One hard to target market for small business IT consulting is the "micro-small businesses"; those that have a single-digit number of PCs - anywhere from one to nine PCs. These micro-small businesses can provide, depending on the metro area where youre located, $50 to $75 an hour or $75 to $90 (at the absolute most) for small business IT consulting work.

The "Micro-small" Business Environment

In small business IT consulting you need to be very aware that in this micro-small business space, when there are one to ten computers, one to ten employees, their revenue usually amounts to anywhere from $100,000 to $1 million a year in annual revenue. The big thing that defines a micro-small business is that there is no dedicated server yet.

Who's Your Competition?

In this space, theres a ton of competition small business IT consulting firms will contend with. This competition is willing to work for less than $50 an hour, or in some cases, zero dollars an hour. This delivers a challenge for the small business IT consulting professional.

What the Competition Has (Or Doesnt Have) To Offer

The competition agrees to help the micro-small business with their computer problems, every once in a while of course, because they have a day job. Therefore they cant get there as quickly as a small business IT consulting professional could.

The small business, even though their server is down, will have to wait until a week from Saturday until they can get there, but hey, the help is cheap! They work for donuts and coffee, or pizza and beer! Thats the competition for a small business IT consultant in this space.

The Bottom Line about Small Business IT consulting

Part of the reason why a small business IT consulting professional has competition in attracting micro-small business is that the company has less than ten computers, less than ten employees, doing generally less than $1 million a year in annual revenue. Theres just not enough riding on IT to invest in small business IT consulting professionals. IT just isnt that strategically important to the company yet.

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