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Growth Job Sector: Freelance Technical Support
An anonymous reader wrotes: "Over at World New York, they've posted excellent advice to the geek masses: If you're out of work and know how to use a computer, you can make a killing doing freelance technical support." Update: 07/25 20:00 GMT by M : The author has asked that we link to the article on homepage.mac.com due to server overload. :)
While overall this is a pretty well drawn-out argument for striking out on your own, there are of course extra difficulties along the way, like:
1) Health Insurance
2) Liability
3) Accounting
Not that these factors can't be dealt with, but they are, amongst other things, stuff you normally don't have to worry about as an employee of a company.
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
um... what is insightful about this? No one makes shitload of money doing this, but I know people doing freelance tech support/small company system administration at $50-$70 an hour which in my book is called making money.
I passed the Turing test.
Don't know about the US, but in the uk the way to go is just to retrain as a plumber or electrician. Average pay in the uk for support has dropped to well under 20 pounds an hour with a lot of basic support jobs paying just over minimum wage. Bear in mind that a freelance plumber or sparky can probably make 30-50 ukp an hour... I know what I do if I lose this job....
Working for the (other) man
I do technical support as a full-time job, making a living. Maybe there is some spin in this article (that I can't read, because their servers are on fire), but I don't see how throwing out the things that I get by working for a real company will make me rich. I'm certainly not rich now.
Auto-reply to ACs: "Truly, you have a dizzying intellect."
This article, and others on Slashdot talk about this.
Here's an alternate link:
http://homepage.mac.com/monickels/techjob.html
And the full text:
By Grant Barrett @ World New York
This article by the New York Times suggests that people are becoming technically adept by necessity, and that, as happened with radios and automobiles, eventually all technology will take care of itself and be as mindless to operate as toasters are today.
I see that day as decades off. Computers are still complex to make, complex to learn, complex to integrate with other gadgets. More importantly, they still have more than one knob or lever. Until that day of machine self-reliance, I see a golden opportunity: an under-served market waiting for the ambitious to step in.
The following is a small excerpt of a manuscript, modified to suit this topic.
Technical Self-Employment Is A Fat Paycheck Waiting to Be PocketedBy Grant Barrett @ World New York
This article by the New York Times suggests that people are becoming technically adept by necessity, and that, as happened with radios and automobiles, eventually all technology will take care of itself and be as mindless to operate as toasters are today.
I see that day as decades off. Computers are still complex to make, complex to learn, complex to integrate with other gadgets. More importantly, they still have more than one knob or lever. Until that day of machine self-reliance, I see a golden opportunity: an under-served market waiting for the ambitious to step in.
The following is a small excerpt of a manuscript, modified to suit this topic.
Technical Self-Employment Is A Fat Paycheck Waiting to Be Pocketed
Last year, at a Christmas party held by a client of mine at a very nice restaurant in Manhattan, I ran into a friend of a friend. I don't know him well, but we've socialized once or twice, and have had solid geek conversations in the past. He does Active Directory management for big corporations.
I should say, he used to do that. He's been unemployed now for more than a year.
After we shook hands I could see his face change from a friendly howdy-do. He dropped down into commiseration mode: the corners of his mouth drooped, his head ducked, he took a Hapsburg stance--his feet angled, his left foot perpendicular to his right, heel against arch, his torso yawed a few degrees off center, his hands lightly on his hips--and waited expectantly.
I knew what he wanted. I make my living with private computer consulting: client-site tech support, mostly, but pretty much any of the little computer-related tasks small businesses have. I knew he wanted to talk about the tech business. And he wanted me to start, so I complied. "How's business?" I asked.
He jumped in according to the script. "Oh, it's not been going well at all. Awful. I've been out of work. I can't find anything. How're you doing?" He anticipated a long bitch session of headhunter mistreatment, interview mishaps, finicky clients, resume failure. He relished the chance.
"It's great," I said. "I've got more business than I can handle. I'm giving it away. I've probably handed off or turned down enough business in the last six months to employ another person full-time. In fact, I've just turned over a second $30,000-a-year piece of business to another tech so I could concentrate on other clients."
He looked at me in amazement. His eyes bugged out. I saw doubt, then self-doubt, there, and eventually he just walked away.
My theory: If you are reasonably adept at using or setting up a computer, there's no good reason to be unemployed.
Forget the boom-time Nineties. They're gone. I'm sorry.
Wordnik, a dictionary project which aims to collect
I know someone above noted the liability benefits of incorporating. Also know that Health Insurance rules have changed in recent years to accommodate self-employed individuals.
