Tampilkan postingan dengan label Computer Consulting. Tampilkan semua postingan
Tampilkan postingan dengan label Computer Consulting. Tampilkan semua postingan
Senin, 12 September 2011
IT Specialist: Why Narrow It Down?
If you're trying to grow your business, why would you turn away potential clients? In this article, you'll learn that as an IT specialist, your marketing efforts are less about turning away other clients and instead about finding if you have enough prospects to market to.
If you know that your best clients are small accounting offices, do a quick search to find out how many small accounting offices there are in one hour radius of where you're located. If you don't know where to easily get your hands on that data, either contact one of that industry's leading trade groups, or talk with a mailing list broker.
IT Specialists Can Market to a Niche
Marketing to a niche is so much easier, too. You will know exactly which trade publications to advertise in. Don't spend a lot of your time and money putting generic ads into the newspaper, radio or the phone book. You are an IT specialist, so concentrate your marketing efforts directly into your niche.
Once you develop expertise, as an IT specialist, all of a sudden you're worth even more to those potential clients. Your marketing message will resonate with the person that's picking up the phone, that's looking at your long copy sales letter, that's looking at your postcard, or that you want to get to attend one of your seminars.
Don't Try To Speak to the Masses
Don't try to come up with a message that resonates with everyone. If you do, you're going to end up competing on price. You're going to end up being a commodity just as if prospects opened up the phone directory and they called 30 companies looking for the dirt-cheap, lowest price.
Put Your Name Where Your Clients Will See It
If there's a newsletter or a magazine that these prospects all read from the local association, think about putting a targeted ad in there, or writing an article, or becoming active in that organization by volunteering or speaking at that group's events. In each of these instances, be sure to at least mention how your company provides great IT solutions for that particular niche or industry.
The Bottom Line on Being an IT Specialist
There are many different ways to penetrate the circle, but the key thing is to identify something that you enjoy doing and that's lucrative enough that it's worth trying to get more clients just like that. This simple targeted marketing strategy works for IT specialists across most different industries. Finding a niche is really important. Otherwise, you're going to look just like everyone else.
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Copyright MMI-MMVI, Computer Consulting 101. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}
Minggu, 11 September 2011
IT Specialist: Replicating Your Client Successes
Often, the best way to be unique as an IT specialist is to narrow down your industry focus. Though it may sound like a daunting task, this article will show you how it can be quite simple.
"Model" Your Best Clients
Find more clients that are just like your current best clients. To do this, take your active client list and put it into a Microsoft Excel worksheet so it is in columns. In the first column, enter the client name. In the next column, have their revenue for the last 12 months. Then, divide by 12 to determine the monthly income and figure out who your most valuable customers are.
This exercise is important because you can evaluate:
o Customer service… who should get THE best services?
o Retention… who's REALLY worth holding onto?
o Profitability… who's REALLY paying the bills?
Categorize Your Clients
Now, look among your best, most active clients and customers. Figure out who falls into that (a) micro category where they have fewer than 10 systems, (b) who falls into that sweet spot of anywhere from 10 to 50 PCs, and (c) then who's very large to the point that you may not be able to service them adequately without adding a lot of high-level technical staff.
From this exercise, you can find more clients that are just like those where you have the strongest expertise. Look at your list and see what makes your biggest and your best clients similar. Now you can become an IT specialist in that field. For example, are they accountants? Are they doctors? Maybe they're office managers; maybe they're controllers, lawyers, small manufacturers, or restaurants. Identify who they are and what they look like because you'll want to find more of them.
Narrow Your Industry Focus
Narrowing down your industry focus will immediately make you stand out as an industry expert. It doesn't really matter what the industry is. For example, if it's dental offices, that's fine. You can be an IT specialist focusing exclusively on dental offices or you could even expand it to other medical offices.
Evaluate Your Own Professional Background
Your own industry expertise could also be a really good springboard. That way, when you present your case to prospects, you will have the benefit of knowing about their field of business. That will be a huge reassurance for prospects. These small businesses are much more likely to pick your firm over someone who is direct mailing a generalized piece with no industry specialization.
The Bottom Line on Being an IT Specialist
Narrow down what industry your current clients fall into and where your own professional background comes from to form your niche as an IT specialist. It will make your marketing and sales efforts easier.
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Senin, 01 November 2010
LAN Service Contracts - Grab The Opportunity
If you've done a lot of research on computer consulting, you probably have information overload. In this article, you'll learn what steps to take when first starting your business of computer consulting.
Pick a Date
First, pick a definite date for launching your new computer consulting business and write it down: Launch date is ____/____/____. Why is that important? It gives you something to work towards, a concrete goal at which point you say you know you are starting your computer consulting business. Put the date on your calendar, whether it is six months from today or six weeks from today.
Narrow down your to-do lists and organize your tasks in top 10 priority. Write down everything that's floating around in your head and then go through that list and pick the 10 most important things.
Possible Top Ten Priorities
Your list might include:
· meeting with an accountant
· getting a business resale license
· opening up a distributor account
· picking a company name
· coming up with a business card
· looking through insurance options
· getting a Web site domain
· getting a business voice mail box
There are probably 30, 40, or even 50 things that are on your list. Narrow that down to the ten that you think are the most important to do before launching.
Order Your List
Once you get those 10, highlight them on paper and try to see if you can rank them in order of some kind of chronological order that makes sense to do. Just work on one or two a week. If you're a more analytical type and you think you work better on the screen, do this exercise in Microsoft Excel or do it in Microsoft Word. And then narrow your huge list down to your top 10 business priority tasks.
Develop a Timeline to Start Computer Consulting
Let's say you're launching your computer consulting business five weeks from now and you've got 10 things to do. Pick two things to do each week. It seems a lot more manageable when you put it in terms of that kind of time frame.
Copyright Notice:
Copyright MMI-MMVI, Small Biz Tech Talk. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}
Pick a Date
First, pick a definite date for launching your new computer consulting business and write it down: Launch date is ____/____/____. Why is that important? It gives you something to work towards, a concrete goal at which point you say you know you are starting your computer consulting business. Put the date on your calendar, whether it is six months from today or six weeks from today.
Narrow down your to-do lists and organize your tasks in top 10 priority. Write down everything that's floating around in your head and then go through that list and pick the 10 most important things.
Possible Top Ten Priorities
Your list might include:
· meeting with an accountant
· getting a business resale license
· opening up a distributor account
· picking a company name
· coming up with a business card
· looking through insurance options
· getting a Web site domain
· getting a business voice mail box
There are probably 30, 40, or even 50 things that are on your list. Narrow that down to the ten that you think are the most important to do before launching.
Order Your List
Once you get those 10, highlight them on paper and try to see if you can rank them in order of some kind of chronological order that makes sense to do. Just work on one or two a week. If you're a more analytical type and you think you work better on the screen, do this exercise in Microsoft Excel or do it in Microsoft Word. And then narrow your huge list down to your top 10 business priority tasks.
Develop a Timeline to Start Computer Consulting
Let's say you're launching your computer consulting business five weeks from now and you've got 10 things to do. Pick two things to do each week. It seems a lot more manageable when you put it in terms of that kind of time frame.
Copyright Notice:
Copyright MMI-MMVI, Small Biz Tech Talk. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}
Selasa, 26 Oktober 2010
IT Consulting in Micro Small Businesses
Small business is a hot market for IT consulting. There are different sizes of small businesses and they all have different IT consulting needs. In this article you'll learn some items you should be familiar with in order to provide IT consulting to these businesses.
