IT Certifications Your Clients Expect for the Best Support

Small businesses in your sweet spot will need specific support and IT certifications, along with strong desktop support and some LAN skills.

IT Certifications: What Help Do Clients Need?

Sweet spot clients will need help with basic desktop applications including Microsoft Office, Intuit QuickBooks and Interact ACT! They will also need help with hardware upgrades and setting up shared folder backup software. They will need to keep antivirus and firewall software current, and will probably have needs when it comes to syncing PDAs with different programs. Networks will also need attention.

IT Certifications and Micro Small Business Needs

Micro small businesses – those with less than ten PCs with peer-to-peer networks – will not require extensive IT certifications. In this area of small business, IT certifications can sometimes be negative; owners do not want to pay for too many qualifications.

IT Certifications and Real IT Managers

When you encounter larger small businesses with 50 or more systems, you will have more advanced IT buyers. IT certifications will be more important to IT managers of small businesses because they typically know what the different IT certifications mean.

Real IT managers are probably certified and will be looking specifically for niched experts instead of IT generalists. These IT managers usually do the general work in-house, so they do not need a full virtual IT department, rather a supplement to their skills.

A client may have a Microsoft Exchange Server installation need. The IT manager will want a consulting firm with IT certifications that are related to forms or Java-based applications – something related to the Microsoft Exchange Server Message Store. Regardless, the IT manager will want someone with specialty IT certifications that can get a specific job done properly.

IT Certifications

Sweet spot clients present a special opportunity for IT specialists. Put the most focus on the 10-50 PC space, which is big enough for advanced solutions but small enough to not require incredibly advanced IT certifications.

Added By: Computer Consulting 101

Hourly Rates and Your Competitors' Prices -- An Introduction

As a responsible IT consultant, you need to be aware of the hourly rates of your competitors in order to set a good hourly rate for your business. This means you have to know what low-end IT consultants are charging and the hourly rates of sweet spot clients like you.

Hourly Rates of Low-Cost, High-Volume IT Consultants

You don’t really want to compete with the hourly rates of low-margin IT consultants, but you should know them. Knowing the hourly rates of this group of consultants can help you get distance from it. Don’t cheat yourself out of getting your desired sweet spot clients by positioning yourself with the low-end group.

In order to figure out hourly rates for this low-end group you can use the following options: find websites by googling your city, state, province, etc. and type in keywords that fit these types of businesses; look in consumer-directed advertising including fliers, leaflets, coupon packs, etc. The hourly rates you find here will tell you what being too cheap means and help you avoid attracting price-focused clients.

The Next Step for Hourly Rates

Determining the hourly rates of low-end IT consultants is just the first step in setting the rates for your own business. The next step is looking at the hourly rates of the clients that look for sweet spot clients in your area and setting up competitive rates. But make sure you avoid attracting price-centric clients by first looking at the hourly rates of high volume IT consultants.

Created By: Joshua Feinberg

Hourly Rates: The Difference Between Discount and Retail Rates

Network consultants often worry about hourly rates and service agreements during business start up. How will their retail hourly rate be relative to the hourly rate in the service contract?

Many consultants will use a discounted hourly rate when starting a service contract with a client. This discounted hourly rate encourages a client to start a long-term relationship. But network consultants need to make sure the hourly rate is set so they can afford to offer a discount.

Setting Hourly Rates

When setting a retail hourly rate, network consultants should consider offering lower or waived minimums and premiums to valued, long-term service agreement clients. The hourly rate structure should allow for this from the beginning.

The following factors are important when setting hourly rates:

1. The first year’s expenses;

2. How hourly rates relate to salaries;

3. Sales commissions;

4. The hiring of subcontractors and additional staff;

5. Affordability of revenue-sharing arrangements and referral fees.
An hourly rate structure should provide something additional for the network consultant after rates are discounted for service agreement customers.

Hourly Rates: Sales Agreements and Discounts

If 85% to 90% of a network consultant’s business is coming from sales agreements, 85% to 90% of clients are being discounted. Therefore, the new discounted hourly rate needs to be high enough to offer a discount. Setting an hourly rate right from the beginning will foster trusting long-term client relationships and make for a profitable business.

Created By: Computer Consulting Kit

How Much Should an IT Audit Cost?

