Getting Started in Computer Services

I worked for a computer services company for a little over four years.  If you have the time, but not the knowledge, I would highly recommend working for a computer services company to anyone interested in this field.  The knowledge you gain in both business and this field is invaluable and you get paid to learn!  By this I mean a computer services consulting firm.  Not Best Buy or some major retailer, a dedicated computer consulting company.  Small or large, that is your choice.

Having the knowledge to fix computers is not enough to start your own computer services company.  You need to understand business as well.  I can help in this area.  There is a stigma in this industry that many of the service professionals are “geeks” and have no people skills or ability to communicate in terms understandable to non-computer professionals.

While this has been true for many years, somewhat recently a shift has begun.  When people begun to see the dollar signs associated with computer knowledge and readily available certifications promising almost double the national median income, they flocked to this industry.

It has taken the industry some time to settle, but it is getting there.  Now, this industry emerges just like many others and no longer are the service professionals all “geeks”.  In a service business, interacting with people is at least as, if not more, important than being able to fix their computers.

Are you going to start off all by yourself, or will you have employees?  Do you have financing?  Do you understand basic tax law?  Do you mind accounting/billing?  Can you market and sell?  These are just some of the question you need to ask yourself before you take the leap.  You need to be able to do many of them to some degree.  Many of the processes that you do not do well or do not want to do can be outsourced.

If you are starting a small company all by yourself, you will initially need to do many, if not all, of these functions.  How you will get business is probably number one.  Revenue is the single requirement for all other things in business.  How will you prospect and find new clients/customers?  I’m going to cover everything I can as this blog grows so stay tuned!

-Zachary M. Morvik

Professional computer service has been my life for over a decade. My first computer repairs were done when I was 11 years old. I locked myself out of my computer by setting a CMOS password which I then promptly forgot. It cost $60 to have a computer service professional ‘clear’ this password for me. I vowed to learn how to do that myself.

I have worked as a computer service professional in large, multi-national public companies as well as small companies with less than ten employees. I have extensive background with both enterprise level systems and SMB (Small-Medium Business) machines.  I am also a VB.NET/ASP.NET/PHP N-tier developer.

It was in 2004 that I decided that the SMB market was my niche and ventured out on my own. I started off as a sole-proprietor and eventually incorporated. Part of this blog serves to help any other computer service professionals learn from my experience. I will also release different software applications I have written which have helped my business exponentially.

If you are a computer service professional, or you are considering this path, please feel free to leave me a comment or just check back often.

-Zachary M. Morvik

My name is Zachary Morvik.

I have finally jumped on the blog bandwagon. I’ll be posting here regularly, so check back often. I will be releasing a few software products in the coming weeks that computer service consultants should find useful!

-Zachary M. Morvik