IT Specialists: Finding Your Niche

IT specialists who find a niche have an easier time marketing and become more successful. Learn as much as you can from your current clients so you know where to find new ones so you can become an IT specialist.
Finding a niche is an important step in becoming an IT specialist. In this article, you'll learn about how to develop your niche.

A Horizontal Niche

Instead of all your ideal clients being in the same industry (a vertical niche), maybe you realize that most of your clients' main contacts are office managers. What do you do next? Take an informal survey. Ask them what their biggest IT problems are, what their biggest business problems are, and make sure that you're working towards becoming a solution to those problems

This will help you retain those clients. But also, more importantly, it's going to give you a heads up on what the big business issues are and what they see as the biggest IT issues. That's going to enable you to craft your marketing pitch to go after other clients that are just like them. Begin looking for mailing lists, organizations, magazines, and conferences where you'll find a lot of office managers.

What IT Specialists Should Know:

For marketing purposes, you need to ask the following kinds of questions about any target market:
o Who are “they”? ____________________________________________________
o What do they read? _________________________________________________
o What trade publications are out there? ___________________________________
o What e-zines? ______________________________________________________
o What newsletters do they get? ________________________________________
o What local and regional conferences might they already be attending? _________
o What trade groups have local chapters that they belong to? __________________
o Where do they hang out? ____________________________________________
o What do they talk about? ____________________________________________
o What do they worry about? ___________________________________________

To get the answers to these questions, talk to your best clients… but only if you want to be an IT specialist with more clients just like them.

Chances are you've developed personal relationships already. So take your clients out for breakfast; take them out to lunch. Tell them you want to be an IT specialist and ask them your questions so you know exactly where to look for more new clients just like your current ones.

The Bottom Line on Being an IT Specialist

To get more clients in a horizontal niche, you need to find out as much as you can about your clients jobs, where they hang out and how you can find more clients just like them. When you do, you've given yourself the distinction of being an IT specialist.

IT Specialist: Why Narrow It Down?

IT specialists need to narrow down their market and find a niche. Targeted marketing to a specific niche group is most beneficial to IT specialists.

If you're trying to grow your business, why would you turn away potential clients? In this article, you'll learn that as an IT specialist, your marketing efforts are less about turning away other clients and instead about finding if you have enough prospects to market to.

If you know that your best clients are small accounting offices, do a quick search to find out how many small accounting offices there are in one hour radius of where you're located. If you don't know where to easily get your hands on that data, either contact one of that industry's leading trade groups, or talk with a mailing list broker.

IT Specialists Can Market to a Niche

Marketing to a niche is so much easier, too. You will know exactly which trade publications to advertise in. Don't spend a lot of your time and money putting generic ads into the newspaper, radio or the phone book. You are an IT specialist, so concentrate your marketing efforts directly into your niche.

Once you develop expertise, as an IT specialist, all of a sudden you're worth even more to those potential clients. Your marketing message will resonate with the person that's picking up the phone, that's looking at your long copy sales letter, that's looking at your postcard, or that you want to get to attend one of your seminars.

Don't Try To Speak to the Masses

Don't try to come up with a message that resonates with everyone. If you do, you're going to end up competing on price. You're going to end up being a commodity just as if prospects opened up the phone directory and they called 30 companies looking for the dirt-cheap, lowest price.

Put Your Name Where Your Clients Will See It

If there's a newsletter or a magazine that these prospects all read from the local association, think about putting a targeted ad in there, or writing an article, or becoming active in that organization by volunteering or speaking at that group's events. In each of these instances, be sure to at least mention how your company provides great IT solutions for that particular niche or industry.

The Bottom Line on Being an IT Specialist

There are many different ways to penetrate the circle, but the key thing is to identify something that you enjoy doing and that's lucrative enough that it's worth trying to get more clients just like that. This simple targeted marketing strategy works for IT specialists across most different industries. Finding a niche is really important. Otherwise, you're going to look just like everyone else.

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IT Specialists: Branding Your Company

IT specialists need to find their niches to brand themselves effectively. Hang out with your clients to find under-served niches and dominate it as IT specialists.

As IT specialists, a big way to differentiate yourself is to make sure that you're branding your company. Focus on selling your company name with its new industry twist. In this article, you'll learn why branding your company is so important for IT specialists.

Don't go in flashing the certifications and vendor logos because that reduces you to a commodity. Sure, they can be part of your background information and something you can talk about, but don't lead with that-you are IT specialists. Concentrate on marketing and selling YOUR brand and the unique industry-specific value that your firm brings to the table.

