What is it?

As a small 1 to 3 person consultancy we found that alone we did not have the marketing resource or product range to properly sell our services to our local market. By combining resources with other consultants in neighbouring regions we benefit by gainging improved presence, advertising, products and resource and enhance our and your consultancies ability to attract and serve new clients.

A professional website with content and online sales takes time and development that as individual businesses is often not achievable. My business has invested in a website that can generate business for us and our associates. (This does not prevent you from having your own website).

This is not an equivalent of BRE or other networking groups. It is a small collections of businesses, roughly in the same field of Business IT Support, pooling together to increase each others abilities

Initially £30+vat per month, we don't require a lump sum and do not tie you into the scheme. If you are truly operating as a consultancy then this cost should easily pay for itself. If you do not want to commit to a long term overhead then don't worry, to leave the scheme we only require 1 months notice so that we can update published information etc.

Currently ALT2 itself has spent, and is spending, money and effort on this site, advertising and development of the scheme. Each Associate joining will allow an increase in the amount of pay-per-click advertising budget that is one of the key benefits of the scheme.

In the longer term potentially the fees might increase (but not drastically) as additional facilities come online such as virtual telephone receptionist etc. Therefore the increases are either offset by savings to your business or by probably increases in your sales.

Web Advertising

The shared costs of "Pay-Per-Click" advertising for one central website is much less than advertising many separate websites. And "Pay-Per-Click" advertising is by far one of the most cost effective ways to advertise, and the most important form of advertising, for IT based businesses. In many relevant search engine phrases the ALT2 website is in one of the first three entries on the very first page of the search engine results.

Reducing Purchase Costs

We have a growing collection of wholesale accounts from a range of suppliers, from Internet Backups to Computer Hardware. By acting as a buying group Associates benefit from the volume discounts that would not otherwise be available to them.

Plus it saves you from having to source a supplier for a new coustomer requirement when we already have a vetted supplier for that requirement on tap.

Resources

Each consultancy will have increased the consultants available to it through the network of fellow Associates and registered sub-contractors. This gives each individual consultancy greater scalability in the solutions that it can provide.

Increased Range of Services

Use other Associates specialisms as an extension to your in-house skills set.

Plus both published on the site, and as hidden links, are already additional products and services that you can supply to help clinch clients or gain new clients.

On-line co-ordination

A central point and management of suppliers, advertising, online sales, resourcing.

Also a central common image with pre-designed business cards, advertising cards etc. This is optional, allowing you to use your own identity and artwork etc.