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Joshua Feinberg Profile and Articles
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1). Follow-Up: Diligence and Persistence Pay off
Follow up is a critical activity for maximizing your lead potential. Whenever you meet anyone you should immediately send a follow up letter, postcard, phone call – anything to keep your name in their mind.
You go to meetings and business networking events to make contacts. The contacts you make might not be interested right away but if you do a good job of follow-up, when they are ready they know who to call.
2). Professional Networking Tips For IT Consultants: Part II
Professional networking works. Last time we discussed five tips to improve your professional networking effectiveness. In this article you'll learn five more tips to make you a professional networking guru.
Don't let one person monopolize your time.
Try to spend about 3 to 5 minutes with each person. This is generally more than enough time to figure out if the person is a good fit with your company and if you have enough information for future discussions with them.
3). Computer Consultant Skills: Do You Have to Have 20 Certifications?
I've had more than one person tell me, "Well, I’m a MCP or I’m a CNA and I’ve got this one cert but I’m working on like 15 more certs and as soon as I get my 19th cert, five years from now, I’ll be all set to be a computer consultant." That’s just a hunk of bologna. Know why?
Small Business Aren't Using Cutting-Edge Technology
Most small businesses don’t care how many certifications you have.
4). IT Consulting Career: Making the Leap to Full-Time
How do you know it’s a good time to leave your current full time employment and launch into a full-time IT consulting career? Start now.
We have broken down the process into 21 steps that will take you over about 90 days, or 3months, to do. You'll need to understand what your utilization rates is and how much you’re able to bill out consistently on a regular basis.
5). IT Consultant: Personality Traits for Success
IT consultant skills vary widely. The successful ones will have the traits that help them deal with their customers.
IT Consultant Traits: Can You Manage Employees?
Even in your first year of business there is a pretty good chance that you will have to have at least a few sub-contractors that you work with long before you get to the stage where you can hire employees.
6). Partnering: Dealing with Clients Beyond Your Expertise
At some point you’re going to need to develop partnering relationships with other non-competing complementary tech providers in your area for partnering and subcontracting type of work. That way you can meet the needs of your clients for many different types of projects.
Partnering- How To Be The Virtual Solution for Your Clients
Sometimes you may be asked to do some work that you don't have experience or skills in.
7). Computer Consultant Knowledge: Do You Have to Know Everything?
Will you be expected to know anything and everything about anything that could ever go wrong with small-business IT? No.
Do You Need to Be Better at Technical or People Skills?
To be a great computer consultant, you just need to be really well organized and be a friendly person that enjoys helping other people. Yes, you need to be extremely resourceful; but you don’t need to be a technical genius to be a computer consultant.
8). Computer Consultant 101: How to Build a Stable Business
Know How To Bill and What to Charge
Without knowing how to bill and what to charge, you’re going to lose a lot of money that’s really yours. If you get your billing and pricing wrong as a computer consultant, you'll send a bad message to people that you’re trying to quote for business.
You'll be screaming that you’re a rank amateur rather than a skilled computer consultant.
9). Computer Consulting: 3 Questions To Ask Your Clients
From a customer service perspective, you can ask your computer consulting clients three questions that will explode the growth of your company.
Question Number One:
“How Can We Improve the Level of Service That We Provide Your Company?”
Ask your computer consulting clients this question on a regular basis; at least a couple times a year. You will be amazed at the type of suggestions they give you.
10). Mobile Office Kit - What to Take With You On the Road
Mobile office kits are absolutely essential for computer consultants. Beyond the technical equipment you need to carry, if you work out of your vehicle you need certain supplies on hand.
Essential Items for Your Mobile Office Kit
Business cards. Don't leave home without them. Don't make them yourself. Don't spend more than $60 or $100. Don't get more than 1,000 at a time.
11). Computer Service Company Perks: Employee Extras
Computer service company perks are much different from company benefits. Perks are extras for employees that help remind them the computer service company cares about their job satisfaction and is giving them something for free. Perks can include items like company cars, childcare, coffee and snacks and flextime.
Cars
Company cars are common perks given to employees of a computer service company because the profession, particularly for those involved in sales and service involves so much travel time.
12). Computer Consulting 101 Hiring Tips (Part 1 of 2)
Does your business need the services of a computer consulting firm? Before you rush out and hire the first techie or slick-salesperson that knocks on
13). Computer Consultant Startup: What's The First Step?
