If you have the skill and ability to maintain a small business computer network, there is absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t be able to start a computer consulting business of your own and become your own boss. I can promise you from personal experience, there is no more rewarding career choice that you can ever make than to become successfully self-employed.
It’s extremely easy to build a profitable client base when you build on a managed service model, and once you do, you will have an unmatched level of job security, no limit to the salary you can make, tremendous freedom in your daily schedule and more free time for your personal life than you can ever expect to have if you’re working for someone else.
With so many potential benefits, why would you choose to work for someone else?
Don’t think you can get enough clients?
Nonsense! If you setup your business under the correct model of flat-fee managed services, each of your clients will pay you a set fee each and every month (and I can show you how to guarantee to collect this fee on the FIRST of every month! No waiting 30, 60, 90 days for payment!) Small businesses with an average of 10 employees will gladly pay a managed service provider a fee of $1200 a month or more to know that their systems are monitored 24×7 and that support can be provided instantly (you can easily do both by using inexpensive, web based utilities). Just FOUR small clients can generate a stable, reliable salary of almost $58,000. ANYONE with a desire to succeed and a few decent pieces of marketing materials can land four or more small clients very quickly and easily.
Worried you can’t sell?
Let’s say instead of starting your own business, you chose to look for a new job instead. How different do you think going on an interview is from selling a potential client on your managed service? I’ll tell you how different… Selling to a potential client is WAY EASIER!
On a job interview, you’re probably competing with dozens, if not hundreds of other potential candidates. Many of which will probably have an equal if not greater level of experience than you do. But when you’re talking to a potential client for your computer consulting service, you’ll be competing with two or three other candidates at most. And if your potential client came to you through a referral (the greatest way to find new clients by the way), odds are, you won’t be competing with anyone!
When looking for new clients, you should be going to places where they are actually out looking for you (business networking, through referrals, through job ads the client placed, etc.). These businesses are already anxious to use your service. As long as you can show how your service can provide a benefit and value to this potential customer, you can make the sale.
Not sure if you’re qualified to run your own business?
If you can maintain a small business computer network, you’re qualified to run your own computer consulting business! Thanks to the inexpensive system monitoring and remote access applications available today, you can easily support a small but very profitable base of small business customers. Because you’ll be able to maintain your clients systems without having to run on-site for every little issue, and because you’ll be able to ensure a much more stable operating environment through your monitoring, you will be able to support your entire client base on just a few hours a day. Starting a computer consulting business as an Independent Computer Consultant requires almost zero startup capital and very little monthly overhead. By leveraging the use of current technology, there are few business opportunities available that are easier to start than that of an Independent Computer Consultant operating as a Managed Service Provider.
If you’re an Independent Computer Consultant, for you to compete against the larger MSP’s and IT Service Providers for your target small business customers, you need to offer something that sets you apart. Something that makes you unique that the other guys simply can’t or don’t provide. This “something” is called your Unique Selling Proposition, or USP.
The Managed Service Model works and is the only way to operate an IT Support Company profitably and successfully. Eventually, all support providers will move away from hourly support an onto the Managed Service Model. But when everyone is offering essentially the same thing… 24×7 monitoring, remote helpdesk support, flat-fee billing… what can you as an Independent Computer Consultant offer that’s different?
Well, it’s the fact that you’re an Independent Computer Consultant that will set you apart and give you a very distinct advantage over your larger competition.
I get calls all the time from small businesses owners inquiring about my service because they’re unhappy with their current provider and looking to make a change. What do you think is the #1 reason usually given for wanting someone new?
Their current provider isn’t responsive enough! The client often feels like they’re being treated as a lower priorty than some of their IT Provider’s larger clients. Or their consultant is continually late or reschedules on-site appointments. Or they simply don’t receive the level of communication they would appreciate and believe they deserve.
Why is this such a problem for so many larger Support Providers to address? Because there’s typically a large amount of overhead needed to support a large IT Support Firm. To remain profitable, they must maintain a large client base, while keeping expensive internal staff members to a minimum. It’s a difficult balance to achieve and often the consultants are simply spread too thin.
But an Independent Computer Consultant operating under a Managed Service Model only needs to maintain a very small client base to remain profitable. In fact, I’ve proven time and again how a single computer consultant can generate a full-time income while supporting only 4 small business clients and working a total average of about 10 hours a week, a large portion of which is performed remotely.
Because as an Independent Computer Consultant you now only need a few clients to thrive as a successful business, and you can maintain these clients on such a flexible schedule, it’s very easy to provide a level of dedication and attention to your customers that your larger competition simply can’t match.
You can approach a potential new client and state, “I currently maintain a client base of “(number of)” clients, all of which will be glad to provide a glowing recommendation. I never maintain a base of any more than (number of) clients at any one time, so that I can be sure to give each and every one of my loyal customers the level of dedication and attention they deserve.”
