Small Business Computer Consulting

As a new IT consulting business, it is important to learn about the most common mistakes made with time tracking and invoicing so you can avoid them.

Doing so will put your company in a better overall financial position.  You will also be able to sleep better knowing you have greater financial control over your business.

Time Tracking, Billing and Other Issues

Time tracking, billing, invoicing and dealing with credit and collections are big issues in IT consulting.  A lot of people wonder which software they should use for time tracking and billing.  If you’re just focusing on that, you’re probably missing the bigger point here. 

It’s a heck of a lot more important than the software you use. Of course you should use a piece of software that makes it a little easier to do your IT consulting job, but the software is not going to fix the underlying problems.

Your Service Gives IT Consulting Clients Peace of Mind

Steady clients will perceive your IT consulting business as an insurance policy.  A steady client is motivated to pay your IT consulting business on time.

There’s a tremendous fear that if they forget to pay your invoices on time, when they have a network emergency, you’ll forget who they are.  These are the clients you want to seek out.

The Bottom Line about IT Consulting

In this article, you’ve been introduced to IT consulting. To learn more about IT 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.

Technology assessments are a great way to suggest new ways for your customers to become more efficient and save money. While they are often used for new customers, don’t forget to use them for existing customers.

You already have a relationship with these clients, and you can suggest updates and changes that will positively impact their bottom line.

Read on to see how one of our computer consultants used technology assessments with his existing customers:

"This year I used proactive support with our existing customers, connected to the top 50 customers’ servers and identified what service packs, patches and updates were required. Then sent a one-page flyer outlining what they needed, why they needed it, how long it would take, what size the patches were, how much downtime was required, and also identified what benefits the customer could expect. Combined these visits to talk to existing customers and have a chat to catch up and find out what they like/dislike about my company. Also generated £50,000.00 of revenue which is a great result after all the hard work…"

Richard Birt, CNC Ltd
Brighton, East Sussex, UK

The Bottom Line about Technology Assessments

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

If you want to make a decent living and have a good, strong, sustainable IT consulting business, sooner or later you are going to come to this conclusion that the sweet spot of small businesses is the place to be.

You need to know where to look and how to verify that the small business you are pursuing is going to be gratifying enough to work with and lucrative enough of recurring revenue to make them a good sweet spot client. 

How Do You Recognize a Sweet Spot Client?

Sweet spot IT consulting clients are no more than a 30-50 minute drive of your IT consulting home base. This way you can gets lots of face time with them. You can also get there quickly if there’s an emergency. You don’t want to spend a lot of time driving around and sitting in traffic.
 
Even if you are charging for travel time or charging a service fee or a van fee, driving time is not your most profitable IT consulting time. 

How Do You Find Local Sweet Spot Businesses?

You can certainly rent direct mail lists that are in that geographic range 0-50 miles, or 0-80 kilometers. Or you can join some local organizations that are within a half hour to an hour of your location.

How Big Are The Sweet Spot IT Consulting Clients?

Sweet spot IT consulting clients have from 10-50 computers, 10-100 employees, a million to 10 million in sales.  And of course, you can rent direct mail lists with at least part of that criteria filled and selected.

Another big thing to find a sweet spot IT consulting client is that they will have a relationship with a local accounting firm or other trusted business advisors.  You want to position your consulting firm to be a trusted business advisor of theirs.

Sweet Spot Businesses are Well Connected

Most of these sweet spot IT consulting clients have relationships with other trusted business advisors on an outsource basis. They have a relationship with a local attorney, a local accounting firm, a local consulting firm a local advertising agency and a graphic designer. They know the value of those kinds of relationships.

If you want to get in with companies that already have great relationships with sweet spot businesses, you should be looking at networking with these businesses, a local accounting firm for example. 

The Bottom Line about IT Consulting

In this article, you’ve been introduced to IT consulting.  To learn more about IT 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.

If you’re about to start recommending that your clients buy extended service plans for new notebook PCs, be sure to get a written statement detailing what’s included and not included.

Unfortunately, PC vendors won’t always tell you specifically what’s not included. Sometimes, you’ll only be able to surmise what’s missing by comparing written warranty statements from different PC vendors.

