I see this happen all the time with startup companies. Lack of research up front is the #1 contributor to small IT firms failing within their first year.

It’s absolutely critical to the life of your business that you do the necessary research up front to determine the most ideal market for your services. You want to do this BEFORE you spend money on marketing or dedicate any time to establishing your business.

The definition of what computer repair market is “right” for you is going to differ depending on what area of the country you’re in, and what services you offer.

The first step to targeting the right computer market is to pick a market that you think you might want to focus on, and perform the following research to determine if it is ideal for your business.

Once you pick a market to research, you are going to want to look up the demographics and psychographics of that market.

Demographics are the physical or tangible aspects of a potential client. Examples of demographics are average income, typical education, how many kids someone has, what neighborhoods they live in, etc.

Psychographics are the intangible or emotional aspects that your potential clients share or have in common. Examples of psychographics include common interests, places your clients like to frequent, websites they visit often, similar problems they experience at work, etc.

4 Critical Questions To Ask When Researching A Computer Repair Market

1. “Is my particular market easy to identify?”For instance, lets say you decide that you want to focus on accountants. Maybe you worked on an accountant’s network and you feel like you could specialize in doing IT work for other accountants. In the example of an accountant, it would be easy to identify who the accountants are in your area.
2. “Are they easy to locate?” In other words, is it easy to locate your target market in your community. Can you easily lookup where they work? Are there organizations they might belong to?  Do you have access to their contact information for marketing purposes?If you’re targeting a group like lawyers or home users, it would not take much effort to find lists of contact information.
3. “Are there enough people in my community to sustain my business?”Before you start your business, you’re going to want to sit down and write out goals – financial goals – for yourself that you want to achieve. Lets say your goal is that you want to make $60,000 in a year with your new business. You then need to break this figure down to determine how many sales you need to make and then how many clients you need to hit your sales goal.Most importantly, you’re going to want to know what the lifetime value is of a client over the course of a year. The lifetime value of your client is equal to the average amount of money you make from that client. For example, lets say you’re doing a virus removal service and you charge $150, and lets say that the average home-user hires you twice a year – your lifetime value of that client would be $300. So if each client that you get is typically worth $300 to you and your financial goal for the year is $60,000, then you would need 200 new clients.If you need 200 clients and you are targeting accountants, you better make sure there are at LEAST 200 accountants in your area to turn INTO clients. If there are less than 200 accountants in your area then you need to either increase the lifetime value of your clients or pick a different market to target.
4. “Do they have enough capital to buy my services?”It’s really important to know if your target market has enough money to hire you, or if they even DESIRE the services you offer.  The only way that you can find out if they’d be willing to hire you or how much they can afford to spend on IT projects, is to conduct one-on-one questionnaires with actual people in your community who fit the market you are considering targeting.

Conducting Telephone Research

Pick 10 to 15 potential clients, get them on the phone, and ask them questions to get the answers you need.  Ask them what websites they frequent and what church they go to. Ask them what their income is – if they don’t feel comfortable telling you their income – ask them what income BRACKET they are in. Find out what neighborhood they live in, how many kids they have, how often they outsource IT work, etc. Make sure to find out who they are currently hiring to do their work. You want to find out who your competition is.

Quick Tip - An extremely powerful technique to conducting telephone research with potential clients is to RECORD THE CALLS. Make sure to ask permission.  That way you will not drive yourself crazy trying to take down a lot of notes. This will allow you to really just listen, and then at the end of the call you can review the recording, write down their responses word for word, and then turn around and “spit it back out” in your marketing.  What better way to communicate to someone than to use THEIR OWN WORDS to do it!

2 Great List Building Websites

1. ZapData.com
2. SRDS.com

Both of these sites are list sites; you can buy lists of target markets in your area.  You can go on and search for any type of client in your area, and you can purchase lists of potential clients that you want to start marketing to.  These are also great places to get a free count of how many potential clients are in your area, and this will really help you to decide whether that is the right target.

Also, another really good recommendation that I have is for you to find out what local and national organizations your target market is most likely a member of.  You can contact these organizations, and ask them for a list count of how many people in your area belong to that organization.

Furthermore, if you join these organizations, you can get your foot in the door for marketing to these people.  For instance, if you are specializing in accountants, and you are also a member of the same organization as them then you have common ground – you have something you can talk about on a cold-call.

Additionally, I always recommend that you subscribe to their publications.  Find trade journals that are specific to that industry.  Not only do you need to be good with the technical side of things, but also you need to understand their industry, and you need to understand their concerns.  The more of this information that you can arm yourself with the more you will be the clear choice over your competition. Because you are specializing in their market, you will prove to them that you know what you are talking about, and that you can help them specifically.

Why My Computer Repair Business In-A-Box Guarantees You A Flood Of IT Sales
I’ve literally logged hundreds of hours researching small businesses and consumers in various markets across the US, UK and Australia. I’ve uncovered what hot buttons get small business owners and home users to buy technology services and pay premium prices. All of my research and knowledge is packed into my Computer Repair Business In-A-Box, along with 1 year’s worth of “done for you” marketing campaigns that have already been proven to generate millions of dollars in new IT sales for my past clients.

Shortcut your path to success and guarantee future income by investing in my Computer Repair Business In-A-Box.