Computer Consultants Secrets ™

People starting their own computer repair businesses make the decision to open many different types of companies for a variety of reasons.  But how do you decide?

The decision really depends on whether you want to build a business from the ground, up or take some shortcuts by opening a franchise.  What are the pros and cons of each?

Deciding on a Computer Repair Business Means Some Hard Work

No matter what, during the startup phase of your computer repair business, you will have several months where you will need to put in some very hard work putting your name out in the community.  You will be following up on a lot of leads, generating proposals and going on sales calls.  And this will all happen before you get any billable projects. 

Just because you decide on a franchised doesn’t mean all the work is done for you.  There are other issues to consider.  

The Right Decision

One type of computer repair business is very different from the other, and how you decide on which type to open will depend upon what you are looking for personally from your business, your skills and how much time and money you have.

Blogged By:  Computer Consulting Kit

When you are starting your own computer consultant business, you will need to spend a lot of time going to meetings and shaking hands.  You will have to make plenty of follow-up calls and use display ads and direct mail campaigns to establish connections.

Because you need plenty of hands-on time to start your computer consultant business, you will have to be very realistic. 

A Franchise Isn’t a Guaranteed Computer Consultant Business

Even when you buy a franchise, you don’t get a guarantee of everything going smoothly.  You won’t get a client list; if you want that, you will have to buy a current business, which will be even more capital-intensive than a franchise.  If you want to buy a small company that is doing well, you will have to spend a multiple of the company’s annual sales. 

What Are Your Computer Consultant Business Start-Up Costs?

You can start your own business for just a few thousand dollars.  All you need is a business phone number and voicemail, a cell phone, business cards and licensing registrations.  You will also have to meet with an attorney or an accountant (so don’t forget this cost!).  You will need insurance.  You can often work out of a home office.  Franchises cost significantly more than this in terms of start-up costs. 

If You’re a Control Freak, Think Carefully!

If you like being in control, you will probably not like having a franchise.  You have to do things a certain way and follow pre-established rules.  Your company will also have to pay a franchiser a part of its revenue forever.  And flexibility will be less when you want to take your computer consultant business in new directions.

Added By:  Computer Consulting Kit

Computer consultants that work for small businesses enjoy many benefits.  The following are some reasons to become self employed.

Choose Your Own Work!

Self-employed computer consultants have a flexible work situation with a great deal of variety.  Computer consultants in business for themselves choose their favorite technologies and platforms and decide which products they will sell, service and support.  Unlike a regular company job, small business computer consulting does not involve working with products that don’t work or are unpleasant.    

There Are a Lot of Clients to Be Had

Regardless of where they are located, when there are small businesses around, there is work for computer consultants.  People working with any industry can find a nice amount of small businesses that will need their type of support.  Computer consultants can stay in their own area and make a decent living and even work from home.

Enjoy Freedom of Choice

Computer consultants that own their own businesses get to choose their own bosses, clients, colleagues, partners, vendors and contractors.  Self-employed computer consultants get to choose their own working hours too.  They can choose the clients that will allow them to work better hours without feeling like they are on call 24 hours per day.

Boost Your Confidence

Being a self-employed computer consulting professional is a real self-esteem-builder.  Computer consultants working for themselves are acting as the main contact person for small businesses without an IT department that desperately need their help.  They act as part-time, virtual IT departments.

The Main Idea About Computer Consultants

Computer consultants get to choose their own clients and projects that offer the most fulfilling experience for them.

Added By:  Computer Consulting Kit

When thinking about whether or not you have the right personality to be an IT consultant, ask yourself some questions.  Do you talk to strangers?  Are you in a good mood most days?  Are you punctual?

Are You Extroverted?

To be an IT consultant, you have to be a real people person.  You have to be humble and ask for help when needed, and you need to be really enthusiastic about what you do.  Being an IT consultant can be a 24-hour a day, 7-day a week job, especially in the beginning. Once you get great clients and are full time, you will find it to be 9-5 or 8-4, but you need to be ready for anything.  

Patience is a Virtue

You will not find overnight success being an IT consultant.  Because the computer consulting field is so much about relationships and relationships take time to build, your business will take between three and six months to get enough clients and often even six months to one year to get enough clients to build a real business that will support you.  

