Its critical to make sure that your IT sales call doesnt become an extended free consultation. Youre not there for unlimited brain-picking. In this article you'll learn how to move the sales call to IT sales.

Its not about proving how smart you are or proving your technical expertise or showing all your certifications. Youre only there to see if theres good chemistry and a good fit to suggest the next logical step in the IT sales process.

Is This Someone You Can Work With?

Youre there primarily to make sure that youre seeing eye-to-eye, that this looks like a good client that your company could work with, and that they look like other clients that youve had success with. Youve asked the key questions about the size and the platform already. Youre there to make sure theres a good personality fit and good chemistry to go on to the next logical step for IT sales.

For most nice-sized opportunities in a small business, it pays to spend an hour or so learning about their needs and giving away some limited free advice. But to get IT sales, be very prepared to cap it and shift that discussion toward hiring your firm for an initial IT audit or technology assessment. Its very important to move from free to fee,

"Free" Will Make You Poor

If you stay free forever, you will not develop the profit and at some point you have to draw the line. There are small businesses that will keep you coming back over and over again and picking your brains and sapping your energy and will never result in IT sales.

Know What Service You Want to Sell Them

So, stop giving away the store. Size up your clients immediate needs and hot buttons ahead of the IT sales call. Start thinking about how youre going to be a solution for that. And be prepared to sell some kind of concrete, fixed cost half-day IT audit for a couple hundred dollars.

If you sense a larger opportunity, say $50,000 or $100,000 in pure services, not a product sale where theres going to be margins on it, but a real, pure IT services opportunity, you can certainly afford to risk giving away more than an hour, but youve got to know what the cards look like before you even walk in the door.

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