A key way of achieving this is ensuring that your billing process is, fast and error free!, yet many PSO’s still rely on spreadsheets or home grown systems which are not integrated, are difficult to consolidate and are prone to error.

Starting with the basics, many professional services automation tools provide users with a simple and intuitive interface to capture all of their chargeable and non chargeable time and expenses. Whats great about these tools is that they automatically calculate the chargeable status of work based on the project, activity, expense type and resource combinations. This ensures accurate, timely time capture, coupled with reduced errors, which ensures billing cycles are reduced.

In order to achieve this, you should look for the following features, as minimum, from your timesheet billing software:

• Designed from the ground up to ensure that the software is quick and easy to use
• Clearly defined processes are defined in the system for capturing and approving time as well as calculating the chargeable status of time and/or expenses.
• Automated invoicing of time, including billing alerts and the ability to manage advanced billing requirements such as Capped, Repeat, Fixed Price, Advanced and Time and Materials Billing.
• Automatically calculates the chargeable value of work based on the employee inputing time, the project they are working on, the activity they are working on or the expense type booked
• Supports resource specific charge rates, role based charge rates, customer specific charge rates, project specific charge rates and a comprehensive project/resource charge matrix.
• Includes both line management and project management approval permissions to ensure time is checked and correct before invoicing.
• Locking mechanisms and xml exports ensure data exports are accurate and auditable
• Restrictions that eliminate data entry errors by limiting what project, activities and expense types a resource can record time against, ensuring only chargeable time is tracked against chargeable projects.

Out of all these features, personally I would stress, easy of use, compliance, simple time and expense approval, billing alerts and integrated billing as the most important factors for achieving benefits fast.

In summary, there are many tangible and intangible benefits to be gained by integrating your time and expense capture and time billing processes, however, to achieve a rapid ROI through improved cash flow you should look to seek the following benefits from your system as a minimum:

• Accurately Track Chargeable activity on projects eliminating data entry errors and speeding up the billing process
• Provide customers with fully audited and approved time and materials invoices reducing invoicing queries
• Automatically export data to 3rd party financial packages using locks or xml, considerable reducing administration time
• Manage complex rate cards through a unique project charge matrix, ensuring there are no manual calculations to perform to ensure the correct rate is billed to the customer
• Our timesheet billing software includes comprehensive real time reporting, reducing administration time to report on project profitability

If you would like to learn more ways to improve the performance of your professional service organisation, why not download our recent free whitepaper, Optimising the Performance of your Professional Service Organisation.

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Ian Needs

Ian Needs has over 13 years experience implementing project management software in SME’s and Corporate IT Departments, you can keep up to date with Ian’s project management tips via Twitter or by subscribing to our RSS Feed.

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Time sheet software improves productivity increasing profitability

Although it sounds like a simple analogy – get your employees to work on more productive tasks and your organisation will be more profitable. For many organisations this simply isn’t put into practice. For many organisation they do not have the tool sets in place to understand profitability and when they implement time sheet software they are quite shocked at just how much time is spent on administrative or non productive tasks.

Systems like Atlantic Global’s time sheet software focus management on improving productivity by providing employees with a simple method to update activities and tasks. This information is fed back to executives in real time allowing them to improve the productivity of employees and projects through better informed decision making on topics such as training requirements, staff activity deployment, project go/hold/kill decisions and future resourcing requirements.

Reduce Project Costs with efficient time sheet software

For organisations running large volumes of projects a sure fire way to improve profitability is to ensure that you are carrying out profitable projects. In order to understand whether a project is profitable it is essential to understand project progress and to gain an accurate upto date view of project cost and revenue.

Time sheet software puts you in complete control of your project management process. When recording time users can be requested to track time at a task level and update % complete. This enables the project manager to carry out a thorough review of each project to understand progress to date, cost to date vs. planned and current profitability.

Project Managers can also predict future profitability by comparing the Actual % complete and effort against planned to analyse the extent of any overuns or time gains. This information is essential for executives to understand the profitability of projects and to make the all important kill/go/hold decisions on your current project portfolio.

