Anyone seriously tried the white van man gig

[Platypus]

IME home users are hard work and don't want to pay anything. I often recommend they get the local teenager / geek next door to have a look, after telling them what I charge and sensing their shock (£25-£20 p.h. depending on how I feel).

Every now and again you find someone who understands they're paying for a professional service and expects to pay proper money. But these are few and far between. I wouldn't want to try to build a business on them. I only do this kind of work for occasional beer money so haven't tried to make a business out of it, but as others have said, going for local SMEs has got to be the way forward, as they at least understand you have to pay for what you get.

I always wanted (and tried) to get my local accountant to sign up, as I wanted to see the look on HIS face when I charged him £100 p.h. oh that would have been sweet !

[portseven]

I do this for a couple of family freinds. Have done one for 10+ years, the other for 3. As they are family friends I only charge £150 a month each, and sometimes they never call me sometimes I am doing loads.

They are both small outfits (less than 20 employees) and most of the support is remote. I pop in now and then if they need.

Have considered taking it further, and I could push it if I wanted, one is part of a wider group of companies who I know the directors of. But doubt I could match my (current) contracting rates.

I think there is a decent market there though, but it does mean dealing with users, who don't like locked down desktops and love fiddling and installing any old software. It's a different mentality in small firms, and that can take some adjusting to.

Speaking of which I need to logon and sort someones desktop now ;-)

[scott_free]

I was considering doing this, was concerned with SLA's - being a one man band operation, also dealing with those "dumb" users

I guess some investment is needed in the wording of contracts

[Durbs]

Is charging £35 per hour, being your own boss, growing a business and working locally better than £60 an hour working away from home, working in a stressful corporate, long commutes, long hours, etc?

Undoubtedly so, and thats the way to go, but, believe me, its HARD.

Tried it myself years back and was forced to go contracting in the end due to inexperience and making stupid rookie business mistakes.

Spent the last few years learning where i'd gone wrong and doing the same albeit on a smaller scale whilst contracting and am now happily in a position where i feel comfortable to take things further, am much wiser and have a good clientbase.

You'll never make any real money working for the man, being your own boss is the way to go (cue 'i earn £xxx/day posts' - but in the end, you are just someone's bitch) but don't go into it starry eyed, its ferkin hard work, takes a while to work out and be prepared to fall flat on your face a few times.

[xchaotic]

When dealing with a SME do you set up recurring monthly fees + hourly rates on top for the excess calls or what?
It seems to be the best approach - otherwise you might not see any money at all, I suppose?

What are the most common issues to deal with? I've done a bit of sysadmin work in the past and it seemed to bit a mix of AD work and printer not plugged in, is it still the case?

[the_duderama]

Too be honest it really varies between month to month on how much time it takes up can be as little as 2 hours a month to 50 hours a month depending on the type of support or upgrades the client requires

Money wise, I charge out now at £30 per hour - it was £20 per hour when i started just to get my foot in the door for the first 6 months

I wouldn't say that i could quit contracting for it, but certinaly if i was to get enough support contracts under my belt it maybe worth it

At the moment though, i am happy to run with this alongside my contracting work and is a nice sum of money per month (better than nothing)

I do about 95% of the work remotly and have setup my own online helpdesk for my clients to log tickets too - for $40 it was well worth it

This is really interesting, i used to work for a company that did SME support, but the standard they provided was very poor, mainly due to having 1 salesman for every 2 technical people.

As for there being no market in the north east, well that's bulltulip, i know of at least 4 decent sized companies (between 20-50 people) who do this, and from my expereince they were all bad at what they do. Most of the staff come from internal apprenterships, are paid poorly, have no coperate experience, and all the decent ones end up leaving for the larger consultances in the area (HP/BT/Cap Gemini/Accenture etc).

I also know that the turnover for the company i worked for in 2005 was around of 8 million, for about 40 employees. They never turned a decent profit, although the salesmen where all driving audi RS4's, BMW M3's and merc CLS's.

