Busines Plan for PC Repair Company

[Ben Rogers]

Hi, I aim to setup my own business repairing computers throughout North Devon and North Cornwall and have written the start of a business plan with the exception of expected earnings because I honestly have no idea how much profit I will make.

I am wondering if anyone has experience in business plans or is willing to spend time reading through mine? it is 7 pages long but in size 12 text so it isn't really that much writing but I don't know what else I can write at the moment.

I would be very greatful for any help.

I have made a html document with what I have written so far:

http://devoncomputerrepair.host56.com/plan.html


Ben

[MadduckUK]

iv read a few of saracens posts before now, so go on fire it up

[cptwhite_uk]

In jokes FTW

[Ben Rogers]

have put a link in the first post to the text on a webpage.

[mikemikemi]

have put a link in the first post to the text on a webpage.

Link is not working at the moment, can you bump the thread when it is? So I know to check again.

Thanks

[Ben Rogers]

Weird it works fine here, does it time out? edit: maybe its under review when I cleared the history...it will work soon hopefully, this happened before and it took a few hours to work again...but it will work below.

I put it on my webserver: http://noshins.dnsalias.org/7/plan.html

[mikemikemi]

Weird it works fine here, does it time out? edit: maybe its under review when I cleared the history...it will work soon hopefully, this happened before and it took a few hours to work again...but it will work below.

I put it on my webserver: http://noshins.dnsalias.org/7/plan.html

Cool, thanks, got it.

Edit:
I've only skim read it so far, but this definitely needs proof reading, there are some grammatical and spelling errors.

[mikemikemi]

Secondly, the wording feels very informal, with superfluous components.

This I think needs revising to be more concise and formal

An example would be where you mention:

".....we will be aiming at small businesses as well or at least ones that do not have a full time IT technician"

"...or at least ones..." seems unnecessary and informal.

As a quick revision, something along these lines:
"Other potential clients include small businesses, which are considering to outsource.........."

Edit: hope this doesn't sound too harsh. I'll need more time to fully digest and read this properly, these are just initial thoughts.

[Ben Rogers]

Thanks very much for reading it and giving me useful advice that I have added to the plan.

I think it reads better now after that quick revision.

Thanks again.

[Hicks12]

Hi Ben, is this just a basic business plan write up or are you using this for the basis of everything?. If the latter it really needs more in the source of finance (setup and funding section). Need to have a cash flow and break even all done to be honest, I recommend you look at mocking up a physical resource list which should contain stuff like: Store/accommodation, stationary, tools, transportation, broadband,telephone etc. Its important to do this, if you want some help on cash flows and predictions im sure i can offer some time to mock something up.

Definitely look at doing some market research including primary research in the area (i.e questionnaires to public) as this could save you a lot of hassle later on and would aid in giving a more accurate prediction.

English aint exactly my specialty so i wont make comments on your english but ill have a more indepth read later on and see if i can give you some advice on what to include. If you want i could send you a copy of an old business plan that i made a few years back that seemed pretty good, and may help you add little bits to it, remember its old and no where near as good as the professionals or people in the business education .

[Ben Rogers]

Thanks. It is just a start of the plan that I only intend to show my job centre advisor at first anyway as there seems to be no way I can get a grant from anywhere for anything at all.

I have tried the Prince's Trust and have not recieved a reply as of yet and a charity at my old college who said they'd offer funding but I left too long ago for them to help and the job centre can't help - they sent me to business link and they can't give out grants either! It's rediculous as I get £128 a fortnight job seekers and that is it and I spend all of it.

I will add more to it when I can. The reason I haven't mentioned about how much money I expect to make is because I simply don't have any idea whatsoever.

It would be very useful to see your business plan, if you can send it to me I'd be most grateful.

Cheers

[Kata]

Ultimately, the point of a business is really to make money. Without some ideas about that, there's not really much point in having a business plan at all!

I'd suggest sitting down and working out what you expect your costs to be (taxes, insurance, your own wages etc!), and then work out what you need to make to cover that. Pair that up with some research into what number and types of jobs you expect to find in the area, and what price people are willing to pay for them.

[mikemikemi]

I agree, some good local market research, will give you an indicator of your market demand, from that you can estimate your market size and how much you expect to take from that.

