Satisfaction is King

Every year Franchise Business Review does an independent survey of all Computer Troubleshooters franchises in the US. They use the results in their annual "FBR50" rankings each year, but the complete survey results are also available to anyone researching the Computer Troubleshooters franchise opportunity.

So if you want to know what Computer Troubleshooter franchisees REALLY think about our franchise system - along with any complaints, compliments, dirty laundry, and all their unfiltered, unbiased opinions, check out the full survey results here:
http://report.franchisebusinessreview.com/register.php?m=674V1XO

SBA Registered!

Computer Troubleshooters received notice that we are now an SBA-registered franchise opportunity, for the second year in a row. Only a handful of technology service franchises apply to be SBA-registered, which helps our potential franchisees with easier loan processing. For more info check out www.franchiseregistry.com.

Online Privacy - Where We Are Today

I read an article recently about how "microtransactions" are revolutionizing the video game industry. For anyone who has dipped their toes into Facebook games like Farmville or Mafia Wars it's easy to see how this can happen - you get started for free, and then you have the option to spend very small amounts of money to get little online in-game benefits.

What concerns me lately is the rise of the information capturing industry, and how they take snippets of data about things you do online - call them micropayments of privacy -and sell them to businesses who compile them to make money. Now I'm not a conspiracy theorist or anything like that, and I do see the good side to all this information analysis - for example the ads that I see online are more often targeted to me, so they're more interesting and relevant than things I might have seen just last year. But I do wonder where all this might go.

The Wall Street Journal has done a great job of investigating this side of the industry in a series of articles here, here, and here.

Another site I didn't see mentioned in the WSJ reports was welikeit.org. I see this site come up all the time on Facebook, mostly (but not entirely) from teenage friends and family who use it to "Like" certain things. For example you can like "Pretending to text or listen to your ipod to avoid awkward situations". 64,000 people have "liked" that phrase (idea? not sure what to call it), and by doing so have given WeLikeIt.org access to their personal information stored on Facebook. The Welikeit website is very vague about who runs it and owns it, but their privacy policy is crystal clear -they're going to use whatever information they can get however they can get it, and they're going to plant cookies on visitor's PCs to gather even more info. Thousands of people a day use this website, so what does WeLikeIt do with the data?

I don't know, and I've not found anywhere on the internet that has looked into it. But it reminds me of the "Create Your Quiz" app which was extremely popular until Facebook shut it down for spamming and other unethical behaviors.

So buyer beware! These small things, like visiting websites and "liking" things on Facebook do come with a price tag, and only time will tell if these micropayments of privacy come back to haunt us someday.

Chip

CT Annual Conference Report

From Richard Warren, Ass't National Director for Communications:

COMPUTER TROUBLESHOOTERS CONFERENCE
“BEYOND THE HORIZON”

Computer Troubleshooters just completed their 11th annual North American Conference in Decatur, Georgia, on June 7th. This year was rather unique in that the conference was held at the highly regarded Agnes Scott College in Decatur, GA. The Agnes Scott campus was a perfect fit the technology franchise’s needs. The main theme of this year’s annual event was “Beyond the Horizon”.

Chip Reaves, CEO, stated, “Keeping your eye on this horizon is important for any business, but especially for a technology-based company like Computer Troubleshooters. If we are going to keep our status as the world’s best IT network we need to be thinking about where we want to be as an organization five years from now. During our time together we explored our future together. Some of the exploration will be technology, so we are pleased to have many great vendor partners who attended”.

Reaves continues, “What can we do together to maximize our opportunities in the future? That was our main topic for some sessions. We have a team of over 450 locations around the world and over 1200 of the smartest folks on the planet. We have a great foundation to build from, and we have a newly reorganized Assistant National Director team along with the CTUSA office to help focus our efforts and goals for going ‘Beyond the Horizon’”.

