Anyone here a part time computer consultant?

[Duddy]

I'm thinking about becoming a local "Geek Patrol" type person and I know I have the knowlodge to help me do it. I was thing about doing it simple; clean spyware and adware, organize files, secure the PC...etc...

I just wanted to know if anyone here does it part time and if soo, do you have any advice for a guy that drives around and fixes peoples PC's?

 

[Feldenak]

What happened to your other "OMG I'M GONNA BE SUPERRICH!!!111!!" plans?

 

[Duddy]

Originally posted by: Feldenak
What happened to your other "OMG I'M GONNA BE SUPERRICH!!!111!!" plans?

Thread Crapper

 

[BigJ]

You'll make much more money doing it yourself if you can establish yourself in community. However, you're not guaranteed a certain number of hours per week, which could hurt badly.

Both options have their pros and cons.

 

[Duddy]

Originally posted by: BigJ
You'll make much more money doing it yourself if you can establish yourself in community. However, you're not guaranteed a certain number of hours per week, which could hurt badly.

Both options have their pros and cons.

If I can bring in atleast 10 clients a week that would be great.


Would door to door work?

 

[MulLa]

Doing it part time pretty much limits you to home users. Businesses are not going to wait till the weeken or when you finish your day job to pop around to have a look at their problem. This would in turn mean you're not going to get a whole lot of money from it since your average home user is going to be cheap and trying to do the cheapest thing possiable.

It's ok if you wanted some extra cash on the side but if you wanted to make money out of it. It's really going to be a full time job.

 

[BigJ]

Originally posted by: Duddy

Originally posted by: BigJ
You'll make much more money doing it yourself if you can establish yourself in community. However, you're not guaranteed a certain number of hours per week, which could hurt badly.

Both options have their pros and cons.

Would door to door work?

Honestly, I couldn't tell you.

I started doing it when I was 14 in HS. By the time I was 18, I had a client base that ranged from friends and family to small local business to local hotel chains where I was chargin anywhere from $50-$125/hour for support fees. Word of mouth from previous customers got me a lot of money.

 

[Duddy]

Originally posted by: MulLa
Doing it part time pretty much limits you to home users. Businesses are not going to wait till the weeken or when you finish your day job to pop around to have a look at their problem. This would in turn mean you're not going to get a whole lot of money from it since your average home user is going to be cheap and trying to do the cheapest thing possiable.

It's ok if you wanted some extra cash on the side but if you wanted to make money out of it. It's really going to be a full time job.

Well I figured I would make a transition from my day job to making computer consulting my full time job. I would love to provide my services to businesses anytime.

I was also thinking about charging a flat rate for home users. Maybe $10 to clean out the PC and make it run faster and better. Things like that.

 

[Duddy]

Originally posted by: BigJ

Originally posted by: Duddy

Originally posted by: BigJ
You'll make much more money doing it yourself if you can establish yourself in community. However, you're not guaranteed a certain number of hours per week, which could hurt badly.

Both options have their pros and cons.

Would door to door work?

Honestly, I couldn't tell you.

I started doing it when I was 14 in HS. By the time I was 18, I had a client base that ranged from friends and family to small local business to local hotel chains where I was chargin anywhere from $50-$125/hour for support fees. Word of mouth from previous customers got me a lot of money.

Where did it take you eventually?

 

[BigJ]

Originally posted by: Duddy

Originally posted by: BigJ

Originally posted by: Duddy

Originally posted by: BigJ
You'll make much more money doing it yourself if you can establish yourself in community. However, you're not guaranteed a certain number of hours per week, which could hurt badly.

Both options have their pros and cons.

Would door to door work?

Honestly, I couldn't tell you.

I started doing it when I was 14 in HS. By the time I was 18, I had a client base that ranged from friends and family to small local business to local hotel chains where I was chargin anywhere from $50-$125/hour for support fees. Word of mouth from previous customers got me a lot of money.

Where did it take you eventually?

I gave it up when I went to college. If I do tech support here, it's for booze and pizza, doing work for friends.

 

[MulLa]

Originally posted by: Duddy

Originally posted by: MulLa
Doing it part time pretty much limits you to home users. Businesses are not going to wait till the weeken or when you finish your day job to pop around to have a look at their problem. This would in turn mean you're not going to get a whole lot of money from it since your average home user is going to be cheap and trying to do the cheapest thing possiable.

It's ok if you wanted some extra cash on the side but if you wanted to make money out of it. It's really going to be a full time job.

Well I figured I would make a transition from my day job to making computer consulting my full time job. I would love to provide my services to businesses anytime.