Are You a Positive Person?

As an IT consultant, you will have a mixed bag of days – good, bad and in-between.  You need to be really enthusiastic about your business and create a plan that will help you grow and stay on target.  Especially when you have bad days, you need to have a plan to keep you focused and encouraged.  You need to be able to shake off bad days and keep moving.  

Reliability is Key

You need to be able to push yourself, because no one will be telling you to do your job every day.  You have to be motivated by an inner voice and prepared to work with very little encouragement.

The Bottom Line About IT Consultant Traits

Think about whether or not you have what it takes to be an IT consultant by going through the above traits and comparing them with what you know of your personality.  

Blogged By:  Joshua Feinberg

Computer consulting research has probably made you feel overloaded with information.  What steps should you take when you are first starting a computer consulting business?

1.    Pick a Date

Pick a date for launching your computer consulting business and write it down.  Writing it down is critical because it gives you a tangible goal.  You will know how long you have to get the ball rolling and can keep a specific moment in mind when planning the different phases of your computer consulting business.  

2.    Narrow Down To-Do’s

Part of picking a date means narrowing down to-do lists and organizing tasks in a “Top 10” list.  Write down everything you think of and then narrow those items down to just the most important 10.   

Your list may include meeting with an accoutant, getting a business real estate license, opening up a distributor account, picking a company name, designing a business card, looking through insurance options, getting a website domain name and getting a voicemail business box.

There may initially be 30 or 40 things on your list.  Narrow it down to prepare to launch your computer consulting business.

3.    Order Your List

Once you are happy that you have the definite top 10, highlight them on paper and rank them chronologically.  You should only work on one or two per week.  You can do this exercise using Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Word as well.  Just narrow your focus to the top 10 business tasks.   

4.    Develop a Timeline for the Start of Your Computer Consulting Business

If you are launching your computer consulting business five weeks from now and you have 10 things to do, pick two things to do each week.  When you put things in a specific timeframe, managing the launch of your computer consulting business becomes a lot more manageable.

Blogged By:  Joshua Feinberg

There are several ways to decide whether to buy a computer consulting franchise along with many pros and cons.

The Pros of Buying a Computer Consulting Franchise

There are quite a few benefits to buying a computer consulting franchise:  you get the benefits that go along with being part of a larger company; you have a built-in peer support network; you start out with many tools and resources; you have a place to go with your problems and concerns.

The Cons of Buying a Computer Consulting Franchise

The biggest problem with buying a computer consulting franchise for most entrepreneurs is the capital investment needed to start.  Plus, a percentage of your revenue and profit each month will go to the franchiser, and you will be restricted with what you can do with your company because of the pre-set standards of the organization.

Computer Consulting Takes Time More Than Money

Starting a computer consulting business usually has low overhead, but is very time consuming.  You might spend three to six months or even more getting enough contacts, prospects and project opportunities to be booked to 50 or 60 percent utilization rate (or 20 to 24 billable hours per week).  

Expectations of Revenue in Computer Consulting

Even if you go to all local networking activities, reach out to your community and go out on sales calls, three or six months is a good estimate of how long it will take to have decent revenue and cash flow.  Add to that adding staff to your computer consulting business, and the estimate can change to years.

You need capital so you can keep paying business expenses.  Keep overhead low so you don’t have extra items to worry about.  Weigh the pros and cons of computer consulting franchise ownership and then decide if the process is right for you.

Blogged By:  Computer Consulting 101

You can’t open a computer consulting business without a clear, written-down plan.  Writing down a plan for your computer consulting business will make you most likely to accomplish your desired goals.  

The First Step for a Computer Consulting Business

Before startup, you need to prioritize and write down all the tasks you will have to accomplish prior to opening your computer consulting business.  For example, you might choose a name for your business, get business cards printed, set up you second phone line and join networking organizations.

The template in the linked computer consulting article can help you prioritize your tasks.  Write down each of them and the date by which you need to have them completed.  Make sure you are working backwards from the launch date.

Computer Consulting Template Items:

1.    The Launch Date

2.    Top-Ten To-Do List (date attached to each item)

3.    Company Name Ideas

4.    Organizations You Can Join

You will be more likely to be prepared when the launch date of your computer consulting business rolls around if you make your tasks into small steps and write them down to give you a concrete plan.

