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For so many IT solutions, TCO is the easiest selling point: it isn’t hard to show a company how it can save some money. When you focus on the cost argument too much, though, you miss a golden opportunity to sell based on ROI, too. Every TCO play has an ROI component, and getting there requires no mental gymnastics.

It’s all about moving resources around … prudently.

Let’s assume your solution can cut TCO for a particular platform by 50 percent in dollars and two full-time employee equivalents. That’s a savings — great! Now, your client needs to know what to do with the “leftover” resources. Raise the issue of redeploying both the cash and the bodies to initiatives that will advance the company in the marketplace. The cost savings becomes fuel for a growth engine.

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Right now, the buzz around cloud computing is endless. But, it’s just the latest trend. In the past, it’s been B2B marketplaces, best-of-breed solutions for targeted business challenges and even the internet as a whole. The hidden cost of innovation is that IT solution provider’s need to explain the value and viability of these emerging technologies to skeptical decision-makers who are heavily invested in the status quo. Eventually, you know, today’s innovation will become tomorrow’s legacy platform, but that doesn’t make getting over the hump any easier.

So, how do you approach a CIO or IT director with something new, like private cloud computing solution?

Well, cautiously.

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The only thing better than getting a great deal is paying nothing at all! Of course, giving solutions away makes it difficult to stay in business, so this is where IT solution providers need to get creative. If you can find a way to deliver a solution at no incremental cost to your client, you’re delivering a profound value, increasing revenue and saving your client money relative to its current budget. With backup and restore solutions, you have a shot at accomplishing this.

The balancing act comes down to cost versus return, as it does with any IT investment. The nature of backup and restore solutions is such that you can find waste easily and deliver a solution that cuts excess spending while providing value.

Here are four ways to make a backup and restore solution pay for itself:

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Disaster recovery and business continuity solutions should be easy to sell. Everybody needs them, and some businesses are required by regulatory bodies to meet specific and demanding standards. They also represent a place where IT solution providers and manufacturers can distinguish themselves because DR/BC is not only a cost, but one that will show a benefit only rarely. So, a company that can shorten backup and recovery times, consume less storage space and lessen demand on datacenter staff is likely to find a willing audience.

But, there are factors that can frustrate the DR/BC sales effort. There’s plenty of competition, making it harder for our voice to be heard and causing sales fatigue to set in among CIOs and other IT decision-makers. Further, the technologies that can have the greatest impact can disrupt IT — and end-user — operations, a situation that many IT departments seek to minimize. So, what’s intuitively an easy sell can become rather complex.

Here are five ways to tip the odds in your favor:

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In the average IT VAR’s arsenal of marketing tools, events are a perennial favorite. They give you a chance to meet clients and prospects face-to-face, develop relationships and gather the information you need to advance toward a sale. Unfortunately, you’re not the only reseller who knows this. So, calendars fill up quickly, and IT buyers need to make choices. Your goal is to make them see the value in your event above the others and drive swift, decisive action.

To win a spot on an IT buyer’s calendar, your invitation needs to stand out. Tight, high-impact copy and a compelling design are crucial – but these aren’t always enough to differentiate your event. Below, you’ll find three ways to make your event invitation more actionable.

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If you think all it takes to keep a client happy is a straightforward implementation that tracks directly back to your proposal, you could be in for a surprise. The latest Enterprise IT Services Survey from Forrester Research shows that clients in North America and Europe are looking for more of … well … everything. In addition to not realizing all the advantages they’d hoped for, many would like to see more innovation from their IT services vendors.

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Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the nation’s workforce became a lot more productive in the third quarter. People have learned to the live the cliché “do more with less,” as productivity surged 8.1 percent. Yet, unemployment remains at 10 percent, and companies are looking for more ways to bolster results without having to hire.

The economic situation remains tricky. There are signs of a recovery, but businesses are remaining cautious, especially when it comes to assuming the ongoing expenses associated with new employees.

The notion of using technology to increase employee productivity isn’t new. Over the past several decades, we’ve seen the impact of prudently purchased and deployed systems on the efficiency of a workforce and a company’s ability to manage its costs. Today, the situation is more of a priority than ever.

There are three factors converging to make businesses refocus on IT investing: unemployment, productivity per employee and increased competition. When you put all three together, you can see how IT spending is increasing – and should continue to do so – even when executives are approaching economic conditions cautiously.

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Since everything Google does can be used to enhance the delivery of ads against search results (and in other ad venues), it doesn’t need to charge much – or anything, in some cases – for the technology it offers. Unsurprisingly, businesses become pretty interested in low-cost and no-cost solutions. Though the trend is still in its infancy, many IT buyers are opening themselves to the idea of using Google-supplied software-as-a-service solutions in place of their existing systems.

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IT buyers are under pressure to show that their investments are performing. So, if they can keep TCO down and spread their budgets across more projects (with ROI potential), the result is an expanded ROI impact, with low investments yielding substantial returns. This means spending less – and compromising – can pay off in the long term … or at least it would appear that way. Google is making it easier for them to do this — or it’s at least creating the appearance of easier TCO and ROI.

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Being able to touch something isn’t as important as it used to be, and the ability to maintain control has declined in importance. Instead, IT departments are watching total cost of ownership and return on investment. Obviously, lower cost solutions favor these metrics. Cloud computing, software-as-a-service and other hosted and managed solutions are entering the IT cultural lexicon … and the attendant budgets and data centers. Google makes it easy to adopt, implement and afford its “nebulous” solutions. And, as long as they work as planned (which is most of the time), it’s easy for an IT department to be happy. When something goes wrong, though, remember that the Google organization and operation is not designed for support.

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