Offering computer support services to small businesses

Know Your Worth

Article from Issue 160/2014

Author(s): Jon "maddog" Hall

maddog advises computer-savvy students to explore business opportunities as a way to earn money for education.

I have been coaching a small group of university students on how to start up a computer support business as a part-time job to help finance their education. These students are only in their first or second year of university, but they have been using computers most of their lives.

When I mentioned some pricing models, the students told me that the prices were too high and that they could never charge such rates for the type of work I suggested. Often, they did work for their family and friends, and they did not think they could ask the rates I was suggesting.

In such situations, you have to look at the value of your work to the customer and what they would have to pay if they took their business some other place. Where I live, just opening a desktop computer costs US$ 90, even if no actual repair work is done. However, that type of expense is not the value of the work, just the cost. The value would be if the customer had to buy an entire equivalent computer system and regenerate all of the data on the disks to get back to where they were when the system failed, compared with someone fixing the system and retaining their data.

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