IT Employment·20,069 discussions

Advice Needed: Part Time or Full Time??

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Hi all, I am starting a new business in the near future to provide IT support to small businesses in Toronto. The thing I am struggling with is that to start getting clients, I feel it is difficult to do on a part-time basis. I am currently working a full time job and I figured that after marketing the business and getting calls from interested clients, they will expect you to help them during regular business hours, not after hours. With this in mind, I don’t see how I could start to build up some clients while still working at my daytime job.

I am not targeting home users, otherwise this would not be an issue. Just wondering if anyone out there who runs their own similar business encountered this situation and if it is possible to start part-time in this scenario.

Any comments or advice is greatly appreciated…

Tony P

Topic

You are correct.

In reply to Advice Needed: Part Time or Full Time??

I used to do what you are trying to do, in Toronto, only in the late 80s when there was not as much competition.

Before I started advertising my services, I would clear the deck so that you can work in daylight hours. Perhaps you can find a job on another shift – 3 to 11 at a call center or something. Your prospective clients, even home offices, are looking for people who can service them in daylight hours.

You can tell customers you are available between say 8 AM and 2 PM – limited hours, but you won’t get many customers if you can only see them after 6 PM.

James

Switch-a-roo?

In reply to Advice Needed: Part Time or Full Time??

Heres an Idea, maybe if possible you can switch your day job to a night shift, and work with your own business during the day. I had to do something similar to that when I started going to school. I had to switch my day job to graveyard shift, and then from there I went to school. It was easy, but in the end it was worth it.

Reply To: Advice Needed: Part Time or Full Time??

In reply to Advice Needed: Part Time or Full Time??

I started my consulting in that exact way. It’s an excellent model. You simply have to go after clients who will work with you.

After several months of doing this, my part-time income was greatly exceeding my full-time and I left my employer. That was early ’90s. Now, in 2004, I moved to a new city, landed a contract, and did the same thing. I worked for the company that had extended a long-term contract (keeping stable income) and developed additional clients on the side.

Now I contract a few guys from time to time to help with my clients and write part-time to pursue that career interest.

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