See some basic information here. An article I read a while back discussed how a loophole allowed 70% deduction of a spouse's insurance if they could be shown to be an employee. So bring your wife on as a partner and reap the benefits.
Okay, time for an anecdote.
Picture this, four or five small companies all targetting the same small area. There's enough for all of them to get slim pickings - enough to keep the geeks in hardware and everybody paid on time.
Now, add a few freelancers. They come in, promise the earth, delivery is usually substandard and comeback is absolutely nil. There are a few of them, lone rangers, about but they're not doing terribly well. It's great for a slump in the day job, a period of redundancy or a bit of extra pocket money, but for long term, it bites because customers want culpability, they want guarantees and they want someone who can come in at the drop of a hat.
I don't mind though. The freelancers end up giving us more work. They're like a sales team. They do so well at their job that people are phoning us to help them recover. Most freelancers have no concept of "tax" or "insurance" because a lot of them were working for big dot-boom companies and they had a legion of pen-pushers handling that for them.
Ah, the joys of Level 1 Support, also known as "If it's not in our checklist, we can't fix it" support. :)
Generally, the first thing you do when you call support is ask a question that you know couldn't possibly be answered in their checklist, and ask to be transfered up the Support Chain.
Really I prefer that people just keep on repeating what their parents told them growing up, as it keeps fewer people out there to compete with my self-owned business. Sure it gets frustrating sometimes, but it's my business and I call the shots, so if I need a break, I take one. I would much rather run my own show, then sit around complaining about working for "the Man". No matter where you are, you run into frustrating idiots, I just price myself out of their range, or don't go back if they drive me nuts - it's my call. If I deal with any idiots, it's beacuse they pay good money for me to deal with their crap, and they tend to keep breaking things on a regular basis(can you say, "repeat business"?). My favorite thing is to go in to fix a computer "problem" only to have it be a cord uplugged or printer out of toner. 10 minute fix equals one hour billed - fine by me! It's not for everybody (as seen in the other posts), but for me, there is nothing like the freedom of being your own boss. To those who prefer to work for someone else, they are just going to have to wait for the economy to pick up.
As a disclaimer, IT consulting is not my only source of income. I'm also a musician, but it boils down to the same thing. It still involves running your own business, and working with idiots sometimes - it just happens to involve beer more often.
Wine, music and cinema are the three great creations of humanity. -T'Ian Han
IANAL, but my 'L' told me that this will not hold up in court. To form an LLC you must put some assets into the company, otherwise it is just a shell to protect you. The court will see right though this and allow the plantif to go after you directly.
The Site is /.ed so I could not read the article, but I would suggest that after you finish with the work, get your client to sign off that s/he is satisfied with the work. That will not help with getting sued (any one can sue you for any reason), but it might speed the process up a little to get the case dropped. Again, IANAL
And I'm on the verge of exceeding my income from the Help Desk job I lost a year ago. No one's blamed me for anything that's gone bad; in fact the word of mouth business I've generated has been outstanding. Yes, there are times when I'm called back to the same house umpteen times and I don't charge. Yes, there are times when people are sticker-shocked and haggle me down. But by and large I love being totally independent, not having a boss or partner (save myself and the government, respectively), and being able to make my own hours. Why have things worked out so well for me? I wonder about that, and I think there are several answers: 1. I have a very professional, yet friendly and approchable attitude. 2. I'm polite in people's homes and I don't fit the stereotypical "geek" profile people are expecting. 3. The clientele I serve are in a densely populated, tightly knit and affluent part of the country. Word of mouth spreads quickly, and these people are willing to pay. They have multiple computers, so they want DSL/cable hooked up and shared. And even when their Dells need fixing and are within warranty, they are so frustrated by hold times and first-level overseas tech that aren't trained - just reading from a troubleshooting script - that they're willing to pay someone to make a housecall 4. I'm willing to come over as early or as late as they want me, weekends included. Too many people think of their freelance business as a nine to five job, instead of a business. All in all, it's been a great development in my life, but I hope not too many people read that article in my area and get the same idea!
A friend once asked me to help her grandmother fix her modem. I think she had removed the password from the logon box, so it was a pretty easy fix. I told her that there was no charge, but she wouldn't hear it. She went to the kitchen, and came out with a plate of brownies.
The upside was that I could make a bunch of tax deductions for running a home business and get some of my money back from the government.
The downside was that it was a money-losing vebture from the start. A small ad in the weekly paper ran me about $90/month.. unless I got 5 calls in a month (which was rare) I was already in the hole.
