What are the top industries you serve?

[Chadhardy]

Continuing on with my new focus of marketing to businesses I have 2 simple questions:

1.) Are there certain industries that you find want and are willing to pay for your services more than others? (legal, medical, accounting, etc.) Whether you are a MSP, break-fix, remote or whatever.

2.) Does your business focus on certain industries? (Are you the go to company for accountant IT services, etc.?)

As I'm planning my marketing I'm wondering if I should just blanket an entire area or should I pick and choose based on industry, or size of business (number of employees), revenue of business, etc. Some of these attributes are going to be hard to find but there are lead services (infousa.com, etc.) that can give you this info.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Healthcare/medical (biggest money maker)
Accounting
Insurance
Engineering/design
A few non-profits...foundations for example...great clients.

 

[3ft]

In order of profitability (to my firm, your mileage will certainly vary):

1) Architectural/Engineering
2) Legal
3) Governmental
4) Financial/Wealth Management
5) Medical

 

[Vyper28]

Real Estate, End of list.

 

[altrenda]

" Are there certain industries that you find want and are willing to pay for your services more than others? "

My experience is that there are good customers and cheap customers in every industry. I have interns for clients that don't scrimp on taking care of their MacBooks and Tesla driving Execs with WalMart special laptops that scream when you charge for a virus removal.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

In order of profitability (to my firm, your mileage will certainly vary):

1) Architectural/Engineering

Yeah I should have put that one down too....they tend to know they need professional graphics workstations and higher performance servers and networks....to move those big files around fast. So I'll edit my list to include them. We don't have many of them..but the ones we do..are good clients.

 

[Moltuae]

My best customers are retail stores/shops. They tend to invest heavily in IT and like to keep up with technology, especially anything that improves their efficiency and maximises profit.

Any business sector can be heavy investors in IT though, if they're making enough profit and the owners/management have the foresight to reinvest.

 

[Nerm]

Our top 5:
1.) Financial (Banks, Accountants, Insurance, etc)
2.) Legal
3.) Medical
4.) Manufacturing
5.) Government/Non-Profit

Financial is far and above the rest simply because it encompasses several different sectors in one. After the drop off from 1-2 the margins between 2-5 is fairly slim. In our area I wouldn't say we are the go to company for any specific sector. We are however (probably like most of you here) the go to company in our area for higher-end IT consulting services regardless of sector.

 

[Chadhardy]

Thanks everyone for your replies.

@Nerm that's an interesting observation. Do most of you believe your business is looked at as THE high-end IT consulting firm in your area?

 

[Nerm]

Being in a rural area it is fairly easy to see yourself in that light. Most of our competitors don't even service businesses and the ones that do get in over their if the businesses network has a DC and a managed switch lol.

 

[cypress]

" Are there certain industries that you find want and are willing to pay for your services more than others? "

My experience is that there are good customers and cheap customers in every industry. I have interns for clients that don't scrimp on taking care of their MacBooks and Tesla driving Execs with WalMart special laptops that scream when you charge for a virus removal.

I have experienced this as well. I think my best clients are in the Health care industry. But the types of industries varies. I have clients from Construction, Engineering, Medical all the way up to Interior Designing.

 

[allstarit]

hard to answer for my own business as im part time.

But for my full time job we do alot of Accounting firms and they give us so many referrals to their clients it works extremely well

 

[wickedmojoit]

That's a great question!
My number one and the majority of the businesses we support are trades ( plumbing, contractors, locksmiths, mechanics - you get the point)
The rest in no particular order are non profit, retail and service related businesses (limo companies, restaurants, dog grooming, spas and so on).

 

[Calx]

I have to say I think I deal mainly with one of the most important and often over looked industries in the world...

Home-makery

 

[Markverhyden]

" Are there certain industries that you find want and are willing to pay for your services more than others? "

My experience is that there are good customers and cheap customers in every industry. I have interns for clients that don't scrimp on taking care of their MacBooks and Tesla driving Execs with WalMart special laptops that scream when you charge for a virus removal.

^^^This. There are cheap skates in every one of the markets we serve. I pay close attention to them when things first start. What type of machines do they have? What are their expectations/objectives? What services do they use on the Internet? One can paint a pretty accurate picture of whether they are bottom feeders or someone that places a value on the solution(s) based on the benefits.

 

[Rosco]

Medical and legal are my biggest money makers. That is not to say i have a few clients in each industry that are super cheap and only call when it is a catastrophic event. Like the hard drive has been clicking for a week and now it wont boot. On the same note some of my poorest residential clients are willing to pay for a quality service that is done right

 

[cypress]

Medical and legal are my biggest money makers. That is not to say i have a few clients in each industry that are super cheap and only call when it is a catastrophic event. Like the hard drive has been clicking for a week and now it wont boot. On the same note some of my poorest residential clients are willing to pay for a quality service that is done right

Usually the ones that don't have all the money that absolutely value your service the most.