You will also need more detail/specifics in terms of initial set up costs and the business/company structure. If you're trying to get funding the other party will generally like to know who they're dealing with, i.e., a partnership, sole trader, company. Also, if you're setting up with friends it's better to have these things cleared up from the start.

As a heads up, if the plan is potentially to get a business loan to get off the ground this might be difficult as the bank will definitely want some insurance (collateral), so if you're going this route this is something to consider.

If you get round to the stage of putting budget figures together, you'll generally need to forecast this over a period of time, I've commonly seen 5 year plans. Although, this might seem over the top, you should at least be looking more than one year ahead.

In terms of statements, the key ones are profit and loss and cashflow, balance sheet is the other. But in terms of forward planning, cashflow and profit and loss are the ones people look at.

I have experience in the accounting side of things, if you get to this point I could possibly be of assistance.

[mr-zeeman]

Good luck just find a good area it's very hard if say you can get a full system etc from tesco for £300 why repair something for £100 i think data recovery etc is what you be spending you're time doing.

[Saracen]

...... The reason I haven't mentioned about how much money I expect to make is because I simply don't have any idea whatsoever.

....

The problem is, that's the core of the business plan. Pretty much all the rest is to describe how what you plan financially will come about.

You have to do a fair bit of basic research, and I'd suggest doing that before worrying about writing the business plan, or coding the website, or worrying about SEO etc.

For instance, what do you need to do to get started? Who do you need to tell, that kind of thing. Do you need a bank account ..... and can you get help (advice, not finance) from the bank. What forms of insurance do you need? Public liability? What level of risk are you taking if you mess up a client's computer or, worse yet, physically damage it? Are you liable for consequential loss if you try to fix a virus and end up deleting their year's business records? Will the client visit your premises? If so, what about insurance for that?

You say you'll need a car? What type, and what will it cost to buy, insure and run? And on car insurance, don't forget that you need business cover, and if you're carrying equipment, it needs to include that.

You need to think about how far you will travel. 5 miles? 50 miles? What will it cost you per mile to travel, and what will the time cost be? Your time will have an "opportunity" cost, and if you travel 45 minutes to a customer, and then 45 minutes back, that's time you aren't speedning either working locally, or for that matter, building up the business.

And what can you charge? You've said it'll be flat rate, but is that feasible, and on what basis did you decide that? Is it just an idea plucked out of your head, or is there an evidence-based reason for it? If so, what?

What do the competition charge? How many competitors re there? Is it just the three you mention? Do they charge for travel? Do they offer no fix no fee, or are they just charging an hourly rate? What level of research have you done?

What about marketing? I hope you're right about generating business though the website, but my guess is you aren't. I would suggest cards in local shop windows, adverts in local papers, and perhaps (depending on how rural you are) getting some leaflets printed and, when you aren't working fixing machines, get out there and leaflet people. But you;re right, the biggest source will (assuming you're any good) be word of mouth.

So try to build up a documented picture of all those types of issue. You won't want to put it all in a business plan, but you do want the business plan to convey the very clear impression that you have done the legwork and have all these answers .... and a load more.

I don't want to discourage you but some of the comments made earlier about this seeming a bit vague and woolly are dead on. It comes across as having sat down and thought about how you think it will work, without having done a lot of research into the detail.

If you don;t know what the car will cost to buy and run, or what insurance you need or what they cost, how van you have ANY idea if the rates you propose to charge are in any way viable? You might find that with the costs you face, you need to do 80 working hours per week just to break even, and if you do, then it tells you that either your rates are wrong or the business imply won't work.

This is not an exhaustive list of the detail you need, but a few samples. You MUST put meat on the bones, or it's meaningless, and that's why the financials are critical. You need some idea of projected earnings, and for that matter, of cash flow, because if you don't, you're setting yourself up for failure.

I'm out of the business now, but certainly for many years (and I'd guess it's still true) one of the biggest causes of business failure, especially of small and/or new businesses, was cash flow. It used to be the biggest single cause of failure, by quite a large margin. If you don't have a plan, and a way to monitor performance against it, you're flying in the dark .... through mountainous terrain.

Oh, and last time I looked, the nationals stats were that something of the order of 60% of new businesses failed within two years. Not getting this sort of detail worked out is a major reason why.

So .... look at cars, work out running costs (as accurately as you can), ring a broker and get quotes for car insurance, and any other insurance you need. Work out what equipment you may need, and cost it. Put that in the plan.

