A friend and I are working on starting a business where we are in Greensboro NC. I’m doing cable and he is doing hardware. I’ve learned a lot from your YouTube videos, and you sound like someone I’d want to work with if we were in the same area. So I wanted to reach out and talk as we embark on our journey in the industry.
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Best of luck getting started! It’s a lot of hard work but overall I enjoy running my business. 
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One question I had, we dont have anyone to manage the hardware yet. Neither of us do that end. I’ve always been more of an installer though I’m studying to do more. Until we have someone who can do that, is it possible to work out an arrangement with you?
What hardware management do you need?
At the moment I don’t have anything. But we mostly get our work through the Field Nation and similar work platforms. Primarily we are hands on support and installation, and we are building from there. I’m good at sales and can find us new work, and I’ve had years of social networking in sales to find us clients. But we are starting from the bottom most rung of the ladder. I’m trying to anticipate as many different scenarios as possible as we build our business up into a full on IT company. What we are shooting for is being a company similar to yours from what I’ve seen in the videos. I’ve always been hands on and love the actual physical work. My friend is focused more on setting up hardware and he does a lot of being onsite hands on while someone patches in from somewhere else in the world to work on the systems. We both desire more, and we are both motivated to keep training. We also have a couple of potentials already to work more on the software side, but we aren’t there yet. So mostly I’m looking for solutions for problems we dont have yet, but are very likely to occur.
We do offer consulting services on an as needed basis.
@Rhett It would be time well spent to sit down with someone from score.org or another business mentor and figure out what you want your company to do.
With that said, with what you have written so far, I would strongly encourage you to go work for someone for a while and build up your skills. It doesn’t sound like you have enough experience to start a business and it’s much more cost effective to learn on someone else’s dime.
Thank you for the advice. I do realize I may not be coming across how I mean, but all critique is welcome. I’ve actually spent the last twenty years of my life learning how to run a business, and I’ve been putting together a good team. We are currently all still working as independent contractors, but the plan is to pull together into a business together to grow. But even with all I’ve learned in my professional life so far, I’m always open to learning more. I actually hunger for it, I’m constantly trying to expand my knowledge.
Do I understand you want to become a MSP/Consultant? As a MSP that does our own cabling, about 4% of our time is spent doing cabling. We don’t go after cabling jobs, we go after MSP work and do what cabling is necessary. In your case, if you want to be a MSP, that’s a huge shift from what you’re doing.
When you say you do sales stuff, what kind of jobs have people been asking you to do that you can’t do? Where do you see the opportunities?
Maybe someone can point me to a video or resource with something I’ve been trying to get more info on. First I love my job so hopefully this doesnt happen but with companies in my opinion beginning to over step their boundaries considering putting in place certain mandates, a potential backup plan if I lose my job through non compliance is to start my own business similar to this one because I believe I would love doing this work for myself also and wouldnt have to worry about a job controlling me. In the beginning when it was largely just you, how did you handle when you were completely stuck on stuff, or if a client needed a technology that you never had to personally set up or maybe you did but it wasnt on a large scale before? Basically just stuff you had to do without having much exposure to yet? I do have a lot of experience with computers and networking but watching your videos, I know there are definite gaps where I would need training. Do you recommend just starting with services I specialize in? Do you have advice on how to handle that?
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The hardest part is getting clients, not learning the tech. Don’t start a business without a plan to gain new clients, work on that first. Most technical people are not sales people so that can also be a really big challenge.
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What Tom said plus when approaching prospects be honest if you are not familiar with a give tech say so and more on from there. At first stick with what you know as you learn more and when necessary bring in a contractor to fill the gap. Profile your self, the competition and your client base. Know you market space Sun T’zu know yourself and know your competition.
I much appreciate the feedback. Thank you!