Get Going with Computer Consulting!

As you are getting ready to get started in computer consulting, you need to exercise careful planning. Pick a company name, get your business cards printed, think about which types of customers you want to chase and where you will meet them. How can you accomplish all this?

Business Cards

When you are starting out in computer consulting, you need to print business cards. They probably won’t last you forever, because you may decide to change your company name, phone number or address. Just get them reprinted! But having business cards in the beginning can motivate you as you pass them out to all your friends and family members.

Talk about Your Computer Consulting Business

When you are out and about and meeting people at kids’ soccer games, church, synagogue or simply standing on line at the movies, you may have the opportunity to talk about your computer consulting business and hand out business cards. These informal networking opportunities can give you future business as these people can become a part of your extended sales force.

Get Involved!

You need to get active in local organizations designed for small business owners. Look at three or four trade groups and start attending meetings. Examples: chamber of commerce; user groups; trade groups; industry-specific trade groups.

Computer Consulting: What Do You Know?

A lot of times it makes sense to choose a specialty in computer consulting that matches your background. You can always expand your services as your business grows, but if you start with a niche you already know, you will be competent and increase your credibility. You will also be more likely to develop a strong marketing message and be memorable to prospects. You will not be like everyone else your prospects might find in the phone book or anywhere else.

Are There Enough Prospects?

You need to make sure there are enough prospects in your computer consulting niche before you start to market to it. As an example, if you have a nursing background, you may focus early activities on small doctor’s offices. Just make sure there are 500-1,000 prospects within an hour of where you are located. This will help you target your message and get attention.

Think about branding your company with your industry focus by putting it in your computer consulting name, i.e., add “health care systems,” “medical office systems” or some other hybrid as part of your company name.

Blogged By: Joshua Feinberg

Computer Consulting: Identify Prospects

You need to look for signals when you are first talking to sweet spot computer consulting leads. These businesses will be doing a seven-figure annual sales volume with 10-25 employees. But how do you pick the best clients from this group?

Computer Consulting and Good and Bad Signs

Some industries are more focused on IT than others, and you have to figure out the industries that will most likely need your computer consulting services. What are the good signs and the bad signs?

A good sign is if you go to meet with a prospective computer consulting client and find out the person is working with another solution provider in your area already. This means the person is dissatisfied with current services and looking for someone new and also willing and able to pay for services.

A bad sign is if the prospect is working with a moonlighting computer consulting or a “free” friend or family member. This means the business is not ready or willing OR able to pay for professional services and any quote you give will seem high and unreasonable.

Sweet Spot Clients Hang out Together

Sweet spot computer consulting clients willing to spend $1,000 - $2,000 per month on services will have relationships with other business advisors within your community: accountants; attorneys; management consultants. Sometimes they will be working already with niched technology providers. This will help you with referrals to their contacts.

Learn to spot the qualities of a sweet spot computer consulting client to save yourself time and more quickly turn prospects into clients.

Added By: Computer Consulting Kit

Basic Computer Consulting Tips

If you want your computer consulting business to succeed, you need to offer a sophisticated and total business solution. You have to have a good support contract agreement in place and an IT audit checklist. You also will need partnering agreements and the ability to take your prospects through the sales process until they become long-term clients.

Support Contracts

If you don’t suggest computer consulting support contract agreements to customers, they are not going to ask for them. You need to set a precedent for how you work with other clients; you build mutually beneficial relationships and become your clients’ outsourced computer department.

Get to Paid Services

You need to take prospects from “free” to “fee.” You shouldn’t spend hours on a proposal, because a computer consulting proposal has no value and makes you a commodity. You want prospects, customers and clients to make an investment in your firm.

Take it Step by Step

You should pick one goal per week for the next several weeks and just start working. Maybe you want to come up with a few marketing ideas or a support contract structure that you can start marketing to your clients.

Regardless of what you choose as a focus for the week, you need to start planning and building a network. Get everything ready so you are ready to go when you need to be. Your goal shouldn’t be to reach everyone; you need to define your targets and figure out how to reach a specific group.

You Are an Outsourced IT Department

You need to think about five or six different functions that small businesses need and build your computer consulting business around these functions. When you think of growing your business in these terms, you start to build the foundation for an outsourced IT department. You give your client a single point of contact for all their computer consulting needs.

Blogged By: Joshua Feinberg

Computer Consulting and a Balanced Portfolio

You should be able to target 70% of your business in the small business computer consulting market cornered with a balanced portfolio. Keep a very small amount of your business with home networks and consumers and then have 5 or 15% of your business geared towards larger businesses. While this plan does work for many computer consulting businesses, success really depends on where you want to focus.

