Going Back to my Roots

[sapphirescales]

To be honest, I'm not happy with my job like I used to be. I've built a wonderful business, but I miss the days when I used to work from home and had more personal time with my clients. I actually run two computer repair businesses - one from my home and the other from my actual store. Unfortunately I've really let things slide with my home based business and I barely see anyone anymore.

My store is pretty much self-sustaining by now. It requires very little supervision on my part. Because of this, I think I'm going to start putting more effort into my home based computer repair business. To be honest, I never wanted to grow as large as I have. It's become more about the money than the work, and that's not why I got into this business.

It's been many years since I've been primarily a home based business. Advertising is probably about the same as it was back then. Of course I'll still be keeping my shop. I just want to be more personally involved with my clients.

Hehe, I might actually reveal my identity if I move out of state and start doing this out of my home again. I'll have much less to lose then. I'm a bit too high profile to reveal myself on a public forum right now, but if no one can connect my identity to my big, main business then I have no problem revealing my tricks of the trade as it were. LOL.

 

[Mr. Ingram's Computer Repair & Shoppe]

If you aren't doing it for money, then you are no longer a professional. You are just REALLY good at a hobby. And this forum is not for hobbyists.

Can I have the honor of summoning the kraken?

It's a joke, I kid l kid...

I still call dibs.

 

[sapphirescales]

If you aren't doing it for money, then you are no longer a professional. You are just REALLY good at a hobby. And this forum is not for hobbyists.

Can I have the honor of summoning the kraken?

It's a joke, I kid l kid...

I still call dibs.

Even if I never stepped foot in my shop again, I'd still own it. So I'm still technically a computer repair business owner even if you don't count my home based business endeavors.

 

[cypress]

Hehe, I might actually reveal my identity if I move out of state and start doing this out of my home again. I'll have much less to lose then. I'm a bit too high profile to reveal myself on a public forum right now, but if no one can connect my identity to my big, main business then I have no problem revealing my tricks of the trade as it were. LOL.

lmao I been waiting for this day....

 

[G8racingfool]

lmao I been waiting for this day....

C'mon, we all know he's secretly Jeff Bezos.

 

[fencepost]

C'mon, we all know he's secretly Jeff Bezos.

Or Peter Thiel, but if so then he should definitely be thrown off.

 

[Krynn72]

This is the same thing my old boss has done. He wanted to get back into the hands on and personal aspect of the work so he's either sold off or consolidated most of the shops he owned. He's not working from home, but out of one of his smaller shops and with one assistant. I left while that was happening and have stopped by a couple times and he seems happier and more energized so I think it was a good choice for him. He's got stable money coming in from his other shop which basically runs itself, got money from selling the rest, has investments and etc. So in his and your situation I say why not? When money isn't a issue anymore, just do what keeps you busy and happy.

 

[Mr. Ingram's Computer Repair & Shoppe]

just do what keeps you busy and happy.

#LifeMotto

 

[Krynn72]

*if money isn't a concern anymore

You missed that part

I'm of the belief that you should spend part of your life making as much money as you can so you can get rid of the financial stress and jump on to the more fulfilling but possibly lower paying work.

 

[fencepost]

I'm of the belief that you should spend part of your life making as much money as you can so you can get rid of the financial stress and jump on to the more fulfilling but possibly lower paying work.

Once upon a time I thought I'd do corporate IT to build up a nice retirement nest egg, then go teach instead (at the time I was figuring HS computer science and possibly math). No Child Left Behind made the teaching part of that a lot less appealing, and working for 2 companies in a consolidating and shrinking industry took a toll on the financial side.

 

[sapphirescales]

So in his and your situation I say why not? When money isn't a issue anymore, just do what keeps you busy and happy.

Exactly. I feel like I do the same d*mned thing every single day of my life and it's really wearing me down. There's always new stuff to learn, but the amount of time I spend learning new things these days has greatly diminished. I'm more of a businessman than a technician.

I've started advertising my home based business more on Adwords and it's been great. I'm starting to remember why I got into this field in the first place. I've focused my store business model on giving clients one on one attention, but I still couldn't spend quite as much time with them as I wanted to. I just helped a client yesterday buy a new laptop. He had a really old Vista era Dell Inspiron Core 2 Duo system that just wasn't running right.

I sold him an A grade Dell Latitude E5540 laptop with a brand new SSD and a fresh install of Windows 10. I transferred all his data, sold him a copy of Office, and set everything up for him. I did it while he waited. It took 2 hours, but in the end I made about $500 in profit and made my client VERY happy. There's no way I could have done it this way at my shop. I just can't give that much time to a client. And $250/hour isn't bad for working from home. I also met him at 8:00pm and he left at around 10:00pm, so he got to come at a time that worked for him and I'm a night owl myself so it worked out great. He was the only client I saw that day, but if I can do something similar each day, I'll only have to work a couple of hours a day and make $15k/month. This is what I used to do and it worked great. That is...until I opened a shop.

