You'll find that clients are sometimes just like children. They want to biggest, shiniest toy even though it may not be good for them. Your job as the virtual CIO is to make sure that they spend their money wisely and well.
What Does Your Client Really Need?
Look carefully at clients' software application requirements before you allow their "emotional" needs to drive tech PC hardware purchases. If a client's CFO spends most of a typical day crunching numbers in Microsoft Excel spreadsheets and communicating via e-mail in Microsoft Outlook, he or she really has only very basic PC hardware requirements. Thus, there might be a better way to ring greater bottom-line results.
Additionally, these consulting projects will be infinitely more profitable to your consulting firm than the slim profit margin on a high-end, commodity-like desktop PC hardware purchase.
What about Notebook PCs?
Although your clients can get some really useful multimedia features in high-end notebooks in the $4,000 to $5,000 price range, if the CEO of one of your main clients merely wants to access e-mail remotely, you easily could equip him or her with a reliable, high-performance, brand-name notebook for one-third to one-half of that price.
Use Your Knowledge To Help Your Clients
As your clients' virtual CIO and technology visionary, you have a huge responsibility. Don't allow clients' objective judgments and technology budgets to get seduced by superfluous bells and whistles.
When in doubt, ask yourself this basic question:
"If my client took the $5,000 that was about to be spent on the "Rolls Royce" of notebooks and reallocated the amount toward computer consulting services, what kind of an impact on their business could my firm make with a $5,000 budget for a consulting project?"
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Joshua Feinberg, co-founder of Computer Consulting 101, helps computer consulting business owners get more steady, high-paying clients. Learn how you can too. Sign-up now for your free access to field-tested, proven computer consulting secrets at
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