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Hello!

I am looking to start actively pursuing my long term goal of having my own IT Support company.

I’ve worked within IT for large organisations for about 8 years, working as desktop support, server support and now a network engineer looking after a large array of firewalls, so I’d like to think I have a good all round knowledge to support SME’s.

The plan is to initially work alongside my current role and hopefully grow it to a point where it can be my full time commitment.

So I’m after some advice really from others that have done the same and if they could give me some tips from their experiences for advertising or just anything I should be aware of to help me on the way :slight_smile: .

I’ve setup a website, had some business cards printed and also have some advertising flyers on order, any advice would be awesome!

Many thanks,

Nick

58 Spice ups
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This has been on my radar for some time…for sure, start small…help individuals and families first…then work yourself into small businesses/churches…get your name and reputation out there. It will take a lot of after hours/weekend work to get established enough to “quit your day job”…

I am not an expert but I think that will get you started…I’ve tried but with kids, activities, church, family, household to run…it is very hard to do.

3 Spice ups
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First: There are many, many threads on this already in the community. TAB+Q will allow you to search.

From there:

  • Define your ideal customer. Relentlessly pursue this type of customer. ProTip: “Anyone who wants IT support” is not your ideal customer.

  • Avoid home users if you can. They typically have totally unrealistic expectations for how long repairs take and how much they will cost. Home users often don’t value IT services, and I can’t count the number of times over the past 13 years I had someone try to get services for free over the phone or argue with me because some relative “works on computers for a living” and told them something else. That relative almost always winds up to be a data entry clerk or a Level 1 helpdesk tech with no practical experience in supporting the current version of Windows in a non-corporate environment.

  • Use the Rule of Thirds. 1/3 of your revenue is for your operating expenses, 1/3 is for investing back into the business, and 1/3 is for your personal living expenses. “Personal living expenses” includes silly things like rent/mortgage, car payments, electricity, heat, and food. If you can’t maintain the lifestyle you want on 1/3 of your business’s gross income, you need to reconsider your rates and/or the viability of the business.

  • Find a voice. You’ll need to find a way to distinguish yourself from the other IT providers in your area. Why should someone use you instead of the seven other places in town?

  • Don’t mess with the tax man*.* Seriously. Make damn sure you’re putting aside the cash for your various tax burdens and pay that shit on time (if not a few days early). That old saw about only death and taxes being certain? Tax debts persist after death.

  • Know what you know. Modesty is for chumps. If you’re good at something, make sure people know.

  • Know what you don’t know. You cannot possibly know everything. IT is vast … but I’m not just talking about IT. If you hate bookkeeping with the burning passion of 10,000 suns, outsource that shit. Suck at sales? Hire someone who can sell sand to the Saudis.

  • Know what you do. These are the things your company does well. Your “core products” as it were. You should be able to clearly answer, “What do you do?” to anyone who asks in 30 seconds or less. If you can’t, you probably haven’t defined your target client well enough.

    This also refers to being aware of what you, personally, can do. It will help you put a box around your time and help you identify when it’s time to call in someone to help.

  • Know what you don’t do. If your company is focused on network administration, don’t take on a website design. It will go badly. This is also another of those self-awareness items, and goes closely with “Know what you don’t know”, above.

  • Know your competition*.* You may find that a “competitor” actually offers complimentary services. Having someone you can call in or hand off to is HUGE. Also, you may find that a certain company tends to screw up. Their failure may be your gain.

  • Contracts. Use them. ALL THE TIME. Do no business with anyone who refuses to sign one, and do no work until it has been signed. Watch Mike Monterio’s now-classic presentation " Fuck You. Pay Me. " for more. The presentation is aimed primarily at creative types, but it applies everywhere.

    Make sure you specify things like normal hours, holidays, standard rates, after-hours rates, and emergency rates. Make the emergency rate hurt or you’ll be getting “emergency” calls at 3am for all kinds of stupid things.

  • Know how you’ll cover. You can’t work all the time. You’ll either need employees or some sort of MSP or both. Eventually you WILL want a vacation longer than a weekend, and you’ll get really sick of late-night support “emergencies” in a hurry.

