Today we’d like to introduce you to Zach Crockett.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
The idea for TechPros came from a shared thought with a college friend in 2005 while I was attending Westwood College, an accelerated AAS program. We both agreed that the IT landscape was lacking in a positive customer experience. With our combined skills, we thought that once we graduated, we could set out on our own and change things slowly. After graduation, unfortunately, my friend dropped out of communication with me, so I kept TechPros as a side business that I did mainly to help friends and family with their computers while I worked at a full-time entry level IT job doing desktop and server support. There were two additional jobs at two more companies, the last one lasting seven years and allowing me to grow and learn in situations I was lucky to be a part of. A bit of history on the TechPros name, we originally named it 010TechPros due to the fact that in binary, 010 equals 2, so the name would have been to a tech savvy person knowing binary, ‘2 TechPros’.
Through those 11 years though, I continued to find new clients who were willing to be flexible in their support hours so I could service them in the evenings and weekends. In May of 2016, I felt I had enough clients to step out on my own in a full-time capacity. Through mostly word of mouth advertising, I’ve continued to pick up new clients as well as solidify my connection to my existing ones. In November of 2016, I partnered with a web presence expert who handles all website and SEO related projects that my clients bring me giving me the ability to continue to focus on the support aspect that TechPros was started for. In February of 2017, I came across an old college advisor from Westwood who was selling printer supplies who also partnered with me to provide an additional aspect of support in the form of toner and ink that I could offer well below what most stores can sell it for. Since then I’ve picked up four additional partners to allow me to provide even better support, as well as improved pricing to my clients.
My continued goal during my journey to this point, as well as continuing forward will be to provide the best IT Support and Consulting as possible.
Has it been a smooth road?
No, there have certainly been some trying times. Right away with my original partner dropping communication with me, I doubted even thinking about doing TechPros at all on my own. He was the face and salesman of the two of us, so that made it difficult for me who at that point was extremely shy and certainly not a people person. There were numerous times while working my full-time jobs that I thought it would be far easier to just forget about TechPros and focus entirely on a Corporate IT position, but I have my wife to thank for telling me to stick with it.
The toughest struggle I’ve had so far came just a few months after taking TechPros full-time. I had to fire my largest client, which was also the first time I’ve had to do so. It was a situation where I was working nearly a full-time job for them and all my other clients filled in the holes, but they told me that they were paying too much for my services, yet planned on quadrupling in size. I made the mistake of one month backing down on an invoice for them and quickly saw that it would happen again and again, so after several less than restful nights and discussing it with several close friends that I use as business advice sounding boards, I made the decision to end my support for their offices. Simply doing that was terrifying, but I had roughly a third the clients I do now and this prompted me to very actively start searching for more clients. So this was both the biggest struggle, but it led to the biggest growth of my business as well.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with TechPros – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
TechPros is an IT Services, Support, and Consulting company.
Services cover things such as email hosting, web hosting, anti-virus/anti-malware endpoint solutions, cloud services.
Support covers desktop/server/office support, meaning if it’s a computer of any sort, we service it. There are cases such as specialized hardware like you would find in a Dr.’s office or in a manufacturing plant that requires specialized knowledge that we don’t handle.
Consulting generally leads to the two above, but if someone is wanting to get an idea of where they should head next for their technology solutions, we provide this service as well. If they have questions about what the last IT person did in their office because it was not clear, we can analyze and report back to them if they got what they paid for.
Our specialty is customer service. I make sure that anyone who comes to TechPros fully understands what they are getting at the end of the transaction. If there are questions regarding the process to fix or correct an issue, I do my absolute best to explain in laymen’s terms what that process entails.
Let’s touch on your thoughts about our city – what do you like the most and least?
Carrollton is great at maintaining infrastructure and keeping residents informed about projects going on around the city. Of all the places I’ve lived around Dallas, Carrollton seems to have a closer-knit community in terms of neighbors and such.
Being next to Addison, we tend not to get many good restaurants. Also, with the recently announced expansion of Bush and the ongoing 35 construction makes it difficult many times of the day to get anywhere quickly.
Contact Info:
- Address: 2112 McCoy Rd.,
Carrollton, TX 75006 - Website: https://www.techprosweb.com
- Phone: 214-686-3856
- Email: info@techprosweb.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/010TechPros/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/Techpros
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/techpros-carrollton
- Other: https://nextdoor.com/pages/techpros-carrollton-tx/recommend/
Image Credit:
TechPros
Getting in touch: VoyageDallas is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
