My family is fairly poor, so the state and feds picked most of it up. I
should obtain the return on YOUR investment. ;-)
-----
Mike Hammett
Intelligent Computing Solutions
http://www.ics-il.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Cliff Leboeuf" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "WISPA General List" <wireless@wispa.org>
Sent: Wednesday, August 15, 2007 6:07 PM
Subject: RE: [WISPA] Managed IT Service
"College just trains you to expect more than what you're really worth."
Maybe you didn't LISTEN good enough in college!
If you were listening, you would have heard what you should actually
EXPECT was right on. If you are as good and knowledgeable as you state,
then you are not charging what you ARE worth. The only way you would be
"screwing" anyone at $80 per hour is if you didn't know what you are
doing.
There is nothing wrong with making money.
Become more confident and raise your rate to what your market will
support! You will be happier in the long run...You'll be happy you did.
:)
Obtain the "return" on your college "investment." It wasn't cheap I bet.
Charge "what you're really worth;" just like they told you in school!!!
- Cliff
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of Mike Hammett
Sent: Wednesday, August 15, 2007 5:01 PM
To: WISPA General List
Subject: Re: [WISPA] Managed IT Service
Currently it is only myself, so I pocket 100% of it. I'll expand upon
my
thoughts not to defend my price, but to say where I'm coming from in an
attempt to figure out if my current system won't scale or if everyone
else
is just screwing their customers.
That said, I don't see how all of those things really add up to that
much
money. At $20/hour, that's just under $42k/year for a full time
employee.
Make that just over $43k after you figure in unemployment, social
security,
and Medicare. I only pay income tax on what I profit, so that's not
part of
the equation.
Office space and use is pretty cheap. $250 for the whole office, I have
options on other office spaces in the building.
Most any problem can be quickly diagnosed and repaired, being able to
include travel time within the 1 hour minimum. Otherwise, the $15/hour
I
make for beyond the included 3 hours surely pays for the $5 - $10 in
mileage
they would use (until I have my own vehicles).
Everything is manual at the moment because there just isn't the volume,
but
I can't see the minute I spend entering into QuickBooks taking that much
time or money to bill them, pay the employee, etc.
There haven't been many things that I've encountered that I haven't been
able to fix quickly. I know at least one other person that is about as
smart as myself and they'd be tickled pink with $10/hour. I greatly
prefer
people that have gained their knowledge outside of formal education.
After
going through college, I would have only hired 2 people in my class of
30
(myself included) due to information absorption and retention rates.
College just trains you to expect more than what you're really worth.
etc.
If we're going on 100 billable hours of work a month, that's 33
customers,
assuming they actually need my services that month. I've only been
doing
this a couple months, but I really don't think I'll be needed much.
They're
paying for something they may not utilize, but have on reserve. 33
customers would be almost $60k/year. That leaves me $15k/year to cover
all
of those other, misc expenses. If I can't do that, I have bigger
problems
to deal with.
Maybe I'll kick up my rates 25% or so, but $80 or $120/hour, IMNHO is
just
screwing the customer.
-----
Mike Hammett
Intelligent Computing Solutions
http://www.ics-il.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Clint Ricker" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "WISPA General List" <wireless@wispa.org>
Sent: Wednesday, August 15, 2007 4:30 PM
Subject: Re: [WISPA] Managed IT Service
I don't see any possible way that you're making any sort of actual
profit
on
this (or even really breaking even) at this rate, unless you've got
some
redicuously cheap labor....
Consider this...
If you're doing $40 an hour, and you had a full time person billing
100%
of
the time (ie 168 hours per month), then you'll max out for that
employee
at
about $80,000 of revenue....you then have to pay taxes, mileage,
insurance,
etc...
Now, take into account that a single full time employee doing this
full
time
in reality will never do more than 100 billable hours a month...
This is from experience and even assumes that you're fairly
streamlined in
terms of paperwork, supplies, travel routes, etc...
This means, at $40 per hour, you'll only pull in $48,000 per year in
revenue
for that full time employee....assuming you have a streamlined
operation.
There's no room in there to pay them, pay taxes, pay mileage, pay for
their
portion of office space (and other expense), pay for billing, pay for
your
time in management, and so forth.
I'd double it as a starting point if you're in a rural market, triple
if
you're urban, and probably more for people who aren't regular
customers.
Still, a lot does depend on your market and your business model. Are
your
employees knowledgeable? Do they really know what they are doing on
this
stuff, or are they just fumbling through...
Keep in mind, as well, that small business consulting is not too
different
from dealing with people in the home construction / repair
industry--there
are a lot of people who just walked off the farm, so to speak, and
claim
to
be in the business (no insult intended, and some of them do well).
They
aren't always the best in terms of quality, and they aren't always the
best
in terms of professionalism. Most businesses that have some sense pay
more
to get better quality...in some sense, if you price yourself higher,
you
price yourself into the good customers. You also give yourself the
money
to
do it well...
-Clint Ricker
Kentnis Technologies
On 8/15/07, Mike Hammett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Does this sound fair to all parties?
My normal rate is $40/hour, with $80/hour for emergencies.
I charge $150/month to manage a business's network. This includes 3
hours
of support. I also will VPN into the network and ensure that
operating
systems, anti-virus, etc. are updated, which does not consume any
hours. Additional support is available at $35/$70 per hour.
-----
Mike Hammett
Intelligent Computing Solutions
http://www.ics-il.com
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