Small Biz Tech Talk ™

You want to ensure you always get a deposit check on any major IT consulting project. Don’t start a 40, 60 or 80 hour project on a handshake. This isn’t "Leave it to Beaver," IT consulting here.

Don’t Get Taken Advantage Of

There are a lot of ruthless small business owners out there who will think nothing of chewing you up and spitting you out for their lunches because it’s their sport!

You don’t want to subject your IT consulting business to this. It’s one of the most devastating things you can put yourself through as a new small IT consulting business owner.

Set-up Payment Schedules

In order to protect your IT consulting business, set up payment schedules that make sense. Do not take on a large, major IT consulting project or any project for that matter, without getting at least 25% down.

If they really kick and scream about it, that might raise a red flag that they’re not really serious.

The Bottom Line about IT Consulting

Make sure you bill weekly and not when you get around to it. Your IT consulting invoices should go out every week.  If you bill any less frequently than weekly now, you need to get to weekly immediately; start doing it next week.

In this article, you’ve been introduced to IT consulting. To learn more about IT consulting, click here now to get access to a free one-hour audio training program on 5 Easy Ways to Grow Your Computer Consulting Business.

Often when you evaluate a system a customer is using, you can point out improvements that will save them time and money… and provide more consulting income to your firm in the process.

Read on to see how technology assessments benefitted one of our computer consultants.

"I used technology assessments to get my foot in the door. It gave me an organized way to point out to the customer how their network could be better even though they didn’t realize there was a problem."

Jason Welshonse, Ancient Geek, Inc.
Bay Point, California

The Bottom Line about Technology Assessments

To learn more about technology assessments, click here now to get access to a free one-hour audio training program on 5 Easy Ways to Grow Your Computer Consulting Business.

With setting your IT support rates, there is no ethical dilemmas. You need to charge what is going to make you have a successful, viable business.  You are not going to make a living at $50 an hour.  It’s that simple.

Many Micro Small Businesses Need Qualified IT Support

A lot of micro small businesses may have more than 10 employees and they may even have a dedicated server. While they recognize that a lot of the sources that are cheap, they also know you get what you pay for with IT support.

Focus on the micro small businesses that have the willingness and the ability to pay considerably more.  You need to select based on people’s ability to pay.

Its kind of like an auction where you are saying "Ok raise your hand if you are willing to pay this." Ok I’m not interested in you. "Now, the next increment up, raise your hand if you are willing to pay this."

Let The Client Decide

It is a very simple process if you charge the same amount for small businesses as you do for your sweet spot small businesses.  Let the micro small businesses that need sophisticated support decide whether they need you and can afford you.

If they think they can get by with someone who is just a screwdriver technician, then fine, let them do that. If they think they can get by waiting for a volunteer to get there or relying on the $6 an hour store clerk, let them do that.

More Complicated Needs Equal a Higher Level of IT Support

But when firewalls and Y-5 and dedicated internet access and real servers enter the equation, then most of those low part sources fall apart at the seams.  And they need a more sophisticated solution.

There’s absolutely no reason why you cannot be charging micro small businesses $100 or more per hour for IT support.  It all depends on your business model and how aggressive you want to be. You need to decide whether you want to get a ton of volume versus getting very profitable volume. 

The Bottom Line about IT Support

In this article, you’ve been introduced to IT support.  To learn more about IT support, click here now to get access to a free one-hour audio training program on 5 Easy Ways to Grow Your Computer Consulting Business.

In sharp contrast to warranty options on desktop PCs, consider advising your clients to purchase the maximum extended warranty coverage they can with a new notebook PC purchase. Even beyond a potential hard drive failure on a notebook, consider the cost of replacing the LCD screen.

Potential Costs for Replacements

Unlike a conventional PC monitor, notebook PC LCD screens are highly specialized for particular notebooks. If a client needed to replace a standard 17" or 19" monitor that’s out of warranty, your client would generally have no problem finding equivalent products at local retail outlets for relatively modest prices of about $200 to $300.