Micro Small Businesses Defined
Micro small businesses are companies that have anywhere from 1-10 computers; windows based in most cases. Usually these companies employ 1-10 people. Revenue (in U.S. dollars) will typically be anywhere from $100,000 up to about a million or so.
The big differentiator in micro small businesses from others, as far as IT consulting is concerned, is that they have no dedicated server yet. They may be running a peer to peer system and that’s the major reason they are bringing you in there.
Don't have a “crisis of confidence”. Many people, when first entering IT consulting are not sure if their skills are strong enough. But most people will find that they are at least capable of working with at least micro small businesses as a starting point.
Micro Small Business: What Hardware You Need for IT Consulting
You need to know about basic desktop PC support, notebooks, PDAs like palm based PDAs and windows cd based PDAs, printers, how to set up servers and dial up modems, DSL, cable modems a little bit about how to set up surge protection, data line protection, and entry level battery back up units.
Software Requirements for Micro Business IT Consulting
You need to be reasonably familiar with the most popular desktop and notebook operating systems out there. But mainly just the basic Microsoft Windows flavors on the desktop and the desktop’s of notebooks and a little bit on PDAs.
Micro businesses are also looking for a lot of very heavy desktop office automation applications support, basic PC support, basic notebook support, the whole Microsoft Office family, Intuits Quickbooks the accounting software is very popular, the Best Software’s ACT software for management is also really popular.
Copyright MMI-MMVI, PC Support Tips .com. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}
Micro Small Businesses Defined
Micro small businesses are companies that have anywhere from 1-10 computers; windows based in most cases. Usually these companies employ 1-10 people. Revenue (in U.S. dollars) will typically be anywhere from $100,000 up to about a million or so.
The big differentiator in micro small businesses from others, as far as IT consulting is concerned, is that they have no dedicated server yet. They may be running a peer to peer system and that’s the major reason they are bringing you in there.
Don't have a “crisis of confidence”. Many people, when first entering IT consulting are not sure if their skills are strong enough. But most people will find that they are at least capable of working with at least micro small businesses as a starting point.
Micro Small Business: What Hardware You Need for IT Consulting
You need to know about basic desktop PC support, notebooks, PDAs like palm based PDAs and windows cd based PDAs, printers, how to set up servers and dial up modems, DSL, cable modems a little bit about how to set up surge protection, data line protection, and entry level battery back up units.
Software Requirements for Micro Business IT Consulting
You need to be reasonably familiar with the most popular desktop and notebook operating systems out there. But mainly just the basic Microsoft Windows flavors on the desktop and the desktop’s of notebooks and a little bit on PDAs.
Micro businesses are also looking for a lot of very heavy desktop office automation applications support, basic PC support, basic notebook support, the whole Microsoft Office family, Intuits Quickbooks the accounting software is very popular, the Best Software’s ACT software for management is also really popular.
Copyright MMI-MMVI, PC Support Tips .com. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}
Sabtu, 25 September 2010
Computer Skills: Which Ones Your Staff Needs
Don't worry too much if you lack advanced technical computer skills. A lot of that can be remedied by just putting in a little bit of time each week in doing some self-study. In this article, you'll learn which computer skills are necessary to serve your sweet spot small business clients.
If It Works, Break It
You can do something as simple as getting a not-for-resale (NFR) copy of a product that you want to sell, install, and support and then working with the product in your lab. When you or one of your lead technicians or engineers has a spare half-hour to an hour, you can walk through the basic installations. Then, deliberately break the lab installations. Next, reinstall the software until you get more comfortable with the package.
Most of these products that you'll be installing for small businesses are very mature technologies. They're very wizard-driven, and at least for plain-vanilla configurations, they don't require tremendous levels of computer skills.
Installations Are Easier Now
Years ago, it was much more difficult to install the Novell small business suite or IBM equivalent, or the original 1997 Microsoft Small Business Server. But all of these companies, especially Microsoft, put a lot of money into making it easier for people who don't have advanced IT backgrounds and networking computer skills to install their small business server application suites.
In terms of your technical computer skills to service sweet spot clients, your staff needs to:
1. have good strong PC hardware skills
2. be able to handle a peer-to-peer setup
3. understand what TCP/IP is all about
4. know what POP3 and SMTP are
5. know how to work with basic SOHO routers
If your staff possesses the above skills, you're definitely at a good starting point to get started with at least the smaller sweet spot small businesses (10-20 PCs).
Share the knowledge among your employees
Make sure your staff members cross-train each other and you. This way, no one's ever “too knowledgeable” to the point where they can blackmail you, extract huge raises or huge bonuses, or walk away with your client base. You have to make sure your company's internal know-how or intellectual capital can't just get up and walk out the door to your biggest competitor.
The Bottom Line about Computer Skills
In this article you've learned about which technical computer skills are necessary to service your sweet spot clients.
Copyright Notice:
Copyright MMI-MMVI, Computer Consulting 101. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}
If It Works, Break It
You can do something as simple as getting a not-for-resale (NFR) copy of a product that you want to sell, install, and support and then working with the product in your lab. When you or one of your lead technicians or engineers has a spare half-hour to an hour, you can walk through the basic installations. Then, deliberately break the lab installations. Next, reinstall the software until you get more comfortable with the package.
Most of these products that you'll be installing for small businesses are very mature technologies. They're very wizard-driven, and at least for plain-vanilla configurations, they don't require tremendous levels of computer skills.
Installations Are Easier Now
Years ago, it was much more difficult to install the Novell small business suite or IBM equivalent, or the original 1997 Microsoft Small Business Server. But all of these companies, especially Microsoft, put a lot of money into making it easier for people who don't have advanced IT backgrounds and networking computer skills to install their small business server application suites.
In terms of your technical computer skills to service sweet spot clients, your staff needs to:
1. have good strong PC hardware skills
2. be able to handle a peer-to-peer setup
3. understand what TCP/IP is all about
4. know what POP3 and SMTP are
5. know how to work with basic SOHO routers
If your staff possesses the above skills, you're definitely at a good starting point to get started with at least the smaller sweet spot small businesses (10-20 PCs).
Share the knowledge among your employees
Make sure your staff members cross-train each other and you. This way, no one's ever “too knowledgeable” to the point where they can blackmail you, extract huge raises or huge bonuses, or walk away with your client base. You have to make sure your company's internal know-how or intellectual capital can't just get up and walk out the door to your biggest competitor.
The Bottom Line about Computer Skills
In this article you've learned about which technical computer skills are necessary to service your sweet spot clients.
Copyright Notice:
Copyright MMI-MMVI, Computer Consulting 101. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}
Jumat, 10 September 2010
Consulting Firms: Should You Be a Product Reseller?
In this article, we'll explore the two schools of thought on whether computer consulting firms should resell products.
Pure Computer Consulting Firms Defined
Some consulting firms want to be pure consulting firms. They believe that they are never going to make a penny off product margin and that there are potential conflicts when reselling products. So these kinds of consulting firms don't choose to resell hardware, software, or peripherals. As consultants, these companies will help clients decide exactly what to buy, what the specs should be, and show them where they can buy the recommended products.
Purchasing Agents Are Almost Pure
A variation on this scenario includes becoming the purchasing agent for clients. In this case, your firm does the purchasing for clients and your firm bills clients for a couple of hours for that function. Your firm gets and reviews quotes, places orders, tracks orders, and carries the purchase through to completion. Both of these (the referral role and purchase agent role) are more of a pure consulting model.
