What Is Our Job?

For those of us putting together local, cloud, or blended solutions for our clients that question is pretty easy to answer:

• To make our clients make money.

“Okay Philip”, you say, “but how is that?”

There is a lot of talk about “Sell . . . sell . . . sell” in our business. There is a lot of belly gazing going on.

But, that does not wash with the business owner that has their hand tightly clenched to every penny.

The business owner does understand that we also need to make money. But, that is not the point.

When we talk to the business owner, we need to talk to them about how the solution we are going to provide them will make them money.

Have a look at most SMB/SME companies and we will find that most of them average a gross revenue of about $100/Hr per employee.

So, if we can demonstrate how our solution is going to save their employee’s 5, 10, 15, or even 60 minutes a week, that adds up very quickly.

They will see that the cost of the solution is minimal next to the productivity, and thus net revenue, they will make when the solution has been implemented. They will even see those monthly support costs in light of the net revenues too.

The GeekSpeak conversation (probably be pretty one sided with a set of Doe’s eyes on the business owner almost guaranteed) will die in its tracks.

Talk to the business owner about the dollars and cents they will save with a simple feature like Windows 7 tied into SharePoint (previous blog post) and the solution is pretty much won.

A good thing to hear from a client:

Philip, you guys do such awesome work for us because we never see you!

Have a great weekend! :)

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*All Mac on SBS posts will not be written on a Mac until we replace our now missing iMac! (previous blog post)

Windows Live Writer