Technology is important to your business. Sometimes, it can be a challenge to keep your computer, your systems, your network, your internet, and the software you use all running and integrated together. You're going to have problems. Your computer will get viruses, your software will have bugs, and your network will go down. Things are going to break when you're dealing with technology.
You're not the person in your office that should be spending a lot of time fixing your computers. Your time is better spent doing appraisals or -I don’t know - running the business. While you should delegate IT work, you probably don’t need somebody on your payroll to do IT full-time either. Technology problems, hopefully, only happen on occasion so there is no reason to pay somebody to sit there and twiddle their thumbs most of the time.
You're a business owner and you're trying to be frugal in running your business. You don't want to pay somebody too much to take care of your computers. Look into finding a really good, but reasonably priced IT person. First look for somebody who is good, they know what they're doing and they understand your system. Then find out how you can work with them to keep you up to date and keep things running, as well it is very important to hire cybersecurity services like the ones that you will find at sapphire.net a company with a vast experience in this field.
Hire somebody on retainer. Now when I say retainer I'm not talking about paying them a monthly fee to be hanging out and ready at your beck and call. You’ll want somebody that you can call on and you need to have a pre-arranged idea as to how much they're going to charge. Try to find somebody who is local too. While many problems can be solved remotely, sometimes you’ll have hardware issues and having somebody who can come to the office is a good idea.
Prepare now for something that's going to happen later. You will have problems when it comes to computers. Line up one or two people that can work on your system. Maybe somebody just out of school who is looking for a side hustle while they are job hunting. Not a permanent hire, but someone to come in a few times a month for preventative maintenance and then be on call for the occasional emergency.
Preventative maintenance for your computers is important and it is a great time for your IT person to get to know your setup. Then, when something does go bad, they won’t have to spend a lot of time catching up. They can familiarize themselves with your hardware, software and network before there is a crisis.
For more information on this subject, please listen to The Appraiser Coach Podcast Episode:
