Well I have had enough (vent)

BillMoney

BillMoney

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I have decided that I am going to start actively advertising on craigslist for my computer repair services. I work in retail computer repair as many of you guys know. As of late I have grown extremely frustrated w/ the lack of respect for me as not only a technician but as an employee. I barely being paid enough for a floor guy let alone running a tech bench. My sales manager tells me it is my bench to run but overules any decisions I want to do or gives free work away just because they wouldn't have gotten the warranty. It is now assumed that I will do the work of the floor supervisor since he quit as well as being held responsible if we cannot hit warranty & tech bench sales goals. I have been searching for months w/ no real luck on a new job.

I have done side work before but it has all been family, friends, or referral. I plan to start small & see how I do. If I do well enough w/ it I may quit my full time job & find a part time job for a few hours a week and focus on this & go legitimate.

Just before anyone says I may be breaching my contract for working at the retail company. I previously worked for them & was a rehire. They did not make me sign any paperwork to be rehired and the last time I had worked for them is over 5 years ago.

Wish Me Luck Guys.
 
You can do it. I started by myself after I was laid off and I couldn't find a job locally that was worth anything. This was back in the middle of 2008 when tons of people in the area were layed off. It takes a good year or 2 to get a somewhat steady client base/calls coming in. The best advice I can give is to get good at being confident over the phone and go the extra mile and do a good job. Also don't start out too cheap. I started out too cheap for about the first 6 months and then quickly realized it and doubled my prices. Luckily, I hadn't built up too many clients yet at that time. I then found this web site and it's been very helpful in many ways. :)
 
BillMoney said:
I have decided that I am going to start actively advertising on craigslist for my computer repair services. I work in retail computer repair as many of you guys know. As of late I have grown extremely frustrated w/ the lack of respect for me as not only a technician but as an employee. I barely being paid enough for a floor guy let alone running a tech bench. My sales manager tells me it is my bench to run but overules any decisions I want to do or gives free work away just because they wouldn't have gotten the warranty. It is now assumed that I will do the work of the floor supervisor since he quit as well as being held responsible if we cannot hit warranty & tech bench sales goals. I have been searching for months w/ no real luck on a new job.

I have done side work before but it has all been family, friends, or referral. I plan to start small & see how I do. If I do well enough w/ it I may quit my full time job & find a part time job for a few hours a week and focus on this & go legitimate.

Just before anyone says I may be breaching my contract for working at the retail company. I previously worked for them & was a rehire. They did not make me sign any paperwork to be rehired and the last time I had worked for them is over 5 years ago.

Wish Me Luck Guys.
Click to expand...

GOod luck. I always wonder why you stay there. You seem to know so much. I am suprised you havent thrown in the towel yet. Good luck from a fellow baystater!
 
Also wanted to add that I started out my advertising in a local newspaper. It reaches about 10,000-12,000 subscribers or so. That was my sole advertising for the first year and then I added my local phone book the next year. I also have a few road signs in different areas of my main town.
 
at one time my advice would have been to invest in a yellowpages ad(I believe that was the fuel for our success). Nowadays that might not be good advice. A better choice might be to create an inexpensive website to use as a landing page for an adwords campaign. The entry to that type of advertising media is next to nothing with no risk since you can decide on a day to day basis what you choose to spend with no contact.

good luck!
 
Thanks rosco.

What I plan on doing is the craigslist thing for now. I am waiting for lifehacker to have that 1 year of hosting for $20 deal again to give that a shot if craigslist & maybe a facebook page get me some business.
 
I don't recommend any forms of marketing yet, nor a website. Build your business to the point from local contacts, referrals, social media and any way you can until you are 50% to your goals on a weekly basis. Once you decide that you are consistently bringing in enough money at 50% of your goals, then build a marketing plan and set it up and then go FT.

I would not do any advertising though until you are free from your current job.
 
As others have opined, go for it. I've never been happier or more fulfilled than working for myself. I read where you said there are no non-compete contracts but it's worth noting that those contracts are just about impossible to enforce. I had a lawyer tell me that if you bought a pc repair biz in town and as a condition of sale the seller signed a no compete clause for 5 years and 25 miles they are enforceable. But if your an employee and go off on your own they can pretty much pound sand.

When the income from the side jobs get close to what you currently earn bid them adios and never look back.

