Home "business" advice required.

[alias_neo]

Hi all, I have joined this site looking hopefully for some helpful advice with a "dilemma" i have. It's probably a pretty basic question to you guys but as i myself am not a very business minded person I think I will try and put my questions together here so maybe someone can advise.

Basically, I am currently a student of Computer Science & Electronic Engineering, a massive electronics and computing enthusiast and am hoping to make some money out of my hobby and future profession.

Currently I am constantly repairing/building/advising/setting up or whatnot electronics and computers for various people, usually friends, family etc. It's taking up a lot of my time and without any sort of real gain (the rate of learning new things from this has steadily slowed of late) I feel myself getting fed up of doing all these things.

What I would like to do is offer a basic "IT services" sort of thing, give out my card to the people that ask for help etc, and set up some sort of payment for small scale computer repairs, setups, etc etc.

What I am worried about here is the business and legal etc. If I start building computers for people I don't know with parts bought from trade fairs, I can't really offer any sort of warranty on the overall construction lets call it the "labour" only what is offered to me on the individual parts, to me, by the people I buy them from.

If I offer a service such as data recovery after accidental deletion etc, what are the legal implications? Privacy and such? Evidence that the media and it's data actually belongs to the person wanting the recovery, and so on and so forth.

I'm not really sure where to begin with this and would very much appreciate any advice and will happily provide more detail if anyone an enter a discussion or advise.

Thank you

 

[TotallySport]

Don't know if it's of any help (and welcome to the forum), but I know there is thread somewhere on the forum with links to wholesalers of computer equipment, you might find if you search.

there is a local computer shop near me and they charge £60 (i think maybe £70) to look and fix a computer and then add parts ontop and they are very busy all the time you can upgrade the £60 to £90 and have the computer covered for a year, no idea of how many people do this, but I never do.

Good Luck

 

[alias_neo]

Don't know if it's of any help (and welcome to the forum), but I know there is thread somewhere on the forum with links to wholesalers of computer equipment, you might find if you search.

there is a local computer shop near me and they charge £60 (i think maybe £70) to look and fix a computer and then add parts on top and they are very busy all the time you can upgrade the £60 to £90 and have the computer covered for a year, no idea of how many people do this, but I never do.

Good Luck

Thank you, I mean, obtaining parts isn't really a problem. But again, I wouldn't be buying wholesale because I'll be doing it pretty small scale, I don't want to end up with 10 of everything when parts are so specialised these days and people want different things. Of course I would want to undercut the big players like PC World etc on labour prices at the very least. A lot of the time problems are sortware related etc, people will sometimes just require are fresh installation of windows and all their data backed up. I suppose I could charge extra if they need me to go through and backup all their data for them (people keep their family photos and favourite music in some strangely obscure locations.) or include it in the normal flat fee if it's just a straight reinstall.

The antivirus program I normally recommend is free, do I switch to a paid one to make some money (a couple of pound per machine.) or stick with my free one as a "gratuit" with the service.

Strangely instead of finding myself runningo ut of questions as I get older, I seem to be finding more every day.

 

[sellickbhoy]

well, why not do the following

offer a basic charge to diagnose and labour for repairs and then add a charge for parts and software (at cost + markup)

so yo ucould give them a refurb component for £5 or a brand new (and warrantied one) for £10, or recommend a free antivirus for - well, free - or a more advanced one for £x

that way you get paid for your time, and they make the decision on having a warranty, the spec of the new kit etc

you wouldn't even have to buy stock, you could just find a cheap retailer/ebay/wherever and take their price and add a 50% markup to costs

 

[alias_neo]

That idea seems fairly logical, and sound. Thanks,

I wonder if anyone can offer any reasons why this wouldn't work? Or offer any suggestions of missing things/problems?

Thanks again for the help.

P.S. How does
"MY NAME HERE"
IT Services

sound for the business card. I'm a fan of minimal (of course my email and phone number will be at the bottom.)

