Adam Pittman,
Computerbilities, Inc.
The Year Of Controlled Growth
Two years ago, Computerbilities grew 32%. Sure, any growth is positive for a business, but there were unintended consequences. Coming into last year, it needed to be the year to control growth, focus on nailing down our processes and learn ways to become more profitable.
I never really had a formal sales process. When a prospect called, I simply went on the sales call and had a conversation with them. Sometimes I would even fix issues they were having in the very first meeting. This was enough to close some business, but not enough. What I was doing worked well enough to keep my doors open, but not well enough to grow.
Beyond a nonexistent sales strategy and process, we also needed to improve upon documenting our processes. We tested our processes, and many of them failed. Rather than randomly choosing a resource that may have us racing in the WRONG direction, we polled the Technology Marketing Toolkit Producers Club members. They recommended IT Glue, and it was a big hit for all of my team. Now we have a more efficient use of my technicians’ time, greater productivity and far less frustrations.
Nailing Down Our Sales And Documentation Processes
The moment Robin Robins announced she was going to have a touring sales workshop, I immediately signed up. The workshop was completely enlightening! I now understand that the sales playbook is a living, breathing document. Today I have far more confidence in my sales processes than I had when I started Computerbilities.
It was at this time we decided we also needed to better document our management processes. Based on a recommendation from one of Robin’s teammates, we are now using Basecamp. As a result of this one little change, my closing rate has increased from about 30% to 35%. I can actually notice the improvement at every new meeting we have! Due to this new process, I strongly suspect we will be at 50% or BETTER by the third quarter of this year. I can’t wait until Robin’s next sales seminar to hone my skills even further!
The Making Of A Celebrity
During Robin’s sales seminar, she mentioned the importance of celebrity status to attract prospects and keep your business top of mind. As a result, I signed up for Clint Arthur’s Celebrity Workshops and was on TV several times. We even downloaded the videos from this opportunity and added them to our Shock-And-Awe boxes. In addition, we had our video interview professionally done.
Although we just recently implemented these improvements and have not yet tested our Shock-And-Awe box, we are confident our new celebrity drive will help close more deals. Next year, I am even attending the Chris Voss Negotiation Training and intend on continuing to improve my celebrity status. It’s going to be a very successful year!
Winning Marketing Campaigns And Strategies Implemented
$9,000 From A Single Seminar – We used Robin’s Cyber Security Seminar Marketing to promote a Lunch-And-Learn Cyber Security Seminar in February. We had 22 people attend. From those 22 prospects, we upgraded security packages for four companies, resulting in $9,000 in revenue over the life of the contracts! Not bad for one afternoon.
Three New Clients From Our Pay-Per-Click Campaigns – We are excited to have recently “Robinized” our website. In addition, we have improved the SEO using Boostability. After also improving our pay-per-click campaigns, we started generating more leads, more appointments and more sales. From these improvements, we scored three new clients, totaling $2,400 in monthly recurring revenue.
A Strong Lead From Our Monthly Newsletter – We religiously mail out our printed TechBytes Newsletter to our list of 200+ clients and prospects. We do get client comments on these from time to time, and I know many of the prospects read them as well. Recently, we got a strong lead that directly resulted from our newsletter.
Our Best Year Ever!
We started the year stron. It was our third year with the Technology Marketing Toolkit group. Other IT services business owners may think that growth tends to tail off after the first couple of years of implementing Robin’s sales and marketing strategies. That hasn’t been the case with Computerbilities. Even after losing our marketing person, who was trained in the TMT process, we were still able to reach our goal of 20% growth!
Thanks to adopting new sales processes and documenting our management processes, this year proved to be the BEST YEAR we have ever had! We added $169,864 in gross sales! Plus, we TRIPLED our net profit by adding $44,750! We also added 16 new clients, including 11 recurring revenue contracts. We are excited to continue growing utilizing Robin’s marketing campaigns and strategies.