Hazard Coverage

For example, most notebook PC vendors specifically exclude warranty claims arising from obvious neglect issues, such as spilling liquid on a notebook or dropping it. Other notebook PC vendors, for a hefty price, may cover such calamities under limited circumstances.

Also, consider whether your clients’ end users will be traveling with their notebook PCs. Unlike their desktop PCs, which likely stay relatively stationary throughout their life cycle, notebooks go "on the road" a lot.

International Coverage

Some notebook PC vendors include international warranty coverage in the base price of the extended warranty. Others charge extra for this supplemental coverage. Regardless, if your clients’ end users of notebook PCs travel abroad, be sure to ask about specifics.

Just as with a desktop PC, find out whether the notebook PC extended warranty is on-site, whether technicians come to your clients, or whether your clients will need to ship their notebooks back to a service depot for warranty work. Also, ask about promised response times and estimated turnaround times.

The Bottom Line about the Notebook PC

Make sure you have reviewed a price list of available notebook warranty upgrade options.   Also, examine the related terms and conditions of what is and isn’t covered under various warranty upgrade plans.  Find out if the notebook PC warranty limits coverage under certain circumstances.

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

In small business computer consulting, it can be easy to get yourself into money trouble really fast. Conserve your precious capital by avoiding some of the common mistakes when marketing your small business computer consulting firm.

Perform Tests

Whenever you’re doing any marketing with your small business computer consulting firm, think about being able to run smaller, measured tests before making big marketing bets. It can be something as simple as direct mail.

Don’t mail five or ten thousand pieces your first time out of the gate. Don’t put $2,500 or $5,000 or more on the line.

Start Small and Focus on Your Target Market

First, try a $500 test and see how your small business computer consulting firm does. If you’re thinking that you absolutely must put an ad in the yellow pages or the newspaper, reconsider.  There are much better ways than broadcasting to an audience where 95% of the people aren’t interested.

Small Bets are Less Risky

If you are set on marketing your small business computer consulting firm in the yellow pages or newspaper, start smaller and test the waters with something on a smaller scale before you ramp up.

Whenever you’re making decisions on marketing and business development, think about small, measured bets before making big marketing bets so you can test things out, analyze all the results, track the number of inquiries and learn what happens to those inquiries.

The Bottom Line about Small Business Computer Consulting

In this article, you’ve been introduced to small business computer consulting.  To learn more about small business 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.

One of the most valuable tactics to use in IT sales is to simply listen to your prospects. IT consulting is not a one-size-fits-all proposition. 

Read on to learn how one of our IT consultants grew his business last year.

"I spent more time with each customer asking better questions and focusing on them."

Jeff Lobel, Malibu Communications
Peoria, Arizona

The Bottom Line about IT Sales

By finding out what your prospects need, you can develop a solution that addresses their concerns and win a new customer.

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

Since micro small business often rely on internal gurus or free help, many IT consultants find the sweet spot small business ideal for computer consulting. In this article, you’ll learn what IT consulting rates are appropriate for this group. All rates are in U.S. Dollars.

The Sweet Spot IT Consulting Rates Range

The sweet spot of small businesses is where everything starts to open up, and unless you’re working with companies where your competing against a moonlighter or gurus, it can go anywhere from 50, to 75, to 100 dollars, 125 dollars an hour on up, depending on your skill set, your niche, and your geographic area.

No one that wants to project a professional image working with micro or sweet spots small businesses should be coming in at anything less than the 75 up to 85 dollars an hour range.

Know Your Rock Bottom IT Consulting Rate

75 to 85 dollars an hour should just about be your floor, and you should only really get to that level when they’re committing to you for a large block of time, or, retain your service agreement on an ongoing basis. Anything below that your going to see when you figure out what your expenses are of running your business.

The Bottom Line about IT Consulting Rate

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

Many of your computer consulting business clients will come from non-technical, business backgrounds. As a result, many will not immediately grasp why a failed hard drive cannot "simply" be replaced by a new or refurbished hard drive.

