for those who build pc's for an income

[PresterJohn]

there was a thread about this a while back.

a good tool kit should include the following:

common sized phillips, flat, and torx screw heads (jeweler's size also)
various dos/win boot disks
AV package on both floppy & cd media
various microsoft OS cds
straight & cross-over ethernet cables
various favorite utilities like a ascii text editor, archiver (like winzip), etc.
laptop with working nic & modem (if you can afford one!)
spare nic

[implexant]

well heres my scoop:

i'd say $30/hr at least for general computer tech stuff, $40/hr for networking. see my website for more details on how much i charge. if your doing freelance, you must charge more!! I'd say $60/hr regardless of what you do. Make sure customers know what you charge, and have them sign a service agreement. And, no pulling figures off your head, I did that for waaaaaayyyyyy too long. Cost me big $$. Also, charge for emergencies. I do it. One Saturday I woke up, an MIS Manager at a local business (mid sized) was out of the office in the middle of a campin trip and a router at his business went down. It needed to get back up. I made $60 for a half hour of checking cables and then rebooting the router. And another thing: if you work fast, hard, and do a quality job, your worth the $$$ for you time. Another thing I do: I charge $20/hr for the first two hours for new clients. That way they can see that I work fast, hard, ect. They always come back and pay full price.

anyways, good luck to you all!

-Chris

Taz, I feel your pain.

There ain't anyone smart enough up here to actually need anything more than a buggy pos Compaq.

You're suffering from the north country touch. Did you here that Prominet is going out of business? They're suffering from that touch, too.

My dream would be to build custom computers, but I'd be my biggest customer.

I know all about those call back people. My favorites are the friend's friends who expect a free or good price...

Free? FREE? Why would I even get out of bed? As it is, my boss barely makes it worth my time to get out of bed.

Taz - Take me to Florida with you!

[Tazman]

tisk, tisk...what did people call you when you got your first computer? Looking back, what would you call yourself?

Oh I was an idiot . 'Course that was back in '89 on my first 386 and running 1Dirplus!. I actually refused to install Win3.1 for the longest time 'cuz I thought it was too "gawdy" (for lack of a better word).

I don't expect people to know what I know - glad they don't or I would have to find a different field . I would like it if they would retain just a tad of what I try to teach. I've spent countless hours typing up a manual that explains how and why it's important to scan disk, cleanup, defrag, etc. I give this manual to all of my customers and set their new computers up to run scheduled tasks each week. They still call to find out how to defrag. The reason is because they are too lazy to read the manual and each week they might be surfing the net when defrag comes on and they click out of it. Mind you, it's a select few but it gets old getting the same calls from the same people about the same thing .

The reason I write alot is because the ecomony sux and nobody is wanting to spend money - we all happen to be hurting from this resession, which gives me a lot of time to spend here and not make an income .

Back to the subject....

Retsel77 - PJ covered the critical items to bring. I have a small fortune invested in computers, laptop, external drives, tools, etc. Most usually just sit idle and rarley go on the road. What I do when I get the initial call is find out what the problem(s) is and pack what I think I'll need. If they happen to be on a dial-up and I'm gonna have to get on the net for a driver / updates / etc. I bring a loaner computer to set them up with to get on the net and bring their box back here and put it on my LAN - I'm allergic to that screech of a dialup . Critical items that go with me are my philips screw driver and my utilities:
Belarc Advisor
Sandra to name a couple. I have also found that an external drive or burner is very handy to back up a crashed computer. I perfer the drive to the burner because it holds more than 700MB. Most computers you'll come across have USB 1. The transfer rates are lousy but if you have USB 2 it makes it worth it.

prexaspes - North Country Touch - that's it! Is there a pill to cure it? If so, I want one . BTW, you won't like Florida, I hear it's warm and sunny there. I'll be there a couple of months and probably make more there in that time than 6 months here. 'Course my heart is and always will be in the Adirondacks.

Mike

[Retsel77]

Wow, you guys give nice information. I guess I have a lot of planning to do, but with your help it will be easier now. Thanks!

[Richard Cranium]

One thing I mention to prospective customers.

" I had this guy a while back buy a machine, he expected me to tutor him through all aspects, I finally had to inform him that if he bought a new car, did he expect the dealer to teach him to drive "

I give "limited support"

Pricing;

I attempt to charge a $200 markup on new machines, this covers warranty problems and some tech support calls.

Repairs;
Usually $15 per hr is good, on average. Some jobs net $50/hr some problems net $1.00/hr

[bill1971]

I agree w/ JP and others:
You can't compete w/ Dell and the retail outlets that people seem to trust.
I started out building a system for my Dad, (right after I got this PC "bug"), and have spent the past three years involved in building/upgrading/repairing PCs for co-workers/friends/relatives.
Gave them great pricing, partly because they were my guinea pigs, as I was learning.

Service after the sale is the key to success, or to at least being able to compete with Dell and the like. It's a pain sometimes, but necessary. It's our competitive edge.

I was just curious, as far as advertising, if you guys think this would be effective - for those of you in areas where these are marketed - the ValuePak mailers, where, for $300-$400, you can send out 10,000 approx. 3" x 9" pamphlets advertising your business, in your general area. I realize you definitely would have to do the screening process mentioned above.
Any thoughts on this? Or, better yet, other than word of mouth,
what do you think are the most effective forms of advertising/marketing?

To answer the original post, I usually try to make $100 on a typical $700-$800 system build. (But as the pC industry struggles and prices keep dropping, it gets harder and harder).

Thanks for the input.

- Bill

[howste]

Originally posted by bill1971
I was just curious, as far as advertising, if you guys think this would be effective - for those of you in areas where these are marketed - the ValuePak mailers, where, for $300-$400, you can send out 10,000 approx. 3" x 9" pamphlets advertising your business, in your general area. I realize you definitely would have to do the screening process mentioned above.
Any thoughts on this? Or, better yet, other than word of mouth,
what do you think are the most effective forms of advertising/marketing?

I tried that once a few years back, when I was a little more serious about increasing my side business. I think it cost about $275 for about 10,000 delivered in a specific location. I got one call interested in a custom build. I gave him a quote, but he bought from somebody else.

[Makaze]

word of mouth is a powerful thing. As a matter of fact I called My mother last night to let her know it was all completed (that was who I just built a pc for this weekend.... my first "job" *LOL*) and she proceeded to tell me she has two other friends that would like me to do the same for them... as well as from my other side of the family I've got another job to be done.

It's just amazing what starting with friends and family can do... especially for a beginner like me !!

[John Prophet]

Just a few quick ideas about cheap/free advertising.

make sure you tell your relatives who go to church....especially the big sprawling500+ member churches....word of mouth can spread quick in those.

Also naturally if you have kids or nephews etc tell em to spread the word at school....hook em up with a nice comp to play games on and their friends will spread the word for you.

One thing I have thought of but havent followed through with yet is printing up some decent flyers/brochures and placing them in hospital waiting rooms....like emergency rooms etc....I remember sitting in one with a broken collarbone over 5 hours once waiting to be seen....you can read a lot in 5 hours.

Also of course the local colleges are a prime place to do flyers etc.

Got friends who work at the local tire plant, steel mill, factory etc?? sure you do....find a way to get the word around there also...flyers etc.

Im sure there are a million other cheap ways to get the word out.

And there are a ton of good articles online that tell you everything to do step by step to be succesful...like how to write good advertisements etc.

I am trying to figure out the deal with licenses etc, I called the other day and where I live they aint gonna give you a license to sell out of your home, hehe...so maybe I will see about getting a license to do tech work...maybe I can still sell that way.

JP