Point One
I have three other proposals that are staring me in the face every day. And I need to finish them because proposals bring in money. Not immediately but eventually. The way it works is this: leads turn into meetings turn into proposals turn into sales which turn into money. It’s all a numbers game. So, when you realize that you don’t have anything going or that you’re not making enough money (in sales) it’s probably because you don’t have enough poles in the water (a good sentence since I’m at the lake). Don’t complain because you don’t have money, complain because you haven’t drummed up enough leads, went to enough meetings, or finished enough proposals.

Point Two
When you look at someone’s hourly rate, think about how much work goes into the work before the work even starts. I know… that’s confusing to think about, but I’ve already invested 4 hours into a proposal that I may get… If I get 25% of the work that I write proposals for, I would get 1 job out of every 4 proposals. If I took 4 hours to develop each proposal, It would take me 16 hours worth of work to get 1 job.

Other things to think about when developing your hourly rate: taxes, vacation, insurance, and other stuff that needs to be paid since you’re employer isn’t paying for you.

Network management includes functions such as planning the design of the network, maintaining hardware and software, integrating new software and hardware, server upgrades, customizing applications, overseeing the resources, supporting the users, defending the network from hackers, and trouble shooting any problems.

Maintaining your own network can be a real headache. As shown earlier, it can be a very expensive headache. Outsourcing your network management is a viable alternative. Here is a list of the advantages of outsourcing your network…

Specialization Pays
Outsourcing network management can save you money by utilizing people with optimal skills in your area of need. These people can attack tasks and create innovative solutions quickly and efficiently. They can also use their expertise to alter your network so that such problems may be avoided in the first place. Doing this helps minimize costly mistakes.

A Lot of Skills for One Price
Our engineers have a vast knowledge in how networks operate. This means they can set up, run, and successfully trouble shoot. They know the ins and outs of networking including database management, network security, hardware, and specialized software. When you outsource network management, you are hiring our entire wealth of knowledge at one low price.

Different Points of View
When you outsource your network management, you get different points of view as to how the network should be setup, executed, and repaired. These different points of view help to create a comprehensive plan, which produces a more successful launch, better maintenance, and less downtime for your network.

There are COSTS for Having Employees
Hiring a consultant is not as expensive in the long run as you may have thought. Take into consideration the expenditures you wave by procuring a consultant versus an employee; you don’t pay taxes, insurance, vacation, sick days, etc. Additionally, this type of environment forces information to be shared among many people. This means you don’t have the realized transition cost incurred that you might if your employed technician were to seek alternative means of employment.

Make Sure it Functions Properly
Believe it or not, network engineers like when the network runs smoothly, no problems to fix and no reason for extra billing. So, there are always extra preemptive measures taken to verify the health of the network.

Constantly Updating Their Skills
Network management professionals are dedicated to learning about all the new technologies. This means that your network will benefit from our technicians self-motivation to stay abreast with the changing technologies. This professional development is usually at a cost NOT billed to you. Whereas, if you have internal help, you almost always have to pay for professional development.

What about pricing. It’s an art, right? I’ve been trying to figure out if there is anything unethical about charging two different people, two different prices for the same product. I’m pretty sure it’s okay if the price of a product is simply the value of its results. So, if someone values product X a lot more than another person, shouldn’t you be able to price it higher. You are not taking advantage of that person, you’re simply raising the price because the value of the product has raised.

For instance, if you bought a piece of land for $5K and you wanted to sell it for $7K but someone offered you $10K, would you take the $10K?

Of course you would! Their is no difference. And a good price is a price that both the buyer and seller are comfortable with. If you can achieve that, what’s the problem?

The difference between me being a great salesman and a bad salesman was my product knowledge and the confidence in my product. We can’t expect a great salesperson to sell our product if they don’t know what our product is or don’t understand the real use of our product.

This really clicked on me when Dan Wilson tried to tell me ump-teen ways on how to sell a service to Arkansas Minority Health Commission. He had all the sales techniques in the world but he had no idea on what he was selling or why the product was usefull.

Instead of hiring sales people who need to be trained, its more beneficial to invest in marketing and advertising that can eliminate the prospecting. Sales and marketing allows the advertisment (press release, magazine ad, television ad, radio ad, etc.) to prospect for you.

Let’s face it a lot of energy, time, and money has to be invested into a new employee before he is ready to run out the door respresenting you company. So save your money, payroll tax expense, training time, and phone bills by hiring Marketing and PR firms rather than having to train Technology Sales People.