Joshua Feinberg .net

I often get asked to give advice about IT consulting as part of articles and other published pieces for not only consultants but also small businesses.  One of the biggest questions a lot of small business owners ask is, “How do I know if I’m ready for a real small business server?”

I spoke with StartupNation online about how small business owners can decide when they are ready to set up a real, dedicated server.  

The following steps can help you decide if you’re ready for a real server and to start using IT consulting services:

1.    Recognize the signs that it’s time;

2.    Understand what a server can do for you;

3.    Cost it out;

4.    Don’t be afraid to get help (IT consulting help!).

To learn more about this IT consulting article (and get more details about the different ways to decide whether or not you need a small business server for YOUR business) visit the attached link.

Blogged By:  Computer Consulting Kit

I often get a chance to talk about virtual IT with a variety of on-line and print publications.  Surviving in today’s economy can be difficult for many small businesses and computer consulting businesses are among those that face challenges.  I spoke to ChannelWeb about surviving in the technology and virtual IT world.

As someone that has worked with virtual IT for many years, I know that satisfying customers throughout an entire organization is important.

“’No VAR can afford to have a systems engineer sitting at a client site, running up a big bill, staring at a blue-screen-of-death or equivalent, facing an angry mob of irate users and sitting on hold for two hours with tech support," Feinberg says. "This scenario is the absolute worst nightmare for VARs and the kiss of death for a VAR/client relationship.

Satisfying constituents deep within your customer base far removed from the reaches of IT often means taking a sober assessment of what pains them most. More often than not, it’s complexity that gives these individuals their greatest frustrations.’”

For more of this article about VARs and virtual IT, visit the attached link!

Added By:  Joshua Feinberg

Many times I have the opportunity to share my take on different aspects of virtual IT as part of articles in tech magazines, both online and in print.  A couple years ago, I was able to talk about the interesting digital home market opportunities for VARs and virtual IT professionals as part of a Channel Web piece.

The discussion revolved around whether or not the digital home market was a good place for VARs, who face some challenges when entering this virtual IT world, including entrenched competitors, hard-to-locate customers, new, sometimes unknown technologies and products and a lot of time and capital investment.  This type of environment is particularly difficult for those currently focused on the small business market, where budgets are tight.

What is the digital home market?  It refers to product sales beyond PCs such as plasma televisions, high-fidelity speaker systems, security cameras, sensors and device controllers, etc.  According to Phillip Mohammed, who joined me in the discussion and is president of Tacoma, Washington-based company Universal Computer, a job setting up a home entertainment or security system would cost between $50,000 and $75,000.

My take on this situation was, “"This is a pretty affluent consumer.  It’s a fair statement that this probably wouldn’t be affordable for households with under $100,000 annual income, and maybe more. That’s an extremely small market."

Those working in virtual IT and as VARs are typically used to marketing through trade shows, niche publications, targeted mailings, etc. (as we so often discuss as part of the Computer Consulting Kit!), and thus identifying home customers (non-business customers, often) that would be willing and able to invest in complex entertainment and home automation systems would be extremely challenging and lead to increased marketing costs in both time and money.

To hear more of this conversation about virtual IT and my take on this market for small business computer consultants, visit the attached link.

Added By:  Joshua Feinberg

Many small businesses have trouble wrapping their heads around the idea of virtual IT.  They are scared to take that leap into asking for support and also afraid to change their way of doing things … even if they know they need help managing their important technology assets.

As someone that has worked with the concept of virtual IT for many years and has seen the success it brings to all types of small businesses time and time again, I know how important it is for business owners to embrace it and start to reshape the way they do business for more revenue and more efficient, better relationships with their clients and customers.  

I was interviewed by Small Business Computing online for an article to discuss the importance of virtual IT for small business owners.  Among other things, I discussed how, if for no other reason, hiring an external computer consultant to help your internal guru stay afloat as the company grows can help a great deal:

“Small businesses face a unique technical challenge. They need to find solutions that work for them, but they have no formal IT department and they have a very limited budget. What we have found over the years is that there is almost always some type of informational computer person at most small businesses, the "internal guru," the one everybody instinctively yells for when the fax machine jams or the Internet connection goes down.

I believe you need to nurture this internal guru. They are there every day, they are the first-responder, and it is really important that you find a consultant who is willing to work with that internal guru. Any time the consultant comes into the office, that internal guru should be spending time with that person — and most consultants will welcome that opportunity, because they don’t want to be doing the grunt work. They don’t want to get a call when the tool bar disappears, and if they are the ones who get that call, you are going to spend $50 for something that was relatively trivial and easy. So it is real important to make sure the internal guru has time to meet with the consultant. That will save you money over the long run.”

To read the entire article on the importance of virtual IT to small businesses, visit the attached link!

Added By:  Joshua Feinberg