I was also thinking about charging a flat rate for home users. Maybe $10 to clean out the PC and make it run faster and better. Things like that.

Know what other companies are charging in your area and then undercut them by $10 - $20. It's going to be hard to get business customers when you're part time that's all I could say. Not sure how old you are but if you have a mate that's say studying and have "day" time free get him to help out too. That way at least you'll get some exposure to businesses which you would hope you could retain when you transition to full time.

 

[jaybert]

Originally posted by: Duddy

Originally posted by: MulLa
Doing it part time pretty much limits you to home users. Businesses are not going to wait till the weeken or when you finish your day job to pop around to have a look at their problem. This would in turn mean you're not going to get a whole lot of money from it since your average home user is going to be cheap and trying to do the cheapest thing possiable.

It's ok if you wanted some extra cash on the side but if you wanted to make money out of it. It's really going to be a full time job.

Well I figured I would make a transition from my day job to making computer consulting my full time job. I would love to provide my services to businesses anytime.

I was also thinking about charging a flat rate for home users. Maybe $10 to clean out the PC and make it run faster and better. Things like that.

lol....$10???? how are you going to make any money? Even just running spyware removal crap is gonna take 30 minutes, not to mention the time to takes to get to the client's place, etc.

 

[Schfifty Five]

Originally posted by: Duddy

Originally posted by: MulLa
Doing it part time pretty much limits you to home users. Businesses are not going to wait till the weeken or when you finish your day job to pop around to have a look at their problem. This would in turn mean you're not going to get a whole lot of money from it since your average home user is going to be cheap and trying to do the cheapest thing possiable.

It's ok if you wanted some extra cash on the side but if you wanted to make money out of it. It's really going to be a full time job.

Well I figured I would make a transition from my day job to making computer consulting my full time job. I would love to provide my services to businesses anytime.

I was also thinking about charging a flat rate for home users. Maybe $10 to clean out the PC and make it run faster and better. Things like that.

You will definitely need to charge a lot more than $10. Trust me, you think it'd be a simple cleaning job, but trust me, it will be far from that.

 

[MrBlahh]

Originally posted by: Duddy

Originally posted by: MulLa
Doing it part time pretty much limits you to home users. Businesses are not going to wait till the weeken or when you finish your day job to pop around to have a look at their problem. This would in turn mean you're not going to get a whole lot of money from it since your average home user is going to be cheap and trying to do the cheapest thing possiable.

It's ok if you wanted some extra cash on the side but if you wanted to make money out of it. It's really going to be a full time job.

Well I figured I would make a transition from my day job to making computer consulting my full time job. I would love to provide my services to businesses anytime.

I was also thinking about charging a flat rate for home users. Maybe $10 to clean out the PC and make it run faster and better. Things like that.

$10 isnt worth it. It usually takes about a 1/2 to 1 hour to do this kinda stuff and thats if everything goes well.

Besides, Best Buy charges like $150 for this kinda stuff. Id say charge them a minimum $40-50.

 

[Duddy]

Originally posted by: Schfifty Five

Originally posted by: Duddy

Originally posted by: MulLa
Doing it part time pretty much limits you to home users. Businesses are not going to wait till the weeken or when you finish your day job to pop around to have a look at their problem. This would in turn mean you're not going to get a whole lot of money from it since your average home user is going to be cheap and trying to do the cheapest thing possiable.

It's ok if you wanted some extra cash on the side but if you wanted to make money out of it. It's really going to be a full time job.

Well I figured I would make a transition from my day job to making computer consulting my full time job. I would love to provide my services to businesses anytime.

I was also thinking about charging a flat rate for home users. Maybe $10 to clean out the PC and make it run faster and better. Things like that.

You will definitely need to charge a lot more than $10. Trust me, you think it'd be a simple cleaning job, but trust me, it will be far from that.

Well my town has a population of 17,000. Everything and everyone is pretty compact.

 

[Nebor]

Originally posted by: Duddy

Originally posted by: Schfifty Five

Originally posted by: Duddy

Originally posted by: MulLa
Doing it part time pretty much limits you to home users. Businesses are not going to wait till the weeken or when you finish your day job to pop around to have a look at their problem. This would in turn mean you're not going to get a whole lot of money from it since your average home user is going to be cheap and trying to do the cheapest thing possiable.

It's ok if you wanted some extra cash on the side but if you wanted to make money out of it. It's really going to be a full time job.

Well I figured I would make a transition from my day job to making computer consulting my full time job. I would love to provide my services to businesses anytime.

