Turning personal skills and knowledge into a side bussiness

[SoreArms]

Like many people that know about computers, I often find myself being the family and neighborhood PC trouble shooter and repair man. I once even networked the office building where my ex gf worked all, I got out of it where a few office supplies and a free dinner with my GF (although we did go all out on that shit). I worked at Best Buy as a tech a few years back and people would bring in their PC's with problems that I would deem simple and we would charge them a lot of money for the repairs.

How do I go about turning these skills in to part time money makers? I wouldn't even know ho much to charge for some of this stuff but there seems to be enough people that don't understand alot about computers and are willing to pay for some one else to fix it for them.

Ideas?

 

[Razorguns]

How do I go about turning these skills in to part time money makers? I wouldn't even know ho much to charge for some of this stuff but there seems to be enough people that don't understand alot about computers and are willing to pay for some one else to fix it for them.

Ideas?

Can you make money?

Yes

Can you make a stable reliable source of income out of this?

That's debatable. Why? Well, you see for most of what you've described -- they're *one-shot* deals. Someone has a problem -- they call you. You go in, fix it in 2 hours, get your $50 and go home. You still got 6 hours of the day to kill. So *unless* you're up to the wall with clients, and needs -- you'll find 1) a lot of thumb-twiddlin' downtime and 2) a lot of hours spent for only $20-$60 billed (unless you bill per hour, but prepared for nitpicky clients who'll get annoyed if you aren't working fast enough). 3) Most of your day may be spent cold-calling people and signing up customers.

But it *can* work. I'll give you two situations where it worked well:

1) My buddy back in CT works a f/t job. He's an older man, lived in the same small town for years and pretty much knows EVERYONE from church, work, etc. After work -- he's always selling computers, fixing them, teaching, installing them at work sites, restaurants, etc. He makes good side money from his business. He's like the only guy in town doing it -- and everyone trusts him. He's known as the town's resident "computer guy".

2) When I was in college -- i worked as a comp tech for a "VAR Reseller/Services" company. Ran out of a home -- but the owner had TONS of connections in the business sector. We'd go out every morning with POS needs, network troubleshooting, computer installations, software development, analysis, virus removals, etc. etc. Basically it was on a "service contract" agreement with most of these clients. Now most of it was phone support -- but when it couldn't be resolved -- on-site support. Most of our clients were small to medium-sized businesses. The owner did well -- and we had about 10 employees. Like I said -- personal interaction, and warm, friendly, honest and encompassing business relationships with the clients was VITAL in ensuring repeat business (ie: renewing contracts).

Read what Mark Cuban did (in that other thread) -- start off small. Build up a client base. Improve your skills. Win over people with personality, trust and knowledge. Sprinkle on some lucrative dressing such as software development, teaching, web site design. Then you might just find out, you'll wake up one day and voila -- you got a f/t business happenin'.

 

[Synpax]

Piece of cake - teach a class. Look at the local learning annex or whatever, or design your course on your own. As you'd expect, no one will take you on face value so you will need some paper of somekind. If you don't have it already, I'm sure you can get one.

 

[MattTheSkywalker]

My straw into gold post is an example of this.

In time I will post more.

What skills do you have?

 

[SoreArms]

Thanks for the replies fellas

Can you make a stable reliable source of income out of this?

That's debatable. Why? Well, you see for most of what you've described -- they're *one-shot* deals. Someone has a problem -- they call you. You go in, fix it in 2 hours, get your $50 and go home. You still got 6 hours of the day to kill. So *unless* you're up to the wall with clients, and needs -- you'll find 1) a lot of thumb-twiddlin' downtime and 2) a lot of hours spent for only $20-$60 billed (unless you bill per hour, but prepared for nitpicky clients who'll get annoyed if you aren't working fast enough). 3) Most of your day may be spent cold-calling people and signing up customers.

I would want to make this a side thing, in other words, just like your small town buddy, do it after my regular full time job. I had a great chance to start something a couple of years ago when I networked my ex gf's work place. Aside from networking their new office I had also fixed a few PC's for them in the past. The owner of the comapny offered to recommend me to other companies in the same building, clients, friends, etc... He also offered to kind of make me a consultant and be their computer guy for any problems or advise them on computer crap. I was already working full time and going to school in the evenings so I wasn't interested at the time.

I need another gig like that to get started and get some word of mouth going. I also need a way to offer my services to regular people who might not know why their pc is running so slow, how to install a new video card, etc...

I wouldn't really consider this for a full time gig unless things really started happening.

 

[SoreArms]

What skills do you have?

I have a Bachelors in Electronics Engineering, no other accreditaitons aside from that but I have tons of experience.

My services would be more for the regular schmoe who knows nothing or very little about PC's and needs general repairs, updates, hardware or software isntalls or for small companies with those same needs and some basic networking.

Do you think that people/companies would want to see some accreditaions like A++, MCSE, etc. to even consider me?

 

[SoreArms]

I talked to my younger brother about this during the weekend. He works at Office Depot and he told me that there are tons of people who buy new hardware or software for their PC's and ask if they do instals or if they know anyone who does it. He suggested that if I really want to give this a shot I should make some bussiness cards and he could pass them out for me whenever he encounters customers who ask for services. I need to give this some thought but it sounds like it might be a good way to get started.

 

[bran987]

I talked to my younger brother about this during the weekend. He works at Office Depot and he told me that there are tons of people who buy new hardware or software for their PC's and ask if they do instals or if they know anyone who does it. He suggested that if I really want to give this a shot I should make some bussiness cards and he could pass them out for me whenever he encounters customers who ask for services. I need to give this some thought but it sounds like it might be a good way to get started.

SoreArmsBor
can't believe nobody jumped on this for you, just read it.

There is NO reason for you to not print up some little business cards and let your brother hand them out. Don't worry about setting up any corporate entity, blah balahlblah. Just have him give out some cards and see if it's something you like doing! No risk in that at all.

 

[Synpax]

Yeah, go for it.

 

[Razorguns]

i still think you'll be much more successful targeting small businesses. individual people can be bitches, you wind up spending 5 hours on something -- and then when it comes to pay -- they don't have the money, or argue over the bill. It can be quite frustrating.

Try it out -- doesn't hurt to test the waters and gain the "experience" out of it.

 

[SoreArms]

i still think you'll be much more successful targeting small businesses. individual people can be bitches, you wind up spending 5 hours on something -- and then when it comes to pay -- they don't have the money, or argue over the bill. It can be quite frustrating.

Try it out -- doesn't hurt to test the waters and gain the "experience" out of it.

I'm thinking both