What is the future of IT (our businesses)?

Chadhardy

Chadhardy

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Atlanta, GA
As we're about to go into 2016 I'm wondering if I should be changing my thinking on how I run my business, services I'm offering, etc. As many of you who have been in business for several years (17 years for me) know technology is a constantly evolving industry. This year I started offering mobile device repairs and that has worked out great for me because in my small town I don't really have any real (businesses with storefronts) competition. This has gotten my name out among a group of people who wouldn't have normally thought about me.

What I'm curious about is whether I should be learning about some new technology or service or whatever so that I'm in a position to be the leader in my area when customers start making that transition.

How are you changing your business for 2016 or are you?
 
We are continuing our pivot toward commercial support. Trying to position ourselves as white collar consultants rather than blue collar fix-it guys.
 
Automation automation automation, did I mention automation? That's been my go to from day one and will continue full force in 2016. If we can automate it, we will.

We sunk a ton of time into invoicing in 2015, so I'm just finishing up a new automated billing system that pretty much handles all our billing. We still have to invoice a few things here and there as things come up, but all our monthly services are now invoiced and billed automatically. It also handles bugging people who are late and applying late fees (something we've been TERRIBLE at) automatically.
 
One thing I've been toying around with is training. I don't have the space in my office currently, but the local library has offered space at no charge. I think classes on topics such as "How to stay safe on the internet", "How to advertise on Facebook", "How to use Microsoft Word", etc. would go over pretty good with residential and business clients. At least with classes I could charge a fee per attendee and make more money per hour than an iPhone screen replacement :-)
 
I learned a long time ago that choosing a particular point in time to change is not a good thing. Meaning I don't change my business model just because 2016 is around the corner. I am always monitoring the environment, local competition, technology, my business model, etc. I dropped all consumer focus several years ago. Decided against getting into smart device repair since I have no store front. Not to mention the few times I tried on my own stuff did not lead to success.

Another thing is the Cloud. Things like setting up SOHO customers with their own domain email is really simple with O365. You can add the office apps as well and gain recurring revenue. I'm partnered with appriver.com. @callthatgirl has done that. Look around for her posts and visit her website www.callthatgirl.biz
 
I'm ready for 2016, actually been saving up some nuggies for end of year, just because everything in place. I got a new white label partner, hired a FT assistant and just hired a business coach. One of Karl Palachuk's friends called me for a testimonial of a referral and we ended up talking for a bit and I hired him myself. Like I know what to do with the next level. I know the old levels and not what to do again! :rolleyes:

I'm looking at for sure a slower growth, better up-sells, adding on a couple of complimentary Outlook and Email services and of course, some new strategic partners.

AppRiver just told me that they are sponsoring my podcast show for all of 2016 btw. So if anyone needs a rep over there, contact my guy sharris@appriver.com. I partner (commission) not resell.

Now I need to go read last years "end of year" post and see how much has changed, probably a lot and not in the direction I thought.

To OP: What I'm curious about is whether I should be learning about some new technology or service or whatever so that I'm in a position to be the leader in my area when customers start making that transition.

Definately put time into Office 365, the small businesses need us!!!
 
Thank you everyone for your replies...

@sethay - I'm in a small town surrounded by other small towns so my biggest market is the residential client (from what I can tell so far - I've only had my office open in town for about 9 months). I do commercial support as well and I'm still trying to grow that part of my business in this area.

@MotzTech - I love automation as well. Recurring invoices are already automated. There are probably a couple more things I could automate to save time :)

@ankleteeth - I am planning on bidding for my county's IT work in 2016. I've recently started working with some new clients that have some pull in the county so I'm hoping my new relationships will get me in the door this year. One cool thing I found out is that they have to choose a local company among the bidders even if that local company is 10% higher than the other bidders :)

@markverhyden - I agree about not waiting to make shifts in business. I'm also constantly looking out for new opportunities, markets, etc. I just thought this topic was fitting because we are about to start a new year. The mobile device repairs have had some challenging moments, but as I said earlier I think it will be a good "foot in the door" for me for new clients. My goal is to not be "the mobile repair guy" I want to hire someone full time so that I can concentrate on other business functions.

