The Bare Minimum to start a Tech Consultancy: Part 6

Welcome to the 6th installment in the series of posts about starting your own tech business!

Here are the previous posts... Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

You have all the pieces now! Oh, you may need to buy some tools for your trade, but you are ready to go! There are but a few more things to cover, but they can make all the difference.

So let's start out right.

Get the right attitude. This is especially important if you have never had your own business. Sign up for some free podcasts about business and marketing. (you don't need an Ipod, figure it out!) It doesn't matter if the podcast isn't related to a tech business. You need to absorb the attitude, understand the challenges and gain the enthusiasm.

You can listen to those podcasts on your PC or laptop. Personally, I redeem the time I spend driving by listening to podcasts. You can't get a college education that will teach you what you need to know for this bold new venture. The right podcasts will give you a wealth of information that you can apply. They're gold!

Dress appropriately... all of the time. I'll never forget the time when I was grocery shopping and ran into an old friend. He works in finance and has contacts with a lot of businesses. I can't imagine that I made a positive impression in my torn up jeans and my worn "Rock On!" T-shirt! Ask for advice from those you respect if you have an inkling you aren't dressing appropriately.

Join! I'm talking about the local chamber of commerce, local networking events and community projects. Don't just spout about your business and hand out cards. Get to know people and help them out.

Pursue business relationships. Find businesses that can find value with your services. Be willing to subcontract or take a lower rate initially. Give local companies your business.

Be open. Always watch for ways to make your business more profitable. This may mean dropping a service that you thought would be a money maker. You might end up finding a niche that isn't being filled.

Look for marketing avenues. Never stop doing this. Unless, of course, you have too much business.

A final note. I can't tell you how much local exposure Twitter has given my company. Jump on Twitter, learn the etiquette of tweeting and join the community!

We hope you've found this series valuable. Please let us know your story, either here or at www.acmetechworks.com!

The Bare Minimum to start a Tech Consultancy: Part 2

It's time to dig into the steps you need to take to start your own tech support company! You should be excited, because this is not hard. Best of all, advertising your services is 100 times easier than a couple years ago!

Let's look at what you need to do first.

Phase I: Gather and Analyze Intelligence
I'm not talking about getting smarter (that always helps though!). You need to get information to see if a tech support business can survive and thrive in your environment.

Here's what you do to gather intelligence.

Find someone who owns their own business. Hopefully you can find someone who give you advice about the things you need to do. Pick up tips such as who is a good bookkeeper to use.

Talk to your local chamber of commerce. Your chamber of commerce should have demographic information about the people and businesses in your community. A good chamber representative will want to help you so you'll join. Don't join yet--you need to see if your business can take off first!

Scope out the competition. Are they good? If they are, is there room for you or do you have a value proposition that is different than theirs?

Find good vendors. I don't care if you're planning to only do service based work. You need to do this because you will run into helpless customers. You'll need to buy firewalls, switches, etc for them. The vendors you want should be able to educate you about their products and make good recommendations. I recommend using a VAR (value added retailer) because they'll let you know about alternate ways of doing things.
I've heard rumors of competitors going through a competitor's dumpster to see who their parts source is. I don't recommend this because it's probably illegal. The part source may inform your competitor that you've called as well.

Write down all that you learn from each of the sources we've mentioned. What are the things you think will be easy? What are the difficult things? You should be getting excited about possibilities and strategizing your way around problems.

Keep your notebook with you at all times. Add stray thoughts and ideas, potential customers and anything else to what you've started.

By now you should have a sense of how your business could make money. Diagram the different ways you can create income streams into your business.

Make no mistake, you're drawing up a battle plan. The first stage tells you what the battlefield looks like, so DO NOT take Phase 1 lightly!

We'll discuss incorporation, insurance and a bunch of other things in Part 3. Please comment, email or call us if you have a question or think we've missed something!

Ciao!