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This means they have proven with consistent participation and solid troubleshooting their knowledge in the IT field. As always, use your own discretion with all advice here. How to start being a computer repair technician off of craigslist. So I figured I should contribute to reddit or something and write maybe a quick guide on how to be successful as a craigslist computer repair technician. Quick background on myself. So one day I decided to put myself out there on craigslist, and have learned many of these things as I've become successful doing it.

I started out doing this with literally a phillips screw driver and my home computer. I now have a new car, an ipad I use solely for work, and all kinds of stuff, plus the ability to work from home, life is good. I help between customers a day. I work typically about 3 hours a day, on my own schedule. Things you will need to start. Ok, so having read all that you have decided to be a craigslist repair technician, awesome!

If ya do it right, your life is gonna be awesome. People come to craigslist to get deals and to save some money, realize that when your writing your ad. First lesson I learned pretty fast, is hourly rates DO NOT WORK. Charge a flat rate! I charge a flat rate and plan on my jobs being fixed or resolved in under 2 hours. My charge is what I expect to do for 2 hours of work. This is a HUGE undercut of store services or the Geek squad or staples, your making a great wage, and Saving people a TON of money!

Conversely tho, this is a 's game, and you will run into jobs that end up taking for longer to fix than you originally planned. If you have a car, your going to be making more money, you can now charge a gas surcharge! Make it reasonable and this will become your bread and butter. Craigslist ads search off of the title and the body of the message. Make sure to ad things like pc repair, mac, etc to the bottom of the ad to make sure it gets the most visibility. Your ad will get flagged from time to time, and don't take it personally.

There are quite a few people who make their money off of craigslist and your now a competitor. Have a good smartphone, get your email on your phone and repost the ad when it gets flagged, and THEY WILL GET FLAGGED.

Your ad can be reposted 5x a day before your account gets locked til the next day. When someone flags your post, thats great, you just got to top post it for another at least 30 mins. It can be easy to develop flag and ad anxiety if this is your sole income, don't sweat it and just realize that these people are wasting more of their time than yours and enjoy the advertising "reminder".

Keep your ad primarily in computer gigs, if possible also in the barter section if your willing to take trades. I have gotten so many tools, tablets, mp3 players, movies, tv's, tattoos, etc from having my ad in the barter section it really pays itself off. Got paid in gold dust once, that was kind of cool!

People love getting free software and MANY of your customers don't know that the words Free and Antivirus can exist in the same sentence.

You handing out free copies of Microsoft security essentials and open office is like giving lil charlie a golden ticket to your customers! All very useful and can fix most "viruses". WinToFlash - This will let you "burn" any version of windows to a bootable usb stick and install it from it, just like the CD.

Great laptops with broken dvd drives and netbooks, etc. Ok, thats all I can think of for right now. I'll answer any questions anybody has, and best of luck all of you!

Your life will be much, much easier if you're tracking your customers and issues in a main database. Spiceworks has a simple helpdesk that can be set up for emails as well. Doesn't matter what you use really, just use something. Even if it's Excel. I can't stress how helpful it is to actually be able to review the work you did 6 months later when that client calls you. Yeah, I totally forgot about that, I do track all of my tickets.

I use an excel sheet. I also keep a whiteboard on my wall to write down the order that machines need to be worked on, and which ones belong to who.

You can set up a portal for your clients to use, or just stick to emails. I don't know if it'd do a better job than what you're currently doing, but I'm loving the crap out of it.

Also you might want to look into some account keeping software. Think Quicken but not Quicken. This has been a hot with my business customers, not so much my home users with a few exceptions. If you can use some account management software, and keep up with all of your customers in a region, it makes life easier. I've used this in conjunction with ticket tracking to send out periodic emails with maintenance tips, cleaning tips, and any sales I'm currently running.

I completely agree with you I use Spiceworks mostly for printer maintenance and for its ticketing system, and I love it! I wrote a response to something similiar a bit farther down. I make it clear they are responsible for their data, I'm just borrowing it, they sign a paper that says they agree. Currently work for a company that uses CW. I didn't realize it was a relatively popular ticketing system. Still, they don't support tablets and the program as a whole is garbage.

Smartphone support is a major improvement. I had to install Windows so I could enter tickets before. We did actually try out SysAid not the helpdesk though. It was quite nice, though didn't fit our needs. Yeah, I didnt want to write an actual novel so there's always some details that get left out. I currently have a guarantee on my work for a given length of time, usually between 2 weeks and 1 month on labor depending on what was done for the computer.

I also make my customers sign a contract, which I personalized from a friend who runs a computer shop on the east coast. In terms of doing things like data backup and things of that nature. My contract and my verbage make it very clear to the customer that they are responsible for informing ME of what they need to have saved, and I'm not responsible for the things that they dont inform me of. I'm ok with them writing down nebulous things like, "MY PICTURES" and "MOVIES", etc.

At the end of the day, its all about being upfront with them and setting the expectation from the beginning. I'm very to the point when it comes to things like that, "Ok, now think about all of the stuff you need saved, and when your absolutely positively sure, THINK AGAIN, because if there's something on here you can't remember, after you give me the go ahead, and you have remember somthing else, your now paying me extra for data recovery services".

