start expanding to national remote

[pcpete]

In our town, we have managed to stay steady with our repair business, although the pie is much smaller, we have a much larger portion of it. Our competition is not doing so well. I do worry that we do need to expand in other ways to keep our numbers good and better yet keep growing.

We currently are a brick and mortar shop targeting break-fix clients, with some small business support. We have about $2200/month in recurring Managed AV protection clients at the rate of 199/year/client, charged monthly. Besides getting a larger piece of the overall market, the extra $25,000/year in Managed AV has been huge to our bottom line and keeping us profitable.

Since we have the infrastructure already in place, we want to expand into national remote work. We would consider an extra $1000/month in profit a huge win. Our plan is to make this a separate company with a new name. We will be targeting cleanups and basic remote support. Then to make it work, we will be heavily pushing our higher margin Managed AV product. We will be getting most of our leads using adwords which may be very expensive, but if we can break even or make a little money on the initial customer, but then sell the managed card to them, it will hopefully be worth it. At least that is the plan.

We understand how google reviews work for local businesses, but am not sure how that works with non local companies. How do you national remote guys handle reviews, getting and displaying?

We are still contemplating about how to offer the service. For cleanups we will probably offer a lower price basic cleanup, then after they agree we will up-sell a tuneup for a bit more. We are considering offering free estimates, but am not so sure about that. It is exciting non the less coming up with a strategy .

We are just brain storming and would love to hear input and get any tips or tricks to making this idea work. What has been a failure and what has worked well for you?

Thanks for taking the time to read this!

 

[Porthos]

I think the tech support scammers have ruined that market for the most part as consumers can't tell the difference between the scams and legit business offering a valued service.

 

[Krynn72]

I think the tech support scammers have ruined that market for the most part as consumers can't tell the difference between the scams and legit business offering a valued service.

I think that can be overcome with proper marketing. Remote scammers are faceless drones, with no location tied to them and no easily findable information about them.

If you make your website, and advertisements about your location, who your potential customers will be dealing with, etc, then you can mitigate most of that.

EX:
"We've been helping our customers in Townsville USA since 2002, and now we're here to help people across the country! Call now and speak to one of our technicians working right out of our Townsville office!
Stop dealing with foreign "tech support" and get support from a long standing American team of technicians who care about getting you sorted out!"

The only problem is that you need to use the same name obviously. You could probably do a new company with a different name, but "Doing Business As" your current company name.

 

[ComputerRepairTech]

Since we have the infrastructure already in place, we want to expand into national remote work. We would consider an extra $1000/month in profit a huge win. Our plan is to make this a separate company with a new name. We will be targeting cleanups and basic remote support. Then to make it work, we will be heavily pushing our higher margin Managed AV product. We will be getting most of our leads using adwords which may be very expensive, but if we can break even or make a little money on the initial customer, but then sell the managed card to them, it will hopefully be worth it. At least that is the plan.

Forget the separate company, don't put a lot of work into this endeavor just give it a shot and see how things go.

 

[16bwhitt]

Do you have a BBB page for your company? Having a page and getting an "A+" rating can really boost the confidence in people when they deal with your business.

 

[Porthos]

an really boost the confidence in people when they deal with your business.

And boost the calls to become a paid member of the BBB, Lol

 

[16bwhitt]

And boost the calls to become a paid member of the BBB, Lol

Completely lol. BBB is a terrible indicator of business trustworthiness IMO, but consumers value it a great deal.

 

[callthatgirl]

Here's my 2 cents. I am national now and it took a long time to get here. To get ranked high in Google for your search words will be definitely something that will take a long time, especially if you go the organic route. Then if you do the ads, they will be super expensive because you are competing with the big boy companies who have the marketing budget.

Here are some ideas...try connecting with some other tech partners in your state in other cities first. Tech partners can be website designers, MSP, consultants, etc...those that have connections to clients but don't do your work. Working in your state will be a good started. Set up a good affiliate or referral partner plan.

 

[ComputerRepairTech]

Here's my 2 cents. I am national now and it took a long time to get here. To get ranked high in Google for your search words will be definitely something that will take a long time, especially if you go the organic route.

Did you rank high in national results? I hadn't noticed but depends on what keywords you decided to go with but I havent been working on it or paying attention to it for a few years now. I do recall your site being one of the more higher pagerank sites so I certainly don't doubt that if you worked hard on a certain phrase that you eventually got up there.

I never recovered from the smackdown google gave me and right after the penalty ended (and what I personally consider a special f*** you from google) they made it so "computer repair tech" can bring up local results. Its not too big of a deal as google never brought me much business, I guess now that I think about it I imagine you probably went with something along the lines of outlook or exchange support or something on the national level.

Here are some ideas...try connecting with some other tech partners in your state in other cities first. Tech partners can be website designers, MSP, consultants, etc...those that have connections to clients but don't do your work. Working in your state will be a good started. Set up a good affiliate or referral partner plan.

This is really good advice

 

[callthatgirl]

Back in my old days, I ranked high in Minneapolis but I worked it everyday almost to get from page 10 to page 1. Took quite awhile in fact. Those keywords were "computer repair, laptop repair, etc" When I started to see my Outlook calls coming in outside of Minnesota (usually Outlook error blogs), I decided to move to SEO for Outlook. Then I added on Office 365. I think I posted this in another thread, but the last Google algo change actually helped me, almost too much (knock on wood!), I was not ranked one time, but now up to five times in some searches. I look like a maniac, but happy I'm doing good.

And yes, I have about 100 keywords I rank very good for. Outlook, Exchange, Office 365, and it includes all products of each and specialties. Just when I think I got enough, I find new blogs to make. And I'm doing YouTube now too so that's a double bang for your buck there!