I was also thinking about charging a flat rate for home users. Maybe $10 to clean out the PC and make it run faster and better. Things like that.

You will definitely need to charge a lot more than $10. Trust me, you think it'd be a simple cleaning job, but trust me, it will be far from that.

Well my town has a population of 17,000. Everything and everyone is pretty compact.

Listen to what we're saying. $10 isn't NEARLY enough. You're not running a lemonade stand.

 

[Duddy]

Originally posted by: MrBlahh

Originally posted by: Duddy

Originally posted by: MulLa
Doing it part time pretty much limits you to home users. Businesses are not going to wait till the weeken or when you finish your day job to pop around to have a look at their problem. This would in turn mean you're not going to get a whole lot of money from it since your average home user is going to be cheap and trying to do the cheapest thing possiable.

It's ok if you wanted some extra cash on the side but if you wanted to make money out of it. It's really going to be a full time job.

Well I figured I would make a transition from my day job to making computer consulting my full time job. I would love to provide my services to businesses anytime.

I was also thinking about charging a flat rate for home users. Maybe $10 to clean out the PC and make it run faster and better. Things like that.

$10 isnt worth it. It usually takes about a 1/2 to 1 hour to do this kinda stuff and thats if everything goes well.

Besides, Best Buy charges like $150 for this kinda stuff. Id say charge them a minimum $40-50.

$40 to $50 an HOUR!!!! I don't have a PhD! Why should I charge that much an hour for work that isn't worth more than $30 an hour?

Besides, most the people in my town have computers but cannot afford to pay someone $40 or $50 an hour just to make it run faster. The unemployment here is amazingly high.

 

[waitman]

Yeah, you need to charge a minimum $40 to $50 maybe. Usually home users pc's are so bad the biggest portion That I run into, will barely run and very often they won't even boot. Full of trojans, viruses, spyware, crap free programs and screensavers. Many I have seen have never had a windows update or service pack installed. They don't have a virus scanner, or it hasn't been updated in the 3 or 4 years they have had the damn thing.
So then if its a hewlitt packard for instance, you have to apply updates from them before updating sp2 and on and on. Then you get the ones where a friend that knows a lot tried to fix it, but couldn't. You can spend hours and hours sometimes. They never did any backups and most of the time don't even know what that means, but you better hope you don't lose any files in the process, if you end up reformatting. Like I know what the hell they want to keep.

Oh yeah then 1 to 2 weeks later they bring it back and say it still isn't right and want you to fix it fro free. Guess what, they downloaded the same crap right back onto the pc after you tell them not to. Also, endless calls for free phone support. Tell them they need to bring it in.

Very frustrating to say the least. Better money in businesses, but still a lot of the same crap. They can't see spending any money to fix a pc when they can go to Best Buy and get the 299.00 after rebate special/ with monitor, then wonder why it is a piece of crap.

Anyways, better have some set policies before you plunge into it. Good luck! your gonna need it!


EDIT: listen to these folks. Its posible that if you uder charge too much, they will take the business to geek squad and geek squad will charge them plenty.

I have seen shops charge people like $300 to clean one up and optimize a little. So yes, charge more than $10

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: Nebor

Originally posted by: Duddy

Originally posted by: Schfifty Five

Originally posted by: Duddy

Originally posted by: MulLa
Doing it part time pretty much limits you to home users. Businesses are not going to wait till the weeken or when you finish your day job to pop around to have a look at their problem. This would in turn mean you're not going to get a whole lot of money from it since your average home user is going to be cheap and trying to do the cheapest thing possiable.

It's ok if you wanted some extra cash on the side but if you wanted to make money out of it. It's really going to be a full time job.

Well I figured I would make a transition from my day job to making computer consulting my full time job. I would love to provide my services to businesses anytime.

I was also thinking about charging a flat rate for home users. Maybe $10 to clean out the PC and make it run faster and better. Things like that.

You will definitely need to charge a lot more than $10. Trust me, you think it'd be a simple cleaning job, but trust me, it will be far from that.

Well my town has a population of 17,000. Everything and everyone is pretty compact.

Listen to what we're saying. $10 isn't NEARLY enough. You're not running a lemonade stand.

I started at one jobs in sales, migrated to IT, then started going from there. Word of mouth is really big. For businesses, $30 an hour is minimum. Many computer consulting companies charge $75-$100+ per hour, so you're grossly undercutting them, thus gaining business from the companies, and still making a profit for yourself. If you do a good job, you'll get more work. My situation is ideal right now in that I am attending college online for my Bachelor's degree, which makes my work hours flexible.