For a notebook PC LCD screen, your clients would almost never find the parts in stock locally. And the LCD screen, related assembly, and cable purchased separately easily could run $1,000 or more.

Ask Questions

As a consultant, you should ask questions of your client and the warranty provider before making any recommendation.  For example, ask:

• Are the notebook PCs that your major clients own typically used more in the office or in the field?Can you get a copy of the notebook PC system warranty statement?
• How does the notebook PC warranty statement differ from the desktop PC warranty statement?
• Does the warranty specifically include or exclude certain hardware components?
• Are there any warranty restrictions regarding replacement of the hard drive or LCD panel?
• What is the duration of the included warranty coverage?Is your PC vendor the one selling and honoring the extended warranty policy?
• If the extended warranty is subordinated to a third party and the third party goes out of business, will your PC vendor still honor the warranty?

The Bottom Line about Notebook PCs

So because of the risks of hard drive and LCD screen failures on a notebook PC, buying an extended service plan becomes a no-brainer for most of your clients. This is also the primary reason extended warranties on notebook PCs cost a lot more than comparable extended warranties on desktop PCs.

In this article, you’ve been introduced to the notebook PC.  To learn more about the notebook PC click here now to get access to a free one-hour audio training program on 5 Easy Ways to Grow Your Computer Consulting Business.

In small business computer consulting, $100 an hour can be a reasonable and livable rate. Why can setting your rates at $100 an hour make all the difference in the world?

Take the $100 an hour and multiply it by 1,500 hours a year. This is reflecting a 75% utilization rate; or 75% of a typical forty hour work week as billable time. Now you’re at $150,000 a year gross.

Salary and Affordability

As a small business computer consulting firm, you will want to take a third of the gross and plow it into sales and marketing.  Therefore you can afford a $40,000 base salary for your sales account executive.

So, of that one third of your gross small business computer consulting income, $40,000 can go to the base salary and $10,000 can go to related marketing expenses.

Additionally, one third will take care of taxes, insurance and overhead items for the most part, and you have a third of it or $50,000 left to pay a technical staff salary.

Surpassing $100 an Hour

You may be considering exceeding a rate of $100 an hour for your small business computer consulting firm.  At that point, you can hit what we call the not-so-imaginary-hourly-billing-rate ceiling.

Needless to say, if your small business computer consulting clients are paying $110 to $125 an hour, it gets even easier to be able to afford really bright, motivated, highly qualified sales and technical staff.

Higher Rates Equal Bigger Businesses

However, if you want to charge above $100 an hour in your small business computer consulting firm, you’ll almost always need to move above and beyond sweet spot small business clients into really large small businesses, medium size businesses and enterprise-sized accounts that require a different business model and technical skill set.

Once you do that, you’re going to be operating under a completely different type of business model.  And you will need even more polished and seasoned salespeople to be able to handle those accounts.

The Bottom Line about Small Business Computer Consulting

In this article, you’ve been introduced to small business computer consulting.  To learn more about small business computer consulting click here now to get access to a free one-hour audio training program on 5 Easy Ways to Grow Your Computer Consulting Business.

When beginning your computer consulting practice, some of the best clients are ones that make you a valued member of their team. They respect your time and your expertise, they also provide you with regular income to help you continue to meet your expenses and soon make a profit.

"Sweet Spot Clients" are the ideal customers for most computer consultants. You don’t compete with free labor like in micro small businesses or with an in-house IT person, like in larger small businesses. Read on to find out what one of our computer consultants found useful:

"I got permanent clients I rely on and they rely on me. The Computer Consulting Kit helped me to understand better what small businesses want."

Lev Soldatov, IT Solutions
Melbourne, VIC, Australia

The Bottom Line about IT Sales

To learn more about IT sales, click here now to get access to a free one-hour audio training program on 5 Easy Ways to Grow Your Computer Consulting Business.

