Get Going with Computer Consulting!

As you are getting ready to get started in computer consulting, you need to exercise careful planning. Pick a company name, get your business cards printed, think about which types of customers you want to chase and where you will meet them. How can you accomplish all this?

Business Cards

When you are starting out in computer consulting, you need to print business cards. They probably won’t last you forever, because you may decide to change your company name, phone number or address. Just get them reprinted! But having business cards in the beginning can motivate you as you pass them out to all your friends and family members.

Talk about Your Computer Consulting Business

When you are out and about and meeting people at kids’ soccer games, church, synagogue or simply standing on line at the movies, you may have the opportunity to talk about your computer consulting business and hand out business cards. These informal networking opportunities can give you future business as these people can become a part of your extended sales force.

Get Involved!

You need to get active in local organizations designed for small business owners. Look at three or four trade groups and start attending meetings. Examples: chamber of commerce; user groups; trade groups; industry-specific trade groups.

Computer Consulting: What Do You Know?

A lot of times it makes sense to choose a specialty in computer consulting that matches your background. You can always expand your services as your business grows, but if you start with a niche you already know, you will be competent and increase your credibility. You will also be more likely to develop a strong marketing message and be memorable to prospects. You will not be like everyone else your prospects might find in the phone book or anywhere else.

Are There Enough Prospects?

You need to make sure there are enough prospects in your computer consulting niche before you start to market to it. As an example, if you have a nursing background, you may focus early activities on small doctor’s offices. Just make sure there are 500-1,000 prospects within an hour of where you are located. This will help you target your message and get attention.

Think about branding your company with your industry focus by putting it in your computer consulting name, i.e., add “health care systems,” “medical office systems” or some other hybrid as part of your company name.

Computer Consultants: 7 Profit Secrets

As computer consultants, you will need to rely on strategies to help you maximize your profits. Focusing on profits might seem simple, but it is something that is based on business know-how and can often be a problem for computer consultants. Many owners fall in love with technology and get sucked into channel programs. But, your computer consulting company is a business, and you need to follow specific techniques to keep it running.

The following are 7 profit secrets that can send you on your way.

1. Be motivated computer consultants. You don’t want to be labeled as just a “geek,” so you need to act like a virtual CIO for hire that is concerned about his/her clients’ complex problems.

2. Dedicate yourself to constant improvement. Computer consultants need to work very hard to get the best clients, so you need to think about lifetime customer value, not just one-shot deals. Remember that your solution needs to be long term and be well-plotted.

3. Get creative with clients. Small businesses need to typically follow strict budgets. Your solutions have to work without the need for an in-house staff, which means you might have to think creatively.

4. Look at how clients’ systems are working today. You need to look both at paper- and technology-based items with your clients. Your role as a virtual CIO is to figure out how clients are meeting and not meeting present and future needs, so you have to look at everything.

5. Think about what your clients’ clients will need from them. You have to have good people skills and empathy for your clients’ business problems. But you also have to truly “get” what your clients are up against when it comes to THEIR clients.

6. Keep up to date with new versions and advances. Computer consultants need to advise their clients about which tools can best help their businesses grow. Don’t let research and development and training take up all your time, but stay ahead of the game.

7. Summarize information and share it with clients. The main point of your research and development and training should be to find out whether or not a new platform or tool will really add value to your clients’ present or future installations. And computer consultants need to summarize findings in a way their business-minded clients can understand.