 

[Paul Rodgers]

OP is Michael Dell

 

[callthatgirl]

is your one store, one we all would know of?

I'm considering changing my online appointments to be 4 hour only. I feel the way you do....if I could bring in just one $500 sale a day over many 1 hour calls, I think I would be happier. It's only $10,000 but I make money doing other things too, so it would be ideal.

 

[kwest]

I kind of do the same thing. I have two stores that run on their own. I check in on them but they run on their own. I do a lot of the onsites because that is what I enjoy. I might train someone to do that but for now i like meeting people at their house and fixing stuff. My stores just book the appts for me and handle any issues.

 

[sapphirescales]

I kind of do the same thing. I have two stores that run on their own. I check in on them but they run on their own. I do a lot of the onsites because that is what I enjoy. I might train someone to do that but for now i like meeting people at their house and fixing stuff. My stores just book the appts for me and handle any issues.

I'm the exact opposite. I HATE going on site and try to avoid it whenever possible. I absolutely love working from home and giving my clients one on one attention. And I can't quite put my finger on it, but there's something special about working on a computer in your underwear.

Well I've ramped up my home based business and it's doing pretty well. I'm seeing about 1 person a day on average and have pulled in nearly $10,000 in revenue so far this month. It's peanuts compared to what my shop pulls in, but I sure enjoy it a lot more.

 

[sapphirescales]

is your one store, one we all would know of?

I'm considering changing my online appointments to be 4 hour only. I feel the way you do....if I could bring in just one $500 sale a day over many 1 hour calls, I think I would be happier. It's only $10,000 but I make money doing other things too, so it would be ideal.

I mean, I'm not Geek Squad or anything, but my store is getting big enough to compete with the local Microcenter and I have absolutely no desire to show behind the curtain as it were. I have nothing to gain and everything to lose by doing that. I love giving general advice on here, but I don't want everyone to have a practical example.

I strongly believe that you should do what makes you happiest. If selling larger blocks of time and focusing on larger clients would be better and less stressful for you (I know it is for me), then go for it. I would personally rather see 1 person and make $500 than see 4 people and make $125 per client. Think of it this way. The more you make per client, the more room your business has to grow. If you're nickle and dimeing yourself to death, you'll have nothing left over. I stopped dealing with cheap clients many years ago, and I have absolutely no desire to go back to that. My average sale/service is $500+.

 

[callthatgirl]

I feel the way you do, but like everyone who needs changes to happen, I'm scared to pull the trigger on it.

I think I will try it on Friday through the end of the month. See what happens. I have a free consult still up and I'm guessing more of those will come along.

Thanks!

 

[sapphirescales]

I feel the way you do, but like everyone who needs changes to happen, I'm scared to pull the trigger on it. I have people who sign up for the 4 hours often, but not enough. But if it's my only option, maybe more will sign up. A good amount of my 1 hour jobs are brutal, people rush me and work me to death to hurry up, the other half could give 2 squats and know I'm doing them a great service. I just know that the folks who buy my prepay tickets, are my favorites overall as they know what to expect and know how much they love their Outlook working.

I think I will try it on Friday through the end of the month. See what happens. I have a free consult still up and I'm guessing more of those will come along.

Thanks!

It sounds to me that an alternative might be to either increase your hourly rate or charge a flat rate. I don't do a lot of Outlook stuff so I don't know if a flat rate structure would even be practical for you, but I'm a 100% flat rate shop and it works very well for me. You know, charge per mailbox or migration, or charge for each individual service you do in Outlook. My effective hourly rate is around $200 or $300/hour (sometimes more!) thanks to my move to a flat rate pricing structure. Of course if I told my clients how much I charge per hour, they'd probably just scoff and hang up. LOL. It's all about pricing things correctly so you end up making more per hour. Yeah, sometimes I get a crap job that ends up netting me $40/hour but so long as that doesn't happen often and I also get jobs that pay $700/hour so it averages out to $300/hour, I'm good to go.

 

[fencepost]

@callthatgirl Your pricing page is a little confused right now - I see mention of 1 hour appointments that can be upgraded from, and prices for 4 hour and 8 hour blocks, plus some mentions in the text of 3 hour blocks.

If your 1-hour appointments are too short make 1.5-2 hours your minimum perhaps - 4 hours sounds like it might be a hard sell. Maybe a 2 hour appointment that costs 2/3 as much as the 4 hour one. Depending on how you work, it might even make sense to add a very limited number of half hour appointments at 75% of the cost of a full hour, but with the restriction that those are analysis only appointments so you can more appropriately estimate how much time they're going to actually need.

If someone says "Why is the half hour so expensive?" "Because I'm actually spending more time on it than just the time connected remotely - I'm also documenting what I found and what else needs to be done."

 

[fencepost]

Yeah, sometimes I get a crap job that ends up netting me $40/hour but so long as that doesn't happen often and I also get jobs that pay $700/hour so it averages out to $300/hour, I'm good to go.

Wait, are you Louis Rossmann?