IT Audits: Your Prospects

IT audits are really where you’re going with the sales call to a new prospect. Unless they have an emergency that needs urgent attention and they’re really specific about it, you need to “push” IT audits. That will get the ball rolling with IT services. Now, if they say, “We think our tape drive hasn’t been running in six months and we’re terrified that we’re one blue screen or a server crash away from losing everything.” In that case, you have something to go on and should start there. In most cases, though, selling half-day technology assessments or IT audits makes the most sense. There are a couple different ways to approach it. Quick Should Be Free You could do a real stripped-down free version where you go in for a half hour and provide them with a basic list. Keep in mind, however, that spending more than a half hour, where you’re starting to actually look at hubs, at switches, at how the Cat 5 stuff is laid out, where you’re looking at some sample configurations, opening up some control panels, unlocking server consoles, is beyond the scope of a free assessment. Charge for Longer Assessments That definitely should be billable and that should definitely be in the context of IT audits or tech assessments and not be given away for free. Come up with a set rate for IT audits of this type. Copyright MMI-MMVI, Small Biz Tech Talk. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}

IT Audits: How to Price Them

How do you go about pricing IT audits? In this article, you'll learn that it should be based on your rate, but you will also want to give a discount to get your foot in the door. Use Your Hourly Rate as a Guide For IT audits, you’re going to have to take your hourly billing rate, and figure that you’re going to spend two or three hours there. You’re going to probably spend another hour back in the shop writing up the reports for the IT audits and writing an estimate. Figure out what you need to charge for IT audits based on your average hourly billing rate. So for example, if for basic fieldwork you’re charging $95 an hour, and you anticipate that between time on-site at the client, gathering the information for these IT audits, and follow-up question/answer sessions afterwards, you spend five hours. That is five hours at $95, so you’re at a little bit under $500. Now you want to round down and discount. Don't Bill the Full Amount The gist of it here is that you want to get your foot in the door. You don’t need to bill IT audits at your full amount. You’re not billing by the hour. You want to give them a certain comfort level that they feel they can afford your services - you’re not out to just run up a huge bill. You’re really out to discover what your future clients' biggest problems are, help them organize, and help them make heads or tails of what needs to be addressed. Whatever the problems, it’s going to take a couple of hours to come up with some coherent recommendations on what to do first, what it’s going to cost them, and when it can be scheduled. You definitely shouldn’t be giving your expertise away for free, but you also shouldn’t be looking to recover your typical hourly billing rates on IT audits. It Pays to Discount. The most important thing here is you’re getting them to pry open their six-ton wallet and prove that they will spend money on your services. That’s extremely important, even if you don’t recover more than 50 percent or 75 percent of your normal hourly billing. Chalk it up to a cost of sales. It’s up to you what you’re going to charge ultimately, but anywhere in the $250 to $350 range is typical. If you want to go really aggressively, maybe charge $199 or $200. The key thing is to make it a fixed price. The important thing here is that the prospect shows you that they’re willing to spend money on IT audits. Copyright MMI-MMVI, Small Business Computer Consulting .com. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}

IT Audits: Documenting Licensing Issues

One of the biggest issues you will run across during IT Audits is software licensing. If you find any such issues during IT audits, note them in your report. You might want to say something like: “These are deficiencies that I have found. Do you have the documents around to prove you own it?” It’s that simple, and any small business that is dealing on the up and up recognizes that. The burden of proof is on them. They need to go dig out the license agreements, the invoices, the end-user license agreements and original CDs to prove ownership. Licenses Aren't Negotiable If they can’t, then you need to address it with them after IT audits. Tell them that the deficiency is going to cause a lot of headaches sooner or later and you need to figure out a remediation plan now. Most businesses will ask you what they should do about it. With most small businesses, you may need to give them a couple months after the IT audits to let it work through the cycle--but no more. In an ideal world, you’d love to fix it immediately to get rid of the liability and the problem right away. Licensing compliance is definitely something that should be in your service contract. Protect Yourself There should be a paragraph that talks about how the client’s responsible for having properly licensed software, that if you identify that there’s any deficiencies in IT audits, it’s your responsibility to develop a remediation plan and present them with the options and they’re obligated to either remove the software or purchase it. It’s that simple. You shouldn’t be working for anyone that has a problem with buying software legally because it exposes you to direct legal consequences as well as reputational consequences. IT Audits: What are some remediation plans? Sometimes businesses so underutilize software, some programs on a PC can be safely removed because they’re not being used anymore. Or someone two years ago thought they might want to use it, so they picked up a pirated copy. If you find out in the course of talking with users that they’re not actually using the program, the safest thing is to go to Add/Remove Programs and take it off for them. If the PCs are nearing the end of their lifecycle, a cost effective way of remediating the software problem is upgrading the PC and helping them to install the OEM version. Another option is for them to keep their existing equipment and buy the two-year site license with the maintenance, providing unlimited upgrades. The Bottom Line on IT Audits Figuring out what your clients' licensing needs are during IT audits. Just be sure you address the problem. Copyright MMI-MMVI, Computer Consulting 101 Blog. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}

