I’ve recently finished the advertising plan for my part-time computer consulting business and I thought I’d share it with you.   It’s really quite simple.  I’ve identified 5 marketing strategies that I will implement, over the next 6 months or so, that should cost very little money, if any at all.  I think these are great strategies for those who are starting a business while still working full-time at a “day job” or for high school and college students looking to make some extra cash by moonlighting as their own neighborhood’s computer guy.
(more…)

While thinking about the long-term plan for my computer consulting business, I’m constantly struggling between two scenarios: continuing to run my business part-time indefinitely along side my “regular” job working for someone else, or making it my full time gig.  Should I try hard to turn my little computer repair business into an all-consuming career, or simply keep it as a side-operation to supplement my stable, well-paying corporate job? 

It’s a tough question with no easy answer.  I’m satisfied with my career and how it’s progressed thus far.  Some days I feel like it’s a bad move to throw a wrench in the spokes of a fast moving successful career working in the IT industry, but at times the fire in me burns for something more.

To try to alleviate some of my anxieties and make an attempt at understanding it all, I decided to pit full time against part time in a battle royal of ideals, realities, and everything in between. (more…)

This post marks the first in, hopefully, a long line of book reviews from Your Friendly Neighborhood Computer Guy.  I’ll try to keep these reviews simple to read and concise in delivery so you can quickly find out if the book is right for you.  In these early stages of my business formation, I’ll focus on books specifically about starting a business. Granted, there are plenty of books and book reviews out there about starting a business, but I hope to be different by tailoring my reviews to folks looking to start a computer consulting business, even if the book itself isn’t specifically about that.  The thing you’ll need to keep in mind is that I’m still in the process of learning as I read and review these books, so my reviews are from a start-up perspective.  I think that fact may benefit those who are in my situation more than if these books were reviewed by a “seasoned pro”.

I decided to kick off this series with the first book that I picked up a few years ago when I first started flirting with the idea of starting my own computer consulting business, Start Your Own Computer Business: The Unembellished Guide, by Morris Rosenthal.  The straight forward title obviously caught my eye and this is the book that comes up at the top of the list of any searches I did online for books about starting a computer business.  Mr. Rosenthal obviously knew there was a niche to fill with this book, but does it deliver the goods?
(more…)

I found an interesting thread on a forum the other day.  The thread begins with a young man nicknamed ”clutch” asking the forum members for their advice on the steps necessary to prepare for a new computer repair business.  He proudly lists some things he’s considered acquiring before he beings, things like spare parts, repair tools, boot disks.   Soon thereafter one of the seasoned vets of the forum, “Prime Suspect”, gives him this piece of advice:

“I hate to be so blunt about it, but discussing and planning and thinking and nailbiting doesn’t get a business to be successful. Every second that you spend planning it and asking for advice is wasted time. ”

You can read the full thread here.

A bit of a harsh statement, but it reaffirms something that I recently discovered.  I, too, had a lot in common with “clutch”, spending hours gathering information and formulating plans.  While I think some planning is necessary, and a new business is not the sort of thing to jump into blindly, too much preparation can also be a hindrance to forward progress.

(more…)

Business Name Blues is a 3-part series in which I talk about the experiences I had in naming my business and give tips based on lessons I’ve learned in the process. Part 1 explores choosing the business name. Part 2 looks into the online aspect of business naming. Part 3 closes with the legal and tax steps necessary to ensure your business name is protected. Also, as I go through each part, I will be updating the Resources page with a Business Naming section to assist you with resources and links to help you make the right moves when naming your business.

Don’t miss the end of this article where I summarize all I’ve learned with a list of 8 easy steps to naming your business!

Not Quite Done Yet

Come up with a good name for my business. Check!  Register my business website domain.  Check!  Time to start mailing fliers and knocking on doors right?  Not so fast! (more…)

Business Name Blues is a 3-part series in which I talk about the experiences I had in naming my business and give tips based on lessons I’ve learned in the process. Part 1 explores choosing the business name. Part 2 looks into the online aspect of business naming. Part 3 closes with the legal and tax steps necessary to ensure your business name is protected.  Also, as I go through each part, I will be updating the Resources page with a Business Naming section to assist you with resources and links to help you make the right moves when naming your business.

The Shady Underbelly

Proud of accomplishing the first task on the road to establishing my business by coming up with a good name, the next step I took was to register the domain name for my new company, Jiffy-PC.  In hind sight, I should have waited to do this until after I got the name registered with my State first (you’ll find out why in part 3), but I was excited to get my website registered because I had already had experience with domain name registration.  Finally,  something about starting a business that I knew how to do!  Not so fast!  As it turns out, this would be my first exposure to the shady underbelly of the domain name registration scene. I learned a lot during this process and at the end of this post, I’ll give you some tips that may help you if you ever run into this kind of situation.
(more…)

Business Name Blues is a 3-part series in which I talk about the experiences I had in naming my business and give tips based on lessons I’ve learned in the process. Part 1 will explore choosing the business name. Part 2 looks into the online aspect of business naming. Part 3 closes with the legal and tax steps necessary to ensure your business name is protected.  Also, as I go through each part, I will be updating the Resources page with a Business Naming section to assist you with resources and links to help you make the right moves when naming your business.
(more…)

I decided I’ve collected enough information over the past month or two to finally start fleshing out my Resources page over there in the yellow box to your right.  Since I’m still in the early stages of starting my computer consulting business, there isn’t a whole lot there, but that will change as I continually add links to resources I use.

The following is a break-down of how the page is currently organized. I have tried to organize it in a linear fashion starting with basic information at the top and drilling down to more specific and advanced services toward the bottom.
(more…)

Yes, as of 9:01 PM EST, yesterday, September 11th, 2008, I am officially a business owner in the great state of Maryland!  That is the time that I received an email from LegalZoom stating that my DBA and Business License paperwork had been approved and received back at their offices.  It was a process three months in the making, and I’ll talk about why it took so long in my next article.
(more…)

“There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.” -Benjamin Disraeli

For one of my upcoming posts I’ve been scouring the web trying to find statistics on how many small businesses fail after a certain amount of time. The first few articles I read said that over half of small businesses fail during the first year and that something like 90% fail before their 5 year anniversary. These are dismal stats and definitely very disconcerting to a newbie business owner like myself. I continued digging, hoping to find some good solid numbers to back up what I had read, but as it turns out, there really aren’t any.

(more…)