Why are cover letters so important? They provide the prospective employer with a brief review of your skills and abilities in the form of a letter. Letters are written much differently than resumes and can have a lasting impact on the reader. The best news is that writing one it isn't that hard. If you are wondering whether you need a cover letter or not, the answer is "yes". Employers are expecting a cover letter, but more important than that, you have an extra page to sell yourself if you write one. Even if you are an excellent IT Professional, you still need to convince the employer that you are worthy of a job. One thing that is in your favor, certainly, is that IT Professionals will always be in demand. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Job opportunities will be best for applicants with computer-related work experience; a master's degree in business administration (MBA) with technology as a core component, or a management information systems degree; and strong communication and administrative skills."

If you're the typical person who's considering becoming a computer consultant, then you are probably a LAN administrator, doing some kind of PC support job for big enterprise or maybe even working for a smaller integrator. In this article, you'll learn what you need to do first to realize your goal of becoming a computer consultant. From talking to hundreds of people in this situation right now, the number one thing is that you have to decide that you really want to and really need to do it. Don't put tons and tons of time getting all this IT training and business training and spending all this money until you've decided that you really want to do it.

Business Development 101. We see lots of companies out there that decide to go through third party channels in order to take their products to market, yet neglect to put the necessary resources and structure around building, deploying, managing, and executing this third party channel strategy. Those companies assume that by outsourcing the sales of their products of those third party channels, they don't need to invest in providing the support or infrastructure or services or training to those channel partners in order to make them a success. Well, companies that have been in the business of successfully growing their companies through third party channels know better. The best practices today for channel development and business development and channel management really call for a very proactive, targeted, systematic approach to managing those resellers and the companies that are out acting as channel partners for your product. Back in the dot bomb days, there were lots of companies that were looking for strategic partnerships and signing them up in droves, yet not getting any traction from any of those relationships, and spending a lot of time and resources trying to create them, only to find out that they didn't actually bring them any business. In today's day and age, channel development and business development is all about execution. And so, if your company is trying to grow, and trying to use those third party channels to do so, it has to take a more realistic approach about what it's going to take in order to get those channel partners to sell your product through to your end user customers.

Imagine your perfect customers -- the ones that will eagerly buy your products or hire you for premium pay. Imagine being able to bring those perfect customers to you and having them buy your products or services not once, but again and again. That's what an effectively executed marketing plan does. It reaches the people who want what you are offering, convinces them to take action, and keeps them coming back. Sounds nice, right? So why doesn't every business have a marketing plan? Let's take a look at some of the reasons you may not:

You are now a business owner, congratulations! You have everything you need right down to the business plan but one thing is missing. Customers. As you sit in the darkness of your living room at night, you wonder how you can afford to advertise and where. The next morning you drag out the Yellow Pages looking for a company that specializes in marketing or advertising, make the call and to your dismay the person that you speak to informs you of the prices for their services. They tell you that it will cost from several hundred dollars to as much as 15% of your total business. You have a little bit of money left from the loan that you obtained to get the business up and running, so you agree and set an appointment to meet later in the week.