If all you’re selling and implementing is technology, you’re going to have a tough time in today’s market. Your clients don’t need technology — well, they don’t need technology without an attendant business driver. This means that you need to have more than a passing knowledge of your clients’ business, and any solution you are selling should correspond directly to a business need. Of course, the more you know about your clients’ business, the better you’ll be able to make the connection between problem and solution.

The first tier of business-to-technology linkage involves the identification of pain points driven by business needs, but this is often too high-level to become an effective differentiator. Instead, you’ll need to dig deeper, gaining ground-level insights from the people who use the systems that you have to enhance, upgrade or replace. If your client sells shoes, for example, you need to know how the shoe business works. And if you have clients in highly regulated industries, such as finance or biopharmaceuticals, business knowledge becomes crucial.

Beyond being able to communicate effectively with your prospects and clients, deep business knowledge allows you to identify additional opportunities for new business — which you’ll find by determining which potential problems could arise. With this approach, you’re adding value to the relationship from the start and showing that you have what it takes to become a “trusted advisor” in the truest sense of the term.

Everyone in the IT solution provider business is an IT expert: that’s the price of admission, not a differentiator. To distinguish your company, you need to show that you’ve mastered the business issues that your clients have to address. Accomplish this, and your knowledge will communicate the value of working with you.

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