Do you offer network assessments for free?
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And it doesn't work in a "do thirty minutes, save X, do thirty more, save more" way. It's a single thing. It takes X time to do an assessment and the results save (or don't ) Y money. There aren't separate parts to break up nor a time line of work to be followed. Unless the assessment is complete, I don't know if I have all of the information to save the money in the first place.
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I most definitely agree to not give away these kinds of services. The only thing I have to bill is my time. If I am giving that away our company will not be in business long.
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@scottalanmiller said:
The remaining value is providing ongoing services in a good, ethical partnership.
That's my point. A long-term partnership. But ok, that might not apply to the type of work you do, which is fine.
Let's look at Carnival Boy IT Solutions - we do assessments at 10 companies and find we can save money at only 1 of them. The ethical thing to do is to sell stuff to the one company that would benefit from it, and not try and sell to the other 9. That can still be a win-win situation. You seem to imply that you think I'd have to try and sell to all 10 - that doesn't have to be the case.
Anyway, I've never seen a real-life example of this that does work, which is why, having tried it once, I will never ever do it again. So I'll assume that in practice it's a flawed business model. I assume because a decent assessment takes a considerable amount of time and effort (and hence cost). I was only saying that in principal I can see how it might work.
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@Carnival-Boy your flaw is that you're going in thinking you're going to sell them something I don't sell people anything. I sell my time so I will come in I will do the assessment if there is more work I will say there is more work they can choose to hire me and they can choose to hire somebody else if they need new hardware I will recommend hardware but I will not sell it they will buy it from a standard var
Message dictated by Siri sorry about that
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In an altruistic and honest world, that might work. But we don't live there.
In your example of doing 10 companies worth of free assessments and only one of them needs any updates - you have to make enough money on that one paying customer to make the time spent at the other 9 not be a net loss. Assuming you're paying your employees while they are doing work at those 9, you're losing money.
What I don't understand is why this same principal doesn't apply to software? Why do so many companies give software away?
With something like Android - I can see why Google gives Android away - they make a killing on the Google Play Store. Without Android, the Play Store is a non starter. Frankly, that's why I think Amazon made the Fire line of devices - as a way to put the Amazon App Store in front of people as the majority will never bother to install the Amazon App Store because it basically lessens security on that device and adds prompts to the user who doesn't often understand what those prompts are, what they mean, so they more often just avoid them.
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@JaredBusch said:
@Carnival-Boy your flaw is that you're going in thinking you're going to sell them something I don't sell people anything. I sell my time so I will come in I will do the assessment if there is more work I will say there is more work they can choose to hire me and they can choose to hire somebody else if they need new hardware I will recommend hardware but I will not sell it they will buy it from a standard var
Message dictated by Siri sorry about that
We also do the same (for the most part we do resell a few things but very few). We make our money by providing that Consultation time and Design time. We never trust that to a lower level employee either, this type of work should be done by someone who really knows their stuff. Again we will provide a % off towards implementation of said consult. But the consult it's self is a good portion of the work.
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@Minion-Queen said:
@JaredBusch said:
@Carnival-Boy your flaw is that you're going in thinking you're going to sell them something I don't sell people anything. I sell my time so I will come in I will do the assessment if there is more work I will say there is more work they can choose to hire me and they can choose to hire somebody else if they need new hardware I will recommend hardware but I will not sell it they will buy it from a standard var
Message dictated by Siri sorry about that
We also do the same (for the most part we do resell a few things but very few). We make our money by providing that Consultation time and Design time. We never trust that to a lower level employee either, this type of work should be done by someone who really knows their stuff. Again we will provide a % off towards implementation of said consult. But the consult it's self is a good portion of the work.
By Providing a discount towards the implementation like that, that helps you build a relationship with the customer as well -- doubly so if your customer is happy with the consultation.