Blogged By:  Joshua Feinberg

When you are starting out in the computer consulting business, you may wonder how you might find regular clients willing to spend from $1,000 to $2,000 per month on your outsourced services.

The key to finding clients is to evaluate each one of them carefully.  Ask yourself if a client needs a real server, firewall or backup solution along with offsite or online backup.  Does the prospect need enhanced security, power protection or virus control?  And lastly, does the client need a professional to fulfill sophisticated needs such as network support and LAN-WAN support? 

The best clients will not be able to get away with using volunteers to handle their IT consulting needs or a moonlighter.  The larger a company gets, the more revenue and general productivity is at risk if systems go down.  As a computer consulting professional you will be critical to the quality sweet spot clients. 

Who Pays for Computer Consulting Support?

Small businesses with a budget capable of allowing $1,000 or $2,000 per month for IT support are your ideal candidates for long-term clients.  In return for this amount of money, you can expect to be on-site a couple half days each month and be available for emergencies and some remote support.  You will become an outsourced go-to person for all their IT needs.

Computer Consulting:  What is a Sweet Spot Client?

A sweet spot client will need to, first and foremost have more than a P2P network.  Sweet spot computer consulting clients need to be big enough so that when there is downtime, the result is painful and expensive.  These types of clients will be ready and excited about using your services as a computer consulting professional. 

Blogged By:  Computer Consulting 101

Finance credit should be extended very cautiously to your clients.  Even after you have built up a solid history with a client, you should still be strict about your practice of credit finance.  The use of finance credit and good basic billing practices will be a large factor in determining whether or not you actually get paid for the work you do.

Rules for Finance Credit

• Do not be too quick to give new clients finance credit.

• When clients ask for finance credit, always have them complete a credit application and send out some credit reference letters.

• After you have extended a client finance credit, keep their lines of credit relatively low until they’ve built up some history with you.

• With new clients, even after you get a credit application and send out some credit reference letters, start them out with $500 or $1,000 in finance credit. Don’t allow them to hang you up on a $5,000 or $10,000 leash before they’ve proven they’re able to pay small invoices.

• If new clients come on with a large project, rather than extend large amounts of finance credit, get larger deposits amounts.

To ensure you get paid regardless of finance credit, here are some guidelines to follow with your billing.

Rules for Billing Practices

• Always insist on written agreements, even if it’s a very small job.

• Always get a deposit check on any major project.

• Set up payment schedules that make sense. Do not take on a large, major project or any project for that matter, without getting at least 25% down.

• Bill weekly and not when you get around to it. Being busy is no excuse for sending your invoices regularly.

Bottom Line on Finance Credit
As a business owner you want to be able to extend credit finance to your clients.  When you do so, you always have to remember to protect yourself first.  Don’t be too quick to extend credit and make sure your billing practices get you paid.  These are two major ways to keep yourself from getting into big financial trouble really fast.
 
In this article, you’ve been introduced to Finance Credit. To learn more about how you can improve your knowledge about Finance Credit, just click here now to get access to a free one-hour audio training program on 5 Easy Ways to Grow Your Computer Consulting Business.

Billable hours have a great deal to do with setting your rates.  The revenue you bring is in based on the number of billable hours you work.  From that revenue though, you have to take off your business expenses.  

You need to make sure your average, realistic billable hours multiplied by your hourly rate will be enough to turn a profit now and in the future.

Most new consultants come in with an hourly rate of $75 in their mind.  They believe that that rate will work out to a yearly gross of $150,000.  The fact is that if you carry a $75 or $85 per hour rate beyond the grand opening special to get your first couple of clients, your business will become more of a hobby or a non profit.

You say, “How can that be? Why doesn’t $75 an hour equate to $150,000 a year?” There are easily 2,000 billable hours per year, right? Wrong.

New consultants often fail to consider all the overhead and expenses that usually come up as a business matures. The uninformed person just starting out usually believes that $75 an hour times 40 hours a week times 50 weeks a year is $150,000 a year in consulting revenue.  They think that the number of hours billable in a week is 40.  Unfortunately that’s Fantasy Island.