Cloud services are definitely of interest and I've worked with O365, Google Apps, Backup Services, etc in the past. I guess it's time to do some research and figure out which services I want to support and willing to put my name behind.

@callthatgirl - I need to go back and read more of your stuff. O365 seems to be of great interest to many people (according to Google Trends) so maybe I need to set aside some time and really get to know it. Can't wait to see what kind of "nuggies" you have coming up :-)

Does anyone have any thoughts on where the residential market is going? I've been around long enough to see the transition from desktops to laptops and now to mobile devices. It doesn't seem like I get as many virus related repairs as I used to. What is everyone else seeing?
 
With us being mainly residential, and so many of our competitors moving away from residential focus, our business is booming now more than ever! There's money to be made with residential clients so long as you do it right. Fire the bad ones at the first sign of trouble, sell high margin products and services, and fill that premium niche. There are plenty of people still left that are willing to spend big without going Apple. You just have to be in the right area.

However, it's important to focus on sales as much if not more than repair nowadays. We sell a LOT of computers and we repair a lot too. It just depends whether they want to pay to fix their old one or pay a bit more for a new one. Then you can upsell antivirus, managed services, and high margin accessories. We do a lot of new custom builds and sell refurbished computers as well. Believe it or not, the demand for refurbished tablets is almost non existent. We get a LOT more people trying to trade in their useless tablet for a computer, and next to no one looking to replace their computer with a tablet. The only exception being the Surface Pro, but that's technically not a tablet.

We had a competitor here that did custom builds almost exclusively. He retired and we get a lot more requests for custom builds now.

So in answer to your question, we intend to stick to our guns and service mainly residential clients. We did see the need to change to the sales model, but we still get plenty of repair work too. But if eventually nothing is repairable, we'll end up being the local technology pawn shop. Not exactly what I had in mind, but I can live with it.

How we've made it in the sales model is we service a LOT of computer illiterate clients. They're not looking for the cheapest computer for the specs, but rather a complete service. We're more expensive than most, but we offer personal service and that's what these people are willing to pay for.

Our more computer literate clients look towards custom builds and are looking for a bargain if they decide to go refurbished. They normally don't like our prices on refurbished computers and look elsewhere, but not always. We do what we have to do to remain profitable. But we offer service that isn't available anywhere else. Not Best Buy. Not our local competitors. Nowhere. And that's now we've survived.
 
callthatgirl said:

Definately put time into Office 365, the small businesses need us!!!
Click to expand...

Could you please elaborate on this? Ive put a few clients on Office 365 and a even more on Google Apps. From a User perspective nothing actually changes from having exchange e-mail etc while Google offers functionality like Google Docs.

If I rephrase, what should I actually "put time into" except learning how to migrate users mailboxes/domains etc to Office365? Are there any eco-systems around it?
 
For me I say that it's "Battles of the clouds" the things that were supposed to make it simple for people made it more difficult. Instead of having all their data on one computer (with the risk of losing it all) it is now tossed up on multiple clouds. Some contacts syncs from their exchange, some from facebook, some from iCloud etc.

I see a big market in just teaching businesses and private individuals how these new technologies actually work. I have loads of people saying stuff like "My dropbox is full, do I need to buy a new computer?"

The technology have really exploded the last 5 years and people haven't really catched up with it, I've moving away from repair and moving more into consulting which I find much more profitable.

The second area that Im learning more about is smarthomes (tellstick, fibaro etc) because that's a great new area for residential clients.
 
I dropped out of the residential market because of the shrinking repair and support potential. Of course not having a store front did not help, but I saw way to many places close up over the years to want to risk opening up one.