I probably earn what you do working for the man but when self-employed there are numerous tax benefits and write offs so you keep more in your pocket. Accurately document your sales, mileage and expenses. Your quality of life will go up and your time is your time. Best of luck to you.
 
If this is something you are to do well at, you will need to be comfortable with taking at least some financial risks. I think it is impossible to build a business without being able to do that.

When I started my business, I was a food server as my profession, a Linux geek who obsessed with computers. My only experience was building a few personal machines and reloading operating systems, more Linux than Windows. I had a good general understanding of operating systems, not necessarily Windows in particular. I could logically solve a problem. For what it's worth, I did have a some sales experience. I found that part came naturally.

I remember telling my wife, "I think I know just enough to make a living at this" . At this point I have never even fixed a friend or family members computer. I decided to make a financial commitment in the form of a contract for $360 for a small in-column ad in our local yellowpages book(back when it was used alot). It was payable in monthly payments of $30. I figured as long as I got one job every 2 months it would break even. From that $30 monthly risk I brought in at least four jobs per month and clients I still have today. I also had invested in a dedicated phone line to answer the business calls professionally. Everytime the phone would ring I would get a huge knot in my stomach, not knowing what they might ask me and the fear of not knowing what they were talking about. I am sure in the beginning I lost many jobs do to my nervousness and very obvious lack of experience. The next following year I committed to a $5000 contract for a full half page ad, the largest one in the book. That was really no risk. The way I looked at it, so long as I got 5 jobs/month I would break even. It probably brought in $20,000 in new business over the year(nowadays yellowpages don't give any return close to that).

My philosophy has been get the business first, then figure out how to service them. I believe we now offer the best break/fix service experience in our area. Our product is computer repair and service, but we sell peace of mind, friendliness and integrity to or clients. That is why they come back.


Edit added later //
One thing I did not consider, which I'm sure you have, I suppose you could get fired if they found your actively advertising
 
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callthatgirl said:
I would not do any advertising though until you are free from your current job.
Click to expand...

Even if you work for Tony Scarpelli or someone similar (who contend that they own their techs and their abilities while they are employed for them), you are completely free to advertise your own services during your own time. If you work for such a shithole, while it might be ethically wrong to some, building up a clientele while doing work for them might be a economical way to get started. Its a rough economy out there, and expected to be so for the foreseeable future. I am NOT saying to steal their customers or materials, but use them as a springboard until you can survive on your own feet.
 
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Cornerstone Technologies said:
Even if you work for Tony Scarpelli or someone similar (who contend that they own their techs and their abilities while they are employed for them), you are completely free to advertise your own services during your own time. If you work for such a shithole, while it might be ethically wrong to some, building up a clientele while doing work for them might be a economical way to get started. Its a rough economy out there, and expected to be so for the foreseeable future. I am NOT saying to steal their customers or materials, but use them as a springboard until you can survive on your own feet.
Click to expand...

Mindfulness said:
One thing I did not consider, which I'm sure you have, I suppose you could get fired if they found your actively advertising
Click to expand...

callthatgirl said:
I would not do any advertising though until you are free from your current job.
Click to expand...

I do not plan to steal any customers that use the services of my current job. if they happen to find me off of a craigslist ad then no big deal. BUT I am not going to actively tell customers at my day job, here's my number call me later I'll do it for $x. That is not ethical no matter how bad the place treats me I have enough decency & standards to keep the two separate.
 
BillMoney said:
I have decided that I am going to start actively advertising on craigslist for my computer repair services. I work in retail computer repair as many of you guys know. As of late I have grown extremely frustrated w/ the lack of respect for me as not only a technician but as an employee. I barely being paid enough for a floor guy let alone running a tech bench. My sales manager tells me it is my bench to run but overules any decisions I want to do or gives free work away just because they wouldn't have gotten the warranty. It is now assumed that I will do the work of the floor supervisor since he quit as well as being held responsible if we cannot hit warranty & tech bench sales goals. I have been searching for months w/ no real luck on a new job.

I have done side work before but it has all been family, friends, or referral. I plan to start small & see how I do. If I do well enough w/ it I may quit my full time job & find a part time job for a few hours a week and focus on this & go legitimate.

Just before anyone says I may be breaching my contract for working at the retail company. I previously worked for them & was a rehire. They did not make me sign any paperwork to be rehired and the last time I had worked for them is over 5 years ago.

