IT Consulting: Time Tracking and Invoicing

As a new IT consulting business, it is important to learn about the most common mistakes made with time tracking and invoicing so you can avoid them. Doing so will put your company in a better overall financial position. You will also be able to sleep better knowing you have greater financial control over your business. Time Tracking, Billing and Other Issues Time tracking, billing, invoicing and dealing with credit and collections are big issues in IT consulting. A lot of people wonder which software they should use for time tracking and billing. If you’re just focusing on that, you’re probably missing the bigger point here. It’s a heck of a lot more important than the software you use. Of course you should use a piece of software that makes it a little easier to do your IT consulting job, but the software is not going to fix the underlying problems. Your Service Gives IT Consulting Clients Peace of Mind Steady clients will perceive your IT consulting business as an insurance policy. A steady client is motivated to pay your IT consulting business on time. There’s a tremendous fear that if they forget to pay your invoices on time, when they have a network emergency, you’ll forget who they are. These are the clients you want to seek out. Copyright MMI-MMVI, Computer Consulting 101. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}

IT Consulting: Identifying Sweet Spot Clients

If you want to make a decent living and have a good, strong, sustainable IT consulting business, sooner or later you are going to come to this conclusion that the sweet spot of small businesses is the place to be. You need to know where to look and how to verify that the small business you are pursuing is going to be gratifying enough to work with and lucrative enough of recurring revenue to make them a good sweet spot client. How Do You Recognize a Sweet Spot Client? Sweet spot IT consulting clients are no more than a 30-50 minute drive of your IT consulting home base. This way you can gets lots of face time with them. You can also get there quickly if there's an emergency. You don't want to spend a lot of time driving around and sitting in traffic. Even if you are charging for travel time or charging a service fee or a van fee, driving time is not your most profitable IT consulting time. How Do You Find Local Sweet Spot Businesses? You can certainly rent direct mail lists that are in that geographic range 0-50 miles, or 0-80 kilometers. Or you can join some local organizations that are within a half hour to an hour of your location. How Big Are The Sweet Spot IT Consulting Clients? Sweet spot IT consulting clients have from 10-50 computers, 10-100 employees, a million to 10 million in sales. And of course, you can rent direct mail lists with at least part of that criteria filled and selected. Another big thing to find a sweet spot IT consulting client is that they will have a relationship with a local accounting firm or other trusted business advisors. You want to position your consulting firm to be a trusted business advisor of theirs. Sweet Spot Businesses are Well Connected Most of these sweet spot IT consulting clients have relationships with other trusted business advisors on an outsource basis. They have a relationship with a local attorney, a local accounting firm, a local consulting firm a local advertising agency and a graphic designer. They know the value of those kinds of relationships. If you want to get in with companies that already have great relationships with sweet spot businesses, you should be looking at networking with these businesses, a local accounting firm for example. Copyright MMI-MMVI, Computer Consulting 101 Blog. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}