If you're the typical person who’s considering becoming a computer consultant, then you are probably a LAN administrator, doing some kind of PC support job for big enterprise or maybe even working for a smaller integrator. In this article, you'll learn what you need to do first to realize your goal of becoming a computer consultant.
From talking to hundreds of people in this situation right now, the number one thing is that you have to decide that you really want to and really need to do it.
14). Small Business Insurance: Do You and Your Subcontractors Need It?
Of course, you need to check with an accountant or lawyer for specific information, but in this article, you'll learn what small business insurance has worked for our computer consultants and customers in the past.
What Type of Small Business Insurance Do You Need?
You should definitely have both a general liability as well as a professional liability policy for your services.
15). Subcontracting Versus Hiring Employees
While you should talk to a lawyer about the specific differences between subcontractors and employees, this article will present you with a list of things to watch out for when utilizing subcontracting.
Subcontracting: Make Sure The Relationship Meet the Test
I suggest, however, that you contact your accountant or your lawyer, or check the IRS page for further information on any topic dealing with the differences between employees and subcontactors or the IRS-20 point rule.
16). 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.
17). Computer Consulting: Excellent Customer Service Inspires Growth
From a customer service perspective, what can you do to sell more monitoring and managed services? What would it be worth to a computer consulting client if you could predict and prevent a major problem before it occurred?
For example, if someone incurred $1,700 in billing last quarter due to some virus-related problems, is there something that you.
18). IT Consulting for Micro Businesses: What You Need to Know
IT consulting for micro businesses is a good starting point for many IT professionals. In addition to the general hardware and software, and peer-to peer networking, you'll need to be familiar with some additional items. In this article, you'll learn what other skills you need for micro business IT consulting.
When providing IT consulting to micro small businesses, you will occasionally get requests for support of the big competitors of the basic Windows software for their competiton.
19). IT Consultants: Desktops, Notebooks and PDAs as Profit Centers
If you’re one of those IT consultants who breaks out in hives at the thought of getting your hands dirty with low-margin sales of desktop PCs, notebooks or PDAs, you may not be looking far enough beyond the box. In this article, we’ll look at how to profit from your clients’ needs for full-service support of desktops, notebooks and PDAs.
IT Consultants.
20). IT Consulting: Skills for Sweet Spot Customers
For sweet spot customers, you need hardware and software skills, and you also need networking skills to provide effective IT consulting. In this article, you'll learn some networking facets you should be familiar with.
In terms of other networking software, you should be comfortable with some of the client server messaging packages, the most popular being: Microsoft Exchange Server; the Novell group wise; client server; and sequel database applications.
21). IT Consultants: What Do You Need to Know?
When targeting the sweet spot small businesses, IT consultants should know the company will desire someone with strong hardware skills. As an IT consultant, you should know about RAID and multi-port communications adapters.
Background Needed
IT consultants targeting sweet spot small businesses should be comfortable with storage-attached networks,.
22). IT Consulting: Business Skills for Success
In addition to technical skills, you need business skills to run a successful IT consulting business. In this article, you'll learn some skills that will help you remain in the IT consulting business for years to come.
Learn How to Manage Your Money
You know a bit about financing. You need to know about where to raise funds when things are a little slow with your IT consulting practice.
23). IT Spending: Educate Your Clients on Smart Purchases
Often, clients will ask you for advice on their IT spending plans. In this article, you'll learn some ideas to help your clients plan their IT spending.
Suggest Your Clients Upgrade Their Machines
Your clients also could earmark the budget surpluses for upgrading and replacing PCs more regularly. Because entry-level PCs are often one-half to two-thirds less expensive than top-of-the-line models, they’ll still be way ahead of the game.
24). Computer Consulting Business: Nail Down the Vendor Support Options
No computer consulting business can afford to be sitting at a client site, running up a big bill, staring at a blue-screen-of-death, facing an angry mob of irate users and sitting on hold for two hours with tech support.
This scenario is your absolute worst nightmare in running a computer consulting business and can be the kiss of death to your client relationship.
25). IT Consultants: Finding Ideal Moonlighting Clients
As IT consultants considering moonlighting as a step toward full-time consulting work, you should not be messing around with anything but steady clients.
If you’re just dealing with the one-shot deals that you hear from once in a blue moon there’s no regularity. How are you ever going to get to the point where you can become full time IT consultants with a handful of clients if you don’t have steady commitments from them?
Choose Clients Wisely
Think long and hard if you’re going to consider one-shot deals.
