Earthblog

A “Small Business or SMB Consultant” can mean a lot of things, but in this context it means: The person who guides your small business according to your technological needs and provides the support for those technologies. In other words, an SMB Consultant is more than just a technician that administers your server, repairs your computers, answers your help desk calls, and troubleshoots various problems on your network. He (or she) also provides guidance as to how various technologies can improve your business in a productive and economic sense.  Good SMB Consultants won’t lecture you, they will guide you. First and foremost, they are good listeners.

Good SMB Consultants are also people who can think both tech and business at the same time and understand how the one influences the other. One person may be a phenomenal technician who can solve the most obscure technical issue on a network and in record time. But that alone doesn’t make him a good consultant. In fact you can have a great technician who is a disastrous consultant, and vice versa. These days small businesses need both excellent technical support and excellent advice. And it is nice to get that in one convenient package.

The small business owner of today has so many more choices than the small business owner of just 5 years ago, to say nothing of 10 years ago—so many in fact that it can be dizzying. An SMB Consultant can make sense out of all these choices to you, reducing them to a sensible number, while elaborating on the various pros and cons of the technologies under consideration, and in a way you can understand. Good consultants are good communicators.

Who exactly you choose is a very important decision. Bad recommendations can lead to bad business decisions that have lasting consequences on your bottom-line. Poor technical abilities combined with bad judgment can make your company data go poof, never to be seen again. What you’re looking for is proven experience. Verifiable references are a great place to start.