Chevy

Some comments:

1 - $50/hour is not the tech rate. This also includes business overhead, etc. I can hire MCSE certified techs for $15/hr to do field work.

2 - Please, don't take this wrong, but as a player in this field (18+ years), I wouldn't consider paying a 17 year old more than $8.00/hour. Why? Because you (at this point in time) lack experience. As your experience grows, so will the amount you can command on the market.

3 - For you, $15/hour is pure profit. Like I mentioned in #1, you have no overhead (liability insurance, worker's comp inssurance, occupational licenses, rent, lights/gas/water, advertising, tax reporting, etc.). Take it and run!

And congrats on a good start - satisfied customers are your best asset for future work. Word of mouth still means a lot.

steve3p0

Well, the person doing "tech support" for lady2 before me was just another high school student. He graduated last year and joined the military, but was certainly not any more qualified than I am, I don't think he even had an A+ certification. But damn, he sure milked lady2 good.

I think you are right though, I should be content with $15/hour. Lady1 and Lady2 are just names to put down on my resume when I apply for a more steady job this summer.

thanks for your input, im really ignorant when it comes to this kind of stuff

steve3p0

To tell a little about myself, I am 17, a senior in highschool, A+ certified, and I consider myself fairly knowledgable with PCs. I have done tech support for my highschool since freshman year (networking, upgrading, installing, bla bla bla.) However, I have had practically NO work experience. Never had a job or been paid for any service.

Recently I have had two tech support jobs placed in my lap.

One, helping an elderly lady(we'll call her Lady1), pays $10 an hour. The wage was suggested by her, and I accepted because I didn't know any better. I had my first visit with her last saturday (dec 10th), and it went pretty well. I set up her new phone, showed her how to use her camera, installed new printer cartridges, and set up her christmas lights(i thought this was a little outside the job description, but oh well), among other miscellaneous chores.

Now, I had the opportunity to suggest my own wage with the second woman(well call her Lady2). I thought $10 an hour was a little low, so I suggested $15/hour this time. She thought I was crazy. She told me that the last person who did tech support for her charged her 50 dollars an hour. I had my first meeting with Lady2 today (dec 11.) I was there for roughly 5 hours. Some things I did while I was there included:

Installing a new Treo-650 phone & bluetooth headset
Installing a scanner and a fax machine
Scanning several magazine articles/various pictures and resizing them for email purposes, typing up step by step instructions on how to do this
Setting up an iPod mini & a corresponding www.audible.com account
Setting up a small windows network
Teaching photoshop Elements to her husband who has never used it before(organizing photo collections, image retouching, etc)
Fixing a "broken" laptop(she thought she had lost all of her data, she didn't understand it was in sleep mode)
Fixing a "broken" wireless mouse (she didn't change the batteries once since the bought it 6 months ago)

...among other miscellaneous chores.

Both of my "employers" were very satisfied with my work. I was able to solve all of the problems and answer all questions, and I have already set up future appointments to continue working with them.

My main question is should I, and how do I ask for more money from both lady1 and lady2? I feel kind of bad(not to mention stupid) asking for more money when I have already proposed $15 an hour from lady2 when I could be making almost 3 times that, but I made that decision out of ignorance.

Chevy

Another thing to consider:

MBA's will tell you to charge what the market can bear. This, to me, becomes informal price fixing.

From a business standpoint, I prefer this method:

Determine your minimum billable hours for a month.

Layout your recurring expenses (licensing, insurance, rent/light/etc, payroll).

Determine what your profit level should be (10% is the norm. These are company funds over and above the recurring expenses).

Guestimate unforseen expenses (supplies, replace part you damaged, etc.)

Let's say your total comes to:

Min Billable Hours: 150
Recurring Expenses: $8,000
Other Expenses: $500

Well, you have $8500 that goes out. To cover this you need to charge 8500/150 = $56.67 per hour.

But, you want a triple-net of 10%. That would add another $850 to the equation.

(8500=850)/150 = $62.33 / hour.

In your case, your expenses are auto maintenance/gas/insurance, your pay, and the triple-net of 10%.

auto-related: $500
your pay: $2000

At 150 hours we have (2500+250)/150 = $18.33 per hour

jasonkozdra

We are in a 'seller's market'. The entire world is now based primarily on an 'information economy'. The world NEEDS computer service techs. Most of your customers are hopefully going to be business customers who use their computers to make money. They won't mind paying what you are worth. Price your services accordingly, but don't forget that we also need the clients. You are building some good relationships, it sounds like, and that, I have discovered, is what this business is TRULY about. It's not really about the computers and certifications and what one should charge per hour. It's about being honest and showing up on time. Sometimes one has to swallow one's pride and say "I don't know" (hard for me). It's about being a people person with a good personality, not a show-off computer guy talking all kinds of technical jargon rather than plain English.

In my experience and opinion, for the time being, stick with the $15 per hour. I promise that it will pay off in the long run--lady2 will look at you like a guy who isn't an opportunist. However, you need to inform any clients she refers to you that you standard rate is ___. Others in this forum may disagree with me, but you should be getting at LEAST $25 per hour. When you are working for someone else, $15 an hour is fine because they take all the flack when something goes wrong. But the weight is all on YOUR shoulders should the customer think you have not FIXED their computer during your visit, but broken it worse! You'll want to have some money saved up for that eventuality.

Start reading about how to get an occupational license and about taxation in your state. Your A+ can give you some know how about computers, but none about business. I know many guys who have gotten an A+ or MCSE, but knew nothing about business, and as a result have no work.

I wish you the best.

rmstech

We only pay our tech reps $10 per billable hour. Its pretty much the same way all over.

jasonkozdra

I'd think it's significantly different for one who works for him or herself. You've got the costs of doing business (advertising, phone, vehicle, business licenses, etc.) that you've got to figure in.

rmstech

True. If you work for a company you don't make as much as you would doing it for yourself, but you also don't have the expenses that a company does. When you are self employed there are a lot of expenses. Phone bill, credit card processing fees, advertising, business licenses, insurance etc. It adds up. You have to pay these bills even if you get no calls or onsite jobs.

It also depends on what part of the country you are in. When I had my business based out of NYC/Metro NJ area, We charged our customers about $125 per hour for onsite service.(that was 10 years ago)

We charge anywhere from $75 to $150 per hour for onsite service to customers since we offer onsite service nationwide. Our tech reps make about $25 per hour for onsite service.

We primarily do telephone tech support which customers pay $1.50 per minute for tech support. We pay our telephone tech reps $10 per billable hour.

All of our tech support reps both onsite and telephone based all work from home.