Small Business Computer Consulting

Do you think the Computer Consulting Kit tips are just for new computer consultants?  See how three computer consultants that have been in business for 15 – even 20 – years have used the Computer Consulting Kit’s tested and proven strategies to improve their marketing and sales strategies for steady revenue and higher profit margins.

Tim Shoemakers, Synectics, Melbourne, Florida, USA:  Founded 1994

"The Computer Consulting Kit ensures a steady revenue stream and gives the client the confidence of steady contact and service.  By supplying both the theory and samples for this model, it was easy to make the transition."

Adrian Jansz, Scarymon Pty, Ltd., Adelade, South Australia, Australia:  Founded 1988

"The Computer Consulting Kit showed me specifically how to get started and how to market.  An excellent overview of requirements!"

Ken Reichardt, PCX Technologies, Dalas/Fort Worth, Texas, USA:  Founded 1987

"Absolutely any amount of money that you might spend on really any of Joshua’s materials will more than pay for itself many, many times over.  I know it has for me.  

This really is a golden opportunity for you to grow your IT consulting business and do it in the right way."

To learn about how you can benefit from the PROVEN strategies delivered by the Computer Consulting Kit, no matter how many years you’ve been in business, visit the attached link!

Added By:  Computer Consulting Kit

Sweet spot small businesses have very specific needs when it comes to virtual IT support.  Which technical skills do you need to best provide solutions?

Which Virtual IT Tasks Will Clients Require You to Do?

Sweet spot clients will need help with the most popular desktop applications:  Microsoft Office; Intuit QuickBooks; Interact ACT!, etc.  They will also need help with hardware upgrades and setting up shared folder backup software and keeping their antivirus and firewall software working.  They will probably also need help syncing PDAs and DEFINITELY need help with networks (a BIG part of your job as an outsourced virtual IT department!).

What about Micro Small Businesses?

Micro small businesses – those with less than 10 PCs – don’t usually spend a lot of money on people with advanced technical skills.  They are working with P2P networks and will see IT certifications and advanced virtual IT skills as a negative and something that makes you overqualified.  

Real IT Managers Care More about IT Certifications

When you are dealing with real IT managers in larger small businesses (over 50 systems), you will find someone that cares about advanced virtual IT skills.  Certifications will be important, and the company will be looking typically for specialists and deeply-niched experts to fill out their technical staff.  

The Main Idea about Virtual IT and Your Certifications

Sweet spot clients present a different opportunity from other small business clients.  You want to put most of your energy into the 10-50 PC space because they will be big enough to need sophisticated solutions, but not big enough to have to hire a really highly-skilled virtual IT professional.  

Added By:  Computer Consulting Kit

Technical skills are critical to your computer consulting business.  But you need to be selective when it comes to those you choose to develop so you can focus on your business and all its many complex aspects and stay up to speed with your competitors.

Technical Skills:  Networking Platforms

Your competitors that do well with their sweet spot clients have expertise in the following types of networking platforms:  Microsoft Small Business Server (SBS); Novell Small Business Suite or Novell NetWare; Linux (RedHat, usually); Mac OS.

Some of your larger competitors with more than one employee might gravitate towards the higher end of the market – 25-50 PCs – as a starting point and take on some larger small businesses with up to 100 systems.  They might also go towards mid-size companies that have 100-500 systems, at which point they will cease being real competitors; you don’t need the technical skills required to provide these high-end solutions.  

Technical Skills and Your Larger Competitors

Larger competitors have expertise in the following items:  Network Attached Storage (NAS); Storage Attached Networks (SANs); complex security solutions; CheckPoint firewalls; Citrix Terminal systems; high-end Wi-Fi solutions; managed hardware.  Until you start selling to a real IT manager at a small business, you don’t need these very high-level technical skills.  

Necessary Technical Skills

When you work with sweet spot small businesses that have 10-50 PCs, you should hire people to help you that have one or two entry-level certifications and are working towards an MCSE or equivalent.  

