When it comes to having a presence locally, many people seem to forget that this is the most basic form of marketing that needs to be done. Regardless of what kind of business you’re in, the locals need to know who you are and what you do.

For computer repair companies, this is vital as many consumers actually don’t know what they’re options are when it comes to having their computer upgraded or repaired. Let’s take a look at some of the most common ways to create and maintain a professional local presence.

Start Off With Your Local Chamber of Commerce

Your local chamber of commerce can play an important role when it comes to proving that your computer repair company is legit. After all, a company that takes the time to remain a member of a local business-oriented organization is sure to be more attractive than your company that started in the middle of the night.

Maybe the middle of the night was a little too harsh, but what I’m referring to is companies that start doing business before they ever take one step to become a legal and responsible company.

Share With Those You Come Across

Whether you’re getting a hair cut or grabbing some grub between house calls, make sure that when you come across other locals that you inform them about what you do.

This is actually one of the most effective ways to start building a reputation, especially in smaller communities where everyone literally talks to each other. The few minutes you spend conversating with a local could be the time that you reeled in a new customer.

Donate Services To Prominent Organizations

I’m not talking about donating weeks or months of your time, just an hour or so here and there where you have the opportunity to help out someone doing something good within the community. This could be a church or a homeless shelter. When you lend them a helping hand, they’re sure to scratch your back by referring other people your way.

As you can see, getting and maintaining a local presence isn’t hard. Don’t get me wrong, there’s tons more ways that you can actually improve your presence within the community, but this is what will help you break the ice.

Just keep asking yourself what will help you gain attention in the community that you do business in. Don’t be scared to innovate as innovation is how you turn a small business into a very successful business.

Problem:

One of the biggest problems I run into is editing music and sounds for my videos and/or websites. Like anything else, there are plenty of software packages you can buy to edit music. Depending on your needs, sometimes freeware is the way to go and I feel Audacity is one of those exceptions.

Resolution:

Audacity is an audio editor that can be used for all types of things. I use Audacity all the time to make ringtones for my iphone, music drops for my videos and to edit sounds for my websites.

Here is the list of features Audacity offers: (From the website)

Recording

Audacity can record live audio through a microphone or mixer, or digitize recordings from cassette tapes, vinyl records, or minidiscs. With some sound cards, it can also capture streaming audio.

• Record from microphone, line input, or other sources.
• Dub over existing tracks to create multi-track recordings.
• Record up to 16 channels at once (requires multi-channel hardware).
• Level meters can monitor volume levels before, during, and after recording.

Import and Export

Import sound files, edit them, and combine them with other files or new recordings. Export your recordings in several common file formats.

• Import and export WAV, AIFF, AU, and Ogg Vorbis files.
• Import MPEG audio (including MP2 and MP3 files) with libmad.
• Export MP3s with the optional LAME encoder library.
• Create WAV or AIFF files suitable for burning to CD.
• Import and export all file formats supported by libsndfile.
• Open raw (headerless) audio files using the “Import Raw” command.
• Note: Audacity does not currently support WMA, AAC, or most other proprietary or restricted file formats.

Editing

• Easy editing with Cut, Copy, Paste, and Delete.
• Use unlimited Undo (and Redo) to go back any number of steps.
• Very fast editing of large files.
• Edit and mix an unlimited number of tracks.
• Use the Drawing tool to alter individual sample points.
• Fade the volume up or down smoothly with the Envelope tool.

Effects

• Change the pitch without altering the tempo, or vice-versa.
• Remove static, hiss, hum, or other constant background noises.
• Alter frequencies with Equalization, FFT Filter, and Bass Boost effects.
• Adjust volumes with Compressor, Amplify, and Normalize effects.
• Other built-in effects include:
  • Echo
  • Phaser
  • Wahwah
  • Reverse

Sound Quality

• Record and edit 16-bit, 24-bit, and 32-bit (floating point) samples.
• Record at up to 96 kHz.
• Sample rates and formats are converted using high-quality resampling and dithering.
• Mix tracks with different sample rates or formats, and Audacity will convert them automatically in realtime.

Plug-Ins

• Add new effects with LADSPA plug-ins.
• Audacity includes some sample plug-ins by Steve Harris.
• Load VST plug-ins for Windows and Mac, with the optional VST Enabler.
• Write new effects with the built-in Nyquist programming language.

Analysis

• Spectrogram mode for visualizing frequencies.
• “Plot Spectrum” command for detailed frequency analysis.

Free and Cross-Platform

• Licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL).
• Runs on Mac OS X, Windows, and GNU/Linux.

Check out Audacity…What do you have to lose?

This is something that comes up just about every day, even if it isn’t around me, there’s no doubt that this topic is one that doesn’t really cease to exist. Is it really necessary to obtain certifications in order to have your own computer repair business?

