Potential Clients - Evaluation Criteria

Potential Clients - Evaluation Criteria

Summary: Potential clients need to be evaluated for their ability to become steady long-term clients. This evaluation process includes asking some pointed questions in your original meeting in order to qualify these potential clients.

Potential Clients, Potential-Clients

Article Body: Potential clients need to be evaluated for their ability to become steady clients. It's ok to pick up clients who you will see once or twice a year. When you are starting out, however, you need to build up a clientele of steady customers. These steady customers will provide steady income.

Potential clients qualify as potential steady clients when they generate $ or more per month in revenue. The question is, how do you evaluate potential clients for this ability?

Potential Client Evaluation There are a number of things you must find out about a potential client:

Current Number of PCs If this is a home office with one or two computers and a husband and wife working at home, it is very unlikely they will have $ per month to spend on IT services.

If this is a micro business with to computers and a dedicated server, this is a potential client worth further investigation.

Current Support Is this potential client currently well-maintained? You want to work with clients who know the importance of regular maintenance. If they don't, you will get a lot of aggravation for your trouble.

Who provides the current support? If this potential client receives volunteer support, or support in-trade, then the likelihood they will pay $ per month to you, is slim.

What are they currently paying? You don't need an exact number but you do need to know if they are getting regular, paid support.

The Bottom Line on Potential Client Evaluation

Potential clients need to have potential to become long-term, steady clients. To determine this you need to ask specific questions about their current needs and support. You can ask these questions without being aggressive as part of your initial meeting. By qualifying potential clients you will slowly build a client base that can support your business in its initial stages.

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