For homes, I charge $100 flat fee. That includes file backup, complete wipe & reinstall of XP, installation of the user's apps, and a backup disc. Price also includes installation of new hardware and overnight memory testing if necessary. It usually takes me one day of on/off work to do that type of setup. I got a lot of jobs when I was attending college on campus via word of mouth this way.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: Duddy

Originally posted by: MrBlahh

Originally posted by: Duddy

Originally posted by: MulLa
Doing it part time pretty much limits you to home users. Businesses are not going to wait till the weeken or when you finish your day job to pop around to have a look at their problem. This would in turn mean you're not going to get a whole lot of money from it since your average home user is going to be cheap and trying to do the cheapest thing possiable.

It's ok if you wanted some extra cash on the side but if you wanted to make money out of it. It's really going to be a full time job.

Well I figured I would make a transition from my day job to making computer consulting my full time job. I would love to provide my services to businesses anytime.

I was also thinking about charging a flat rate for home users. Maybe $10 to clean out the PC and make it run faster and better. Things like that.

$10 isnt worth it. It usually takes about a 1/2 to 1 hour to do this kinda stuff and thats if everything goes well.

Besides, Best Buy charges like $150 for this kinda stuff. Id say charge them a minimum $40-50.

$40 to $50 an HOUR!!!! I don't have a PhD! Why should I charge that much an hour for work that isn't worth more than $30 an hour?

Besides, most the people in my town have computers but cannot afford to pay someone $40 or $50 an hour just to make it run faster. The unemployment here is amazingly high.

Nike sells shoes for $130 that cost $1.30 to make...why? The Geek Squad wanted $160 to fix a friend's computer; it had a problem that took me 5 minutes to fix. They have overhead, you don't. You can charge less, they can't. The customer is getting a good deal and so are you. Have your customer call Geek Squad to get a quote, then offer them 50% off to fix it for them.

Also, if you do on-site training, you're going to want to charge people $1,000 an hour by the end of the day. It's fun at first but then you'll start getting frustrated and pulling your hair out. I don't do training anymore

Edit: Also, don't underestimate your worth. Even if you don't think it's worth it, THEY'RE taking time out of YOUR life to do something. How much is a minute of your time worth to you? An hour? A day?

Also, I do special pricing based on the person. If it's someone I know or a referral, it's $100 flat. Otherwise home users are $150 - $200. For business machines, $250 each. So far I've worked soley on personal referals, which has been working out pretty nicely. Gives me some mad money for my crazy projects

 

[mpitts]

#1 - I would stay away from home users. The only users who's home computers I ever touch are owners or employess of my business clients. Getting involved with home users is asking for trouble. They don't understand that you are trying to run a business. They don't want to pay your rate. When you DO get them to agree to your rate (and SIGN a contract/agreement saying so), it can be hell to get them to pay. In short, home users are generally the ones who put little to no value to what you do.

#2 - You need to seriously consider your rate. I charge $120 / hr business to business. I have three years experience in consulting and over 10 years experience in network admin / computer support.

Those are the BARE minimum you need to consider before you start soliciting people and businesses. The truth is you are going to need to do a lot more than that. A lot.

 

[Duddy]

Well, I feel that I may be worth about $100 for a full days work "6 hours". This being a small town, there is only one place that will fix PC's and they do not do on site fixes. They charge upwards of $280 to reinstall XP. It's ludacris and the ony reason they are still open is because the owners father is pumping money into it.

I fell I can do a WAY better job and charge less doing it.

I could do business only but that would require me to do home customers first to gain rep.

EDIT: the closest Best Buy is an hour away. I have quite the advantage here.

 

[mpitts]

Originally posted by: Duddy
Well, I feel that I may be worth about $100 for a full days work "6 hours". This being a small town, there is only one place that will fix PC's and they do not do on site fixes. They charge upwards of $280 to reinstall XP. It's ludacris and the ony reason they are still open is because the owners father is pumping money into it.

I fell I can do a WAY better job and charge less doing it.

I could do business only but that would require me to do home customers first to gain rep.

EDIT: the closest Best Buy is an hour away. I have quite the advantage here.

I wish you luck. Just understand that there is a great deal of liability involved when you are dealing with home users. I would probably work on a cash/check payment due upon completion of your work.

 

[Duddy]

Perhaps I'll only do Home Business and up. I just wish the town was larger.

 

[eminemrh25]

I suggest signing up at OnForce.com

It routes WorkOrders to indepentant techs. I do jobs for CompUSA all the time, and the client pays me nothing, CompUSA does...