I still remember it vividly, one day my phone rings and its one of my clients letting me know they had a friend that worked at a company that they feel could really use my services. Great, I got the information and went in to see the potential new client.

I got there and pitched my services and was asked, we really value one on one service what kind of service will I get with your firm? I paused and thought and said its just me, I run the company and help my clients and I truly value that one to one service.

Turns out they were getting bad service from a larger service provider in town. They never felt like they got that one to one attention and they often didn’t know how to solve their problems. I got the client and they signed, and started onboarding them. Part of that process was a one on one meeting with their old service provider.

While I was gathering information, the old service provider started giving me information about their Office365 environment, and they went on and on about the powershell scripts and reports they were running on a regular basis.

I told them and my new client that I was working with that I was fairly new to Powershell that it wasn’t something that most of my Mac based customers used or relied on. The company immediately snapped back and turned to the client and said “This company can’t help you, they don’t even know powershell”. The client turned to them and said, so? At least he was honest about it. I don’t care about powershell either.

It was at that moment I learned that in order to be successful you have to be aligned with your client and their needs, honesty is important but also making sure you’re providing true value. That was something their outgoing IT company didn’t understand, to them it was all about cookie cutter IT support services and not creating meaningful experiences for their clients.