Subcontractors - Finding The Right People To Work With
Subcontractors are often called upon by IT consultants to carry out work that they themselves don’t specialize in. Finding the right people to work with, and making sure they don’t steal your clients are two important issues surrounding hiring subcontractors.
Where Do You Find Subcontractors?
The best way to find subcontractors is to meet them coincidentally through a client account. This way you have an opportunity to meet and work with them first, before there is any pressure of committing to a subcontractor relationship.
As part of your business planning process you should determine the services you will offer. For each relevant service you decide not to offer, you should identify a quality niche technology provider who does. This way, you can be prepared to discuss a subcontractor relationship if you happen to run into one of them at networking events, channel events, training classes, etc…
Keep your antennas up all the time, and ask people you meet whether they have had a good experience with any niche technology providers that may be potential subcontractors.
The one method of sourcing subcontractors that we don’t recommend is using a third party IT employment service company. Any face to face or referral type of meeting is preferable to third-party sources. You have little control when hiring a subcontractor this way.
Bottom Line on Subcontractors
Finding a subcontractor should not be too difficult if you are doing a good job of networking. Use all your sources and resources to seek out niche technology providers who are good potential subcontractors. By finding quality subcontractors you will be able to improve the level and scope of service your provide to your clients.
In this article, you’ve been introduced to Subcontractors. To learn more about how you can improve your knowledge about Subcontractors, 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.
Subcontracting - Do It Profitably
Subcontracting must be done profitably for it to make sense. Your main concern as a virtual IT provider is the profitability of your business. Before subcontracting work you need to analyze the costs and build in enough of a margin that you are still making money.
To deliver virtual IT profitably to your clients, you need to give yourself enough wiggle room on service agreements to allow for profitable subcontracting of specialty services. Most of the contractors that you work with are going to have entirely different rate structures than you.
Before subcontracting, you need to estimate their services on a per project basis with clients:
- You identify the need for subcontracting
- You figure out what needs to get done
- You get an estimate from your subcontractor
In this process you must also give yourself the ability to work with a speciality contractor who charges more than you charge the client. If you don’t you’ll lose money which you can’t afford to do.
With subcontracting, you need to have a markup to recoup your costs related to:
- recruitment
- project management
- scheduling and billing
- risk management
Do you need to disclose this markup for subcontracting to the client? Absolutely not. You don’t need to tell them what your contractor markup is, or even that there is a markup when subcontracting.
Bottom Line on Subcontracting
Subcontracting is often the way you get IT work done for you clients. When you are engaged in subcontracting you need to be paid for the time and energy you are investing in seeking and managing the subcontracting relationship. Using a standard markup and making sure your service agreement allows for subcontracting fees are essential to the process of subcontracting.
In this article, you’ve been introduced to Subcontracting. To learn more about how you can improve your knowledge about Subcontracting, 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.
Subcontractors: Who Knows Your Clients Best?
A big fear computer consultants have when developing partnerships and relationships with subcontractors is “How do I keep the subcontractors from stealing my clients?”
Contracts Are Only Part of The Equation
Should you implement a non-compete form from the onset of the relationship? Absolutely. But never put a piece of paper ahead of your gut feelings.
This type of business is not as cut and dry as just having clients sign your service agreement and subcontractors signing your independent contractor agreement.
What Are the Subcontractors’ Intentions?
Some people sign things in bad faith. Some people sign things in good faith. A lot of it is sizing up the relationship and being a good judge of character.
You should definitely have your service contract reviewed by your attorney to make sure it’s legally binding and enforceable, but no amount of clauses, no amount of sign-offs is going to protect you from someone determined to make your life miserable.
Don’t Allow Subcontractors Steal Your Clients and Vice Versa
Another interesting idea that’s worked is to put something in the clients’ service agreement that your clients are not allowed to steal your employees and your subcontractors.
All these things are just deterrents. If someone is really determined to get around your contracts, they’re going to figure out a way to do it.
Make Sure Your Clients Know Who You Are
Know your clients. Look to have some kind of balance between people that are on your staff and payroll so that there is a certain amount of continuity to the existing client relationships.
Those should be the people that your clients get to know best. If your subcontractors are known the best, then who really owns the relationship?
Don’t Be a Stranger To Your Client
Make sure that if you take on a client where they’re starting to see your subcontractors a lot, that you’re supplementing those visits. Accompany your subcontractors on a project management level, do a lot of follow-ups between visits, or have your junior techs tag along and do some work so they get a little bit of cross-training as you go along.
The Bottom Line about Subcontractors
In this article, you’ve learned about subcontractors. To learn more about subcontractors, click here now to get access to a free one-hour audio training program on 5 Easy Ways to Grow Your Computer Consulting Business.
IT Support: Are You Wearing Multiple Hats?
In the early stages of developing an IT support business, the owners typically wear all the hats: the sales hats, the technical hats, and the administrative hats, until the company has established enough of a client base that it can justify delegating certain things to a salesperson or a couple of different technical people. In this article, you’ll learn why you need to wear so many hats in the beginning and when to start handing the hats to someone else.
Why So Many Hats are Important in the Beginning
Many people come to me and say, “Well, I’m just the owner. I’m an entrepreneur. I’m good at pulling it all together, but I’m not really a techie. And I’m not really the sales guy. What should I do?” I’m going to be very blunt. You’re behind the 8 ball already because a lot of your local competitors are wearing all of these hats, especially during the startup phase of their IT support business.
In a lot of cases, your firm is going to be competing for these sweet spot clients against one-person consultants who may be working out of their homes with extremely low overhead. These are the rare folks that are pretty good technically and happen to have pretty good sales-oriented kinds of personalities.
When to Start Passing Out Hats
That’s not to say that you couldn’t have a good technical person and keep him or her very busy and a good full-time salesperson. Typically, however, your IT support business evolves over time. The owner starts out by being both the salesperson, and the technical person. As the company gets busier, your firm starts subcontracting out some of the overflow work or work that is not up your alley (specialist tasks). This frees you up to go out a little more on sales calls.
Then, when you get to the point where you have a couple different subcontractors that you consistently are sending this work to, your light bulb will start to go off. You realize for the money your firm is spending on subcontractors, you could put someone on payroll.
The Bottom Line about IT Support
Keep in the back of your mind that some of your competitors are going to be skilled at sales and technical issues right off the bat. And they may give you a run for the money. You will want to think about this issue carefully as you start to position your business.
In this article, you’ve been introduced to the importance of being good at sales and being a “techie” when starting up an IT support business. For more information on improving your IT support 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.