The best way to price an IT audit is using a fixed price model. The process of choosing the best fixed price to make sure you are not doing work for free but are still being fair to the customer is often a challenge,

Pricing an IT Audit

As previously mentioned, the fixed price strategy is often the best when it comes to pricing IT audits. It can cut profit margins, but it does help to overcome objections to sales during a crucial time. An IT audit is a doorway to further services.

Presenting a fixed-price IT audit shows you are willing to take some risks to make prospects happy and helps build your credibility. IT audit customers will more likely want to do long-term business with you if they perceive you are trustworthy.

Typical Price for an IT Audit

An IT audit for a standard sweet spot client with ten to twenty-five PCs and a single server will be approximately three to four hours of on-site work. If you are charging $125 hourly for client not on service contracts, three-to-four hours would cost about $375 - $500. An already contracted client will be charged $100 per hour or $300 - $400 per IT audit.

To build trust, price an IT audit at rates lower than what you would normally charge. You need to develop a relationship and make the IT audit a proving ground project.

The Main Idea About Pricing IT Audits

Pricing an IT audit accomplishes two things: it gets you paid; it gets a new client. Offer fixed price IT audits to show you are willing to shoulder some risk and build your credibility.

Added By: Computer Consulting Kit

The Best Customer Service Means Special Treatment of the Internal Guru

The main person that judges the quality of your customer service is the main decision maker or the internal computer guru. Treating these people with extra care is the way to provide the best customer service.

The following tips can help get you in with the internal guru or the primary decision maker and will help your reputation for offering excellent customer service.

Tips for Excellent Customer Service

1. Make the guru look good in front of superiors. If the guru is made to look well-versed and intelligent at handling issues, he/she will tell those that are giving you the check about your great customer service.

2. Get to know the main contacts for the account and take an interest in their jobs and functions. Remember personal details about them and ask them about these personal items later so you become known for the best customer service.

3. Take note of people’s personal lives and give appropriate gifts or cards to acknowledge major life events such as having a baby, getting married or losing a loved one. A small effort in this area will bring great rewards in terms of the perception of customer service.

4. Share some tips about productivity to help clients get the most out of their software. You don’t need to worry about losing a couple billing hours to do this, because at this point you have a long-term, established relationship with the client. Doing extra little training sessions helps build loyalty and shows you are putting client needs above your own.

5. Keep a wish list for clients of what they need in terms of IT. Organize the list in terms of their scheduling needs each month.

6. Help them clean out their old IT files. This process will only take 10 or 15 minutes and during this time you can help them figure out what should be kept and what can be thrown away. This process will contribute to great customer service.

7. Offer to give business tips with the guru. Tell what you learned from other clients as well as from other business sources.

8. Present a customer satisfaction survey annually. Excellent customer service means you have to exceed customer expectations. Surveys can help you determine where you are doing well and where you need work.


The Main Idea About Customer Service

Providing the best customer service is essential to your business. Focus your efforts on the guru and decision maker and position yourself to be known as a consultant that offers superior customer service to all your clients.

Added By: Joshua Feinberg

Subcontractors: With Whom Should You Work?

IT consultants frequently use subcontractors to fill in service gaps and get specialists that do not do what they do. Finding the appropriate subcontractors to complete tasks and making sure these subcontractors do not take existing clients are important issues for IT professionals.

Places to Find Subcontractors

The number one way to find subcontractors is by looking at current accounts. Finding subcontractors through client accounts allows you to work with the clients first before you have to deal with subcontractors.

Your business plan should include deciding which services to offer. Each service you decide not to offer should be represented by a qualified niche provider that can help. Subcontractors can be discussed with clients as you find them at networking events, channel seminars, training classes and other places.

You need to be looking for subcontractors all the time and asking questions of people you meet. Ask those you come across if they have relationships or experiences with any niche technology providers that might be opportunities for subcontractors.

Places to Avoid When Looking for Subcontractors

Using an outside IT employment service company is a bad way to find potential subcontractors. The best way to get the highest quality subcontractors is through face-to-face, in person meetings. If you rely on third party methods, you have less control.

What About Subcontractors?

The process of finding subcontractors should be simple if you are networking well. Use all available resources to find the best niche technology providers and improve your service level.

Added By: Computer Consulting 101 Professional Kit

Exceeding Customer Expectations with Great Project Management Techniques

Project management issues are often the source of customer expectations. Well-managed projects that are completed the right way and on time will help IT professionals exceed customer expectations.

