Hi all,

First off, I am so happy to have found this site. I was really looking for a place to share ideas with other business owners and this site hits the spot!

I would like to introduce my company, Pronet Network Consulting, Inc. It's located in the Los Angeles area. Our specialty is Networking consulting and services for small and medium size companies. I've finally made the bold move after years of daydreaming. Life seems so boring working for someone else.

Anyway, I guess I can call myself a technology expert and would love to answer any questions other business owners may have in applying networking in their business. Now my business skills are a another story.

Got to pick so many brains on this forum!!

Hi Pronet,

Great to have you as a member here, Feel free to pick away over here as it would see we share a very similar business. I pretty much focus on the same parkets as you but i am in Australia. I have sort of a split experience in both Business and Technology though, so i may be able to help with some of the Business questions.

Anyway i wish you good luck in your business and hope to see you around the forums.

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Joel Brown - Orion Networks
Techie-Central - Forums | SEOPTIMISA
Books | PHP

Orion,

You bet. I look forward to sharing some ideas. There seems to be a lot more than the technical side when it comes to IT consulting. I finding this out big time. My biggest obstacle right now is marketing. Most of my existing and previous biz are mainly from referrals.

Look forward for your advice!

Actually it may not come as a surprise but marketing is a big obsticle for me as well. I know quite a few people in the same feild here in Australia and there are very few that can actually tell you what works, They all seem to have tried everything and all say Word of Mouth is the only way they get business.

I am planning to try some Direct Mail though and see what sort of results this gives, it is definatly tough getting a client and keeping them though. IT just seems to be that sort of industry that doesnt have loyal customers they are always out to find a couple of dollers off. But in the long run if you provide good service and quality, then many of the clients shoudl return wehnt hey relise cheaper means lower quality.

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Joel Brown - Orion Networks
Techie-Central - Forums | SEOPTIMISA
Books | PHP

Honest

Most small businesses are let down by their lack of systems and processes. Every day is an adventure in ad hoc. You guys sound like you are beyond that.

I dont really understand what you mean Keilo, isnt lack of systems and prcesses ad hoc? which for me i am actually not even close to haveing any systems and processes i wing it when somthing has to be done i work it out then. probbaly not the greatest way to go but it is working so far.

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Joel Brown - Orion Networks
Techie-Central - Forums | SEOPTIMISA
Books | PHP

Greetings from Sin City. Glad to have ya join us. Referrals are a great source of new business, it just takes a really long time to build up enough of them to maintain a steady flow of business. Keep at it, it will pay off!

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Orion,

I totally agree with you. It's definitely a referral business but when you do get referred, it can be very profitable. I'm trying to get my processes down. The processes I'm trying to nail down are the ones that take the longest and repetitive. e.g. support and writing proposals. Support in terms of if a client takes up on my support contracts, how do you go about to do it w/ minimal effor on my side. Proposal is another one that takes forever to create but once you have a template to work with, I find out it works well. The nice thing about this biz is that virtually all support functions can done online.

Everything counts when you're small and just starting out.

Yeah, there're definitely cheap clients out there mainly because they don't value their data. I try to stay away from the "fix it" part of the business. It comes with a commodity market like the PC market. I generally sell to upsell solutions that integrates well with their business. Hopefully, they can see through this as "value". But I do say, small biz is a tough market.

I don't want to count out direct marketing because I think it may work and generate some leads if done correctly. Without a decent base, referral just don't work.

I sort of brain storm this biz on and off for awhile but didn't really hit how much is involved until I took it seriously.

The proposal is the part of it that i love doing the most, unfortunately i havent had the chance to do a real proposal for the complete solution yet, but i am working on getting that through. I will be posting another post you may be able to help with which is going to some extent hopefully give me a chance to do some more proposals.

I also try to steer clear of the fix it side of the business, my fix for pretty much everything is buy a new one or have it repaired under warranty. But of course if somone is willing to pay the rate then i wont say no to that.

I am continually trying brainstorm different things i can offer and ways i can offer them but they all invertiably end up leading to nothing more then ideas.

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Joel Brown - Orion Networks
Techie-Central - Forums | SEOPTIMISA
Books | PHP

To get referrals, you have to have clients first. Direct marketing has helped many businesses to build that initial client base and fill their pipeline with good quality leads, and it's something they can turn to again and again if referrals or other marketing methods don't bring in enough work. In my opinion, most people who think direct mail doesn't work just haven't done it right, or give up too fast. It takes a well thought-out campaign, the right mailing list, and repeated mail pieces to generate business.

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