How to Become an IT Consultant by Partnering with Accounting Firms

Do you want to become an IT consultant?

Then you may want to partner up with other trusted business advisers to help build a strong business and get great clients. Many consultants neglect to seize the opportunity to work with other trusted business advisers in their community like accountants, attorneys and non-competing technology providers. These consultants fail to enjoy the many benefits that come from establishing relationships with others that provide high-end professional level services to business owners… and that already have established relationships and a foot in the door with the exact same kinds of prospective client small business owners that you’re trying to reach out to.

The following 3 tips can help you become an IT consultant by leveraging partnerships with accounting firms in your area.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

1. Partner with Accountants as Trusted Business Advisors.

2. Find Out if Your Accountant’s Clients Need Your Services.

3. Know How Joint Educational Seminars Work.

Tips & Warnings

• Partner with Accountants as Trusted Business Advisors. You can certainly use your accountant partners as a source for great, highly-qualified reference accounts; but you also even may be able to develop a formal revenue-sharing arrangement where your accountant would have a financial interest in connecting you with his/her existing clients. You can provide incentive through one or more of the following methods: a finder’s fee; a referral fee; subcontracting you out; bartering services. If you want to be less formal about incentives, you can also offer items such as gift baskets, sporting events tickets or a lunch or dinner. No matter which option you choose, make sure to work these ideas into your IT marketing budget as you look to become an IT consultant.
• Find Out if Your Accountant’s Clients Need Your Services. Ask if your accountant gets regular requests from clients for IT-related help … and how he/she handles them. If your accountant says, “We really don’t have anywhere to send our clients,” then this statement is your cue, and you need to propose a marketing partnership or joint venture that makes sense. Part of becoming an IT consultant is developing real relationships with trusted business advisors and proposing activities that can help both of you and your clients, such as educational seminars. Find a time of year that works for both of you and start to plan ways to cross-pollinate your clients by co-sponsoring events so you can both benefit from your relationship.
• Know How Joint Educational Seminars Work. A joint educational seminar is an event that is sponsored by both you and a trusted business advisor. Some suggested seminar topics are ways businesses can better use their accounting systems or how businesses can better protect their accounting systems by putting efficient controls in place. On the business side, the accountant can talk about the accounting issues, and you can represent the IT side and talk about technology issues. Your main goal is to plant the seeds about computer-related issues in the minds of your trusted business advisors’ clients as you become an IT consultant, so you can build your list of potential clients. You need the personal referrals that can come from working with accountants and other trusted business advisors to help get a solid roster of highly-qualified prospects, customers and clients.

Resources

• BecomeAnITConsultant.com