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Rural Computer Consulting: Is It for You?

The journey that led me to being Washington County’s rural computer consultant was not a planned one. If someone had told me back in 1995 that in ten years I would not be designing and building large enterprise-level computer networks supporting thousands of users, but rather be performing a wide range of computer support services for businesses in small towns, I would have called them crazy. Furthermore, if they had then informed me that I would be grossing more than $164,000 a year for these services working out in rural central Texas, I would have called them insane.

When I left Paranet in late 1998, I had enough from the Sprint buyout to last a while, but I honestly had no idea what I was going to do up in Brenham. All I knew was that I had to get out of the city and away from the computer industry that had treated me well but had also burned me out. I basically fell into doing what I do today. I was fortunate enough to see the growing need for computer support in our small town and to turn it to my advantage.

Falling into the Niche

As I’ve already described, after buying my ranch in 1997 and permanently moving there in late 1998, I discovered I had to give up the idea of making a living from farming and ranching. By the fall of 1999 and on the eve of Y2K, I was getting depressed about my professional future — having found nothing that interested me or that was modestly profitable. I was even starting to miss the computer support world since I had not troubleshot a network or fixed a nonfamily computer in almost a year.

An ex-Compaq colleague now working for Extreme Networks asked me if I wanted to take on a consulting project to upgrade more than 1,000 Gigabit Ethernet switches at Compaq for $110 an hour during non-prime-time hours. This would keep me out of the Houston traffic, and as I was so bored, I accepted it. Since I had to create a corporate entity like a limited liability company (LLC) in the State of Texas to start working as an independent consultant, I thought I might as well try to get some local customers here in Brenham. (This idea had first been suggested to me by our local vet while he took care of our just-born colt back in early 1999. The doctor said there was a lot of business potential in Washington County and many small businesses needed computer support. I blew him off since I was still recovering from industry burnout, but that recommendation did echo in my head.)

And so I started Deans Consulting, LLC, and have never looked back. Getting new local clients was slow at first but this eventually gained momentum as the years went by and my reputation grew — as it can in small towns, one way or the other — quickly.

I had only two Brenham clients in 2000, but that increased to five by 2001, 12 by 2002, 25 by 2003, and by mid-2004 I had more than 50 rural customers. I had to stop taking on new clients due to a booked billable calendar until mid-2005.

This business niche in the IT industry that’s here in the country has made my life very enjoyable. I look forward to going to work at my client sites every day. They greet me with a smile and are glad to see me. Being in my early forties, I can see myself doing this work for another 20 years since it is so satisfying, low stress, and financially rewarding.

What we need to find out now is if being a rural computer consultant is for you.

What It Takes to Become a Rural Computer Consultant

First of all, you need to have a decent amount of computer support experience or skill sets to be able to hit the ground running. As we will explore in depth later, the recommended (if not required) basic skills are in desktop and server support, with a good knowledge of computer networking. If you are specifically a programmer or even a highly paid Cisco certified networking guru, you still need to be the jack-of-all-computer-trades and have a healthy working knowledge of many computer industry services, for instance, website authoring, upgrading PCs, installing and managing MS Windows, and other PC-related day-to-day activities.

Below is a list of just some of the skills that are required:

• Desktop support (both hardware and software)

• Server support (both hardware and software)

• Network printers and plotters

• Hubs, switches, routers, and firewalls

• Fiber and copper cabling for both data and voice

• Windows installations, tune-ups, trouble- shooting, optimization, upgrades

• PDA and cell phone integration

• Website design, migration, and management

• Data-backup configuration and management

Additionally, here is a short list of the higher-level services that a successful consultant working in rural areas would want to provide:

• Project management for large IT buildouts, moves, upgrades, or migrations

• Computer security audits

• Network health studies

• Request for Proposal (RFP) development and management

This sounds like a very wide skill set, and it is. I wrote this book to give a realistic presentation of the requirements for having a successful and profitable rural computer consulting practice, and real skills are required. It is not for the faint of heart or for someone who has held just one or two narrow job roles in the vast world of IT. I would not recommend this for anyone with less than seven or eight years in the external support world.

What I mean by external support is billing your time to multiple clients for computer service, support, or consulting. Internal support is what I did from 1981 to 1991 with CDC and CogniSeis. It was not until mid-1991, when I joined Paranet and they were billing me out to clients at a high hourly rate to perform specific tasks or complete defined projects, that I was performing external support.

The external IT world is much different than the internal IT world, trust me. Every new project is usually a new client and it is very much like going through a job interview and then being put into a high-stress and high-expectation position the next day. After a few years of this, one learns how to adapt to new environments quickly, strategically interface with different client personalities, and complete challenging projects with hard problems in a timely manner. These external support experiences are critical assets for a successful career as a rural computer consultant. So if you are mono-talented in a narrow computer field, you may want to hold off on becoming an independent consultant in a rural area.

In this book I will list in detail the technical skill sets required to profitably service your rural clients. The majority of these skills will not require expensive certifications or costly training, since most can be picked up by reading the right books and taking cost-effective online courses. Some of the skill sets required for this multifaceted position were not in my résumé when I started up in 2000, but just as I had done for nearly 20 years, I taught myself quickly, via computer-based training, which had become much more advanced since those late nights in front of the Plato terminal at Control Data in Houston.

With online tutorials and Internet-based training courses, I was able to pick up numerous tips and tricks, as well as the more complex skills I needed such as web page design and programming. So even if your skill set is more limited at this time, this book can help you prepare for a later shot at becoming a rural computer consultant.

Another factor is money. If you and your spouse are riding high on a $175,000-plus income and have the bills to go along with it (such as a big mortgage, car loans, and other debts), this income would be hard to replace quickly or easily as a rural computer consultant. I do, however, explain later on in this book how to trim down your lifestyle, consumption, and debt to be less dependent on such high salaries.

Your success as a rural computer consultant will be strongly influenced by your customer service skills and attitude. Prompt and friendly customer service is an absolute requirement for small-town business needs. One of the first things I learned was that my new clients strongly desired fast, consistent response. They were tired of waiting for their previous Houston-based computer support person to call back, or better yet, to finally show up on-site to fix the critical computer problem stopping their small but important business task.

You have also got to want to get in front of people, market yourself, sell your services, and adapt to the customs, dialect, and culture of the town’s people. If you’re a male liberal hippy with tattoos, earrings, and a DNC sticker on your VW Bug, don’t count on landing new clients in conservative central Texas near where I live.

The opposite is true for a right-wing, gun-toting conservative like myself trying to get clients in small left-wing towns within Marin County just outside of San Francisco. That said, remember that the majority of small towns are more conservative than liberal, and this is especially true in rural farming and ranching areas. Political leanings will be an issue in small towns, and we will discuss this aspect of client relations in more detail later in the book.

The major potential showstopper to becoming a rural computer consultant is that you and your spouse (if applicable) have got to want to live, work, shop, and raise your kids in a small town. As I explained, this was initially a major issue with my wife. It was rough on her for the first couple of years, due to the vast change in distance to her family and the major change of going to a new church and developing a new set of friends.

If you and your family are addicted to the conveniences of city life, then maybe working in a small rural town will not be for you. But you should check things out by visiting small towns and spending some weekends at bed-and-breakfast inns, which will allow you to meet locals and get the feel of the area.

So if you have the urge to escape the urban rat race, possess a varied computer support skill set, have moderate income needs and debt, and like working directly with clients, you may strongly consider becoming a rural computer consultant.