Three new franchisees were trained prior to the conference which adds to the strong growth of over 1200 worldwide technology technicians. The conference started with the Computer Troubleshooters Growth Club business coaching workshop. Four new sales videos were shown throughout the conference. These were received quite well by the franchisees and will be available for them to use in their local areas.

Franchisee attendees came from all over the United States and Canada to attend this annual conference event. The five day event was a tremendous success and was packed with many training seminars, one-on-one workshops, and vendor presentations as well as a town hall type meeting where the franchisees and their ideas and suggestions were heard. Computer Troubleshooters has always been a franchisee orientated business and with this town hall meeting it gave the franchisees another venue to express their ideas and suggestions.

Franchisees received training during these workshops and presentations on new technology such as cloud computing, SEO & SEM (Search Engine Optimization & Marketing), HaaS (Hardware-as-a-Service opportunities, and MSP (Managed Service Plans) to name just a few. Computer Troubleshooters and their 450+ worldwide franchisees were one of the very first to introduce MSP (Managed Service Plans) to their clients. Other new technology that was covered during this conference will be introduced to old and new clients as the attendees return to their local businesses and communities.

Numerous Awards were given to the franchisees including the Franchise of the Year award, Gold, Silver and Bronze sales achievement awards, the Rising Star Franchise award, the Fast Growth award, and tenure awards for five and ten year franchisees.

As Computer Troubleshooters looks forward, “Beyond The Horizon”, I am certain we shall see this leader in small businesses clients, home office clients, and the residential customer grow to reach new horizons that will again keep them ranked by Entrepreneur Magazine, Franchise Business Review, and AllBusiness.com as a top technology franchise.

Small Business Advocate interview

I've done several interviews now with Jim Blasingame, and today we talked about cloud computing and Computer Troubleshooters upcoming initiatives in that area. Jim also got a little personal.... you'll have to listen to find out more.

What to do?

I like to think that Computer Troubleshooters is a good partner to our vendors. We're sometimes a little slow to review and sometimes a little disorganized, but overall we've got a great relationship with top vendors like Zenith Infotech, Dell, Robin Robins, MSPU, SuperAntiSpyware, Fonality, SUTUS, etc.

But there are a handful of vendors I would just as soon never hear from again, usually because of past unethical behavior. American Registry is one of those (americanregistry.com). They make these special plaques for companies who win awards, except they're really pushy about it. Seven years ago I had a problem where they shipped me a giant plaque with a note saying "if you don't like it you don't have to pay for it". I hadn't asked for it, and didn't like it or their sales technique, so I threw it away. For months afterwards I kept getting harassing phone calls from their staff demanding money.

Seven years later, they are STILL annoying me. Every time Computer Troubleshooters wins an award - and we do win a lot of awards (shameless plug) I can count on new emails and phone calls from American Registry. So far this year I'm averaging one email every 3 days, and a voice-mail about once a week. "Congratulations from American Registry on being recognized by Entrepreneur.com in its selection of Top Low-Cost Franchises." (or Top Home-Based Franchises, or Top Franchises, or Top 25 Franchises in Atlanta, etc.

I have asked them time and time again to stop emailing me. I've asked them to stop calling me. It's a minor thing in a way, but every time I hear from them I remember the scam they tried to pull in 2003, and it just irritates me.

So, internet friends, what would you do if you were me? Is there a way I can get these folks to stop bothering me or should I just grin and bear it?

All Your Questions Answered (Well, 2 Big Ones)

So when people ask me what I do for a living, I have a really hard time answering that question. If I tell them I own a "computer company" they'll immediately start asking my advice on how to fix some strange thing going on with some strange relative's computer. If I tell them I own a "franchise", they for some reason assume it's McDonald's or something.

The best I can do is explain that my job is helping technology entrepreneurs be successful, which is really what Computer Troubleshooters does. Every day most of my day is spent supporting the 480+ Computer Troubleshooters locations around the world, and the rest of my time is spent working with people who are interested in joining the CT team.