[shashee]

When I was working as an office boy in Dubai, I made some extra money by building websites to small local business. You may find this funny but I got my business waliking around the city centre wearing a sandwich board. It worked I can say.

[stanhope4]

That is interesting - how much of your time does it take up and how much are you making? I mean, is it more than you thought, or is it enough to make you avoid contracting? Is it enough for you to have a tidy living on?

Too be honest it really varies between month to month on how much time it takes up can be as little as 2 hours a month to 50 hours a month depending on the type of support or upgrades the client requires

Money wise, I charge out now at £30 per hour - it was £20 per hour when i started just to get my foot in the door for the first 6 months

I wouldn't say that i could quit contracting for it, but certinaly if i was to get enough support contracts under my belt it maybe worth it

At the moment though, i am happy to run with this alongside my contracting work and is a nice sum of money per month (better than nothing)

I do about 95% of the work remotly and have setup my own online helpdesk for my clients to log tickets too - for $40 it was well worth it

[PropertyCrashUK]

I have managed to secure a couple of contracts for smaller businesses (10 users or less) mainly providing remote support for thier small infrastructure.

I happened to get the first one by chance, speaking to a owner of a small business at a wedding about his company and he was worried that he didnt have any support for his IT infrastrcture, i offered my services and have been working with them now for 9 months.

i have been speaking to a couple more companies that don't have any IT support as such who are keen, there does seem to be a market for this type of work

That is interesting - how much of your time does it take up and how much are you making? I mean, is it more than you thought, or is it enough to make you avoid contracting? Is it enough for you to have a tidy living on?

[PropertyCrashUK]

If you could win a few public sector contracts for maintaining hardware and software you'd be sorted.

I have never met anyone who has won a public sector contract - they make you jump through hoops, have long long lists of excuses to stop you from getting the work... you are not big enough, you did not make enough profit in each of the last 5 years, etc, etc...

...and then the contract goes to a big consultancy or a mate of a boy in the public sector body.

Every business person I know has tales to tell of wasted money and time tendering for public sector work and all swear they will never do so again.

[PropertyCrashUK]

Several people who a friend of mine taught IT in colleague have opened firms servicing SMEs and, frankly, they are flourishing.

My friend is amazed as he told me they were basically no good at IT, were no capable of working in the local public sector IT depts let alone going off and doing corporate IT as permies or contractors...

Yet, there they are.

They don't do the long commute, they work locally and probably if they have several SME customers then they are doing well. I suppose the problem is getting started, a problem if you live in a part of the World where there is little SME business - i.e the North of England or Wales which is mostly public sector work - and that now, with the recession deepening, most SMEs must be desperate to cut costs and stay going.

Longer-term, building such a business is surely the way to go?

[stanhope4]

I have managed to secure a couple of contracts for smaller businesses (10 users or less) mainly providing remote support for thier small infrastructure.

I happened to get the first one by chance, speaking to a owner of a small business at a wedding about his company and he was worried that he didnt have any support for his IT infrastrcture, i offered my services and have been working with them now for 9 months.

i have been speaking to a couple more companies that don't have any IT support as such who are keen, there does seem to be a market for this type of work

[DS23]

i'd be interested to hear if anyone has managed to transfer their corporate skills into a local approach. getting closer to many smaller businesses and helping them reduce cost through efficiency and planning does intrigue as an option.

[DimPrawn]

If you could win a few public sector contracts for maintaining hardware and software you'd be sorted.

[PropertyCrashUK]

With the likes of PC World and others charging higher and higher charges for bog standard PC work have anyone on here seriously had a go at the white van man home/SME white van job?

Is charging £35 per hour, being your own boss, growing a business and working locally better than £60 an hour working away from home, working in a stressful corporate, long commutes, long hours, etc?

Or is there simply no work out there with all the hobbyists doing it for a pack of beer? Or have those who are doing it no longer on here? Or have you tried it and it just did not work out?

I hear mixed reports - some people appear to be doing well out of it, others have packed it in unable to make a living.

Interesting to hear thoughts on this.