Small Business Computer Consulting

Business partnerships are entered into for two main reasons.  Both of these motivations for starting a business partnership are equally important.  

Sometimes you’ll want a business partnership so you can fill a skills gap.  These are the specialty business partners.

Other times you’ll want a business partnership for marketing reasons so you can get access to their clients. This type of business partnership is usually mutually beneficial.  The more you view your business partnership as a two-way street, the better.

Regardless of the reason why you are choosing to start a partnership, you need to analyze your business and figure out what the business partnership will accomplish. This is done in four stages:

Categorize the Types of Business Partnerships

• Accounting software experts (QuickBooks, Great Plains, Mass 90 )
• Apple Macintosh specialists
• CRM specialists
• Document imaging
• Legacy host systems
• Industry-specific software experts (healthcare, hospitality, property/casualty, legal, manufacturing)
• Security experts (biometrics, smart cards, intrusion detection)
• Software developers
• System building
• Wholesalers and distributors

Identify Specialty Skills

• List out what virtual IT products you need a business partnership for – identify the skills gap you think each business partner will fill in
• Identify the specialty skills that a business partner must have according to what a client would need

Explore Marketing Value

• List the kind of clients each potential business partnership would have
• Describe the value you would get from the business partnership from gaining access to their clients
• Identify how many of these potential business partnerships would have sweet spot clients

Locating Business Partnerships

• List the types of organizations and groups a potential business partner would join
• What conferences do they tend to go to?
• What news groups do they hang out at?  

Bottom Line on Business Partnerships
Business Partnerships should benefit both parties.  When you are determining who to form a business partnership with, you need to determine the best partnership for you based on the partnership firm’s skills and their access to sweet spot clients.  After that you figure out how to meet up with the decision makers and explore the possibility of a business partnership.

In this article, you’ve been introduced to Business Partnerships. To learn more about how you can improve your knowledge about Business Partnerships, just click here now to get access to a free one-hour audio training program on 5 Easy Ways to Grow Your Computer Consulting Business.

Business agreements with other IT companies can be an excellent way to secure high quality referrals. When you are dealing within a B2B context, the referrals you get from non competing IT businesses tend to be ones that will turn into long term service contracts.  This is exactly the kind of business you want.

The question becomes though, "What kind of fee should I give to the person I have such a business agreement with?"

There is no quick answer as the referral fee depends on a number of factors.  Here are a few guidelines to use to structure your referral business agreements:

• Figure out what your average client relationship is worth to you over a year. If the business agreement you have set up is providing you leads that typically turn into sweet spot service contracts, then a $500.00 referral fee is not unreasonable.

• If the business agreement is passing on leads that are more one-time service call events (someone got their AOL disk stuck and you have to go over on a Saturday afternoon to fish it out and they balk at paying a $100 fee), then you really can’t afford to pay any kind of referral fee.

• If you go through the trouble of setting up a business agreement, make sure you will be getting high quality referrals.  I recommend you keep these business agreements real simple.

• For fixed fee business agreements call it a finders fee and use a range of $250 to $500 per referral.  You may go up to $1000, but that should only be after you have established a set of referral criteria that would trigger this large of a fee.  You may also want to consider a business agreement where you pay a percentage of revenue.

Bottom Line on Business Agreements
Ultimately, you have to do what you’re comfortable with.  Business agreements are an excellent referral source but you don’t want to lock yourself into paying high fees for referrals that aren’t part of your sweet spot.  Be smart about it, establish a good relationship with the company you are entering into a business agreement with, and adjust your fee system as you get more comfortable with the process.  

In this article, you’ve been introduced to Business Agreements. To learn more about how you can improve your knowledge about Business Agreements, just click here now to get access to a free one-hour audio training program on 5 Easy Ways to Grow Your Computer Consulting Business.

When starting an IT consulting business, should you already have partnerships established with other companies to provide services that you don’t? The whole problem with running an IT consulting business is that you need to be able to satisfy a lot of needs. However, don’t let that hold you back from getting started.

Know Where Your Expertise Lies

It’s really not that critical to have partnerships in place when you’re getting your IT consulting business started. However, if you feel that you have substantial weaknesses and you’re going to encounter a lot of prospects needing services your IT consulting business can’t provide, you may want some good contractors lined up. 