Havent had a problem with it yet. Even when doing so is so easy from most computers. One thing you didn't mention was insurance. What happens when you mess up and the damage you did is irreparable?

This hasn't happened to me. I do have liability insurance, but it would be honestly cheaper, faster, and better for me to just purchase them something off the shelf if I did mess it up. This goes back to my whole, Don't take jobs you don't think you can fix thing. Sure this is kind of a gray area, but if you've never held a solder gun, don't offer to fix someone's dc jack and then try to follow the video off of youtube. The biggest mistake I ever did was accidentally doing a quick format on someone's music drive right before installing windows 7.

I had to recover all of their music, took, like 2 days. I'd like to add a few things, if I may. I owned computer stores for about 6 years and have fixed thousands of computers. In addition, we did onsite tech support and the things I've learned over the years made my life much easier, so without further ado:.

When you show up, make sure you look like someone they'd be happy to let in their house. If you have long hair, make sure it's neat. If you have facial piercings, take them out. Wear khakis and a polo shirt.

This may all seem like bullshit, but let's be honest, much of your customer base will be older and frankly, they will be instantly prejudiced against someone who looks like what they consider to be a thug. Be confident and comforting. The more time you spend letting them tell you about what happened with the computer, the better prepared you'll be to deal with it.

With that said, keep the conversation focused on the computer. You're there to help them out, not hear about their cat. Don't accept coffee, tea, cookies, or anything like that. You want to appear professional. Your tools should be organized and clean. Work quickly and tell them what you're doing, while you're doing it. Explain every facet of your work. If it's a hardware issue, explain what you're doing and why.

Before you TOUCH their computer, have them sign a form that indemnifies you from any damage. You're working on a system that's broken, so write on the form specifically what's wrong, note what actions you're taking to fix them, and have them sign both before and after you're done.

The first signature is to show they're authorizing you to work on it, the second to document that they're satisfied. This will help you on rework claims. Before you do a data transfer or a virus removal, make sure you explain the risks. People don't like to do this, but it's critical. About 1 in times, a hard drive will fail during a virus removal. Before you tell a customer they need a new computer, test the hell out of it. It's easy to show the customer a screen with a bunch of red indicating their drive is hosed.

It's hard to simply tell them they lost gram-grams only photos. Learn to troubleshoot quickly and accurately. This comes from practice but you can help yourself by bringing along the right tools. Also, check out this flowchart. They are, in no particular order -- Power Supply Tester, electric screwdriver with torque control, extra screws, Hirens disk, extra SATA cable, extra IDE cable, Flash drive, air compressor canned air can suffice in a pinch, but you'll run into some ungodly filthy computers that require more power , windex, paper towels, a notebook computer, and an external hard drive enclosure.

Understand that you aren't there to fix their computer -- you're there to solve a problem. Figure out what that problem is 1st, fix their computer second.

Let's say they can't get internet access and they're frantic. Find out why they're frantic. Sometimes the issue is they have to send out a critical email, maybe they need a special document for school, or whatever.

You need to be able to offer creative solutions if their system is hosed. After you've fixed their computer, MAKE SURE THEY USE IT AND CAN VALIDATE THAT THE PROBLEM THEY HAD IS GONE.

I can't stress this highly enough. Let them sit down and play with the system for a few minutes. This will give them more confidence in you, your work, and their newly fixed system. Give bad news gently.

If their mobo is bad, show them the swollen or leaking caps if they are there. If their hard drive is clicking, let them hear it, tell them their options send off for recovery, etc.

Make sure they know that it wasn't their fault. If their system is riddled with spyware, leave them a sheet with common ways to avoid getting it in the future.

Be kind but firm. Remember, you've already shown them the tests that indicate why something failed, so it shouldn't come as a shock. Prepare them before you start. When they say, "My hard drive won't turn on," you tell them that when a system won't start up, there are many reasons -- some are simple to fix, some are complex, but you will walk them through the process, every step of the way.

If you suspect their hard drive is bad, tell them that you're concerned about it, but you're going to check it out to make sure. Don't work in quiet, then tell them, "Yeah, it's dead. When you're done and they're satisfied, tape your business card to their computer and tell them that you're available if they have any more questions.

It's an easy sale. If you get to someone's house and they only have mb of RAM, bump it up by a GB, then let them see the difference. Don't forget to tune it up. MSCONFIG is your friend, but remember to make sure every function they did before still works. Too many people disable all sorts of services but forget to re-enable the printer ones.

You don't want angry calls that require you to go back. Clean their computer screen and keyboard for them. This may seem stupid, but it's critical. Most of the work you're doing can't be seen -- it's just a bunch of keystrokes. If you clean up their computer, it looks better and they'll feel better about it. When I take my car in, the dealer washes it before they give it back, and even if it's a simple brake job, I feel better about the whole thing.

The idea is, you're providing VALUE, not just emergency service. Which brings me to the last piece Don't apologize for charging them.

