Written by Ogy Nikolic
Our Facebook fan Adam Dawes has asked a question on our wall about "deciding what clients to serve."
In short, I would recommend concentrating on clients that have mission critical needs in your industry that you can meet. Mission critical is something that is essential to the accomplishment of an organization’s core responsibilities.
The more critical and complex your client essential needs are, the
bigger chance they are willing to pay you more for meeting them.
To find out what areas will be mission critical, hot and profitable in the future, I use:
- Research Papers: Research companies or consultants could cost a lot of money but you
could start with their free sample papers. There are tons of good
research companies out there that predict what will be hot in the
future. For example, Gartner is a great IT research & consulting company.
- Current Clients:
If you are in business already, you probably have some current
clients and could generate a list of the most profitable ones. See how they
benefit the most from your services and concentrate on serving more
clients with those needs.
- Social Media: It's never been easier to hear what issues people are complaining about
on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. People are constantly talking and
writing about issues that they have. Which of those issues are mission critical that you can meet?
- Blogs & Forums: There are many quality blogs and forums out there where people talk
about your areas of interest. Do the research, make conclusions for
yourself and keep yourself up to speed on hot trends.
- Conferences:
Find out what top experts in your area of business are discussing. I
went to Joomla Day NYC 2009 that refreshed and reinforced my thoughts
about what we do.
Finally, you may need to readjust your strategy and decision on what
clients to serve over time because their mission critical needs may
shift. At OGO Sense I spend about 50% of my time researching new
opportunities. If you're serving only a local market and depending on
your company size, you may be able to spend more or less time.
If you have any other ideas for what you would like to hear about on
our blog related to Business Consulting, Joomla Development and
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Ogy Nikolic
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