26). IT Consulting: Generate Income in the Beginning
If you are starting your own IT consulting business, you need to be generating demand, getting good leads and prospects, qualifying them, going out on sales appointments and following up on those.
Do not get seduced by an aggressive sales person twisting your arm to join a channel program. Don’t get seduced by tech gadgets that don’t fill an immediate need with your paying clients.
27). IT Support: Where Do Larger Small and Medium Sized Businesses Get It?
Big small businesses get their IT support, from an internal IT person, or a small IT department. Remember, a big/small business typically has 50 to 100 PCs doing anywhere from 5 million to 20 million dollars in U.S. annual revenue.
IT Support Sources for Big/Small Businesses
That's also where you start to see a full-fledged IT manager or director providing IT support.
28). PC Recycling Programs
Years ago, your clients never would’ve had a problem finding "takers" for old PCs. After your clients got four or five productive years out of PC systems, they may have given the PCs to employees or sold them to employees for pennies on the dollar. Alternatively, many others donated PCs to local schools, charities or nonprofit organizations.
Changes in PC Recycling
In the past several years, this has all changed.
29). IT Consulting: Sell Services, Not Products
A successful IT consulting business should be focused on selling your consulting services and not selling products. At this stage of the game of starting an IT consulting business, you should not be looking to be a dealer for someone or an authorized solution for someone.
You can get those things if you think it will help your business a little bit, but don’t build your IT consulting business around that.
30). Business Structure - What Should I Be?
Business structure planning entails analyzing the different business entity options and choosing the one that is right for you. There is no magic formula for business structures. Your set of reasons for choosing one business structure over another is as unique as your company.
There is, however, one universal rule for deciding on a business structure: Consult a Professional.
31). Fixed Price Contracts For First Time Customers
Fixed price contracts are the best and safest method when working with a customer for the first time. This puts the customer as ease and it reduces your risk of not being paid at all. With this first fixed price contract your main objective is to establish the willingness and ability to pay. After that you can build the relationship.
It's important to note that when you establish a fixed price contract you do that with a customer - not a client.
32). Service Contracts: The Best Business Model For Consulting
Service contracts are key for the busy computer consultant. They will help you to manage your time when you have many clients all needing service at once. By setting up computer service contracts you will be able to maximize your utilization rate while still having enough time to deal with client emergencies when they crop up.
When you have a bunch of clients who all have an emergency of some sort you can't be everywhere at once.
33). Networking Groups - Tyr To Attend Even When You're Moonlighting
Networking groups often meet during the day. This poses a logistical problem for those computer and IT consultants who have regular jobs and are moonlighting as they try to start their business. Attending networking groups is critical for business success so you need to be able to balance the conflicting time schedules as effectively as possible.
Here are some tips on how to attend networking groups when you're moonlighting:
First, look for networking groups that hold their functions in the early evenings.
34). Motivating Computer Service Company Operations Employees
As a computer service company manager, it's your job to motivate your employees. You need to be familiar with the many motivational strategies in order to assure your computer service company runs smoothly. Your business will enjoy more success if your employees enjoy their jobs and feel pushed to do their best.
How to Motivate Employees
A successful motivational strategy will recognize an employee's work, make him feel in control of his job and be satisfying for him.
35). Figuring Out Your Role as an IT Consultant
A customer typically hires you as an IT consultant in order to reach a goal he has set, and your main function is to advise him on how to meet this goal. Although there is more of a trend towards hiring an IT consultant to simply advise, sometimes you may want to carry out a planned project yourself.
There are three different roles you can play as an IT consultant: the advisory role; the advisory and action role; and the action role.
36). Computer Consulting: Use Your Time Wisely
Time is money. If you're not careful in your computer consulting business, you'll waste both. With a little discipline and structure, you can maximize the return on your time.
Journal Your Time
One way to determine your computer consulting time is by journaling. Write down everything you do for a couple of weeks to determine what you do with your time, where the time wasters are, and what you could do to improve your time management.
37). Computer Consultant Skills: Can You Be Your Own Boss?
If you're just getting started, what do you need to know about the business aspects of being their own boss? It really boils down to two very straightforward things. You need to have some basic business skills and knowledge and you need the motivation to become a computer consultant.
Motivation
You have to really want to become a computer consultant badly.
38). Small Business Computer Consulting: Finding the Right Prospects
If you are starting a small business computer consulting firm, you should know that the small business accounts that have 10 to 50 PC’s are going to have at least one branch office.