  • Charge market rate. Starting out you may be tempted to go a bit lower … but you’re actually often better off charging a bit more and selling the value of your services. Your rate tends to communicate things about you … and it attracts the kind of clients able and willing to pay that rate. If you’re charging $30/hour, you’ll get clients who think $30 is too much to pay, but it’s what they can afford. Those suck. If you charge $150/hour (or more), you’ll find you get clients who are happy to pay for your expertise.

  • Take charge*.* Be clear about the way you work and why you work that way. DO NOT change your workflow per client. For example, may people think email is appropriate for “OMG! RESPOND NAO!” types of communication. If that works for you, say so. If it doesn’t, say so. For most consultants, email is a “4 hours or next business day” kind of thing for non-urgent communications that require a paper trail.

    Also, you are the expert. Clients bring you on because you have skills they don’t have. If you recommend X, you should have a reasonable expectation that X is going to happen. This doesn’t mean you need to be an asshole about things and demand your way all the time*.* A certain amount of negotiation is expected (“We’d love to, but we have $Y available for this project,” is a common restriction), but if you’re constantly having your recommendations challenged you need to either reconsider why you’re recommending what you’re recommending OR reconsider why you continue to work with this client.

  • IT supports business requirements. An IT consultant needs to be able to direct the conversation and build solutions that support business needs. If you’re recommending X, you need to be able to explain what the benefits to the business will be in terms that the business leadership can understand. Take a few minutes to watch the Spiceworks webinar How to Speak Boss . If that sounds like Mandarin, you’ll want to take some business courses before you hang your shingle.

  • Follow The Middle Finger Project. Ash Ambrige and the rest The House of Moxie don’t do boring when it comes to business. Don’t let the irreverent attitude fool you: Not only is she spot-on when it comes to running a successful business, Ash offers great advice on how to find your voice. www.themiddlefingerproject.org .

  • Follow Erika Napoletano. Another whip-smart person with opinions on how to find your voice, Erika is a professional branding consultant, TEDx speaker, and twice-published author who is passionate about helping people find their Next. Be aware: Erika’s “Swears. A LOT.” setting is set to “ON” … but her creative use of four-letter words in no way diminishes the accuracy of her advice.

Those are off the top of my head. I may have more to add later.

Edit: Another thing

  • Specify when you expect your invoices to be paid. I ran into an issue once where a client said they only pay invoices once per month, at the beginning of the month. This meant that I had to wait 30 days to get paid. After that, all my contracts specified Net 10 from the date on the invoice, with penalties for late payment. You can pay my invoice via credit card and pay your credit card once a month. YOUR cash flow problems are not MY cash flow problems!
  • Use some form of time tracker. I adore Harvest, but it’s not the only one out there. Not keeping tight track of your time flatly leaves money on the table. NEVER DO THIS.
  • Make it easy for clients to pay. Cash, check, credit card, direct wire transfer, automatic debit … whatever gets your invoices paid on time. Credit card processing used to be stupidly expensive for occasional credit card processing. Square made that problem go away. For one-off clients, you can actually generate the invoice and accept payment before you leave the client site.

Edit the Second

On the topic of “Know what you do”, it’s often more effective to tell others who you help and how you help them instead of trying to explain the specifics of what you do. For example:

“I help businesses with between 1 and 400 computers get the most of of technology.”

vs

“I’m a systems consultant.” or “I own a computer consulting business.”

The “I help” statement is not only easier for people to understand, it’s more interesting and can open the door to further conversations. Because businesses don’t do business. People do business … and they do business with other people.

96 Spice ups
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Sort of.

You need to be discerning here. If you’re looking to offer business-class support services, removing malware from a home user’s PC isn’t going to help build your reputation. Similarly, if “small businesses” means “businesses with two computers that don’t even share files between them”, that’s barely a step above removing malware from your neighbor’s kid’s laptop. It won’t help you build a reputation if your target audience is “manufacturing companies with 30-50 office employees and 1-10 servers”.