You have a skill set they don't. You came to their house, you solved their problem, and you are worth what you charge, so don't be embarrassed. On the other hand, don't nickel and dime them. When you suspect what the problem is, give them a high range and a low range of how much it might cost. If the motherboard is bad, that can run hundreds of dollars and it might be worthwhile to replace the system, but let's test it out and I'll be able to recommend the most cost effective solution.

When it's just a power supply and their computer is up and running again, you have a happy customer. One mroe thing -- give value. Let's say you fixed their power supply. Tune up their system too. Check their antivirus subscriptions. Check their RAM usage. Check their disk fragmentation I like Iobit's tool as well as Acronix's, but to each his own. You want them to feel like they got a bargain because they called you and you want them to tell all their friends about you.

It's not enough that you repaired their computer. You need to fix their problem and do it quickly, professionally, and inexpensively. Oh, one last thing -- you can't please everyone. Some people will be horrible to you no matter what, so don't fret. Cut them loose, leave, and don't bother with them again.

You're doing everything you can to protect yourself by having them sign papers, by being friendly, and by knowing your shit, but there are people out there who will try to fuck you over, just because they suck. Anyway, hope this helps. I could write a book about this actually, I did, but it's under my real name but this should help you get started. It's a good market to get into -- if you differentiate yourself from most of the guys on Craigslist, you can make good money. I really need to work on the whole selling stuff thing.

And people don't mind, as long as you give them good value for service. See, you aren't selling them a stick of ram. You're selling them convenience, speed, ease of use, and less frustration.

Don't bother trying to describe read write times and buffering. No one gives a shit. A flash drive with a Live Linux distro installed, maybe one targeted at PC repair. Even if it's not your thing, or you're not experienced in Linux there is some that are very user friendly and it makes migrating hdd's or testing corrupt files much easier.

The 4gb flash drive i put on the tools list is for things like this. So I have like 6 of em now, but a 4gb usb stick can do any and all of these, just takes a lil bit of time to rebuild it in between jobs. When I did this stuff in an office we used PC-Check, and I haven't found a good free replacement for it. I use SIW, a voltimeter, and alot of experience. Unfortunately, I find that most "diagnostic" software isn't going to be as good as just looking for problem signatures.

SIW tells me the voltages and model , temperature, etc of every component in the machine, so it's kind of like the device manager on steroids. Other hardware diagnostics I test using various specific programs, memtest, cpubench, etc. Alot of problems can be diagnosed by looking at the voltages in SIW for fluctuations, etc.

I would say, at least with the customers i take care, the vast majority of things I deal with are ransomware, dying hard drives, google redirects, or wifi problems. So using a dedicated diagnostic software suite is not very helpful. Hard drives are really easy to diagnose.

The event viewer is a great resource for checking hard drive faults, cause anytime windows has problems writing to it, it logs it. Nearly all drives have smart sensors now a days, and its one of the few components in a computer that actually make a bad sound when it's bad. Click of death anyone?

I typically use seatools as much as I can, but I keep a copy of NTFS4DOS around for checking and repairing HDD's. I'd rather run a 30 minute diag than rely on event viewer and smart. Thanks for posting this! I'm definitely interested in going into support business for myself and this is really good. How well do you find yourself doing come tax season and how is that working out for you?

Do you build relationships with other tech businesses for spare parts or referrals? The vast majority of work gets paid for in cash. I hand out receipts when people request it, so come tax time, I look REALLY good. Last year, even tho I tried my damndest to report more, I could only report 10k worth of income, give or take.

All of the miles I drive are written off, including my ipad, and my internet bill also. I was so proud I got to write off a dinner this year since it was for work: Right now, I have networks like crazy for stuff like that. I do have from all of this, a parts guy, a desktop guy, a component repair guy, a screen guy, a doctor, a lawyer, a dentist, a vet, etc.

I think you should add a section about tax benefits once people really get going. If you quit your regular job and take your computer side job to the next level business cards, USB sticks with your logo and phone number on it, etc you can write a lot of that shit off.

I try not to go overboard, but I have a lot of "office supplies" and "marketing" expenses to help cut into my profit. I even bought my new smartphone through my business account, and expense out a portion of my family's cell phone bill each month. You can even keep track of vehicle mileage and write that off, but you gotta be really careful if you get into this, due to audit risk. Consult your tax professional oh yeah, and start paying taxes on that shit.

Yeah, I have a tax guy and don't write off alot of stuff. Mainly just because I feel bad I only claim as little as I do. Do or do not - there is no try. Unless your tax professional is advising you to under-report, a cash transaction can still be reported. Not understanding the reasoning here. It's been a while since this conversation came up, but as I recall it was something along the lines of I wouldn't be liable for the taxes at the end of the year so no point in claiming it.

I'm going to look into this again this year, but I've been trying to rock the boat as little as possible since I have a divorce coming up with my wife in a month or so. Forgive me if this answer isnt as clear, but i honestly havent thought about it for a while. Though if there's a divorce coming up, the less money you make on paper, the less you have to pay in alimony or child support. Apart from that or just avoiding part of taxes, I couldn't understand how that works.

If you would like to do the same, add the browser extension TamperMonkey for Chrome or GreaseMonkey for Firefox and add this open source script. Then simply click on your username on Reddit, go to the comments tab, and hit the new OVERWRITE button at the top.

