The IT consulting services you choose to offer should be driven by three main factors: What your prospects want What’s out there in the marketplace What your competitors are offering

IT Consulting Services Your Prospects Want Who better than the people who will use your services to tell you what IT consulting services they want? Start talking to people that you identify as fitting your sweet spot profile. Ask them questions about their current computer situation: What do they use their computers for? What’s working well? What’s not working? What could they use some help with? That’s how you’re going to figure out what they really need and what types of IT consulting services you should be offering.

IT Consulting Services in the Marketplace Another way to figure out what kind of products and IT consulting services to offer is to read two key trade publications for small business computer consultants:

Computer Reseller News (CRN), VAR Business

These two publications will keep you up to date with just about everything that you need to know about what’s hot in terms of products and services. Let these publications be your filtering device. Because their focus is on the business of IT, they will identify the products that are cool and that also have great potential for you to build value-added IT consulting services into your virtual IT business.

IT Consulting Services Competitors are Offering

The final way to figure out what products and IT consulting services to offer is to conduct competitive intelligence. Basically, you spy on your local market. Visit web sites Look at your Chamber of Commerce Web sites Visit links for anyone providing similar kinds of services Google any type of IT consulting services for your city, county, province, state, zip code, postal code, area code, etc… Once you know the IT consulting services that competitors are offering, analyze those services to decide the types of IT consulting services you want to offer, ones you don’t want to offer, and ways to improve upon what is currently offered.

Bottom Line on IT Consulting Services Figuring out which IT consulting services to offer can be daunting. Looking at what competitors offer and what is available in the marketplace should lead you in the right direction. The best way to decide which IT consulting services to offer though, is to ask your prospects directly. This way you know you have a market for whatever you decide to offer.

Tag:

Add to Del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit | Furl

Bookmark WebProNews:

Joshua Feinberg helps small business computer consulting firms get more steady high-paying clients. Sign-up now for Joshua’s free one-hour audio training on Small Business Computer Consulting secrets at http://www.SmallBusinessComputerConsulting.com

There are some products that are bundled with the resell packages that are very useful and then there are others that are a waste of computer space.

For example, there are outdated pop-up generators and meta tag generators. Do you really think someone is going to buy a software that will create a few paragraphs of text for you? Only if you’re selling to those who have never buy any resale rights products before.

When I’m buying products to resell there are several criteria they must follow:

1. They must have a minimum suggested resale price.

I’ve seen time and time again products that originally sold well for $100 to $200 which are rendered totally worthless because the authors didn’t set a minimum price on their product.

For example, if one reseller gives a product away for free as a bonus for whatever reason then other resellers get discouraged because they think “how can I sell mine for $200 when he’s giving it away for free?”

2. They must be sold as a stand alone product.

Again, this is to protect the value of the product. If another reseller is including it in a package, I won’t be able to easily sell it for a high margin. However, if the product are allowed to be package with certain terms and conditions, then it’s a good buy because I can repackage it as well in my other future promotion.

3. I must be able to change the sales page.

I want to be able to change the graphics and add my own personality to the sales page. I don’t want to be restricted to using the same sales page as everyone else. The more I can separate myself from the crowd, the better. Also, being a testing maniac, I know I can always improve the response of any sales letter if I can change it.

Actually, I prefer buying products that don’t include a sales page. I know my competitors will be too lazy to come up with a sales page so I’m a winner already.

4. The product must not be old.

I don’t want to promote an outdated product. The newer the product, the lesser people have seen it. There are exceptions of course.

You can bring an old product to life by giving it a new sales page and graphics. Some older products may not be promoted anymore by people because they’ve dropped out of the spotlight. You can often get the resell rights cheaper for older products.

5. The product must be good.

There are many products that seem to be just a long sales letter for affiliate programs. They make their money mainly on the resale rights. Surprising but true, most people who buy resale rights to a product will not do anything with the product. They just want to have the ability to resell it when they want to.

The resale rights owner is in the clear because if his customers aren’t trying to sell the product then he doesn’t have to deal with complaints. I want to at least make my money back on the investment. If the product is crappy I will get a lot of refund requests. I make sure the product is high quality before I buy it.

Bonus Tip: I try to devise a plan to sell my resell rights product before I buy it. By devising a plan, I can just buy the rights and then put it to use right away to make my investment back. If I can’t come up with a plan for that product, I just won’t invest in it.

Tip #2: If you plan to buy the product, get the master resell rights if they’re available. This way you can sell the product and sell the resell rights as an upsell.

6. Get Customization Rights If Available

A few product owners will sell you the customization rights to the product. Whether you can sell the product or give the product away, you need to know when you should buy those customization rights and when not to.

People will value something more if they pay for it. The more they have to pay, the more they’ll value it. If you buy the customization rights to a free e-book you have very little chance to make money with the affiliate links inside the e-book. That’s because, people will not value the e-book enough to read it. Free information has a less perceived value than information that has a fee.

Another point to this is that when someone seeks free information, it’s more likely they won’t spend money on whatever product the free e-book is promoting. If you want to buy customization rights to a product make sure that the product can’t be given away.