Use time sheet software to improve revenue recognition

Time sheet software ensures your employees are focused on timesheet compliance and your managers have real time information on missing or incomplete timesheets. By improving compliance this leads to the more timely input of time, which reduces time entry errors meaning your time sheet approval process is shortened, resulting in the more timely billing of time and improved revenue recognition.

If you would like to explore other ways professional service automation can help your services business, whey not take a look at our recent free whitepaper, Optimising the Performance of your Professional Services Organisation.

Free Whitepaper

Download your Free White Paper

Download your free copy of Optimising the Performance of your Professional Services Organisation. Learn how productising services, creating a PMO, embracing New Technologies and promoting and innovative culture can help nurture customer relationships, drive cash flow and increase profitability through improved service delivery.

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Ian Needs

Ian Needs has over 13 years experience implementing project management software in SME’s and Corporate IT Departments, you can keep up to date with Ian’s project management tips via Twitter or by subscribing to our RSS Feed.

Follow Ian on Twitter. Connect with Ian on LinkedIn

In order to meet these demands,  many businesses will be looking to boost efficiency levels, lower costs and make improvements to the products and services that are being delivered.

Professional Services Automation software has  revolutionised how businesses manage their projects  and resources by streamlining key business processes and obtaining the best possible value from an organisations limited resources by providing the business with:

• A single, integrated solution that automates key business processes such as  billing and invoicing, project planning and resource scheduling
• Creation of a single database that shows the immediate impact of changes to key performance metrics, in real time.
• Improved resource utilisation as the demand for resources can be captured, prioritised and matched to the available supply.
• Increased transparency and better decision making as a single version of the truth enables executives to spot slipping or under performing projects, resource bottlenecks and risks.
• Projects can be prioritised, allowing the business to only fund those that are alignment with organisational objectives.
• Better communication  across the entire business from team members through to senior executives

Professional Services Automation solutions are designed to improve levels of service delivery by enabling the organisation to better  manage:

• Customer feedback
•  Ideas management
• Lessens learned
• Improved collaboration
• Standardisation of project planning methods
• Manage risk
• Manage change

If you would like further information on how PSA Software can benefit your business. why not take a read of our recent white paper, Optimising the Performance of your Professional Service Organisation.

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Download your free copy of Optimising the Performance of your Professional Services Organisation. Learn how productising services, creating a PMO, embracing New Technologies and promoting and innovative culture can help nurture customer relationships, drive cash flow and increase profitability through improved service delivery.

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Ian Needs

Ian Needs has over 13 years experience implementing project management software in SME’s and Corporate IT Departments, you can keep up to date with Ian’s project management tips via Twitter or by subscribing to our RSS Feed.

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As I’ve managed and succeeded and failed my way through about twenty years of IT project management and more than five years of IT consulting, I’ve made mental – if not always written – notes of what works and what doesn’t and what qualities in a person seem necessary in order to succeed in this career. And while I’ve worked on this list more than once and it’s not the same every time, I can say that what I consider to be key personal traits or characteristics of a good project management consultant generally boil down to these four qualities. There are definitely more – and I’m open to your arguments, thoughts, and suggestions, but here’s my ‘primary’ or ‘root’ list…

Communicator

This is the top one for me. In my opinion being an efficient and effective communicator is the number one role the IT project manager must play – beyond excelling as a technical expert. If you can’t communicate well with your project customer and those you may be working with or along side on the engagement then you shouldn’t be in this business. You’re going to get weeded out early or eaten alive during your first project. During one requirements meeting on a project I was leading I had a business analyst who was reduced to tears because that person was taking everything personally and not communicating requirements and expectations well or controlling the room. A good BA, yes, because of the combo of technical and business skills possessed, but not a real leader and not one you could consider as a strong candidate to actually lead project management engagements. I’m still trying to block that project from my mind.

Negotiator

Issues arise on every engagement. I think every project I’ve ever run required scope changes and change orders. Negotiation is just part of the game. It always will be. So a good PM consultant must be ready to leverage business practices, technical knowledge, project status, and customer needs to keep the engagement headed in the right direction. It may require asking the client to provide different client-side resources, possibly more money, a phased approach…whatever it takes it will almost always require some give and take…some negotiation. This is a key skill that must be there.