Sweet spot small businesses, have from 10-50 PCs and do anywhere from a million to 10 million in annual revenue (U.S. Dollars). They get their IT support in several different places, which you’ll learn about in this article.

Sweet spot businesses have their internal gurus. Remember that internal gurus are the people in small businesses who tend to more about PCs than everyone else. They are often the first responders when IT support is needed.

Internal Gurus Have other Jobs

Because of that, even though dealing with the PCs is not their real job, everyone tends to yell for them when the laser printer jams or the accounting software gets corrupted, or the internet connection goes down. 

They yell for the gurus and they spring up from their regular job, whether they are office managers, admin people, comptrollers, bookkeepers, etc.

Some professions are more natural fits for gurus who provide IT support. These are the people you want to be buddying up with to get your foot in the door.  Internal gurus are still really big with sweet spots.  Moonlighting IT professionals are also still really big in the sweet spot.

Other Places Sweet Spot Businesses Get IT Support

Sweet spot business also often start working with valuated resellers, VARS, solution providers, network integrators, professional full time consultants and small consulting firms as well as ISV, independent software vendors.  Especially niche ISVs for different industries, different types of software applications.

Sweet spot small businesses a lot of time start working with accounting firms that do IT support and accounting support.  These firms can be a great source of referrals a great contact for you to have, but they can also be your competitors.   

The Bottom Line about IT Support

In this article, you’ve been introduced to IT support.  To learn more about IT support, click here now to get access to a free one-hour audio training program on 5 Easy Ways to Grow Your Computer Consulting Business.

As a computer consulting business, you shouldn’t be spending precious time and your clients’ limited budgets troubleshooting a malfunctioning monitor or CD-RW drive.

If your computer consulting business is large enough that you have both senior-level and technician-level staff, you’re probably already doing a great job of directing workload to the right personnel.

Are You a Company of One?

However, if you are a small computer consulting business, where perhaps you are the "company", it makes sense to let the PC vendor’s technical support staff arrange for hardware warranty repairs, using their large networks of national service providers.

Know the Facts about Warranty Service

As a computer consulting business, you will want to know how long the warranty period is, if it covers parts, labor or both and what the promised response and turnaround time on warranty service may be.

Also, determine whether the vendor will try to pressure your clients to do their own service.  If so, are your clients prepared to pay your consulting firm to do the labor?

Scheduling Hardware Warranty Service Calls

If possible, try to have your clients’ internal gurus schedule hardware warranty service calls to coincide with times when you are at your clients’ offices on other related computer consulting business.

Or at the minimum, be sure that your clients’ internal gurus are there to supervise the third party hardware technicians.

Be Involved

It’s really up to you to decide how active of a role your computer consulting business wants to take in coordinating and managing these hardware warranty repairs. In some cases, getting in involved with the full end-to-end responsibility makes sense, including packaging up the defective part to send back.

In other cases, you may be better off training your clients’ internal gurus on how to place these vendor tech support calls and supervise the hardware warranty repairs.

The Bottom Line about the Computer Consulting Business

In this article, you’ve been introduced to the computer consulting business.  To learn more about the computer consulting business click here now to get access to a free one-hour audio training program on 5 Easy Ways to Grow Your Computer Consulting Business.

In IT consulting, people charge various rates.  Some charge at the zero level, others at the $25, $35, $45 an hour level.

Starting an IT Consulting Business: What to Charge?

Probably a lot of you want to start charging, and should be, in the $75, $85, $95 an hour level to build up a reputation for your IT consulting business.  Don’t start out with much less than that.

IT consultants working with larger small companies generally charge $100 – $125 an hour and up, depending on how deep their specialty is, whether they’re in a certain vertical industry, or depending on the metro area they’re in.

Adjusting Your IT Consulting Business Rates

Many new IT consulting businesses underestimate their true expenses and as a result, end up charging way too little for their IT consulting services.  The big question they often ask is, "Can’t I adjust it later?" The answer in most cases is no.

