliers and clients. |
| Make this marketing effort a lifetime goal of your career. |
The market is basically classified into Large, Mid Range and Small Business. A business needs only to manage a marketing relationship with up to 750,000 people in the US. These people control the procurement of over 4 Trillion in Goods and Services in the US High Tech economy per year. If we work together we can collectively get a piece the pie! The opportunity to develop joint marketing/servicing of clients by IT teaming can be lucrative.
· Large Business – Big Profit potential, lots of competition. - Most bang for buck!
· Midrange Firms – Modest profit less competition. - Midrange marketing expense.
· Small Concerns – Small Profit low competition – Marketing most expensive here
A further division of the market is segmentation via industry sector eg. Aerospace, Finance, Government, Telecommunications, Wireless, Software, IT Service Provides, Autos, etc.
Marketing can be Vertical, Horizontal and Niche.
· Vertical – Total Solutions Build Hardware through deliver E Commerce solution to client eg IBM
· Horizontal – Provide a specialize widget/service to a broad range of organizations. e.g ORACLE.
· Niche – Find specific needs and provide the solution – This is what we all are doing in marketing until you break at least several billion in sales.
This is just the beginning now let’s get to work. The most logical approach here is to devise ways to jointly team up and collectively market our resources. You may even consider hiring laid off brokers to work for your own endeavors when we win back our own IT markets.
·
Right now under the current system marketing works against
us. We need to change this system to have marketing working for us!
· The IT Brokerage Industry has taken away from us the market which utilizes Professional Technical Services. They have made many advancements over the years. The most recent is the limited vendor list whereby you are now asked to work for the competition which is trying to put you out of business. They wish to set us up in firms for consolidation via mergers/acquisitions sell you off take the profit and run.
· The Age of the Independent Consultant is dead!. However the age of the Interdependent Consultant is alive and well!
·
How do we gain back our market share?
E.g. How do you eat an elephant – One bit at a time. We will win back
the market via many hard won marketing battles!
· Identify and Market to Firms that procure IT Services
· Clients will not buy from you if they are not aware of who you are, what services/products you can provide them to address their requirements. A big part of the battle is identification of the key people who utilize professional technical services start local then go national and global. This information can be gained via many different sources.
· To win back clients and have them procure IT Services to a greater extent from Independent IT Professionals. Requires development of an ongoing marketing plan to manage a marketing relationship with clients. This entails extensive planning, setup, funding and execution of the marketing plan continuously - along with periodic updates.
o The scope of this effort is beyond the resources of one individual. This is why the Brokers have won and taken your market away from us. However this is not beyond the scope of a team of only several IT Professionals working together in cooperative marketing efforts!
o Find the Key people in an organization that will promote your cause. Continue to build on this relationship.
· Decide on what products/services to present to clients for review start small get the feedback and then adapt the marketing approach based on this information. Now hone in on the winning marketing strategy. Once this is understood proceed with a further investment with marketing literature e.g. Web Sites, Brochures, CD Business Cards, Email Updates. Calendars, Key Chains, Pens, Coffee Mugs, Tee Shirt, Caps, Sweatshirts etc.
§ www.atlaspen.com - Calanders, Pens etc.
§ www.unionpen.com - Pocket Calanders, Pens etc.
§ www.comda.com - Wall calenders etc.
§ www.goldmine.com - Contact management database software
§ Printshops – Brochures, Letter heads, Business Calendars etc.
| Find other IT professional with whom you can work with to establish long term project and marketing relationships. E.g. www.icca.org! www.ieee.org etc. |
§ www.mersel.com - Computer Hardware/Software etc.
§ www.techdata.com - Computer Hardware/Software etc.
§ www.icca.org - IT Candidates etc.
§ www.monster.com - IT Candidates etc.
§ www.dice.com - IT Candidates etc.
§ www.hotjots.com - IT Candidates etc.
· Establish business relations with Banks, Venture Capitalists etc.
· Have legal Counsel on Retainer.
A contract management database is an excellent way to manage marketing transactions. You should look are marketing activities in the same way you look at banking transactions. You need to record the actions for further processing. A person for which a contact is established today will potentially generate future business. You need to manage this marketing relationship for the long term. This approach also allows you to work with other people to allow easy expansion of the marketing effort over time! Once a contract is established you send an introduction letter/email follow up with a phone call. From this point you need to keep in touch with them for years to win!. Remember you are looked upon as resource to help them achieve their business goals do not ever forget this when dealing with clients! Now you need to continue this marketing relationship over the long haul. As stated in prior ICCA presentations it takes nine points of contact to establish a business relationship with someone! This can be any combination of the following:
§ Phone Calls
§ Marketing Literature
§ Personal Visits – Presentations, Lunches etc.
§ Periodic Updates – Xmas Cards/Calendars, Pens, Mugs, Clothes etc.
As you can see this is expensive and time consuming this is why you need target this effort to those key people which is about 750,000 people are involved with procurement of over $4 Trillion per year of High Tech Services. First identify the key players within your region/city stay focused here. Then expand out only after you have established a successful track record in the local economy.
Marketing is a life style change you need to work a little on this every day until you retire or quit working as an independent. This means you need to find new clients all the time and maintain existing business relationships for the long haul. This means establishment of a system to develop new marketing resources. A vast resource of information is available. Here is an example of some resources.
§ www.yahoo.com -> Finance -> Stock Name -> Profile. This shows the key management within firms that may utilize your services.
§ Corporate/Government Web Sites – This many times also show the key decision makers involved with the procurement activities.
§ Commerce Business Daily – http:://cbdnet.gpo.gov - This shows over $2 Trillion worth procurement activities per year. Use the leads to find subcontracting deals, identify key management of handling the awards.
§ Trade Publications – Wall Street Journal, Investors Business Daily, Computer World, Washington Technology Review, Local City Business Journals www.bizjournals.com etc. This all provide infinite market resources to follow up.
§ Commercial Marketing Directories – These can be bought loaded into a contact database.
§ Purchase marketing directories after working thru the above list you can purchase marketing directories also for further leads.
§ Get involved with the City Regional Chamber of Commerce. The business card exchanges is a very good resource for potential business.
§ Also examine State, County, Local/Educational Organizations \
§ Apply to be on as many vendor list for organizations within your desired markets.
As the Marketing Strategy progresses, grows and becomes more complex to properly manage and allow continued marketing growth will require specialization of marketing efforts. For example, if you have two IT professionals working have one work on hiring another working on client relationships. Next expand into areas of industry specialization. E.g. One marketer works on Telecommunications as the primary client manager and secondary to Automotive client relationships. This marketing is being done every day in industry by large corporations. However, this is not necessarily the only business model in which this successful approach will work. Setting up a CoOp, Consortium converting sweat equity into marketing success will also work just as well.
· Make sure when you are doing this marketing to work covertly. Letting the brokers know that you are involved with this activity will not be beneficial to obtaining additional work from them.