They easily refer me to their relatives…

I have one client who doesn’t even look at the bill. He just thanks me for showing up quickly, fixing the problem and briefing him.

It seems that there are a lot of new “Techies” out there in my area also but my business has increased during the last year. These new techs drive total beaters that they then put decals on to advertise their business, they do dumb stuff like call there business Komputer Klinic, and generally don’t know one end of a parallel port printer connection from another. Every now and again I call one of them to see how they sound. I am rarely impressed and spend no time worrying about it. I figure worrying about competing with them is like worrying about competing with WALMART. Nothing beats knowledge, reliability, honesty and a history of solid support. Most of my clients had one of these “techs” before they called me.

I think that many of us who call ourselves techs are actually more on the consulting side. We research solutions, we recommend alternatives and we listen to our clients needs and find a way to serve them. We know there is more than one way to skin a cat and that a solution that works for one client may not work for another. That is worth more.

I constantly struggle with this one and suspect that I should be charging more. I am already more expensive than most techs in my area. I am not sure what the solution is but charging less is not it. Time to head to the forums and see what everyone has to say.

The reality of the matter is that as an independant tech you have a bit more flexibility on pricing than when you have employees.

From a business standpoint I recomend having a very predictable pricing structure for your clients and customers and reserve productivity figures such as rev/hr as a performance measurment.

We do this with flat rate pricing which is quoted to the client after an assessment is performed. I then measure my employees productivity based on the amount of revenue paid divided by time (Rev/hr)

This gives me a very real way to determine how profitable we are and does not impact our customers should a tech be less experienced or should they run into a more difficult problem than expected.

Interestingly this is the best way to compete against the budget tech with low rates. There are just so many ways you can position your marketing against the budget tech.

I stongly caution against frequent price changes. Once a price is set with a client then you have a precident with them and a future increase will not be taken well.

By publishing hourly rates you open the door for the budget tech to undercut and the services performed becomes less important than the time taken.

Thanks
Phil Jones
CEO
Site Tech

We are busy enough in our shop that we don’t have to worry about temptation of stretching out our work to increase billable hours. There’s almost always another computer waiting to be worked on.

As for the economy, Australia hasnt been hit anywhere near as hard as parts of the US. Many of my American techie friends are also as busy as ever. I guess it comes down to where you are.

If you are in a place that has been hit hard, then its obviously not a great idea to raise your prices at this point.

I have to agree with Mathew, I think that by setting a flate rate pricing structure, you allow yourself the liberty of (1) being upfront with your pricing,(2) allowing yourself to make more money as you gain more experience, and (3) motivating yourself to practice and hone your skill instead of being slothful.

There is a tendency to be a little lazier when you charge by the hour because you know in the back of your mind that the longer it takes, the more money you’ll make. You eliminate that temptation by changing to a flat-rate pricing structure.

Sounds like a good argument for flat rate pricing for routine things like virus removal.

Most customers prefer a flat rate and it eliminates the “moral risk” of inappropriately stretching out an hourly job for personal gain.

Sure you’ll occasionally get a nasty virus that takes longer than the norm. But overall you’d be ahead and the customer (from their perspective) always pays the same amount for a given service.

They don’t know (or care) that you’ve given yourself a raise by getting better & quicker at what you do.