Small business prospects and clients may view your computer consulting services as part of their insurance policy. You write up a service agreement that lists what's covered and what's not, as well as various parameters for coverage. Then each month, quarter, or year you collect some kind of retainer deposit, similar to an insurance premium. Play Up the Value of your Computer Consulting Services Part of the reason small business owners never miss a premium is because they want to make sure that your firm will be there in their time of need. So effectively, one of the reasons small businesses hire your firm is for "security". Rather than go kicking and screaming trying to vehemently deny this, play up the value of your computer consulting services and add security and data protection into your sales pitch - as major parts of your clients' network investments. Superior Security Foundation Be sure to weave some of the following security and data protection points into your computer consulting services sales presentations. In sharp contrast to a client/server network like the one you're proposing, a peer-to-peer "server" generally isn't capable of maintaining its own user account security database. As a result, a standalone peer-to-peer network is limited to "share-level" access control. This means everyone that connects to this peer-to-peer "server" share point has the same user name and password. There's no way to differentiate between access levels of users and no way to terminate an individual's password when he or she leaves the company. Highlight Your Computer Consulting Services A dedicated server OS, on the other hand, provides much better control over who has access to which shared resources. Each person can be assigned his or her own user name and password. Be sure to highlight how your proposed networking solution takes this into account. Security with your proposed networking solution is also more flexible or granular. With most peer-to-peer "servers", security can only be controlled at the share level. When a share point is set up on a dedicated server with a true NOS security can be controlled all the way down to the file level. The Bottom Line about Computer Consulting Services Consider adapting this file cabinet analogy for your client presentations: Would you rather grant employees unrestricted access to an entire room full of file cabinets, or just a few select hanging folders in certain file drawers which are pertinent to their job? Copyright MMI-MMVI, Computer Consultants Secrets. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance} |
