If your computer repair business is declining, chugging along day after day, or just barely eking out a profit, there may be some specific ways to improve your business or take it to the next level. Even a small business can have a potential in the millions of dollars in revenue, or the ability to provide a full-time income with part time work. Assessing what you want out of your business and streamlining it toward those goals can have a tremendous impact on its growth.
Instructions
1. Take stock of your goals. Do you want your business to support you through retirement on part time hours, grow to $1 million in annual revenues, be sold to a larger business, or employ yourself and a few of your friends or family members? Answer this question for yourself and envision the perfect outcome for your business. Then write out your specific goals and desires for your business in the next one, three, five and 10 years.
2. Re-assess your customer base. Technology changes rapidly and continuously, and so do technology customers. If you started in business by providing hardware and software support services to movie rental stores, you might find that your original customer base has slowly gone out of business. Make sure that you're targeting the customers who can best use your services now, in today's market. Then make sure you're pricing your services accordingly.
3. Revamp your marketing efforts. After you know who your customers are (or should be!) you can restructure your marketing campaign to target them more effectively. Advertise in places they're likely to already be looking, and tell them exactly why your services fit their needs. If you haven't been marketing your business at all, now is the time to start. Invest between 10% and 30% of your revenue into sales and marketing--if done well you'll see a significant bump in sales.
4. Eliminate expenses that aren't producing a return. While you still have to pay your taxes and business license renewal, almost everything else is up for negotiation. If customers usually reach you by cellphone, consider disconnecting your land line. If you carry an inventory of spare computer parts for sale but they don't sell well, eliminate that service. If you find you're doing more work off-site than at your shop, consider closing down your storefront and cutting out the rental expense.
5. Upgrade your skills. You might find that desktop PCs are going the way of the dinosaur, but mobile handset hardware repair is an expanding market. Invest in yourself by taking courses, getting updated certifications, and purchasing some of the latest hardware to practice on.
6. Outsource. If you're working at your full realistic capacity, the only way to expand your business is to take some of the workload off yourself. First send out everything that's required for running a company but that isn't your core business: accounting and collections, mailing brochures, tax preparation, etc. Then consider hiring one or more subcontractors. You will see an initial drop in profits as you're paying someone else to do work that you could do yourself. But this step will effectively double your available working hours and allow you to make money even when you're not personally working.
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