Confident leader

The IT Project Management consultant must exude confidence. I don’t mean an ego trip. But they must be a confident leader. I usually have a bunch of very talented technical people that I’m interacting with on my IT consulting engagements. And yes, they all have big egos. It helps to be technical when you’re directing those resources…no doubt about that. But you must also be confident, take charge, and lead them. Otherwise, they will go over your head to their management, etc. to get things done or to complain about you. You must lead them.

Stubborn

This may seem odd, but it is important. It is broad. You must be a good decision maker. But it goes beyond that. You must also be stubborn. Stick to your decisions. Why? Because everyone from the customer paying for the implementation down to the developer building it will question you along the way. If you’re weak and not stubborn, you could end up changing your mind many times and the end result will be a project thrown off track by an indecisive leader who isn’t long for this career path.

Feedback?

I’m interested to hear from our IT project managers or consultants who are reading this. What’s your take? Everyone has their own list of what they think it takes to lead engagements and highly skilled teams. What do you consider to be the top characteristics needed to experience continued success in this field?

Brad Egeland

Brad Egeland is an IT/PM & Business Strategy consultant and author with over 25 years of software development, management, and project management experience leading business and IT initiatives in nearly every industry imaginable. He works with organizations of all sizes from startups to Fortune 500 leaders and has overseen the creation and execution of multiple PMOs. Brad is married, a father of 9, and lives in Las Vegas, NV. He can be reached at brad@bradegeland.com or you can visit his website at www.bradegeland.com.

In this new white paper we look at some of the innovative ways Professional Service Organisations can improve project and service delivery, as well as explore the reasons why top Professional Service Organisations stand out.

Topics covered include:

• Typical Challenges faced by Professional Service Organisations
• The Benefits of Service Productisation
• The Benefits of Setting up a PMO
• How to Promote an Innovative Culture
• Why Professional Service Organisations should embrace New Technologies
• Why the Top Professional Service Organisations Stand Out
• Professional Service Automation Software Tear-down
• Professional Service Automation Software in Focus

Free Whitepaper

Download your Free White Paper

Download your free copy of Optimising the Performance of your Professional Services Organisation. Learn how productising services, creating a PMO, embracing New Technologies and promoting and innovative culture can help nurture customer relationships, drive cash flow and increase profitability through improved service delivery.

Subscribe Now to get instant notification of New Posts, Whitepapers and Webinars.

Ian Needs

Ian Needs has over 13 years experience implementing project management software in SME’s and Corporate IT Departments, you can keep up to date with Ian’s project management tips via Twitter or by subscribing to our RSS Feed.

Follow Ian on Twitter. Connect with Ian on LinkedIn

I’m not saying you aren’t serving them very well just by giving them 110% that you’re likely already giving them. That alone should make them feel appreciated and if they’re a repeat customer it’s obvious that they like your work.

But in these economic times, going that extra mile for the client can differentiate you from that second tier option that you know they’ve at least investigated in order to possibly save some money. What you want to do is further distance yourself from the #2 choice by doing something more. That can be anything from making yourself so proprietarily important to the customer that they can’t turn to anyone else to making a personal connection with your key decision-making contact at the client organization (and no, I’m not referring to anything bad, explicit, or illegal).

From my experience with my project customers and discussions I’ve had with other consultants and project managers, here are a few things you can do to let your best customers know where they stand with you…

Reach out to them when you’re not working with them – and not just on holidays

Many people reach out to clients around particular holidays – especially Christmas and/or New Years. But you need to contact those best clients – the ones you do the most profitable business with – more frequently than that. You need to make sure they remember you, or your business and that they know they’re important to you because you haven’t forgotten them. I make it a point to reach out to my best clients on a quarterly basis. The work I do for them may be two years apart, but they never go more than three months without at least some sort of contact from me.

Send new business to them

Think of ways you can help out your best customers. And the best way you can help their bottom line is to send new business to them. If you’re attending a trade show or conference that is applicable, you can spread the word around about their business or product offering. Saying anything good about them to others in their industry has the potential to bring them new business. Make sure that you pass out your business card so that your favorite client will hopefully find out where this reference came from. Those are bonus points!