Been around as well for some time in this industry. Was at CompUSA when I saw the broad move over the years of everyone repairing their desktops and printers, because they spent $$$$, to opting to not repair low end laptops/desktops and tossing out pretty much any consumer level printer that had failed. The disposable printer has even extended to the business world. Not only are people printing much less but most places are opting for low end because of this lack of printing demand.

I try not to get lost in the trees. All of this stuff exists to deal with information we use in our personal as well as business lives. So I try to understand how that functionality fleshes itself out in real life. Like it or not Moores Law will continue to impact us in many ways that are not so positive. Such as the repair vs replace decision.
 
markverhyden said:
I dropped out of the residential market because of the shrinking repair and support potential. Of course not having a store front did not help, but I saw way to many places close up over the years to want to risk opening up one.

Been around as well for some time in this industry. Was at CompUSA when I saw the broad move over the years of everyone repairing their desktops and printers, because they spent $$$$, to opting to not repair low end laptops/desktops and tossing out pretty much any consumer level printer that had failed. The disposable printer has even extended to the business world. Not only are people printing much less but most places are opting for low end because of this lack of printing demand.

I try not to get lost in the trees. All of this stuff exists to deal with information we use in our personal as well as business lives. So I try to understand how that functionality fleshes itself out in real life. Like it or not Moores Law will continue to impact us in many ways that are not so positive. Such as the repair vs replace decision.
Click to expand...

Well something that's helped our business immensely with the residential market is how crappy the newer computers are nowadays. I just got a 14 month old HP desktop in with less than 1,000 hours on the hard drive. The hard drive took a dump and they nearly lost their data. The average consumer PC lasts about 1-2 years nowadays. There are a lot of people that aren't satisfied with that and think they should be able to keep it going for at least 5 years.

Not too long ago, you could buy pretty much any desktop or laptop and it should have lasted at least 5 years. But that's changed. People remember the $500+ purchase they made last year and aren't eager to go to Best Buy and do it all over again. A year goes by really fast. I know I was really ****** off that my TV's power supply blew after only 2 years. It felt like I had just bought the darned thing and it was already crapping out on me! I could have bought a new one for $500, but I decided to replace the power supply instead for about $80. Many people feel the same way about their computers.
 
If I rephrase, what should I actually "put time into" except learning how to migrate users mailboxes/domains etc to Office365? Are there any eco-systems around it?

Get to know the products better so you can sell all of them or find other alternatives. Some people go off and buy the whole damn suite and only need exchange, put that money in your pocket with AppRiver commissions (Or resell yourself--either way, each commmission check gets bigger and better each quarter), offer better sales and support. Sell aftercare/prepay tickets, I sold over 5 digits this quarter alone. Quoted from SOA, This is what turns players into Kings. (or queen :) ).

I'm about to start making my migration folks buy a support ticket, they always want my help after for IT admin or little stuff. As a nice upsell to those clients who are too small for MSP, I'm rebuilding my MSP plan with the new partner to offer after they buy a prepay ticket. Kinda like rolling sales, but I tell ya...my clients want good support and pay for it.
 
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About 20 years ago, when "Dell" and HP and other vendors started doing "online" orders....and the price wars began with PCs being cheaper and cheaper (no longer 3 or 4 thousand dollar computers...but 1 thousand dollar computers)....the place I worked for started realizing retail and residential was no longer the future. They were getting into supporting SMBs...and they were getting into higher end network/server design and support..they realized this is where the money was. This was back in the NT 4 days. Around that time....before "MSP" was a trend, we started doing that...providing support for SMBs for fixed monthly prices.

Since then that's what I've been focused on. And about 14 years ago when I joined my colleague ...we focused on SMB only. And MSP services.

We've seen the writing on the wall in the past 5 years...with Microsoft ditching Small Business Server, and pushing Office 365. Much fewer server projects where we'd charge 5 or 7 or 10 thousand dollars for server migrations. Also years agto before "virtualization" became popular, our bigger clients would have many servers. A server for each role. 4 or 7 thousand dollars or more...so we'd do lots of server replacements/migrations...big hardware sales, big labor for migrations. It was nice....we got fat and large and happy and ate big steaks every night!

