Daily Cup of Tech

I recently have begun to pursue my own business, as a consultant and repair technician, on a more consistent basis and have found some truths that may apply to others in a similar situation.

1. It is very difficult to build your client base on word of mouth referrals.

One may hand out business cards by the handful to anyone they think may have a computer. They may pass out ad fliers by the bucket, and still will likely need to pay for some form of advertising, to find enough clients to start a full-time venture. I have found that local free newspapers are a very economical way to start, their coverage is hit and miss, but the return is strong on a per dollar spent basis. Direct mailing may be another alternative in your area.

2. People won’t know what you do from a business card.

Business cards are a very nice way for people to find you once they know what you do. However, unless you have a very small, specific business model and a matching company name, it is not enough for people to know what you do.

On my first business card I made the mistake of including a picture of a laptop and the words, “Mobile Computer Maintenance & Service”, I lost many potential customers to the thought… “He probably only works on laptops.” Oops, the mobile was supposed to mean I would make house calls, not that I only worked on “Mobile Computers” Argh!!

I have since changed it to a generic “Computer Services” and I have printed fliers with a more complete description of the services I offer. I will be putting them on doors of homes and passing them out to businesses in the more affluent local areas.

3. People don’t really know what they want or need.

They may know that they want their computer to run “like it used to” or that they want a new hard drive, but, don’t expect them to know more. You will have the blessing of a few who know more than that, just don’t count on it. If they knew enough to know what their computer needed, they would fix it themselves. For this reason you must be prepaired to tell them what they need, or help them decide what they want.

4. People don’t know their computers… at all.

This is going to be true of 90% of the people who need your help. [Odds are pretty good you don’t hire someone to come fix your computer.] Be prepared to find a completely different system than they described on the phone. “It has a 40GB C: drive, a 60GB D: drive & 1GB of memory”, may turn out to be a 20GB C: drive, a 40GB D: drive and 512MB of RAM.

It is important to show the customer what they have, especially if you need to take the system with you. Show them, put it in writing and have them sign it. Someone who believes they had bigger drives and more memory before you took it, will soon forget how much better it was, when they stumble across these actual figures. There is also a good chance that they won’t want to pay you for the additional memory you installed, if the total memory i what they thought they started with.

5. People want to treat their computer like a piece of furniture.

They expect a chair to be there, do the job they bought it for & get a little dirty, yet more comfortable. They don’t generally think there should be anything more to it. Computer maintenance is a mystery to them and they can get quite upset when it is needed.

“I turned it on and it wasn’t right anymore.” This maybe as simple as a missing quick launch tool bar, or a shortcut dragged into a folder. It maybe a system bogged down with junk software and viruses or with failing hardware. It doesn’t really matter to them what the problem is, just as long as you can make it better.

And remember every icon, tool bar & shortcut is sacred to them, NEVER move them or change them. It will matter little to the client that you caught the failing CPU fan before damage occurred, if they can find the shortcut to the folder with aunt Martha’s email attachments. You would not move their bedroom furniture, trust me… Many find this sin as bad.

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