Example: Today I created a video for "Microsoft Bookings Review" and it ranked high in YouTube and because they are married, now in Google I'm on page 1 as well.

 

[Pixelated Tech]

Here's my 2 cents. I am national now and it took a long time to get here. To get ranked high in Google for your search words will be definitely something that will take a long time, especially if you go the organic route. Then if you do the ads, they will be super expensive because you are competing with the big boy companies who have the marketing budget.

Here are some ideas...try connecting with some other tech partners in your state in other cities first. Tech partners can be website designers, MSP, consultants, etc...those that have connections to clients but don't do your work. Working in your state will be a good started. Set up a good affiliate or referral partner plan.

^This. I have done it and continue to do it. Its profitable for me and my business partner. This endeavor has been so positive, I am now planning to fly across the country for a joint project.

 

[callthatgirl]

Nice!

Now I can say that I have "tried" to partner with website designers, but they really don't dig the referral thing. Btw...most of those website guys I have talked to have messed up an Exchange migration to the MAX and I get the call to help, from them. So I say "How about you do the web an I do the email, let's partner up" and they are like "sounds great!" no calls again. And yes, I have tried to keep them in the loop. I gave up. but it still is a good idea lol.

I do have a lot of tech partners, computer techs, MSP techs, etc. that send me referrals or ask me to help with their migrations if they are too big or they don't want to.

 

[carrcomp]

Just remember, the biggest difference between the scammers and your company is that you are real. Your name, number and information will be persistent.

It'll take time, but word of mouth and traditional marketing would eventually put you in a place where the calls will be coming in, and you won't need to worry about most of the calls asking if you're legit.

 

[pcpete]

We have considered both using our established local company's name to give us credibility or starting with a fresh company all together. There are pros and cons. The pros are instant credibility, which is a big one. We may get better search results nationally since we get good ones locally. Another pro is we can just add a single page to our current site which would save some time and money.

We see some cons also. We want the company to be autonomous and stand on its own two feet. Lets say it is successful in the future, We may want to sell it. We think it would sell better if it way not tied to a local company. Or for that matter, we may want to sell the local company, but keep the national.

Thanks for all of the input everyone.

@ComputerRepairTech your business is most interesting to me. You are doing exactly what we want to do. If you ever wanted to share your numbers, I would be curious. Also, does the free estimate work well for you? It works great with our local customers and I think it is something we will offer or at least test.

 

[GTP]

A couple of interesting sites if anyone is interested May be helpful.

 

[ComputerRepairTech]

We have considered both using our established local company's name to give us credibility or starting with a fresh company all together. There are pros and cons. The pros are instant credibility, which is a big one. We may get better search results nationally since we get good ones locally. Another pro is we can just add a single page to our current site which would save some time and money.

We see some cons also. We want the company to be autonomous and stand on its own two feet. Lets say it is successful in the future, We may want to sell it. We think it would sell better if it way not tied to a local company. Or for that matter, we may want to sell the local company, but keep the national.

Thanks for all of the input everyone.

@ComputerRepairTech your business is most interesting to me. You are doing exactly what we want to do. If you ever wanted to share your numbers, I would be curious. Also, does the free estimate work well for you? It works great with our local customers and I think it is something we will offer or at least test.

Use the local company name, you are going to need that credibility. You are trying to enter a business that has a failure rate far greater than a local computer repair business which is already kind of bad. National SEO is no joke the person you should really be looking at is lisa (callthatgirl) as my business is struggling. With the loss of all quality rootkits out there there is not a whole lot of demand for my services just a microsoft office issue here and there. As far as the free estimate goes, I don't see how i'd be able to charge for a diagnosis with online repair. Oh sure i'll take a look at that for a charge of 40 dollars, oh sorry thats a hardware issue I can't help you but thank you for your patronage? Its already hard enough gaining peoples trust thats why i got the cute logo, floating reviews, and the 100% trusted thing at the top right (I threw that together in photoshop its not a provided logo by webutation or anything).

Oh and don't try to nationally rank up for any keyword/phrases that brings up local results as that is the most pointless endeavor a person can do.

 

[pcpete]

@ComputerRepairTech do you use adwords, if so have you figured out how much a new client costs you?

 

[ComputerRepairTech]

@ComputerRepairTech do you use adwords, if so have you figured out how much a new client costs you?

I have not used adwords in a very long time, last I tried adwords I could not specify desktop only and so the ads would show up on mobile results as well which proved to be a waste of money since most mobile users wanted something I couldnt help them with. I suppose if I wanted to try again I would target more specific terms like lisa does but I lack motivation.

 

[pcpete]

I have not used adwords in a very long time, last I tried adwords I could not specify desktop only and so the ads would show up on mobile results as well which proved to be a waste of money since most mobile users wanted something I couldnt help them with. I suppose if I wanted to try again I would target more specific terms like lisa does but I lack motivation.

Hmm. I would think a lot of computer users who need help may search on the phone. Even if you do something vague like "computer repair", that will only come up on the phone search if they are looking for "computer repair". I don't see that as a problem at all. I agree experimenting with different terms may be a good idea

 

[ComputerRepairTech]

Hmm. I would think a lot of computer users who need help may search on the phone. Even if you do something vague like "computer repair", that will only come up on the phone search if they are looking for "computer repair". I don't see that as a problem at all. I agree experimenting with different terms may be a good idea

The problem is if they were looking for online computer repair chances are they wouldn't be using the phone to do it. Majority of the people that came in using a mobile device had issues preventing them from being able to be assisted through online computer repair. You see the title on my page Remote Computer Repair - Online PC Repair and the slider that states the obvious "We do NOT fix broken screens or any other hardware issues" do you know how many people still ask if I can fix their broken screen?

Perhaps you'll have better luck, give it a try and let us know how it goes.