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The comment above about discernment? It goes at least triple for non-profits of all stripes (including churches - more on them in a bit). Some (but certainly not all) non-profits seem to thing their 501c(3) status means you need to do things at deep discounts … or for free.

That’s total bullshit.

Discount your rates if you want, but remember what I said above about your rates attracting the kinds of clients you want to deal with. Work for free if you want - but be very careful with this. People tend to not value things that are free. Also, remember that you cannot claim time as a donation. That’s called “volunteering” … and that’s all on you.

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I have 5 churches I help when they need it and I charge them and they do pay me…should have cleared that up some…:slight_smile:

3 Spice ups
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On the subject of IT and churches:

Tread carefully here. Larger churches (as in, those seating 500+ on a weekend) are generally a dream to work with. They have both the attitude and the budget to do things properly. Average churches (which seat no more than 300 on a weekend) tend to expect donated service and deep discounts on purchases. It’s common for a church this size to have have an IT infrastructure that’s been cobbled together by dozens of well-meaning congregants who may or may not have the slightest idea about silly things like software licensing and security.

In these cases, a pre-service interview is critical. You’ll want to focus on getting a feel for how willing they are to actually pay to do things properly … and they’ll need to agree to pay for a full network review before you actually do any kind of work for them. You need to know what you’re getting into before you agree to do X. The likelihood of finding a mess here is high and you don’t want to commit to doing X for $Y only to discover that you can’t actually do X until A, B, C, and D are done first.

3 Spice ups
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If you consider working on home PC’s go ahead and learn how to tie a noose while you are at it. I will copy something from a previous post:

I worked for the public for years…wont ever go back. Consulting for small/medium business and government was good, but home users are on a whole other level. Here are the highlights:

  1. They wont pay you

  2. You will always do something wrong

  3. The “virus” they are complaining about will always come back

  4. Their machine will always be your baby, even a year later

  5. They will never understand why they have to pay you again to fix something they broke again!

  6. You will constantly lose sleep

  7. You will constantly lose hair

  8. You will constantly lose sanity

  9. They will never understand what you are telling them

  10. You will never have a moment to yourself or with your family

Bottom line, don’t do it!

15 Spice ups
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Would you mind sharing your website maybe we could give some feedback?

Good to see someone pursuing dreams or goals they have. I’ve always wanted to start my own business.

2 Spice ups
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Bryce has pretty much covered it all. The only thing I can tell you from my own business owning experience and ultimate failure is be sure to always pay yourself. I tried to sink all the money I was earning back into my business and it pretty much backfired in my face and in the end I lost interest. I spent way to much for advertising that did not come anywhere close to what I made. Bryce’s rule of 1/3rd is absolutely spot on.

5 Spice ups
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I would advise to avoid all churches, as even the larger ones still hold on to the “well, what’s the lord’s price on that?” (a quote from my music retail days, I shit you not). Even with the budget, they still enjoy that tax exempt status too much, and as a result will do everything they can to guilt you into a discount. The amount of free support after the fact will also be huge… avoid working for churches at all costs.

2 Spice ups
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When I started the exact thing about 5 years ago, I followed pretty much the same advice Bryce gave you, so I wont duplicate that. If I may recommend the book “Start” and “Quitter”- By Jon Acuff, Dan Millers “48 days to the work you love” these books had amazing affects on how I think about business as a whole and as what I call my ten year plan. Huge affects.

Another thing I did, which may or not find unusual is I went around to my IT friends and my local IT shops and dealers and talked to them about their own business’s. I found everyone willing to help out, providing me with tips, the pros the cons, the issues they faced, how they got started. I continue to be good friends with most of them to this day. We even have a small network where we help provide each other with services. One of my buddies, contacts, passes me work that his company has outgrown. I do contract work for him and him for me.

Great luck to you.

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Part of this (a big part, in fact) is taking control of the interaction early on. There’s no harm in having someone ask about a discount - but you also need to be firm in your response. Remember: You are not running a non-profit organization! My favorite response to, “What is the Lord’s price on that?” was, “I’ve no idea. You’ll need to get in touch with Him for a quote on that. However, my price is $Y.”