The higher the price of the product that you’re buying customization rights to, the more likely you will make a commission on the affiliate links that you rebrand.

Judge for yourself if someone were to buy your customized e-book, will they value it enough to read it, and if they read it, will they buy the products that are promoted in the e-book. Do the affiliate programs in the e-book provide relevant and useful tools for the target audience of the e-book?

When you buy customization to a good e-book, and you sell that ebook, make sure to keep in contact with your customers so that you can get them to open up the e-book and read it. That’s a good way to get them to spend more money on the backend. If they don’t take any action then they won’t need to spend any money.

In conclusion, buying and selling resale rights products is definitely an easy short cut to make money online . Provided you know how to select a good one.

Tag:

Add to Del.icio.us | Digg | Yahoo! My Web | Furl

Bookmark WebProNews:

Patric Chan is the founder of The Chan Do Internet Success
System and co-creator of Win In The Niche Resale Rights
Package with the Master Business Optimizer, Stephen Pierce
at http://www.winintheniche.com/resale.html

Early in December, online research firm Hitwise said Google sent Web retailers 10.8 percent of their visitors; Yahoo and MSN provided much smaller percentages of that traffic.

Now that the holiday shopping season has ended (minus any gift reselling), Hitwise has announced some different percentages. A MediaPost report about traffic to shopping and classifieds sites during Thanksgiving week showed Yahoo! Search and MSN both edged out Google in referring more shoppers to those sites.

Referral percentages worked out this way for the trio:

Yahoo! Search – 16.11 percent
MSN – 15.99 percent
Google – 14.46 percent

Comparison shopping sites were virtually dependent on search engine traffic. The report said Froogle got 80 percent of its visitors from search engines; Epinions and BizRate saw 71 and 61 percent of their visitors arrive via search.

—
Email the author here.

Add to | DiggThis | Yahoo My Web

David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.

Well, that’s about all they did make – a few bucks. eBooks were still a very new concept and it would take all these years for them to reach the level of demand you see today.

The concept of reselling digital goods like ebooks and software has been around as long as I remember, but there has never been a time when the quality of products and methods for profiting with them has been so easy. For anyone starting out in the internet marketing game, reselling digital goods is a great place to start. If you already have an existing website, these products can make a great addition both in attracting new customers to your site, as well as generating extra profits.

Benefits of Reselling eBooks & Software:

- Most reseller packages contain everything you need to get started. A good reseller package includes all the sales materials, instructions, and graphics to start selling the same day.

- Your small investment turns into long-term profits. Once you purchase a product with resell rights, you can often sell the product for whatever price you choose and with the ease of automated orders & deliveries, you have a system which can generate profits for years. It’s a simple “Buy Once, Profit Forever” concept that works extremely well and is the backbone of many internet marketer’s success.

- Boost traffic and revenue to an existing website. Finding related products to resell from your website can only benefit you by attracting more visitors and boosting revenues. Think about it, if you add ten extra products to your website, each with their own search engine optimized page, you could pull in 100′s or 1000′s of new visitors every month. So what if they’ve seen or boughten this same product before? You can simply add a display of your other products on the same page, so that they are introduced to your main products.

- Affiliate program visibility & expansion. If you run your own affiliate program, then you already know how powerful it is in generating sales and traffic. Most affiliate programs are set up through networks where 100′s or 1000′s of products are displayed for affiliates to choose from. It can be easy for your affiliate program to get lost in the crowd. Remember, many affiliate networks consist of 1000′s or 10,000+ affiliates looking for programs to promote. If you add 10-12 new products into the affiliate network, you are increasing your visibility among other other sellers, and reaching even more affiliates for your products. A large number of those affiliates will visit your site and may notice that you offer even more affiliate programs for them to promote. This gives you a great advantage over other sellers using the same affiliate network. The added bonus is that those affiliates may decide they want to buy your products themselves! Another win-win situation.

- Offering visitors a bonus. Many ebooks with resell rights allow you to offer them as a “bonus” whenever someone purchases your own product. This is a great way to boost sales as it adds more value to the purchase. It also gives you an edge on the competition.

As you can see, reselling ebooks and software gives you many advantages in boosting your internet marketing revenues and website traffic. To overlook these products because of pride or preconceived notions about these types of products is like having a winning lottery ticket and throwing it in the garbage.

To learn more becoming an ebook reseller, visit: http://www.WealthAddict.com

Carole Nickerson has been an internet marketer and web designer since 1998. To learn more internet marketing secrets and internet wealth building tactics, visit: http://www.WealthAddict.com

Search Optimization Can Spawn New Relationships

Editor’s Note:  The ability to optimize web pages to enhance search engine performance appears to be a valuable commodity and can spark new, advantageous relationships. Share your thoughts about how SEO abilities can lead to fresh partnerships at  WebProWorld

One of the greatest characteristics of the online economy is that the Internet has created a common space shared by over of the planet’s population. This has fostered an environment in which information, which is the only product actually created on the Internet, is transcontinentally transportable. Information products can be created and posted to the ‘net from anywhere in the world. A site designed in Bangor Maine is just as accessible in Mexico City as one designed in Bangalore India . That site can also be worked on by anyone in the world. For example, a small online search marketing office in Victoria BC can work on the website of a major Canadian fashion retailer as if the staff were housed in the Montreal headquarters of the much larger firm. One of our employees has actually based himself in the far northern regions of British Columbia , near the 60-degree line that marks boarder to the Yukon.