I was in corporate IT for a while. I did some work over at Siemen's for microsoft for a while. The only time I pull out the certs bag is when I'm helping a customer who runs a business, with the Medical records change obama did a few years back, I've had a decent amount of business helping doctor's offices change over to digital EMR services, like Apriva, or Medisense.

Those kind of customers care about certs. I live in a suburb of a large city. There is a ton of competition on my craigslist for what I do including one guy who literally steals my ad and just changes the name and the phone.

I help on average about people a day, with all of this competition, so there are definitely people out there who need help, and definitely a market for services like this. Ah good old T-Mobile, I worked there for a year doing BlackBerry support. During my time we had the BlackBerry Pearl. The customer base was horrific alongside the phone itself it would delete emails and sms if it ran out of memory. Oh man, I worked there during that. Blackberry pearl deleting your SMS cause it's full of crap?

I started doing this once when I was employed. I had a guy call me up and ask me if I was certified, I said yes, then he told me he was working for the City of Derpville and I was running an illegal business and was going to be taken to court.

I've had that happen to me when a lady tried to call me up and demand to speak to my manager, I lol'd One suggestion for the newbies: Cover Your Ass and document everything, I don't care how! Excel, Circus Ponies Notebook, or even Filemaker will work. Does it matter if your customer just removed roboform and their internet won't work?

Have you solved it? Will it probably come up again in another customer's computer? I know I have a computer i would pay someone to come fix for me. It's not even because of ignorance It's a home build triple boot sandy bridge i7 with 16gigs of ram that worked for about a year that now won't even boot to bios now.

It's just that the last place I want to spend my time right now is debugging a computer that should just fucking work. Im sure there are others like me. Yours is probably pretty easy to diagnose actually. If it powers up, probably the motherboard. If it doesnt power up, you can add power supply and CPU to that list. You can eliminate the power supply from the list with a paper clip google it. The CPU can be eliminated by making sure the motherboard has a diagnostic speaker and pulling the memory out, then turning it on.

If it starts beeping like crazy, the motherboard is capable of diagnosing itself, and your CPU has probably gone to greener pastures. No BEEPS, bad Mobo.

Can you give an example of what you say in your Craigslist posts? Do you go all out with an HTML formatting? Do you live in a bigger city that has its own CL city entry? My hometown doesn't have its own CL city listing. The closest cities are at least min away. I used to do just what you do fulltime, but bills increased and money ran out. Had to get a fulltime job. The stable income is nice. Driving 50min one way is not.

I still have my business, but it is on the side. I'm trying to gain some reliable, intelligent freelance or contract workers. Seems difficult so far. Customers slacked off and I am not sure why. I charge d about the same flat rate as you charge now. I'm very nice and can't recall any pissed off or unhappy customers. I'm not really advertising on CL, though.

I try to avoid "crazies". The ticketing software comment was something I've not thought of though. I use Quickbooks Online Starter to keep track of customers and invoice history.

On a more serious note. I've noticed customer swings before, so I work like a squirrel sometimes, and I try to hoard as much money as I can when it's coming in. What you will find is that your income starts to dip towards the beginning and the end of the month, your typical customer is usually low-income and people are tight at the end of the month trying to pay bills. The slowest months to start doing this are actually right now, October, November, and December.

People are out purchasing brand new things instead of getting their old ones fixed. Business starts picking back up again in February once all of that new stuff breaks. Customers slacking off happens, and it's not something that can really be avoided, what you want to do, is during the good months, build great repoire with your customers so they call you back during the bad months instead of buying new products.

How big is your city? I'm in the same situation as TC. My town is small and the closest city is 40 minutes away. I also noticed that I haven't been getting as many calls lately. Thanks for the insight. I live in a rather sprawling metropolis kind of thing. I would say, major city not included, the suburban sprawl I'm around has cities with around k people within 30 miles. This is just a bad time of the year for needing your computer fixed. The best time of the entire year to buy computers literally just passed back to school sales , so october, november, and december are going to be your slowest months of the year.

Just settle down, do the work you can, and try to make it through til january. I also have a review from one of my previous customers in my ad. I post my phone , a bit about myself, and save have a nice day. Pictures of your kid go along way in your ad too. Any ideas on why I get so few answers to my ads? I did okay for a while but was not very active for a year. Now I get nothing. Everyone is very happy with my work. Would you be willing to critique my ad? Does your computer have a virus?

Do you have ideas you would like to implement but are unsure where to start? I can help you! I do repairs, lessons, and tutorials as well. It is just a scam. This is only malware, the claims are not real, and paying the "fine" will not fix this malware. Please call me or another professional to remove it. It's too short and condensed. It's also horizontally oriented. People read ads like they read lists.

Make the whole thing vertically oriented. Bullet points State your name and your phone either at the top or the bottom, not in the middle of the paragraph.

Focus on the breadth of the ad, so in this case, if your repairing computers than this "Do you have ideas you would like to implement but are unsure where to start? Mechanics advertise they fix your car, they tell you in person they can detail it. What is the best way to write up work orders?

