Small Biz Tech Talk ™

Are you in the software consulting business? Would you like to go beyond just selling products and services, and move towards selling real solutions that can give your firm long-term profitability?  

Many involved in software consulting don’t fully understand why you need to go beyond selling software and products and establish real relationships with clients that involve sophisticated end-to-end IT solutions.  And even if installing networks and finding the right software for your small business clients is a part of your job description, you really need to move beyond just basic server and network installation, and find profitable ways to continue adding value to your installations.  

The following 8 tips can help you go beyond basic software consulting, so you can profit from mutually-beneficial, on-going relationships with steady, high-paying clients.

1. The Best Opportunities Come from Being a Virtual CIO/Project Manager.  As you start to develop long-term relationships with small business clients and go beyond just installing and customizing software, you want to become each client’s virtual CIO and project manager.  As you take on this role, you will have the ultimate responsibility for delivering the completed project on time and on budget.  You are commanding high rates because you are managing complex projects with a lot of variables.  Smooth upgrades and on-going maintenance don’t just happen. As a true project manager and virtual CIO, you have to be diligent with advanced planning and attention to many details.

2. Build a Testing Center in Your Office.  Building a test bed in your office can help you become more comfortable with supported software and product recommendations.  Know the major product features inside-out and backwards before you install the software at a client site.  You don’t want your clients to be your guinea pigs.

   
   

3. Plan and Coordinate Carefully.  A lot of the work for any major software consulting project is advance planning and coordination.  As a virtual CIO, make sure everything you do for clients is rigorously planned, so you don’t compromise important client relationships by failing to deliver on your promises.

   
   

4. Schedule Major Upgrades and Other Disruptive Work for After Hours.  Plan to do major software upgrades and network installations when your clients aren’t in the middle of a busy work day.  Start planning downtime weeks in advance so everyone knows what to expect.

   
   

5. Be Totally Prepared for Emergencies.  As part of your software consulting, you have to have your proverbial “fire extinguisher” ready for every client.  Know who to call, including vendor tech support phone numbers, passwords, hours, and newsgroups, when you run into a problem that stumps you before you are in the middle of it and completely stressed out.

6. Review Your Clients’ IT Asset Inventories and Site Survey Notes.  Get familiar with any shortcomings your clients might have in terms of their IT assets or any other systems that might get in the way of a successful installation.  You shouldn’t consider taking on a client that refuses to pay for a few hours of your time to do an updated site survey or create an asset inventory.

7. Set Up Clear Testing Criteria for Each Client.  As part of your software consulting, you need to define success with each client when it comes to installations.  Figure out how to test systems and applications to make sure you have successfully completed a project. To do this, you need to have very set criteria for determining a job well done.

8. Have Back-Ups.   If you really want to be a virtual CIO for your valued clients, you shouldn’t undertake any major installation until you are totally sure that your client has multiple, verified and tested back-ups in case something goes wrong.

In this article, we talked about 8 important tips that help you run a successful software consulting firm.  Learn more about how you can attract great, steady, high-paying clients for your software consulting business now at the attached link.    
 
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1. Proximity. A potential client for your computer services business needs to be geographically close to you. In most areas, this means within a 30-60-minute drive from your location. Proximity has an impact on the types of networking events you attend and everything else you do from a marketing perspective. Proximity will also be an important benefit to stress as you are building a long-term support contract plan. This way, you can build long-term relationships with your ongoing clients.

2. Size. Make sure with your computer services business that you are targeting potential clients with 10-50 PC’s… those that we call Sweet Spot Clients™. Basically, prospects have to be big enough that they need a real server. Typically, this level of investment is required once a small business reaches somewhere between 10-100 employees. You can also measure size in annual revenue. A good prospect for you will have $1 – 10 million in annual sales. Know all the details of prospect size because that information will help you with your marketing efforts, particularly when you plan direct mail campaigns.

3. Existing IT Assets. Most of the time your computer services business prospects will have their own e-mail domain. You will want to address how their users retrieve and send e-mails when meeting with them, because it’s going to be an important way to qualify them as good candidates for your services. Many times prospects will have a dedicated server, which will indicate that they have more serious IT needs and probably would be receptive to the solutions you offer.

4. Platform Match.  If your expertise is on Microsoft Windows, will you be able to adequately and profitably support a potential client’s largely Mac-focused environment? As part of your lead qualification process, be sure to ask about predominant OS/NOS platform investments to make sure that you’re not embarking on an unsupportable-platform wild-good-chase. Or at the minimum, make sure you have a competent contractor or partner that can help to bridge any of your own company’s skills gaps.

If you own or manage a small business IT company, you may be thinking about using IT service contracts to build better relationships with clients.

The truth is, many small business IT consultants choose not to use IT service contracts as part of their business models … and many of them end up working way too hard for way too little money. They find themselves with no real business stability and unable to build solid relationships with steady, high-paying clients.
 
If you want to achieve greater success in the small business world, you need to know how to incorporate the idea of Virtual IT into your IT service contracts. When you provide Virtual IT services to your clients, you need to offer a very wide range of IT services and solutions, that approximate what would be found in a large, enterprise corporate IT department.
 
The following 3 tips can help you learn what you can do to build stable, profitable client relationships and grow your business.

   1.  Know Why Many IT Consulting Companies Get the Virtual IT Concept Wrong. Most IT business owners trying to develop a model for IT service contracts get the idea behind their businesses all wrong and make their jobs much harder than they need to be. These people fall in love with technology, trying to stay ahead of the latest and greatest new platforms instead of keeping an eye out for their small business clients’ best interests.

   2.  Learn from Others’ Virtual IT Mistakes and Omissions. If you fail to understand the definition of Virtual IT and don’t incorporate it into your business model, you will be known as just another clueless geek. Keep in mind that as a true provider of comprehensive IT service contracts, recruiting and retaining small business clients is your #1 priority. Keeping up with the latest technology advances can never get in the way of building relationships and the mission of your computer consulting company. Therefore, don’t be seduced by hardware, operating systems or applications. Instead, fall in love with the business opportunities that go along with solving your clients’ biggest business problems with well-designed IT solutions.

   3.  Know How to Blend Computer Consulting IT Service Contracts and the Idea of Virtual IT. In order to sell profitable IT service contracts to clients, you need to fully understand and use the Virtual IT concept. Virtual IT allows your computer consulting company to function as an extension of your small business clients’ companies. When you follow this concept, your company becomes the outsourced Virtual IT department for your small business clients. You become the Virtual CIO (chief information officer), Virtual CTO (chief technology officer) or Virtual IT manager for all of your small business clients, a relationship solidified further by IT service contracts. You will need to take responsibility for providing or arranging for a complete soup-to-nuts solution that includes important services and benefits like help desk, desktop support, network administration, testing, security, training, procurement and asset management.
 
In this brief article, we talked about 3 tips to help you incorporate the idea of Virtual IT into your model for IT service contracts. Learn more about how you can get great, steady, high-paying clients with well-crafted IT service contracts now at the attached link. 

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