What's Stopping Me................

[Guest]

Been a tech since 98, seen alot of changes come down and can say that I have adapted quite well, everything from Sharp being the ghetto brand to winning awards and when Konica and Mita's were just Konica and Mita and not there new elongated names. Now I am not saying I am gods gift to any company that I have ever worked for, because I'm not. I've upset customers, co-workers and even owners in the past. We all have. Been thru more classes than I care to count and still run into machines that leave me looking at the machine going . Factory trained on Sharp, Konica, Mita, Savin and picked up quite a bit on the other manufactures to include duplicators, Duplo, Rizzo and so on.

Took a break from the industry for awhile, when I left I was at 40k a year, my first year back I'll be lucky if I make 30k. Got all the other training that is required for us. A+, Network+, so why am I working for a guy who makes scrooge look generous. Why aren't I out there doing my own thing. If any indie's or even other techs who have been pondering this , read this, chime in. I own my own tools and vaccum, so whats stopping me? How hard is it to pick up machines for service. I need advice. I am in Central California and wondering what my next move should be. Do I go to another company and hope that things stay better for longer than 90 days, or should I branch out?

[blackcat4866]

I think this story should illustrate my point:

I started out on 1988 doing this. I heard stories of a local legend, a genius in copier repair. He had been out on his own for a few years by then. He had started to hang around our store hoping to catch a few fixes in casual conversation. Not that he needed any help. This guy was good.

He wasn't getting rich, but he was doing fine. New car, making the house payments, etc...

I guess it became obvious around the 8th or 9th year. All the machine he had been trained on were obsolete & gone. Or the parts weren't available. Then the first digitals started showing up. They are different enough that that its not so intuitive any more. And there weren't any cool forums, where his buddies could bail him out.

Gradually, he lost his customers, car, & wife. It ends worse, but you get the point. Without the dealership support its hard to keep up to date.

[Copier_Guy]

Very enlightening story about the effects of not being adaptable. You do have to be adaptable and most of all versitile. It is rough out there and you have to be brave and persistent. I would try to develop a little clientele before I go out there and also try to find other hustles to help sustain you through those hard times. Definitely start working with computers and networks, because computers will lead to copier/printer jobs and vice/versa. Going it alone is definitley not for the faint of heart, but the rewards are greater than humping it for Scrooge's Cheap Ass Cousin!!

Good Luck out there!

[Mezagog]

Thanks for the advice guys, keep the idea's, fears and so on coming. Another thing that I was thinking of was who would I go to for supplies? Drums, Developer, Toner, Masters, Inks. Everyone I have worked for used manufactures for supplies, are there third party suppliers?

[Copier_Guy]

Thanks for the advice guys, keep the idea's, fears and so on coming. Another thing that I was thinking of was who would I go to for supplies? Drums, Developer, Toner, Masters, Inks. Everyone I have worked for used manufactures for supplies, are there third party suppliers?

All over the place. Get real familiar with your computer and search engines, because you will spend many hours developing contacts and reliable vendors for parts and supplies. Who knows, you may have sales so high that the OEMs come knocking at YOUR door. We could hope, can't we.

That's what it's all about. Hoping and dreaming and the tenacity to turn those dreams and hopes into reality.

[blackcat4866]

A few general purpose copier suppliers are www.ued.com, Printer Toner Cartridges - Copier Toner Cartridges - Printer Parts & Copier Parts, Copier parts, imaging supplies, photoreceptors, service accessories and printer products from Katun.

For printer parts try yeah.com - Only the best links ..., HP LaserJet Printers & Accessories - Genuine HP Parts & Fusers, LaserJet Repair Kits - The Printer Works!, Feedroller: hp feed rollers, printer parts, hp rollers , feed roller repair kits, feed roller parts, laser jet rollers, separation rollers, hp feed rollers, pick up roller, mp roller, paper jam, printer part rollers, fusing assembly, roller parts fee, Lake Erie Systems provides Genicom printers, Lexmark printer, TI ribbons, OKI Okidata printers, Genicom printer repairs, lexmark printer repair parts, lexmark maintenance kits, oki printheads, maintenance manuals.