I really would love to start making income with my new found talents. Some great advice here, thanks OP. I did it out of necessity and it grew into something awesome, just be aware that there is alot of competition out there, and ALOT of it is some mouth breathing basement demon who hates you for calling him.

I just want to say thank you. I followed your advice about two weeks ago and I've already had 3 customers. Today I even had a local store call me, and have me come in to interview for their position as sysadmin of a small 3 store network. Never had been called for an interview before, without sending out a resume or application.

Glad its working out for you. Figured it was time to pay it forward a lil bit and share some of my acquired wisdom. The job thing is awesome, I find myself with a wealth of job opportunities I could accept at the drop of a hat now with all of the networking that I do. So making friends with your customers and putting yourself out there will just lead to so many opportunities down the road its really crazy.

I've noticed that with the people, every single person I've gone to see always has big grand plans they want to achieve, with the help of me of course. A lot of small business dreams, now to find somebody with the capitol to provide for such dreams.

The Average That a Computer Repair Technician Makes Per Hour | ucujaluxu.web.fc2.com

But I found the biggest thing you recommended that I have been trying to follow is going the extra mile. It paid off, and he scheduled another job for me to do today actually.

I'm sure the networking will come with time, but like I said I just got started. It's now my goal to be able to survive off doing this, or make a living. I'm glad you decided to pay it forward, I had been dreaming of doing something like this for a while but never had the motivation, I will hopefully be able to pay something forward one day too.

Any more tips you can think of? I wouldnt really be afraid to have people over, honestly, the people the come over to your place are usually the kind of people that don't have much to hide. So instead of marketing yourself as a PC REPAIR GUY WITH A CAR. QUICK FIX PC REPAIR!

Also, when somebody asks you your price, since they always do for some reason EVEN THO ITS IN THE AD! It has an ad builder, link tracker, contact forms and can help with who's flagging you by IP address. Thanks for this post. As mentioned before, you might cross post this to computertechs if you haven't already.

Reading posts like this from people actually doing this with good results really motivates me go try to make the leap as well. I agree with almost everything you posted and I like your mindset regarding the customer. The only part I have not been able to get comfortable with is the flat rate vs hourly issue.

I find so often that I end up being an educator as much as a technician, sometimes there isn't even a real problem, but the user wants to know how to perform a certain task. Do you have some tasks that you would charge by the hour for? I have spent 2 hours with somebody teaching them how to copy pictures from their camera to their computer, and then showing them how to find the pictures again once they are on the pc.

But initially I would have never expected something like that to take more than 15 minutes, even with a user who fears technology. Anyway thanks again for the post, maybe it's the kick in the butt I need to start moonlighting as a tech in the after hours. The reason you don't charge hourly is mainly just because of the mindset of the computer guy. People really do have this mindset like we're out to get em like that evil mechanic that took a sledgehammer to their terrier.

By taking the hourly rate out of the equation, you remove the anxiety of the situation from the customer. They know, that barring something else happening, or you being a douche and reneging on your price, they will only have to pay you a fixed amount, and makes them more apt to call you. It also teaches you to work faster, if your not getting paid hourly, you become MUCH more efficient at doing things.

It used to take me 2 hours to clear off a ransomware virus, it literally, I kid you not, takes me about 7 minutes now a days. The faster you work, the more money your making! Also, your going to be running into situations where your going to be making less than what your worth, that happens, but this is the difference between short term and long term, or what I call FUTURE MONEY!

Be patient, be kind, and go the extra mile for your customers and they WILL come back. I had 4 years of repair experience, 5 years of help desk support experience.

I've been building computers since I was 7. When I was in high school, I'm pretty sure it was called a CCNT, now a days i think its a CCENT. I'd like two throw in my two cents here: A lot of people already assume that, since you know how to fix computers, you can fix anything that's electronic. Just make sure you buy a pentalobe screwdriver for iPhones you'll also need it if you want to repair macbooks.

I do fix pretty much anything, tv's, home stereo's, etc. I try to focus on the things I KNOW I can fix tho, so I don't advertise working on people's phones, but I let them know before the leave that if they need anything else fixed, they can call me, and If I can't fix it, I probably know someone who can.

Makes me their go to guy for anything they don't understand fixing. Cept cars, YO NO SE HABLA I work in IT Security and don't make too much right now and have been thinking about doing this for a while. All great information in this post so far. Being that it's Craigslist, what sort of people have you ran into? Think one of the things i'm kind of skeptical about is going to random strangers houses.

These are your bread and butter and the ones you really need to take care of, they will refer you to the ends of the earth if your nice to them. Lot of these people you will never get referrals out of, but they will become repeat customers. Lots of business professionals, doctors, etc.

These people use craigslist and come looking for someone like you to make their day easier. They are perfectly capable of fixing it themselves, and can diagnose your bullshit before its even out of your mouth.

I cannot stress this enough, DO NOT Fabricate a problem to get out of someone's house. If your honest with people, they'll appreciate it. I have told people before, sorry, I have no idea what would cause this, I'll have to research it and get back to you. Far better than telling people their flux capacitor needs more gigawatts.

These are the people that can't, or won't take their computer to a professional computer service and are FORCED to go to craigslist. I've had people backing up their porn at my house, a house covered in dead spiders, dead cats, and one case of CP.