Refer to them in a blog or article post online

If part of your business includes writing some expert content for your blog or forum or even for someone else’s, including references to them in a couple of articles can go along way in letting them know how much you value the working relationship you have with them. And be sure to send your primary contact a link to the article or blog because it will certainly be of interest to them and it may be a reference they can use in their own marketing processes.

Advertise them on your business website

Giving a free advertising slot on your website to your best project customers says a lot about how much they mean to you. Plus, if they’re a reputable company, then that can also have a very positive impact on your business when others see that the client organization is associated with you and is advertising on your site. It can draw not only new business, but also more advertising opportunities on your site.

Give them something personal

This may be hard to do, but when you can pull it off it may be a huge boost to your relationship with your favorite clients. I have had a few big opportunities to do this and I was able to reap big rewards….

Once, I was in the office of the VP of one client and noticed he was a big Yankee fan. I had a baseball program from my childhood that contained some Yankee autographs I had obtained. The autographed program was not important to me anymore, but I knew it would mean something to him – and it did.

Another example: during a casual meeting with my primary contact at one of my favorite clients, I noticed he was wearing a concert t-shirt of a particular band. Since I’m a collector of rare live recordings – I have thousands – I sifted through my collection and made him a copy of a great rare recording by his favorite band and it proved to be another great ‘boost’.

That’s just two examples, and it won’t always happen. You have to have the perfect combination of knowing a personal preference and being able to meet that interest with something that can’t normally get themselves. This one is not for everyone, but if you can do it, they will NEVER forget it.

Summary

The bottom line here is you don’t treat all of your project customers the same. You shouldn’t. Treat them all very well, but go the extra mile for those clients that stand out to you – and that’s like the ones who have the greatest impact on your revenue and profit margin. Do something extra for them so they know they’re important to you and they won’t forget to come back to you next time.

Brad Egeland

Brad Egeland is an IT/PM & Business Strategy consultant and author with over 25 years of software development, management, and project management experience leading business and IT initiatives in nearly every industry imaginable. He works with organizations of all sizes from startups to Fortune 500 leaders and has overseen the creation and execution of multiple PMOs. Brad is married, a father of 9, and lives in Las Vegas, NV. He can be reached at brad@bradegeland.com or you can visit his website at www.bradegeland.com.

• The need to reduce expenditures
• The even greater need to retain their current customer base and expand to maintain or increase revenue

Small Business Growth

Startups and small businesses are growing, doing everything they can to add revenue, add customers and watch costs. And they’re trying to make decisions about growing the business bigger and trying to be careful at the same time and not grow too fast.

In my experience, most startups and small businesses suffer or need help in three key areas. At least this is where I’ve usually found niches as a consulting project manager to help smaller organizations:

• Strategic Planning
• Leading a Critical or New Strategic Project
• Resource Management

As an experienced project manager, you have the confidence, experience and probably connections to make a huge difference in these organizations bottom lines and potentially gain a long-term – at least part-time – customer in the process. Let’s look at each of these in more detail.

Strategic Planning

Strategically planning is an area where nearly every small business and startup either needs help or think they need help. In this economy, they’re looking for any edge they can get and they’re looking for champions to come along and push them toward greater revenue or the next big venture capital payday.

Work with these organizations and use your expertise to understand their business processes, where they’ve been, and where they think they should be going in the next month, six months, and five years. These are critical milestones in their growth and it’s easy for smaller organizations to lose sight of where they want to be down the road while they’re fighting today’s battles. Help them plan that course and understand the tools that they are going to need to get them there.

You bring the ‘outside’ eyes to look at the overall market, their direct competition, the technology they will need to grow, and their current and potential customer base. Advise them well and you’ll have them as a client forever.

Leading a New or Critical Strategic Project

Smaller organizations experiencing growth that also have outside customers that they are working projects for often find themselves in a situation where they’ve focused too much attention on one area and not enough on another…and many times it’s the customer who is suffering.