Hybrid Consulting Firms Are another Option
With a hybrid-consulting model, your consulting business resells some products. A lot of computer resellers do what's known as white box PC reselling; selling what's known as PC clones. A computer reseller offering white box systems is typically selling non-branded desktops, non-branded servers and in some very limited cases, non-branded notebooks (called white books).
To Resell or Not to Resell in Consulting Firms?
The strategic decision of whether to resell or not depends on where you want to be spending the bulk of your time. Do you want your firm to try to pick up some incremental profit off of product sales? Or do you want most of your consulting firm's income to come from pure consulting dollars? Regardless, if you really want to be in a strong sales position for your consulting business, you really should not be leading off with a product sale.
Are Products Sales a Good “Foot in the Door?”
Now many new computer consulting business owners wonder: Should you sell inexpensive PCs, cheap software and cheap peripherals to get a foot in the door to sell the consulting services? The answer in most cases is no.
Why not? Because then, all of a sudden you've shown customers that you want to be their commodity broker. Will customers hire their commodity broker for consulting? Not likely. They've got your firm pegged as the cheap, low-cost source.
If you want to resell products, resell products to people that you have consulting relationships with. And make sure your consulting firm makes an ample profit margin for the time, capital, space, staff and overhead that you must devote to reselling products.
Copyright Notice:
Copyright MMI-MMVI, Computer Consultants Secrets. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}
Pure Computer Consulting Firms Defined
Some consulting firms want to be pure consulting firms. They believe that they are never going to make a penny off product margin and that there are potential conflicts when reselling products. So these kinds of consulting firms don't choose to resell hardware, software, or peripherals. As consultants, these companies will help clients decide exactly what to buy, what the specs should be, and show them where they can buy the recommended products.
Purchasing Agents Are Almost Pure
A variation on this scenario includes becoming the purchasing agent for clients. In this case, your firm does the purchasing for clients and your firm bills clients for a couple of hours for that function. Your firm gets and reviews quotes, places orders, tracks orders, and carries the purchase through to completion. Both of these (the referral role and purchase agent role) are more of a pure consulting model.
Hybrid Consulting Firms Are another Option
With a hybrid-consulting model, your consulting business resells some products. A lot of computer resellers do what's known as white box PC reselling; selling what's known as PC clones. A computer reseller offering white box systems is typically selling non-branded desktops, non-branded servers and in some very limited cases, non-branded notebooks (called white books).
To Resell or Not to Resell in Consulting Firms?
The strategic decision of whether to resell or not depends on where you want to be spending the bulk of your time. Do you want your firm to try to pick up some incremental profit off of product sales? Or do you want most of your consulting firm's income to come from pure consulting dollars? Regardless, if you really want to be in a strong sales position for your consulting business, you really should not be leading off with a product sale.
Are Products Sales a Good “Foot in the Door?”
Now many new computer consulting business owners wonder: Should you sell inexpensive PCs, cheap software and cheap peripherals to get a foot in the door to sell the consulting services? The answer in most cases is no.
Why not? Because then, all of a sudden you've shown customers that you want to be their commodity broker. Will customers hire their commodity broker for consulting? Not likely. They've got your firm pegged as the cheap, low-cost source.
If you want to resell products, resell products to people that you have consulting relationships with. And make sure your consulting firm makes an ample profit margin for the time, capital, space, staff and overhead that you must devote to reselling products.
Copyright Notice:
Copyright MMI-MMVI, Computer Consultants Secrets. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}
Rabu, 01 September 2010
Computer Consulting Time Constraints
Where can you find time to do it all? How can you devote time to finding long-term B2B computer consulting clients when you're already working 60, 70, 80 hours a week? There's no easy answer. In this article, you'll learn some possible options for finding long term clients in computer consulting.
Do a Time Study
Really looking at where you spend most of your time and figure out if there are some things that you're doing that you can afford to delegate (or automate or eliminate).
For instance, if you're sitting there building PCs and putting in motherboards and power supplies 10 hours a week, that's something you can delegate. If you're sitting and minding the retail traffic in a retail computer store and you have someone else who can do that for a day a week, that is something you can delegate, too.
Delegate, Delegate, Delegate
Think about what you can safely delegate based on the staff that you already have. Then you can free yourself up for a day to a day-and-a-half a week to start working on actively cultivating B2B computer consulting clients.
What to Do With the Extra Time
This delegation can free up some time to go out to networking events, planning, marketing campaigns, going out on sales call and making follow-up phone calls.
The Bottom Line about Computer Consulting Time Restraints
Unfortunately, if you're already working a ton of hours, you somehow just need to find the time. Think through your time management challenges. Look at where you really spend the bulk of your time every week and figure out if there are a few things that you can delegate to free up some time for the marketing. Really plan how you're going to develop this part of your consulting business.
Copyright Notice:
Copyright MMI-MMVI, Computer Consulting Blog. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}
Do a Time Study
Really looking at where you spend most of your time and figure out if there are some things that you're doing that you can afford to delegate (or automate or eliminate).
For instance, if you're sitting there building PCs and putting in motherboards and power supplies 10 hours a week, that's something you can delegate. If you're sitting and minding the retail traffic in a retail computer store and you have someone else who can do that for a day a week, that is something you can delegate, too.
Delegate, Delegate, Delegate
Think about what you can safely delegate based on the staff that you already have. Then you can free yourself up for a day to a day-and-a-half a week to start working on actively cultivating B2B computer consulting clients.
What to Do With the Extra Time
This delegation can free up some time to go out to networking events, planning, marketing campaigns, going out on sales call and making follow-up phone calls.
The Bottom Line about Computer Consulting Time Restraints
Unfortunately, if you're already working a ton of hours, you somehow just need to find the time. Think through your time management challenges. Look at where you really spend the bulk of your time every week and figure out if there are a few things that you can delegate to free up some time for the marketing. Really plan how you're going to develop this part of your consulting business.
Copyright Notice:
Copyright MMI-MMVI, Computer Consulting Blog. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}
Senin, 30 Agustus 2010
Computer Consulting Proving Ground Projects Are a Good First Test
A great way to see if you and potential clients are a good fit is by first trying "proving ground projects." In this article, you'll learn how proving ground projects are essential before signing any long-term agreements for computer consulting.
Proving Ground Projects Defined
Proving Ground Projects are the first projects computer consulting professionals complete with a new customer who hasn't yet become a client or a steady client. During this time, consultants are proving they know their stuff, are dependable and personable, and provide good value.
At the same time, the customers are proving to the consultant that they have reasonable expectations, a compatible personality type, and that the customer is willing to PAY for professional IT services at the going market rates.
Be Observant During Proving Ground Projects
If all goes well for the consultant, he/she is on the right track toward having a new, steady client by successfully completing the computer consulting proving ground project.
However, all too often, consultants aren't observant enough during the proving-ground project. They end up starting a long-term relationship with someone who proves to be a nightmarish client. This is usually because they were so enamored at the prospect of landing a new computer consulting customer, that they missed the obvious warning signs. Some of these include when clients:
· change their mind constantly
· are late for meetings
· verbally abuse employees
· don't believe the "rules" apply to them
The Bottom Line about Computer Consulting Proving Ground Projects
Don't rush into a client relationship without determining you are a mutual fit by first trying computer consulting proving ground projects. Proving ground projects ensure that both parties have realistic expectations about each other in the computer consulting relationship.
