Part of being involved in computer consulting is selling your personality and your business knowledge.  But you are also selling your time, and you can’t afford to deal with people or tasks that will waste it.  You have to be able to use every hour to its fullest.  How do you tell if a service call is a good use of your time?

Is it an Emergency?

To work more efficiently, you have to be able to find out whether computer consulting clients are actually having an emergency or if they just want your time.  You should be able to determine this as soon as you hear from them – on the phone, over e-mail or in person.  A server down issue has a much greater sense of urgency than an unlinking PDA.  

What is the Budget?

You simply can’t waste time with prospects that don’t have any money to pay you for your services.  If you come across a broke computer consulting prospect, you need to put the person on a follow-up list for three to six months to figure out if there is going to be more IT money to be spent.  Otherwise, don’t waste your time.

Be Tactful

You can’t ask directly if a prospect is broke or even, “Do you have any money?”  To determine whether a prospect can afford your support, as if he/she gets computer consulting support currently, how he/she has received it in the past and whether he/she has only used moonlighters or volunteers.  You can find out how big the budget is for IT by asking these questions.

If you find out the prospect is already working with someone else that you think of as a competitor, you can assume the funds are there to hire you.

What is Their Pain?

You need to know how much pain a prospect is in and what the nature of the pain is in order to pitch a sophisticated solution to solve customers’ and prospects’ problems. 

 
The Bottom Line about Computer Consulting

You need to think of time as part of your valuable inventory; don’t give it away in computer consulting unless you are sure it will be worth it.

Blogged By:  Computer Consulting Kit