It’s very difficult to adjust rates later with your existing customers and clients. The only thing you’re usually left resorting to is fixing rates going forward, and then you end up with a whole bunch of people that are grandfathered in at these rates you can’t afford.

The Problem with Raising Rates

When you grandfather rates, half or a quarter of your IT consulting business essentially becomes worthless because it’s not profitable. It can be really hard, if not impossible to get your existing clients to agree to substantial rate increases.

The Bottom Line about IT Consulting

As a start-up IT consulting business, if you charge too little, you may end up having to dump your client list and start over, which could put you out of business really fast. It doesn’t have to be that way.

In this article, you’ve been introduced to IT consulting.  To learn more about IT consulting click here now to get access to a free one-hour audio training program on 5 Easy Ways to Grow Your Computer Consulting Business.

In IT marketing, you need to plan ahead to maximize the return on your effort and marketing dollars. Think of your ideal clients, then identify every one of them in a pre-determined radius to make your list.

See how one of our computer consultants was able to identify potential leads.

"I’m just starting my consulting practice, and am planning on officially ‘opening for business’ just after the New Year. I was able to compile a list of every Sweet Spot Client™ in my area complete with contacts, addresses, emails and Web site addresses. There are over 11,000 potential clients on my list and I am planning on targeting them as I begin my marketing campaign. The Computer Consulting Kit provided valuable information on the types of clients I should be going after, and why. Joshua’s simple, yet direct methods of marketing and lead generation appear to lead to success if followed through. I am looking forward to now actually making it happen."

Stephen R. Haine, WingMan Consulting, Inc.
Jersey City, New Jersey

The Bottom Line about IT Marketing

To learn more about IT marketing, click here now to get access to a free one-hour audio training program on 5 Easy Ways to Grow Your Computer Consulting Business.

You need to prepare for your IT consulting career. In this article, you’ll learn about whether business plans, certifications, and ficticious names are important for an IT consulting career.

Is Certification Necessary for an IT Consulting Career

Generally, with small businesses, not being certified is not going to hold you back.  In other words, it doesn’t matter a lot to the typical small business owner.

It only becomes a real big issue when you are selling to an IT team manager in large small businesses.  Yet, for most people you should get an entry-level certification, but you don’t need to sit through 6 or 8 tests to get an entry-level certification.

Are Business Plans Necessary for an IT Consulting Career?

It’s generally a good idea to have a business plan but don’t let a lack of one hold you back either. Sometimes people think that their business plan needs to be like a Shakespearean play and go on for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pages.

You should put together a simple 4-page business plan. You’ll want to look at all different aspects of competitive issues, growth, and payback, positioning and marketing strategies.  You might want to sit down and spend like a three day weekend to develop a very detailed business plan.

Are Ficticious Names Important for an IT Consulting Career?

A fictitious company name is just a matter of saying that you are not going to do business by just your first name and last name, you have decided to pick a company name like ABC computer Solutions of West Palm Beach or whatever.

Pick something that exemplifies what you do or what your main strengths may be.  You should have a business name picked out before you start marketing because people will take you a lot more seriously in your IT consulting career.

The Bottom Line about an IT Consulting Career

In this article, you’ve been introduced to an IT consulting career.  To learn more about an IT consulting career, click here now to get access to a free one-hour audio training program on 5 Easy Ways to Grow Your Computer Consulting Business.

If you are starting your own IT consulting business, you need to be generating demand, getting good leads and prospects, qualifying them, going out on sales appointments and following up on those.

Do not get seduced by an aggressive sales person twisting your arm to join a channel program. Don’t get seduced by tech gadgets that don’t fill an immediate need with your paying clients.

Avoid Channel Programs

In starting an IT consulting business, you need to be very careful that you don’t get sucked into joining channel programs that aren’t leading anywhere. You need to focus on finding paying clients first. 

Determine How You Will Be Paid

With new IT consulting clients, you need to always insist on either getting payment as you do the work or get credit card authorization, especially when you sell products. That’s especially if you’re going to be selling hardware, software and peripherals.