Copyright Notice:
Copyright MMI-MMVI, Small Biz Tech Talk. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}
Proving Ground Projects Defined
Proving Ground Projects are the first projects computer consulting professionals complete with a new customer who hasn't yet become a client or a steady client. During this time, consultants are proving they know their stuff, are dependable and personable, and provide good value.
At the same time, the customers are proving to the consultant that they have reasonable expectations, a compatible personality type, and that the customer is willing to PAY for professional IT services at the going market rates.
Be Observant During Proving Ground Projects
If all goes well for the consultant, he/she is on the right track toward having a new, steady client by successfully completing the computer consulting proving ground project.
However, all too often, consultants aren't observant enough during the proving-ground project. They end up starting a long-term relationship with someone who proves to be a nightmarish client. This is usually because they were so enamored at the prospect of landing a new computer consulting customer, that they missed the obvious warning signs. Some of these include when clients:
· change their mind constantly
· are late for meetings
· verbally abuse employees
· don't believe the "rules" apply to them
The Bottom Line about Computer Consulting Proving Ground Projects
Don't rush into a client relationship without determining you are a mutual fit by first trying computer consulting proving ground projects. Proving ground projects ensure that both parties have realistic expectations about each other in the computer consulting relationship.
Copyright Notice:
Copyright MMI-MMVI, Small Biz Tech Talk. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}
Sabtu, 28 Agustus 2010
Computer Consulting: Which Business Is Right for You?
Some people decide they want to open up an independent doughnut shop instead of buying into one of the really large doughnut shop companies. If you want to make submarine sandwiches, you can do it on your own or you can buy into one of the big, extremely well known franchises. If you want to start a computer consulting business, you can be independent or part of a franchise.
It all depends on whether you want to build your business completely by yourself, or whether you want to try to take some shortcuts. Of course, with a franchise, you need to be prepared to up the ante. In this article, we'll explore some pros and cons to each choice.
Be Prepared to Put in Some Sweat Equity
Realistically, during your computer consulting startup phase, you're still going to have several months where you'll need to be out pounding the pavement, shaking hands and getting your name out there. You'll also follow up on a ton of leads, generate a lot of proposals and go out on a lot of sales calls. And you'll have to do all of this before you start getting a lot of billable projects. Don't think that just because you're buying into a franchise that those problems are going to go away overnight. You need to be realistic about the pros and the cons of buying into a franchise.
Different Strokes for Different Folks
The right decision for one person isn't the right one for the other. It really all depends on what you're looking for in your computer consulting business, your skills, and your available time and financial capital.
Copyright Notice:
Copyright MMI-MMVI, Computer Consulting 101. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}
It all depends on whether you want to build your business completely by yourself, or whether you want to try to take some shortcuts. Of course, with a franchise, you need to be prepared to up the ante. In this article, we'll explore some pros and cons to each choice.
Be Prepared to Put in Some Sweat Equity
Realistically, during your computer consulting startup phase, you're still going to have several months where you'll need to be out pounding the pavement, shaking hands and getting your name out there. You'll also follow up on a ton of leads, generate a lot of proposals and go out on a lot of sales calls. And you'll have to do all of this before you start getting a lot of billable projects. Don't think that just because you're buying into a franchise that those problems are going to go away overnight. You need to be realistic about the pros and the cons of buying into a franchise.
Different Strokes for Different Folks
The right decision for one person isn't the right one for the other. It really all depends on what you're looking for in your computer consulting business, your skills, and your available time and financial capital.
Copyright Notice:
Copyright MMI-MMVI, Computer Consulting 101. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}
Jumat, 27 Agustus 2010
Computer Consulting: The Initial Consultation
You have to think of the sales process as more of like a pre-sales consultation and with an emphasis on consultation. You really want to convey your professionalism and stand out from the other computer consulting "professionals" out there who want to act like used car salespeople.
In this article, you'll learn that this can be done by taking a sincere interest in your prospect’s business, taking a sincere interest in their problems, and getting a grasp on those problems so you can figure out if you have a solution for them within your computer consulting business.
Have You Dug Up Any Dirt?
There may be cases where you find some dirt on them that makes you not want to do business with them. The computer consulting sales call is really a two-way interview process. If you see some weird, bizarre stuff going on or there’s some weird, bizarre stuff in background and in the news about this prospect, you may not want their business. As strange as it sounds, you may want to turn down their business, but again, this is the importance of doing your homework ahead of time and being prepared for your initial consultation.
Realize Time is Money
You’ll probably need to take a half hour to an hour to put together a little introductory packet of things to give them. You’re going to spend a half hour to an hour driving over there. Your consultation will very rarely start on time or finish on time. So by the time you get done, even if you’re super-efficient, usually two or three hours has been spent.
If you take your hourly billing rate that you’re billing out for computer consulting service calls, let’s say you’re billing at $75 an hour for computer consulting, that means you invested $225 in time before gas and mileage and parking and tolls. Before you do that, make sure your computer consulting prospect is a good fit. One of the best ways you can do that is by qualifying them a little better. Doing your homework goes a long way towards this end.
Copyright MMI-MMVI, Computer Consultants Secrets. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}
In this article, you'll learn that this can be done by taking a sincere interest in your prospect’s business, taking a sincere interest in their problems, and getting a grasp on those problems so you can figure out if you have a solution for them within your computer consulting business.
Have You Dug Up Any Dirt?
There may be cases where you find some dirt on them that makes you not want to do business with them. The computer consulting sales call is really a two-way interview process. If you see some weird, bizarre stuff going on or there’s some weird, bizarre stuff in background and in the news about this prospect, you may not want their business. As strange as it sounds, you may want to turn down their business, but again, this is the importance of doing your homework ahead of time and being prepared for your initial consultation.
Realize Time is Money
You’ll probably need to take a half hour to an hour to put together a little introductory packet of things to give them. You’re going to spend a half hour to an hour driving over there. Your consultation will very rarely start on time or finish on time. So by the time you get done, even if you’re super-efficient, usually two or three hours has been spent.
If you take your hourly billing rate that you’re billing out for computer consulting service calls, let’s say you’re billing at $75 an hour for computer consulting, that means you invested $225 in time before gas and mileage and parking and tolls. Before you do that, make sure your computer consulting prospect is a good fit. One of the best ways you can do that is by qualifying them a little better. Doing your homework goes a long way towards this end.
Copyright MMI-MMVI, Computer Consultants Secrets. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}
Kamis, 26 Agustus 2010
Computer Consulting: The Initial Consultation
You have to think of the sales process as more of like a pre-sales consultation and with an emphasis on consultation. You really want to convey your professionalism and stand out from the other computer consulting "professionals" out there who want to act like used car salespeople.
In this article, you'll learn that this can be done by taking a sincere interest in your prospect’s business, taking a sincere interest in their problems, and getting a grasp on those problems so you can figure out if you have a solution for them within your computer consulting business.
Have You Dug Up Any Dirt?
There may be cases where you find some dirt on them that makes you not want to do business with them. The computer consulting sales call is really a two-way interview process. If you see some weird, bizarre stuff going on or there’s some weird, bizarre stuff in background and in the news about this prospect, you may not want their business. As strange as it sounds, you may want to turn down their business, but again, this is the importance of doing your homework ahead of time and being prepared for your initial consultation.