IT Audits: Capitalizing on Current Events

Worms and viruses are actually a good thing for your marketing. When they are mentioned in the news, there’s an excellent chance that the small businesses that you’re targeting are feeling the pain and feeling the pinch. There’s nothing like a massive blackout to raise tremendous awareness! Events like these raise awareness of the need for power protection and orderly shutdowns and backup generators. And of course, the worm and the virus cleanup issues and the security ramifications are tremendous. It's a perfect opportunity for you to do IT audits. Marketing Plan for IT Audits Put together some kind of fixed price IT audits package that you can deliver. Go in with a big inventory checklist, and talk with them about the physical security of their system, what they’re doing with virus protection, if they’re properly licensed, if they’re keeping it properly updated, what their firewalls look like, how that’s kept up to date, the last time they did a check of their tape drive or storage systems, etc. With almost all small businesses, when you go into a new account, there’s a huge cleanup opportunity. Businesses all seem to think that they’re much better protected against viruses and security than they really are. If you ask them how current their antivirus software is, they’ll believe it is up to date. Through IT audits, you may find that it is over 2 years old. That’s a huge opportunity for you to do your magic. Don't Forget Data Backups When you ask prospects about their data backup, you sometimes you get blank stares or they tell you want they think you want to hear. In reality, their stuff is very rarely kept current if they don’t have a good tech provider or someone good in-house to do these kinds of things. The Bottom Line about IT audits Those are big opportunities to identify some of the weaknesses and obviously the end result of IT audits is that you put together an organized plan of attack for what to do to fix it. It may be upgrades, more training, replacement, etc. Copyright MMI-MMVI, Computer Consultants Secrets. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}

IT Audits: A Checklist

IT audits need to be as comprehensive as possible. To ensure you hit every area you need to during your IT audits, review this checklist. • IT Audits - Physical Security: To ensure that appropriate physical controls are in place to secure technology assets (servers, networking and telecommunications equipment) preventing unauthorized access. • IT Audits - Logical Security: To ensure that appropriate software security controls are in place to prevent viruses and unauthorized data access. • IT Audits - Logistical and Environmental Controls: To ensure that systems, networking and telecommunications equipment are housed in facilities designed to offer proper environmental conditions (regarding temperature and dust regulation, furniture, racks and physical equipment organization) • IT Audits - Configuration Management: To ensure that systems are installed and configured according to established requirements and standards. • IT Audits - Systems Administration Procedures: To ensure that security and systems administrative procedures are properly defined and assigned to staff. • IT Audits - Hardware Inventory Management: To ensure that all hardware is properly inventoried and that warranty and maintenance records are maintained. • IT Audits - Software Licensing Compliance: To ensure that all software usage is in compliance with licensing agreements, and that appropriate licensing records are maintained. • IT Audits - Data Backup and Disaster Recovery Procedures: To ensure that data backups are being made and tested on a scheduled basis, sufficient to recover in the event of a systems failure, data loss, or other disaster. • IT Audits - Documentation: To ensure that all systems, procedures, and policies are properly documented and updated, including the appropriate retention of systems reports, error, help desk, and other related problem logs. • IT Audits - Performance and Capacity Planning: To ensure that all systems are performing according to required levels, considering uptime, systems availability, bandwidth, data storage availability, and the archival of older data files. • IT Audits - Change Management: to ensure that all major changes to systems hardware and software are properly documented, tested and verified prior to implementation, with appropriate back-out plans. Copyright MMI-MMVI, PC Support Tips .com. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}

IT Audits: Your Existing Customers

Look among your existing customers to determine who are good candidates for IT audits. You can do this based on the number of PCs they have. Generally, businesses that have more than five systems are really good possibilities for IT audits.