...but then...virtualization..and cloud services....and declines of server migrations...in recent years.

So we started thinking hard about recurring revenue...and how to sustain ourselves..well, more than sustain ourselves...how to make a good living with recurring revenue.

Of course...MSP services is one thing. You can find tons of threads in the MSP section here. Those we had been doing all along anyways.
Higher end backup/disaster recovery services. I'm talking "business continuity" products...such as Datto, Replibit, some other StorageCraft based products. Those are very pricey...with big markups..couple of hundred bucks a month or several hundred bucks a month...some more. They start adding up for steady monthly income.

Microsoft and Office 365...being pushed hard. Since we do SMBs...Microsoft is the focus. Why not figure out how to make money on this. Initially Microsoft had a basic reseller program...you'd get basically a measly 6% cut. We were not fans of that. But..better than nothing! Pretty much the same with other O365 resellers out there..Appriver, GoDaddy, amongst others...they're still basically small % they give you for reselling it for them. So many IT people screamed at Microsoft..that MS came up with the "CSP" program....Cloud Solution Provider program. You purchase O365 and Azure services for a more wholesale rate...turn around, and resell it to your clients. This way you get close to 20% or more margin...which makes it worth it. Your % depends on your history and volume, and what "level" you're at with the CSP program..but even starting out...I believe it's around 12% margin. Double the monthly income for you than the other programs at ~6%. Now you can at least afford to buy thick bacon double cheeseburgers each night instead of a little thin hamburger with nothing!

So for us...it's all about business clients...this is where we can provide monthly services that give us good recurring revenue at good markup and margins. Trying to get clients on MSP services....and trying to get them on good profitable offsite backup/disaster recovery, and trying to get them on hosted cloud services that you resell.

I don't know what to say about those that focus on the residential market...since computers have become so cheap in that area....they are considered disposable now. Plus they are basically being replaced by smart phones and tablets, phablets, smart TVs, etc.
 
My goal this year is to work on my business not for my business.

I have a storefront with three employees that do all the in store and remote work. I still do all the small business and onsite work. My goal for the first part of the year is to hire someone for the onsite work.

Then for the second part of the year I will be looking to open a second location.

I am also opening up a phone repair cart at the local mall in February. It will be an expansion year for me.
 
Looking forward to 2016 ourselves! The past few years have been good and solid to us for sure. Not remarkable or best ever, but solid.
When the smartphone, tablet (end of the computer) buzz started I thought about it and then realized this: They did put a minor ding in 'regular' computer repair but they also brought in their own revenue with new setup, backup, normal repair, cracked screens etc. We have done some but really have never fully got deep into being a shop that repairs broken screens. There are lots of cheap competitors and it seems like a lot of trouble for the little return. Ironically we still get a lot of tablets and a few smartphones in with other issues that are repaired much quicker with less fuss like email setup, new system setups, training etc. We decided to go the training route instead of glass repair.
Phones and tablets also threaten other markets. TV's since you can watch all on your phone, GPS as all phones have them, Music players, Gaming devices as games are pretty darn good on phones now. But I see it like this:

Bill Gates said this during a D7 conference once and I agree 100%. Smartphones and tablets will not replace but will supplement other systems. Of course there are a few people who will live totally off of a phone and nothing else. I for one will not be watching a movie with my family on my phone, I'll use my big screen TV instead (much better experience). I will not give up my audio equipment but I will however hook into my audio equipment with my phone. I will still use my Xbox One and PC to play games. As nice as games have gotten on the phone it's still nowhere the same experience as a modern console or PC. I will however play the occasional game while waiting at the Dr's office and things like that. The one thing I will give up as the phone has officially killed it is my GPS. I remember buying one of the first 'flat screen' Garmins years ago for something like $800 lol. And lastly if I have any 'real work' to do then nothing beats my low cost PC with a big monitor and full size keyboard while sitting at my comfortable desk. I could do all these things on a phone but it would be a miserable experience. I view the phone as a true pocket device when you need to look something up quickly when on the go, which it excels at.