Of course, to be able to take credit cards, in most cases, you need to get a merchant account. Do not give credit, and then even beyond that, do not give credit unless you’re going to do a regular credit application and credit check.

Require Deposits

Always, always, always get a deposit check – a substantial amount of the purchase – especially if it’s a product purchase.  Even on a big IT consulting project where you’re doing services, installation, design work, troubleshooting or upgrades, you should require a deposit.

At the absolute minimum, your deposits should be something in the neighborhood of 10 to 25%. Usually it should be somewhere more in the 25 to 35% range.

The Bottom Line about IT Consulting

In starting your IT consulting business, be sure you don’t end up feeling pinched. It is a good idea to bill weekly and always include a due date on your invoices.  Don’t just put "Due in X number of days." Include a concrete due date to show your clients you are serious about your business.

In this article, you’ve been introduced to IT consulting.  To learn more about IT consulting, click here now to get access to a free one-hour audio training program on 5 Easy Ways to Grow Your Computer Consulting Business.

Network cards are mandatory additions to PC purchases now that even the smallest offices now have broadband Internet access and peer-to-peer networking.

Even if the cost of later purchasing Ethernet adapters a la carte were the same as the bundled prices, your clients still should get Ethernet adapters with their PC purchases.

The Benefits of Adding Network Cards to PC Purchases

When you add Ethernet adaptors to PC purchases, you and your clients won’t need to worry about compatibility between them and other hardware components in the PCs and their chosen operating system. All device driver installation and configuration hassles are already taken care of for you.

You and your clients will also have an easier time getting help from the PC vendor’s technical support department. The PC vendor should recognize the Ethernet adapter as part of the complete system and "supported" configuration. And, once again, the Ethernet adapter likely will be covered under any standard on-site system warranty agreement.

Note About Ethernet Adaptors

In many cases, Ethernet adapters are being built into the PC motherboards on desktop PCs and notebooks. Thus, there is no explicit option to include or exclude the Ethernet adapter. It just appears on the PC motherboard like a serial or parallel port.

The only downside is that, if the Ethernet adapter breaks, the PC manufacturer will need to replace the entire motherboard. If this happens after the warranty period has ended, you usually can disable the onboard Ethernet adapter and install a third-party Ethernet adapter in an available PCI or PCMCIA expansion slot.

The Bottom Line about PC Purchases

In this article, you’ve been introduced to PC purchases.  To learn more about PC purchases, click here now to get access to a free one-hour audio training program on 5 Easy Ways to Grow Your Computer Consulting Business.

Running a business takes great organizational skills. While most computer consultants are quite organized with their clients, they aren’t as meticulous in their own business planning. Committing your goals on paper make you much more likely to achieve them.

Read on to learn how one of our consultants was able to earn more money directly as a result of his planning of IT marketing.

"The best thing I did was to prepare a marketing plan. After years of consulting by the seat of my pants, I sat down and began to organize how I run my business and set clearer goals of where I wanted to move my business. I purchased the Computer Consulting Kit back in September 2003. Due to increased success with marketing activities, we managed to more than double our existing client base. It has helped us better approach our business networking activities. This in turn led to more prospects, which led to more clients. I can attribute $3,000 directly from what I’ve learned."

Kevin Horn, TechAdept
Dallas, Texas

The Bottom Line about IT Marketing

To learn more about IT marketing, click here now to get access to a free one-hour audio training program on 5 Easy Ways to Grow Your Computer Consulting Business.

IT consultant skills vary widely. The successful ones will have the traits that help them deal with their customers.

IT Consultant Traits: Can You Manage Employees?

Even in your first year of business there is a pretty good chance that you will have to have at least a few sub-contractors that you work with long before you get to the stage where you can hire employees.

When that comes up, you are going to have to make hiring decisions and unfortunately what comes along with that turf too is firing decisions.  So you need to be decisive enough in those areas and take swift action. 

IT Consultant Traits: Are You Diplomatic?

