How to Earn 25% More
As a computer repairman, you have two basic options: charge by the hour, or by the job (with a quote). I prefer the latter. When starting out, you'll have the advantage of flexible pricing to determine what is optimal your market.
Segment Your Market
Rather than choosing a fixed cost for the job, find some optional added value you can give to your customer (e.g. faster service). Then, when providing your quote over the phone, start high for the premium service. If the prospect objects ("that's too much", or "I don't need a 12-hr turnaround time"), then you've created the opportunity to offer a lower quote without making your pricing seem arbitrary. Offer a longer turnaround (or otherwise sub-premium service) for a reduce rate. Aside from using the anchoring principle to your advantage, you now have a legitimate reason to reduce your quote if the customer is not willing to pay for premium service, in effect saving the sale and making the job easier on yourself through your reduced service offering.
By segmenting your market, you create an offering that appeals to the higher-end audience while not eliminating budget-conscious prospects. Based on my own experience using this approach, earnings went up over 25% during the first month, compared with my previous approach (offering a single quote).
Example
*Phone Rings*
Customer: How much do you charge for computer repair?
You: The price depends on what you need repaired. What's wrong with your computer?
Customer: It's got a virus.
You: Sounds awful! If you need the computer back right away, we can remove the virus and have it back to you in 12 hours for $ABC.
Customer: Hmm, I don't really need it done that fast.
You: That's fine. We also offer 24 and 48 hour service options. You can get your computer back, virus-free in 48 hours for only $XYZ.
In the above conversation, it turns out that you offered something more than the customer needed. You then reduced your offering to meet her needs.
If she had a business computer and needed the faster turnaround time, she likely would have been willing to pay more.
A Good Time to Start a Computer Repair Business?
Inc.com lists The Best Industries for Starting a Business Right Now. "Repair Services" is #16 on their slideshow. Specifically, "personal electronics repair shops" is mentioned.
The trick for the computer guru tends to be the marketing aspect, which this site aims to focus on. Technibble does a great job at covering the technical aspects. Here we focus specifically on virus removal as well.
The best way to begin is probably not to start your own shop, but instead to work out of a home office initially.
Computer Repair Mastermind Group
Special invitation for select computer business professionals. You're invited to be part of the Computer Repair Mastermind group. A Mastermind group is just like the forums but we'll be having a discussion via Skype for about 30 minutes.
A member of our forum and full-time onsite computer repair specialist, Demosthenes, will be hosting the first conference call on Monday the 13th at 8 PM EST.
From Demosthenes:
A common trait was found during the study of 100 highly successful business owners. All 100 had a group of like minded individuals they could share their ideas with.
Help me make this a success by bringing your experience to the discussion. Topics for Monday will be starting with marketing tips and ideas for your computer business. Join us Monday 13th at 8pm EST.
Send your Skype name to Demosthenes for your invitation.
See you Monday.
Demosthenes
Find Demosthenes on our forum.
How to Advertise Your Computer Repair Business
Thanks to online advertising networks like AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing, small computer repair businesses (even home-based ones) can easily promote themselves locally. Now that Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising can essentially buy you customers, you can advertise your computer repair business on local websites and have it show up alongside search engine results.
How to Show Up Next to Search Results
You pay for terms like computer repair, virus removal, and computer service. When people search for computer repair, your business shows up on the side. By defining your region (discussed below), you can make sure to only advertise to people in your area.
Search Advertising Example
In the example above, ads appear on the right. The computer repair advertiser only pays when someone clicks their ad. $1.00 to $5.00 per click is typical for a computer repair advertisement click, although pricing varies by region and day. So, if 20% of those clicks result in a phone call, then you would pay about $5 to $25 per lead in this example. Lower bids buy you a lower position (fewer clicks), and this might be acceptable when testing your business if you want to start slowly by spending little.
How to Show Up on Related Web Sites
You can also pay to have your website ads show up embedded on local websites. You're probably familiar with the contextual text ad blocks that show up everywhere, and you can add your business's ad without much extra effort.
Let's suppose you've decided that you want your advertisements to show up on web pages discussing computer repair. To cause your ads to show up on those pages, you would create an "Ad Group", which links your advertisements to keywords. The keywords you enter should form a theme - for example, a theme of "computer repair". Your theme might include the following keywords:
- computer repair
- pc repair
- desktop repair
- laptop repair
Now your computer repair ads show up on sites discussing computer repair!
