reseller tutorials [Archive] - Web Hosting Talk

Lesli

03-28-2003, 11:18 AM

There is no "hosting tutorial" - it's a series of things you need to learn. This includes the technical aspects of hosting, but also how to plan and run a business. Basic accounting, customer relations, marketing...the whole megillah.

Find a part-time job for a few months while you learn how to run a business. Maybe even find a job for a few years while you attend business school. This is not "giving up", this is "preparing"...and preparing well will mean the difference between success and failure.

You'll want to take business administration courses, to learn how to run your business. This applies to any business. You'll need to know how to market your business effectively. You'll need to know how to write a business plan (and you'll need to know what a business plan is, if you don't already). You'll need to know how to make a budget, and you'll want a basic introduction to small business bookkeeping / accounting. You'll also want to have contacts with a business lawyer and an accountant. Resources include your local community college, your chamber of commerce, SCORE (www.score.org), US Small Business Administration, and maybe a business incubator, if there's one in your location.

If you don't have them already, you'll want to learn good habits: seeing a task through to completion; prioritising tasks; breaking larger tasks down into their component jobs. Again, this can apply to any job - but you'll definitely need to be self-motivated if you're running your own business. Time management courses are good for this. I once took a JC course in study skills, and far from being some simple remedial course that did me no good (which was initially how it sounded), it helped me plan and organise a bit better.

You'll want to learn how to identify what you do well, what you can learn to do, and what you just don't do well. For example, I'm not very good with marketing, and I'm especially bad with closing a deal. If someone isn't sure that they need a web site, or that they really want web hosting, I can't find it in myself to convince them that yes, they do need these things. This can be death to the independent businessperson. Figure out your personal strengths and weaknesses, so that you can shore up your weaknesses by either hiring other people, or taking courses to enhance those skills that you don't have as well as you'd like.

You'll want to learn good communication skills. Since you'll likely never see any of your clients face to face, you'll want to make sure that you can write very clearly and very well. Points already, because you use nearly-perfect punctuation and capitalisation :) To brush up on this, take a public speaking course and take some logical writing courses (logical writing, technical writing, essays, et cetera).

You'll want to learn basic HTML, CSS, Perl, script installation...basically, anything that you offer your clients, you should either know, know how to troubleshoot, or know where to go to find the answer. (If you start out as a reseller, then your upstream provider will answer some questions for you.)

You'll eventually want to learn how to administer a server - but again, if you start up as a reseller, you can learn that later. Taking college courses can give you a start. Which OS should you study? Depends on what you want to offer: Windows of *nix hosting. You should eventually be comfortable working at the command line, though.

And be prepared to have a "real" job for about a year while your business is just getting started. You'll need the extra income to pay the rent. Freelancing, telecommuting, a warehousing job so that your work shift is 4am - 10 am, a part-time job that's only on the weekends, something. You may want to stay away from jobs that are the standard full-time 8-5 office-types unless, for that first year, you can hire others to monitor the support queues while you are at work earning a regular wage.

Advice from me: find someone who you can call and speak with at least once every three days. Tell them what you've done, and what you plan to do for the next three days. Have them write down what you plan to do and during your next conversation, do "follow-ups": did you do A? What about B? Did you get around to C? This is called a "coach": it's someone else to whom you are essentially accountable. It will give you someone else to talk with on a regular basis, which can keep you from sliding into first-year business isolation, which can make you feel overwhelmed and possibly depressed. Finding someone else who's also starting their own business, but in a different field, is ideal: you can be "coaches" for each other. (By the way, this is also a career field. Coaches get about $125 an hour, and usually it's a daily call or meeting.) I did this my first year as a designer and consultant with my mother, who was retiring that year and starting her faux finishing / mural business. Needless to say, we're both doing nicely now with our respective businesses ;->

Also, a sobering statistic: 85% of all companies fail in their first year. That isn't just tech companies, that includes corner stores, boutiques, services, what have you. Just be prepared for the possibility of closing your doors. What will you do, especially for your hosting clients? Have a plan in place, just in case, so that they don't suffer loads of downtime. Once you start taking on clients who pay for continuous / repeat services, you take on a responsibility to see that, should you go out of business, they won't have a service interruption. If you're not prepared to do that, then hold off going into web hosting until you *are* ready. Unlike design and consulting, being a web host is a long-term commitment.

Another bit of wisdom: if you can't make your business work, it doesn't mean that you're a bad person or that you're stupid. Running a business is difficult. You have to wear a lot of different hats. Some people thrive in this type of environment. Others are able to make it, but have to work harder. Others simply don't love it, and so can't do well. If you launch your own business, give it all you've got, but don't be afraid to ask for help when you need it and don't be afraid to say, "I can't do this". Your solution might be to sell your business. Your solution might simply be to hire people who can make it work: salespeople, technicians, what have you. You may also end up thriving as a business owner / runner.

And...best of luck, whatever you decide to do. This isn't an easy path, but it can be really rewarding.