Solve Problems to Satisfy Clients

Your clients will care more about your ability to solve their major computer problems than they will about your high-level technical skills.  Get to know their industry and how you can solve major business problems from a unique IT perspective and you will be valued, even if you don’t have very advanced technical skills.  

Added By:  Joshua Feinberg

If you want to establish a unique specialty as a business computer consultant, you need to narrow your industry focus.  

Copy Your Best Clients

You need to find more prospects that are just like your current best clients as a business computer consultant.  Put active clients into a Microsoft Excel worksheet in columns.  In the first column, enter the client names then separately list their revenue for the last 12 months in the next column.  Divide by 12 to figure out the monthly income and determine the value of your clients.  

As a business computer consultant, this exercise helps you figure out who should get the best services, who is worth keeping and who is really paying your bills.  

Put Clients into Categories

Look at your best and most active clients and customers and find out who is in three separate categories:

1.    Micro small businesses with fewer than 10 systems;

2.    Sweet spot small businesses with 10-50 PCs;

3.    Very large companies that may not be serviceable unless you get staff with more advanced technical skills.

This exercise will help you find clients more like the clients that are your best as a business computer consultant.  Look for similarities between your best clients and become a specialist in this area.  Are they doctors?  Are they office managers or controllers or lawyers?  Figure it out and find more of them.   

Narrow Your Focus

If you narrow your focus as a business computer consultant you will stand out as an expert.  No matter what your specialty, you can find a good focus.    

What is Your Professional Background?

Your own industry expertise as a business computer consultant can be a good place to start.  When you present your business to prospects, you will already know about their field of business, which will be a major selling point.

Added By:  Joshua Feinberg

As a virtual IT specialist, you need to reach your target audience with your marketing materials.  Gathering information about prospects and your niche can help.

Study What Your Virtual IT Clients Do

As an example, if you are trying to get to small medical offices, you need to learn about their specific business issues.  Subscribe to industry publications, newsletters and other publications that will help you get to know medical office managers:  Medical Economics; Financial Management Strategies; Medical Group Management Association publications.

(While these resources are based in the U.S., there are many other worldwide.)  Start reading publications and get to know what is keeping the business managers in your niche up at night, driving their decisions and making them hurt.  What are their security issues and general IT issues?  

Give Good Virtual IT Solutions to Clients

You need to figure out how small medical offices are using technology to help them be more efficient.  No matter which industry you decide is your focus, you need to know the big trends that are happening currently.  As a virtual IT specialist, that is what is expected of you.  

Virtual IT:  A “Virtual CIO”

When you go to meet prospects armed with knowledge about their industry, you are not just a virtual IT firm that provides products or fixes generic software problems.  You are a virtual CIO capable of analyzing their special business needs and making recommendations, creating long-term plans and making them happen on time and at or under budget.

You Are Not a Commodity

When you act as a good virtual IT expert, you are not just a techie.  You are an IT specialist that understands unique business problems, and your clients will know that you will not need a ton of training to get moving on solving their biggest problems.

Blogged By:  Computer Consulting Kit

How do you become an IT specialist in a world that requires you to be a generalist?

As an IT specialist, you will have to provide the following services:  network design; procurement; managing relations; dealing with the phone companies, Web hosts and Internet access ISPs; deciding what to buy and inspecting it when it comes in; doing configuration, testing, integration, customization, training and trouble-shooting.

You will be doing everything, which qualifies you as a generalist.  But you don’t have to be a generalist for everyone.

Being an IT Specialist Means Being Selective

You should be all things to some of the people by providing a complete solution.  You offer a one-stop shop and take full accountability for everything your clients need.  But you have to limit the scope of the clients you choose.

An Example:  Real Estate

If you specialize in real estate, you will have worked with a lot of commercial real estate firms and be one of the top IT specialists in this niche.  You will have testimonials and references to prove that you work for these companies and will come across as a real specialist.

You Don’t Need a Lot of Experience

To be an IT specialist, you don’t need a lot of experience.  You can simply find one or two clients that you have been working with for a year or two.  And you will probably become familiar with the major business applications over an extended period of time.  That will separate you from everyone else as an IT specialist.   