You can easily show that you can provide the same level of monitoring and remote support that any large provider can offer. But it’s this level of personalized support that the small business owner craves, and knowing that they will have an expert IT Support Person who’s dedicated to them is what will help you win the contracts and beat out your competitors every time.
Of course, your clients will want to know how you intend to support them when you’re sick or on vacation. This is easily accomplished by creating a partnership with another consultant or support provider. But this is a subject for another post.
To be a successful Independent Computer Consultant in today’s economy, you need to be giving your small business clients more of what they want, which is:
- Greater reliability from their systems
- Higher productivity
- Faster response when they have a problem
- Less loss due to unexpected downtime
- Predictable and affordable support costs
If you’re in the habit of charging hourly rates to support your customers, you probably know by now that it’s a very inefficient way to meet the above needs, and a very difficult way for you to be generating a reliable, steady income.
The best way to ensure that you give your small business client everything they want, and maximize your own profitability at the same time is through offering a Managed Service Plan at a flat, monthly rate. Your plan should include round the clock system monitoring and remote computer support, both which can be provided through very low cost or even free support utilities.
With system monitoring, you can get instantly alerted 24×7 via email or SMS when potential problems arise, such as:
- Failed backups
- Failed AntiVirus updates
- Hard Disks running low on space
- Windows System Service failures
- Overutilization of system processes
- Firewall hack attempts or multiple unauthorized login attempts
- Event Log errors or alerts
- and more…
By monitoring for these types of events, you’ll be able to catch potential problems early, or prevent them all together and therefore better satisfy all of the needs that your customers have. And because you provide these services for a flat-monthly fee, you’ll be able to create a stable income that you can rely on month after month.
But when so many small businesses have become completely accustomed to paying hourly rates to have their computer consultant come running whenever a problem arises, how do you convince them to switch to your Managed Service model, which on the surface might appear to cost more than they’re currently paying.
It’s easy enough to show a business owner that just one major issue over the course of a year can easily wipe out any savings they thought they were getting by paying low, hourly rates. A single hard drive crash (which might have been caught early and prevented through monitoring) and discovering that the backup hasn’t worked in days (again, could have been caught early), can cost a small business customer very substantial fees to repair, on top of potentially devastating financial and productivity losses due to lost and unrecoverable data.
A single incident like this can easily cost far more than a full year of your low cost, managed services.
But the reality is, unless a problem is actually occurring now, or unless one had occurred recently and is still fresh in the customer’s memory, then they might have a hard time accepting that a truly serious problem is very likely to occur in their future unless they take steps to prevent it.
So how do you convince them to move to your managed service?
You offer them a free 30-day trial to your monitoring service! “Let’s see just how healthy your network really is.”
Very simply, offer to install your monitoring software on their server for 30 days. There are several very inexpensive monitoring applications available to you that will take up very little server processing overhead and provide you with many great options, such as a web-based monitoring dashboard that can easily identify at a glance any problems on the system.
Give your potential customer full access to their dashboard so they can see for themselves on a daily basis where their problems might be. I can assure you that unless a qualified computer consultant maintains the system regularly (which almost never occurs on the hourly-support model), that the monitoring dashboard will identify multiple problems that require attention, and should continue to identify new problems throughout the course of the month.
By providing this simple proof that their network is not nearly as healthy as they might have hoped or expected is generally evidence enough that regular monitoring is a necessary and valuable support option.
Once your 30-day trial completes, you will not find a better opportunity to continue maintaining this business as a new Managed Service customer for your computer consulting business.
For valuable information on starting a computer consulting business as an Independent Computer Consultant, including free video training, sales and marketing tools and materials, business documents, contracts and more, visit http://SuccessfulComputerConsulting.com.
Using a flyer can be a very effective sales-support tool – if it’s used properly for your specific business.
Businesses that are looking for dozens, or even hundreds of new customers (like a cleaning service or a copier repair center) can invest heavily in printing and mailing tens of thousands of flyers in the hopes of getting a return of just a small percentage of interested customers.
But for you as an Independent Computer Consultant, the cost to embark on a large campaign where you’ll print and blindly mail hundreds of flyers (especially if you’re just starting a computer consulting business) would not generate the sales quickly enough to justify the large expense.
Your flyer WILL be effective however if used to support your other sales efforts.
Primarily as either:
– A leave-behind (along with your business card and a note) when making a door-to-door cold call.
- An attachment to an email following an initial phone conversation with a prospective new client.
- As A follow-up mailer to a prospective client who’s requesting “more information”.
- or even as an offer for something like a free on-site evaluation of their computer support needs.