Getting the Most Out of Local Advertising
If you have a very low advertising budget, don't rule out PPC advertising altogether. Instead, target a small local area, and bid less. Be sure to spread your budget over both Search Advertising and Content Advertising to maximize ROI.
It's important to limiting the reach of your advertising to people browsing the web in your local area, just like with search advertising. In the image below, note how a local computer repair business bids higher (darker areas) for advertisements that display closer to the shop.
Bid according to potential.
Learning More
This has been an introduction to advertising your computer repair business using PPC online advertising. When you are ready to begin advertising your computer business online, get started right away with a small budget (place low bids; advertise in a small target area). As you learn more, raise your advertising budget. Start by learning Google's AdWords since they have a dominant market share and will get you the most traffic. Later, expand to Yahoo and Microsoft's ad networks to increase your reach.
How to Profit from the Unprofitable
Here we learn to deal with what would normally be an unprofitable job. Suppose you're speaking with a prospect who you can tell is going to be very demanding, or who is requesting your services for the type of work that you are uninterested in doing. The best ways to handle these situations include:
- raising the quote
- referring the lead to someone else
- saying no
Raise the quote high enough to reflect your concerns and bad hunches, but not so high as to send the client away. Raising the quote means raising your first quote, with respect to your normal rate. Otherwise, you'll be making someone angry. Are you "too busy to take work right now"? Don't turn them away; raise the quote.
Consider referring the lead to someone else. The goal is not to give someone a bad referral, but rather something they can handle better than you could. By having connected with some of your competitors ahead of time - ideally, who serve a slightly different market - you can send them the jobs that you can't handle (for example, you might not do laptop hardware repair). While it may seem counterintuitive to stay close to a few of your competitors in this manner, it will give you an advantage because you will now have a local lead generation network for computer repair. Here's how it works. First, make them aware of your area of expertise, and learn theirs (essentially by interviewing them as a customer might, asking them what their specialties are). If they might be a good "partner", let them know about your idea. When the time comes, you will probably have to take the first risk or two by sending them a lead for nothing except the expectation that they will send a customer your way in the future. If they reciprocate, then you've found someone who you can share a lead with again. It's good to have a number of referrals ready for when you are on vacation (but still answering your phone), or don't want to handle the work for any reason. After referring the customer, follow up by emailing your contact at that business, letting them know you just sent someone their way and that they should be expecting a call soon from them (give out their first name and the computer problem, so your friend will recognize the lead when it comes to them).
Finally, sometimes it's best to say no. Some jobs will cost you!
Computer Hardware Inventory
Stocking computer hardware is expensive. How many different graphics cards, motherboards, and memory types do you need to keep on hand? If you are starting out by running your business from home, your best bet is going to be to stock a very minimal set of parts. Maybe you'll have a few different spare memory chips, a couple old spare hard drives, perhaps an old monitor, and other generic supplies. However, stocking other components like motherboards, CPUs, and special proprietary components is just plain unprofitable. Order those components from an online retailer on demand. When just getting started, you would likely be wiser to invest $500 in advertising over $500 in parts if you could only choose one. Then, you would focus on the hardware-free services you can offer, ordering parts on demand.
Some computer repair businesses choose not to sell parts, and just perform service. Thanks, rick, for the idea for this post.
Dealing With All Types of Customers
If you're thinking of starting or are just starting a computer repair or other tech related business, you need to be able to deal with customers of all types. Each day is a new adventure, and just when you think you've seen it all, something new comes along. There are many types of customers you need to watch out for. Before I decided to go full time with my repair business, I spent a few years in customer service dealing with all kinds of people everyday. If you're typically known as the “nice guy” you may have to change your train of thought to keep from getting run over by your customers. If you have not had the benefit of gaining any type customer service experience, you should ask yourself, Can I deal with:
- The customer who “knows” what the problem is and wants to talk about it.
These aren't that bad, just annoying. - The customer who wants to look over your shoulder while you work.
Personally I hate this. I don't get nervous, but I can't stand to have anyone looking over my shoulder in any situation. - Same as above but wants an explanation of every single thing you do.
Grrrr - The customer who wants to negotiate the price.
These guys are bad especially if you're working out of your home. - The customer doesn't give you the whole story or “forgets” to tell you something relevant, like the fact he spilled coffee all over his laptop.
This can determine whether you work 10 minutes or two hours. - The older customer who wants explanations but doesn't have a clue what you're saying even when you break it down into elementary English.
