This article describes what I attempt to do before each sales appointment that gets booked for me with a customer. I don’t end up using all of this info, but it helps me to go in well informed, and ready to speak eloquently about their setup, as well as getting an idea of what to bill them.
Info I get:
Name of company
Name of contact
Email address of who I send bid to
What Rep brought the lead?
Website name
MX record of website (who hosts their email? Is it MS365, Google Workspace, Intermedia etc)
DNS Export of all current DNS records of their site. I get both of the last two from here:
Going in knowing if they already have MS365/Google/Something else helps know what sort of workload they have impending, as well as what sorts of issues I can bring up that they likely have.
Next, I look at who’s hosting the website (usually gleaned from the DNS records as well, but if not clear, use:
Either beforehand or while on site, things I need:
Total number of supported staff (Staff who use technology) (Rough price of 100$ per person per month)
Are there any servers? (Specifically computer that if it’s off no one can work, not just if there’s one with a windows server OS) (if any servers, price goes up by 200-400 per month per active local physical server)
Reasonable support window they’d like to see happen? (2-4 hours response time is our normal, if that wouldn’t work for them, can we bill so much to make it able to be done?)
PIA tax? (If they’re a pain, price goes up)
Ready to replace network gear with unifi? (if willing to spend on the gear, price goes down)
If on MS365, is it GoDaddy federated? (no problem, just increase price)
at the apt, did they make the time for us, or forget and need to rush through it/didn’t have their full attention? (GIANT RED FLAG)
Willing to run Cybersecurity and/or cove? (If yes, price goes down)
How complex is the network and infrastructure? Flat LAN?
Any older computers? Anything 8 gigs of ram or less increases price, if all current windows and 16+ gigs of ram, price goes down.
Once I have all this info, make a bid. Copy/paste the info from the booking to the contact info of the bid. Decide on a price. Email the customer and the sales rep. Let sales reps follow up. Put a copy of the bid in the customer/archive folder.
If they then like it, offer to send them a box-sign for them to sign on.
Once signed:
Email Deals@Ultrex.com, IT@Ultrex.com and Salesman the signed bid. Always mention billing hasn’t started yet for those that haven’t.
Once signed on, email the next letter in the onboarding docs folder- the post-contract signed letter- which asks them to book a time for us to do the onboarding meeting.