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I would like some advice on how some of you run your business. i plan to target small businesses with anywhere from 5 to 50 workstations that don’t have in house IT SUPPORT .i pretty much would like to know what are the best ways to charge for services and what type of contracts i should use for those that want ongoing support. also how a IT consulting team should consist of any advice the spiceworks community can provide to get me on my way would be greatly appreciated

3 Spice ups
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These are some of the biggest questions most people have when starting their own business. The easiest way to figure out how much to charge is to look at how other consulting firms and businesses charge for their services. Look and see how much local Geek Squad types charge for specific services. This will give you a rough idea of how much you can charge for your services. You’ll then have to decide if you want to break it down like Geek Squads do or if you want to lump it all together into one hourly fee. As for creating contracts for continued services, you’ll want to ensure that you won’t be spending all of your time with one client because that will limit your growth. By clearly stating how many hours you can provide, what services, what your expectations are, and what can negate the contract will help ensure that both parties know what is expected and possible. It’s always a good idea to have a legal expert look over a contract before anyone signs it to ensure that everything is covered. Good luck!

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My first suggestion is to go and work in an IT Consultancy for a couple of years. That will give you the skills to answer some of these, and other, questions.

You certainly have options with respect to charging for services. You could do a charge per hour of your time, or via a retainer. Or possibly a flat monthly charge per covered user/workstation. You need to know a) how much you need to survive and b) what kind of workload the client will generate.

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Efolder.net has a Webinar series discussing MSP challenges.

Our company has a simple helpdesk pricing guideline for small business accounts similar to BestBuy: https://loopadvisors.com/helpdesk-pricing/

The best advice is to work for a consulting firm to gain real world experience. Best of luck to your new endeavor.

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Your HelpDesk page is down.