When you’re involved in computer consulting, you’re selling your time.  Because you’re selling your time, you have to pre-qualify each call you receive as part of customer service to determine if it’s urgent, budget-friendly and worthy of your help.

The computer consulting business involves selling your personality, your charisma and your knowledge of business.  However, the most important item you’re selling is your time, and you have to be able to account for every hour you spend, whether billable or non-billable, sales-oriented, prospecting or administrative.  How can you tell whether a service call is worthy of your time?

Computer Consulting:  Emergency or Not?

If you want to learn how to best use your time and work more efficiently, you need to know how urgent the need is as soon as you first hear from the client or customer, whether via phone, email or on site.  An immediate emergency, like a downed server that affects many members of a small business environment will present a greater sense of urgency than a malfunctioning link to a PDA.  Determining a sense of urgency is key to uncovering time wasters.

Computer Consulting Budget

You need to know what your prospects’ budgets are before you go into a project.  If the prospect is broke, he/she will not have money for your services and you should put the prospect on a follow-up list for three-to-six months to determine if the prospect will have money for computer consulting services later.

Computer Consulting and Tact

As a responsible computer consulting professional you can’t ask point-blank if a prospect is broke or has money to afford your services.  Instead, be tactful.  Ask if the prospect gets computer consulting support now, how he/she has received it in the past and determine whether the company has been previously using volunteers or moonlighters or more expensive support.

If you discover the small business is working with another VAR that is your competitor and would charge a legitimate professional rate, you know the prospect has the funds to afford you.  

Computer Consulting:  Pain is Important

The most important question to ask about computer consulting prospects and customers is, what is the level of pain and can you find a solution that will fix it?

Exploring the above topics when dealing with computer consulting prospects and customers will help you figure out how to eliminate those that will waste your time and give better and more efficient service.  

Blogged By:  Joshua Feinberg