You need to consider yourself as being an IT small business. You can join a recruitment agency that supplies contractors to clients, but you cant expect them to do your selling and promotion for you. Firstly, you need to know exactly what you have to offer, what specific skills and experience can actually make you significant money. Perhaps there are some gaps; you may need to plug those with some courses or training. Secondly, you need to know who you are going to sell your services to. It doesnt make sense to target everyone. This is where researching the market comes in. This will enable to find out where the best opportunities are and perhaps where there is less competition. Member of the Australian Computer Society (ACS) may assist you. It is the recognized association for Information & Communications Technology (ICT) professionals. One of its aims is to promote, develop and monitor competence in the practice of ICT by people and organizations. The ACS can offer advice on building and promoting your IT consultancy business. For more information, go to http://www.acs.org.au/index.cfm. Networking is a great way of selling your business. Thats why joining industry groups is a good idea. But you should also keep contact with your friends from university and colleagues from your previous or current job. You should ALWAYS carry several business cards with you wherever you go. Be creative, design a colourful logo and list what youre offering. Make sure your details especially, your name, are large enough to be easily read. Update your business cards whenever necessary. You can advertise your services, but this can be expensive. Research the publications in your industry with particular attention to their classifieds section. You can also advertise online, which may be cheaper and perhaps be reached by more people. Referral services such as Get Somebody Now (GSN) have databases that match IT consultants and contractors with potential clients. To find out more go to http://www.getsomebodynow.com.au/. A website is essential for promoting your business. An IT professional should have a dynamic website that shows potential clients what you can do. For this industry it is worth having all the bells and whistles such as spectacular graphics and animation. It should contain a detailed resume that gives particular attention to projects you have worked on and the hardware and software you are familiar with. But also include your personal interests and hobbies, and anything unusual youve done. On the website you will probably want to indicate that fees are negotiated according to the project and suggest they phone you to discuss it. A confident telephone manner is needed. If you have trouble with this there are various counseling and course options to assist you. Cold-calling is also a possibility but most people arent good at this, and you have to be prepared for a lot of rejections. Brochures can be an effective means of promotion. You can either post them or hand deliver them. Gregory Fitzgerald
http://www.getsomebodynow.com.au/ |