Not that bad really, just another annoyance. On the plus side, if you can make a “connection” with this customer, they'll come back every time. - The customer who “since you're already working on it” wants you to fix something else for the same price.
Be firm, don't do anything for free. Let them know that it will be $x.xx more for you to do that. - The customer who wants to blame you for something that was wrong with the computer before they dropped it off.
Most of these are premeditated. They come in knowing they're going to try and get one over on you.
These are the types I run into the most but there are other types and variations.
You have to remember that this is your business. You no longer have to clock in and answer to anyone else. You're the boss and you can run your business as you see fit. If you're the type to get nervous when someone looks over your shoulder, post on a sign that if a job is estimated to take more than 30 minutes (your discretion) then it is recommended that they drop off and come back.
Be firm with your prices, you're not running a stand at a flea market. You're prices are set. Don't cave no matter how persistent that are. If they want cheap service they can look elsewhere. You can stand strong with these types of people and they will usually cave themselves. If you give in, they will be back every week wanting you to do something cheap.
Be sure to inspect whatever the customer drops off in front of them. Make a note of any defects you find, and have them sign off on it.
You can stand by your convictions without coming across as a jerk. It's all in the way that you do it.
Good luck!
Author: B-TECH Computer Repair
Will You Need Sales Skills?
Do you want to be really successful? Then yes. You're going to need a range of soft skills.
Most computer technicians aren't salesman; they are from from it, and that is the last thing they'd want to get involved with. However, that is precisely why Geek Squad has been successful - they've bridged the gap between sales and computers. If you are lacking in salesmanship skill and plan on starting up alone, then you're likely going to have a difficult time. Get a mentor, learn the art, or get a partner. Your business depends on someone having this talent.
On that note, dealing with customers eventually includes angry clients, rejection, and other emotionally challenging situations. Entrepreneurship is for the strong-minded and emotionally resilient.
How would you handle the following situations?
- You have just fixed the customer's computer, but he is unwilling to pay.
- The customer is blaming you for losing data that you know you didn't lose
- The customer is blaming you for data that was lost while repairing his computer.
- You are getting more work than you can handle, and your customers want their computer back asap.
- You are getting less work than you expected.
Bottom line: expect all of the above challenges, and work with someone who can complement your skill set if necessary.
Build a Brand, Charge More.
When starting a computer repair business, technicians often sound pretty much the same: "I'm going to give them the best value around." Given their lack of experience, they are unaware of the true cost of running a real business, and won't be able to profit enough to live off of it. Unless you are just looking for part-time work, create a brand to back yourself up, and then charge like the professional that you are supposed to be. The Geek Squad can charge $300 for on-site virus removal because of their brand. You must do whatever it takes to get your name out in a concentrated region around your service area. With a strong brand, you can charge a bit less than the Geek Squad does and do pretty well.
Here are some brand-building tips for your computer business:
- Start with a good name, logo, and website. Don't create these all yourself unless your are truly an anomaly of a technician.
- Earn some good reviews. Help facilitate the tedious review process by emailing your customers a link to your online business presence at the Yellow Pages, Yahoo Local or Google. (You should have already collected their email address on your agreement form.) You might even make an account for them to use ahead of time. Here's how you go about this: after they've praised you for saving them, say, "I'm glad to have helped! Would you mind writing two sentences as an anonymous testimonial?" When they say "yes", you respond, "Wow, thank you! I will email you." Create an account and email them a link with the username and password to sign in and review you. You have time to create an account. They don't.
- Frequency, frequency, frequency. Make sure your name appears in as many local public stores as possible. Negotiate discounted computer service with the store manager or owner in exchange for placing your fliers in prime store real-estate. This is going to be tough, since you might not be much of a salesman; if it is tough, I suggest focusing on your salesmanship. Geek Squad gets by on mostly salesmanship with a sprinkling of technical skill. At least learn the basics, and then practice them; combined with strong technical skills, you should dominate. Multiple mediums especially help. Show up on local websites and Internet banner ads. The easiest way is through PPC ad brokers like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft. Join the local Chamber of Commerce and appear in networking events. Consider whether you might offer a deal on one of your services through a coupon publication.
- Get a car magnet and proudly display your professional logo. Unless you have a beater, that is
Additional Tools
In addition to the recommended virus removal tools, bring the following to on-site jobs:
- a Linux Live CD
- an external hard drive
- your laptop
Your Live CD and external hard drive can help you to recover files from crashed computers on site.