I’ll also say that one cannot be “guilted” into something if one is firm in one’s convictions. If you firmly believe that you’re offering your services at a fair price, there is no reason to feel guilty about it.

8 Spice ups
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Advertising is an interesting bit of nastiness. For most B2B services, most types of advertising are a total waste of money. You’re generally far better off on word of mouth - which you’ll get organically as you engage in the business community.

If you’re offering service to home users, you’ll need to be careful about where you put your advertising dollars. In my town, I got far more bang for the buck from a small ad in the local “shopper’s paper” than I ever did out of advertising in the larger newspapers or with crap like direct mailing. Think about it like this:

How to YOU like to be engaged? How much attention to you pay to the volumes of junk mail that come to your home or office? What makes you think that your flier will be given any more attention than what you give the fliers you receive?

5 Spice ups
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On the entire “church” as a client, of any size, I suggest that if you agree to do any business with any size church to make sure that you have everything clarified and approved as far as costs, and payments and when you expect these items to be covered. I did work for a group of churches in the state, (about 15) and had to take 12 of them to court to get payment for services rendered. Most of them where just small jobs, clean a virus, replace HDD stuff like that. several of the jobs where very involved and large and too.

Things that I ran into when dealing with churches:

They expected the services and or hardware to be donated to them

they wanted the actual labor to be donated to them

They expected software to be donated to them

i was expected to “heavily” discount all work

All of the entities i did work for received the same notice prior to work being performed, “payment in full for all services, hardware and labor and any other charges associated with the work being done, please ensure payment is ready upon completion of all work.”

Had a few churches act like spoiled kids that didnt get their way when i would not discount my prices because they are “a church”… Even caught a church actively going into local businesses telling the local owners they should not do business with me because i did not discount services for the church and clearly i did not support Gods work…

so just be careful when you do business with a church. and be aware that you may end up having to take them to small claims court. (i was awarded damages, as well as court costs from several of the churches in small claims court)

And just to clarify, I am not a “church hater” I have worked with several that have been absolute dreams to work with. they are just few and far between.

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i went the opposite direction. I had my own little MSP shop doing strictly B2B work and sold it to get a day job. best decision i ever made. I would never go back.

but, you probably wont’ listen to that first part.

the biggest piece of advice i can tell you is dont be the discount guy, youll attract crappy customers with no money who are no fun to work with. be the best, charge a premium for it, profit. I was 20 years old with 2 employees, charging $100/hr in a town of 15,000 people, had the largest business client base in my area and consistently beat out the one man shops run by people twice my age and half my price. and I wasn’t even that good.

second biggest piece of advice is never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, EVER

touch a home users computer or even engage them in conversation during business hours or in anything regarding your business. I feel great pity for the people who deal with home users, I wonder what convent of kittens they murdered in a past life to deserve such terrible punishment

10 Spice ups
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Avoid constant discounting. Set a fair price for your services and expect that price. If someone doesn’t want to pay it move on to the person who does. I only gave one type of discount when I did this work and that was immediate payment. If I have your money I can use it to pay off loans, accrue interest, invest, or whatever I need without waiting, so for that convenience I would discount 5%. I could then use the time I spent on collecting revenue on working with other clients.

If you give many discounts it will get out, you’ll alienate customers paying full price, and your rates will become meaningless.

4 Spice ups
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THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! I am transitioning over to this right now. This was very helpful

13 Spice ups
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Nick, keep it simple and move one step at a time:

  • never spend more than you take in

  • understand the difference between gross and net

  • you can have revenue with no profit, do not work for free

  • tax man does not believe in the term non-profit, neither should you

  • the secret to selling is separating people from their money, including yours

  • do not do business with technical people

  • do business with business people to build reputation and credibility

  • stay away from low hanging fruit and cannibalized services like: PC virus clean-up

  • most important, follow your dreams one customer at at time

5 Spice ups
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The SOW (statement of work) is your friend. Before starting any project have a clear definition of what you are doing and what you are not doing. Else you will get 100 ‘while you are at it can you just do…’

5 Spice ups