I read breaktime for a few reasons, including the great business advice some of you have.
This is a bit off topic, and hopefully not against the rules but I have a quick question.
Would any of you with a large enough office to have 2 or more computers be interested in hiring someone to manage the computers. This would include regualar “checkups” to make sure things are working, training on software, 24 hr emergency service or questions or “crashes”, networking advice and design, security advice, web page design, hardware purchasing services, etc?
Basically the ability to contract out all of the IT administration associated with your business to somewho who would make a point to understand your specific computer needs.
I’m thinking of starting a small buisness, with other small to medium sized busisnesses as my target market, and am trying to see if there is a market for my services.
You can email me directely or follow up here if you feel this is relavent enough to breaktime.
Thoughts, comments?
Replies
I think most of us could use a tune up, but the problem is we can't afford to pay you $75 bucks and hour when we only make $45.
Cad design, Pictures to webpage,defrag,photo editing,files, saving to discs,we all need help in these areas.
"Rather be a hammer than a nail"
Bob
"I think most of us could use a tune up, but the problem is we can't afford to pay you $75 bucks and hour when we only make $45."
Sounds just like a DIY building a deck.
Do you not go to the doctor or use a lawyer when needed because they charge more per hour than you do?
What if it can do it in 2 hours and you take 5 to do the same thing?
What happens if you end up losing critical information?
Not wanting to start ####flame war. But it is interesting to look at this in the same light as many of the Pro vs DIY discussions and why do contractors charge so much.
Not wanting to start ####flame war. But it is interesting to look at this in the same light as many of the Pro vs DIY discussions and why do contractors charge so much.
Shouldn't be a flame war, but one never knows.
I've learned the hard way how to make almost any computer do what the users actually wanted it to do. That experience ought to have value.
It can also be huge hassle, too. Only midway in do you find out that the temp hit reset everytime the computer went idle. Or the part-time CPA came in and used floppies with viruses on them. Ok, so maybe, bitter experience ought to have value, too.
Me, I charge $200 up front, 0 ro 60 minutes. The bozos down the street advertize $49 computer repairs. Mind you, they'll need to fix your computer 4 or 5 times (plus parts)--not complicated math. And, I show up with a whole briefcase of tools & software. The higher front end also encourages folks to get the most for the dollar (better disclosure, sometimes).
And, that's for CAD, A/V, recovery work, all sorts of things.Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
That's the point Bill WE don't charge enough and if WE charged what we were worth WE would not get jobs...............
I pay the price to have computer guys help me through crashes and show me how to turn this thing on and off and they are a great asset to helping novice guys like myself get up to speed in the hi tech world.
I haven't seen too many posts where customers think we charge too much.
Here's the deal, we charge what the market will bare. If I want more jobs with less profit I can jump through hoops and keep very busy keeping everyone else busy and then at the end of the year wonder why I didn't make any money.
I like to just tell people we only build 15 -20 decks a year because we care about quality.
I can stay home and not make any money.
I don't have the time nor the patience to try and figure out computer problems, like why does it lock up when I push ctrl/alt/delete and not even re-boot?
Why can't I defrag anymore?
I'm amazed at how quickly someone that knows what they are doing on his confounded machine can get rid of my problems, and Yes, I will pay them dearly for their help because they know what they are doing and I do not want to loose any of my floorplans or deck designs.
No flame wars here.
Just a guy that wishes we could be reimbursed for all the hours we put in just to make ends meet. We pay what we have to pay.
Our customers pay what they want to pay.
We have to compete, and to learn to walk away from jobs, that are low balled from in-experienced guys with no concept of profit.
Trust me Bill ,I will pay top dollar for and experienced individual to solve my computer problems. "Rather be a hammer than a nail"
Bob
Bill, you forgot that most small (1-4 men operations) are run by a "tradesman" who thinks as a tradesman - not a businessman. And that's the #1 contributing factor to our 85% plus failure rate during the 1st 5 years of being in business.
I now have a one and a half man business. Yet it pays for my $856 Blue Cross & Blue Shield medical premium, the roughly $150 monthly for my meds, $150 per week for my wife to do my "books", a 2% reserve for bad debt, a 2% reserve for guarantee work, a 2% reserve for future capital expenses, a reserve for depreciation for my truck, another reserve for depreciation for my office equipment, reserve for truck repairs and another reserve for office equipment repairs, money set aside for vacation, sick pay and holiday pay, and the last is I cover myself for workers comp.
