New Year, New Market Approach

Business opportunities often appear from the most unexpected places. As the new year approaches, it's a great time to step back and look at the business that you've won over the past year. Identify the common problems that you solved for customers to identify market opportunities that you could build on in the coming year.

While Brenda Luper was working for Franklin Computer Services in Ohio, she noted that customer relationships were often built or strengthened when Franklin supported business moves. Office moves stress the business and people, requiring a unique set of IT services. The project management skills of IT service providers are well-suited to smoothing the process and limiting transition issues.

Luper saw an opportunity and set out to serve those customer's moving needs. In addition, she recognized a unique opportunity to partner with other IT service providers through Franklin Moves.  

Franklin Moves, a division of Franklin Computer Services since 2001, is a company fully focused on helping small and mid-sized organizations manage the chaos of moving. Luper provides the tools and project management to support the moves and -- here is the unique twist -- she matches Microsoft partners across the country with Franklin Moves clients to support their IT needs during business move.

Each of the organizations that Franklin Moves supports needs IT services to ensure backup, move hardware, configure the new office and reconnect systems. Partners get the opportunity to demonstrate great support and project management to earn the future business of the organization, as well.

The system works from both sides. Partners can engage Franklin Moves to assist with the project management for a client move. When Franklin Moves is engaged to support a move, Luper contacts a local partner to provide the IT services and build a relationship with a new client. 

As Luper explains the partner value, "By breaking your business out of its traditional box and assisting those planning a move through Franklin Moves, you can help the customers feel at ease with all the changes that come with relocating. As the hero of the move, you build an alliance with your customer that your competition can't shake!"

As partners look for new ways to build service opportunities and competitive differentiators with customers, creative thinking is a must. Franklin Moves is a great example of out-of-the-box thinking that builds a win for clients and partners.

Have you found a unique way to expand your services? Leave a comment below or e-mail me and let's share the knowledge.

Posted by Barb Levisay on December 08, 2011