Unless you’re working a 100 hours, you won’t even have a shot at making 40 billable hours per week.  A good percentage of your work day is taken up with non billable hours.  Networking, marketing, sales calls, training, etc…; these activities all eat away at your billable hours.  

You can’t ignore business development activities so you have to adjust your hourly rate to account for a realistic amount of billable hours per week.

Bottom Line on Billable Hours
Billable hours and your hourly rate are tied together and will largely determine your degree of profitability.  You can’t expect to enjoy 100% of your time as billable hours.  You need to set your hourly rate high enough to remain profitable after considering a reasonable number of weekly billable hours.  

In this article, you’ve been introduced to Billable Hours. To learn more about how you can improve your knowledge about Billable Hours, just click here now to get access to a free one-hour audio training program on 5 Easy Ways to Grow Your Computer Consulting Business.

Consulting fees must be set in order to sustain your business.  When you start off as a moonlighter it is tempting to charge low consulting fees in order to build up a client base.  The problem with this strategy is that when you want to transition to full time consulting, your consulting fees must be high enough to cover all the added expenses that go along with running a full time business.

To make this transition you must get the recurring revenue and charge market rates that are sustainable for the long haul. Your full time competitors have already figured out the consulting fees they need to charge to cover their overhead items that as a moonlighter you are probably overlooking. Items like:

• taxes
• training expenses
• insurance costs
• marketing and promotion
• research
• administration

To cover these basic expenses you won’t be able to charge bargain basement consulting fees.     If you’re thinking you can go out there and be the Crazy Eddie of computer support and charge consulting fees of $25, $35, $45 an hour you’re not going to make it up on volume. There are only so many hours you can work in a week, even on a full time basis.

Bottom Line on Consulting Fees
If you want to be able to survive and you want to be able to make the transition from part time to full time consulting, it’s very important that you copy the right people when it comes to your consulting fees.  You do not want to be the cheapest in your market because you won’t be able to sustain those low consulting fees for long.  Start out right and set your consulting fees at the higher end.  This prepares you to make the leap to full time and  paves the way for long term business health.   

In this article, you’ve been introduced to Consulting Fees. To learn more about how you can improve your knowledge about Consulting Fees, just click here now to get access to a free one-hour audio training program on 5 Easy Ways to Grow Your Computer Consulting Business.

Target businesses must be looked at in terms of their ability to support your own business goals.  If you really want to make a decent living and want to have a good, successful, viable consulting business you have to know your target business clients. You have to narrow down your focus and develop a keen intuition so you are expert at spotting the best small business accounts to target.  

There are millions of small businesses in the U.S. and there are millions of small businesses abroad. Not all of these will fit with your target business profile but many will.  And, there’s a pretty good chance that there are thousands, if not tens of thousands of companies in your local area that qualify as target businesses.

If you don’t learn early on which businesses to target and which ones to stay away from your own business will suffer.  You need to know where to find the best target businesses and know when to say "no" to business that comes your way.

Your target businesses will be gratifying to work with.  You will get a great amount of career satisfaction by working with them.  That’s probably one of the reasons you’re looking at starting your own business as opposed to sticking with a traditional corporate IT career.

Target businesses will also prove to more lucrative accounts.  All small businesses are not created equal.  You want your clients to be a stable source of recurring revenue. Remember, your job is not to be the Mother Teresa of PC support. You’re not running a charitable organization.

Of course, you want to have empathy for the people you support and you want to do a great job for them, but at the same time, you have to look out for your own interests to make sure you’re going to be there for them six months to a year down the road.

Bottom Line on Target Businesses
It’s very important that you start right at the beginning to identify and find target businesses you want to work with.  The better your clients, the better your business.  The time you spend putting together a target business profile will pay off many times in the future.

In this article, you’ve been introduced to Target Businesses. To learn more about how you can improve your knowledge about Target Businesses, just click here now to get access to a free one-hour audio training program on 5 Easy Ways to Grow Your Computer Consulting Business.

IT services outsourcing must be provided with an understanding of what functions your virtual IT business is going to provide.  You need to analyze the capabilities of an IT department and then compare that to what you want to offer.