I totaled up all of the above expenses along with the normal overhead expenses. That total represented the "reality" of running a "real" business. Reality is treating one's self as a 1st class citizen, and business owner. Then I calculated what I had to charge in order to meet those expenses. That came to a minimum of about $68/hr. I'm currently charging a min. of $81/hr and often, not occasionally, but often, make well over $150/hr.
I pay my computer tech. guy $85/hr.
The key is developing a "brand" for one's self that will command such rates, but that takes not a tradesmen's mind set, but a businessmen's mind set. BTW, my son's min. labor rate is $126/hr or more, and he takes home well over $200,000 per year excluding the 14% net profits on about $2.5M annual sales, which he also distributes with his guys. Even his Superintendent makes about $125K annualy plus very generous perks - for what amounts to about a 44 hr. week.
I suggest everyone here who hasn't already done so to read Michael Gerber's book: "The E-Myth Revisited" or "The E-Myth Contractor - Why Most Contractors' Businesses Don't Work and What To Do About it."
"Bill, you forgot that most small (1-4 men operations) are run by a "tradesman" who thinks as a tradesman - not a businessman. And that's the #1 contributing factor to our 85% plus failure rate during the 1st 5 years of being in business.
I now have a one and a half man business. Yet it pays for my $856 Blue Cross & Blue Shield medical premium, the roughly $150 monthly for my meds, $150 per week for my wife to do my "books", a 2% reserve for bad debt, a 2% reserve for guarantee work, a 2% reserve for future capital expenses, a reserve for depreciation for my truck, another reserve for depreciation for my office equipment, reserve for truck repairs and another reserve for office equipment repairs, money set aside for vacation, sick pay and holiday pay, and the last is I cover myself for workers comp."
That is not the point that I was trying to make. At least not directly.
Pro-deck "claimed" that he could not afford the use of the computer pro because the computer guy charged more than he did per hour.
He latter said that it was worth it anyway.
And that was my whole point. Any service, business or personal, you need to evalutate the service based on the value to you and not just on just the comparative cost.
While you might be able to raise you rates to be equal to that of the computer guy. But you want about a lawyer or doctor that might work out for $300/hour. Would you not use them because you could not match there rates and thus not "afford" them?
But the compare of hourly CHARGES is meaningless anyway. You are always selling wholesale and buying retail anyway. That is you are paying with after expense income (and for personal after tax) but you are buying services that include his income plus expenses.
And each service has different expenses.
So it really get down to the VALUE of that service is to you. Now part of that value is now much work you have to do with earning the money to pay for it. And there are many other factors both real and percived. And you have mentioned those manytimes in the past and done a good job of it.
Bill, my point was that if we run our businesses the way they should be run, then just like expenses that come up in our private lives, we'l have the money. In our personal lives and personal finances, you budget for these doctor's expenses, dentist expenses and occasional lawyer expenses that we know will come sometime anyway.
I never worry about what I pay to other so called "formal" professionals. I just make sure I have the monies to pay them, regardless of the expense.
Bob (and everyone else)
Between home and biz we have six computers:
Ask around for some kids between about 16 and 21 years old. Some of them are thrilled to death to get a little work for $15 or $20 bucks an hour and I've found (through my son) that it's incredible what some of them can accomplish. Give 'em a little lee way so that they can contact their friends via e-mail or phone. I've paid various "computer consultants", but now have much better luck with the kids. The three "consultants" in my town put together don't know as much up-to-date info as the college kids can muster...
Don't know where to start to find the right kids? Call a couple of the computer instructors at your local junior college or high school.
I've actually paid kids to fix what "computer consultants" have f'ed up!Any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a carpenter to build one.
As in most business, lots of people are already doing this. If I need network help, I call a mutual customer for help.
But don't let me discourage you. Start out in your spare time and test the market. Hopefully you can find some good customers and later make it your full time job.
You get out of life what you put into it......minus taxes.
Marv
My wife is a CPA. I used to solve computer hardware problems for her clients. I stopped because it was too much of a hassle to do part time. My daughter still does training in software like Quickbooks and Peachtree.
We would charge only for parts/materials for my efforts - computer maintainance/repair.
We get a good rate, $100/hr, for my daughter's time but she gives out a lot of free advice on the phone to clients also.
If you want to do something along the hardware line, you might want to provide useful products/services.
