Break Business Records with These 7 Principles of Success

… take care of run-rate business, including traditional technologies like multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) circuits and wide area networks (WANs). Maintaining these proportions takes discipline, so don’t take your eye off the ball.

5. Place a value on your time.

If you don’t value your time, your clients won’t, either. Always charge what you’re worth, as it places a value on your own expertise. This can be a challenging principle to stick to. When you’re excited to finally get a meeting with the CIO, bringing up payment can feel uncomfortable — but ultimately, clients will respect you more if you set boundaries. If you charge $50,000 for your advice, clients will value it at $50,000 — but they’ll value it as nothing if you give it away for free.

6. Focus exclusively on mid-sized and large deals.

While they can be crucial partnerships, it’s easy to get stuck only serving small businesses. They’re easier to onboard and transact faster. But if you want to climb to the top, you have to prioritize enterprise and midmarket clients, as that’s where you’ll find the biggest revenue and fastest scale.

Large organizations are complex and hierarchical, and their IT departments often struggle to communicate effectively with the business side. A skilled trusted adviser can add a great deal of value by aligning with executive sponsors, then looking at the situation holistically and delivering the individualized solutions the organization needs. That doesn’t mean you have to ignore small businesses entirely — but reach them through call centers or other low-cost options, saving the bulk of your sales resources for bigger companies.

7. Leverage partners to scale.

When it comes to building capabilities for your business, avoid reinventing the wheel. Instead, invest in growing a few areas you’re passionate about and outsource everything else. It’s a reality of business today that all trusted advisers are a part of an ecosystem: You might compete with a company one day, then partner with them the next. Why recreate something someone else already built when you can leverage it to help you scale?

What’s Your Four-Minute Mile?

Success is often a question of mindset. If we tell ourselves that a goal is impossible or unreachable, then those limiting beliefs become reality. By following these seven principles of success, you can break free of those limits and take your trusted adviser business to the next level.

Ian Kieninger is CEO and co-founder of Avant Communications. He serves on CompTIA’s Telecom Advisory Council and is a co-founder of the Technology Channel Association (TCA), the indirect channel industry’s first trade association. Prior to Avant, he oversaw various advanced technology practices at CDW. He has a bachelor’s degree in finance and marketing from Miami University. Follow him on LinkedIn or @Avant_CCC on Twitter.