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When you're low on cash and would really like some work, you might be quick to jump on anything that comes though the phone line. Don't ever agree to work before thinking. Most of the people who call me for service are very easygoing over the phone and I can quickly tell that it will be a pleasure to work with the person. But sometimes, I get phone calls that just really put me on edge and have me running in the other direction. Use your best judgement when you are accepting business. I am going to give you a few tips as to what should put you on alert and give a little bit of advice on how to get out of a bad deal gracefully. Define your service area
Make a list of the cities that are near you and pick which ones you are going to serve. It's true that any distance traveled can be offset by a bigger travel fee, but unless I know the client is a high roller who is really going to take care of me, I am not going to risk it. When I get a call, one of my first questions to the caller is, "What city are you in?" Asking this question soon will save you a lot of time if you decide it isn't worth it. There is a group of cities that is only about 20 minutes away. But I refuse to serve these cities as they are underdeveloped and not the best places to be. But the people who live there, very often come to my city to work and connect with civilization, so I often offer to meet them wherever to pick up their computer. If you have your service area defined, you can always use it as an excuse to quickly decline work.
Don't settle for argumentative clients This really may be just a personal thing, but I really don't want to work for people who are going to argue with me. I know a lot of people think, "Oh you need to take care of the customer whether they are happy or not." Well I really think that is BS. I left that mindset when I stopped working in Retail. Computer technicians/consultants are professionals. If somebody is not going to speak to me like I am a professional, I don't want anything to do with them. Sure, I may be leaving money on the table. But in my opinion, I am trading money for less stress. Isn't that one of the reasons why we all want money anyway? So that we can provide ourselves with a less stressful life? Anyway, if somebody has the nerve to call me on the phone and start arguing with me about my profession, who knows what they are capable of in person - when you are in their home. Um no thanks. I would stay as far away from that as possible. You don't know this person. And you don't know if their arguing can turn in to violence. If you really think it's worth $100, then go for it. Don't think you can fix the problem? Sometimes I will reject work because I really don't think that I can fix the problem. If I had an office and people were bringing their computers to me - sure I'd take a crack at anything. But if somebody tells me their computer won't boot up, their hard drive is clicking, they want all of their data back, and they live 20 minutes away. I am not going to work on that. I am going to explain to them that it is most likely impossible to recover data from that hard drive without sending it to a specialist. I can make your computer work if you'd like me to order a new hard drive, but I most likely can't do anything about your data. The customers replies that they don't care about the old computer. It's a piece of junk and they just want their data back. In my experience, a clicking hard drive means a dead hard drive. I am not a data recovery expert, I am not affiliated with any data recovery experts, there is nothing that I can do. Maybe I should also mention that this customer was also located in one of my red zones, which is another reason I didn't want to work on their problem. Whatever happens in your work, just remember that you always have the power to choose. You are not going to get fired for declining work. You might upset somebody. But use your head and choose your battles. Some people think they have to please everybody. I really do not think this is the case. The people who love me are generally really nice people who are great to work with. I sure hope they do recommend me to their friends who are also easygoing people. The people who hate me might talk bad about me to their friends. Good for them! I don't want to work with their low class friends! There are plenty of nice people with money in my area. And until I become a big business with multiple stores, I am not going to worry about pleasing everybody. I don't have to. Geeze... maybe I should change the name of this site to "Angry Computer Business". If this article makes people think I am a bad guy, I'm not. I am actually a very nice person and I take good care of my clients. I just have a strong stance against BS and drama. I don't have any bad clients because I don't get involved with them in the first place. If you have any questions or comments about this article, please leave a comment below. I'd love to hear your opinion and I really appreciate all comments. If you'd like to be notified of new updates, please consider subscribing to the ProPCBiz RSS Feed. If you are a Twitter user, you can follow me at twitter.com/Phishie8 for the latest updates. Thanks for reading!
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