After you know the functions your IT services outsourcing business will provide, you then have to decide what you want to do in-house, what you want to outsource, and what you don’t want to provide at all.  

Common IT Services Outsourcing Functions

• architecture design
• lab services
• corporate security
• data center
• help desk
• network administration
• network engineering
• PC floor support
• basic PC support
• procurement and purchasing
• project management
• business unit technologists
• software development
• training center
• WAN engineering
• Web team  

Most small business owners who use IT services outsourcing want the same technology advantages as their Fortune 1000 counterparts.  The challenge has always been how to build a solution around those wants and needs on a small business friendly budget.  That’s where your IT services outsourcing analysis comes in.

Once you figure out what your IT service outsourcing menu is going to be, then you build your business around it.  This becomes part of your business plan and your marketing collateral.  Your IT outsourcing services list should be accompanied by a features and benefits explanation and should identify what you will do yourself and what you will outsource to other specialists.

Bottom Line on IT Services Outsourcing
You need to make hard and fast decisions about your IT services outsourcing capabilities.  The services you don’t want to handle yourself can then be offered by authorized specialty contractors and the services you don’t want to provide are left off the list completely.  Before you even go into business, read through the common IT outsourcing services and decide what your virtual IT department will offer.

In this article, you’ve been introduced to IT Services Outsourcing. To learn more about how you can improve your knowledge about IT Services Outsourcing, just click here now to get access to a free one-hour audio training program on 5 Easy Ways to Grow Your Computer Consulting Business. 

Pricing strategy is something you have to consider right from start-up.  Your pricing strategy is not something you can easily change later on.  This is why making sure you have the correct pricing strategy is so critical.

Your pricing strategy is an element of your business that your clients count on.  If you change your mind on your hourly billing rates or how you are charging, your clients are likely to resist.  If your pricing strategy changes significantly, you risk losing your clients all together.

In a good economy, increases of five to fifteen percent are about as much as you can get away with.  If your pricing strategy is off more than that, then it is usually easier to replace clients than to try to pass through more than a $20.00 - $25.00 an hour rate increase.  

If your pricing strategy absolutely must be changed in order to remain profitable, that means you are now faced with finding new clients.  These new clients will be brought on board under the new pricing strategy but at what cost?  The price of client acquisition is, on average, anywhere from $500 to $1,200.

Rather than incurring these unnecessary costs, it is much better to begin with the correct pricing strategy from the beginning.  That way you can pass along minor increases in the same way any business does.

Bottom Line on Pricing Strategy
Pricing strategy is one of your most important considerations.  It will have long term effects on your ability to remain profitable.  If you choose wrong in the beginning, the mistake is not easily repairable.  The cost of losing clients later is not worth any perceived benefit of bringing on clients early using the wrong pricing strategy.

In this article, you’ve been introduced to Pricing Strategy. To learn more about how you can improve your knowledge about Pricing Strategy, just click here now to get access to a free one-hour audio training program on 5 Easy Ways to Grow Your Computer Consulting Business. 

Pricing strategies are often based on what other people in the industry are doing.  Typical pricing strategies used are charging an hourly rate, a fixed price rate, a per PC or server rate, or some combination of the three.  Before you decide on your pricing strategy, however, you are wise to check out what your competitors are doing and then try and emulate them.

Before you start your analysis of your competitors’ pricing strategy you have to be very sure you have identified your true competitors.  A big, and common, mistake is tying to emulate a supposed competitor’s pricing strategy only to have it fall flat because that company is not a competitor at all.

There are lots of quasi-competitors out there but you don’t necessarily want to use their pricing strategy as a basis for your own.  The acid test for determining if a business is a true competitor is this:

When you turn the question around the answer is much clearer.  You might start off thinking Dell is a direct competitor, but when you ask yourself whether Dell sees you as a direct competitor, suddenly you realize that you are not even on Dell’s radar screen.  Dell would consider the collective of small business systems integrators as a competitor - but one company out of those hundreds of thousands?  Not likely.  

Copying Dell’s pricing strategy would be disastrous.  The influences on their pricing strategy decisions are vastly different than yours as a small business owner.  

