Business Development Strategies

Archive for the ‘Business Consulting’ Category

A big question, especially among newly established computer consulting professionals is this: “I have some smaller clients with two to five PCs. Since they’re very close and they’re willing to pay our hourly rate and understand that I can schedule them when I can, is there a problem in keeping them as clients? Until I establish myself with more larger clients, I’d hate to lose this income.”

Are Micro Clients Taking Up Too Much of Your Time?

This is more of a focus and a time management challenge than anything else. If you have a way that you can fit this all in, so much the better. Keep in mind that you need to leave time to get your direct mail campaigns out, to get your follow-up phone calls out, to go to the expos, to hold seminars, to get out and network, etc.

Don’t take the only excess time that you have in a given week and devote it to servicing just those smaller computer consulting clients who are probably not going to grow substantially bigger over the next year or two.

Be Sure To Schedule Time for Marketing

Many computer consulting professionals have told us that they are spending so much time taking care of running and operating a store that it’s very difficult to find the time to read marketing books and learn other new skills, then get out and practice them.

If you have enough time to devote to the marketing of your computer consulting business and servicing your sweet spot clients, So to the extent that you have time to do all this and you can fit it all in, that’s fine.

From a customer service perspective, you can ask your computer consulting clients three questions that will explode the growth of your company.

Question Number One:

“How Can We Improve the Level of Service That We Provide Your Company?”

Ask your computer consulting clients this question on a regular basis; at least a couple times a year. You will be amazed at the type of suggestions they give you.

They will tell you some things you’ll be able to implement without charging them another nickel or penny more because they’re simple no-brainer kind of things. For example, “Could you send us an email reminder the day before you’re coming in?” Obviously you don’t have to charge for something like that.

Some of the others may say, “It would be great if you could guarantee this kind of response time” or “It would be great if you could also take over finding someone who can help us with our PBXs.”

You’re going to get some ideas, some of which are going to make sense for you, some won’t. Some of them may require a little more legwork and some of them may be great opportunities for additional revenue.

Question Number Two:

“Is There Anything Else IT-related That Your Company Needs Help With?”

Question Number Three:

“Do You Know Anyone Else Such as Business Associates, Friends, Family Members in the Greater Area That Could Use Some Help With Their Computer-related Problems?”

Help Your Computer Consulting Clients Help You

Spend a minute or two to tell your computer consulting clients what they should look out for. If they happen to be on the phone with a vendor or supplier or family member and they’re complaining and moaning that everything’s running slowly or that the LAN’s down again or email’s not working or the server crashed.

Get your computer consulting clients trained to listen for those clues and let you know that there’s an opportunity out there. If they’re a long-term client of yours and they’re happy with you, they should be more than happy to recommend you. All you need to do is ask and train them to be looking for these clues.

Since you’re taking the time to read this article right now, it’s a good sign that you have what it takes to become a computer consultant. You’re in the small minority of people who have recognized that this is a business and needs to be run like one.

A Good Computer Consultant Has More Than Just Technical Skills

It’s not about playing with the latest routers or wi-fi device or VPNs or firewalls. Sure, you have to have a certain amount of skills to make a successful computer consultant because people are buying your expertise. At the end of the day, though, it’s a business.

In order for the business to be successful, you have to know a few things about getting revenue in and keeping your expenses down. You also need to forecast and be able to bill, negotiate, and network properly.

There are a lot of stubborn techies out there who think that studying the Windows Server Resource Kit is going to tell them what they need to know about running a business. Not true. It’s going to teach you about registry keys and directories and things like that.

Even a Computer Consultant Needs a Good Resume

If you’re currently self-employed, you may not have an up- to-date resume, but for most people looking to transition into the business to become a computer consultant you probably do have a resume. Take out a copy of your resume and a yellow highlighter marker and go through and highlight every sentence or phrase in your resume that describes a project or a job or a skill that you think would be relevant or marketable to the owner of a small company.

Categorize the Items on Your Resume

Go through it and look for all the phrases and the jobs and the projects that you’ve worked on for the past couple of years and think about what’s going to catch the eye of a typical small business owner or manager. Once you’ve done that, go back through each highlighted item and mark whether it was IT related, whether it had to do with understanding how to run a business or whether it had to do with being able to communicate effectively.

Know How To Bill and What to Charge

Without knowing how to bill and what to charge, you’re going to lose a lot of money that’s really yours. If you get your billing and pricing wrong as a computer consultant, you’ll send a bad message to people that you’re trying to quote for business.

You’ll be screaming that you’re a rank amateur rather than a skilled computer consultant. It could take you years to recover from this. A lot of times you would need to scrap existing clients and completely start over because certain clients you brought in at the wrong level.

Perform IT Audits

If you know how to do them right it’s an incredibly powerful technique. You get paid to write proposals and do needs assessment work. If you don’t know how to do this you’re going to wind up doing a lot of exploratory work for free. You can actually get paid for your initial consultation time for doing the technology assessments and the IT audits.

Build Local Partnerships

You’ll need partnerships as your computer consultant business evolves. These will get you some of your best clients along the way. If you don’t have good local partnerships, you can almost guarantee that you’ll lose clients along the way with this as well. You need to learn how to find these key players and how to negotiate with them.

Exceed Client Expectations

If you want to get paid the big bucks as a small business computer consultant, your clients will expect a lot from you. Your clients’ idea of perfection may be different from yours. You need to learn the magic words you need to know to avoid a lot of the stress and intense pressure. You want to come out smelling like a rose to exceed their expectations.

Maximize your Utilization Rate and Profitability

Making as much of your work-week billable as possible and eliminate a lot of the non billable, time-draining non revenue draining computer consultant activities. It’s all about delivering small business virtual IT services and how to build a stable business; how to get clients for life.