IT Service Contracts: Recurring Revenue is Absolutely Critical

IT service contracts produce recurring revenue which is essential to your business. Strongly consider whether or not you want to work with any businesses that don't want IT service contracts.

One-shot deals are for amateurs. The pros insist on IT service contracts. Otherwise you’re going to have a whole bunch of people that call you once or twice a year and in the meantime, you’re sitting by the phone waiting for it to ring.

You’re doing nothing proactive. They’re taking none of your advice. They’re doing no long-term fixes to make their networks any more reliable. They’re doing nothing to improve their ROI or how they’re getting back investment on their IT investments. They’re doing no kind of strategic planning with you. Nothing’s making rhyme or reason, and you’re just waiting for the phone to ring.

And when they want you, when they say jump, they expect you to be there immediately.

One-shot Deals are for Amateurs.

The pros are going to insist on IT service contracts. Whether you succeed or fail at this next fork in the road is going to come down to whether you have good IT service contracts and whether they are a big part of your business.

So, how can you build a solid business foundation with recurring revenues? There is no basis for knowing that your company is going to be able to continue in operations for the next couple of quarters and the next couple of years if you don’t have that recurring revenue in the form of IT service contracts

IT Service Contracts are Everything.

That’s the value of your business. The recurring revenue is key. Everyone who’s in Virtual IT is to think long and hard about whether they even want to take on clients anymore who don’t want to sign their IT service contracts..

The recurring revenue is absolutely critical because those are the clients that are raising their hands and saying I want to have a long-term relationship with you. Those are the ones that allow you to invest and grow in your business.

Without those kinds of clients, it’s very hard to plan growth. It’s very hard to make hiring decisions. It’s very hard to make any kinds of decisions on where your business is going.

The Bottom Line about IT Service Contracts

Think long and hard about only taking on clients who need a service agreement and who see eye to eye with you on the value of one. IT audits need to be as comprehensive as possible.

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IT Service Contracts: Practice Makes Perfect

IT service contracts are essential for the growth of your business. The only way to gain confidence is to smart small and practice serving the needs of your customers through IT service contracts.

What happens after you have your IT service contracts? Are you scared that your customers are going to stump you or you won’t be able to provide the response time you promised?

IT Service Contracts: Confidence Comes with Experience

Just start offering and selling your services. Go slowly until you build up that confidence level. Confidence is not going to come through training; it’s not going to come from reading a report or preparing a very well-thought-out template. It’s going to come from actually starting to sell these IT service contracts and going out and servicing them.

Start with relatively small accounts and then ease into larger accounts. That doesn’t mean you should totally dismiss the idea of taking on a much bigger one if it falls in your lap, but just be aware that the ideal way to do this is to start with accounts that are on the small side of being able to afford that kind of service.

IT Service Contracts Require Advance Preparation

Without managing the sales call process and taking them from sales call to IT audit, you’re not going to get to the service contract. You need to have something concrete to propose and take them in that direction.

Otherwise you’re just going to be in reactive fire extinguisher mode, where they’ll call you when there’s a problem but there’s no recurring long-term relationship. The maintenance contract is what binds the two of you together like a marriage.

IT Service Contracts Will Make Your Business Profitable

It’s very difficult to make a go of IT services when you’re just waiting for the phone to ring or you’re just doing a couple hours here and a couple hours there. It’s a lot easier to find the right kinds of clients that need long-term hand-holding, long-term oversight and long-term assurances an outsourced IT department provides. They know you are going to take care of long-term projects and upgrades; be the intermediary with the phone companies and ISPs and web hosts and specialty application developers; and deal with anything and everything that relates to IT.

Then they also, of course, want the peace of mind that you’re going to be there to bail them out of an emergency. The big thing that really holds this all together is your IT service contracts.

The Bottom Line about IT Service Contracts

Without the IT service contracts, you will be keeping your fingers crossed that customers will kep calling and that you’re going to have that long-term relationship. The service agreement is what virtually guarantees that long-term relationship. That’s just why IT service contracts are so vitally important.

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IT Service Contracts: Qualifying Clients

IT Service Contracts are going to be ideal for some clients. Don't waste your time on prospects that aren't interested in IT Service Contracts.
Some clients are simply not the right type for IT service contracts. In this article, you'll learn how to determine if they are interested in these agreements.

Prepare to Screen Your Candidates

When you are preparing for the sales call, be sure that you ask enough questions to figure out whether they’re a good candidate for IT service contracts. If you don’t think that they have the mindset of wanting to work with someone for the long-term, if you don’t think they have the mindset of looking for that trust and that relationship, then they will not be good candidates for IT service contracts

IT Service Contracts Sell Peace of Mind

You’re basically selling them an insurance policy. 85 percent of the time when you’re going in there, it’s not for emergencies. It’s for upgrades; it’s for maintenance; it’s for taking care of keeping the virus protection up to date; it’s for getting a new laptop up on the LAN; it’s for making an Outlook talk with their PDA. The 15 or 20 percent of the time when there’s an emergency, though, they really want to know that you’re going to be there.

You need to make sure that the people that you’re talking to for prospects and going out and courting future clients buy into that whole idea, that they need an insurance policy; they need the peace of mind; they need to know that when it hits the fan that they’re going to have someone that they can scream for and that you’re going to be there to take care of their problems; that they can trust you.

Don't Waste Your Time on Poor Candidates

If you’re really looking to dramatically revamp your business and move in the direction of IT service contracts, think long and hard about whether you’d even want to go out on a sales call for someone that you don’t think would be receptive to this arrangement.

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