The most amazing side effect of being in the technology business is working with all sorts of technical people. Most often, they work for manufacturers or vendors; but they sometimes branch out and start their own businesses. After more than 16 years as a consultant, I’ve learned a few things and sometimes get to pass on my “straight talk” to others who do what I’ve been doing so long. I want to do more of this when I can.
“But aren’t they competitors?”
Yes, they are, in the most basic sense. It’s sometimes a difficult idea to grapple with in a business that (at times) seems so adversarial as Information Technology (I.T.) tends to be. But, that’s not my approach. The most important point to understand is that we don’t compete for the SAME business. Those small to mid-sized I.T. shops that I offer help have that trust. All information is in confidence, and CWL often targets different geographical regions.
My favorite phrase is “A rising tide lifts all boats”. The best relationships I have with other consulting firms allow me to draw upon their resources to expand my offerings, and vice-versa. Often when I’m imparting ideas, I’m learning in the process. Personally, the strength of the industry as a whole is in my best interest. It improves everyone, together.
What does this mean? Here’s a simple example of an I.T. consultancy and what kind of thoughts I’d offer the owner [1]. This appears to be Alex Wilkins’ company named Wilkins IT Solutions. I found the company while perusing a local business networking site. Wilkins is in my local area and has an ideal client of “Small Businesses (1-25 employees) in the Durham Region”. Perfect for the kind of I.T. shops I tend to assist.
#1 – Go full SSL on your site
The wilkinit.ca site appears to support SSL, but when gong there, it is not redirected as the default. Since they’ve clearly gone through the trouble of supporting this encryption, I’d tell them to make it the default for the whole site (and support the backwards compatible http:// for legacy use). This is usually just a change to the .htaccess file locally. It’s not clear if the site is on Windows or Linux. The SSL support on the server is pretty good, so kudos to them.
#2 – Change your site’s title
Certainly not earth-shattering, but you should change “Home Page – Wilkins IT Solutions” to something that better reflects what you do. Since you’re running WordPress, you can play around with that. My title code (currently) looks something like this:
if ( ! function_exists( '_wp_render_title_tag' ) ) {
function theme_slug_render_title() {
?>
<title><?php wp_title( '|', true, 'right' ); ?></title>
<?php }
add_action( 'wp_head', 'theme_slug_render_title' ); }
add_filter('wp_title', create_function('$a, $b','return str_replace(" | CWL","",$a);'), 10, 2);#3 – You run ScreenConnect for remote support, and you seem to run that on your home Teksavvy connection
I’d probably first ask you how you like it and if you were aware the company had been sold. I’d mention their recent pricing changes (and why you might want to renew your self-hosted license now). I’d also mention that newer versions (5.6+) are a worthwhile update for speed’s sake. Running it at home is cool. Great to utilize that home connection better.
#4 – Speaking of Home, Change your company’s address
Some of your listings, like this one, include a langley Circle address which as you know is something you ought to change. You may have used your home address in the past, and working through the various places online and changing them or correcting them is important. Using the UPS Store as a mailing address is perfect. I do the same. make sure they are also accepting larger packages for you and notifying you when they arrive. You never need to have parcels sent to your house.
#5 – Consider Blogging – Or making it more obvious that you do
I don’t see any sort of blog content on any of your social sites or home page. Since what you do really begs for some sort of blogging or vlogging, you should really try and get into it. As a matter of fact, it helps give you things to post on your social media sites beyond just simple stock images and marketing speak. If you do have a blog somewhere, make it super easy to find. Ever you “how to” guides seem very close to blog posts, so do more of that and go bigger.
This is the beginning, though I’d be very interested in your internal systems and offering some ways you can streamline that and minimize costs. Your online sales of anti-virus product are also quite interesting, and I’d be curious as to how well that’s working out for you.
Looking at any small I.T. firm, there are always several ways to improve the company’s business position, ability to support the customer, and generally run at an appropriate level to the revenue coming in. As the company expands and grows, your company can also cast a wider net. If you too are running an I.T. consultancy and would like to talk about any of these ideas or just chat about how your business could be improved, get in touch: kevin@cwl.cc or 416-920-2458.