All - I wonder if other PS firms are noticing a trend (or maybe I am late and the trend has already past leaving me behind the curve (sorry for the mixed metaphor).

My firm is a “stand-alone” consulting company - we build custom software solutions for our customers - sometime from scratch, sometimes by integrating solution platforms and adding custom components. We sell our services based on our “technical expertise” and our development process. These allow us to deliver a high quality product meeting the customer’s time and budget expectations.

We are having difficulty closing deals with new customers outside the circle of our “friends and family” (organizations that we network to, through customers where we have had past success).

We are considering adding business expertise to the mix to add value and clarify our marketing message. This could be in a specific industry (financial services, manufacturing, etc.) , it could be in a specific part of a business (accounting, supply chain, etc.), it could be in a specific market (consumers, Web 2.0, B2B, etc.), or somewhere else. 

We want to move our message from:

“Hire us because we are really strong technically but also intelligent enough to pick up on your business and its processes quickly.”

- to -

“Hire us because we not only understand technology but we already understand your business/vision/market/processes and can merge that business and technical knowledge to implement a solution for you that is exactly what you need.”

But that switch comes with a big shifts in company focus, direction, personnel, and probably more.

Has anyone out there faced this challenge?

Any words of wisdom and encouragement will be appreciated.

Regards