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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.
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
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.
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!
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?
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.