RE: Six ways IT consultants can build their reputation
Word of mouth: your clients have to be willing to do that, mine love me but they never spread the word. Better is to ask your client about meetings, trade type, that they may attend on a regular basis so that you can speak DIRECTLY to new clients on this referral basis. Now you've got to have good presentation skills to do that (I have a past career in sales and marketing, which helps) but this is far more effective.
Local Crisis - make your own word of mouth. A local electrical company cut through a 1,500 cable trunk line in a medical pavillion - I support one doctor there, a big practice, out of maybe 6 other smaller ones so I took this crisis as a chance for positive cold-calling with card and working the pavillion to keep new of the internet and phone outage as I discovered it to all the local professionals. This was a super way to meet people. Followup this week.
Blown Accounts: I've lost a few through bad events and things, recognize these failings and make sure never to repeat them. Do not cross-connect with tech support firms (running cable) that use cheap stuff. Also front office staff can be enormously powerful influencers. Never make them mad.
Newsletters; send them out, if you write one and send out 50 and get 2 pieces of interest, it's good. Trust me, these things work. And with Vista we have a TON OF STUFF to write about. (Write with technical ease and a bit of humor too).
Seminars: Local library, and sometimes they pay money too. Bring cards.
Networking Nights; many local organizations exist precisely for small business networking. More cards needed. Oh, www.vistaprint.com for business cards.
My 5 cents.