I build all of our computers to a business standard - a CPU/motherboard under $150 currently AMD 2400+,1 40g hard drive, 3 CD drives (one RW), and network card. No modem, we have DSL on our network, and no sound card/speakers. With a 17" CRT my retail cost is $600, with a 17" LCD my retail cost is $800.
For data security we include an automatic backup currently RAID mirroring on our server and autobackup of data changes to a CD.
If you can offer real business computers with a program to keep them current (we upgrade overnight every 2 years for speed purposes and replace hard drives every 4 years for reliability), you can charge a reasonable amount.
I was happy to pay $75/hr for 5 hours to watch a tech rebuild our server's FAT. (Yes, she did not know what she was doing and she stumbled around for must of the time and I could have done the work just as fast, but she got the job done and never said OOPS.) I had a big smile when I thanked her, said I was happy with her work, would recommend her, and to call my wife and a check would be sent immediately (I forgot my checkbook).
I should point out that there are people who still run $2,000,000 through a business using 286 CPUs and DOS.
Worked for a guy for about a year that now is starting a business that does just what you describe. He's got two techies on staff now to handle the load. Except his business model is a little different. He targets small to mid size businesses and offers up a sort of "service agreement". For X dollars a month, you get a minimum of how ever many hours that you and the client agree on for service (not including parts). He guarantees a 2 hour turnaround with return phone calls (24 hours a day) and max of 12 hours till there's a man on site tinkering. If you don't use the time alloted to you in a month you're out the retainer. If you go over the alloted time, you pay by the hour.
Really is a neat concept. People are happy to have these guys waiting in the wings as a sort of "insurance". And from a business standpoint, it evens out the monthly income because you know exactly how many clients you have and what they're paying each month to keep you on retainer. He's got 2 guys now been just over a year, and he's looking at adding a third. And they're all busy. Part of his key is also standardizing software. For the time being it's windows only along with office and quickbooks. He's looking into supporting other OS and network systems as well as some lesser known software to improve his niche.
Frontiercc,
This is actually the model I am considering. I purposely did not mention it in my first post as I wanted to get as varied responses as possible.
My basic concept would be a yearly fee that would cover x number of hours of consulting on top of regular checkups & software upgrades. As you mentioned this makes it easier for both the customer and myself to plan for the $'s involved. The consulting would include both 24hr emergency support, as well as support for basic "how do I do this" kinds of questions.
Another concept I am considering would actually be to lease the computers and networks to the customer. This way there would be standardized hardware and software (the customer would still be able to install non standard software). The lease would include software and hardware upgrades at appropriate intervals.
Either lease, or set yourself up as a reseller for the likes of Dell. I didn't buy my dell from them. I bought it from a reseller. Paid mimially more, but got the full blown warranty and some other added value that it didn't make sense to buy direct. You get a kick from dell for the reselling and the customer gets a machine that is "standardized" - at least somewhat.
I can see the need for your services. A lot of contractors around my area perform design themselves and just want to sit down at their computer and have everything work. myself, I am an archi and I would look into a business like yours when I get a few people onboard and having to network the office. I don't want to deal with it, I don't have the time, and I don't know enough to keep everything running myself.
Also, if the person incharge of my account knows basic CAD and can do drafting that would be a plus, what about a half or full time position, tech. help on site. And I know at peak times during deadlines I would like to schedule to have support close by because that is when things usually go wrong.
A good idea, I hope it does well for you.
Dan
I know people in this business (small company tech support). Many of them are doing quite well, and really enjoy the work. The business model is sound, since the big companies who provide these services charge big bucks, do not really pursue small business customers, or care to understand their diverse needs.
The folks I know in this biz quickly developed a customer base via word of mouth, and quickly had all the customers they could handle. There is clearly pent up demand for this service in my area.
I question your 24 hour support however. It would take a decent economy of scale on your part to have yourself or other folks on call 24/7 and make it worthwhile. Most smaller shops are not running anything 'mission critical' enough to make this a compelling market advantage for you. Next day turnaround is probably good enough.
There is a lot more competition as you get into the mid-sized business market. Many of these outfits buy support contracts through vendors. The competition here can be brutal, though some of these service providers do a very poor job of it for very high prices, IMHO, and the high turnover here may spell opportunity. Quality is very uneven. I have spent countless hours fixing things these outfits have screwed up for an assortment of deperate friends or relatives. Unfortunately, I work for free (or barter).
Best of luck with your business.