Need experience - "Start your own business"

HardDisk

The density of transistors on an integrated chip doubles every eighteen months. "Moore's Law"

If you need experience and/or an IT job then hire yourself. I am getting ready to do that very thing.

Shall I be a consultant or an independent Help Desk support professional..?

Like Moore's Law the IT products & services being offered to "Joe Six Pack" are doubleing every eighteen months. Who is Joe going to call to set up his super-techy Man Cave, the Geek squad?


Any tips, stories, thoughts or words of encouragement please.

earweed

Make sure you have set fees for your services and they are agreed upon up front. Nothing to ruin your day like a customer who thinks they should pay you less because you resolved his issue quickly and efficiently. That's been my biggest issue. When I fix something quickly and easily the customer wanting to pay less. Have it in writing what your services will cost.

mypcrepairguy

earweed wrote: »

Make sure you have set fees for your services and they are agreed upon up front. Nothing to ruin your day like a customer who thinks they should pay you less because you resolved his issue quickly and efficiently. That's been my biggest issue. When I fix something quickly and easily the customer wanting to pay less. Have it in writing what your services will cost.

This is very good advice, also I would suggest that you research your target market to avoid setting your prices too high. In my situation I moved from Kalifornia to WV and subsequently had to adjust my pricing structure 30% across the board to remain competitive in this new market.

To "get the ball rolling" I would suggest setting up a website to showcase what you will offer in the way of services. Then have a few hundred business cards printed and start handing them out to everyone you meet. Also, whenever possible I would strongly suggest that you always work on your customers computers in your own home/office rather then on site. This will alleviate any concerns from the customers end regarding how quickly something was fixed on the spot.

Just my .02 GL on the new endeavor!

ehnde

I set up my own business site earlier this year. The layout is simple, clean, and pleasing to the eye. It comes up in google search results for I.T. services in my area, but I've never gotten a single phone call. No one has ever (with the exception of a couple of bot scripts) filled out my "contact form".

I list it on my resume, and any employer could go to this site and see my web design work. It feels fake, though Never gotten any paid work out of it. The hosting is only $40/year via one.com. Never applied for a business license, but is that necessary when your presence is entirely online and you've not had any business transactions?

I'm not entirely sure what the lesson is here. Prices are not actually set, and are meant to be negotiable after talking with the person and getting a clear understanding of their needs. Maybe the website lacks specificity. I'd be very interested to hear about other peoples experiences on this thread and what it takes to be successful.

Dave Ramsey suggests this book Amazon.com: Guerrilla Marketing: Secrets for Making Big Profits from Your Small Business (9780395906255): Jay Conrad Levinson: Books so I might check it out.

I could put more effort into my business model, but I'm not sure what I should do that would yield the best results. I'm also concerned that my skillset is not complete - that's one of my biggest reasons for not stepping forward a bit more. (i.e. weak in javascript and implementing https authentication systems).

I'll be following this thread closely.

tbgree00

I have a lot of clients from my current job. All of the employees and contractors here trust me and use me for their home computer repair. If you have a day job make sure they're cool with you marketing yourself and/or doing stuff on the side. If so start there. Some of my clients are 3rd generation referrals (referred from someone that was referred from a coworker).

If you don't have a job and are going to get an office space branch out from there. Go to the closest grocery and ask if you can set up a booth or put up fliers. Even if you are working from home or get a white van to work in going to a grocery store to market would get you started with clients.

Any social activities you are involved in can get you clients too. These things are full of people with computer problems who trust the other people they are spending time with. If you don't have any sort of social presence then you really need to put the router down and take a breather =p A lot of making it is soft skills and face time.

If you're going for business consulting I have no idea. It seems like a hard world to break into with a lot higher expectations than home end user support. Any business work I've done has been through a men's group I'm a member of. One of the guys is a business owner and the other is a video producer. Otherwise I shy away from businesses. Too much liability on my part.