Running an IT business has the potential to be a demanding and time consuming task. By avoiding some common mistakes, you can position your business to achieve the sales and profits you’re looking for.
When launching an IT business it can be difficult to know which decisions will best help you hit the ground running. Unfortunately, first time businesses owners in the IT sector tend to make some very common mistakes, which can weigh them down.
Here’s an expert guide on the top mistakes to avoid when running an IT business:
- Not investing in good quality equipment
When you first launch your IT business, it’s likely you’ll not have a lot of capital. This is where many people make the mistake of investing in lower quality equipment. For an IT company this can be one of the biggest downfalls. Always try to invest in the best quality equipment available to you, as this will help you provide clients with better services, thus positioning you to push ahead of your competitors.
- Not educating yourself about your market and industry sector
Education is the key to success. Unfortunately, many make the mistake of blindly jumping into starting up their IT business without first educating themselves about their ideal market and industry sector. By learning about your industry sector and your ideal market you have a higher chance of being able to adapt your marketing strategies more closely to target your audience better. Some areas to educate yourself in, include:
- Who your biggest competitors are
- Who you’re going to offer your services to
- What you can provide your clients in your services
- Who would most benefit from your services
- Not marketing yourself to the right client base
When running an IT business, you need to market yourself to the right client base. Many make the mistake of trying to market to everyone, this will waste valuable time, resources and money. No business works with ‘everyone’; every business has a target client.
To do this you need to work out who your services are designed for. Some questions to ask yourself include:
- Are your services targeted towards large businesses, small businesses, or the general public?
- Who would pay for your services?
- How much would they pay for your services?
- What type of client has already bought your services?
- Are your assumptions about your target audience based on experience or guesses?
- What methods or platforms will you use to sell your products?
- What are your competitors offering to gain their clients?
- Can your offer something better?
- Can you expand in your target marketing to bring in more clients?
By answering all these questions you’ll have a better chance of narrowing down your target clients for better and more direct marketing.
- Undercharging your clients for your services
It can be hard to work out the prices of your IT packages and services when running your business in the early stages. Many make the mistake of undercharging their clients either because they want to try and get more clients early on, or they haven’t analysed the market properly to gauge the right pricing. To make sure you’re not losing out on your ROI it’s important to set a good competitive price. In order to do this, it’s a good idea to analyse your competitors pricing. In doing this it will give you an estimate of the least and most expensive. You can then work on pricing your own services and packages in this price bracket.
Conclusion
Running an IT business can be a profitable endeavour if you know what not to do. By understanding some of these mistakes you’ll have a higher chance of understanding your market, industry sector and business more personally for better profits. We’re you making any of these mistakes?
About the author
With over 30 years in the IT industry, Bill M has helped many people overcome their IT problems by providing effective problem-solving solutions. Bill is an IT consultant who initially started out as a computer programmer within the finance industry maintaining and developing large applications.He currently holds an ITIL Expert (V3) qualification. Today Bill is the owner of a Jim’s Computer Services franchise in Drouin. His aim is to help all businesses gain value from all technologies that are available to them for maximum results.
