> and, well, this is not an area where I want to compete on price. Definitely not, since you are local to them, you speak their language, you can be there to w

> and, well, this is not an area where I want to compete on price. Definitely not, since you are local to them, you speak their language, you can be there to work on their stuff, and you are part of their network which they can hit up to find other useful people. I have several friends who run local IT businesses or do IT freelancing. One thing I've noticed is that it's very easy for them to make enough for their needs by maintaining systems, but they all understand that it's optimal to be seen as a profit-builder. When I was doing freelance IT work (for a short period while my web stuff built up) I noticed that I could often do cursory research on the fields my clients worked in, and easily pitch them on things that would help them out. For example, I would say, "hey, have you seen this new CRM software for non-profits" and "hey have you seen that this web hosting firm offers free hosting for non-profits" and I'd build projects off of that--rolling in a system upgrade, doing in-person training, etc. If I were to go back to that today, I'd make sure they knew that they needed to pay me an extra $ monthly to support the new cool thing. People are used to that and want to invest in profit-makers. Both sides benefit. One thing I can highly recommend is giving your clients "good, better, best" estimates. For example tell them, "I can fix it with duct tape for $, I can keep this from happening again for $$, and I can hook up this cool new solution called X for $$$." You might be surprised how many clients will go straight for the top. The clients who always stick around the bottom will become more obvious about it, and you'll learn to work with them more effectively, too.