Seeking Business for IT Companies

IT companies often have a difficult time building their business. This often seems to be down to having a much deeper appreciation for their technology than understanding the need to communicate with their clients and build business relationships. Our tips will help you build your IT business.

Start with some Market Research

If you need to find suitable customers for your business, start by deciding what kind of clients you are looking for. Once you have a profile of your ideal client type, design a simple five-minute survey with the questions you want to explore and build a list of prospects. You can find out more about using market research to build your business on the SeekingBusiness site.

Explain the Benefits of What you Do

You may have a great product, but your client probably isn’t as fascinated by how it works on a technical level as you might be. Try and put yourself in their place and communicate the benefits using your company will bring to their company. In the broadest terms, your clients will be looking for solutions that help them cut their costs or build their own business. Frame the benefits round these areas and you are half way there.

Invest in your Marketing

If this is an area where you lack in-house skills then look at bringing in a consultant or freelancer to help you get the benefits of your products and services across to your clients in a professional way. You might also want to consider coaching on presentations and making pitches for business.

Don’t Bamboozle your Clients

If your client isn’t an IT specialist don’t overload them with technical specifications and jargon. Not only will they not understand you, they may not want to ask what you are talking about in case you make them feel stupid. Try to convey your enthusiasm in terms that are straightforward.

Your client will want to be sure that you know every tiny detail of your product or service in the most exacting detail, but will probably be less than riveted should you choose to explain it. Not realising this has cost IT companies a lot of sales.

Understand your Clients and their Business

The key to being able to provide your clients with products and services that meet their needs is to understand their business, their customers and their business goals. The better you understand your client, the more information they will share and the bigger the share of their business that will come your way.

Bill for the Work you Do

Some areas of IT, particularly bespoke software development, seem to make becoming successful as a business quite difficult for themselves. It can be almost impossible to estimate how much a bespoke development will cost, so try and factor in some contingency into your estimates. Alternatively, breaking larger projects into stages can help you control your build costs. It is worth exploring where you overrun in terms of both costs and time and readjusting future quotes to take this into account.