Seek out such software/IT service organizations that are smaller or in startup mode and offer your services. I’ve been called in to help bring troubled implementations around for startups and it’s not only rewarding for me, but it gives me a long-term customer and most likely saves the startup from closing up shop. Losing one of your first high-visibility customers is bad for the small business – and it’s that kind of bad press that can bring down an entire company.

Remember, these organizations are likely led by a strong owner/CEO who has built the business from the ground up but has too much going on with ‘selling’ to always keep things on track. Jumping in to take on their next big customer-facing project or fix one that is going south quickly is a major opportunity for a consulting project manager.

Resource Management

As I mentioned above, many startups and smaller businesses are led by a strong owner/CEO who has now moved outside of his original area of expertise to run this business. He’s overloaded, but selling, selling, selling.

I’ve witnessed this situation. The talented CEO is out selling his business’ services to everyone – even globally – and very successfully. What he’s often not mindful of is over-commitment of resources. Sure, this kind of falls under strategic planning, but it’s so prevalent in both smaller and larger organizations that it deserves it’s own category here.

The CEO may be lining up business for 6-12 months out or even longer, committing both personnel and equipment with no understanding of what that means to his current projects and the projects he’s promised customers over that next 6 to 12 month timeframe already. Very successful and growing businesses can flounder quickly when over-committed resources means timelines slide and new customers can’t wait. What do they do then? They leave…and tell others.

This is where you step in. It’s simple, but it’s setting up processes and plans and it’s something they’ve not thought of and probably don’t have time for. Use your PM software tool of reference to setup resource management. Set up all of their current and future projects in the project management software tool using common templates for all and use the common resource pool for the projects resource assignments. This will allow you to magically create reports for the CEO or Ops Manager to show them how on track or off track they are on with their current resource base. They will love you for it and think you’re a genius.

Summary

These organizations don’t always come looking for you. But you can get very good at looking for and finding them. They often don’t like to ask for help, but when you hit them at the right time, there’s no way they can say no. Your expert ‘outside’ eyes on their business processes, customer handling, resource management, and possibly even budgeting and financial planning – if that is a niche for you – can be invaluable to them. And they will keep coming back.

Brad Egeland

Brad Egeland is an IT/PM & Business Strategy consultant and author with over 25 years of software development, management, and project management experience leading business and IT initiatives in nearly every industry imaginable. He works with organizations of all sizes from startups to Fortune 500 leaders and has overseen the creation and execution of multiple PMOs. Brad is married, a father of 9, and lives in Las Vegas, NV. He can be reached at brad@bradegeland.com or you can visit his website at www.bradegeland.com.

In the world of project management it is important to make good decisions and stick to them. But you’re going to have to be flexible on every engagement – it’s just how the world of project management works. But know the boundaries – just the right amount of flexibility and the customer will love you forever. Go overboard or remain unwavering and you may not finish out the current project.

Let’s look at two concepts that fall under the ‘flexibility’ category:

Be open to new processes

As an experienced IT project manager you undoubtedly have a set way you like to do things. You have templates for proposals, status reporting, invoices, and meeting notes. You do things pretty much the same for each client to get things underway on an assignment. And if you’re part of an organization or PMO and not working independently as a consultant, then there are definitely processes and templates that you are expected to follow. But every once in awhile you run across that client who has their own processes and plans for how things are going to go. Right? You won’t win them over by being inflexible. That particular client won’t feel warm and fuzzy because you have all of your ducks in a row. No, that client may be put off by your lack of flexibility and will see you as unwilling to follow the ‘boss’ and may immediately categorize you as stubborn and move on to the next potential service provider.

Rather than fight them, be open to their processes and how they want things done. How they do things may be governed more by accounting or business objectives than your stakeholder’s desires. As your project progresses you can look for ways to show them how your processes or templates may enhance the engagement and drive the relationship to a more organized and successful conclusion. But, with certain clients, enforcing your will on them at the outset of the project when they have different desires may be a very wrong thing to do.