Being an IT Specialist

The point is, you won’t need a lot of industry experience to be an IT specialist, but it will make a HUGE difference in terms of your marketing efforts.

Added By:  Joshua Feinberg

A VARs customer study conducted by Tata Consultancy discovered that customers are not happy with about two-thirds of all IT projects conducted within their businesses.  VARs were shocked to learn that their clients were willing to put up with this low level of success.

VARs were also surprised that, in a highly virtual world with newer, faster business solutions that many VARs would be delivering sub-par services.  As a response, some VARs put together a list of six tips to help other solution providers know how to succeed at IT projects.  
Many VARs stated that pre-planning all projects was the best way to avoid failure, feeling that a lack of preparation and communication are a major reason that IT projects do not meet expectations.

The reported dissatisfaction has given many solution providers hope that there will be opportunity for them to get new clients that are unhappy with their current VARs.  They feel there are plenty of rational and high-paying clients still out there that want to do business with responsible VARs.

For more information on this story about VARs, please visit the attached link.

Blogged By:  Computer Consulting Kit

In 2002, a lot of vendors decided they should try to push 802.11a wireless Ethernet products – supposedly the latest and greatest thing in wireless networking.  

Unfortunately for them, at the same time the 802.11g  was in development and should probably eventually overtake both the 802.11b and the 802.11a models.  The best idea is to recommend wireless Ethernet that supports all the standards:  802.11b; 802.11a; 802.11g.

Wireless Ethernet is an Opportunity for Your Business

Because you are an IT consultant, you should know that wireless Ethernet is a great chance for you to grow and improve your business.  But because there are a lot of already-installed 802.11b products and most 802.11a products are not compatible with the “b” products, you will have trouble if you work with an 802.11a standard at the moment.  

The Main Idea about Wireless Ethernet

Wireless Ethernet will probably take over wired services (CAT 5) eventually as the main small business networking standard.  But it’s not clear yet when or how this will happen, so computer consultants should still take advantage of wireless Ethernet as a true business opportunity.

Added By:  Joshua Feinberg

Kaseya, a worldwide company that provides IT software for solution providers and corporate IT organizations recently was awarded the 2007 CRN Editors’ Choice Award.  Even though the Dutch company is relatively new, it has been recognized as being outstanding in its market.  

Senior vice president for the company expressed his excitement for the early award and intention to continue to provide great services to support solution providers at the awards ceremony.  He feels the award is a recognition of Kaseya’s ability to provide solution providers with tools that will help them meet the many challenges they face daily.  He looks forward to an innovative future and a chance to help even more solution providers grow their businesses in the future.

CRN’s editor-in-chief Witold Kepinski reported that based on the number of votes given Kaseya during the short period of time the company has been in business, he believes the company is one to watch in the coming years.  He also stated that the selection of the company was based on two different criteria:  the innovation of Kaseya’s products and services; its close collaboration with solution providers.

For more information on this story for solution providers, please visit the attached link.

Added By:  Joshua Feinberg

Court Square Data Group, Inc., an IT consulting firm based in Massachusetts recently announced that it would be offering a new Security and Network Solutions component for companies in the life sciences and financial services industries.  

Court Square CEO Keith Parent feels that hackers are becoming an increasing problem for those in all industries, and those with sensitive data need to set policies that will let them promote safety.  He feels that the security services his IT consulting firm has already been offering are good, but that developing a company that can just focus on fulfilling security needs will be even better.  The new IT consulting firm will offer services such as network and server security, a vulnerability audit, security policy reviews, network and server security design and implementation of security features.   

The audit phase of the process will be a time for Court Square to gauge the security state of the network and servers.  Part of the process will be a simulated attack to figure out the real vulnerability.  When IT consulting firms analyze simulated attacks, they can help assess security and learn how to best proceed.  The security policy review will provide best practices and make vast improvements on protocol, policy and features.

Finally, the IT consulting firm will put these security and network improvements to work for clients and manage them through service contracts.

For more information on this new IT consulting security story, visit the attached link.

Blogged By:  Joshua Feinberg