1) Your time is valuable, people must know this - if they don't like it, send them on their way as their view is incompatible with your reality.
2) Avoid working on super old hardware! Anything older than 5-6 years (or is simply very slow for hardware reasons) gets an automatic "it will be cheaper for you to upgrade than for me to work on this". This is why you don't want to charge too little per hour too. 10 hours at $10/hr is only $100 to the user, but dude that's a full day for you! No incentive for them to upgrade right? $25/hr is tougher on their pocketbooks and 10 hours is now $250...a one year old PC. Now, if someone wants to pay you $25/hr to wait the 45 minutes for their machine to boot into Safe Mode just so you can nuke 45 things from their \currentversion\run portion of their registry, then that's your call. (this was at a clients place and it had an inoperable CD-ROM so I couldn't cheat). 3) Be honest and again set their expectations. In the 15+ years I have been doing this stuff I have never had anyone tell me I overcharged them. In fact I have had a few times where they paid me more than I asked for! A couple times I got paid even though I told them it was pro bono because I was able to work on it at home but was unable to accomplish anything useful. Granted these were fellow employees' home machine and not just some Joe off the street, but still, if they feel you gave an honest effort and treat them , it pays back in spades. 4) Be open to play it by ear - don't give your time away too much, but sometimes real simple stuff you don't need to charge for. It builds goodwill and you'll be amazed at how doing this just a few times gets you unsolicited referrals. This is how you build a biz to the point you no longer need to advertise - I haven't advertised since picking up my big client 9 years ago, word of mouth is amazing. 5) Don't be afraid to say no if for whatever reason it doesn't feel like the right gig for you. Don't travel too far, etc. 6) No need to talk trash about a previous tech's work if it's obvious someone else has been there before you, sends the wrong message IMO. If your work is quality compared to someone else, it will show in the results. OK lunch is over, back to %dayjob% for me :) David Lum // SYSTEMS ENGINEER NORTHWEST EVALUATION ASSOCIATION (Desk) 971.222.1025 // (Cell) 503.267.9764 From: John Aldrich [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, November 09, 2009 12:27 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Side work Thanks for the advice. I plan on being a "shade tree" PC tech for home users who can't afford/don't want to spend the money on a new system. They just want their old, spyware loaded system cleaned and sped up. Sometimes I won't be able to do anything and I guess I ought to just plan on like a $10 "diagnostic" fee or something. Any thoughts on a "diagnostic" fee for things you can't do anything about (i.e. extreme example, but someone brings in a P2 and wants to be able to load Windows 7 on it.... <G>) [cid:[email protected]][cid:[email protected]] From: David Lum [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, November 09, 2009 3:09 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Side work One thing I am 100% clear with on my side jobs is contacting me at %DAYJOB% is VERBOTEN unless business-down critical and my availability is limited to after %DAYJOB% hours. OTOH my current %DAYJOB% is aware of my side clients for my biz and it's understood I can take personal time if it's an *extreme* emergency for a client . Over the last 3 years that has worked out to a whopping five hours for one server down incident. If it ever became more than once a year I would likely drop the client to stay in %DAYJOB% good graces. Obviously it's something that can vary from place to place, but they key is setting expectation up front for everyone. As long as side job clients understand %DAYJOB% trumps everything else for priority we're good. My biggest client has 50 employees and understands this limitation but has been happy enough that this month marks 9 years of support. In fact I have never had a client drop me, although I have dropped one and turned down a few. Manage expectations, **know when to turn down clients** and life will be good. David Lum // SYSTEMS ENGINEER NORTHWEST EVALUATION ASSOCIATION (Desk) 971.222.1025 // (Cell) 503.267.9764 From: Jacob [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, November 09, 2009 11:54 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Side work I did side work, but it became a pain when someone would call during my "normal" job and they wanted me to either come to their house/small office now or walk them over the phone. Was not worth the hassle... From: John Aldrich [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, November 09, 2009 11:18 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: OT: Side work Anyone here do any side work as a PC Tech? I'm looking at doing some side work to bring in a bit of extra money during tight economic times. I'm curious whether you have customers sign any sort of release of liability for the equipment? I'm just trying to keep from losing money on this by getting sued if I take in a piece of hardware and it ends up that it's unrepairable or gets damaged worse in my custody... [cid:[email protected]][cid:[email protected]] No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 8.5.425 / Virus Database: 270.14.56/2491 - Release Date: 11/09/09 12:11:00 ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
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