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@dafyre said:
@Minion-Queen said:
@JaredBusch said:
@Carnival-Boy your flaw is that you're going in thinking you're going to sell them something I don't sell people anything. I sell my time so I will come in I will do the assessment if there is more work I will say there is more work they can choose to hire me and they can choose to hire somebody else if they need new hardware I will recommend hardware but I will not sell it they will buy it from a standard var
Message dictated by Siri sorry about that
We also do the same (for the most part we do resell a few things but very few). We make our money by providing that Consultation time and Design time. We never trust that to a lower level employee either, this type of work should be done by someone who really knows their stuff. Again we will provide a % off towards implementation of said consult. But the consult it's self is a good portion of the work.
By Providing a discount towards the implementation like that, that helps you build a relationship with the customer as well -- doubly so if your customer is happy with the consultation.
Exactly.
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We did these at my last job (Think the last one I did was ~40K). Really I wanted the report to stand on its own and have enough value that we could walk away and do nothing more, but they would still have value.
Discounts against implementation create bad incentives (to spike the project costs enough that you can still maintain a P&L for the projects). I'd rather have simple, projects where the P&L for every interaction is fair pricing, clearly understood deliverables and value for every engagement, and everyone's value can clearly be understood. You also screw the P&L for your BA's if you do discounts like this (which lowers their book value to the company and generally means you'll end up paying them or the "shock troop" consultants who do the assessment less than they are worth).
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@John-Nicholson said:
We did these at my last job (Think the last one I did was ~40K). Really I wanted the report to stand on its own and have enough value that we could walk away and do nothing more, but they would still have value.
Discounts against implementation create bad incentives (to spike the project costs enough that you can still maintain a P&L for the projects). I'd rather have simple, projects where the P&L for every interaction is fair pricing, clearly understood deliverables and value for every engagement, and everyone's value can clearly be understood. You also screw the P&L for your BA's if you do discounts like this (which lowers their book value to the company and generally means you'll end up paying them or the "shock troop" consultants who do the assessment less than they are worth).
I agree, anything that isn't a direct transaction has bad alignment, somewhere. It's all pieces of a bad relationship. You can make them "better", but the "best" is so easy - pay for what you get.
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@scottalanmiller It also weeded out bad clients. "You don't want to pay for good advise?" Cool we'll move on and find someone who does and you can call CDW and see what they are excited to sell you today. Its not like we didn't have tons of work/clients/growth as it was...
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when i worked for a big ole consulting firm, we would do an environment assessment as a sales tool(free) for medium business. for small business we would offer said assessment, bill an hour or two to complete the assessment, and create a report with our findings. Then they would pick/choose the things they wanted to address. Now, that i'm a lone wolf, I do not work for free....
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@KyleCaminita said:
when i worked for a big ole consulting firm, we would do an environment assessment as a sales tool(free) for medium business. for small business we would offer said assessment, bill an hour or two to complete the assessment, and create a report with our findings. Then they would pick/choose the things they wanted to address. Now, that i'm a lone wolf, I do not work for free....
We are currently actively marketing ourselves and as such we are offering a free quick overview, but that is an intention decision for the short term.
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So you've changed your mind Jared?
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@Carnival-Boy said:
So you've changed your mind Jared?
No, I have never changed my mind. Read what I wrote. It was an intentional short term decision. We know it is a loss, but we are marketing and trying to get some name recognition going in the regional market.
Marketing costs money. This short term decision is being billed to marketing internally.
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@John-Nicholson said:
@scottalanmiller It also weeded out bad clients. "You don't want to pay for good advise?" Cool we'll move on and find someone who does and you can call CDW and see what they are excited to sell you today. Its not like we didn't have tons of work/clients/growth as it was...
Exactly, good customers wouldn't want you doing a free assessment, they know what has to happen for everyone to get paid. You might get lucky and find someone who just hasn't thought it through... but that's not a good sign for a business.
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@JaredBusch said:
Read what I wrote.
Don't patronise me. 3 days ago you said you'd never do them, now you say you are doing them. The fact that it's short term, or it's regionally targeted, or you're treating it as a marketing expense is irrelevant. Do you think other firms offering assessments don't treat them exactly the same?
You're either doing them or you're not.