Then work out a realistic production of the number of hours you expect to work, and the rates you'll charge. Find out what shops charge for a card, what 1000 leaflets will cost, and what sized ad you'll get in Yellow pages for what cost. Bung it all in the plan (preferably a spreadsheet) and see if, according to your expectations, you can make a profit. If not, you have to rethink some aspect of the plan, either to drive income up or costs down.

And, I strongly (and pretty bluntly admit) suggest giving that plan a good read through. For instance .....

Mission

Our goal is to set a good standard of proficiency within the computer repair market throughout England and to work as effectively as we can, getting as much work done as possible in a set period of time such as when installing windows updates we will check there are no missing device drivers in the device manager, maximising our time, allowing us to move on to the next job as soon as we finish the current job in order to generate more custom to increase our reputation as a computer repair company. We aim to generate loyal customers who use us again and again and we will get jobs done at the first attempt.

First, what a whopping great first sentence. Try reading that aloud to yourself. If you run out of breath, it's too damn long. Which it is.

Second, your aim is to set a good standard of proficiency throughout the market in England?

What, ALL of it?

The two of you?

A tad ambitious there for a startup, don't you think?

The way that reads is that you've either just plonked down what sounded good, or more likely, found a template somewhere and just tweaked it a bit. it needs to come across as more considered, about what your mission really is, and show you've thought about it.

Oh, and the bit about over 45's not having computers in schools. Wrong. It may not have been terribly common, but I can tell you from personal experience that some, mine included, did. So instead of "wouldn't have" I'd suggest "are unlikely to have had".

Do you propose to charge the same rate for all types of work, and is repair work charged at the same rate as training? Have you thought out any type of lesson plan for training? Any materials you may provide, like an aide mémoire to reinforce your teaching, to remind people what you showed them, because many people will follow it when you show them, but be utterly incapable of doing it on their own a couple f hours later, but a single printed sheet may make all the difference.But it takes work to prepare it.

Have you thought about the implications of a flat rate fee? Because I'll tell you that my opinion is that sooner or later, you'll find there are some jobs you won't want simply because they'll take too long. If you call a plumber, or take your car to a garage, do you get a flat rate fee? Nope, and for good reason.

A flat rate for labour to fit a component may be workable, if you can balance the 5-minute "add RAM" jobs to the much longer "replace motherboard" jobs. If you charge a decent flat rate, people will get the hump that it took 5 minutes to add the RAM, and if you charge too low you won't want to much about replacing a motherboard for 10 quid .... because you could be spending the time more profitably on another job. So think about either charging by the hour, and being able to give an estimate of how long you will take, or perhaps think about a menu of flat rate charges ....

- add memory £x
- replace motherboard £y
- add or replace hard drive £z
- anti-virus cleanup - £xx
- OS reinstall

What do you do when you agree a "flat rate" software fix, and it turns out the customer wants the OS reinstalled, and a large pie of apps from Office to firewall and AV, to Photoshop to their music database and so on? Is it still a flat fee?

Changing the subject completely, are you starting a limited company, or going as a sole trader. The latter is easier, but you are personally liable for what you do .... including if someone is injured by work you do, and you could get sued for thousands, or tens of thousands. So you need decent insurance. Or you go limited .... but then, you need to comply with Company law, you need to fill in the forms to start it (and pay the admittedly pretty nominal fees) .... and pay the annual Companies House annual return fee, and comply with HMRC reporting requirements for PAYE. And, of course, file annual accounts with the revenue, either as sole trader, or as a company director and in that latter case, prepare company accounts too. Or pay someone to do it. So what is an accountant (or bookeeper) going to cost? And, if you're going to get customer to sign contracts (or orders) for work, who prepares the terms and conditions? So now you need to know what a solicitor is going to cost you.

You need a plan, with numbers, for all these types of questions. At the very least, you need a skeleton with a place where these numbers will go, once you've worked them out.

Which brings me back to

...... The reason I haven't mentioned about how much money I expect to make is because I simply don't have any idea whatsoever.

....

Once you've put all this meat on the bones, you will have a half decent idea of what you expect to make. And that,. of course, was the point of it all .... so that you know, and so that you can explain it (and back it up) to whomever else needs to know, be it the job centre, Prince's trust or your bank when you want a loan.

[Saracen]

iv read a few of saracens posts before now, so go on fire it up

Cheeky oik. Have you read any of the long ones?