Diversify

You shouldn’t have a single client that accounts for more than 10% of your computer consulting revenue. If you do have a client like this and you lose him/her, you will find yourself taking a huge revenue hit.

Just Get Rid of Bad Clients

Even if it makes you nervous, firing your bad clients can be really smart for your computer consulting business. Some clients will not be worth all the money in the world and will drive your computer consulting staff insane. You’ll see people taking sick days and trying to get out of going to see these problem clients. If you’ve diversified properly, getting rid of these terrible clients should be a lot easier.

What Are Some Reasons to Fire Clients?

Besides bad behavior clients, you may have some computer consulting clients that are not meeting their contract commitments. When this happens, you should be able to cut them loose without losing a lot of revenue.

A lot of management consultants say you should fire your bottom 20% of your customer list each year. While you don’t need to follow this exact rule, you will have to think about getting rid of the clients that put crazy demands and unnecessary strain on your business.

Your Ideal Clients Are Critical

You can’t stand for computer consulting customers that abuse you, harass you and stress you out. Other clients will be great to you and make the process of providing tech services a dream. When you diversify your client base, you will know how to replicate the good clients and fire the bad ones.

Added By: Joshua Feinberg

Profit Secrets for Computer Consulting

If you own a computer consulting company, you may be having trouble growing your profits. The following 7 profit secrets can help ensure you balance your computer consulting clients’ IT needs against the needs of your own firm.

The Biggest Computer Consulting Problem

A lot of computer consulting business owners get obsessed with technology and gadgets instead of paying attention to business aspects that you need to have in place in order to succeed.

The First Profit Secret

You need to appear motivated to your computer consulting clients. Become a virtual CIO for hire and be on the lookout for new ways to improve your clients’ business’ instead of just fixing their broken technology equipment.

The Second Profit Secret

You have to be dedicated to your job and improve the status quo. Getting great computer consulting clients is a lot of work, especially if you want them to be around for the long haul. You need a long-term vision and a lot of planning. You also need to be prepared for staying around.

The Third Profit Secret

Get creative with your clients. Often technology solutions have to be within modest budgets and your computer consulting solutions have to work without the help of an in-house IT staff.

The Fourth Profit Secret

Evaluate clients’ systems – both those on paper and those based on computers. As a virtual CIO, look at how systems are working to satisfy needs. This work can be completed during IT audits.

The Fifth Profit Secret

Think like your client and about what their clients will need from them when implementing solutions. You have to have empathy for your clients’ business problems, which means you really have to know them and learn about their CUSTOMERS’ problems too.

The Sixth Profit Secret

You should keep up with new versions of products. Your computer consulting clients are going to depend on your expertise to tell them which tools they need to grow their businesses. Don’t let this research take up your entire schedule, but stay a few steps ahead.

The Seventh Profit Secret

Make sure to summarize and share information you find with clients. Will the new platform or tool add real value to existing or future systems? Summarize this in layperson’s language that non-technical clients can understand.

Blogged By: Computer Consulting Kit

Virtual IT in the Computer Consulting World

If you run a computer consulting company and want to be successful with your business, you need to get IT (Information Technology) right.

WHY DO COMPUTER CONSULTING COMPANIES GET VIRTUAL IT WRONG?

A lot of IT professionals make the mistake of getting wrapped up in technology and neglecting the business side of their work. This practice will relegate your computer consulting company to the bottom of the list for most prospects. You need to make recruiting and keeping clients your first priority and not the latest gadgets. Your job is to recommend sophisticated IT solutions and truly be a “virtual IT” department for your clients.

MIX COMPUTER CONSULTING AND VIRTUAL IT

What is “virtual IT”?

Virtual IT lets your computer consulting company act as an extension of clients’ companies. You become the outsourced IT department for your clients’ small businesses.

When you own a computer consulting company that serves this purpose, you will become everything IT-related for your clients. Like any multi-faceted internal IT department, your virtual IT computer consulting business will have to be able to offer complete solutions that includes help desk, desktop support, network administration, engineering, security, training, procurement and asset management.

THE BOTTOM LINE ABOUT VIRTUAL IT

Many computer consulting companies don’t fully understand the concept of virtual IT and how it relates to their business. They become obsessed with technology instead of really embracing business opportunities. You have to build virtual IT into every business decision you make for your company or you will never make it long term.

Added By: Computer Consulting Kit