And while I didn't sell any insurance, I did learn a thing or two, and I'd like to explore one of them with you today - time horizons.

Some of prospective policyholders I met could visualize themselves well into future, say 20 or 30 years into future. They were obviously good prospects for life insurance. Others focused more on coming year or few years. To them, something that might or might not happen 20 years ahead was a pure abstraction with little relevance.

Now, let's put these perspectives into a communication context: When you send or receive messages, do you factor in time horizon of person who sent you a message or gets one from you?

Let's consider an example that's similar to my experience. Say you're trying to sell mutual funds to a new investor. You enthusiastically point out possibility of getting rich by saving every month for perhaps 25 years. But person across desk looks at you with a blank face. Perhaps he's thinking to himself that money could be used to pay down loan on his truck in three years instead of five, and then he could buy a new one much sooner.

While many small companies only call in a local computer consulting business when something computer-related breaks, there’s a lot to be gained by forging a proactive, long-term relationship with a local computer consulting business in your area.

Consider Getting Advice from a Computer Consulting Business

If you need to get advice once-in-a-while on how your computers can be better utilized, or you have a specific computer-related problem that needs to be solved, a computer consulting business is generally way to go.

However, if computer-systems and information technology (IT) are really important to your industry and your company, outsourcing your computer-related service needs to a local computer consulting business is often a much better solution than just piecemeal, ad-hoc usage of a computer consulting business.

Hiring a Computer Consultant

Many computer consulting businesses choose to specialize and end up becoming extremely valuable to their particular area or niche. In many cases, these kinds of computer consulting businesses can know almost as much about your industry and competitive challenges as you do.

So to help your company grow and to make sure it’s not being short-sighted with its computer-related needs, consider getting advice from a computer consulting business.

Wearing Lots of "Hats" is Fine... But Don’t Let These "Hats" Blind-Sight You

Sometimes small companies already have an idea of what their computer-related needs are when they enlist help of an outside computer consulting business.

There are several advantages to bringing in an outside computer consulting business, as opposed to trying to limp along with someone internally who just wears "hat" of occasional computer person.

One of most important reasons to bring in a computer consulting business though is that a computer consultant is someone who is an expert in his or her field. This means you can have access to an expert for a fraction of cost it would take to hire that caliber of professional on a full time basis.

In almost all cases, a computer consultant like this can troubleshoot problem much faster and much more effectively than your internal employees.