Well, the answer isn’t simple but it’s not hard either.
Let’s break down the equation…
- Basic support is about $75 an hour… lets say with some discounts we can get it down to $50 an hour… that sounds like a lot of money.
- If it takes you (the average person who knows some things about computers) 3 hours to fix it, it should take your IT person 1 hour to fix it.
- You are a hard working person and have to put a lot of time into your job.
- You get paid $24.10 per hour (https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ecec.nr0.htm)
So let’s do some math.
- A 3 hour fix for a regular person is equal to a 1 hour fix for a professional.
- At $24.10 per hour (lets round that up to $25 per hour for simplicity sake), you would be paying yourself $75 dollars to work for 3 hours.
- If you are working on resolving an IT issue, you are not working in your business at the same time. Therefore you are losing $75 that you could be making in your business.
- $75 paying yourself to fix your problem and $75 that you didn’t get to make at work is $150.
- So, at $50 dollars an hour, you could pay your IT guy to come fix your computer. Or you can take the $150 loss and lose 3 hours of time to save yourself some money.
Yes, $50 an hour sounds like a lot, but when you are really breaking it down. It’s not as much as wasting the time that you need in order to get things done. Don’t leave your clients hanging. You have work to do… call an IT guy. Get the job done right, have it documented and keep track of your technology. In the long run, it’s worth it.
We are making the assumption in this model that you would end up fixing the computer and not making it worse. There is always the possibility that you could spend 3 hours on the device. The device will end up worse than when you started. The IT guy will end up spending an extra several hours fixing the original problem and then fixing whatever you did to the machine. Therefore costing you double or even triple to fix the machine.
* The actual numbers may vary. Finding an IT guy that knows their stuff and only charges $75 an hour, is worth holding on to. Don’t let them go…. Odds are you aren’t average, so $25 an hour is just a government estimate, plug your own numbers in, and work the equation, then call us.