Computer Consulting: 3 Questions To Ask Your Clients
From a customer service perspective, you can ask your computer consulting clients three questions that will explode the growth of your company.
Question Number One:
“How Can We Improve the Level of Service That We Provide Your Company?”
Ask your computer consulting clients this question on a regular basis; at least a couple times a year. You will be amazed at the type of suggestions they give you.
They will tell you some things you’ll be able to implement without charging them another nickel or penny more because they’re simple no-brainer kind of things. For example, “Could you send us an email reminder the day before you’re coming in?” Obviously you don’t have to charge for something like that.
Some of the others may say, “It would be great if you could guarantee this kind of response time” or “It would be great if you could also take over finding someone who can help us with our PBXs.”
You’re going to get some ideas, some of which are going to make sense for you, some won’t. Some of them may require a little more legwork and some of them may be great opportunities for additional revenue.
Question Number Two:
“Is There Anything Else IT-related That Your Company Needs Help With?”
Question Number Three:
“Do You Know Anyone Else Such as Business Associates, Friends, Family Members in the Greater Area That Could Use Some Help With Their Computer-related Problems?”
Help Your Computer Consulting Clients Help You
Spend a minute or two to tell your computer consulting clients what they should look out for. If they happen to be on the phone with a vendor or supplier or family member and they’re complaining and moaning that everything’s running slowly or that the LAN’s down again or email’s not working or the server crashed.
Get your computer consulting clients trained to listen for those clues and let you know that there’s an opportunity out there. If they’re a long-term client of yours and they’re happy with you, they should be more than happy to recommend you. All you need to do is ask and train them to be looking for these clues.
The Bottom Line about Computer Consulting
In this article, you’ve learned about computer consulting. To learn more about 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.
Computer Consulting: Finding Your Prospects Among Your Leads
Some signs are important to look for when looking for your sweet spot computer consulting clients. Most of these businesses will be doing at least a seven-figure annual sales volume with 10 to 25 employees. In this article, you’ll learn how to use additional criteria to pick out your sweet spot computer consulting clients.
Some industries tend to be more IT-intensive than others. Soon, you’ll learn the industries that are most likely to need your computer consulting services. There are some good signs and bad signs when it comes to the probability of a business hiring you. You will learn to recognize right off the bat whether a business is going to be receptive to spending $1,000 to $2,000 for computer consulting services.
Computer Consulting: The Good Signs and the Bad
A really good sign is if you go in to meet with a prospective client and you find out that they’re working with another solution provider in your local community but they’re dissatisfied. Why is that a good thing for you? If they’re dissatisfied and looking around for someone else, that tells you that they’re willing to pay for professional computer consulting services.
A bad sign is they’re working with a moonlighter or they have a friend or a family member who helps out once in a while or they’re getting volunteer support, and they’re not used to paying for high-level professional services. That’s a big red flag. Any price you quote them is going to seem really high when they’re accustomed to getting service for free.
Sweet Spot Clients Run in Packs
Your sweet spot clients that are willing to spend $1,000 to $2,000 per month on IT services are going to have relationships with other trusted business advisors in the local community like accountants, attorneys, and management consultants. Sometimes they’re even working with other niched tech providers. This will work to your advantage when they start referring you to their contacts.
The Bottom Line about Computer Consulting
By learning to recognize the characteristics of a sweet spot client, you’ll save yourself lots of time and energy and more easily turn your prospects into clients. In this article, you’ve learned more about computer consulting.
To learn more about 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.
Computer Consulting: Should You Buy a Franchise?
You can approach the decision whether or not to buy a franchise in many different ways. There are many pros and many cons with franchise organizations. In this article, we’ll explore the pros and cons with franchise organizations in computer consulting.
The Pros
o You get the trappings of being part of a larger company.
o You get a peer support network that’s built into the organization.
o You get a lot of tools and resources.
o You have people to go to with problems.
The Cons
There is a flip side to each of these. The biggest drawback for many computer consulting entrepreneurs is that there is a substantial capital investment to get started. Plus, you’ll be paying a percentage of your revenue or profit each month (a royalty) to the franchiser. On top of that, there will be some restrictions on what you can and cannot do with your business.
Computer Consulting Requires More Time than Money
Typically, starting a computer consulting business is a relatively low overhead investment. It’s more time intensive than capital intensive. What does that mean? It means it can take you anywhere from three to six months (or more) to develop enough contacts, prospects and project opportunities in your sales funnel to be booked up at least a 50 or 60 percent utilization rate (i.e. 20 to 24 billable hour each week).
When You Can Expect Some Decent Revenue
Even going out there and pounding the pavement, and going to all of your local networking events, and going out on sales calls, three to six months is generally a good estimate of how long it can take to get to the point that you can start to generate some substantial cash flow. If you want to be able to hire multiple technical staff members and sales people, it can take years.
You need capital. After all, you certainly need to be able to continue paying your business expenses. Keep your overhead reasonably low so it’s not any more stressful than need be. You need to decide whether buying a computer consulting franchise is a good decision for your business.
The Bottom Line about Computer Consulting
In this article, you’ve learned about the pros and cons to buying franchises for computer consulting. To learn more about 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.
