Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Computer Business Opportunity in B2B Small Business Space

If you are a small business computer consulting company owner who has been delivering services to customers in the B2C (Business-to-Consumer) space, you may be looking for another computer business opportunity to help you grow your profits and your client base.

Many small business computer consultants find great opportunities in the B2B (Business-to-Business) space, and specifically within Sweet Spot Clients(tm). Sweet Spot Clients are defined as small businesses with anywhere from 10 to 75 computers. This computer business opportunity can help consultants find steady, long-term clients that are willing and able to pay for ongoing services.

The following 3 tips introduce you to the B2B small business space and help you seize your best computer business opportunity to help build your company.

1: Don’t Focus on Micro- and Home-Based Small Businesses. Many consultants moving from home users into the small business space make the mistake of thinking that they can just run out and get some small business clients. They don’t stop to think about where the true computer business opportunity is, and that it’s not in very small clients. If you focus on home-based businesses and micro small businesses, you will run into many of the same problems as in the home users market.

2: Know the Main Reasons Micro and Home-Based Small Business Clients Are Not Profitable. As you are looking for the best computer business opportunity, you need to know exactly why working with micro- and home-based small businesses is not profitable. First of all, you will find a lot of consumer-grade PC’s and pirated software. Also, you will find that micro- and home-based small businesses will be reluctant to pay for services, because they are used to getting computer support for free from a friend, family member or other types of volunteers. And how can you possibly compete with free? Because IT is usually not as important to very small businesses services, micro small businesses will also not usually need great response time and won’t be willing to pay for it. Most importantly, very small businesses will be too small to afford a real dedicated server or a real network, leaving you very little computer business opportunity to build complex solutions and grow long-term relationships.

3: Focus on Sweet Spot Clients. Again, Sweet Spot Clients are defined as small businesses with anywhere from 10 to 75 computers. At this stage, you will find prospects, customers, and clients willing to get serious about putting in a real client/server network, a reliable back-up solution, a dependable UPS, and a truly secure firewall. Small business decision makers in this space understand that the systems need to be designed by a very sophisticated IT support services or network integrator firm, which is where your computer business opportunity will be strongest. As a small business starts growing, the stakes go up. These owners recognize the need to use IT more strategically.

Source: http://www.itworld.com/channel/59483/computer-business-opportunity-b2b-small-business-space

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