Be able to give and take criticism

The ability to give and take criticism can actually mean that you’ve ‘arrived’ as an experienced project manager and IT professional. Once you have the confidence level with your PM or consulting expertise to be able give criticism where it is due AND also take criticism constructively and use it to your advantage to better yourself, then you know you’re in a good place. Less experienced project managers may wilt when criticized and it may greatly affect their confidence level for the rest of the engagement. They may also be unable to critique and criticize others constructively because they lack confidence in their own judgment.

I was being paid by a CEO of a small data management organization to run several projects for him a few years ago. I adhered to item # 1 above, but I probably shouldn’t have. He wanted me to basically act in his role at times and lead weekly meetings of the entire staff to get status updates while also running these projects. My first inclination was to ask each person to prepare and submit a status report to me so that I could compile a company status report and agenda for the meeting. It’s just how I roll. He said, “You can’t ask them to do that – just hold the meeting.” Needless to say, attendance continued to be sparse as it was before, no one took it seriously and at the end of my consulting run he questioned my project management abilities. All of this even though I successfully led projects for him for several months and all of his clients were satisfied with the outcomes on their projects.

That engagement was a lessons learned for me because I could really see early on that the client was going to be a little difficult. I bent to their wishes and I didn’t end up with a really satisfied client, but I was able to make good money while I was consulting for them. In this example, flexibility paid off financially for me, but not in maintaining a long-term relationship with client. In the end I was confident with that because I was able to take the criticism in the context it was given and move on to the next client.

Summary

Whether you’re working to satisfy that less than easy-to-work-with client in order to maintain the working relationship or you understand there’s no pleasing them and you want to maintain the working relationship as long as possible to get the money out of the engagement that you had counted on, there are times when flexibility is necessary – and can pay off nicely.

The experienced IT project manager sees these situations in advance and acts accordingly. The new project manager begins to learn from engagements that just didn’t go very well and becomes more flexible, when necessary, for future projects. Either way, the key is to become aware and learn along the way and look for ways to keep those more difficult clients on your radar screen as long as possible.

Brad Egeland

Brad Egeland is an IT/PM & Business Strategy consultant and author with over 25 years of software development, management, and project management experience leading business and IT initiatives in nearly every industry imaginable. He works with organizations of all sizes from startups to Fortune 500 leaders and has overseen the creation and execution of multiple PMOs. Brad is married, a father of 9, and lives in Las Vegas, NV. He can be reached at brad@bradegeland.com or you can visit his website at www.bradegeland.com.

Measures of Risk

There are many ways within project risk management that we can measure risk. Most commonly, this can be a simple metric to highlight the Risk and could be input by the Project Manager.  In addition it can be considered as a combination of factors.  For example, the illustration below shows how a Risk can be evaluated based on its Impact (consequence) and it’s Probability (likelihood).

Project Risk Score Matrix

The scoring can be based on multiple levels and doesn’t have to be measured to 5 levels – 3 may suffice for most organisations.

However, based on the above risk score matrix, we can grade the risks as follows:

Project Risk Scores

However you score risk, the same principle applies.

• What is the likelihood of the Risk occurring?
• What is the consequence of the Risk occurring?
• Give each element a score and you can indicate the Risk Measure

Project Risk Management Benefits

Throughout my experience, there are a number of benefits that are easily realised by businesses through project risk management coupled with an effective Risk Scoring Matrix.  Most commonly these include:

• Greater probability of achieving organisational objectives
• Provide a transparent and uniform process for the management of risk
• The information is recorded and audited
• Quick and effective means of formally recording risks
• Demonstrates your organisation’s ability to manage risk

Why not join the discussion, let me know with a comment how you manage project risks and how you define your Project Risk Score Matrix?.

David Livingstone

My experience has been gained through implementing Financial Management, Workflow, and Project Management software. My aim is to share this experience and to communicate with implementers and users of software solutions particularly in relation to an organisation’s management of it’s Resources and Projects. All feedback is welcome.

So, you’re an independent consultant and you’re looking to add new clients to your project management or IT consulting practice? Who isn’t? The ideal consulting practice scenario has you receiving income from multiple revenue streams at the same time. Depending on the type of IT consulting that you regularly perform, that may require to you to branch out into new areas. If your typical revenue stream comes from one client that you are performing work for on, say, a 6-12 month software installation and it’s not practical or even possible for you to run two of these at the same time, then you’ll likely need to broaden your horizons on how you’re going to add additional sources of income coming in at the same time.