Tools for Exceeding Customer Expectations

1. Hold a meeting with key decision makers and gurus four times annually to go over completed projects, pending projects and projects not yet started but planned.

2. Go over schedules week by week with clients.

3. Check for scheduling conflicts with clients when examining pending projects. If you want to exceed customer expectations you have to make sure the client’s dealings with you are without a hitch. Projects should be completed at the clients’ convenience rather than at your convenience.

4. When meeting with gurus and decision makers you need to determine if there are outstanding needs. Are there projects that need to be completed within the next 90 days? You need to put clients first if you want to exceed customer expectations. You might have to change your schedule.

5. Clear guidelines are essential. Set up phases and milestones in order to give everyone more control over the project and allow customers to give you feedback.

6. Weekly reports on your progress help to organize offsite work and can contribute to exceeding customer expectations. Many clients have never had this level of service, so you should email once a week even if you are not onsite. These small gestures take very little time and make a big difference.

Exceeding Customer Expectations

Well-plotted project management and communication with decision makers and gurus help you exceed customer expectations and take little time, effort or money to execute.

Blogged By: Computer Consulting Kit

Pricing Strategy: Some Examples of Fee Structures You Can Use

Pricing strategy is a tricky business. You can’t use a pricing strategy that gives you too low a rate, and you can’t use one that is too high or you will lose money and business. How do you set a pricing strategy that is right for your business?

Three Pricing Strategies

Computer consulting professionals use three pricing strategy methods: price-fixed pricing strategy; per PC or per server pricing strategy; hourly rate.

Fixed Price Pricing Strategy

When presenting a fixed price pricing strategy, you need to be prepared to outline the scope of the project. You will also need to have clear limits for your work so you don’t risk under-billing.

Per PC, Per Server Pricing Strategy

The per PC, per server pricing strategy is similar to the fixed price method, but you have to know what unit costs are. Hat will change as you begin to add or get rid of PCs, and how will these changes affect the total project? This type of pricing strategy gives you some leeway if the project grows from the original estimate and can be combined with the fixed price pricing strategy.

Hourly Rate Pricing Strategy

This type of pricing strategy can also be called “time and materials” and is the strategy used most commonly in the IT field. This pricing strategy allows you to set an hourly rate and then add cost based on the materials you use. This pricing strategy gives you superior protection when the project expands beyond what you originally predicted.

Choosing from Three Main Categories of Pricing Strategy

Before you choose the best pricing strategy for your company, think carefully about the benefits and pitfalls of each one. You need to price services based on what will be most profitable and allow you business to survive and thrive in the long run.

Blogged By: Joshua Feinberg

Stop Feeling Guilty About Charging for Phone Support

Phone support, particularly at the beginning of the life of a network consulting business has to be a source of profit. There must be both benefits to you and your business and benefits to your client. No matter what, you should not feel guilty about charging regular, top rates for phone support.

Phone Support: If You Didn’t Provide it, What Would Clients Do?

If you did not offer phone support at all, your clients would have to call an independent phone support service. This type of phone support service usually charges $2.99 or even $3.99 per minute, which for a 15-minute phone support call would be $45 to $60. And the phone support would not even be as thorough or as personal as what you could provide.

Your Phone Support

You will be better skilled than the typical independent phone support person to provide your clients with service. You know the account and understand the needs of each and every client you serve. You also are well-versed in each client’s bizarre configurations, systems, workarounds and business issues. Because you have a full view of the business, you can provide a total solution to the problems presented during phone support.

What Should Your Hourly Rate Be for Phone Support?

Your hourly rate for phone support should definitely be between $75 and $125, and you should implement a 15-minute minimum to protect yourself. This means you can easily figure out billing and discourage incessant, unimportant phone support requests from clients. Your phone support for small problems would cost from $19 to $31 per call, assuming each one is approximately 15 minutes. The cost and the value of the phone support you are providing to clients in comparison to their alternatives should eliminate your feelings of guilt about offering it at top billing rates.

The Main Idea About Phone Support

When you think about phone support, think of it in regards to the value your client is getting, particularly in comparison to the other alternatives available. If you get any resistance about phone support charges from clients, inform them of how expensive it could be not to use your expertise.

Added By: Joshua Feinberg