Recommended reading:

• How to start a PC repair business on the cheap.
• The Hackers Nightmare: The Bible Of Computer & Internet Security.

I have been out of the PC consulting business since about the first part of 2006. When I left, I had to literately beg my customers to move on and even attempted to provide recommended alternatives that were more cost effective than I was. So why the fanatical loyalty? There are number of reasons, many of which I will be blogging about at this blog in the near future. But for the sake of this post, we will examine the top five reasons why most PC consulting businesses fail and what you can do about it.

Problem #1: You do not have a problem gaining new clients, yet keeping them is difficult - why?

What likely happened: Did you take care of the problem quickly and do so without belittling them the entire time about how preventable this whole thing was? Chances are fair, like with most repair techs, that the client felt like you were talking down to them. What’s worse, most of you are totally unaware of it. While personal skills are essential to the PC consulting business, most techs need serious help with them.

What to do about it: When you have a new client, be quiet and allow them to speak. Yes, they generally have no idea what they are talking about, but trust me on this - allowing them to vent is going to win you a client for life. See, when a client (generally a home user) is coming to you for PC repair help, they are looking for more than just a quick fix. They also want you to hear their tale of woe about how terrible it was for some jerk to write a virus that caused them such a hassle.

Others still, often the “hands-on” types of people, enjoy suggesting ideas that while being totally useless to you and me. Allowing them to share their thoughts makes them feel like they are involved in the repair process.

Remember, PC consulting is 90% people and 10% repair.

Just remember to shut up and let your client say what’s on their mind. Sure, it is a pain from a scheduling point of view, so knowing this, I suggest planning on this fact when scheduling out your work day. It’s a simple cost of doing business.

Also, never, ever be late for an appointment. Traffic or getting lost is not an excuse, buy a decent GPS with traffic rerouting ability and make sure to leave very early if traffic is a concern.

Problem #2: You have a decent list of clients, but despite this, it seems like that most of them are cheap skates! They pay the bill you charge them, but either try to haggle you or question with some your new rates after a rate increase with a little too much emotion.

What likely happened: Like most people new to this business, you went out and without even realizing it, attracted a bunch of penny pinching hagglers. Along with this mistake, you did not think to make sure that you diversified yourself enough by attracting plenty of business clients along with the cheaper home based clients.

What to do about it: Fire some of your clients. Seriously, I had a simple rule I always followed to the letter.

Haggle me once, shame on you, haggle me twice, there’s the door, buddy.

This does not mean that you MUST toss out paying clients who are cheap, it simply means that your existing services are not fitting their current needs. In a later article, I will show you how to make a steady income off these folks while providing them with a valuable service at the same time.

For the sake of this post however, I recommend working with as many businesses as possible. Generally, while not always, you will have less haggling with a business client when you just saved his backside after a serious network issue brought their business to a screeching halt. And they also provide a great opportunity for other related service calls like data back-up, remote repairs and disaster prevention.

Just remember to set your price and stick to it. If a client starts getting twitchy, explain to them that this particular service you are providing to them might not be the best fit for their needs. Remind them that you are interested in providing a quality service, not bartering for a cheaper rate. Your rates and personal ability reflect the kind of clients you will end up.

Problem #3: Despite a fair number of good clients, it is becoming very difficult to grow your business!

What likely happened: This is one of the most complicated problems listed here. Even though most of you had enough sense to invest in a Yellow page ad, chances are it is filled with tons of verbiage like MCE certified and other crap that belongs on a resume, not in an ad. At a later point, I will show you what a proper yellow page ad looks like. My ad ran my business from zero to a full time work week.

Another possible issue is that you are simply advertising in all the wrong places or even more deadly to your business, have zero call to action from existing clients to make you a common referral.
What to do about it: My previous clients always left with no less than one business card in their hands. Not only that, but they were told that I offer a fairly deep discount for multiple referrals on their repair next visit. In addition, are you advertising someplace where people are thinking to look for you? Many consultants find themselves getting started with small ads in the classifieds. Now think about this for minute, would you look for a dentist or any other service like this from a classified ad? Exactly, never going to happen. Because when you do, your only pull is to sell with being “cheap” and that leads to issues mentioned previously.