Realize Time is Money
You’ll probably need to take a half hour to an hour to put together a little introductory packet of things to give them. You’re going to spend a half hour to an hour driving over there. Your consultation will very rarely start on time or finish on time. So by the time you get done, even if you’re super-efficient, usually two or three hours has been spent.
If you take your hourly billing rate that you’re billing out for computer consulting service calls, let’s say you’re billing at $75 an hour for computer consulting, that means you invested $225 in time before gas and mileage and parking and tolls. Before you do that, make sure your computer consulting prospect is a good fit. One of the best ways you can do that is by qualifying them a little better. Doing your homework goes a long way towards this end.
Copyright MMI-MMVI, Computer Consultants Secrets. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}
In this article, you'll learn that this can be done by taking a sincere interest in your prospect’s business, taking a sincere interest in their problems, and getting a grasp on those problems so you can figure out if you have a solution for them within your computer consulting business.
Have You Dug Up Any Dirt?
There may be cases where you find some dirt on them that makes you not want to do business with them. The computer consulting sales call is really a two-way interview process. If you see some weird, bizarre stuff going on or there’s some weird, bizarre stuff in background and in the news about this prospect, you may not want their business. As strange as it sounds, you may want to turn down their business, but again, this is the importance of doing your homework ahead of time and being prepared for your initial consultation.
Realize Time is Money
You’ll probably need to take a half hour to an hour to put together a little introductory packet of things to give them. You’re going to spend a half hour to an hour driving over there. Your consultation will very rarely start on time or finish on time. So by the time you get done, even if you’re super-efficient, usually two or three hours has been spent.
If you take your hourly billing rate that you’re billing out for computer consulting service calls, let’s say you’re billing at $75 an hour for computer consulting, that means you invested $225 in time before gas and mileage and parking and tolls. Before you do that, make sure your computer consulting prospect is a good fit. One of the best ways you can do that is by qualifying them a little better. Doing your homework goes a long way towards this end.
Copyright MMI-MMVI, Computer Consultants Secrets. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}
Rabu, 25 Agustus 2010
Computer Consulting: Take Some Action
Before you open the doors to your computer consulting business, you need to get your ducks in a row. You'll need to pick a company name and get your business cards printed. Then you'll need to consider what types of customers you want to pursue and where you can meet them. In this article, you'll learn how and why you need to accomplish these steps.
Get Your Business Cards Printed
Get your business cards printed, even if you don't think they'll last you forever. If you decide to change your company name, phone number or address 6 months down the road, that's okay-you can get them reprinted. At least in the mean time, you can start getting momentum going by handing out a couple of business cards to all of your friends and family members.
Get the Word Out about Your Computer Consulting
Whenever you're in networking situations, whenever you're meeting people at your kids' soccer games, or church or synagogue, or you're standing on line talking to people at the movies, you'll have the opportunity to tell them about your business and hand out your business cards. These people can then become part of your extended sales force.
Get Involved in Your Business Community
Get involved in some local organizations where small business owners meet. Look for three or four good local trade groups to get involved with. One might be your chamber of commerce, related user group or trade group, and possibly an industry-specific trade group.
Start Where You Know
Many times it makes sense to pick an industry focus where you come from. There's always opportunity to branch out into other places. But at least if you start with a niche, you're already familiar with, you'll already have some credibility. You'll find it easier to come up with a marketing message that hits home. You'll find it easier to be memorable, because you're not looking like everyone else who's in the phone book or everyone else who could conceivably do the job who doesn't have expertise in that particular niche.
Evaluate Your Computer Consulting Niche for Enough Prospects
With that nursing background, for example, you could focus some of your early marketing and business development activities on small doctor's offices in your local area… as long as you have a fair amount of confidence that there are at least 500 or 1,000 prospects in a one hour radius of where you're located. Your knowledge should be a big hit with both the key decision makers and the individual PC users.
You may even want to consider branding yourself by putting your industry focus in your name. For instance, you might add health care systems, medical office systems, or medical office technology as part of your computer consulting company name.
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Copyright MMI-MMVI, Small Biz Tech Talk. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}
Get Your Business Cards Printed
Get your business cards printed, even if you don't think they'll last you forever. If you decide to change your company name, phone number or address 6 months down the road, that's okay-you can get them reprinted. At least in the mean time, you can start getting momentum going by handing out a couple of business cards to all of your friends and family members.
Get the Word Out about Your Computer Consulting
Whenever you're in networking situations, whenever you're meeting people at your kids' soccer games, or church or synagogue, or you're standing on line talking to people at the movies, you'll have the opportunity to tell them about your business and hand out your business cards. These people can then become part of your extended sales force.
Get Involved in Your Business Community
Get involved in some local organizations where small business owners meet. Look for three or four good local trade groups to get involved with. One might be your chamber of commerce, related user group or trade group, and possibly an industry-specific trade group.
Start Where You Know
Many times it makes sense to pick an industry focus where you come from. There's always opportunity to branch out into other places. But at least if you start with a niche, you're already familiar with, you'll already have some credibility. You'll find it easier to come up with a marketing message that hits home. You'll find it easier to be memorable, because you're not looking like everyone else who's in the phone book or everyone else who could conceivably do the job who doesn't have expertise in that particular niche.
Evaluate Your Computer Consulting Niche for Enough Prospects
With that nursing background, for example, you could focus some of your early marketing and business development activities on small doctor's offices in your local area… as long as you have a fair amount of confidence that there are at least 500 or 1,000 prospects in a one hour radius of where you're located. Your knowledge should be a big hit with both the key decision makers and the individual PC users.
You may even want to consider branding yourself by putting your industry focus in your name. For instance, you might add health care systems, medical office systems, or medical office technology as part of your computer consulting company name.
Copyright Notice:
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Selasa, 24 Agustus 2010
Computer Consulting: Some General Tips
To run a successful computer consulting practice, you need to be able to deliver on that end-to-end solution. Have a good service agreement ready to go. Have an IT audit checklist. Have partnering agreements. Be prepared to take your clients from the beginning to the end of the process with you.
Computer Consulting Service Agreements
If you don’t propose the service agreements to your customers, your small business decision makers probably won't ask for them. You have to tell your computer consulting clients that this is how you work with other customers. You build mutually beneficial relationships where your company essentially becomes your computer department.
Take Your Prospect from Free to Fee
You need to learn how to take your prospects from free to fee. You should never spend several hours on just a proposal. A proposal has no value added and it leaves you in commodity status. That numbers game you don't want to play - it's not very high profit.
Tackle One Thing At a Time
Pick one thing a week for next several weeks and just start working on it. Whether it’s coming up with a couple different marketing ideas you can work with, whether it’s coming up with a service agreement that you can start marketing to your existing computer consulting clients, or whether it’s coming up with customizing the IT audit package.
Start getting your ducks in order. You should be getting your plans in place and building up your network. Make sure you have everything ready so you can hit the ground running. Be ready to do a full frontal assault on the marketplace to let your slice of the market know that you’re out there.
Don't focus on reaching everyone. Define who you’re trying to reach and limit the size and scope.
Consider Yourself an Outsourced IT Department
If you think of the five or six different functions that small businesses need, from the needs analysis, the project management, the training, the desktop rollouts, the desktop fixes, the server, setting up and configuring the servers, maintaining the servers, and build your computer consulting business around that, your business will grow.
Additionally, it will give your client the single point of contact that they really desperately want. The number one responsibility is to think of yourself as your computer consulting client’s outsourced IT department.
