5 profit-generating tactics for it consultants
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5 profit-generating tactics for IT consultantsLearn simple tactics to boost profits for your IT consultancy business
Profit-generating tactics Solutions Brief
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Today, there are more apps, more devices and more distributed clients for IT consultants to support than ever before. But the eternal business struggle continues: how to cut costs while gaining new clients and providing superior support to existing clients. The role of the IT consultant is expanding, and not only must IT consultants look to new integrated technology tools, but they must amp up their business practices.
This brief covers 5 simple profit-generating tactics for IT consultants. If applied to business, IT consultants can expect big returns, says TechRepublic. Learn how you can improve your bottom line with such tactics as targeted marketing, time management and solid accounting skills.
Tactic 1. Market your business effectively
The easiest way to promote your business is by word of mouth. But in today’s market, that isn’t enough. The best way for a full-time consultant to market their business is to attend business conferences and meetings to meet potential clients. It’s also a good idea to set up a booth at local business expos and hand out business cards with social and email contact information. You can even do a giveaway, such as 5 free hours of consulting services. Have everyone fill out a form and drop it in a box. If you get 50 responses, you have 50 potential customers you can call to drum up business.
The importance of business-oriented social media in all of this cannot be overestimated. More importantly, it isn’t enough to simply have a Facebook page or send out the occasional tweet. Rather, your presence in social media, like LinkedIn, needs to be personal, authentic, and conversational. Engaging an audience of potential clients is an art rather than a science, but it is one that takes time and practice. Join LinkedIn groups for networking, or follow businesses that could potentially use your services.
Tactic 2. Deal professionally with the billing process
Most consultants dread dealing with billing paperwork; however, it must be handled diligently and professionally. Every hour you work, you must get a signed statement from the clients verifying that you billed those hours and then, once a month, send invoices to your clients requesting payment. By doing this up front, you will be sure that you get paid, and you can also cut off any client who has a problem with your work before you roll up a big invoice. It’s unfortunate, but a lot of clients have no problem trying to put off paying you if they think they can get away with it. By establishing your professionalism at the outset and by billing monthly or weekly, your client will know that you mean business and that your work has value.
All of this needs to be backed up with a clear contract, agreed upon and signed at the outset of any project. Scope of work, precise deliverables, and realistic timelines all need to be completely understood by both you and the client.
Profit-generating tactics Solutions Brief
Quick billable tipA calendar year has 2,000 billable hours, based on a 40-hour week and an eight-hour billable day. This also takes into consideration a two-week vacation. So if you bill $30 an hour for 2,000 hours, in a year you would make $60K gross income.
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Tactic 3. Be realistic about your cash flow
You have to know how much cash you need to keep your business going. Most businesses fail because they don’t have enough cash to fund daily operations. Some business experts say you need at least three months of funds to get a business going; others say you need six months of cash in the bank. Everyone’s situation varies, but it generally makes sense for new consultants to start while they still have a full-time job. That way, they won’t have the cash flow pressures they’d have if they went out on their own immediately. After you get a feel for what you can make, you can decide how much cash you need in the bank before you break out on your own.
Tactic 4. Set up a routine to help avoid pitfalls
As you may know, consulting can be a lucrative business; however, it does have its pitfalls. The best way to avoid them is to set aside time weekly to review what you have planned for the next week:
•Are there any problems that I need to address with my current clients?
•Do I need to make any marketing meetings or calls this week?
•Are there any critical lunch meetings I need for the following week?
•How is my cash flow looking for this week and for the next four weeks?
•What deliverables do I need to make for the next week?
Tactic 5. Solicit feedback from your clients
Even though you’ve completed a project, your work isn’t quite done. Follow up with clients to ensure that they’re satisfied with the job you did. Asking for feedback also demonstrates that you value their business. You might want to ask them to complete an evaluation form, so that you can learn how they perceive your work and what areas you might need to improve upon. You can repurpose these quotes into your marketing collateral.
The complete IT consultant toolset GoToAssist continues to simplify IT support by providing easy, affordable access to an essential toolset – service desk management, remote support and IT monitoring – all from one easy-to use interface. Combining critical tools enables IT departments to be more efficient and effective and save costs. Customize GoToAssist to fit your unique business needs — choose one module, two or all three.
1. With GoToAssist Service Desk, you can quickly log and track incidents, deliver end-user self-service and manage configuration, changes and releases.
2. With GoToAssist Remote Support, you can deliver on-demand support and access unattended servers and workstations.
3. And use GoToAssist Monitoring to proactively monitor your entire IT infrastructure, including critical servers and services.
Citrix remains the market share leader . . . by focusing on simple-to-use solutions and introducing innovative services that deliver on customer needs.
IDC
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Key benefits of integrated IT tools •Reduce IT firefighting, free up time and lower IT support costs.
•Gain total visibility into the entire IT support services to accelerate issue resolution.
•No more juggling multiple tools and duplicating data entries.
•Deliver multiple critical IT support services from one user-interface.
•Streamline support workload among team members
•Remove the complexity and time in implementing ITIL and ITSM best practices.
•Create a beautiful, easy self-service portal – end users can submit and track support requests and view knowledge-base articles.
Learn more about delivering multiple IT services from one integrated cloud-based toolset — visit www.gotoassist.com.
Resources for achieving business agilityFor more white papers, case studies and on-demand webinars, visit news.citrixonline.com/resources.
For best practices, company announcements and research about modern work styles, please visit the GoTo Blog at blog.citrixonline.com.
Profit-generating tactics Solutions Brief
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About CitrixCitrix is transforming how people, businesses and IT work and collaborate in the cloud era. Its portfolio of GoTo cloud services enable people to work from anywhere with anyone by providing simple-to-use cloud-based collaboration, remote access and IT support solutions for every type of business. Learn more at www.citrix.com and www.citrixonline.com. © 2012 Citrix Online, LLC. All rights reserved. Citrix, GoToAssist, GoToMeeting, GoToMyPC, GoToTraining, GoToWebinar, Podio and ShareFile are trademarks of Citrix Systems, Inc., or a subsidiary thereof, and are or may be registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
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