Start a small business as an Independent Computer Consultant

Have you ever considered starting your own small business as an Independent Computer Consultant, but hesitated because you thought it might be too hard to find enough clients or billable work to provide yourself with a reliable income?

Well, how many clients do you believe you’ll need to make a consistent, comfortable salary?

• Have you been told or led to believe that you need lots and lots of high paying clients?
• Or that you need to bring in a consistent stream of new business week after week to ensure your survival?
• Or that you need to have 50, 60, or even 70 or more billable hours a week, every week, scheduled in advance to insure a steady income?

WRONG!

Let’s take a look at what is REALLY required.

Now, the current, average salary for an IT/Network Administrator in New York City with:

• 5 years of experience
• A+ and MCSE Certifications
• And expertise in Microsoft Windows Server Systems and Exchange

Is $57,719**

** www.payscale. com/research/US/Job=Information_Technology_(IT)_Consultant/Salary

So, how many clients would it take to reach the average salary level for this position?

To illustrate this, let’s take a look at Jay, a skilled and talented New York City Independent Computer Consultant (and a personal friend of mine) who’s following our business model:

• Each of his clients is a small business with an average size of 10 workstations and one (or zero) in-house servers.
• He bills each client $149/mo. for a base Proactive Maintenance Plan fee. (this covers all daily monitoring and remote administrative tasks)
• He bills each client a $49/mo. fee per workstation (which covers all remote computer support)
• He bills each client a $125/hr. service fee for any work that’s performed on-site (this is for items that can’t be performed remotely, like installing new hardware or fixing workstations that won’t boot or have no Internet connectivity)
• He spends an average of approx. 1 1/2 hrs. PER WEEK on-site for each client.

So, for each client per month, Jay's fees equal:

• base fee of - $149
• 10 Workstations - $490
• 6 hrs. on-site - $750

• Total Monthly Income per Client - $1389

So, if Jay has a client base of only 4 Small Business Clients – his monthly income is $5,556 or

$66,672 a year!

Is Jay happy? Well...

• His income is almost 20% higher than his peers
• He spends an average of about 1 1/2 hrs. per week at each client site. That’s a total of about 6 hours A WEEK.
• He spends about another hour per day (an average of 15 minutes per client) doing remote administrative and computer support work, such as administering user accounts, running malware scans, etc.

So, Jay is making almost $67,000 a year, while working a grand total of about 10 hours a week.

Yes, Jay is happy.

But are his clients happy?

Well, Jay’s clients have a computer consultant who:

• Is completely dedicated and responsive to their needs (easy to do with a small client base)
• Costs less than a THIRD of what they’d pay for an in-house employee, while getting the same or even a better level of service. Plus, they don’t have to provide:

1. Benefits
2. Vacation time
3. Sick Days / Personal Leave
4. Office Space
5. Workstation
6. Payroll Taxes
7. Cell Phone
8. Or any of the other expenses that come with hiring an in-house employee

• He spends a fraction of the time on-site than their old computer consultant did (who was billing by the hour, and charging for as many hours as possible each month just to survive).
• He costs the same or less than a large IT Service Provider would charge, but Jay provides an even higher level of service (he provides all of the same monitoring and remote computer support that the "big guys" could provide, yet he brings a level of attention that only comes from a dedicated consultant, which a large company simply can’t provide).

Plus:

• Their computer systems operate at a higher level of performance and reliability than ever before (thanks to Jay's remote, proactive monitoring)
• And their fees are low and predictable month after month.

Yes, Jay’s clients are very happy.

So, since Jay is working a total average of about 10 hours a week, what’s he doing with all his extra time in the day?

HE'S GETTING MORE CLIENTS, OF COURSE!

Why stop with only four clients?

He’s spending his time prospecting, obtaining referrals, networking and making the sale, so that he can work his way up to his ultimate goal of…

10 CLIENTS!

That’s it. That’s the total number of clients that Jay is looking to acquire as an Independent Computer Consultant.

What would 10 Clients look like?

10 CLIENTS

Base fee per Client - $149

10 Workstations per Client - $490

6 hrs. on-site total per week - $750

Total Monthly Income per Client - $1,389

TIMES 10 = $13,890 Per Month

Or…

$166,680 PER YEAR!

And he’s still working less than the average 40 hr. work week. Much less!

1 1/2 Hours On-Site per client per week equals 15 hrs per wk.

15 Minutes per client Remote Work per day equals 12 1/2 hrs per wk.

Total Working Hours per WEEK - 27 1/2

Are 10 clients more than you can acquire? Are FOUR?

There are tons of ways to easily land new small business clients as an Independent Computer Consultant (a topic for another article), especially today, where companies are looking for ways to reduce expenses wherever possible, and outsourcing their computer support at a low cost is a very attractive option.

If you have ever considered branching out on your own by starting a small business as an Independent Computer Consultant, there has never been a better time than now!