When the opportunity appeared for Ted Wallingford to start an I.T. support company in Lorain County, he pounced on it. Despite the difficult economic climate in northern Ohio, and an abundance of well-entrenched competitors, Ted and his business partner knew that Best Technology Strategy was going to be a success. Picking the company's area of specialty was the first challenge. Networking and helpdesk support seemed to represent the greatest need among Lorain County businesses, so that's what the firm started with.

"It was March of '06," Ted explains, "and I'd been working as a consultant for another firm. One thing that frustrated me about my former job was that the organization wasn't as dedicated to its clients' success as I would've liked. So I started investigating ways of entering this market myself."

The company began with a job designing Voice over IP networks for large cruise ships, and this piece of work financed Best Technology's entrance in to the Lorain County I.T. consulting arena. With the cruise line connection in Florida, Ted's goal of keeping his clients close to home--for the sake of quality service delivery--could only be met if he began selling to firms in and around the west side of Cleveland.

By the outset of 2009, Best Technology has become an inarguable success. With about twenty regular consulting clients and a tripling of year-over-year revenue, Best Technology has added full-time staff and moved into an office space in the Great Lakes Technology Park on LCCC's campus. But how does success like this avoid being short lived?

Katie Knight, Best Technology's client relationship manager, answers that question by saying, "Best takes pride in the success of our clients. We enable our clients to be more efficient, more productive, and operate with reduced risk. Those are our objectives as a company, too."

This formula has positioned Best Technology as the leading I.T. knowledge resource in Lorain County. Three years after the company's founding, client satisfaction and consistent earnings have proved the early naysayers wrong. "We've been successful in this region because we're doing what other firms don't: every client gets personable, face-to-face time, and we go out of our way to transfer as much knowledge to our customers as is practical for them. We make them better at I.T. And we make their in-house I.T. people better, too."

Wallingford cautions business owners who are considering working with an I.T. consulting or outsourcing firm. "You've got to be careful. When my competitors come to the table with things like, 'managed services', they're basically talking about subscriptions. They bill you every month and don't add any ongoing value. You don't always get that important face-to-face time with your technology expert, unless you're dealing with a firm like Best.

"The other thing you've got to watch is the level of professionalism being offered by a consultant. We clean up a lot of messes that have been left behind by ill-equipped computer geeks," Katie explains. "We're the only firm in the area that is accurately described debt-free, self-funded, and totally independent. We're vendor-neutral, meaning we're not pushing Microsoft products or Cisco products unless we believe they're a good fit. Finally, we're not a reseller. So we have absolutely no agenda but the success of our clients."

Best Technology has enlisted several clients from areas neighboring Lorain County, and Wallingford says he's doing everything he can to raise the county's profile as a hotbed for technology-oriented business. He's written two books about technology for O'Reilly Media, affording him the chance to pick up and move to technology nerve centers like Silicon Valley or San Diego. But Wallingford has opted for the success of his business here at home.

"It's OK to have a little west coast thinking here on the north coast," he says. "Ideas like project consulting and temporary staffing are being replaced with Ideas like local-sourcing, where even mid-sized companies no longer need in-house I.T. staff." Naturally, that's sometimes a tough pill to swallow. People don't want to reduce staff, but all business owners want to be leaner, more effective, and more profitable."

"Full-time I.T. staffers are very much necessary in large organizations, but in a small to mid-sized business, working with a local-sourced consultant makes more sense," Knight explains. "Who's going to be more effective in a complex server upgrade project for example: the consultant who does it four times a year, or the full-time staffer, who maybe does it four times his whole career?"

"The open-mindedness of the west coast I.T. industry is something I'd like to see a little more of here at home," Wallingford adds. "But we'll get there. We do it by building trust with our clients and potential clients. When they have success because of some advice we gave--the light bulb goes on, and that progressive I.T. attitude starts to make sense to them. My favorite thing about this job is that my success and my clients' success are one and the same. It's a daily motivator. We're BEST Technology, and we have to earn the right to have that name, every day."