Wish Me Luck Guys.
Click to expand...

I know what you mean about the retail thing. Don't know where you work but I did time at CompUSA in Framingham. Had plenty of that experience with the GM giving free services away just so they buy the extended warranty.

I had gotten serious about going out on my before they closed. Once the doors were shuttered I decided to make the dive and not bother looking for another W2. While it was nerve racking and stressful for the first year or two I would never turn back.

Just make sure that you put together some kind of a business plan. Refer to it regularly to help keep yourself on track. Make you objectives realistic. And always place a monetary value on your time. Don't allow others to run your time. It's your business and it's success or failure is your responsibility.

Personally I would avoid spending any money on advertising. I did a few years ago. Ran ads in the Framingham TAB. Spent several hundred dollars and got one lead and no business.

I do almost no retail work. It's all B2B. Even in tough times businesses need their IT stuff to work.

By the way, just because they did not have you sign a non-compete does not mean they can't let you go if they find out you are doing stuff on the side.

Last but not least. BEST OF LUCK!!!!
 
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callthatgirl said:
I don't recommend any forms of marketing yet, nor a website. Build your business to the point from local contacts, referrals, social media and any way you can until you are 50% to your goals on a weekly basis. Once you decide that you are consistently bringing in enough money at 50% of your goals, then build a marketing plan and set it up and then go FT.

I would not do any advertising though until you are free from your current job.
Click to expand...

Forgive my ignorance here but unless you've researched his specific area can you really say this is good advice? He might be able to easily take the top results for his area. Can you provide clarification? Your marketting skills etc is superior to mine theres no doubt in my mind about that so its truly a question rather than a comment.
 
ComputerRepairTech said:
Forgive my ignorance here but unless you've researched his specific area can you really say this is good advice? He might be able to easily take the top results for his area. Can you provide clarification? Your marketting skills etc is superior to mine theres no doubt in my mind about that so its truly a question rather than a comment.
Click to expand...

Despie some opinions to the contrary here, most employers still look at plying the same full time trade on a part time basis for yourself as a moral/ethical lapse, resulting in firing.

Since those same employers usually check advertising to see what their local competition is up to, advertising on his part might result in loss of his full time job before he was ready to leave it.

Rick
 
Jut to add another vote of confidence... I started my business in 1997 after my boss told me that there was no way I could survive on my own. Well, I'm still here and his store that he sold is gone.

I worked for him for two years running his tech bench. He allowed us to do work for customers after hours (nights and weekends) because he didn't want that business. I was probably doing 2-3 jobs a week then. Now, I've got about twenty clients that we support each and every month and about another 50 that we see at least once a year. These are 95% business clients and it is awesome!

I did a little marketing in the beginning, but the two things that worked best for us were:

(1) word of mouth - almost all of my business is referrals from one business to another.

(2) other consultants - around 2000, I partnered with consultants that sell/support legal software and they always need good, reliable network people
 
BillMoney said:
I do not plan to steal any customers that use the services of my current job. if they happen to find me off of a craigslist ad then no big deal. BUT I am not going to actively tell customers at my day job, here's my number call me later I'll do it for $x. That is not ethical no matter how bad the place treats me I have enough decency & standards to keep the two separate.
Click to expand...

I don't think anyone on this forum doubts your integrity :-)

If you are able to manage the risk of possibly being fired, do to a conflict of interest with your employer, it may be a risk worth taking. If that risk is not something you are OK with, then going out on your own might not suit you.

It is a very personal decision.
 
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Forgive my ignorance here but unless you've researched his specific area can you really say this is good advice? He might be able to easily take the top results for his area. Can you provide clarification? Your marketting skills etc is superior to mine theres no doubt in my mind about that so its truly a question rather than a comment.

Sure he might kick butt on Google and then what? His current employer is now competing with him? That's not good and being on page 1 doesn't guarantee you'll be super busy to be able to support a business. I was on page 1 for computer repair in Minneapolis and I had to close that store down.

I have seen techs in person go off on their own and get burned. I just recommend for him to stay on the down low until he's solid he can bring in consistent business to go on his own. Then dive in and compete. He also needs to give some time for his own learning and growing, have a few horrible failures under his belt to learn from. I wish I had done that before I went out. I learned too many lessons while I was growing. His current friends and family can help him with practicing procedures and documenting, etc.

Just advice, wish I had before I went out on my own. :)
 
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