What is the future of IT (our businesses)?

[callthatgirl]

Yes, he has owned and sold many MSP companies and has a good background in IT, otherwise...I would not have probably signed on with him. What I gained in the 2 hour (I paid him for that too) consult was just laying out my business to him, what I was doing well and what I was not doing well. In that time, we kind of worked out some planning and enough for me to go it alone, but honestly...I am willing to pay someone to make me accountable and help coach with issues as they come up. I can be lazy and make excuses. Already since our meeting, I did change a few things and already have seen 2 new sales in that I would not have had. That wasn't from him so much, but me thinking better/smarter. One sale was 1 hour to a 4 hour ticket, the other was a training job for $750 that turned into a 14 person migration/support ticket and AppRiver sale. That just came in today.

 

[Pacific Blue IT]

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.

Be good if RepairShopr could do that last bit, what are you using?

 

[MotzTech]

I'm using WHMCS for all my billing. It's not perfect, but it takes a lot of the headache of manual billing away.

 

[mraikes]

...Lot's of good stuff snipped . . . .

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.... snipped....

Lot's of good stuff in your post, but this jumped out to me as a tip that even a part-timer like me could immediately jump on. The 20/20 offer could work as well for phone and remote support as for walk-ins. I could easily squeeze in a 20 for 20 remote session for Q&A, how-to's, short training, etc. Not only could it be a good way to attract new customers, but it would be a good offering to have in my pocket for the random callers/emailers that just have questions about stuff.

And it's just plain catchy, "20 for 20".


Edit: I really like your website. Well written, articulate, easy to navigate and find appropriate info, color scheme . . . initially doubtful...but ultimately it works really well. Kudos and great job!

 

[Andrew Orth]

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'm actually putting together a few classes with similar themes as you mentioned but my plan is to offer them as a free service to the public, at least initially. I'm hoping it would pull in new business from clients that may not have heard of us otherwise

 

[Defender]

Predictions are tough. It seems like residential customers are shopping for a low price more and more. Residential customers can generally do what they need with their touch device. Business clients cannot. Expansion of tech services and products offered may be necessary to survive. Find recurring revenue sources, mine your customer data for opportunities, expand your reach, redefine your operations. Volume maybe the key until the 2018 economic boom (my completely unfounded prediction). Happy New Year!

 

[Craka]

What are peoples' opinions of this now as of November 2016? One of the reasons I ask this, I was doing part time residential work outside of a unrelated full time job I was doing way too many hours in the FT job, thus for the most part I have been relatively out of touch for approximately 2-3years, prior to all that I worked for one of the multinational IT companies for several years. I recently quite said FT job for a host of reasons but mostly for sanity.
What are people thoughts on doing support for small home business clientele? Is this a viable area to concentrate on?

 

[SteveH]

I too am quitting my day job to start a computer repair shop. The residential repairs market is fairly buoyant in my local area. However, I can see that the best opportunities will be ongoing contracts from local businesses.

 

[goldmercury]

Stephen Hawking recently mentioned that we live in quite a dangerous time because a lot of middle-class type jobs will vanish due to AI & Automation. I see the IT business as being a prime candidate for this. IT is becoming easier. Younger people that grew up with IT/technology are now in the work place and there's less reliance on us tech I feel.

I see the future business as on of convergence. That is not only the IT infrastructure but the connectivity. I'm actively exploring becoming working as a reseller for business internet services here in the UK. There is strong competition for things like internet leased lines but if you are in as the IT provider it's a no brainer that you should also be offering the connectivity to your clients.

 

[drpcfix]

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?

Anecdotally we're seeing much faster growth in the "mobile device repair" space than in consumer break-fix computer repair. MSPs are fine and I wouldn't lump them in here, if you can get into real business contracts for 10-50 person offices at 1-5k/mo each - that's going to be a solid business for a long time.

We see tons of cell phone repair shops doing tons of repair volume, like 20-50 repairs per day. It's a pretty different thing to have a PC shop doing 5 repairs a day at $150 "gross profit" each vs doing 50 repairs a day at $20 "gross profit" each. Lots of PC shops get into it, you just have to really have a firm grip on inventory, RMAs, and train your team really well to go fast. Most of these shops turn around devices in 20-40 minutes. It's a pretty different beast from computer repair - but it's the next evolution of consumer computing as we know.