Steady Income - Working as a freelance computer technician has its peak times where you have many computers to fix in one day, and its low times where you don’t get anything to fix all day. The computer business is generally considered an unsteady stream of income because clients will usually only call you when something goes wrong. The Computer Business Kit has a Maintenance Contract that allows you to make your income more steady by doing maintenance tasks for your clients (typically monthly), such as updating virus software, windows updates, cleaning temp folders and removing dust. Its steady and usually easy work, the Computer Business Kit even helps you get them with its sales letter you can send out to local businesses.

To Chase up Non-Payers - I have had a few non-payers and if you haven’t yet, you probably will. You need to send them a Payment Overdue Letter but need to be careful how you word such a letter. It needs to be firm but polite and professional (with a little bit of guilt). The Computer Business Kit has such a letter which I have used many times successfully.

Get it On Paper - When a client brings you a computer to fix, you will need to write down their details such as their name and phone number. Most importantly you need to write down what exactly they want you to do. You may believe that you will be able to remember but after fixing a few computers and answering a some phone calls its really easy to forget. This is where a Work Order comes in. Work orders have a field for the clients name, phone number, drop off date, what the computer came with, an area where you can record the problem and the final solution.

Helps Prevent those “Uh-Oh” Moments - One of my worst fears as a computer technician is losing a clients data. I would never do something stupid such as damage their hard drive, but there is always the possibility that I may forget something while doing a format. Because of this I created a Back Up Checklist that I use while on the job to ask them what files and programs they want backed up. These include the My Documents folder, Email Settings, Address books, Favorites list, ISP information and any other programs they frequently use. I also get them to sign the declaration down the bottom saying that if they didn’t tell me about something they wanted backed up before I formatted the system, I accept no liability for its loss.

Test Your Marketing - I once ran a Google Adwords campaign for one of my clients where he paid 50 cents or so everytime someone clicked on his ads. About a month after setting it up he called me and told me it wasn’t working. I checked the statistics and his site had about received 2000 clicks over that month. I then asked him if he asks his clients where they heard about him. He said no and said he’ll give it a try. A week later he sends me an email saying that its working really well and he gets about 30% of his clients from it. You cant determine how effective your marketing is unless you track where your visitors come from. The Computer Business Kit has a Marketing Analysis form where you can quickly and easily record how your clients hear about you.

Prevent Waiting on the Phone To ISP’s - I frequently get called out to a clients houses to fix their network and they almost never remember their Wireless Modem/Router login username and password. To gain access to the device I have to do a factory reset and have to re-enter all their ISP information which they also don’t know. So then I have to call their ISP to find out their username, password and any other settings. This whole process can take anywhere from 15 minutes to 1 hour depending on the customer support of the ISP. The Computer Business Kit has a Wireless Settings and Troubleshooting form you can fill in the WEP/WPA key, SSID, Router Address, Username, Password and other important information to leave with them. On the form I also took the chance to include basic troubleshooting steps such as cycling the devices power which saves me a few “cycle-the-power-and-it’ll-work” phone calls a week.

Protect Yourself Before Things Go Wrong - Computers are complicated machines and as with anything complicated, things can always go wrong. This is especially true if the clients computer is in a precarious state to begin with. The Engagement Form included in the Computer Business Kit is a document that outlines that things can go wrong while you are working on the computer and data can be lost. It also mentions that a format is sometimes the best choice for bring a computer back from the dead, it even explains what a “format” is. On the bottom of the form it has a declaration you can get them to sign making sure they are aware of the potential loss of data or damage to hardware that may occur during a computer repair and that you rely on the information that the client provides you.

Avoid Headaches When Creating Websites for Clients - If there is ever a time when you really need a contract, this one is it. Websites are intangible items that you cannot touch or feel, as far as the client knows we press a magic button and web pages appear. What they don’t understand is that there is a lot of development work that goes into creating a website such as finding out what they want, designing, coding and working out any bugs. A design change that they request later down the track may take hours to finish. Limits on what can be changed at certain points needs to be written into a contract. Something else that occurs frequently in the web development world is when the client does not respond to your messages in a timely manner so you can continue with the work. Yet they expect you to keep the original deadline. This, and many other clauses protecting you are all written in the Web Development Contract included in the Computer Business Kit.