Closing shop to go mobile

[PCX]

Stick it out if you can. The first 3 to 5 years of running a business if often times the hardest. As many have suggested, you need to start making some goals to grow your business and cut out expenses, without getting rid of the shop. There are so many things that you cannot legitimately do on site like a full diagnostics. It just really is not worth it. Also, like mentioned before, most people like walking into a store front location rather than have someone come into their home. A shop location shows creditability and competence, even if you really don't qualify in either. Appearance is everything.

Cut out advertising that does not work. Keep paying for advertising that does work (do not stop if at all possible). mhelpdesk.com is a great repair tracker that will help you to figure out where all your business is coming from.

Go door to door if you have to, get out flyers, do some research and find what works in your area. Consider your demographics.

Cut out unnecessary bills and expenses.

Open up a share certificate at your local bank and start saving. You wont be able to take money out without penalty but you will be able to put as much money in as often as you like. Once you have saved up a few thousand and a need arises, you can then take a loan out against your own money instead of paying someone else. This will allow you to in most cases continue to make money off the interest you earn while replenishing your savings each month.

There are so many things you can do . . . You really just need to sit down and make a game plan. If you do not regularly make short and long term goals and reach for them, you will ultimately fail.

Good Luck

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Shop for your office location wisely.
Retail/store front space is very expensive...I have no desire to look for retail store front footage.
Shared "professional center/industrial park space is quite affordable.

We recently relocated our office to one of those big "Self storage solutions" locations. They have a big 2 story office building in the middle...rent out much of the first floor, and the entire second floor...of office suites.

The girl that manages the storage place..her office is downstairs, she's there all the time...she can receive the UPS/Fed ex delivers for us. Mail. If people drop off things and we're out onsite...she'll take it for us.

We get electricity included...which is key for us (lots of computers running all the time, plus our server cabinet filled with servers)

Signage...we're having signs made and she is allowing us to hang ours underneath their main sign, like a rider. So traffic will see our sign. Plus outside our building.

It's located between 3x major highway intersections...which is a great location for us...being in and out all the time going to customer onsites.

We get a storage unit thrown in with the deal...great for our overflow of "junk".

 

[PCX]

As far as what YeOlde is saying, it really depends on your location. In my town, you really need to have a store front, office parks are just not exposed enough around here. We actually started out in an office park after we moved our business from our home. It worked out great as a starter location, but we quickly grew out of it and since we have moved into the new location (store front in front of a major highway) we have seen way more traffic from the location alone.

 

[SprinterTech-WI]

Location, Location, Location -- my newest store is in one of the best spots in town, kittycorner Wallgreens at a stoplight - 25' of all windows on the front a huge 6' x 10' double sided sign by the road, and a 10' x 25' area above the glass for signage, on the back side is another major road across that road is a mobile home park and kittycorner us on the back side is a junior high school so hundreds of parents drive by our store twice a day..... add to that plenty of parking, aggressive advertising and we quadrupled our store profits within 30 days of moving in..... it's getting busy enough we just hired another tech for onsite as well so I can spend more time at the store.

Like I said earlier -- all personal preference....
Although "expensive" some spots can be had for a great price, we're only paying $1,200/month for this 2,000sqft location so it's not bad -- gotta find a leaser for our old store though... $500/month for 1,000sqft of storage is kinda pricey!
Of course add in the utilities and other expenses and we need almost $10,000/month to cover expenses.... not bad for a small business!

 

[PCX]

$10,000/month to cover expenses.... not bad for a small business!

Geeze! What the heck are you spending all your money on?

 

[TenYardFight]

Geeze! What the heck are you spending all your money on?

Labor! Labor! Labor!









Filler

 

[PCX]

How many techs do you have?

 

[SprinterTech-WI]

Geeze! What the heck are you spending all your money on?

Quick breakdown:
$1,700/month rent on 2 locations
$600/month utilities
$400/month cell phone/internet/landline
$4,500/month salary to 3 techs (1 30ish hrs/wk, 2 >20hrs/wk)
$2,000/month average fuel costs (Changes with volume)
$800/month in loan payments on average (just a couple of equipment loans)
About $400/month in advertising
Plus another $500 or so that I pull to cover my personals

Of course that is set expenses..... I think for the last 9 months I usually spend about $18,000 - $25,000 month between expenses and cost of inventory.
However Jan was super slow... so my expenses did go down some due to less hrs for employees, but I spent nearly $15,000 on renovations and moving to this new store (including initial outlay in rent).

You gotta spend it to make it!
Feb is looking good -- we have almost $10,000 worth of work on a few main rollouts - mostly all labor and some data cabling and misc parts and pieces... all high margin items

But we buy/sell alot... sell about $5,000/month in used cell phones alone, granted it costs us about $3,000/month in buying cell phones but we make a profit
Plus a bunch of asset disposal -- if anyone needs a complete 911 center system let me know.... got one coming in in about a week

 

[SprinterTech-WI]

Labor! Labor! Labor!









Filler

Yep! In Oct. we were super swamped so I put out almost $12,000 in 1099 payments.... it was nuts!

 

[PCX]

Im just amazed because we gross around the same amount and our expenses maybe come to $4000-$5000 a month.

 

[SprinterTech-WI]

How many techs do you have?

myself, and 3 others - one works about 30hrs a week (also graphic designer - web guy)
2 others that are only part time.

I just work a LOT of hours (Single - fairly young - motivated)
I have a bunch of systems that are on the bench now that I'll be working on for a few more hours tonight, and since I am here I left the store lights on and the open sign lit..... sold $400 worth in the last hour that normally I would have been closed for so some nights it's worth it!!!

 

[SprinterTech-WI]

Im just amazed because we gross around the same amount and our expenses maybe come to $4000-$5000 a month.

yea - expenses are quite high.... I don't make a huge personal profit every month, but my goal isn't to put a ton in the bank - my goal is to build the company up well enough to where I can work on other things and let my employees run this company -- so I dump a LOT of money into things that the normal guy might not.
Gross varies our best month in the last year was near $30,000 worst month was about 9,000..... with tax time it's picking up again.

 

[PCX]

myself, and 3 others - one works about 20hrs a week (also graphic designer - web guy)
2 others that are only part time.

I just work a LOT of hours (Single - fairly young - motivated)
I have a bunch of systems that are on the bench now that I'll be working on for a few more hours tonight, and since I am here I left the store lights on and the open sign lit..... sold $400 worth in the last hour that normally I would have been closed for so some nights it's worth it!!!

Same here. I put in a lot of hours (im sometimes here till 12am or later) but we close at 6, however, If I'm here, the lights and open sign stays on.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

As far as what YeOlde is saying, it really depends on your location. In my town, you really need to have a store front, office parks are just not exposed enough around here.

And your primary target...for clients.
We focus on probably over 90% business clients....so "retail store front" type of location is not needed. We rent 3x suites....pay just under 900/mo, includes electricity, heat/ac, use of a little cafeteria, use of a storage garage, etc.

 

[pc-quebec]

We focus on probably over 90% business clients....so "retail store front" type of location is not needed. .

Same here, 95% of my customers never come to my shop. Peoples don't even know where I am when they call, I transfer my call on my cel when I'm out. Here in Canada , with the phone company ( Bell Canada) you can have virtual phone #, I have my office # and 2 virtuals , 1 in each important city around here, so when someone call me he think my office is in his town. Those virtual phone # cost $ 15.99 a month, I setup on internet where I want those phone transfer the call.