Peanuts to Profits With Thor Schrock
Peanuts to Profits With Thor Schrock

The Midlands Business Journal ran a special technology section on the 13th and I was interviewed for the article on green technology.

It was an opportune time for them to interview me on the subject because I was in the midst of replacing a ton of Schrock Innovations’ outdated tech equipment with modern, more energy efficient gear.

We are still getting settled into our new computer repair service center, but we allowed a camera crew to come in and do a little filming for a commercial we are running to promote our new location.

We are within days of opening our new Service Center and we need another full-time technician to ensure our customers receive the service they expect. You can apply online for the position on the Schrock Innovations Website.

We are looking for a computer technician with insane customer service skills. We understand those combinations are rare, so we are willing to pay accordingly to get the right addition to our staff. The person filling this position will be expected to:

* Work one-on-one with customers in their homes to solve computer problems
* Computer Repair in our Lincoln Service Center
* Help Customers over the phone and through the Schrock Desk
* Assist Walk-in Customers
* Conduct Advanced Data Recovery Procedures on Failed Devices
* Go above and Beyond under all circumstances to ensure our promise of insane customer service

Schrock Innovations will be moving to its new Lincoln home at 2801 Pine Lake Road on February 10. The past few weeks have been a frenzy of construction, ordering, planning, and executing, but it is all finally falling into place.

I debated on whether or not I should post progress pictures, but I decided in the end that I would rather post an online photo tour once everything is said and done. As many of my readers know, we have needed an upgrade in our facilities for some time.

Here are just a few of the differences between our current Service Center and the new one:

On Sunday a new Schrock Innovations commercial started airing on Channel 10/11 in Lincoln, NE. The commercial is intended to highlight all of the things people use their computers for, and to make them think about the company they choose to maintain those computers.

Circuit City’s announcement that all of their remaining electronics retail stores are closing exposes a fundamental but often overlooked lesson that all small business owners need to know and understand.

Before reading on, ask yourself a simple questions – does my business respond to the actions of our competitors, or do we make our competitors respond to us?

Best Buy’s Changing Plans – Background

A massive Q3 2008 downturn in Best Buy’s sales forced electronics retail giant to reassess their plans of placing new stores within 5 miles of Circuit City locations in an effort to grab more market share from their rivals.

Best Buy was aggressively working to choke off competition from Circuit City by saturating only the markets where Circuit City had a retail presence.

Mid-2008 Walmert and Dell teamed up in an experiment across 15 of their Dallas-area super centers to create a competitive answer to Best Buy’s Geek Squad. The experiment was called “Solution Station.”

The experiment is old news, but I think it is interesting that there has been no mention of the effort since its launch.

Google searches for “Solution Station” only bring up spammy sites and a few press releases dating back to the project’s launch. Normally you at least find a few complaints online, but there is not a single one.

My friend Steve from Podnutz.com called me up the other day because he heard that Schrock Innovations was about to launch a data recovery service center.

We did a phone interview about what goes into creating a data recovery center and how data recovery pricing structures work. You can listen to the 53 minute interview here.

We would like to sign up 50 or more affiliates in February. To accomplish that we are thinking about paying commissions around 40% of the total recovery charge for every paying referral the affiliate sends us. To give comparison, other recovery companies with affiliate programs pay between $25 and $100 per referral.

Based on our pricing structure, affiliates can expect to make between $240 and $800 per referral. Considering that our data recovery center is charging less than 1/2 of what other similarly equipped centers charge, we should get off to a pretty good start.

I decided to break my personal accomplishments out from those of Schrock Innovations and post them as separate posts. Here is a list of some of the more memorable things Schrock Innovations has done in 2008.

It was surreal to walk through the door and see the design I drew on paper come to life in terms of drywall and studs.