For those of us working on the production side of the monitor, the Internet is more than a marketplace; it is the primary space in which we do business. Discussion forums are meeting halls and a corporate boardroom can take the form of a multi-user chat environment. Over the past decade, the Web has grown to become one of the fastest growing employer sectors, allowing virtually anyone with skills, talent and connectivity to start their own business. Social and professional networks that have developed over time between complimentary service providers have spurred much of that growth. Like the world of traditional businesses, word-of-mouth recommendation continues to be the best way for online businesses to attract new clients.

After a decade of development, the Internet has become a far more complicated working environment in which micro-specialization is necessary. For instance, many web design firms turn to third-party vendors to provide customizable shopping carts for their clients. The artistic function of a website is far different than the commercial function of a shopping cart, requiring entirely different skill sets to create. Both the website design firm and the website application firm benefit from their relationship and, provided both do right by their shared clients, can build lasting reciprocal relationships into the future.

For search engine marketing firms, there are a lot of complimentary businesses out there all of which are looking to add value to the services they can offer their clients. SEO firms dedicated to organic placement and SEM firms dedicated to the management of paid-search advertising campaigns are the first and most obvious matches for reciprocal relationships. Unfortunately, most SEO and SEM firms continue to try to be all things to all clients and have not yet realized gains from the natural synergy between SEO and SEM firms.

Aside from members of the search marketing industry, most obvious natural relationships for SEOs are with website design firms. More often than not made up of less than five employees, most website design firms survive from month to month without creating long-term sustainable income sources. They create stunning sites for their clients but those sites are often one-time design contracts. These firms are rarely able to wrangle a multi-year maintenance contract from their clients who are often small businesses themselves.

Another obvious area for SEOs to find long-term referral relationships is with mainstream advertising and public relations firms. These businesses serve clients with a pressing need for organic search engine placements. As noted in countless articles and surveys over the past year, most large corporations and many smaller ones with recognizable brand names have neglected organic optimization on their sites. As the PPC market shifts, many of these businesses are again looking to their advertising agencies for search marketing advice. While the established ad-agencies are expert at nearly every aspect of marketing in the world, they have not become experts at search engine marketing, as shown by the search placement of many of their largest clients.

A third place for SEO firms to establish relationships is with local or regional Internet Service Providers and hosting firms. Local ISPs are often the first place new online businesses seek advice and establish a professional relationship with an online third-party vendor. ISPs are always looking for ways to improve on services they offer their clients and working with an ethical SEO firm is a good match.

There are literally dozens of other opportunities for search engine optimization and other web-service firms to do business together. Our firm, StepForth Placement has been working with a growing network of service-resellers for about two years. In this time, we have developed a simple, two tier reselling system that works well for our company and the firms we do business with.

The first tier is called Direct Sale and offers resellers a 10% commission on all referrals that convert to contracts. In other words, a business we have a relationship with markets our service and receives a 10% commission on our initial service fee. Under this system, a $3000 SEO contract nets the reseller $300. This is obviously our most popular package as it gives the reselling firm a quick payment without them accepting responsibility for the success of the SEO campaign or for communication with the client.

The second tier is called Value Added and allows the reseller to offer search engine optimization and market research services. Here the reseller charges whatever they feel their market will bear for our services. In exchange for this, they accept all responsibility for the success of the SEO campaign and communication with the client. This type of package is most popular with larger advertising firms and for SEM firms that wish to also offer SEO services via a third-party vendor. (Oftentimes a client may not even be aware the SEO campaign is conducted by an outside firm.)

Reselling SEO services offers many advantages over trying to offer those services in-house. While search engine optimization can be compared to common sense website design there is a lot of common sense to be learned. Professional SEO firms have already invested the time to learn the ethical techniques that can place a site in the Top10 at the major search engines. Reselling SEO services offers site design companies and advertising firms another marketing avenue they can confidently market to their clients. It can also provide a side stream income that can help smaller companies with their monthly bottom lines.

Many SEO firms have some form of reseller option available to complimentary web-service businesses. For those that don’t, offering a fee for referral program is a relatively simple way to increase business while developing long-term relationships with other web-professionals around the world.

For more information on StepForth Placement’s reseller please visit our SEO Resellers site.

Jim Hedger is the SEO Manager of StepForth Search Engine Placement Inc. Based in Victoria, BC, Canada, StepForth is the result of the consolidation of BraveArt Website Management, Promotion Experts, and Phoenix Creative Works, and has provided professional search engine placement and management services since 1997. http://www.stepforth.com/ Tel – 250-385-1190 Toll Free – 877-385-5526 Fax – 250-385-1198