It’s 2018 and there’s competition in almost any kind of business, not only IT, unless you come up with entirely original idea that nobody has tried yet. I’m assuming that by IT solutions company, you mean providing solutions to any IT related problem such as building custom software, websites and often hardware handling as well. Here are some tips how you can outsmart your competition.
In the beginning, focus on a very very narrow niche: There are tons of services you can provide in the field of IT. For example, focus on website building for now or focus on custom software development (even narrower if you try to develop custom software for some specific platform- say schools, or superstores). If other tasks come at hand, of course solve them, but primarily focus on one single niche. By doing so, you will able to provide quality product and build trust among your customers. And soon, for that specific task, people will come to you rather than going to others.
Develop a bit different business model: Does your company has a business model and following it? If not, then please create a business model (if you don’t know what’s a business model, read this Turning Your Idea Into a Business Model | Fundamentals of Entrepreneurship - Ace Entrepreneur ). There’s a popular template for business model called the nine part business model. Among those nine parts, if you can come up with anything new in one single part, then you’ll have something new. For example, interacting with customers is one of the part in the business model. Now, how do your competitions interact with the customers and how do you? Can there be any better way? Social media? Blogs? Your website? Another thing- building customers. How are your competitors building customers and how are you? Anything different? You got to learn the basics of business model. It’s very essential.
Partner up with competitors if possible: This may or may not be possible but rather than rivaling each other- both may prosper if you join hands. Back in the dawn of dot com bust, Elon Musk’s http://x.com was a great rival when Peter Thiel was working on developing Paypal. Rather than competing, they joined hands and survived the bust. Later, Paypal grew to be amazing worldwide payment service.
Get into content marketing: Content marketing is amazing way to reach your customers. I highly suggest you to read Joe Pulizzi’s “Get Content, Get Customers” and “Epic Content Marketing”. Don’t always focus on promoting and selling your products. Try solving your customers’ problem without selling anything, not even promoting your products. Just help them selflessly through your social media, your website, your blog or YouTube channel or whatever. Connect to your customers emotionally.
Organize events: Organize IT related programs once in a while. For example, conduct a program targeting students where you inform them about careers in IT field. Or a kind of a competition in which lots of people are interested. Try going with “Free Laptop Repairing Week” once in a while or “Website Development for Half The Price”. Make the program interesting. Organize it in such a way that people get excited to come in your events.
I know about IT solutions because I have helped start one. More than anything else, I suggest you to read books. A lot of people after getting into business and being busy forget to read books. Please don’t. Manage your time and keep reading-at least few pages a day.