If you have clients – both potential new ones and past clients wanting more – lined up and ready for your next opening, you may ask, “Why would I care about branching out my service offerings or adding multiple sources of simultaneous revenue.” The answer is simple….security. A project customer could leave you at any time. They might even cancel a project in mid-stream no matter how well you’re managing and performing the work for them. And how many times has a potential client simply vanished into thin air? It happens more than you’d like to admit – usually because they realize they’re not quite ready financially to take on the project they originally thought they needed ‘right now.’ Our clients start out ambitious – often looking for free advice – but sometimes disappear quickly when the real money is discussed.

With several sources of income coming your way at the same time, you’ll be more easily able to remain viable when one or more leaves. And some just will leave from time to time. It’s the nature of our business. We can never ‘make’ them move forward with a project – the best we can hope to do is wow them with our knowledge and expertise and give them the right price to do the engagement. The rest is up to them. And they can still say ‘no.’ Or they can leave after one project – or midway through a project. You need to be ready for when that happens. You need to branch out.

You may already be practicing one or more of these strategies, but these are key actions I’ve taken to help ensure that I won’t lose all my revenue at once due to fickle clients or potential customers who just can’t quite decide what to spend their money on…

Continually seek out clients in new ways

This is an obvious one, but the method may be new to you. I look at what I’ve been doing and how I could offer the same services to some other client in the same industry. Once engaged with a client, I’m often requested to do something that was not planned on the engagement – possibly even something I’ve not performed for a client before. Clients have allowed me to go through a learning process on something I’m implementing for them – getting paid to learn is nice – and the result is a new offering that I can provide for potential new clients. I then use that new experience as a marketing tool. Search for vendors who match well with existing clients and send out a list of options and examples of what you can do for them. I’ve found that I generally get at least a 40% return inquiry rate from this process.

Create an online presence

First off, if you don’t already have a website, you’re crazy. Get your domain name, get hosting space and build one – or have someone build one for you. It doesn’t have to cost you thousands. And it can cost you as little as $10-20 if you buy your domain through a company like Godaddy, use their free ad-based account, and then build it and host it with another free place like Weebly where there are no ads, just some limitations on space, etc. If you’re not out to build an e-commerce site, that will actually work just fine. The key is to update it regularly and let people know it’s updated. You do that through the next option…

Promote your offerings through social media outlets

You do what you do well, otherwise you wouldn’t be making money doing it. And you wouldn’t still be doing it. So promote it through whatever means possible. And today, social media is at the forefront of self-promotion. If you’ve developed a new piece of software that will solve some problems for potential customers – let them know on Twitter. Create a business page on Facebook and post information about what you’re doing and who you’re consulting for on that site. If you write informative, professional articles (hopefully like you consider this one to be), tell the world through a social media site. You’ll gain followers, make new contacts, network with peers you didn’t know before, and generally expand your reach with every word you put out there.

Showcase your expertise

Finally, do what I just began describing above. You’re an expert at something – otherwise you wouldn’t be an IT consultant. Showcase it. I’m an IT consultant who specializes in project management. I’ve been an IT professional for over 25 years and I’ve managed projects for more than 19 of those years. I never dreamed people would want to read about it, but they do. It’s an excellent way to promote your expertise in a specific area. People in every field are looking online for expertise to advise them, help them out on projects, or even consult for them on an engagement. Either find a niche site and write articles for them or create a blog section on your site and put your articles there. And definitely promote each one through social media outlets. Word will spread.

Brad Egeland

Brad Egeland is an IT/PM & Business Strategy consultant and author with over 25 years of software development, management, and project management experience leading business and IT initiatives in nearly every industry imaginable. He works with organizations of all sizes from startups to Fortune 500 leaders and has overseen the creation and execution of multiple PMOs. Brad is married, a father of 9, and lives in Las Vegas, NV. He can be reached at brad@bradegeland.com or you can visit his website at www.bradegeland.com.