Friends would ask me "man why arent you charging way more money?"... the simple explanation was that no one would ever pay it. When everyone has "a friend who knows lots about computers" why would they pay someone $75+/hr to come over when they could get it for free? I gave it up when the costs kept rising and the calls got scarce, even raising my price to $25/hr wasnt enough to pay any bills. I guess the population base isnt high enough to provide enough computer-idiots to make a living on. Now I see at least 3 other people around here trying to do the same thing.
I've been unemployed for almost 7 months now and I've enrolled in the military to get a steady job. Granted I'm in Canada but it's gotta be pretty similar in the US. Dont you just love IT?
In the US/Canada "you" are still lucky - I say "you" because I am currently residing in Japan.
...???
As garbage dumps get fuller, and as people realize the environmental impact they have laws will change. For example, in Tokyo not only do we have to separate garbage into burnables/non-burnables, but they have to be placed in _clear_ plastic bags. Yeah, there was some noise about privacy when the clear bags were first mandated, but it's accepted now.
Or, maybe I am just an optimist, and we will just "export" to garbage to some poor coutry. "garbage credits"
"Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are the dead." A. Huxley
They have an image and attitude. Their company cars bear a "Geek Squad" logo. Their people wear white shirts and ties and pocket protectors. They even have a black SWAT van for major problems.
It's too bad they're still a small company. They should be everywhere, like Roto-Rooter(tm).
They're hiring.
I used to be a tv cable guy, and (IIRC) if there is water in the line, the upper channels can get cut out because the higher frequencies run along the outside of the line. It obviously wasn't the cable in your case, but it does happen.
Nice anecdote, btw. Illustrates how companies can't really taylorize tech support. Was the guy you called in India?
I own an onsite PC service company that helps consumers and small companies up to 25 endusers (and we're profitable). I've got a few tips from my experience for anyone thinking of getting into this field.
So don't be daunted by statements like "the market is saturated". It's not. There is demand if you know where your emphasis should be.
Here are the factors that go into the choice of IT service vendor, in order:
1. Working knowledge of their business
2. Technical expertise
3. Cost
4. Strategic business acumen
Cost is not the primary factor in choosing a vendor and never has been. Over the last few years, nearly every decision small businesses are making on their IT investment is predicated on ROI. If they're not going to cut costs or make immediate profits, odds are you won't land the projects even if you're at $20/hr. Conversely, $120/hr is well worth it if your work pays for itself in short order.
Here's my analysis of our competition: 20% do quality work, have skills and stay current (and make ideal partners on jobs beyond our particular sphere of competence). The other 80% are backyard mechanics of varying skill who claim to deliver the world and fall far short of their claims. It is not hard to capture the backyard mechanics small business clients, because they almost never get repeat business regardless of their rates.
Vonnegut: "What is the purpose of life? To be the eyes, ears, and conscience of the Creator of the Universe, you fool."
I started freelancing a couple of years ago, and it has grown into a profitable little business. $45.00 an hour, flat rate. IT outsourcing, home users, etc.
I just started making money at it, and I was ready to give up until I got my first real paycheck in the mail last week ($3900.00 for 10 days of work).
I tried advertising in the paper, to no avail. It is a complete waste of money.
I joined the Chamber of Commerce, got some calls from that.
Had my business info pasted on the back of my truck, no calls from that.
I even tried having pens made up with my info, and business cards.
I got some calls from my website http://www.onsite-services.net, but the most work I get is from chasing it down. I have found that to be the best way, since work rarely bangs on my door.
Hope this helps anyone that is looking to get into this line of "work".
PS. It took me 2 years to finally make some decent money.
DISCLAIMER:
I don't believe what I write, and neither should you.
Consider if Maleko worked for a business, there would be all sorts of tax ramifications and deductions on the paycheck. Maleko would have to "earn" about $30/hr before Maleko got that $15/hr that was spendable.
I know this is not the legal viewpoint, but I can't see it as tax evasion, its just a question of who pays the tax. The homeowner who invited Maleko into the house to fix their personal machine is paying Maleko with money they already paid tax on, so why should Maleko pay tax on it again? However, in the case of a business, they are writing the wages of Maleko off as a business expense, hence Maleko is on the hook for paying the tax, which means Maleko would have to make about double the amount in order to end up with the same amount of spendable cash.
Another advantage of working for cash directly is you do not need to keep such an immense overhead of documentation of your business, where each penny went. You know how it is. You "earn" a "helluva lot of money", but in order to do so, you must spend a "helluva lot of money" to stay in the game. If you don't keep really good records on that "helluva lot of money" it takes you to play, the government taxes you on the whole amount you took in, leaving you nothing at all to live on. So, by clever stroke of the tax law pen, they have forced you to provide free accounting service to the government.
There is a lot to be said for low level cash business.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]