they do things differently here, a lot of small businesses are deadbeats and the medium businesses will always go with whomever can score them sports tickets to sold out games.

#1 They do not want to be held to responsibilities in writing, a lot of them went with us only if we promised not to put a contract in writing. The simplier it is the better they will hire you.

#2 They will refuse to hire us if we don't do the work first and get paid later. There are few exceptions to this, but basically they agree to pay us, and then didn't return the phone calls. I wanted to do everything COD, or at least half down, but some people wanted zero down, or maybe 10% or 20% down. Otherwise no work.

#3 Most collection services around here want a large cut of the bill to collect. It is cheaper to write the warning letter ourselves, anyway and threaten legal action. But they ignore it awany and the legal fees to sue them will cost more than the bill anyway.

#4 Follow-on work. Usually we do so good a job that they don't need follow-on work unless they installed new software that hoarked everything up or they powered down a dozen times without first shutting down the OS.

#5 We were specialized. Did POS systems and Mitchell Series One systems for garages. Hardly anyone else was doing it in 1995, but by 1997 other companies got into what we were doing. We moved into web page design, Linux networks, and other stuff but it was just not profitable enough to stay in business. I invested $7000USD of my own money and didn't draw a salary just to keep the business afloat.

#6 I am one of the best Windows technicians in the area, and my partner is one of the best Linux administrators in this area. We had qualifications out the yingyang. We did the job better than most people could.

#7 We did try to be business people first, but the hard part is making people pay what they owe. Around here there are a lot of deadbeats.