Plan Ahead and Bring on Partners Slowly

In the IT consulting business, you should generally wait until you’re more established to form solid partnerships. Once you get your business up and running, try to meet up with one person every other month that could be a potential business partner or contractor.

You’ll meet prospective partners or contractors at chamber events and networking groups and other people will refer you to them. The best potential partners for your IT consulting business will be at your mutual clients’ place of business.

The Bottom Line about the IT Consulting Business

Once again, don’t let your lack of expertise in certain areas prevent you from getting your IT consulting business started. You’ll have plenty of time to build up the partnerships later. There’s no reason to go overboard unless you feel you really need to have those skills backing your IT consulting business.

In this article, you’ve learned about the IT consulting business. To learn more about the IT consulting business click here now to get access to a free one-hour audio training program on 5 Easy Ways to Grow Your Computer Consulting Business.

To grow your business, you need help. To find trusted help, look for like-minded people you have built a relationship with. You may just find them in untraditional places.

Read on to see how one of our computer consultants found help for his business.

"This year I took a technical refresher class at my local community college as a means to further develop my subcontracting contact database. More than the class content, I have made connections with other IT pros in a setting that lends itself to developing more trust (over a three month period) than a short business meeting at local Chambers of Commerce or even user groups."

Sean Atkinson, Immediate Tech Support, Inc.
Hollywood, Florida

The Bottom Line about Partnering

To learn more about partnering, click here now to get access to a free one-hour audio training program on 5 Easy Ways to Grow Your Computer Consulting Business.

There’s only one you. If you haven’t already, you’ll soon find yourself with no more time left to work. Then what?

To grow your business, you’ll need to find others to help you.

Read on to see how one of our computer consultants grew his business by employing this strategy:

"I have successfully employed two junior staff to handle some of the workload. I learned from the Computer Consulting Kit that I need to grow my company. If I am spending all my time running the company, it will never grow."

Alister Cole, EES Computing and Engineering Services
Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa

The Bottom Line about Partnering

To learn more about partnering and subcontracting, click here now to get access to a free one-hour audio training program on 5 Easy Ways to Grow Your Computer Consulting Business.

Small business network members understand and depend on networking benefits.  You can start a small business network with a little research and creativity.  All that is required for a successful small business network is a few strong business relationships.

Forming a Small Business Network

Starting a small business network may seem like a daunting task.  However, it is a relatively simple process that only improves with time.  As the network grows, so does your business.

A business owner is faced with two options.  You can join a professional organization or you can form your own small business network.

Joining a Professional Organization

One way of forming a small business network is to join one or two professional organizations.  For starters, find an organization that specializes in your industry.

You can learn a lot from other entrepreneurs that are working in your field of interest.  You should also decide what you wish to achieve from joining the small business network.  Do you simply want to make business contacts?

Are you interested in attending seminars or lectures that relate to your business?  Determine your goals before selecting a professional organization.

Forming Your Own Small Business Network

Some entrepreneurs do not have the time to invest in attending professional organization meetings.  These individuals should consider forming their own small business network.  This can be accomplished in a variety of ways.  The most common is to utilize Internet mailing lists to form relationships.

Instead of a face-to-face meeting with these individuals, you will communicate via e-mail.  This can be a valuable tool.  You will be sharing ideas, problems, and solutions with other entrepreneurs who are not considered your competition! 

Do It Today

No matter how you choose to start a small business network, the most important point is that you start one!  Networking allows a business to form long lasting relationships that impact the success of your business.

Every time you contact a network member, you are improving the odds of receiving referrals.  The community is exposed to the valuable services and products your business offers.
  
The Bottom Line about a Small Business Network

In this article, you’ve learned about a small business network. To learn more about a small business network, click here now to get access to a free one-hour audio training program on 5 Easy Ways to Grow Your Computer Consulting Business.

Partnering is ideal for when you come across projects that you can’t complete yourself. First you need to decide if the project is a good fit for you based on how much of it you’re able to handle in-house.

Do You Tell Your Clients You’re Partnering?

You can tell your client, “While we don’t have anyone on staff who does that task, we do have another company in the local area that we work with on a regular basis that I strongly recommend.  We’ve worked with them together on two projects in the past. I’ll be happy to bring them in and coordinate everything to make sure that you have full coverage.”