Filling Unfulfilled Needs

Another great way to differentiate yourself is to find an underserved local niche and dominate it. How do you find these local niches and dominate them? It's a matter of just asking around.

Where to Find Your Industry Twist

When you're out at chamber meetings or the Rotary, talking to prospects, or going to B2B expos, look around for a big problem that's going unfulfilled. All of a sudden, a light bulb will go off one day and you say wow, I can't believe no one thought of that first! So if you can think of a solution and there are enough people in the area who need it, it's a really easy way to differentiate yourself as IT specialists.

IT Specialists: You and Your Clients May Not Agree on Problems

Be sure, however, that you're not selling solutions to problems that people don't think they have. Do you really want to talk someone into data security if they don't understand why data security is important? That is not to say that you shouldn't spend some time educating your prospects and your future clients about IT security.

But if you're there for a half hour and they just don't seem to get it, or they're really stubborn, or they're just throwing up all these kinds of barriers, don't you think that there's someone down the street, or someone else that you ought to be talking to who does get it? Don't try to sell solutions to problems that people don't think they have.

IT Specialists: Know Your Competition

Make sure you also know your local competition reasonably well. Look around; study the four or five big competitors of yours. It's as simple as looking at their Web sites and brochures to see what other competitors are doing. Figure out if they all look the same, then you have a pretty good idea of what you need to do differently as an IT specialist.

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IT Specialist - Information Gathering is a Must

IT specialists need to gather information on their clients’ industries just as much as their own. Learn what your clients’ problems are by reading their industry publications, attending conferences and joining their organizations to become their IT specialist.

IT Specialists must reach their intended audience to be successful with their marketing. As you'll learn in this article, your first step needs to be gathering information about your niche.

IT Specialists Should Study What their Niche Clients Do

For instance, to reach small medical offices, get up to speed on the business issues that impact the decision makers in these small medical offices. Get subscriptions to industry publications, e-mail newsletters, and other industry publications that you know medical office managers are going to read. For instance:

o Medical Economics
o Financial Management Strategies
o Medical Group Management Association publications

These resources happen to be all U.S.-based, but there are others. The key thing is to start reading the publications so you understand what's keeping medical office managers up at night, what's driving their decisions, what their biggest points of pain are, what the biggest security issues are, and what the biggest IT issues are right now so you can become an IT specialist in their field.

Learn What Solutions You Can Give Your Clients

Find out how small medical offices are using technology to change the way they do business, to get reimbursed faster by insurance companies, to make scheduling more efficient, and to keep track of charts more effectively.

Whatever industry it is (architects, graphic artists, veterinarians, etc.), make sure that you understand big picture trends that are going on right now. As an IT specialist, your prospects will expect you to be the expert.

An IT Specialist is a Virtual CIO

Then, when you go in to meet prospects, you're not just the consulting firm that sells PCs, or installs LANs, or fixes software problems. But you're a true virtual CIO. You can analyze their special business needs, make recommendations, create long-term planning strategies, put it all together and make it happen on-time and on-budget.

IT Specialists Are Not Commodities

When done right, you're not just the tech people. As an IT specialist, you understand your prospect's business. And your prospects know that they are not going to spend six months training your firm because you can hit the ground running. It will be obvious you've worked with lots of other offices their size and you're definitely the right people for the job. Their only questions will be, “So where do I sign?” and “When can you start?”

Spend Time Reading Your Clients' Trade Publications

Instead of just reading the consumer and IT trade publications to keep up from a techie perspective, make sure that you understand the business issues and specifically the business IT issues that impact the niche that you're targeting. You won't become an IT specialist in that industry by paying attention to general-interest publications like PC Magazine or CRN or conferences like COMDEX.

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IT Specialist: Replicating Your Client Successes

IT specialists need to figure out who their best clients are and find more of them. Consider your professional background and your current clients to help determine in which area you can be an IT specialist.

Often, the best way to be unique as an IT specialist is to narrow down your industry focus. Though it may sound like a daunting task, this article will show you how it can be quite simple.

"Model" Your Best Clients

Find more clients that are just like your current best clients. To do this, take your active client list and put it into a Microsoft Excel worksheet so it is in columns. In the first column, enter the client name. In the next column, have their revenue for the last 12 months. Then, divide by 12 to determine the monthly income and figure out who your most valuable customers are.

This exercise is important because you can evaluate:

o Customer service… who should get THE best services?
o Retention… who's REALLY worth holding onto?
o Profitability… who's REALLY paying the bills?