(A great way to sell them exactly what they might need – which isn’t always the same as what they THINK they need)
Because you will be handing or mailing your flyer to a limited number of recipients, your production costs can be kept very low. You can print your flyers inexpensively on your own inkjet printer (assuming you have a decent printer and use quality, heavyweight paper),or you can have small production runs produced by a web-based printing service.
The purpose of your flyer is to get your prospective customer to take a specific, desired action.
Just as with your other sales and marketing efforts, your intention is to help your target recognize that they have a problem in need of a solution and Show them how your service will solve their problem.
The components of an effective flyer are:
1. A Compelling Headline – This is where you’ll either capture their attention, or have your flyer deposited in the trash bin.
Your headline should contain a benefit or it should generate interest. How about…
“5 Reasons why John Smith Should be Your computer consultant!”
“Here’s How You Can Have a Full-Time IT Department for Less Than a Part-Timers Salary!”
“If You’re Tired of Worrying About Unexpected Computer Problems Hurting Your Business… Then One Simple Phone Call Can Prevent Them From Ever Occurring in the First Place!”
“The Secret To Having A Trouble-Free Computer Network In Your Office…”
2. YOUR MESSAGE
This is your list of services, which can be presented in comparison to other types of service solutions.
Your job is to show what your Unique Selling Proposition is. What makes you the best option available?
3. A PROMOTIONAL OFFER
This is where your flyer becomes an effective marketing tool.
Direct your reader to take action by giving a specific instruction and providing a compelling offer, such as one of the following examples:
“Call before Oct. 31st and receive 30 days of server monitoring absolutely free!”
“Call now for a FREE 27-Point Network Evaluation”
“Until Oct. 31, get 5 free hours of on-site support when signing up with our Daily Monitoring Plan”
While the content is key when creating your flyer, design is equally as important. A photocopied flyer with black courier text and some clipart isn’t going to cut it. A very professional flyer can be designed inexpensively and easily in any of today’s standard desktop publishing or word processing applications. But if graphic design isn’t your strong point, there are many options available for outsourcing the work to a freelancer (check elance.com) or a web-based printing and design service.
As an Independent computer consultant, naturally you’re hoping to earn as much income as possible while maintaining a very satisfied and loyal client base.
The problem faced by the vast majority of independent computer consultants today however is that they still base their income on the number of hours they’re able to bill in a day, week or month. How can this model possibly provide either a reliable income or a happy customer?
If you’re billing by the hour, how can you possibly count on revenues being steady on an ongoing basis, when the need for your services is so volatile?
By providing “reactive”, hourly support, you’re basically waiting for things to break to be able to keep yourself busy. If things aren’t breaking, your clients will be reluctant to pay additional hourly charges for you to just “check things out” and make sure everything is running ok.
If you have only a few clients, they’re going to have to each provide a significant amount of hours to meet your financial requirements. In a time when small business owners are trying to reduce expenses wherever possible, squeezing them for the hours you need to survive will be challenging and will not help client satisfaction.
If you’re able to land many clients, where it should be easy for you to maintain a busy schedule, you can be sure that more often than not you’ll have more fires to put out than you can handle at one time and customer satisfaction will again suffer. Plus, from personal experience I can assure you that there will be many times where you’ll be putting in far more working hours than you would ever want to fixing a serious problem that you wish you could have prevented in the first place.
Fortunately, there’s an easy solution for today’s Independent Computer Consultant. Stop billing by the hour and charge flat, monthly fees for a proactive maintenance plan, with which you can provide round-the-clock monitoring, remote computer support and on-site service (for which I personally charge an additional hourly fee).
Billing your clients a flat, monthly rate can provide you with a stable income that you can rely on, while requiring you to work far less hours to do so.
If you use a reliable monitoring application (which can be done very inexpensively), you’ll be able to identify potential problems early and reduce the unexpected emergencies that keep the hourly-rate consultant so busy (and their clients so unhappy).
A bulk of the daily service requests are minor end user issues, which if addressed remotely can often be resolve very quickly. The daily support requests from a full client list of about 4 or 5 small business clients (40-50 end-users) can be supported remotely in about 1-2 hours a day, including monitoring their system logs.
On-site support can be provided for this handful of clients in about 2 hours a week each. This is a number most small business owners find acceptable, fair and manageable. If you charge an additional hourly rate for these on-site hours, you can supplement your flat-rate income nicely.
Because you’re working proactively, your clients will have fewer problems and higher productivity. Your remote support services will increase your response time dramatically, also improving your clients productivity. And they’ll see you less often.
All these things will contribute to INCREASING customer satisfaction.
If you structure your base, maintenance plan fees properly, a small client base of four small business customers can provide an Independent computer consultant with a full-time income, while requiring you to work about 10-12 hours a week.
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