Small businesses have very specific needs in terms of support needs, including desktop support and LAN skills. So what specific IT certifications are necessary in order to best serve your sweet spot small business clients?
TASKS FOR CLIENTS
Small business sweet spot clients will be looking for your expertise regarding popular desktop applications, including the following items: Microsoft Office; Intuit QuickBooks; Interact ACT! and others. They will also need help completing hardware upgrades and setting up shared folder backup systems as part of a plan to keep antivirus and firewall software current. They may also need PDA support and network help.
THE NEEDS OF MICRO SMALL BUSINESSES
Micros small businesses, those with less than 10 PCs of the P2P variety don’t need a lot of IT certifications from their support staff. To them IT certifications are status symbols that mean they must pay more for simple support from someone that is overqualified.
IT CERTIFICATIONS AND REAL IT MANAGERS
When you are selling your services to an actual IT manager in larger small businesses with 50 or more systems, you will find that IT certifications become incredibly important. A real IT manager knows first-hand details about IT certifications and is typically certified. He will look for you to be a very deep specialist to compliment and fill in the gaps of his general work.
For example, the IT manager might have a Microsoft Exchange Server installation, and will want to bring your consulting firm in if the IT certifications reflect skills in forms development or hooking up Java-based applications. Your IT certifications in this instance will be vital.
Added By: Joshua Feinberg
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