As part of managing clients expectations, it’s important to educate your clients on the steps that go into formatting a hard drive, loading the OS, configuring device drivers, loading software applications, customizing the OS and applications and restoring data.

Educate Your Client

As a computer consulting business owner, you know replacing a hard drive is not as simple as removing the shrink wrap and installing the device into the PC. But, many times, your clients don’t.

Or they just assume that all the OS files, device drivers and software applications will "magically" appear. This all may sound really basic, but taking a few minutes when discussing PC warranties with your clients to explain these issues.

How does the Vendor Handle Hard Drive Replacement?

You need to know how your preferred PC vendors handle hard drive replacement under warranty service. What kinds of labor are covered if a desktop PC or notebook hard drive needs replacement under the warranty?

Some vendors specify that the hard drive device needs to be just physically replaced and operational, and recognized by the PC hardware setup program. Under this form of warranty coverage, the technician’s job is done the moment the empty (blank) replacement hard drive is installed in your client’s PC.

The Real Cost

Unfortunately, as most PC vendors feel financial pressure to reduce their support and warranty costs, your computer consulting business clients probably will be subjected to a no-frills warranty service approach.  Hard drives for desktop PCs are relatively inexpensive, around $100 to $200 at retail.

So it’s important for your clients to understand that warranty service on a hard drive replacement generally doesn’t cover the more substantial labor costs involved with restoring the hard drive and system to the pre-crash condition.

If your clients outsource this work to your computer consulting business, it easily could cost them $200 to $500 (or more) in labor to get that PC hard drive back to its pre-crash condition. Even if your clients’ internal gurus handle the work, this easily could pull these internal gurus away from their "real" jobs for a half-day or more.

The Bottom Line about the Computer Consulting Business

The expense of recovering a crashed desktop PC hard drive tends to be more concentrated on soft costs, which most times aren’t covered by the PC vendor’s warranty, therefore we see more and more reason not to recommend purchasing extended warranty coverage with entry-level desktop PCs.

In this article, you’ve been introduced to the computer consulting business.  To learn more about the computer 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.

In IT consulting, what does a $75 an hour consulting business equate to in the long run? What happens if your rate structure extends beyond that?

If you keep carrying something like a $75 or $85 level beyond the grand opening special to get your first couple of clients, your business will become more of a hobby or non profit-type organization.

Consider Overhead and Expenses

You say, "How can that be? Why doesn’t $75 an hour equate to $150,000 a year?" Wrong, $75 an hour in running your own IT consulting business doesn’t come out to $150,000 a year because you can’t bill 2,000 hours a year.

New consultants often fail to consider all the overhead and expenses that usually come up as an IT consulting business matures. The uninformed person just starting out usually believes that $75 an hour times 40 hours a week times 50 weeks a year is $150,000 a year in IT consulting revenue because they think they’re going to bill 40 hours a week every week.

Know There Will Be Inconsistencies

It’s not going to happen unless you’re working 100 hours a week, and it’s probably still not going to happen every week consistently, for many reasons. Starting an IT consulting business sounds great on the surface. You’re thinking, "I’m going to work from home. I’m going to keep my overhead as low as possible."

Consider Your Utilization Rate

You need to consider what’s called your utilization rate. It’s the reality of only being able to bill out, on average, about 75% of the 40 given hours in a week. It still can take you six months to a year to even get to that level consistently.

The Bottom Line about IT Consulting

Finally, one of the most important things new IT consulting businesses overlook is the question of what happens as your business grows and you want to scale up?  In setting your rates, you need to consider these factors.

In this article, you’ve been introduced to IT consulting.  To learn more about IT 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.

In the computer consulting business, finding IT leads is crucial to grow your business. The key thing is to find your ideal clients – not just anyone.

See how one of our computer consultants was able to identify high quality potential IT leads.

"In the past, we worked completely by word of mouth. Due to the Computer Consulting Kit, we now have the knowledge to make calls on qualified customers that we didn’t know even existed prior to this year."

David Riggs, Computer Consulting Services, Inc.
Jackson, Tennessee

The Bottom Line about IT Leads

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