Look at the Overall Picture of the Job

What’s the job going to look like? Think about it like a big to-do list of all the different things that you’re going to do for your client. Can you handle them in-house or would you need to send it out to partners or subcontractors? If most of the job would need to be sent out, it’s usually a big tip-off that the job may not be a fit for you.

How Much of a Big Project Should You Be Able to Do Yourself?

There’s no hard and fast rule. Shoot for a minimum of 50 percent though. You should feel like most of the project won’t require partnering. You want to build a real strong relationship with the client by seeing them regularly.

What Percentage of This Partnering Relationship Is Billable?

Are there going to be a lot of tasks that will require that you spend a lot of non-billable training time learning things that may be only applicable with this particular client? You may not be able to use it with additional clients, so you’ll be forced to eat this time that you can’t bill. Non-billable time kills your profit margins very fast; especially if it’s a small job.

How Big a Job Is It?

If it’s a larger job, let’s say you’re pitching a project that has a $15,000 potential and you think someone in the store can handle 95 percent of it. They might need a half a day or a day’s worth of training to handle the balance of it, that might be a good fit.

If you don’t have most of the pieces of the puzzle already, that’s the big wake-up call. You have to think about whether you want to take it on or whether (unfortunately) you’re going to have to pass on it. A good way to be prepared for these partnering projects is by working on building these partnering relationships now.

The Bottom Line about Partnering

In this article, you’ve learned about partnering. To learn more about partnering, click here now to get access to a free one-hour audio training program on 5 Easy Ways to Grow Your Computer Consulting Business.

One of the best places to find new partnering relationships is through client referrals.

If you’re taking on a new client and you get introduced to someone who’s a very deeply niched expert, invite them to lunch or coffee. You could say, “We should really get together and talk about whether we have any clients that could use your expertise and vice versa.”

After you’ve both already proven your abilities on this mutual client account, the trust is there, and partnering is pretty much a done deal. 

So when you’re fortunate enough to have one of these things fall in your lap because a new client introduces you, that’s tremendous. Definitely take advantage of it. 

Partnering Relationships Won’t Magically Appear

Beyond having them fall into your lap, you are going to have to get out there and actively seek potential partners. Going out to the chamber of commerce, you’re going to stumble across other people who say that they are consultants. The key thing here again is to be able to differentiate yourself.

If everyone is saying we do PC hardware, software, LANs and service, then you know, it’s very difficult to figure out whether there’s competitive issues that would prevent you from coming together and forming successful partnerships and contractor types of relationships.

When Partnering, Look for Specialists

The key thing is being able to explain that you’re looking for something a little bit unique. If you’re going to be the generalist and provide the total end-to-end solution, you just want to focus on meeting up with people who are specialists. 

You can also surf the Web to see who else is out there in your local market. You may stumble across some potential partners that way. However, it’s so much easier if you’re meeting them face to face. Forming these partnering relationships are easier if you meet in person at a channel event or a user group meeting or by an introduction through a mutual client.

The Bottom Line about Partnering

In this article, you learned more about partnering. For more information about partnering, click here now to get access to a free one-hour audio training program on 5 Easy Ways to Grow Your Computer Consulting Business.

Partnering does not happen overnight. You should approach it slowly and methodically like courtship or dating. In the same way you wouldn’t suggest going to bed with someone on the first date, you don’t want to try to close a deal with a potential partner in the very first meeting.

Don’t Jump Into The Relationship Too Quickly

Don’t try to close the partnering deal the first time you meet. It’s a recipe for failure. Partnerships may take weeks or months, sometimes even years to evolve. Some never get past the first few "dates."

It’s being introduced maybe by a common client or a common friend, getting together for coffee, trading some email, some phone calls back and forth, getting together for lunch again, talking about some common client problems that you’re running into, some client needs that you can’t fill. Make sure that you take your time to do this right and that you don’t ask for the sale or try to close the deal too soon. 

Partnering Needs To Be the Right Match

It’s as much about personalities meshing together with the trust and the chemistry as everything else. There’s got to be some IT-related connection or business-related connection, but even more importantly than that, the personalities of the two companies really have to connect. 

Keep your antennae up for opportunities whenever you’re going to reseller channel events or going to technical training classes or business expos.  You never know when you’re going to meet your next potential partner.

The Bottom Line about Partnering

In this article, you’ve been introduced to partnering. To learn more about partnering, click here now to get access to a free one-hour audio training program on 5 Easy Ways to Grow Your Computer Consulting Business.