The other issue to consider when deciding which competitors’ pricing strategy to follow is their level of IT business knowledge.  You don’t want to emulate people with low skills or poor business sense.  Ask yourself:

• Do they really know what they’re doing?
• Do they have a history of running a profitable business?
• Do they have a sustainable business?  
• Do they have a scalable business?  

Bottom Line on Pricing Strategy
Before setting a pricing strategy you should check out what your competitors are doing.  The key, though, is to make sure you are analyzing the pricing strategies of true competitors and worthy competitors.  If you want to put yourself in the top echelon you need to emulate those who are already there.

In this article, you’ve been introduced to Pricing Strategy. To learn more about how you can improve your knowledge about Pricing Strategy, just click here now to get access to a free one-hour audio training program on 5 Easy Ways to Grow Your Computer Consulting Business.

IT consulting services come in all shapes and sizes. When you first start a business it is often difficult to decide which IT consulting services to offer.  Should you sell what you know, sell what is trendy, or sell what you think people want?

The best way to figure out what IT consulting services to sell, and the products that are needed to support them, is to sell, service, and offer the IT consulting services that your prospects NEED.  

Sounds pretty intuitive, but what typically happens is businesses start-up offering IT consulting services that their prospects want.  A need and a want are two different things.  The IT consulting services that a business owner thinks he/she needs are not necessarily the IT consulting services that are actually needed.  

Think about this–if your prospects want an air conditioner, do you sell it to them in January? No, in the winter months, unless you’re in the far south, you sell space heaters, car battery warmers, down comforters, and hot chocolate.  The same goes for IT consulting services, you sell them what they need right now, so that they can continue to operate effectively.  By selling IT consulting services they need, you will cover the wants in due time.

Now, when you are dealing with a non-technical business owner or manager, their needs may be quite superficial.  That’s ok.  If they perceive that they need IT consulting services to fix their lockups, improve their sluggish performance, find out why they can’t log on, or why they’re losing drive letters - provide those services.  

Once you prove to them you know what you’re doing, then you can sell them the IT consulting services you know they need to reach peak performance. Basically, you want to sell aspirin for their aches and pains. You can’t even start to sell the IT consulting services that you’re trying to sell them –productivity tools, security tools, hardening, intrusion detection, collaboration, connectivity, wireless VPNs– until you’ve fixed what they perceive their IT aches and pains to be.  

Bottom Line on IT Consulting Services
When you start thinking about what IT consulting services to offer you need to think like your prospects.  Try to understand what they need and separate that from what they want.  Be careful to remember that non technical buyers will have legitimate surface need that must be addressed. Offer IT consulting services that cover both the basic fixes and the long term solutions and make yourself an invaluable asset to the businesses for which you provide IT consulting services.  

In this article, you’ve been introduced to IT Consulting Services. To learn more about how you can improve your knowledge about IT Consulting Services, just click here now to get access to a free one-hour audio training program on 5 Easy Ways to Grow Your Computer Consulting Business. 

Starting a new business is difficult.  Customers don’t typically come calling on you right away. Everyone starts somewhere and not all of your first clients will be long term, sweet spot clients.   

Starting a new business means you don’t have your business foundation completed yet.  At first you need to get clients - any clients.  These are called stepping-stone clients. They are what will bring in your early revenue.  You also need to start acquiring positive business testimonials. Again, you need steppingstone clients for this.

Six months after starting a new business is when you can start to get more selective.  Earlier than that your accounts will typically be smaller than you would like.  That’s ok because you need to be confident that when you are starting a new business these smaller clients will eventually be replaced by your ideal, sweet-spot clients.

Types of work to expect when starting a new business include:

• LAN audits
• MCSC tutoring
• Training seminars
• Small peer to peer jobs
• Upgrades
• PC tune-ups
• Light web site design
• Optimization and troubleshooting

When you’re starting a new business your personal and business network are critical.  These contacts will be the ones who will refer you to small jobs.  As you complete these small jobs word will spread about your services.  Not long after starting a new business and finishing these types jobs, more referral business will start flowing in.

Bottom Line on Starting A New Business
You can’t afford to ignore any business when starting a new business.  You also can’t get discouraged.  Starting a new business is an exercise in patience and diligence.  You never know where one of your small jobs might lead you. There is lots of time to be selective with your clients - starting a new business is not the time.

