Take The IT Marketing Client Attraction Quiz

Again, just as with lead qualification, you can't expect to consistently attract the best small business clients if your sales process is a joke or nonexistent. Serious owners and managers of small business technology providers systematize their sales processes until their sales processes run like well-tuned, highly-optimized machines.

Simple, consistent lead qualification is the key to selling more efficiently and attracting the right kinds of new clients. Those who skip or ignore lead qualification waste enormous amounts of time and resources...and may ultimately put themselves out of business.

Unless your firm is large enough to have dedicated IT marketing, sales, and business development staff, most owners of small business technology providers are severely under-invested in the amount of time that's realistically required to grow and maintain a healthy client list. Sorry, the tooth fairy won't put the client list under your pillow either. So, you need to have a solid IT marketing plan and you need to execute.

After you've taken care of your existing paying clients as if your company's survival depended on it (because it does), your #2 goal must be all about acquiring new clients who'll be your company's future.

Word-of-mouth marketing is not really marketing. Rather, word-of-mouth is a bonus or dividend you get for doing everything else correctly with your IT marketing, sales, project management, and customer service. In other words, you can't expect word-of-mouth IT marketing to be effective completely on its own.

In addition, when it comes to IT marketing, you definitely don't want to put all your eggs in one basket. As a result, make sure your marketing plan includes at least four ways to get the word out about your firm and its value proposition.

While it certainly doesn't need to be an elaborate document from an agency or MBA, all small business technology providers need some form of a written IT marketing plan or IT marketing calendar, even if that plan is as simple as a one-page Microsoft Word document or Microsoft Excel worksheet.

It can be very difficult to profitably acquire new small business clients who are either too small or not serious enough about IT. If your small business clients aren't each consistently spending at least $500 per month (or the local currency equivalent) on IT services, consider refining how you target your IT marketing activities and lead generation.