You need to be able to teach technology to people that are often times computer phobic and not make them feel bad about that.  That is really important among small businesses cause in a lot of ways.

If you are used to dealing with enterprising users that are a lot more sophisticated than the typical small business end user.  You need to be able to take and check your ego at the door.

You have to be able to put your ego on the back burner and think what is in the best interest of your client and your business.  Sometimes it is best to just walk away. 

IT Consultant Traits: Are You Empathetic?

Can you feel your client’s pain, can you understand what they are going through so you can provide the best solution?  Often, the best thing to do is just listen, understand where they are coming from and calm them down.

You’ll need to do that a lot of times even before you can start treating the symptoms, working on the PC that keeps locking up or the network drive that keeps disappearing and figuring out the cause.  

The Bottom Line about IT Consultant Traits

In this article, you’ve been introduced to IT consultant traits.  To learn more about the IT consultant, click here now to get access to a free one-hour audio training program on 5 Easy Ways to Grow Your Computer Consulting Business.

As IT consultants considering moonlighting as a step toward full-time consulting work, you should not be messing around with anything but steady clients.

If you’re just dealing with the one-shot deals that you hear from once in a blue moon there’s no regularity.  How are you ever going to get to the point where you can become full time IT consultants with a handful of clients if you don’t have steady commitments from them?

Choose Clients Wisely

Think long and hard if you’re going to consider one-shot deals.  It’s better to focus on working with small businesses that have a lot of IT needs and must see you a couple evenings per month or one or two Saturdays per month. Then you can have some offsite IT consulting work in between.

Mind Your Schedule

As IT consultants considering moonlighting, you need a schedule that allows for that.  If you have an 80-hour week already, there’s no way you’re going to be able to fit in moonlighting.

Most IT consultants who fit in moonlighting have pretty mellow nine to five setups. They take off a morning, afternoon or long lunch here and there – not consistently – but they have the ability to do that.

What Types of Jobs to Look For

The ideal situation should be that you’re looking for $1,000 a month clients who need you for one or two evenings a month, maybe one or two Saturdays or Sundays and some light phone support in between visits. The minimum situation that you should look for is small businesses that need a minimum of $500 a month in IT support.

The Bottom Line about IT Consultants

If the idea of giving up your nights and weekends to be IT consultants doesn’t appeal to you then moonlighting probably isn’t for you.  As IT consultants considering moonlighting you will want to be sure that not only you are committed but your potential clients are as well. 

In this article, you’ve been introduced to IT consultants.  To learn more about IT consultants, click here now to get access to a free one-hour audio training program on 5 Easy Ways to Grow Your Computer Consulting Business.

Over the years, as IT consultants, you’ve probably supported thousands of PC hardware configurations. During this time period, you likely have formulated a strong opinion of what PC hardware specs make for a solid purchase recommendation.

However, in order to properly position your professional expertise, it’s important to be able to convey this hardware selection benefit effectively to clients. After all, "everyone" is an expert at buying PCs, right?!? Not!

IT Consultants Can Help Clients Choose Right the First Time

Choosing the right PC specs can save your clients big money on unpredictable installation and support costs.

In a perfect world, all software and hardware vendors claiming compatibility, under a particular operating system or PC environment, would have products that work well together. But, this isn’t a perfect world.

IT Consultants Can Save Their Clients Time and Frustration

You can save your clients considerable time and potential aggravation, and pick up substantial service revenue, by getting actively involved in the selection of various hardware components and software programs that come preinstalled with the purchase of a new PC.

IT Consultants Can Save Their Clients Money with Hardware and Software Solutions

In much the same way that you’ll often find greater overall value by getting more menu items bundled into a complete dinner at a restaurant, rather than a la carte, you’ll find the same thing with computer purchasing.

It often makes small business sense for your clients to purchase various hardware components and upgrades with the purchase of the PC — as opposed to shopping for these hardware components and upgrades a la carte at a later date.