Problem #4: No matter how much you try, you are either running late, out of time for the day or stressed because you feel like all you do is work and nothing ever seems to get done. This leads to crappy service and can contribute to problems above already mentioned.

What likely happened: You do not live by a schedule. This may sound silly, but trying to run a PC consulting business without a strict schedule for your day is a recipe for disaster. Most of you likely do alright with scheduling clients, but the organization stops there.

What to do about it: Become an elitist with your time because unlike money, time cannot be regained once its spent. Going back to the point about sticking to what you are worth with regard to your rates, it is important to have enough respect for the time in the day to schedule when you start, stop, break, eat and pretty much everything else.

This also means that if an issue is taking longer than the time you allowed yourself initially, offer to come back. While I never condone walking away from a job, you must not penalize other clients due to a time overage with the existing one at hand. Simply explain that you were scheduled for X number of hour(s) and will need to resume this at a later date.

Understand however, this is going to almost always tick off the client to some extent. I would offer to provide a loaner solution (PC, router, whatever) in the interim at no cost. This almost always snuffs out any ill feelings that client would have had otherwise with feeling like they were put on the back burner. Just so long as you can provide a solution to do what they need to do, the “how” becomes a lot less important. From here, you are not as rushed to fabricate free time that might not otherwise exist.

Obviously in some cases, this “loaner policy” may not work. But even with tough issues like Internet connectivity and a problem modem can be deferred with a little some WiMax option on your dime or as an absolute last resort, dial-up access for basic Internet availability. Despite neither being choice for your client, they will notice you bending over sideways to help them despite any future scheduling conflicts.

Problem #5: Your business is either feast or famine. No matter how much promotion you do, you always seem to be stressed due to a lack of income consistency. You are trying to supplement by selling hardware and software, like a VAR might, but nothing is working.

What likely happened: Trying to become a VAR (value-added reseller) is not the business you chose as a repair tech, yet you are trying to do this as well - not a good plan. Secondly, you are lacking back-up revenue streams outside of your VAR attempts. You are either repairing computers or starving - no gray areas here.

What to do about it: Stop trying to be a VAR, first of all. I do not recommend this unless you are well schooled on what you are doing here. If it is working for you, fine, stick with it. But for most techs, it sucks.

Then you have the issue of trying to make a steady income. It’s not for a lack of marketing, rather a lack of consistent, ongoing need for repair services in some cases. I’d suggest looking into teaching repair prevention at the local community college, providing in home training or perhaps something less PC related like helping people with other electronic gadgets.

In a perfect world, you may want to sell the idea of subscribing to your preventive maintenance service. Thanks to the wonders of a remote PC connection, you can help existing clients keep their PCs in good working order, preform external hard drive back-ups or other critical services on a subscription basis. Don’t dismiss the idea, once that client gets a smell of that first large repair bill, this type of service sells itself, believe me.

By implementing a subscription service, your entire revenue model becomes less dependent on actually being there, doing the same thing as every other consulting type out there. And this helps a lot with a nice advertising byline like:

Preventive care, not just computer repair.

Problem #6 - bonus problem: You think you are already competitive in a very cut-throat market. You even have a salary to prove it.

What likely happened: It was the above mindset that allow me to hand my competition’s butts to them in a basket. They had every cert, knew everything you could possibly need to as a tech, fixing computers. Unfortunately, they knew nothing about anything I have mentioned above.

This post is just a taste of how to dominate the repair industry in your hometown. In this blog, you will learn marketing ideas, using a sustainable business concept for growth among other factors.

What to do about it: First off, subscribe to the new Ctrl-Alt-Del blog today. Starting today, I am working out a whole new format. All PC consulting business advice, with each new post.

Secondly, read all the posts as they come out and then re-read them. Sometimes you may find that you miss things the first time out only to have it click the next time out. And to those wondering why I am not doing the PC consulting business any longer, I can answer that quite easily. First, I retired from it in my early 30’s - I am currently 34 as of this post. It was no longer fun for me and I chose to pursue other things. Computer consulting was great while I loved it, but as the years went on, I needed a change. You can learn more about what I do now at MattHartley.com. In the meantime, subscribe to this blog.

Doing so will be worth your time and money, its free and I will demonstrate with each post that PC repair as most people know it is completely broken. I hope to be part of the solution to fixing it.

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