How To Sell IT In Tough Times

Learning to sell in a tough economy is only one side of the story. Another way to thrive when IT spending is in flux is to focus on becoming more efficient within your own organization.

That's what Mike Novotny, president and CEO of InterTech Computer Products Inc., has done. While the Phoenix-based solution provider's sales force and technicians of course look to bring new solutions to new customers, the company has made more money this year by looking for improvements within.

"We have much better utilization from the resources we have," Novotny said.

InterTech started enticing its technical staff to hit new utilization goals through managed services. If they hit them, they get compensated for that.

For example, if InterTech plans 200 billable hours to complete a project, and the technician completes the project in 180 hours, he gets credit for 200 billable hours and can use the other 20 hours to earn more money.

"I have people billing in excess of 120 percent billing utilization," he said.

The strategy has had a dramatic effect on profitability. Novotny expects revenue to be up 12 percent to 15 percent this year, but net income should increase about 30 percent, he said.

"And for every 1 percent growth in our services dollar revenue, we can put 3 percent growth net income to the bottom line. It's part of our evolving business model," he said.

InterTech also builds that model into its managed services contracts. The solution provider includes prescheduled on-site visits for customers. Technicians are so busy now, the company has stopped responding to many inbound service calls from nonmanaged service customers.

"We won't interrupt our service delivery resources to take care of something like a one-time touch," Novotny said. "Before, if someone called to say their server was down, we'd jump through hoops to take care of it. Now we scrutinize our reactive service utilization much more carefully."

--Scott Campbell