Hacker News Reader

Comment by thaumaturgy | Hacker News Reader

I'm having a little trouble with this one. I run a small shop (really really small), we do a lot of troubleshooting and some maintenance and deployments for customers. Maybe we don't qualify as "consultants", I dunno.

But we certainly don't make money for our customers. We save them money, we eliminate some hassles and downtime, but that's not really the same thing.

So I'm open to hearing that we're doing it wrong, but I don't know what doing it right would be, especially since we aren't really getting rich, and we've got a bunch of customers that have been with us for years. I'd like to change the way the business works at the beginning of next year, so now'd be a great time to start figuring out how to do it right.

View on HN

From the article: "you should be trying to save your customer money, which is the same as making money for them"

I don't see how what you're doing isn't the same as making customers money. You save them money, all else equal they make more profit, that's what matters. Plus the fact your customers choose to stay with you suggests they feel they're getting positive value and not being taken for a ride.

If saving money isn't materially the same as making money, and maximising revenue is seen as the only way to create value, that sounds ridiculously 1 dimensional and like terrible business to me.

If you don't see it, try doing a sales pitch sometime. It'll be vastly different.

You're arithmetically correct, but in practice new revenue is seen as more interesting than reducing expenses.

What do your clients do with the things you maintain and deploy? Does it help them make money? If so, then you're helping your clients make money.

I'm in the same position as you (running a small development/consulting shop) and it made a world of difference when we started changing the perspective of our pitch to clients from "yes, we can build a website, it will cost $X" to "yes, we can solve that problem for you, which will save/make you $Y".

Yes. You can only "make" money for your customer if you're advising them on sales and/or marketing. You can help them save money in other domains but that's not the same thing.

And some processes need to be streamlined not even to save money in the short run, but simply in order for the company to understand them and regain control.

Put like this maybe it doesn't sound very exciting or useful, but it is (useful).

Customer retention makes money too.

I think the article was painting with a broad brush. Saving money for clients adds to their bottom line and is therefore valuable.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com