Copyright MMI-MMVI, Computer Consulting 101 Blog. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}
Computer Consulting Service Agreements
If you don’t propose the service agreements to your customers, your small business decision makers probably won't ask for them. You have to tell your computer consulting clients that this is how you work with other customers. You build mutually beneficial relationships where your company essentially becomes your computer department.
Take Your Prospect from Free to Fee
You need to learn how to take your prospects from free to fee. You should never spend several hours on just a proposal. A proposal has no value added and it leaves you in commodity status. That numbers game you don't want to play - it's not very high profit.
Tackle One Thing At a Time
Pick one thing a week for next several weeks and just start working on it. Whether it’s coming up with a couple different marketing ideas you can work with, whether it’s coming up with a service agreement that you can start marketing to your existing computer consulting clients, or whether it’s coming up with customizing the IT audit package.
Start getting your ducks in order. You should be getting your plans in place and building up your network. Make sure you have everything ready so you can hit the ground running. Be ready to do a full frontal assault on the marketplace to let your slice of the market know that you’re out there.
Don't focus on reaching everyone. Define who you’re trying to reach and limit the size and scope.
Consider Yourself an Outsourced IT Department
If you think of the five or six different functions that small businesses need, from the needs analysis, the project management, the training, the desktop rollouts, the desktop fixes, the server, setting up and configuring the servers, maintaining the servers, and build your computer consulting business around that, your business will grow.
Additionally, it will give your client the single point of contact that they really desperately want. The number one responsibility is to think of yourself as your computer consulting client’s outsourced IT department.
Copyright MMI-MMVI, Computer Consulting 101 Blog. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}
Senin, 23 Agustus 2010
Computer Consulting: Should You Moonlight While Starting Up?
A tremendous number of people are able to earn sizable supplemental income by having a moonlighting computer consulting business. But even more importantly, by moonlighting, you can figure out if you enjoy computer consulting before you take the plunge into building a full-time computer consulting business.
Learn True Billable Hours
Moonlighting as a computer consultant will also give you an appreciation of true billable hours. What does this mean? For example, let's say you spend 10 hours working, but you may only be able to bill for 4. Or you spend 10 hours and can only bill 6 or 7 of these 10 hours. That's the reality. You can read about it until the cows come home. But unless you experience it firsthand, you will not get the full picture.
What Constitutes Non-Billable Hours?
What takes up those non-billable hours? The other responsibilities of running a business. These include:
· Marketing
· Business Development
· Paperwork
· Organization
· Billing and Collections
· Accounting
Until you experience owning a computer consulting business firsthand, it's very difficult for you to know whether you're really going to enjoy it, and whether you're really cut out for small business computer consulting.
The Benefits to Moonlighting
But the number one benefit of moonlighting while you still have a day job is there's no pressure on you. If you don't like computer consulting, oh well, no big deal. But the moonlighting experience gives you a great way to put your toe in the water without making a huge commitment. Plus, you don't have to bet your family's financial well-being on the whole thing.
Copyright Notice:
Copyright MMI-MMVI, Computer Consultants Secrets. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}
Learn True Billable Hours
Moonlighting as a computer consultant will also give you an appreciation of true billable hours. What does this mean? For example, let's say you spend 10 hours working, but you may only be able to bill for 4. Or you spend 10 hours and can only bill 6 or 7 of these 10 hours. That's the reality. You can read about it until the cows come home. But unless you experience it firsthand, you will not get the full picture.
What Constitutes Non-Billable Hours?
What takes up those non-billable hours? The other responsibilities of running a business. These include:
· Marketing
· Business Development
· Paperwork
· Organization
· Billing and Collections
· Accounting
Until you experience owning a computer consulting business firsthand, it's very difficult for you to know whether you're really going to enjoy it, and whether you're really cut out for small business computer consulting.
The Benefits to Moonlighting
But the number one benefit of moonlighting while you still have a day job is there's no pressure on you. If you don't like computer consulting, oh well, no big deal. But the moonlighting experience gives you a great way to put your toe in the water without making a huge commitment. Plus, you don't have to bet your family's financial well-being on the whole thing.
Copyright Notice:
Copyright MMI-MMVI, Computer Consultants Secrets. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}
Minggu, 22 Agustus 2010
Computer Consulting: Should You Buy a Franchise?
You can approach the decision whether or not to buy a franchise in many different ways. There are many pros and many cons with franchise organizations. In this article, we'll explore the pros and cons with franchise organizations in computer consulting.
The Pros
o You get the trappings of being part of a larger company.
o You get a peer support network that's built into the organization.
o You get a lot of tools and resources.
o You have people to go to with problems.
The Cons
There is a flip side to each of these. The biggest drawback for many computer consulting entrepreneurs is that there is a substantial capital investment to get started. Plus, you'll be paying a percentage of your revenue or profit each month (a royalty) to the franchiser. On top of that, there will be some restrictions on what you can and cannot do with your business.
Computer Consulting Requires More Time than Money
Typically, starting a computer consulting business is a relatively low overhead investment. It's more time intensive than capital intensive. What does that mean? It means it can take you anywhere from three to six months (or more) to develop enough contacts, prospects and project opportunities in your sales funnel to be booked up at least a 50 or 60 percent utilization rate (i.e. 20 to 24 billable hour each week).
When You Can Expect Some Decent Revenue
Even going out there and pounding the pavement, and going to all of your local networking events, and going out on sales calls, three to six months is generally a good estimate of how long it can take to get to the point that you can start to generate some substantial cash flow. If you want to be able to hire multiple technical staff members and sales people, it can take years.
You need capital. After all, you certainly need to be able to continue paying your business expenses. Keep your overhead reasonably low so it's not any more stressful than need be. You need to decide whether buying a computer consulting franchise is a good decision for your business.
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The Pros
o You get the trappings of being part of a larger company.
o You get a peer support network that's built into the organization.
o You get a lot of tools and resources.
o You have people to go to with problems.
The Cons
There is a flip side to each of these. The biggest drawback for many computer consulting entrepreneurs is that there is a substantial capital investment to get started. Plus, you'll be paying a percentage of your revenue or profit each month (a royalty) to the franchiser. On top of that, there will be some restrictions on what you can and cannot do with your business.
Computer Consulting Requires More Time than Money
Typically, starting a computer consulting business is a relatively low overhead investment. It's more time intensive than capital intensive. What does that mean? It means it can take you anywhere from three to six months (or more) to develop enough contacts, prospects and project opportunities in your sales funnel to be booked up at least a 50 or 60 percent utilization rate (i.e. 20 to 24 billable hour each week).
When You Can Expect Some Decent Revenue
Even going out there and pounding the pavement, and going to all of your local networking events, and going out on sales calls, three to six months is generally a good estimate of how long it can take to get to the point that you can start to generate some substantial cash flow. If you want to be able to hire multiple technical staff members and sales people, it can take years.
You need capital. After all, you certainly need to be able to continue paying your business expenses. Keep your overhead reasonably low so it's not any more stressful than need be. You need to decide whether buying a computer consulting franchise is a good decision for your business.
Copyright Notice:
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Sabtu, 21 Agustus 2010
Computer Consulting: Prospective Client Red Flags
Is there a pattern to watch out for with computer consulting prospects that might act as a red flag or early warning detection system? Yes there is - and you’ll get better at spotting them as you go along.
It’s more of an art than a science, but if it looks like the Dilbert cartoon, it probably is going to work out that way.
