Who Runs IT Consulting Companies? (Top 6 Job Titles)

Here at SP Home Run, we did a survey a little while back to find answers to a variety of demographic and behavioral factors among IT consulting companies.

One of the questions we asked was, “What is your job title? (On your business card, online profiles, etc.)”

Since it was a write-in kind of question, as opposed to a drop-down list, we fed the text responses into a few of the more popular free word cloud web apps. (As an aside, we had good success with building word clouds on Tagxedo, WordItOut, and TagCrowd.)   

So here are the top job titles, listed in alphabetical order, that we found running IT consulting companies:

1. CEO – Chief executive officer is always a popular choice that you see on business cards and online profiles. But considering that most of the survey respondents were from micro small businesses, with fewer than 10 employees, are these folks true CEOs or more aspirational?

2. Consultant – Ahh, the job title that identifies the tradesperson, technician, or practitioner by how they perceive their role in the marketplace and with clients. Considering that most surveyed listed their business model as predominantly IT consulting, it’s no big surprise to find the “Consultant” job title on the top 6 list.

3. Director – This job title likely has its roots in the UK, where many IT entrepreneurs appoint themselves the Managing Director (MD) or simply Director. The Managing Director title is also widely found among financial services firms.

4. Manager – In small, growing IT companies, there are certainly tons of interrelated projects and tasks to manage. So as expected, the “manager” job title made it to the top 6 list.

5. Owner – The owner job title can be especially effective for conveying a small-town, high-touch, trusted advisor relationship. The only challenge for IT consulting businesses that are run by “owners”: as you scale your business, many of the original clients insist on working only with the owner.

6. President – From my standpoint, it was very expected to see the president job title on the top 6 list as many government entities, at least in the USA, require you to name a president, among other officers, when you incorporate.

Big picture: Job titles can have a major impact on your ability to recruit and grow a team and how you position and market your brand.

What job title do you personally use to run your IT consulting company? Is that job title consistent across the board with your website, business cards, and online profiles? And why did you originally choose that job title? Please let us know your thoughts in the Comments box below.

And to plan how your job title filters through to all of your company growth, especially if you also consult on SaaS or IaaS, be sure to enroll now in our free 7-day eCourse: Go-to-Market Strategy 101 for B2B SaaS Startups and Scaleups.