Prospects of this size are used to using professional technology providers and this isn’t the first time they’ve had to hire a small business computer consulting firm. Organizations like this have a willingness to pay for support.
39). IT Consulting Career: Steps to Take Before Opening Your Doors
You need to prepare for your IT consulting career. In this article, you'll learn about whether business plans, certifications, and ficticious names are important for an IT consulting career.
Is Certifiation Necessary for an IT Consulting Career
Generally, with small businesses, not being certified is not going to hold you back. In other words, it doesn’t matter a lot to the typical small business owner.
40). PC Purchases: Why Bundled Hardware Components Make Sense for Your Clients
Getting various hardware components factory-installed with PC purchases, like CD-RW drives and network cards, can save your clients on initial purchase and installation costs.
At first, it may seem counterintuitive to recommend this strategy of PC purchases to your clients, since doing so takes a service revenue opportunity away from your firm.
Aim Big
However, progressive-thinking computer consultants are always working on the next big solution provider opportunity.
41). IT Consultant: Personality Trait Evaluation
In addition to knowing the difference between a lan and a laptop, to be a successful IT consultant, you need to have the personality traits that will permit you to work well with your clients, employees and vendors. Read on to evaluate if you have what it takes to be a successful IT consultant.
IT Consultant Traits: Can You Exhibit Candor?
You can’t be afraid to tell people the truth - even if it hurts.
42). IT Consulting: Medium Sized Businesses and Government Contracts
As you grow, should you go after government, city, state, municipality contracts like school district contracts? Maybe. They are an entirely different business model. When you are talking about selling to medium sized businesses, again go back and assess your tech skills.
Assess what kind of skills you are bringing to the table and see how close you are to being able to being that deep into a few skills, because that is what these medium sized businesses are looking for.
43). The Computer Consulting Business: Overcoming Client Concerns
In the computer consulting business, Internet security concerns are often best addressed by explaining how your proposed networking solution takes firewall, antivirus and encryption issues into account.
Validate Your Prospects’ or Clients’ Concerns
It can be very risky to connect any type of system, whether it is a workstation or sever, up to the Internet on a full- or part-time basis.
44). Customer Relationships And Your Financial Health
Customer relationships are what will determine the health and prosperity of your computer consulting business. It is critical to understand the different dynamics of customer relationships. By doing this you can identify places of risk in terms of non-payment.
Customer Relationships - Two Distinctions
There are two main customer relationship types:
Long-Term, Steady Clients
Your long term clients are your bread and butter clients.
45). Business Contacts - Which Ones Will Hire You?
Business contacts are the best, most effective, and most efficient way to generate business. Through networking and relationship marketing you can cultivate many business contacts. The hope is that many of these are potential sweet spot clients.
When you think about building a base of business contacts you should be on the look out for those people who have a high likelihood of needing your services.
46). Training Seminars: A Great Marketing Strategy For IT Consultants
Training seminars present an excellent opportunity for you to market your IT consulting business. When you sponsor your own training seminar you raise your trust and credibility with potential customers. The added bonus is that you reach a large amount of people all at once.
Rather than having to talk to each person one on one as you do with regular networking channels, training seminars allow you to connect personally with a bunch of people at the same time.
47). Credibility Boosters For IT Consultants
Credibility is an important factor that will be weighed by your prospects. As an IT Consultant you should be actively thinking about ways to build your credibility. Whether it is through building your credibility at the local level or going for a more national reputation - the credibility factor is an important one to develop.
Your marketing activities need to center on building your credibility and making sure people hear your name.
48). Pricing IT Audits
Before you start offering IT audits, you may have questions about how to price them. IT audit prices should be based on your rate, but you should offer a discount just to get a foot in the door.
Your Hourly Rate Is Your Guide
In order to create your price for IT audits, you need to take your hourly billing rate and guess you will spend two or three hours at the site.
49). IT Consultant Image: Are You Professional?
As an IT consultant, your jobs will be as variable as your client's attitudes and expectations. Your customers' observations about your level of professionalism will have a profound impact on your career. A successful IT consultant has strong ethical standards, care for his personal appearance and conduct and will present this image clearly in printed materials.
50). IT Consultation: Do You Have the Required Business Skills?
In the IT consultation world, there are many business skills you need beyond computer skills to succeed. Before you start your own IT consultation firm, you need to become aware of the following required business skills: marketing skills; networking skills; financial skills; written communication skills; and presentation skills. While you don't need to have all these skills initially, you need to be prepared to learn them for the future to make your IT consultation firm work.
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