Do Your Potential Computer Consulting Clients Respect Your Time?
If you walk in and you have a one o’clock appointment and they make you sit around in the waiting room for 15 or 20 minutes, unless there’s a real bona fide emergency, your wait time probably won't decrease once you actually have them as a computer consulting client.
You’re going to show up on time and have to wait. You'll be running up your non-productive time, because they’re disorganized.
Are They Pleasant?
If they’re late, if they’re particularly obnoxious or abusive or nasty or if you find out that the owners or the managers don’t have any respect for their employees, these are subtle clues.
If you get an early warning sign on your first meeting, don't immediately walk out the door. Take it all in, put it in your notes. These are the kinds of things to think about, whether you really want these computer consulting clients or not.
It's a Two Way Street
It’s really a two-way interview process. You should be interviewing them as much as they’re interviewing you, to see if it's a match for computer consulting. They need to have a clear idea of where their business is going, what they think they want to use IT for, and what their experience has been in the past with other technology providers.
Copyright MMI-MMVI, Computer Consulting 101. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}
It’s more of an art than a science, but if it looks like the Dilbert cartoon, it probably is going to work out that way.
Do Your Potential Computer Consulting Clients Respect Your Time?
If you walk in and you have a one o’clock appointment and they make you sit around in the waiting room for 15 or 20 minutes, unless there’s a real bona fide emergency, your wait time probably won't decrease once you actually have them as a computer consulting client.
You’re going to show up on time and have to wait. You'll be running up your non-productive time, because they’re disorganized.
Are They Pleasant?
If they’re late, if they’re particularly obnoxious or abusive or nasty or if you find out that the owners or the managers don’t have any respect for their employees, these are subtle clues.
If you get an early warning sign on your first meeting, don't immediately walk out the door. Take it all in, put it in your notes. These are the kinds of things to think about, whether you really want these computer consulting clients or not.
It's a Two Way Street
It’s really a two-way interview process. You should be interviewing them as much as they’re interviewing you, to see if it's a match for computer consulting. They need to have a clear idea of where their business is going, what they think they want to use IT for, and what their experience has been in the past with other technology providers.
Copyright MMI-MMVI, Computer Consulting 101. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}
Jumat, 20 Agustus 2010
Computer Consulting: Finding Your Prospects Among Your Leads
Some signs are important to look for when looking for your sweet spot computer consulting clients. Most of these businesses will be doing at least a seven-figure annual sales volume with 10 to 25 employees. In this article, you'll learn how to use additional criteria to pick out your sweet spot computer consulting clients.
Computer Consulting: The Good Signs and the Bad
Some industries tend to be more IT-intensive than others. Soon, you'll learn the industries that are most likely to need your computer consulting services. There are some good signs and bad signs when it comes to the probability of a business hiring you. You will learn to recognize right off the bat whether a business is going to be receptive to spending $1,000 to $2,000 for computer consulting services.
A really good sign is if you go in to meet with a prospective client and you find out that they’re working with another solution provider in your local community but they’re dissatisfied. Why is that a good thing for you? If they’re dissatisfied and looking around for someone else, that tells you that they’re willing to pay for professional computer consulting services.
A bad sign is they’re working with a moonlighter or they have a friend or a family member who helps out once in a while or they’re getting volunteer support, and they’re not used to paying for high-level professional services. That's a big red flag. Any price you quote them is going to seem really high when they're accustomed to getting service for free.
Sweet Spot Clients Run in Packs
Your sweet spot clients that are willing to spend $1,000 to $2,000 per month on IT services are going to have relationships with other trusted business advisors in the local community like accountants, attorneys, and management consultants. Sometimes they’re even working with other niched tech providers. This will work to your advantage when they start referring you to their contacts.
The Bottom Line about Computer Consulting
By learning to recognize the characteristics of a sweet spot client, you'll save yourself lots of time and energy and more easily turn your prospects into clients. In this article, you’ve learned more about computer consulting.
Copyright MMI-MMVI, Computer Consulting 101. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}
Computer Consulting: The Good Signs and the Bad
Some industries tend to be more IT-intensive than others. Soon, you'll learn the industries that are most likely to need your computer consulting services. There are some good signs and bad signs when it comes to the probability of a business hiring you. You will learn to recognize right off the bat whether a business is going to be receptive to spending $1,000 to $2,000 for computer consulting services.
A really good sign is if you go in to meet with a prospective client and you find out that they’re working with another solution provider in your local community but they’re dissatisfied. Why is that a good thing for you? If they’re dissatisfied and looking around for someone else, that tells you that they’re willing to pay for professional computer consulting services.
A bad sign is they’re working with a moonlighter or they have a friend or a family member who helps out once in a while or they’re getting volunteer support, and they’re not used to paying for high-level professional services. That's a big red flag. Any price you quote them is going to seem really high when they're accustomed to getting service for free.
Sweet Spot Clients Run in Packs
Your sweet spot clients that are willing to spend $1,000 to $2,000 per month on IT services are going to have relationships with other trusted business advisors in the local community like accountants, attorneys, and management consultants. Sometimes they’re even working with other niched tech providers. This will work to your advantage when they start referring you to their contacts.
The Bottom Line about Computer Consulting
By learning to recognize the characteristics of a sweet spot client, you'll save yourself lots of time and energy and more easily turn your prospects into clients. In this article, you’ve learned more about computer consulting.
Copyright MMI-MMVI, Computer Consulting 101. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}
Kamis, 19 Agustus 2010
Computer Consulting: Finding Your Prospects Among Your Leads
Some signs are important to look for when looking for your sweet spot computer consulting clients. Most of these businesses will be doing at least a seven-figure annual sales volume with 10 to 25 employees. In this article, you'll learn how to use additional criteria to pick out your sweet spot computer consulting clients.
Computer Consulting: The Good Signs and the Bad
Some industries tend to be more IT-intensive than others. Soon, you'll learn the industries that are most likely to need your computer consulting services. There are some good signs and bad signs when it comes to the probability of a business hiring you. You will learn to recognize right off the bat whether a business is going to be receptive to spending $1,000 to $2,000 for computer consulting services.
A really good sign is if you go in to meet with a prospective client and you find out that they’re working with another solution provider in your local community but they’re dissatisfied. Why is that a good thing for you? If they’re dissatisfied and looking around for someone else, that tells you that they’re willing to pay for professional computer consulting services.
A bad sign is they’re working with a moonlighter or they have a friend or a family member who helps out once in a while or they’re getting volunteer support, and they’re not used to paying for high-level professional services. That's a big red flag. Any price you quote them is going to seem really high when they're accustomed to getting service for free.
Sweet Spot Clients Run in Packs
Your sweet spot clients that are willing to spend $1,000 to $2,000 per month on IT services are going to have relationships with other trusted business advisors in the local community like accountants, attorneys, and management consultants. Sometimes they’re even working with other niched tech providers. This will work to your advantage when they start referring you to their contacts.
The Bottom Line about Computer Consulting
By learning to recognize the characteristics of a sweet spot client, you'll save yourself lots of time and energy and more easily turn your prospects into clients. In this article, you’ve learned more about computer consulting.
Copyright MMI-MMVI, Computer Consulting 101. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}
Computer Consulting: The Good Signs and the Bad
Some industries tend to be more IT-intensive than others. Soon, you'll learn the industries that are most likely to need your computer consulting services. There are some good signs and bad signs when it comes to the probability of a business hiring you. You will learn to recognize right off the bat whether a business is going to be receptive to spending $1,000 to $2,000 for computer consulting services.
