Are you an IT trainer? Do your clients often either directly ask, or infer, that they want you to provide more broad-based, comprehensive IT consulting as an add-on to your training?

Then you really need to think about how you can fill in the gaps of your IT trainer services as your client roster expands and your clients’ insatiable thirst for more help from you grows exponentially. The best way to do this usually is through partnering with local, non-competing IT professionals.

There are a lot of different ways to investigate potential business partnerships, but the very best are the most personal ones. The more direct contact you have with a potential partner, the more likely you will be to have them on your side to help provide services to your clients.

And just to make sure that we’re on the same page, when we’re talking about partnering with other local, non-competing IT professionals, we’re talking about informal arrangements and relationships that allow you to tap into their skills-base to supplement your own skills gaps. And the flip side? Your partners will often bring you into their clients to supplement their own skills gaps. So partnering in this sense has nothing to do with bringing on equity partners or financial shareholders in your business.

Now with that out of the way, you can find potential business partners to help you deliver comprehensive IT consulting services to your clients in a variety of ways. The following 7 IT trainer tips present some methods for locating potential partners.

1. Find Partners through Common Accounts. The absolute best way to locate a business partner for your IT trainer business is through a common client account. You might start working with a new small business that is already working with a deeply-niched technology consultant. By working together, you form a camaraderie similar to that you would have working together in an internal IT department. The partnering idea will flourish naturally from this type of personal, working relationship. Because you are already working together, you have ample opportunity to talk and will become friendly.  “Hey, do you want to grab a cup of coffee?”
2. Tap into Your Word-of-Mouth Referrals. Next on the list of ways to locate potential partners is tapping into your word-of-mouth-referrals to find business partnership ideas. If you have a business partner that does basic run-of-the-mill database development, but you need someone that is an expert in hugely-scalable SQL server database architecture, letting your current partner know what you need will usually net you a few solid leads.
3. Network Directly through Organizations. You can also network directly through organizations like the Chamber of Commerce or other business networking events. When you talk to people at organizational meetings and tell them about your business, and listen carefully as they tell you what they do for a living, you can often meet some great people that could become potential partners…. even outside the IT industry.
4. Attend Reseller Channel Events. Another great idea for identifying prospective partnerships for your IT trainer business is to go to reseller channel events for the platforms or products you support. Also look into attending reseller channel events for products you don’t support, particularly if you are looking for someone to cater to a specific need many of your clients have that you can’t fulfill with your current level of expertise.
5. Take Technical Training Classes. This is another great source of potential partners.  You never know who you’ll end up sitting next to, or chatting with as you enjoy a cup of complimentary coffee from the training center. Of course, use this strategy sparingly, as often it can cost you money and take valuable time away from your other business duties.
6. Look to Niche and Industry Trade Groups. You can also find potential IT trainer business partners through niche and industry trade groups, trade associations and industry-specific conferences. User groups and related consultant reseller groups are also great places to meet niche technology providers. And make sure to stay on the mailing list of their newsletters, blogs and magazines, as local subject matter experts writing articles are also great sources of potential partners.
   
7. Peruse Vendor Web Sites. Another good way to find prospective partners is through vendor Web sites, including those of independent software vendors and independent hardware vendors. These sources can give you some great, very qualified referrals to their local feet-on-the-street partners. You can take this strategy to the next level by contacting your local field reps and getting personal referrals from people that work with a specific software or hardware vendor.

In this article, we talked about 7 tips for locating potential partners to help you provide more comprehensive IT consulting services to your clients.  Learn more IT trainer tips that get you steady, high-paying clients now at http://www.ITTrainerTips.com

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