The answer is no, it’s not a requirement persay.

In fact, about 40% of computer repair companies lack having any certifications or techs that have all of the most common IT certifications. You can start out without having any type of IT certification, there’s definitely not a law against it.

Would it be wise to get the certifications even though it’s not a requirement?

Well, this honestly depends upon how much money you can shell out for the necessary training and exams. If you need to make more money before you can shed out a lot of money obtaining IT certs, you should just make sure that you’re legally covered as far as insurance and go from there.

It takes time for one to get to the point where they can spend over a thousand dollars to get IT certifications. Not everyone has this much money floating around and there are actually quite a bit of computer repair businesses that got their start without any type of IT certification.

What is the purpose of IT certifications?

Well, basically the point of them is to show that you have master numerous aspects of products that utilize the latest in IT. If you want to get a job at Dell, having certifications that are recognized by the industry would make you stand out more than the techs that lack them.

You can also use these when a lot of your competition lacks any IT certification. Doing this is pretty simple, just make your customers aware of the ones you have and why they’re important to have for a tech, and that a lot of the other companies don’t take the time to learn and take the needed tests.

IT Certifications Conclusion

It’s all about what you have to work with and what you need to do in order to take your computer repair business to the next level. I’m not going to say never get IT certifications, and then again I’m not going to tell you to break open the piggy bank and run to the exam with all of your change. This is pretty much all on you now.

You remember those days where you just start trying to pull your hair out because nothing seems to be where you put it before? Well, instead of making yourself go bald earlier than intended, take a look at how organization can make your life a lot easier.

Let’s kick off with the workbench area.

Hopefully you have a workbench, it is one of the best ways to have a good place where you can safely work on computers without having to worry about something going wrong simply because you chose a bad area to work in.

Now that I have gotten past that, let’s move onto keeping your workbench a clean area. You don’t want to throw your mail on it, the only things that should be on your workbench are tools and whatever it is that you’re fixing. This will allow you to become more organized and not risk losing stuff in the mix of junk you stacked up on there.

One more good thing to keep in mind for your workbench is to use a peg board in order to hang your tools and keep them put up neatly when you don’t need them for something.

By doing these two things, you will be a lot less stressed when working on a computer.

Your desk is where the administrative tasks are completed.

That’s right, anything that has to do with administration of your business needs to stay at the desk. Don’t lose papers or other things because you drifted away and forgot where you put it.

It’s very important to get in the habit of know what to do and where it is supposed to be done.

When you buy something for your business, put it in it’s place.

Many times, we get sidetracked when we get back to work after making needed purchases for the company. However, we need to take care of what we buy, when we buy it. There’s just too many things that can happen which would cause us to be pulling our hair out yet again. This is what we’re trying to prevent!

As you can see, these were some basic tips and you might have already known them. However, I do hope that someone found this useful, and please share any other tips on organization for us IT pros trying to do whatever we can to better ourselves.

One thing that I have noticed a lot of computer repair companys here local to where I’m located at fail to realize is just how much a support ticket system can help them out. Personally, I have been using support tickets for years as I have always been deep into the web hosting industry.

However, those who aren’t aware of the opportunity might not even realize what exactly a support ticket is. I bet just about all of you who are reading this knows all about support tickets, so I’m just going to list some of the benefits of using it for your computer repair company.

Support Tickets Document Problems & Troubleshooting Attempts

Even if you’re just a one-person operation, the helpfulness of this will help you just the same as it would if you were a big corporation employing hundreds of techs. By documenting the customer’s issue as well as the steps taken to see what’s wrong, you will have a visual diagram to mull over which thinking of what else could be causing the problem.

This also helps you when a customer tries to say that you said something you really didn’t. The more documentation of customer interaction that you have, the better. It’s just the way that this world works. Prove what you can prove, and what you can only say will be ignored.

Support Tickets Offer Customers A Way of Reaching You Besides By Phone

Let’s face the reality of this cruel world that we live in. We all waste time when people want to keep talking with us endlessly over the phone. By having a support ticket system, you can pry yourself away from working the phones when you need to. WITHOUT having to worry that your customer will go unanswered. The hardest part of this is teaching the ones who don’t know about submitting tickets how to actually submit them.

The rest of the benefits can go on for days…

Such as time logging, archiving, having tickets sent to your email, and the many other benefits that support ticket systems provides its users with. Dependant upon which one you choose, you can rest assured that there will be more than enough tools on your side to help you make your computer repair business more efficient.

 Hopefully, this helped you understand that even the smallest piece of software could change the way that your computer repair company is organized, thus allowing you those extra free moments that you need to help maintain your sanity throughout the day. Much better than gluing a phone to your ear, isn’t it?