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.
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}
Rabu, 25 Agustus 2010
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.
Copyright Notice:
Copyright MMI-MMVI, Computer Consulting 101 Blog. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}
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:
Copyright MMI-MMVI, Computer Consulting 101 Blog. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}
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}
Langganan:
Postingan (Atom)