How to Get Great Business Clients for PC Repair Service Firms

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By Joshua Feinberg
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If you are trying to start a PC repair service, you need to know exactly how to build your business and attract great clients that will bring you steady revenue. Why?

Because if you think your PC repair service can survive by catering to one-shot-deal customers, home users, and residential customers, you are to put it mildly... delusional.

Many entrepreneurs in the technology field feel lost as they are trying to start a PC repair service business, particularly when they work with small businesses and are running a one-or-two person operation. If this describes you, you know you will have to wear many different "hats" at the beginning, playing the role of bookkeeper, accountant, marketing coordinator, salesperson and of course computer repair person doing all the work in the field.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Step 1

Understand Your Business Model and Target Audience.
Step 2

Find the Right People with Proactive Techniques.
Step 3

Remember Quality, Not Quantity.
Step 4

Teach Customers How to Treat You.
Step 5

Plan for Your Future Success.
Step 6

Know Time is Money.

Tips & Warnings

Understand Your Business Model and Target Audience. Remember that it's not practical to be all things to all people. But, you can absolutely be all things to some people. As a small business PC repair service owner, you will not have the advertising budget to market to everyone. So instead, find a very targeted audience and focus your efforts there. And be sure to figure out which services you will and won't provide.
Find the Right People with Proactive Techniques. Whether you are looking for prospects, customers, staff, contractors, or partners, you need to spend time on marketing weekly. Procrastinating will only lead to nightmare clients, unreliable employees, and hastily-made bad decisions. The time to make important decisions is when you are not operating in crisis mode and likely to make mistakes. Be on the lookout for people that will help you get where you want to be.
Remember Quality, Not Quantity. Your goal as a PC repair service is not to have the biggest customer list. If you have 50 great customers, you are in better shape than someone with 100 bad customers. Many technology professionals make very healthy livings with as few as five or six steady clients. Aim to have only the most profitable and stable customers on your list. And don't be afraid to get rid of money-losing, time-draining customers.
Teach Customers How to Treat You. If you decide to charge rock-bottom rates, waste big blocks of time, tolerate verbal abuse from customers, accept incomplete payments, and continue to service customers that are habitual late-payers, you are teaching customers not to respect you. Set policies in stone from the beginning and stick to them to be a happy business owner.
Plan for Your Future Success. A full-blown business plan is what you ultimately need. But in the beginning as you are deciding how to create this, at least work on a weekly business development to-do list. Create a document with the task in one column and three more columns for each task: how much time you will spend; how much money you will spend; your start and end dates for the task. Be religious about filling out this document to track where you are spending your time, and how much money is coming in and going out. Analyzing this regularly will help your business be more profitable and help you create a more formal business plan structure.
Know Time is Money. When it comes to your PC repair service, your time is your inventory. If you owned a store that sold products, would you give inventory away? Of course not! Because your time is like your inventory when it comes to your repair business, you can't afford to give time away either. You need to know where every ¼ hour block is going each and every week. Your time should fit into one of three categories: (a) billable to a client; (b) management/administration; and (c) sales/marketing. If any of your time can't be put into these three categories, re-evaluate how you are spending it.