As a consultant, you are expected to offer your clients with the best solutions to their problems. It is your job to make sure that your recommended solutions are foolproof. Here's how you can do that:
1. Know the problem. Before you share a slice of your expertise, I recommend that you let your clients talk about their problems first. If possible, meet up with them instead of talking over the phone or exchanging emails. Convince them to give you all the angles of the problem and make sure that encourage them to go on details. Use probing questions when needed to get a clear picture and spend the rest of the time listening. The more you understand the problem, the higher your chances of offering these people with the most effective solutions.
2. Brainstorm. While keeping the problem in mind, think of various solutions that you can recommend to your clients. If possible, do experiments to know ahead of time the expected results. If the problem is something that you haven't encountered before, it would be best if you do your research and if you interview other experts on your chosen niche.
3. Options. You may opt to give your clients with 1-2 options on how they can solve their problems. Make sure that you discuss their pros and cons so these people can make well-informed decisions. Discuss every step that they need to take (use simple terms and visuals if needed to promote better understanding) and explain the outcome so they will know ahead of time what to expect.
IT Consulting The Sweet Spot
The sweet spot of the IT consulting business requires more skills than needed for micro business IT consulting. Sweet spot companies have anywhere from 10-50 computers. This level of business is where you should be focusing most of your IT consulting efforts.
These sweet spot businesses generally use Microsoft Windows based systems. They have anywhere from 10-100 employees. In terms of annual revenue, in U.S. Dollars, usually equates to annual earnings of 1 million up to 10 million. The big thing that puts them into the sweet spot is that they have graduated from peer to peer and they need one or two real dedicated servers.
Hardware Skills You Need for the Sweet Spot
You need to know all the IT consulting skills a micro small business would hire you for plus about 8 or 10 other things. You should be familiar with server hardware, such as working with multi processor servers, should be familiar with how RAID works, Zero One Five, you should be familiar with how multiport communications applications adapters work for setting up remote access servers and serial port sharing.
You should have familiarity with attached storage systems, network attached storage, more sophisticated back up solutions like digital audio tape digital linear tape, and the hybrids, etc.
Other Skills for Sweet Spot IT Consulting
You should be really comfortable with sophisticated battery back up solutions, routers, the CSU/DSUs to connect you up to the telecommunications lines. And you should start to get some familiarity with some of the more advanced Y-5 hardware, the stuff that is not quite commodity level, where you start being able to get into Roam successfully between your access points and being able to do some management and SMP tasks.
Networking Skills for IT Consulting
In terms of networking software, you need to know all the basic desktop software and have the ability to do all the networking skills that are required for micro small business. For the sweet spot, you should also be comfortable with some of the popular server operating systems out there.
These include Microsoft Windows Server, Microsoft Small Business Server, Novell NetWare, Novell Small Business Suite, and Linux which is starting to pick up some traction among small businesses.
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