A really good sign is if you go in to meet with a prospective client and you find out that they’re working with another solution provider in your local community but they’re dissatisfied. Why is that a good thing for you? If they’re dissatisfied and looking around for someone else, that tells you that they’re willing to pay for professional computer consulting services.
A bad sign is they’re working with a moonlighter or they have a friend or a family member who helps out once in a while or they’re getting volunteer support, and they’re not used to paying for high-level professional services. That's a big red flag. Any price you quote them is going to seem really high when they're accustomed to getting service for free.
Sweet Spot Clients Run in Packs
Your sweet spot clients that are willing to spend $1,000 to $2,000 per month on IT services are going to have relationships with other trusted business advisors in the local community like accountants, attorneys, and management consultants. Sometimes they’re even working with other niched tech providers. This will work to your advantage when they start referring you to their contacts.
The Bottom Line about Computer Consulting
By learning to recognize the characteristics of a sweet spot client, you'll save yourself lots of time and energy and more easily turn your prospects into clients. In this article, you’ve learned more about computer consulting.
Copyright MMI-MMVI, Computer Consulting 101. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}
Rabu, 18 Agustus 2010
Computer Consulting: Finding Prospects Among Your Leads
How do you narrow down your leads and find your prospects? In this article, you'll learn some criteria that will help you narrow down your computer consulting leads and take them to the next step.
One is finding your industry focus. You must laser beam your target market. You need to stand out tremendously from the crowd because everyone other computer consulting professional is chasing after the same hardware services, LAN, and the exact same advertising.
But there are two other really big ways that you can narrow down your leads and improve your batting average. One is size.
Computer Consulting: Three Different Size Audiences to Pursue:
One is the micro small business where there’s just a handful of PCs. It has more to do with the mindset of the business owner than the absolute number of PCs, but it’s a very small number of employees, a very small number of PCs, and at that size, the micro small business doesn’t usually look for extensive high-level IT computer consulting services. The next step up is really the sweet spot where we see most computer consulting professionals still continuing to do very well even in this challenging environment, and that’s the 10- to 50-PC space. A number of different studies have confirmed that the two to one ratio holds across different industries, so if you’re maxing out around a 50-seat LAN, a lot of times that equates to anywhere from a 90- to 100-employee company. At that size, once you get that many PCs, IT is usually a lot more strategically important to the company. Down time becomes much more expensive. You can do simple calculations like taking their annual revenue and dividing by 250 business days a year and eight hours a day and give them real simple ideas of a company doing $4 million a year in annual revenue with 2,000 business hours a year is losing on average $2,000 an hour for down time. A computer consulting professional can save them money in the long run. When you start to get to 50 PCs or 100 PCs or more, you start to enter what we consider the borderline of the top of small business and the bottom of medium-sized business. What can often happen at that size is the IT services bills from your company start to approach what could become a full-time salary of a real IT manager. They’re no longer going to need to outsource the generalist roles--instead they'll hire their own, on-site person.
The Bottom Line About Computer Consulting
To set yourself apart from the crowd, you need to further define your ideal client in order to find the prospects among your leads.
Copyright MMI-MMVI, Computer Consulting 101 Blog. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}
One is finding your industry focus. You must laser beam your target market. You need to stand out tremendously from the crowd because everyone other computer consulting professional is chasing after the same hardware services, LAN, and the exact same advertising.
But there are two other really big ways that you can narrow down your leads and improve your batting average. One is size.
Computer Consulting: Three Different Size Audiences to Pursue:
One is the micro small business where there’s just a handful of PCs. It has more to do with the mindset of the business owner than the absolute number of PCs, but it’s a very small number of employees, a very small number of PCs, and at that size, the micro small business doesn’t usually look for extensive high-level IT computer consulting services. The next step up is really the sweet spot where we see most computer consulting professionals still continuing to do very well even in this challenging environment, and that’s the 10- to 50-PC space. A number of different studies have confirmed that the two to one ratio holds across different industries, so if you’re maxing out around a 50-seat LAN, a lot of times that equates to anywhere from a 90- to 100-employee company. At that size, once you get that many PCs, IT is usually a lot more strategically important to the company. Down time becomes much more expensive. You can do simple calculations like taking their annual revenue and dividing by 250 business days a year and eight hours a day and give them real simple ideas of a company doing $4 million a year in annual revenue with 2,000 business hours a year is losing on average $2,000 an hour for down time. A computer consulting professional can save them money in the long run. When you start to get to 50 PCs or 100 PCs or more, you start to enter what we consider the borderline of the top of small business and the bottom of medium-sized business. What can often happen at that size is the IT services bills from your company start to approach what could become a full-time salary of a real IT manager. They’re no longer going to need to outsource the generalist roles--instead they'll hire their own, on-site person.
The Bottom Line About Computer Consulting
To set yourself apart from the crowd, you need to further define your ideal client in order to find the prospects among your leads.
Copyright MMI-MMVI, Computer Consulting 101 Blog. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}
Selasa, 17 Agustus 2010
Computer Consulting: Find Paying Clients during Start-Up
Even if you are just starting out your computer consulting practice with rather basic desktop support level technical skills, make sure that your computer consulting firm gets some paying clients who are at your current technical skills comfort level. In this article, you'll learn which types of clients to pursue first.
Start out by working with home offices and very small stand-alone businesses and companies with really, really small peer-to-peer simple networks. At least you're getting some paying clients and some reference accounts.
Make The One-Shot Deals a Stepping Stone
Recognize however, that you need to move beyond that. You want to be able to have a successful small business computer consulting practice that's built on recurring revenue retainer agreements and sophisticated kinds of dedicated server solutions. When you're first getting started with your computer consulting business, there's certainly no reason why you can't take on some of these smaller, one-shot deal accounts. Just recognize that you need to be moving towards more sophisticated, more profitable, long-term client accounts.
Continue Learning
If you feel that your lack of technical training is holding you back from clients that need more sophisticated solutions, put aside some time each week for training (even if its just two or three hours). Go through tutorials and resource kits. And install your not-for-resale (NFR) software. Then, break the installation and troubleshoot the setup process. Then, reinstall the applications until you get more and more comfortable with setup and troubleshooting.
Copyright Notice:
Copyright MMI-MMVI, Small Business Computer Consulting .com. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}
Start out by working with home offices and very small stand-alone businesses and companies with really, really small peer-to-peer simple networks. At least you're getting some paying clients and some reference accounts.
Make The One-Shot Deals a Stepping Stone
Recognize however, that you need to move beyond that. You want to be able to have a successful small business computer consulting practice that's built on recurring revenue retainer agreements and sophisticated kinds of dedicated server solutions. When you're first getting started with your computer consulting business, there's certainly no reason why you can't take on some of these smaller, one-shot deal accounts. Just recognize that you need to be moving towards more sophisticated, more profitable, long-term client accounts.
Continue Learning
If you feel that your lack of technical training is holding you back from clients that need more sophisticated solutions, put aside some time each week for training (even if its just two or three hours). Go through tutorials and resource kits. And install your not-for-resale (NFR) software. Then, break the installation and troubleshoot the setup process. Then, reinstall the applications until you get more and more comfortable with setup and troubleshooting.
Copyright Notice:
Copyright MMI-MMVI, Small Business Computer Consulting .com. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}
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