Once you have a part number, just punch it into a Google search engine, and away you go. You'll start to see the same names again and again.

I had no intention of discouraging you. It's just not an easy path. And you won't get much help from the dealers (but we'll always help...).

[CanonHPTech]

What's stopping me?... well, I have brass ones... but I still have to pay the bills... its that being able to not look before you leap... trust me, I have had offers to go into biz for myself, but I have to eat... if you can sell your self... then your half way there my friend! I have worked for many of small biz owners who were very good salesman,and found oppurtunities where other saw problems, and other sold themselves and their companies... where these men falter was to hire the right people (not their nephews with A+) to run the day to day operations (such as accounting) and tech support (including continious training)... good luck sir. Maybe at some point we can meet and who knows.

[Mezagog]

Sorry for the delay guys, I've actually been busy looking into this more. Appearantly the owner is in trouble with his two Distributors and one had approached me about possibly taking over things.................All for the low low cost of a 150,000 dollar buy in Do these guys not know how little we get paid.

It's not the fact that I'm afraid of the machines, because lets be honest the only difference in the copy, print, fax concept is the name on the box and thats it. The theory is identical on all machines. I think my biggest worry and what I'm going to start researching this weekend (Wife and Kids are going out of town..........Bachelor weekend) is the whole getting my hands on the manuals. You guys were right on the suppliers part. Man I can't believe how many third party people there are out there. Well everything but boards.

Anywho, I did want to follow up with the fella's to let you know what was going on with this. If nothing else I'll use this as my diary on the trials and tribulations on this whole subject.

Later guys

[blackcat4866]

I've been rolling in the cost of the manual purchase into the service call. After all, I don't want to walk in looking like an imdecile. Most manuals can be downloaded in 5 minutes if you have an internet connection and a credit card.

[nhatthuc0000]

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good luck to u!!!!!!!!

[arriva1]

I work for myself and my wife stays home and does the office work. I'm not getting rich yet but i'm not starving either. Its hard to take time off, but I'm not punching a clock.
There is plenty of tech support out there if you run into trouble. I have never been factory trained on any machine and run a good business (15 years).
I'm also looking for a good tech that wants to go out on there own (in florida). I have a great base of 80-90 contracts and hundreds of per call and supply order customers. Lots of room for more business but theres only so many hours in the day.

[cobiray]

You could always test the waters for better offers and then take those back to Scrooge in an attempt to get a raise. Seems like the going on your own route could be a little risky, but that's been stated. Sounds like a lot more leg work and head ache. Ultimately it depends how fed up you are with your current position and the lack of other options. Good luck!

[arriva1]

Sorry for the delay guys, I've actually been busy looking into this more. Appearantly the owner is in trouble with his two Distributors and one had approached me about possibly taking over things.................All for the low low cost of a 150,000 dollar buy in Do these guys not know how little we get paid.

It's not the fact that I'm afraid of the machines, because lets be honest the only difference in the copy, print, fax concept is the name on the box and thats it. The theory is identical on all machines. I think my biggest worry and what I'm going to start researching this weekend (Wife and Kids are going out of town..........Bachelor weekend) is the whole getting my hands on the manuals. You guys were right on the suppliers part. Man I can't believe how many third party people there are out there. Well everything but boards.

Anywho, I did want to follow up with the fella's to let you know what was going on with this. If nothing else I'll use this as my diary on the trials and tribulations on this whole subject.

Later guys

Hytec for boards and board repair. They have good tech support too.

[freedomtt]

Good luck on what ever you decide to do!

As a little chime in, one thing I wonder about with indepedent techs is how you get the software tools for the machines, or do you just not work on machines that need it? I can't imagine sending my techs out to work on the newer Canon machines (we are a dealer) without the system support tool and NAVI. Maybe these things can be bought online? I'm sure someone is willing to sell them.

[blackcat4866]

freedomtt:
I wonder the same thing. We are a Copystar dealer, and it would be nearly impossible to sell these machines as networkable MFPs without a whole raft of utilities:

KM-Net Viewer
Setup Utility
Current firmware
etc.

I simply beg off on models with this sort of software requirements, i.e. Xerox.

=^..^=