Sweet spot small businesses have distinct support needs-strong desktop support skills and light LAN skills. In this article, you'll learn what skills and certifications are most important to your sweet spot business clients.
What Specific Tasks Will Your Clients Need Help With?
These sweet spot clients are looking for help with popular desktop applications like Microsoft Office, Intuit QuickBooks, and Interact ACT! and help doing hardware upgrades. They need help setting up shared folder backup software and keeping their antivirus and firewall software up-to-date. These small businesses need help synching up their PDAs with ACT! and Microsoft Outlook. And they definitely need help with their networks.
Micro Small Businesses Have Different Needs
Micro small business space with fewer than 10 PCs, the peer-to-peer end, don't bother spending a lot of money on certification. In fact, IT certifications are often perceived as a negative-small business owners feel like they're paying for someone who's overqualified for the job.
IT Certifications Are More Important to “Real” IT Managers
When you start selling to a real IT manager, in a much larger small business (50+ systems) you'll find a more sophisticated IT buyer. At this point, IT certifications start to become extremely important. At this level, a “real” seasoned IT manager knows exactly what the different levels of IT certifications are.
At this level, there's a very good chance the buyers you're selling to are certified and they'll typically look for deeply niched experts-as opposed to virtual IT generalists. An in-house IT manager often handles the generalist work in-house. So this kind of larger small business doesn't need a virtual IT department-they are looking for someone to fill in their own skill gaps.
For example, if this client has a Microsoft Exchange Server installation, the IT manager may bring in a consulting firm skilled in doing forms development or hooking up a Java-based application to something that's based in a Microsoft Exchange Server Message Store. Or the IT manager may be looking for a Microsoft SQL Server developer or someone with strong Microsoft Visual Basic development skills.
The Bottom Line about IT Certifications
The sweet spot clients are a very different type of opportunity than where most small business computer consulting firms focus. At least at the outset, put most of your energy into the 10 to 50 PC space which is just big enough to need fairly sophisticated solutions, but not nearly large enough to justify putting a “real” highly-skilled IT person on payroll.
Copyright Notice:
Copyright MMI-MMVI, Computer Consulting 101. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}
Showing posts with label IT certifications. Show all posts
Showing posts with label IT certifications. Show all posts
Friday, December 26, 2008
IT Certifications: Do Your Clients Even Understand Them?
When targeting small businesses that are in the sweet spot size, what IT certifications do you typically need? One thing to keep in mind is that you are not selling to a real IT manager in most cases.
Remember Who You Are Selling Your Services To
Of course, there are exceptions to the rule in certain industries and certain types of businesses. Generally you’re selling to a non-technical, small business owner. You’re selling to someone who understands his business really well but is not an IT professional.
As a result, they usually don’t have an appreciation of the differences between someone like a CNA and a CNE, or the difference between an MCT and an MCSE IT certification. This is another case where it’s not absolutely critical that you hold advanced level IT certifications in everything, or even be certified at all.
Start Small with Certification
If you feel that not having an IT certification is holding you back, it could be worthwhile to get one or two entry-level certifications. Then you can start working gradually toward more advanced IT certifications that you want to specialize in.
If you get too caught up in needing various IT certifications to market your business, you may end up losing out on possible business.
The Bottom Line about IT Certification
If you have launched your business, but are not doing the networking thing, not doing the follow-up or going out on sales calls, you may be missing opportunities.
You do not want to be running up bills for classes, have no billable hours and have nothing to show for it from a business development standpoint. It’s really important to set your priorities.
Copyright MMI-MMVI, Computer Consultants Secrets. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}
Remember Who You Are Selling Your Services To
Of course, there are exceptions to the rule in certain industries and certain types of businesses. Generally you’re selling to a non-technical, small business owner. You’re selling to someone who understands his business really well but is not an IT professional.
As a result, they usually don’t have an appreciation of the differences between someone like a CNA and a CNE, or the difference between an MCT and an MCSE IT certification. This is another case where it’s not absolutely critical that you hold advanced level IT certifications in everything, or even be certified at all.
Start Small with Certification
If you feel that not having an IT certification is holding you back, it could be worthwhile to get one or two entry-level certifications. Then you can start working gradually toward more advanced IT certifications that you want to specialize in.
If you get too caught up in needing various IT certifications to market your business, you may end up losing out on possible business.
The Bottom Line about IT Certification
If you have launched your business, but are not doing the networking thing, not doing the follow-up or going out on sales calls, you may be missing opportunities.
You do not want to be running up bills for classes, have no billable hours and have nothing to show for it from a business development standpoint. It’s really important to set your priorities.
Copyright MMI-MMVI, Computer Consultants Secrets. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}
IT Certifications: Are They Important?
Most of your sweet spot small business clients are just starting to gain awareness of the value of certifications. But most sweet spot clients don't know enough about IT to appreciate and pay for the differences in different levels of certification. In this article, you'll learn what your clients are looking for with your IT certifications.
What Do IT Certifications Mean to Your Clients?
If you present a staff member who's an MCP or CNA who has an entry-level certification and then next week you send someone in who's an MCSE or a more senior level certification or a Cisco certified SE (like a CCIE), it's not going to mean much to your clients. Your clients are probably going to have an appreciation for what certification is because they know they want to have someone that passed the test. However, your clients won't want to pay sky-high hourly billing rates for the more senior levels of IT certification.
From a practical standpoint, with most sweet spot small businesses, senior-level IT certifications don't matter all that much since most of the time the projects and tasks you will be working on are not that technical. And the tasks and projects that are very technical can be subcontracted out.
The Technology Curve in Small Businesses
Keep in mind with sweet spot small businesses that they're often years behind the technology curve. So you don't necessarily need to invest in keeping your skills and IT certifications up-to-the-minute.
The Bottom Line About IT Certifications
Small businesses will be so many years behind the curve that just basic, advanced-beginner to intermediate-level technical skills will be adequate IT certifications to carry you through most of your sweet spot IT clients' needs.
Copyright Notice:
Copyright MMI-MMVI, PC Support Tips .com. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}
What Do IT Certifications Mean to Your Clients?
If you present a staff member who's an MCP or CNA who has an entry-level certification and then next week you send someone in who's an MCSE or a more senior level certification or a Cisco certified SE (like a CCIE), it's not going to mean much to your clients. Your clients are probably going to have an appreciation for what certification is because they know they want to have someone that passed the test. However, your clients won't want to pay sky-high hourly billing rates for the more senior levels of IT certification.
From a practical standpoint, with most sweet spot small businesses, senior-level IT certifications don't matter all that much since most of the time the projects and tasks you will be working on are not that technical. And the tasks and projects that are very technical can be subcontracted out.
The Technology Curve in Small Businesses
Keep in mind with sweet spot small businesses that they're often years behind the technology curve. So you don't necessarily need to invest in keeping your skills and IT certifications up-to-the-minute.
The Bottom Line About IT Certifications
Small businesses will be so many years behind the curve that just basic, advanced-beginner to intermediate-level technical skills will be adequate IT certifications to carry you through most of your sweet spot IT clients' needs.
Copyright Notice:
Copyright MMI-MMVI, PC Support Tips .com. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
