My new business is finally up and running

After a few months of hard work I now trading (well hopefully) I have done some leaflets this morning and I am currently placing an advert in my local trade directory.

Hopefully it won't be too long before I get my first customer.

I am basicaly doing PC repairs and upgrades, secure wireless network installations, PC Tuition, internet cafe/public WIFI installations and AV stuff such as HIFI wiring (strangely there is a demand for this from clueless widows).

It will be very slow but I have time to build it up.

 

Nice one AT. Hope it goes well. Nice broad range of services there. Remember to be tidy and friendly and those widows will tell their friends.

 

---and you might get a nice cup of tea out of it as well.

Best of luck.

 

Good luck with your new venture!

 

Best of luck with the new business, new year is a great time to get something positive like this going. Sure all will go well!

 

Thanks. I have got 300 leaflets out today nobody has phoned yet but 300 is not a lot of leaflets and most people take a few days to phone after recieiving them. I think once I have got 1000 out and its been a few weeks thats when I need to get worried.

At the moment its very early days, I already have plans on how to expand but what goes up slowly goes down slowly .

 

Good luck with the new business AT. Don't panic AT, its early days yet, what you need is good word of mouth, if you've done work for people and they're happy, ask them to pass your card / leaflet to others. People go on recommendations.

Hum, does this make me a clueless widow then? :lol:.

 

The HIFI idea came from my mums friend who is a widow, she had a her house decorated and she wants me to rewire the HIFI (a rather nice setup with £2000 KEF speakers). I will need to suss out the true demand for this though as insurance is expensive.

Blowing a £40 motherboard I can cope with, blowing a £1000 amp I cannot.

I will also give proper itemised bills for everything I do, I hate it when machanics give you a scrappy bit of paper saying "done work for MOT, emissions and tailgate" it means nothing.

 

Good luck.

Just make damn sure they know your rate at the very beginning.

I did some work for someone who said they would pay me and they kept pulling me into more things after one job was done. I ended up doing about 2 weeks work installing wireless networking, re-installing 3 entire computers, determining the problem with the Hi-Fi, helping to shop for a new amplifier and wiring it up... At one point I was working till 11pm at their house (with no offers of food!). I gave an itemised bill which I thought was very acceptable at £220. The time I put in should have been about £350! The person complained and we settled on £200 to keep the person happy.

Later I got a text from the person saying they were not happy with the bill can I not cash the cheque lets come to a compromise. I listen to what they had to say and basically a compromise was to keep them happy knock another £60 off! I said no and cashed the cheque. Turned out they had cancelled it. (which costs £20!) I ended up getting £180 anyway. With the £20 they spent cancelling the cheque it was £200 to them anyway

Oh, they went against my recommendation on the amp and bought a £800 amp! Hardly backing up their claim of not being well off and a big £220 bill was to much.

Forking mad. I told them I charge £10 an hour but apparently I didn’t make it clear I was charging for all the work I was doing and they expected to pay about £50 for the wiring of the Hi-Fi and putting in a network!

Ahh well...

 

I intend to charge quite a bit more than that but there marketing reasons for that, the going rate is about £20-£25 an hour so I am charging £20. I don't want people saying why am I too cheap.

Also before I do any work I will give clients a written quote which will be the final cost, if the job goes on for longer I loose out if its shorter I make a bit extra. I will also back up the machine before opening the case in the event of data loss.

I couldn't make a living doing this for £10 an hour unless there was enough work from 9-5. Out of that £10 I have to pay advertising costs, income tax, national insurance, bank charges (which is free for the first 18 months), hosting etc etc.

Having said that I will need to compete. I really would love to do some HIFI work with this business but I really don't know if there is any demand, with PCs I do.

I know I will get hassle but hopefully the rewards will out weigh that .

 

Absolutely. I only charged £10 an hour because I was doing it for some extra pocket money as it were. It was by no means a job/career.

I have had a few nice bits of work doing tutoring. You should do alright with that. Are you going to do specialist things like HTML coding and web building, graphic programs ect.. or general PC usage?

I was teaching people 1 to 1 how to do decent recordings with a DAW. Half of it was also consultancy on hardware and stuff. Because the people needed the skills to run their business', I found I got a lot less hassle from them. In fact it was really enjoyable.

 

Good luck with it AT!

 

How've you distributed your flyers?

 

What you should do is charge less at the start to get some customers and then once established put your prices up, word of mouth is the most effective advertising out there.

I did some IT work for a local business this morning after being suggested by another company I'm doing some part time data entry work for. It was only an hours work, but there were happy to pay £30 for it so don't underprice too much, just look at what PC World charge for their 'service'!

Also, if things are slow starting, consider taking some contract work on, it will bring some money in for advertising etc. and often you get extra freedom to do your own thing too.

 

All the best AT, hope it pans out. Don't foget getting the next gig is the real business of ...most small businesses!

Of course that also means there are scads of small businesses who end up spending staff time on PC/network admin they can't really afford to, and would willingly pay a reasonable rate to have done properlyfor them. Just a thought...

 

Good luck AT, I really hope you make a success out of it , ('bout time you got off your arse and did some work ) .

Very Best Regards
S&C

 

All the best to you

 

If you are going into other peoples houses you need public liability insurance.

If you are running a business (That is to say its registered) you have to have liability insurance.

 

Yep I already have public liability insurance, it dosn't cover computers but I will ensure I back up all data before I do anything, if I break a motherboard then its just my loss.

The insurance covers things like people tripping up over my tools etc.

I am doing more leaflets now though the more I do the more I will worry about nobody phoning but I suppose that is daft. I have also placed an advert in my local directory.

I got my business cheque book this morning as well

If its a sucess I intend to become a LTD company simply for national insurance reasons, as then I would become a normal employee in the eyes of the law instead of a self employed person . That is still a long way off though.

 

Good luck AT.