Sky's the limit here, thats why Be Safe is in there. Always let someone know, or let people know that you always write down their address, phone , etc.

BEFORE you go out to them. I also carry on me a pocket knife, primarily as a tool, but also in case of crazy, and you will run into it, it's just gonna happen. I have always been to busy going to school , working full time to risk putting any real effort besides the one to two side jobs a month. I move to a much bigger city this weekend and rather then trying to find work right away I'm going to try and be successful at this first. Whats the worst that can happen! I will soon be starting my own tech support business and love these posts.

Thanks for the ideas OP. Is there a minimum amount you need to make before paying taxes? Can you deduct gadgets as a business expense?

This depends on your state, mine does have a minimum amount I would be liable for, so if I don't make more than that, everything's gravy. Also, you can deduct anything you purchase for your business, so things like my iPad, my internet, etc are all deducted.

The main thing I keep track of neurotically is gas, and driving, and I keep all of those receipts. Do you work exclusively off craigslist?

Have you considered other methods of advertising? Signage on your car? As for newspaper - that is a great way to get at the 'older' crowd, many of my local papers offer free classifieds - and that would be enough to get your name out. Most of what I do now a days is word of mouth, but it all started and continues off of craigslist.

I did look into some other advertising at one point, but it was prohibitively expensive and I didnt think I could fill the volume with just myself. During the summer months, I usually hire one of my friends to help me out. I'm currently at a point where I don't know how much more volume I can take on a realistic basis, and might seriously need to hire an employee, still debating on that one.

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I'd personally wait to hire someone until you were averaging a little more than that, no? I work 3 hours a day by choice, not because of lack of work. It's also the slow months currently. I would say I currently turn down at least 1 job a day. If I was to continue to do proper advertising all year long, I would kind of drive myself insane, I work the amount I work right now to stay comfortable and happy and be able to watch my son without having to pay for a daycare. Do you think you could post an example contract?

I'm getting more serious about my PC support side job, and would like to see what others are using.

Can i make a (semi) living building/repairing computers? - [Solved] - Work & Education

Sorry, it's based off of my friends contract, so I'm not going to post a copy of mine, but here is one I found off of google. I've been ready to do a craigslist pc repair "business" for a least a year. School is killing four days of my week and my part job takes the other three.

My biggest worry is lack of business I would quit my part time job, I work to hard for to little pay and safety. I have everything you listed and even bought some old computers off CG to practice repairs. I would love to start doing this part time. I work mon-friday. Do you see this being feasible? When I get really busy or have had other commitments and get a phone call asking for computer help, I just tell them I have other appointments until X o'clock and I would love to assist them after that.

Works all the time. Many people do, it takes a lot of flags for the ad to go down. It varies by site, how many users there are and how bad the spammers YOU, BTW there are. One reason you are getting removed because of the keywords.

Don't do that, put the key words in the ad itself, and make sure they are relevant. If you do PC repair, don't add other random shit like "ford chevy jackhammer dildo" If someone searches for dildos and PC repair comes up, it gets more flags. If you put PC, MAC, Amiga at the botton, why isn't it in your ad?

If it is, why the hell put it on the bottom? Search engines haven't done that for 10 goddamn years, for fuck's sake. Post once a day max, once every other day is better. Always delete your old ad before reposting. The "repost" button does this for you, and goes live 48 hours after your last post.

Do you go through flagging all your competition? No, neither do they. It's not your competition. Take off the tinfoil hat and realize it is the people you are trying to reach that are flagging you.

And post ads elsewhere. If your only advertisement is craigslist, you are doomed to failure. You will be banned. They all are, eventually. I have had competitors call me up to yell at me before, I know there are people out there that flag me specifically. My ads keywords are very specific to my ad, here is a copy paste of them from my ad. I also know specifically that single users can flag an ad as long as it's flagged within a certain amount of time once the ad is posted I found out a guy was copying my ad on craigslist literally word for word and just changing the name, him and I had a screaming match and a flag war for like 30 mins, we both got locked out for a day.

I'm going off of my 4 years worth of experience with craigslist, my ad almost never gets flagged anymore, and I usually only have to post it once a day. Your convictions are valid from your viewpoint, but unless you work for craigslist, they are just as valid as mine. They always think it's the competitors.. Either way, I'm not tin-foiling, my ad does not get flagged very often anymore, but it does happen, its just the way my gig's section is. I've used the exact same 3 ads for 3 years now, just rotating them every other day, and I typically do not worry about flag.

I also do not edit the ad, so if it was just the users flagging me, I think it would happen more regularly. I'd say currently I may have an ad get flagged once a week. I've tried a few other things to grow the business, but craigslist seems to be the best so far.

I have my ad placed at various times on Yelp this does have the potential to be better than craigslist, but I'm working on it, so no guide for it atm Krrb craigslist with flash pictures Backpage craigslist for escorts. Best places I've found besides craigslist.

Put your card up on the bulletin board at the community colleges, library, old folks homes, fred meyers, city hall, and metro buses spent a whole day just riding em to put my card on as many as I could, fun day. Lots of calls from the library. I would disagree with a few minor things though. I've been doing computer repair since First, I post one ad per day on Craigslist, in the Computer Services section. Since this is the proper category and I don't post it 5 times a day, I have never had a single ad flagged.

