How to Start Your Own Computer Support Business

How many times have you seen someone else's computer bloated with spyware? How many small businesses have you seen running a few computers here and there with no backup to speak of? Perhaps there's a company you know that has a website that looks like it came straight from 1995. Technology is proliferating like never before, and the demand for computer experts is increasing along with it. It's not all fast cars and loose women, but if you take time to do the research and are willing to devote time and energy to the actual business portion of the endeavor, the technology skills you already have can turn into a nice part-time small business.

It all starts with developing a business plan. Going full force into a business without developing a plan as to where your clients are going to come from, what services you are going to offer, and how much you're going to charge will doom you to failure. Take some time and decide exactly what services you want to offer.

Call up the competition and ask them how much they charge to do certain things, and under-cut them. Since most large computer support businesses charge much more than necessary to do most common technology support tasks, you can undercut them and still do very well. You won't have the over-head of a building, or employees, so you can charge much less and still make very decent profits.

Perhaps the most important part of your business plan is figuring out where your clients are going to come from. You can have all of the technology skills in the world, but without having customers, you won't make a dime. A great place to start is by picking up a book called Guerilla Marketing. It provides a bunch great ways to advertise small business without spending much money at all. You can start as simple as posting flyers around town. You might even offer to do a few calls for friends and family for free, as long as they promise to tell everyone they know about the business. Hand them some business cards to pass around as well. Worth of mouth is the single best way for people to know about your business. Do a great job for your clients so that they'll recommend to their friends to use you as well.

The great thing is that you won't need much equipment or capital to get started. If you're a self-respecting computer nerd, you probably have all of the screwdrivers and basic tools that you need to get started. You might need a little bit of money to order replacement parts for hardware failures, but that shouldn't need to be more than $500.00 or so.

Know your limitations. You won't be able to be everything to everyone. If you're not a good web-person, don't offer to make websites. If you have no idea about Linux, don't offer to host Apache-based Linux web servers. Do a few things, and do them very well. Don't try to do things that you're not good at, because the poor quality work will show up, and your customers will be unhappy.

Accounting is a must. You have to keep a close track on the books of your business, otherwise you'll have no idea how much money you're making, or if you're even making money at all. Just as you should be writing a personal monthly budget, write one for your business. You should be taking a quarter of all your profits and sending them to the IRS in the form of quarterly estimates, so that you don't get hit with a huge tax bill next April. Always look for ways to decrease costs and expand your revenue streams.

It Takes Time. You're not going to be able to get 25 clients over night, it's just not realistic. You'll probably only get 2 or 3 clients for the first month. In order to build your customer base, you need to actively search out new and better ways to advertise (and not spend any money doing so). You have to make sure that your customers are satisfied with your work, because word of mouth works both ways. Keep promoting your business, and doing quality work at good prices, and over time you'll build a fairly decent sized list of clients.