The big shift we noticed is desktops to laptops. We still get in desktops in but mostly laptops now. We are going to focus on more sales ourselves. We've always been so swamped with repairs and service that sales were always a sideline item for us. I keep thinking about the revenue we are losing by not embracing a solid sales foundation. Years ago we had a killer refurbished sales line. Back in the days of the mighty OptiPlex GX 150 which shows how long ago it was lol. We would buy 30 or so at a time ( whatever would fit in our van) and would profit a clean $100 off each unit.

We still do 50/50 commercial and residential. Being the main player in town we still have a ton of walkins etc so dropping residential would not be good for us. We have learned over the years how to make them just as profitable as business ( by hour of course not volume ). We also automate as much as we can. RepairShopr, RepairTech, cloning, designated hard drive stations, USB stick cloning machines etc. I've always been a believer in automation.

Our training has been going well but I really want to expand it to something bigger in the coming year. Our 20 for 20 program has been great! $20 for 20 minutes of training, how to etc. Before that we had to make a hard choice of when to charge customers ( some great paying customers) and when to eat it a little when they asked questions. You know those 'fine line' types of questions that make you feel a little funny about charging them but then turn into taking up a little too much of your time. Now we can just happily say 'Lets do a quick 20 for 20, that way you can write down your questions and have them all answered for you to take with you when you leave.' Customers seem to love it and it still generates $60 an hour. Not a ton of money but enough to pay the techs and still profit a little while keeping the customers happy.

Like others have said I don't think its doom and gloom for for computer service companies but you have to be able to quickly change and adapt. Those who can't or refuse to are the ones that will unfortunately be left behind. The rest I think will be fine. It is always fun to see new products and technologies arrive and then find ways to profit off of them. It's all part of the game.

We are looking forward to 2016 and hope everyone here has great success with their business in the coming year!
Take care all and have a Happy New Year!
 
2015 has been my best year since opening in 2003, an I project to work on more automation. I have a 600 ft shop, divided in a repair section ( my bench can handle 14 computers), and a "retail section" where I have refurbished laptops/desktops for sale.
I sell 8 to 10 laptops/pcs a week, and I make around $75 profit on each unit ( on the sale), plus usually there is data transfer and antivirus up sale.
I am a one man repair shop ( my wife and college daughter comes very few hours a week to help me with administrative duties. So working on automation is my goal.
Something I have not done yet, but I will be experimenting in January is to be able to leave computers in the bench, and when I get home, log in remotely so I can keep working on them.
I have been considering using the remote repair service one of our technibble members provide so they can work on some of my repairs while I sleep
 
callthatgirl said:
I'm ready for 2016, actually been saving up some nuggies for end of year, just because everything in place. I got a new white label partner, hired a FT assistant and just hired a business coach. One of Karl Palachuk's friends called me for a testimonial of a referral and we ended up talking for a bit and I hired him myself. Like I know what to do with the next level. I know the old levels and not what to do again! :rolleyes:

I'm looking at for sure a slower growth, better up-sells, adding on a couple of complimentary Outlook and Email services and of course, some new strategic partners.

AppRiver just told me that they are sponsoring my podcast show for all of 2016 btw. So if anyone needs a rep over there, contact my guy sharris@appriver.com. I partner (commission) not resell.

Now I need to go read last years "end of year" post and see how much has changed, probably a lot and not in the direction I thought.

To OP: What I'm curious about is whether I should be learning about some new technology or service or whatever so that I'm in a position to be the leader in my area when customers start making that transition.

Definately put time into Office 365, the small businesses need us!!!
Click to expand...


Is this business coach related to the technology field? I have a friend who's a consultant for businesses and familiar with the IT field. I am curious what you are gaining from this, we are looking for any steps to take us to another level.
 
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