If your client is a general

Friday evening ... The work week is coming to an end. You are already looking at your watch and thinking about how tomorrow you can go nature with your friends or just lie on the sofa in front of the TV or ...

And then pleasant reflections are interrupted by a call (a message in Skype, an email) and your client informs with a cheerful tone: I am released - let's continue work on the project!

He goes hunting at night or on weekends, when his employees / partners / clients have a rest, and he finally has time to work on improving business processes.

So it turned out that my work activity has always been associated with development in the field of B2B. Even while studying at the university, I had a chance to be a bit a programmer, and then the bias shifted towards working with clients - implementation, maintenance, technical support, advice and training. Clients were from different fields of activity and with different positions - managers, accountants and personnel officers. With different characters and different levels of computer skills. In those days, few people knew the word “screenshot”, and sometimes, in addition to supporting the main program, it was necessary to help clients deal with standard office applications.
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Now I am the development director at SkyBase . We develop solutions for automation of accounting and business processes. Our clients are managers and business owners who no longer have enough Excel or Goggle Docs capabilities, but large and complex systems are not yet worth it. They understand well how their company is organized, what processes it can and should be automated, but they do not want to delve into the technical details. What distinguishes such clients from those I have worked with before?

First, these are very interesting people. It happens that when discussing a task, we also talk about abstract topics - about company management, about staff motivation, and so on. Perhaps an ordinary manager or technical support specialist would simply ignore such conversations as irrelevant, and for me as a budding entrepreneur this is very useful.

Secondly, if the general director likes to work with you, he can offer free assistance in what he or his company specializes in - this can be participation in the event, business consulting, mutual promotion and much more. The main thing - do not miss the moment, because everything is changing rapidly: for example, we have a client who, from the sphere of children's creativity, suddenly turned to real estate rental.

Another important feature. Managers and owners work on their IT-systems in the “raids” mode: they flood you with tasks, then they disappear for a long time . But if the active period is going on, it is impossible to slow down: as a rule, the client accumulates a lot of ideas, and the time for their implementation is very limited. Your task is to work as concentrated as possible when the task flow has started, so it is advisable to have a reserve of resources in case of a sudden activation of several clients at once.

It is very good if you are not just a submissive performer, but also an expert who can help you with the advice at the right time. In this case, the CEO can formulate the TOR at the level of business requirements, and your task is to propose the optimal technical solution . It is desirable to be able to justify the chosen implementation option in terms of costs (time and money), performance, usability, as well as opportunities for further development. The customer trusts your experience. Sometimes even he himself may ask: if you see that the system can be somehow improved or supplemented, be sure to say - I will consider your proposal and, perhaps, we will do this refinement.

But be careful: your expertise has a downside. Some customers like to discuss in detail the various options for improvements and in the end do not order anything. Thanks to the dialogue with you (and we have already found out that you are an expert and are giving good advice), the manager can better understand his business processes and understand the feasibility of individual improvements. If you take money for your advice - no problem. If it is free for the customer, then stop it in time. There was talk about improvements - ask the minimum necessary questions and frame name the price . If the approximate price suits, ask for prepayment and then discuss the details of the project. With this approach, it often happens that the task that the client described as critically important after voicing the cost does not seem to him that way. So you will save your and his time and not spoil the relationship with the client.