Ric Chapmans Story: From Broke to Business Clients

This is my story. A short story before you start to panic (you can sit back down). A story about how I finally made my move from having strictly residential clients to include those elusive businesses. Those businesses I walked past everyday and gave little to no thought at all. In reflection it seems that this story is pretty typical of my fellow techs here at Technibble so I’m pleased to have the opportunity to bare the last decade on paper and show you the path I took. These are the events in my career and business which eventually led me to where I am today and how and why my work is now strongly business focused. For that we’ll need to step back in time just a little…

It’s the year 2000. Ouch stay with me, I know I said a little. 2000 was the year of my humble career beginnings as a web designer. That’s probably somewhat hard to believe given my own website but then that’s probably why I lasted all of about a year and a half. Perhaps partly because I was mediocre at best when it came to actually designing anything but perhaps mostly due to the fact I was often found at the companies helpdesk helping someone take the support calls when things got a little busy. The kicker was I was probably better than my colleagues who were employed to do this work, perhaps they should have been web designing? Who knows, what I did know was that I had perhaps chosen the wrong career. Time to re-evaluate.

The problem here was that I had just poured the last couple of years into nothing, something I was literally having to ditch and start over. I wasn’t just moving onto a different path, I had stuck on the handbrake and proceeded to climb uphill in fifth gear. I needed to find a support role but getting one was near impossible. I mean there was absolutely nothing out there for me at the time, zero, zilch. I knew I could do the work but on paper I was geared towards designing, potential employers were confused and my references disappeared after my previous employer went bust. It would be two months before I could get an entry level job, but despite not knowing it at the time, these two months were the start of all my problems which went on to last several years. I started to accumulate serious debt.

Soon enough I located the role that kick started my technical support career, an IT Assistant role which I acquired through a training agency, which came about through a chance encounter with an old friend who pointed me in the right direction. He had started with them a couple of years back, he was suited and booted, had a car, a house. Quite frankly I wanted his life at the time. I was down, out and just needed something. Anything. But just one phone call later and an interview, I had finally located the something. At the extraordinary pay of £5K annual, this equates to around $8000 at todays rate, thankfully I just missed out having to pay tax. Regardless it’s barely enough to live on, but then it certainly beats living on nothing at all, so I took it.

The situation was a double edged sword, I had the training as promised and the small wage packet but I continued to accumulate debt over the next couple of years and my living arrangements deteriorated rapidly. I was living with friends and family, basically whoever would have me, constantly jumping around from pillar to post. Things did improve but at a tremendously slow pace, sometimes it felt like I was getting pushed backwards, but everyday I had to put up a fight. I studied, put in the extra hours at the office (often falling asleep at my desk) and gradually received pay rises as my abilities, skills and dedication increased. The more pay I earned the more I put back in, determined to show my employer that they get what they pay for.

The pay rises continued over another couple of years reaching a very comfortable pay of £25K ($40000), I was dam proud of that achievement at the time, I had literally clawed up the pay scale from nothing. I’m now renting a room which gave me a dedicated address and professionally I was making good progress. I was exactly where I wanted to be at the time.

But sadly, the damage had been done. I hadn’t gone far in clearing the debts that I had collected in the previous years, in fact they were still increasing having got myself into some seriously poor habits. I continued to push these problems to the back of my head, I was just about making the minimum payments.

After a time the worry was more than I could bear, I was well above the national average in debt for an individual. Not good. In short I needed more money, I needed an additional income which saw me revisit my past plans of starting up a business. It didn’t have to be anything big. Just a small additional income to make some headway utilising the support training and personal skills I had acquired over the last couple of years. Of course there is only one clear option, residential tech support. I made the decision to cut back my extra hours at the office and use my time to build up my computer business.

Meanwhile I met my wife. Obviously not my wife at the time. But there she was. The new girl in accounts, pretty and intelligent. What she saw in me I still continue to ponder over to this very day. Though thinking about it seriously for a moment, the only thing really going for me was my technical computer fixing abilities. From the little I actually know about the opposite sex I’m pretty sure that’s not high on the list of must haves for future spouses, but it must have showed something.

But regardless, I won’t go into excessive detail of the period but needless to say we got engaged and in 2008 we fell pregnant. We’d been trying for a year, so I’ll never forget the day or her face when she told me. The next couple of weeks we buzzed with excitement at the prospect of our future life and family, we didn’t have much in the way of our own families, we just had each other, and now a little one was on the way to complete the picture.

The weeks that followed I fell into a state of fear and depression and reflected heavily on our life and situation, the impending arrival prompted conversations of stability, money and levels of care. All the things that I couldn’t be much further from. I had no money, I had piles of debt. We lived in a flat, far too small for a new family. We needed to pay for nursery, we both still needed to work. How could I have let this happen. How could I let us be in this situation with there being no sign of improvement.

My business at this time showed only mild and erratic success despite the ridiculous hours I was pouring into it. Some months were excellent, the additional income stream did the job of providing a buffer so that we could actually go out once in a while and pay off a little extra debt. Other months I struggled to make payments, often being late as result of relying on poor income forecasting models. What got to me most was that I’d still have to be away from my family for potentially hours on end or be stuck at the table trying to get work done to bring in that extra payment. Leaving all the parenting responsibilities to my significant other. I remember at the time thinking the word… “unacceptable”. I would not be subjecting my family, especially our baby, with financially difficult times.

I took two days holiday off work and called in sick on the third because I hadn’t slept at all , this may have been the catalyst which prompted my employer to investigate my out of hours “activities”. Quite frankly I wasn’t phased, I hadn’t overstepped any boundaries to the point of dismissal but regardless I promptly sought other employment, I was snapped up and the three days were not wasted. They had resulted in my battle plan, a plan I should have been implementing months back and it boiled down to one simple notion. My computer business should be targeting businesses.

It was so ridiculously simple really, I walked through my town everyday and everyday I must have passed businesses itching for help and computer support from anyone knowledgeable. This was surely an answer, a town full of businesses both large and small and I’m completely ignoring them. I’d worked in a business support role over three companies, both large and small. I was already acutely aware of business needs generally and with a little practice I could learn the specifics surely?

Meanwhile my fiancee had come up with her own business plan, perfect, a little practice and a trial run with someone I know. A little web design, Office 365 setup, some home network modifications using a myriad of redundant parts from the office and she’s up and running within a week. Web design, professional email and network improvements are not your typical residential requests so already I’m feeling I’m onto a winner.

The key goals are simple, a much larger client base by incorporating businesses within the immediate area. Greater stability through support contracts offering dedicated levels of income and easier forecasting. Higher profits through simply raising my costs to cover the higher degree and broader range of business class skills. Take on a stronger position of remote support and managed support services so that I could work from home and still be a dad and husband. What the hell was I waiting for, I set about making more plans.

“Unacceptable”… my driving force, rings in my head and I picture my family as I set out to approach my first business face on. Waiting for them to come to me hadn’t worked so far so what better way than to approach them directly? I won’t kid myself, this wont be easy, but lets see if I can make this work, I have to make this work …

In part two, I will share how my computer business slowly ascended into that vague world of business support and how I got round those initial problems and how I ultimately achieved exactly what I had set out to do. On to Part 2.