That latter group always has certain questions, as you might expect. After all no one just decides to spend $20k buying a franchise license and jumping into the self-employed lifestyle without doing some research. And that's a good thing, becuase the folks who really dig into the details and do their due diligence almost always decide that Computer Troubleshooters is right for them.
So if you fall into that category, if you're considering starting your own IT solutions business or if maybe you're already in an IT solutions business and you're considering joining a franchise, I want to help you out by answering your two biggest questions:

#1: How Much Money Can I Make?
Yep, this is a popular question. Understandably. But it's also a really hard question to answer, for two reasons. First - I don't know you. Your income in any business venture is fundamentally based on you. If you sit home watching daytime TV your income is likely to be less than that of someone who uses that same time to reach out to potential and past clients, for example. More importantly, the FTC regulates franchising in the US and I can't answer that question unless I can back it up with some good statistics, which is hard for me to do because we aren't a royalty-based franchise and I just don't get good data from a lot of our locations. I can tell you that most of our franchisees came from high-paying IT jobs, and the fact that we're ranked higher than any other technology franchise by Franchise Business Review (based on franchisee satisfaction) should mean something. But I can't give you specifics - nor should you believe me if I do. Franchisors who do provide income guidance are often basing it only on their top performing locations, so it may or may not be indicative of what you'll make.

Now 5 years ago it was pretty easy to guesstimate your income. Almost everything we did was billable by the hour, so if you estimate how many hours your techs are likely to bill on average, and multiply it by your expected bill rate... presto, you've got your estimated revenue. But our business model today is increasingly complex (for good reason), with multiple revenue streams. You'll make money from hourly billing (break-fix) sure, but also from supporting customers on BEST service plans (our version of Managed Services), from commissions on Cloud hosted solutions, from VoIP installations, hardware/software sales, and more.

To help you plan your income I created the attached spreadsheet here. I still can't tell you what you can earn, but you can use this spreadsheet to better estimate how much revenue you expect from the various income streams. Use this, and talk with existing IT solutions businesses (if you're in the CT due diligence process now ask your sales coordinator to send an introductory note to all the CT franchisees in your country so they'll make time to talk with you) to see if they think your figures are reasonable.

#2: Why Should I Join Computer Troubleshooters Instead of Doing It On My Own? (Or Instead of Joining Geeks On Call, Fast-Teks, or CMIT, or Friendly Mobile?)
Also a popular and important question. I asked the same thing before I joined CT back in 1999. Even though we're one of the least expensive franchises on the market, $19,500 (the list price for a franchise territory in the USA) is a lot of money. What exactly do you get for all that, and would you be better off spending $25k on another franchise or better yet save your money and do it all yourself?

You might suspect I'm a little biased on this one, but I do honestly believe you get more for your money by purchasing a Computer Troubleshooters franchise than through any other alternative. And to show you what I mean, I took the time to document each and every benefit you get from Computer Troubleshooters, in nine categories, and put them all in THIS spreadsheet. And I left room where you can enter your estimated costs for any alternative business method - another franchise or the "DIY" option. And even though I entered what *I* think is reasonable as the value for each benefit, I encourage you to go through, think about each one, and change it to what you think is fair. As you can see, you get a LOT for your money in Computer Troubleshooters - especially over the five-year span in the spreadsheet (we look even better over longer periods, but 5 years seemed like a good basis for comparison).

Note that I also left you some blank room on each page where you can add things you think we're missing and that someone else may offer - but let me know if you do, because it may just be that we forgot to list something.

So, how much money can you make as a Computer Troubleshooter? Use the revenue spreadsheet, talk with existing (and former) CT's, and find the real answers for your personal situation. Why join CT instead of doing it yourself, or joining another franchise? Use the comparison spreadsheet to judge for yourself.

Today's economy depends on successful small businesses,and successful small businesses depend on technology. We've worked hard to make Computer Troubleshooters the BEST solution for small business IT support, and we're growing all the time. If you're looking for a franchise opportunity in a growing industry, do the research and check us out.

Chip