Second, I get "some" business from Craigslist more than enough to make it worthwhile to do the post each morning but the majority of my business comes from repeat customers, and from my website being found in Google.

People expect you to have a professional looking website if you want to be taken seriously as a business. Finally, I have charged an hourly rate since starting. Probably about time to raise that, since I haven't bumped it up for about 4 years or so. Yeah, as I've said before. The gig's section in my city is very competitive, and I get my ads flagged on occasion, not so much recently, but it used to happen all the time. I don't put the ad up in barter so much anymore, just because I really don't need much of anything else anymore besides just money.

Most of my business now a days is word of mouth, but it all started on craigslist, and like you said, it is totally worth it to put my one ad up every morning.

Other than that, I used to keep an active website, but I started getting people who wanted me to make them websites, and I really didn't want that kind of work, so I took it down. Oh - I definitely don't list my hourly rate in my Craigslist ad.

I don't even have it on my website. Where do most of your repairs take place, and how do you usually meet with customers? I am 23, I live with my parents and work in computer repair. I wouldn't want to come off as "young and inexperienced" since I would not look professional working out of my parents basement. Don't worry about it too much. When I started out, I literally had no choice, did not have a car, was living with my wife in a one bedroom apartment.

I just stood tall, good posture and invited people to come to my place to drop it off. When I started doing this I couldn't have been more than 25, so there ya go. Thanks for the tips, I'm not sure I can pull this off since I work 30 hours a week already.

I'd have to schedule appointments with only two and a half days a week for availability. For screen replacements, do you buy the screen and work that into the bill? The majority of what I do at the shop is laptop repairs. How do you deal with self-security? I assume you have to give your customers your address - because who would let a stranger take their computer without knowing where it went? This is a major question that's preventing me from trying this on my own - I don't want crazies coming to my apartment.

I just kind of suck it up. I focus primarily on doing on-site work now a days, but when I started doing it, I didnt have a car, so I had to have people drop their computers off at my place.

You actually don't get as many crazy people willing to come to your house as they are willing to have you come to their fun house of nightmares. For the most part, I just ask that people announce themselves before they come over, but really, your going to run into the aspect of crazies no matter what you do being self-employed.

I personally carry a small but very sharp pocket knife with me at all times, and a small thing of mace in my travel toolkit. I've done this for a few years. One thing that anyone trying to do this should be ready for is flux. In the summer every kid who knows how to use Windows tries this, and you end up with a lot of competition.

The part of this that's good for you is they usually don't have as much experience, but the bad part is they will undercut you to the point that you can't compete on price. My advice is not to lower your price just to compete. Keep your prices reasonable for both yourself and your clients. Too low is going to kill you when the bills are due.

Too high is going to make you lose business. I also noticed a lot of mom and pop shops suddenly opening up. Remember that their overhead is higher, so they probably won't be around forever, and their services will probably cost more. I would add you should start building your own computers. Because it will build familiarity. You'll learn how to diagnose hardware problems.

Swapping out parts will be no big deal. Have your own OS install disc. If all you have is a windows home disc, you can reburn it without the ei. This will merely exposes all the operatins systems for install. It will not allow you to install Pro with a Home license. The license key determines what is valid. What it does allow you to do is have a single windows 7 install disc.

This could probably be done with all other installs. This is useful because laptops ship with a recovery partition and sometimes the media is more useful. Also people will often not know where the install discs are.

Since most computers ship with the license key attached to them, you just pull out your install disc instead of wasting time. You say computer gigs. Do you mean gigs or services? Gigs are, to me, someone that's looking for a job, whereas a service is someone looking to be employed.

Although it doesnt hurt to check the gigs section every once in a while for people looking for help. If the end user does not have their original discs, and the OS is hosed form a virus, how would you re-image it after pulling the drive to grab personal files. All of those files are hosted on microsoft's file repository and are completely free to use.

When a customer asks for a OS they don't have, I offer to sell them a key, or don't install it. What do you do if you need to re-image but they don't have a sticker or a CD? Just tell them they have to buy a new OS? So in terms of what I do, its not really an issue, I can install any copy of windows I like on the persons machine, and just not provide them a key, and tell them they have 30 days to acquire their own key.

With windows 7, the machine will work pretty much indefinitely and let them know they need to put in a key, Windows vista and XP will shut off and become annoying, but I dont get too many requests to install windows xp anymore. Typically people will call up the manufacturer of the computer and retrieve their key, or purchase one off amazon or something, not particularly my problem unless they'd like to purchase one from me, in which case I go to best buy and pick them up a box.

I don't do licensing support or cracking or pirated software at ALL, it's not worth the headache or the thought of some crack team of microsoft assassins ruining my day. Best to pass on the business if they NEED something like that from you, they can find it from somebody else. I was looking to avoid any and all cracked software, that is why I was asking about people's reactions. You have a good model, IMHO, giving it back with a 30 day trial. Removes you from the equation entirely and you don't have to wait on them to make up their mind.

