Why You Don’t Have to be a Techie to Own a Click IT Franchise
I recently read an article in CIO Magazine that discusses how one organization leader was able to redefine his IT department and make it more focused. They came up with 30 titles, down from 183 out of 250 employees.
It made me realize that what we have done at Click IT is closely related, where we took the major disciplines of IT and broke them down into the major categories, we call divisions because each is a specialty in their own right. The key to our franchise owners’ success will not be in hiring the skill set necessary to implement and run these divisions, because we have chosen the best-in-class of all these services, and then have created or use web portals (or a series of systems) in order to implement and manage these services for customers. It works and we have proven it in our model store. Our IT staff is trained in managing these systems, so the skill-set and knowledge needed are all built into our back-end. This is why we say that you don’t have to be a techie to own a Click IT Franchise.
You can read that article here: https://www.cio.com/article/3446697/restructuring-it-for-growth.html.
How to Hire Smart
What you WILL need in owning a Click IT Franchise store, however, are employees who are trained and proven computer technicians (techs). We have a written test we give to our techs. We also use Indeed’s aptitude test for technicians, which is a good measurement when posting a new position for hire. The qualification for the position at Click IT is that the tech is certified by either Microsoft or what’s more common, an A+ certificate from CompTIA. See https://www.comptia.org/certifications/a. Also, see https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/learning/microsoft-certified-professional.aspx to learn about Microsoft’s shift to role-based certifications, and what’s expected in order to earn what was once referred to as an MCP (Microsoft Certified Professional) certification. (Microsoft is undergoing many changes to their approach at the time I posted this. See https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/learning/certification-overview.aspx.)
There are many forms of certifications available but the best in my opinion is hard-knocks learning and demonstration. Like Aristotle said, “We learn by doing”, and trust me when I say you can tell pretty much immediately when you’ve met someone who really knows what they are doing with regard to computers and technology. All the techniques we use when hiring our Click IT techs will be covered in our manual and during our classes given once you’ve been accepted into our franchisee training program. Ultimately, your Click IT store will self-certify your technicians once they have passed our 20 point appraisal. More to follow about this later.
Written by AL Harlow, President & Founder of Click IT