Categorize Your Clients

Now, look among your best, most active clients and customers. Figure out who falls into that (a) micro category where they have fewer than 10 systems, (b) who falls into that sweet spot of anywhere from 10 to 50 PCs, and (c) then who's very large to the point that you may not be able to service them adequately without adding a lot of high-level technical staff.

From this exercise, you can find more clients that are just like those where you have the strongest expertise. Look at your list and see what makes your biggest and your best clients similar. Now you can become an IT specialist in that field. For example, are they accountants? Are they doctors? Maybe they're office managers; maybe they're controllers, lawyers, small manufacturers, or restaurants. Identify who they are and what they look like because you'll want to find more of them.

Narrow Your Industry Focus

Narrowing down your industry focus will immediately make you stand out as an industry expert. It doesn't really matter what the industry is. For example, if it's dental offices, that's fine. You can be an IT specialist focusing exclusively on dental offices or you could even expand it to other medical offices.

Evaluate Your Own Professional Background

Your own industry expertise could also be a really good springboard. That way, when you present your case to prospects, you will have the benefit of knowing about their field of business. That will be a huge reassurance for prospects. These small businesses are much more likely to pick your firm over someone who is direct mailing a generalized piece with no industry specialization.

The Bottom Line on Being an IT Specialist

Narrow down what industry your current clients fall into and where your own professional background comes from to form your niche as an IT specialist. It will make your marketing and sales efforts easier.

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So You Wanna Be a Sys Admin

This article provides information for those interested in a systems administration career. It explains the daily operation and role of a systems administrator in the workplace.

So you wanna be a sys admin but you don’t have a clue what it entails. Well, don’t fret my pet, I will cover the basis with you and educate you so you will make an informed decision.

Most students start their college years off without a solid understanding of their course of study. Book knowledge is great, but the real world is hands-on and you need to know the hands-on more than the books. The books can guide you, give you information, and be a great resource or reference. But, the grit of it all is from the experience and the years of knowledge. I know you heard it all before.

So what does it take to be a systems administrator? Well, it actually takes years of experience, but from the start, it should take passion. You should enjoy the work of a sys admin. The day to day operation of a sys admin consists of problem-solving, troubleshooting, maintenance, installation, configuration, and management of a wide range of systems. Depending on your level of skill and the position which you have taken on, you may support multiple operating systems, such as: Linux, Unix, Windows, etc. The truth of the matter is you should always stay well within your comfort zone when seeking employment, you can always teach yourself more advanced technologies as you progress in your area of expertise. Staying within your comfort zone will make you a master of your domain and can expose you to new avenues of interest.

Problems which may arise on a day to day as a sys admin can include system failures, application errors, hardware issues, server maintenance, data or system recovery, etc. As a sys admin it is your job to keep all computer systems up and running at all times. It is also your responsibility to monitor the systems before its point of failure and therefore perform preventative maintenance for the software and hardware of each system. You are responsible for maintaining proper file structure, security permissions, systems upkeep, systems inventory, and systems functionality. As a sys admin you are the front-line defense and you should take initiative in recommending software and hardware purchases for your organization.

A sys admin job is not hard work as long as you have the right tools and you know how to use them. A good sys admin uses tools to assist and aid in the proper maintenance of systems. These tools can include remote administration tools, system/network monitoring tools, security tools, troubleshooting tools, disaster recovery tools, etc. A good sys admin is also very resourceful and can usually find help or answers to even the most complex issues. These resources include the internet, computer or technology books, peers, and developer support personnel. An experienced sys admin knows how to multi-task and has the ability to tackle multiple issues in a cordial manner. An experienced sys admin also knows how to handle stressful environments and situations, which is usually the nature of the business. The burnout rate and stress levels of sys admin work has greatly diminished over the years as technology has become more advanced and the availability of tools and resources increased, but the job of a sys admin still has its days and can still be stressful or overwhelming for the novice. The best way to alleviate or reduce stress in the workplace is to take a break and relax your thoughts. Let your mind go free and take a deep breathe. Come back into your work area with a fresh mind and prepared to tackle the problems one at a time. Always remember computers can only do what a human has told it to do! So, if there is a problem then logically thinking will possibly find the answer. A computer does not have a mind of its own, so something logical has caused it to fail.

A systems administrator job is never done, there is always room for improvement in any organization. Most companies are flying by the seat of their pants and are at the mercy of their sys admins. The sys admin is usually an unseen force in the company (in the eyes of the clients/customers), because a sys admin operates in the background, behind the scenes. Though, being an unseen force, the company’s success and overall existence depends greatly on the work of the sys admin. Without proper maintenance and management of a company’s computer systems there is no telling where that company would be!