Try buying an hdd usb docking station helps you access hdd's that still work but computers that don't. I wanted to add if you know linux then creating an ubuntu bootable drive is a much easier way to access a hdd that won't boot to recover the data.

I find this post highly relevant, just because we may be employed in tech support doesn't mean we're not open to different career opportunities. Form84 took the time to rattle this out and it's chalk full of information which can be useful to people who are staying in tech support as well. I've actually been tinkering with expanding through CL recently moved to another State, had to give up my word-of-mouth customer base and thought this was pretty handy.

Yeah, I didnt particularly know exactly which Sub-reddit to post it in, I tried looking for a How-To, etc. You think i should put it in AMA? Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy. By signing up, you agree to our Terms and that you have read our Privacy Policy and Content Policy.

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Consider donating to the Electronic Frontier Foundation! They give you stickers! Laptop shuts down after 20 minutes of gaming on lowest settings, yet works fine when I do a stress test well over an hour.

Error in Windows 10 Login: Error Code 0xf4 - Can't Log In With Fingerprint Scanner Or PIN, Like I Usually. My SO 'bricked' his pc by messing with his CMD prompt. Temperature of GPU seems fine, but sensors moving weird. Open hardware doesn't even show it. This is an archived post. You won't be able to vote or comment. You need PATIENCE, I cannot overstate this enough, this will make or break your business!

Your tools Cell-phone Car optional, increases your income potential by alot tho Mobile tools if you have a car, pick up a cheap basic toolkit from a riteaid or something and just leave it in the car, you'll be surprised how often you use it Ok, so having read all that you have decided to be a craigslist repair technician, awesome! Pricing People come to craigslist to get deals and to save some money, realize that when your writing your ad. Writing Your Ad Craigslist ads search off of the title and the body of the message.

Helpful software Ninite - Ninite. Your customers think of you in the same way that many people think of mechanics. They don't trust you, they think your going to try to screw them over. You will have to prove through your words and your actions that you are worthy of trust. Trust is your absolute best asset towards growing this kind of business. Many of your customers will be people that are FAR FAR FAR from literate with a computer.

Patience and GOOD customer service are FAR more important to the benefit of your business than your actual skill with the computer. Patience will get you repeat customers! Repeat customers are the heartbeat of what you do, NEVER take any customer for granted.

Be realistic and DON'T scare people. People don't want to hear "You have x things wrong with your computer". They want to hear "Oh, don't worry about that too much, I can fix it! Be prepared to take phone calls and don't charge people for stuff like this. If your willing to bend a little and help people out, they won't be afraid to toss money at you like it's setting their wallets on fire.

If i didn't eat the initial visit, I don't know If he would've kept me around. Be prepared to not make much for a while until your name gets out there. Your reputation is WORTH WAY MORE THAN ANY SINGLE JOB! Do not take any job your not comfortable with, or don't think you can fix. Be honest and upfront with people about expectations, and do your best to empower your customers to fix things themselves.

They'll trust you and pay you for the convenience! Stand by WHAT YOU SAY, and be willing to go the extra mile for your customers, THEY WILL LOVE YOU! Take pictures of your customers on your phone, and write a small note on their contact if you have a smartphone so that you can remember them and what you did for them.

You'll be helping lots of people every month and it can be very hard to remember them all, but people love knowing you remember them. Write down any addresses to new customers and keep them around at your home if you don't know these people. Let people know where your going. You are dealing with people off of craigslist, yes most people are awesome, but be prepared for the crazies, which you WILL run into eventually.

Something like this is good. Stanley has a great set of steel-shaft screwdrivers with an interchangeable handle not head. A can of compressed air A tiny flashlight of some kind. At minimum a 4gb flash drive. That you can keep on your keychain. Went to sleep for a few hours, wrote this at 5am, I'm back! Sounds like you've made it doing what you love. I'm not a huge fan.

Good to know I'm not the only one who thinks this way. Upvote for options though. Always a good thing.

How To Fix Computers like Mike ($20+ an hour) - ucujaluxu.web.fc2.com

It has its ups and downs, but It works. In addition, we did onsite tech support and the things I've learned over the years made my life much easier, so without further ado: If you do this, your business will grow quickly and you'll have awesome customers.

Let me show you. Some extra cables, ones to hook up another hdd specifically. Oh crazy stories, these were all from work btw. Lessee, crazy cat urn lady. The time I got spoonfed by a gay korean The basement litterbox The guy who was eating roadkill The guy whose house was covered in dead spiders The woman who wanted me to pick up her laundry from the laundromat. Seems like a reasonable request.

The IBM Hitachi diag works on pretty much everything. I use it constantly. D Right now, I have networks like crazy for stuff like that. Cash is always nice, too. Not being facetious, just curious. I'm a sole proprietor, I was advised against an LLC by my tax guy. Everyone told me it was a good idea. And I fell for that shit When it comes to driving to people, I dont really mind that.

I charge people for my drive! This is great info. Thats my advice, TLDR: Vertically orient your ad, BULLET POINTS! Easy to find Phone and name! Don't be that guy, and you will be successful. Best of luck to you in the future! Here's a site that I use for my CL ads, http: