Managing a PC Business

The published version of Start Your Own Computer Business can be purchased direct from the publisher, from online bookstores, or ordered through your local bookshop.

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Starting a Computer Business

Laptop Deals and Repairs

Computer Repair

Questions? Comments?

Business Practice (Topics Covered)

Organization and Job Descriptions
Scheduling and Prioritizing
Partners in Name and Spirit
Business Relationships (Not the Romantic Kind).
Volunteers and Other Losing Propositions
Want a Peanut? Care and Feeding of the Elephant Customer
Firing Customers
I'm Going to Sue You (Or Tell My Mommy)
Remaining Sane

Firing Customers (Book Excerpt)

Warning: These pages are not intended as professional advice. They are presented "as is", reader beware!

The customer is not always right. Some customers are so nearly always wrong it will be necessary to fire them. Aside from the fact there's nothing to be gained from stretching out the experience until both parties are permanently unhappy, it can cost you a lot of money. I don't know the legal implications of telling somebody flat out that you don't want to do any more business with them, but there are many more subtle ways to get the point across. Pricing yourself out of the market, for example, or insisting on written contracts at the customer's expense. Implementing a sudden change of "business focus" is another possibility, as in "We are re-assessing whether we can do that sort of work in the future." Warranty work must be carried out to term, but you can get pretty strict as to what exactly is and isn't your responsibility.

Years ago, a company I was working for made a special deal for a new customer who was going to bring us a couple thousand dollars a week in business. Meeting his price required us to buy hardware outside our regular channels and to reduce our margin to the risky point, but his business sounded so attractive that we couldn't let him walk out without a deal. Well, I don't know if he simply based his proposition on overly optimistic projections or if he was lying through his teeth, but the volume he promised never materialized. And we were treating him like an elephant, well, for peanuts. I finally got rid of him when he came strolling in with a $10 keyboard for a warranty exchange. After checking the paperwork, I told him he was out of luck. The keyboard was one day beyond its warranty period. Never saw him again. He didn't like being treated like rhesus monkey. A young woman I was training as a technician at the time was shocked, as she had this image of me always being a "nice guy." I am a nice guy, but not to people who take advantage of me.

After a year of having successive drafts of the whole book online, I'm following the advice of readers who asked whether I was running a business or a money losing hobby:-) I left the first three chapters posted, as they were the most popular in any case, and single topic excerpts from the others.

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"Start Your Own Computer Business" is $14.95 as a paperback or $11.95 for printable ebook download