Today I was asked about opening a computer repair business. The person said “I am considering starting a computer repair business or going the franchise route as you have”…….
Here was my answer….
This is what I consider to be the priorities in starting and being successful in the field.
1. Business sense – Do you understand business to include running a day-to-day business
2. Marketing – Do you know what kind of marketing you will have to do and the different avenues to utilize
3. Customer service – How are your customer service skills. If you have not been in business you can easily releate this to the interaction you have with with others. Do you find it easy to deal with others and have no problem helping others and just having normal conversations
4. Knowledge – How proficient are you in the IT field.
As you can see I put knowledge last and for this reason. Say a big thing is Virus’s or spyware, you don’t have to be a genius to fix these problems but you just need some knowledge and more importantly know where to look to find resolutions i.e. google, forums, etc. Problems regarding say networking i.e. servers etc take a bit more time and knowledge and you might have to read, experiment etc to hone those skills but in time those are pretty easy to accomplish also.
So I guess what i’m saying is I would look at trying to do as much as I could myself utilizing all the resources I can find and then if needed bring in a tech for certain jobs or for set hours you can. Finding a decent tech is going to be a challenge in itself especially if only part-time.
As far as a franchise I do not see it helping you all that much. I did go the franchise route for many reason. And if I was to list those reasons now and put a check next to the ones that I feel have helped me or been a resource then i’d probably have alot of spots with no checks……There are benefits to a franchise but you really need to list what exactly you do know, what you think you need to know and how you think you can go about it before jumping in….
Dan
Computer Repair Business Lessons Learned
2 Responses to “Franchise or Not?”
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January 16th, 2009 at 1:07 am
Great points! I really think it’s best to prove yourself in business by starting one on your own and then, if you feel like you’ve hit a plateu, explore franchise. Starting a franchise without knowing that you have good business sense is probably a bad move.
January 28th, 2009 at 2:01 am
I’m trying to start a computer repair business as we speak. I was the Lead Technician for Firedog in the Bellingham Circuit City. I’ve found that most buisness is done by word of mouth advertising, at least that’s what I’ve been most successful with. One thing to note also about what I’m doing is that I have an Online Support that I’m operating for free; that has seemed to pump traffic to my site as well.