IT Consultants Can Help Determine the Value of The Components

The challenge however is knowing which components and upgrades are "worth" it, which are a waste of money and which are a potential land mine of tech support troubles. That’s where your firm steps in to save the day!

The Bottom Line about IT Consultants

In this article, you’ve learned about IT consultants. To learn more about IT consultants, click here now to get access to a free one-hour audio training program on 5 Easy Ways to Grow Your Computer Consulting Business.

In IT consulting, you can provide your services to many different sized businesses. In this article, you’ll learn about how you can fit in with the IT consulting needs of large/small businesses.

Pick 2 or 3 of the networking skill sets that you need for the sweet spot. For example, you might pick advanced virus protection, firewall intrusion detection, VPNs and routers.

So you are going to focus on security and border access kinds of things and that would be your IT consulting specialty. That’s all you’d do.

In Large/Small Business IT Consulting, It’s All About Specializing

You would get extremely deep and specialize by product platform. At that size, these companies bring in a real IT manager and put them on payroll for 40 hours a week. So these companies will want to handle a lot of the bread and butter infrastructure in-house.

When Would In-House Staff Turn to You?

When companies are paying a lot of outsourcing expenses, they’ll often decide to put 40, 50, $60,000 a year person on the payroll. Once that person is on-staff, he will have a lot of pressure to keep their outsourcing expenses down, until they absolutely have to go above and beyond.

Then they turn to deep niche specialists – a great opportunity for IT consulting.  

The Bottom Line about IT Consulting

In this article, you’ve learned about IT consulting. To learn more about IT consulting, click here now to get access to a free one-hour audio training program on 5 Easy Ways to Grow Your Computer Consulting Business.

If you really want to make a decent living and want to have a good, successful, viable computer consulting business, sooner or later you have to narrow down your focus and develop a keen intuition.  Additionally, you have to become good at spotting the best small businesses accounts.

The Small Business Myriad

There are millions of small businesses in the U.S. and there are millions of small businesses abroad. There’s a pretty good chance that there are thousands, if not tens of thousands, of companies that would qualify as small businesses in your local area.

The sad fact is, if you latch onto the wrong ones, you’re not going to have a very good computer consulting business.

Finding the Best Accounts

You need to know where to find these best accounts. In the computer consulting business you also need to know how to say "no," and when to say "no."

It’s extremely important that you know where to look, and how to verify that a small business is going to be a gratifying client for your computer consulting business.

You obviously want to feel a certain sense of career satisfaction. That’s probably one of the reasons you’re looking at starting your own computer consulting business as opposed to sticking with a traditional corporate IT career.

Keep the Financial Aspects in Mind

Your computer consulting business also has to be lucrative financially because you need to have a profitable business. You want it to be a stable source of recurring revenue.

Remember, all small businesses are not created equal. Your job is not to be the Mother Teresa of PC support. You are not starting a computer consulting business as a charitable organization.

The Bottom Line about the Computer Consulting Business

Of course, you want to have empathy for the people you support and you want to do a great job for them. At the same time, you have to look out for your own interests to make sure you’re going to be there for them six months to a year down the road.

In this article, you’ve been introduced to the computer consulting business.  To learn more about the computer consulting business click here now to get access to a free one-hour audio training program on 5 Easy Ways to Grow Your Computer Consulting Business.

One of the best ways to run a successful computer consulting business is by serving small businesses through IT service contracts. Of course, before you can do this, you have to know how to find the right businesses to sign up.

Find out how one of our consultants was able to get more of his ideal clients by using his IT marketing time and resources wisely.

"I have approached the local business networking group through which I got some long-time (I hope!) customers. The Computer Consulting Kit helped me to understand HOW to convince small business owners and win the business with them. What I learned from the Computer Consulting Kit helped me to understand better what small businesses want and helped me earn another $5,000."

Lev Soldatov, IT Solutions and Management Group
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

The Bottom Line about IT Marketing

To learn more about IT marketing, click here now to get access to a free one-hour audio training program on 5 Easy Ways to Grow Your Computer Consulting Business.