You will be checking around for UPSs and data line protection, real surge protectors, the right number of antivirus software licenses, good, active, valid subscription for the licenses to keep their antivirus and firewall up to date. You'll also want to determine whether everything is updated, what they’re doing with routers, firewalls, network adjust translations, and other items that keep them protected.

Your Customers May Need Some Motivation

To generate demand for IT Audits:

o Talk to your customers when they’re in the store
o Do an outbound telemarketing campaign
o Include a flyer with your invoices.
o Do a solo mailing, either a letter or a postcard or a brochure

Jump on the current events. If there are viruses, power outages, etc., in the news, piggyback on those to get your message across. Create a sense of urgency in the offer of IT audits.

Make your IT audits at least have the perception of being discounted and put some kind of deadline on it. If you say it’s regularly $350, but now through a certain date it is discounted to $199 and due to demand, is limited to only the first 25 customers.

The Bottom Line about IT Audits

The urgency and the scarcity in terms of marketing will make a world of difference.

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IT Audits: What are Your Clients Looking For?

When you conduct IT audits, you will want to see what you can solve for your clients. You will want to see what problems they have and what you can do about them. In this article, you'll learn the kinds of questions that they will want answered during IT audits Questions Lead to the Needs Analysis What are potential new clients looking for? This hasn’t changed in a long time. During IT audits, they’re going to ask you what they should buy. "What’s the best product and platform for us?" "What’s the best value?" All of these questions can be answered with a simple needs analysis with your IT audit. You go in and assess their situation, spending a couple of hours looking at what they have. What will work together? Anyone can just go down to the store and buy a shopping cart full of stuff, but to make it work together - plug and play versus plug and pray. Integration and customization are huge needs, along with project management. Being able to coordinate things is enormous. Other Services Your Clients May Want Training, both formal and informal, is something your customers may want. This includes both end user training and administrator training. Handling routine and scheduled upgrades. Coordinating with outside vendors for an industry specific package installation Network installation and maintenance Customers Want One-Stop Shopping The big picture here is that they’re looking for a single point of contact. They want to trust the technology advisor the same way they have a trusted accounting advisor or a legal advisor, or a managing consulting firm or marketing consultant. IT audits can help you both determine what your customers need your role to be. Copyright MMI-MMVI, Computer Consultants Secrets. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}

IT Audits: The Next Step

With most of your clients, once the relationship is established and IT audits are complete, you should move into a project plan mode where you set up a spreadsheet and organize it on a monthly basis.

During IT audits, you’re going to find that some things have to be done this month; some can wait until next month, and many things should be added to a wish list.

Wish Lists Defined

The wish list things are going to be those things that either have to be done because there’s a vendor or regulatory agency driving it, or there’s a product that’s becoming obsolete and won’t be supported anymore. Whatever the reason, a bunch of wish list projects will need to be done at a certain date.

Your best bet, and their best bet, is for you to keep track of the wish list items as if you were their full-time IT manager. Put the tasks down by month. That’s your future revenue stream.

How to Organize Tasks.

After IT audits, your first priority should be organizing tasks. It is as simple as setting up an Excel spreadsheet and putting a couple columns in there like Month, Task, Estimated Labor Cost, Estimated Product Cost for software peripherals, hardware, and a column if you need to bring in an outside contractor or vendor.

Let’s say they have an old Citrix server and they know that it needs to be upgraded because it hasn’t been touched in three or four years. If you don’t have a lot of expertise on metaframe, knowing that the project is coming up would give you plenty of time to go out and look for a specialty contractor in your area who does have Citrix metaframe expertise and is certified.

Keeping organized helps you to plan ahead with their ideas in mind.

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