My New advert: what do you think ?

[Checkmate]

as a kind of a gurantee, do you guys offer gurantees of your work ?

Andy, glad to see you are moving up the prices. Do not act nervous when you quote it or the client will notice that and say "Oh dear, that's just too expensive. I thought you would be less."

As for a guarantee, honestly depends on the client and the work performed. Hardware install, software install, sometimes even a restore of OS, yes. Virus removal, no way.

 

[The Birddog]

Andy, dont start so low. Charge £40 per hour and will gain more respect and have to work less.

You CANNOT survive on even £25 per hour, it's ridiculous and giving the industry a bad name.

 

[Andyuk2007]

Andy, dont start so low. Charge £40 per hour and will gain more respect and have to work less.

You CANNOT survive on even £25 per hour, it's ridiculous and giving the industry a bad name.

yeah but if i charge too much then people will go elsewhere wont they.

 

[Simmy]

No they won't because people expect to pay that kind of money for a computer technician. Just like they expect to pay £50/hour to an electrician or a plumber. And the prices are that high not because our industries are a rip off, but because that's how much we need to charge to make a decent living.

Lets assume you want to make £15,000 a year profit based on your old £15/hour rate Andy. That is £19,120 you need to bring in before tax and national insurance. Plus your business expenses (car running costs/advertising/insurance/office supplies) means your gross income needs to be around £25,000 (based on my last years business expenses). At £15 an hour you would have to work 7 hours per day to make that kind of money!!! Bearing in mind in that £15,000 you now have sat in your account, you have to pay the rent, gas, electricity, council tax, telephone/tv/internet bills...Even if you were to somehow get 8-10 hours a day, that's still not enough of a salary to get you a good mortgage. It's just not feasible to do 7 hours a day as you would then be spending many hours travelling between jobs and then doing the admin side of things when you get home aswell as contacting people who left messages during the day. My heart is twinging just thinking about all that work

You need to do some calculations and see for yourself just how much you will make at different hourly rates. I understand you may not have rent/mortgage/bills to pay atm, but you will one day.

 

[NWPhotog]

Andy, dont start so low. Charge £40 per hour and will gain more respect and have to work less.

You CANNOT survive on even £25 per hour, it's ridiculous and giving the industry a bad name.

Yep. You have to charge a respectable fee to be considered a pro. Otherwise you are just another amateur in your customer's minds.

 

[Andyuk2007]

No they won't because people expect to pay that kind of money for a computer technician. Just like they expect to pay £50/hour to an electrician or a plumber. And the prices are that high not because our industries are a rip off, but because that's how much we need to charge to make a decent living.

Lets assume you want to make £15,000 a year profit based on your old £15/hour rate Andy. That is £19,120 you need to bring in before tax and national insurance. Plus your business expenses (car running costs/advertising/insurance/office supplies) means your gross income needs to be around £25,000 (based on my last years business expenses). At £15 an hour you would have to work 7 hours per day to make that kind of money!!! Bearing in mind in that £15,000 you now have sat in your account, you have to pay the rent, gas, electricity, council tax, telephone/tv/internet bills...Even if you were to somehow get 8-10 hours a day, that's still not enough of a salary to get you a good mortgage. It's just not feasible to do 7 hours a day as you would then be spending many hours travelling between jobs and then doing the admin side of things when you get home aswell as contacting people who left messages during the day. My heart is twinging just thinking about all that work

You need to do some calculations and see for yourself just how much you will make at different hourly rates. I understand you may not have rent/mortgage/bills to pay atm, but you will one day.

I do agree with everything you say, one day i will have a mortgage and many bills to pay, i suppose my problem is that i'm just too nice to people and that reflects in my prices the older dears aged 50 to 60 love me I've only just increased my prices to £25 an hour to increase them again so soon would piss my current returning customers off too much couldn't i introduce it slowly like £30 an hour next april as that might be a less of a shock. I'm worried that if i increase prices too much then the friendships i have made with my customers will suffer

 

[ReArtemis]

I think you can undervalue yourself and people will wonder why you are cheap. I think it reassures customers when they pay say £35 for somebody to actually call out to their home and do a decent job.

I don't generally go to customers homes as i have a shop but i do call out to set up wireless routers etc. For that i charge £35 but while i am there i give an honest opinion and advice on the state of their machine, most of the rectifying other minor issues whilst there! Sometimes i am only there less than twenty minutes but i leave them safe in the knowledge that i am available for any questions / queries in the future.

Profit is not a swear word and as long as you know you do a good job and not rip people off then you will earn their loyalty. (and keep them away from the cowboys).

 

[The Birddog]

Andy, Friendships are one thing, but so you know, people are in business to make money, and You have to put friendships aside from business.

Well said.

 

[The Birddog]

yeah but if i charge too much then people will go elsewhere wont they.

No, people want to pay for a good service. If you charge too low you will get cheapskates who actually want to pay even less!

 

[bagellad]

Andy how was the response to your flyer?

 

[Alana]

It is a nice ad clear concise and to the point should work well.

 

[Andyuk2007]

Andy how was the response to your flyer?

The response I've had to the new Advert has been hmm ok so far I was busy on friday but mondays are always kinda dead, everywhere in my local area has the updated Advert now. i had thought about putting in the Local colour advertising booklet called "The local" just to see how it does but the cost of advertising in there is kinda high its £50 a month however i can do a 1 off but i'll see.