In this article, you’ve been introduced to starting a new business. To learn more about how you can improve your knowledge about starting a new business, just click here now to get access to a free one-hour audio training program on 5 Easy Ways to Grow Your Computer Consulting Business. 

Some computer consultants thrive working in their home offices. Others find too many distractions or don’t like the isolation. Evaluate your personal preferences and make your own decision on what works best for you.

Read on to learn how a change by one of our computer consultants made him more productive:

"I moved my office from home to an official office. Made me more focused on what really matters."

Mario, DataFlow
Windsor, Ontario, Canada

The Bottom Line about Computer Consultants

In this article, you’ve learned about computer consultants. To learn more about computer consultants, click here now to get access to a free one-hour audio training program on 5 Easy Ways to Grow Your Computer Consulting Business.

Business merchant accounts are critical to have if you want to accept credit cards. Business merchant accounts are not limited to those computer consultants reselling products either.  They are a good idea for any sale, especially when you are selling to new clients.

If you have a business merchant account you will not have to chase down outstanding debt.  The cost is not that high and you don’t have to buy traditional credit card processing equipment. Now they have what is called a lab terminal, which allows you to use your web browser to manage the transactions.  The systems are completely secure and most business merchant account providers team up with larger companies that offer great advantages.

Costco’s Business Merchant Account
One of the biggest secrets we learned about business merchant accounts is that Costco provides a  fantastic deal on credit card processing through Nova Systems. It’s such a great deal it can actually pay for your entire Costco membership. Here are some particulars:
All of the monthly statement and gateway fees are waived - savings of $25 - $50 per month
Very competitive discount rates on Visa and MasterCard.
You can add on processing for American Express and Discover - you will find that even though American Express transaction fees are higher, it is a very popular card with small businesses.  
The charges billed are transferred quickly and directly into your business bank account - this is a lot faster than doing your billing or invoicing once a week or so.

Paypal
Paypal is a popular alternative to traditional business merchant accounts.  Paypal is very easy to set up and the set up is free.  There are restrictions though on what you can do and how you can withdraw your money.  The largest drawback is the negative connotation of being an ebay related service where people sell garage sale stuff as a hobby.

The Bottom Line on Business Merchant Accounts
Business merchant accounts will help you get paid faster. There are fees involved but the customer convenience and no hassle approach to receiving your money make it worthwhile.  There are different business merchant accounts available so do your homework and choose the one that makes the best sense for you.

In this article, you’ve been introduced to business merchant accounts. To learn more about how you can improve your knowledge of business merchant accounts, just click here now to get access to a free one-hour audio training program on 5 Easy Ways to Grow Your Computer Consulting Business.

Contingency plans are absolutely critical for first year business success.  A contingency plan is what will help you deal with the curve balls that get thrown at you. Despite your best research and planning, you will encounter surprises:  good and bad.

When you start your contingency plan you need to list out anything you can think of that will either positively or negatively impact your business. There are a number of things that you should consider for your contingency plan including:

• Concentrating on a niche - what contingency plan can you put in place if your niche dries up or turns out to be unable to support your business?
• Labor market issues - do you need a contingency plan for a lack of availability of contract workers or employees?
• General comfort with ASP software - if clients don’t need the services you provide, are you able to  branch into different service markets?
• Strategic alliances between competitors - if there are mergers or alliances in your industry have you thought of how your business can react and stay alive?   

A thorough contingency plan address 15 - 20 reasonable possibilities that could affect your ability to remain profitable. These are things that are outside of your control that you must react to.  Your contingency plan only needs to cover a one-year time horizon but it should be revised often.  

The Bottom Line On Contingency Plans
You don’t want to be caught without a contingency plan.  Things happen - some positive, some negative. Your ability to weather the ups and downs of your business will depend heavily on the thought and time you put into your contingency plan.  Your ability to deal with the unexpected is what will keep you on track for success, or derail you completely.

In this article, you’ve been introduced to contingency plans. To learn more about how you can improve your knowledge about contingency plans, just click here now to get access to a free one-hour audio training program on 5 Easy Ways to Grow Your Computer Consulting Business.