 

[Jeff FV]

Just a couple of thoughts (I'm no expert in your field):

1) Regarding warranty of parts, presumably (if buying from a reputable source) you should get some sort of warranty/gaurantee on the parts you buy, which you can effectively pass on to your customers. e,.g if you install, say, some extra RAM on my computer and it fails, I would expect you to replace it. You could expect your supplier to then replace it for you. If the components you are using are regularly failing, then change your supplier. I think you would have to take the hit on your labour - as the client, I wouldn't expect to pay again for you to replace a faulty part you supplied.

2) If you could offer some sort of warranty - i.e. 1 year no quibble gaurantee, for example, I think it would be good for your business. Undercutting PC world (for example) may not be the key to your business success - offering a reliable, prompt, polite service (perhaps with collection and/or hours to suit me - if my home PC fails, it'd be great if you could come round in the evening/weekend to save me taking time off work to get it fixed) with someone knowledgable and in whom I can build trust is probably worth me paying a few extra pounds for.

3) Contact 'Business Link' - they run some great, free courses for start ups. They take all through all the legal ins and outs, tax returns etc.

4) Good luck!

Jeff

 

[MH1]

Undercutting PC world (for example) may not be the key to your business success - offering a reliable, prompt, polite service (perhaps with collection and/or hours to suit me - if my home PC fails, it'd be great if you could come round in the evening/weekend to save me taking time off work to get it fixed) with someone knowledgable and in whom I can build trust is probably worth me paying a few extra pounds for.

I bought a laptop from PC World and they made a great selling point of the instore technicians, only time I rang them to help resolve an issue they quoted three weeks to even look at the laptop.

Lost me as a client for life on the spot. You don't need to undercut someone if you offer a superior service, just taking a computer to be fixed is a real hassle to most people, a guy I know literally shuts his shop and does expensive call out work all the time at the drop of a hat.

He's done it this way for years and his clients don't seem to mind if the shop is closed, they understand he is out on an emergency, but he is about the only reliable technician in the area, believe me I've looked long and hard.

Set your own rate.

 

[Beachcomber]

There certainly is a healthy market for your services. In these lean times many people will look at upgrading their current machines rather than replacing them.

As well as repairs / upgrades you would approach local small businesses and offer your services - many small businesses do not have a dedicated IT guy and suffer all the same IT problems as the rest of us so a service aimed at quickly resolving issues / minimising lost business / working time could be a winner. You could offer a contract or price per job service.

As for the business card, I wouldn't just stick with 'IT services' as to the wider public this means something other than PC repairs. Go for an ad's in your local papers, cards in shop windows - both still effective at getting work in and often overlooked. You could also produce a flyer and distribute it in your area.

Regarding any warranty issues - you will need to offer some kind of warranty on any work / components or you will struggle to gain the trust of new customers. Even if it's as mentioned above, a 3 month standard warranty with the option to upgrade.

Lastly, I'd say keep records from day one - costs / income / stock etc, keep your books in order from day one and you will save yourself a huge amount of time later.

Good luck.

 

[Will-man Rodders]

Can you build into your plan some strategy to create an on-going relationship? e.g. Once you have helped a client offer them preferential treatment or a price discount for future services IF they pay you a small retainer fee.

I do this, and whilst the income is not massive it does mean that I can ligitimately contact my clients when the 'retainer fee' is received, to catch up on their circumstances and review the relationship.

New business will often come from your existing clients - who feel looked after.

 

[obscure]

Have you done any research into local competition. There are loads of IT guys in my area. Before going ahead go through the papers and the ads in local shops and see what sort of competition there is and how much they charge.

 

[Steve202]

First off good luck with it all.

One thing I would like to mention about anti virus is let the customer decide what they want; do they want a free version or would they like to pay a little extra for some more features?

I always explain to them the pros and cons of the free version vs paid version and I find that most times people are willing to pay a little extra. Check out some of the AV companies and you will find that most have a reseller program.

 

[jasonok]

i am computer businessman in china ,i also got your problem