MikeMooreMedia

Reidsville Chamber of Commerce 07.22.24

President Diane Sawyer visits with Chris Reid, owner of Reids Computer Sales & Service. Website design, repairs, consultation, security camera installation.
www.ReidsvilleChamber.org

Duration:: 13m
Broadcast on:: 22 Jul 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

Mike Moore Media. Good morning. This is Diane Sawyer with the Reesville Chamber of Commerce. This morning on the podcast I have with me, owner of Rees Computer Sales and Service, Chris Ring, you're welcome to show Chris. Thanks Diane. I'm glad to be here. I'm excited. Don't lie, you're not really glad. I might have a left arm a little bit. Yeah, just a little bit. Well, I'm really excited. You're one of our longtime chamber supporters and chamber champions, and it is hard to get you in this capacity. You're another one of my guys, I like to say, behind the scenes. But I thought, maybe if I didn't have to have your face, just your voice, you'd be OK with me this morning. So I can do with it already. OK, well, thank you for being here. I did want to talk a little bit about, so tell us a little bit about you. Tell us about your business, how long you've been open, and kind of how you got started. Well, we have been open roughly 20 years this year, but it wasn't always just the store. I was a manager at a retail chain for a long time, and so when I started that, I was thinking, I don't want to do this crap, but ever. So I started my business working out of my home office way back then while I was working for that company. And I actually got a lot of my clients through that company. And some of my clients, even back 10 years ago, are still clients today. I did not realize you were celebrating 20 years this year. You were holding out on me. Ah, yeah, I know. Well, we're going to have to-- we're going to have to remedy that. I've got plans for that already in my head. So that's awesome, though. I did not realize, so I celebrated 13 years at the Chamber last week. And I was thinking about some of the people who have grown with us and alongside of us. So starting out in your house 20 years ago, when did you get the storefront? Well, I had a store while I was at that retail place here in REAP, which I was in Burlington, and in Eden. I had a guy working for me, and he just didn't. He didn't perform like he could have. And so we ended up closing that location. It did deepen, but not as good as I wanted it to. Because I couldn't be hands-on like I should have been here. And so we closed that location, and I just still did it from my home office. While I was working at that retailer. And then I left that retailer in 2013 and opened my store where it is now on Gilmore Street in Downtown REAP. So classic entrepreneur decides to go full-time and be the one hands-on in the business. Like, it's very much the story that I hear quite a bit. Or people who want to do something that they're really passionate about. And everything that you do, like you've taught yourself, right? Like that's kind of what you're telling me. Yeah, I mean, I've got Microsoft certifications and ongoing training that I have to do with my dealers, but yeah, I taught myself everything that I needed to do what I do. I love that because that is something that, you know, some of the we focus on here at the Chamber a lot is trying to work with the school system and work with RCC and trying to, you know, get young people. But then also people at the second career who, you know, could realize that there are ways you can be an entrepreneur and be in business for yourself and do something local. So I'm excited for you because you have done so much with just what you started out with. So let's talk about like some of the service you offer because a lot of that you've expanded just over the last five to ten years. Yeah. You've remained training the things that you offer. Well, when we started, we just built computers and back then it was cheap to build a computer and the product was good. So that's all we did. And I didn't think that I needed to do anything else. So I taught myself how to build computers, learned about operating systems, and that's all I did. And then I'd say probably a year into that, I had people coming back with problems that I'm like, all right? So I didn't teach myself how to work on stuff. I just taught myself how to build them. So then I had to learn how to actually work on the stuff that I was building. So once I did that, and I had that niche kind of covered and people would buy computers. They would get a virus or something would happen, I would replace it or remove the virus and bam, we were just running like that for several years. And then the computer market kind of got slow and I'm like, well, what's the crap? I'm not making this money that I was making before, I need to do something else. So then we got into web design and back then I was like, I wasn't real good. So I was doing like a little small website, I think NC100 was one of the first ones that I did and just went, went, went, got a little bit better, a little bit better. And now we're doing some pretty high end websites, like we're helping you with yours. We just did WLCs, we did Sharon Community Outreach Corporation and we've got another project that I can't talk about right now that we're working, that we're getting ready to hopefully start working on to do some edits and corrections on it. So we started after the websites, we started doing camera systems, I think the first camera system we did was Glenn Raven Mills and that was pretty big for my first job. And since then we've probably done 50 to 60 different camera systems including the residential and commercial and we have a network of cameras through Rockingham County and Guilford County that we've installed the system for and we actually have not say a collaboration with the shared support meant but a lot of the businesses, when it's something that does happen, the businesses will reach out and say, hey, you got the authority, sharing support means got a problem, can you tap into this, this, this and we'll do that to kind of help help out with issues. Absolutely, I know for us and Revil PD, we've done that with you before and you partner with a lot of nonprofits on a lot of different things, I think you've been a great partner to the local nonprofits when they needed a good website that was effective but didn't break the bank like some of these crazy companies out here, try to take advantage of people and you've been a great partner with cameras, a lot of times our nonprofits are the ones who are doing things where they need that extra security, I know here at the chamber we definitely did, just being downtown and right in the heart of everything but also operating as the visitor center so not only that, you've been able to partner and offer you know, you have been able to help design people's confrontations and any of their avian technology needs and I just think that it's really cool how much you've diversified yourself and taught yourself and we appreciate what you do and the chamber even has a little bit of help so you don't have to always be the one to design it, like you've come alongside us and we've got our specified website because it's through the people who offer it for specific to chambers and so our website's driven by our database and our content management system but you've been able to come along and help us update that and get things figured out and give advice so you know, I think you are a really great example of somebody who can, you can kind of be a partner but you also can, you know you can do the whole thing, you can do the whole thing but you also can kind of come in and just be you know somebody that can give advice and kind of winch your knowledge and you, yeah we can sell them all, yeah we may not even do a job but we just come in and say hey this is what we need, this is what we need to do, this is what you need, this is where you can get it cheap or inexpensive and if you need help just give us a holla and a lot of people like that that you're not actually coming in trying to hit them in the head and get them for all the money they have they just need that advice and I give, a lot of people don't but I give a lot of advice for free if I can see that I'm going to help you and you're going to be receptive to what I'm giving you I don't mind helping out, I do it a lot, yeah and I think that that's probably what builds the relationships that you have with so many people is the ability to give advice and to give an outside perspective, a lot of times you can't help people and their current graduation but when they get to a place that you can then they're able to come back and say okay like now I need you and and you've made customers for life and that's just it's pretty impressive to see the range of things that you can offer businesses. I have for one one of my favorite things I think is the cameras, I don't remember when you started doing that, I think it was pre-COVID that you had expanded into that and then it just seemed like it boomed post-COVID. It did, it did. Why do you think ideas? Well I really don't know, I mean I don't know if it was people not being at the office wanted to see what was going on, I don't know, I couldn't tell you that, it's just I don't know if it was money, COVID monies that were coming in, right at COVID, after COVID where everything jumped off because camera systems are not cheap. Some of them can be inexpensive but some of them can jump way up and when we did steel hands brewing in Greensboro and that was the old night of Greens building on Gates City Boulevard and it was a large job and it went detailed but our estimate was about half the price of the next quote that they had so they went with us and they were very very happy with the service that they got from us and that was a large job. Yeah I mean that's something that amazes me is the job you've gotten regionally at Greensboro with the churches and with the businesses and you know word amounts travel far and you're right camera jobs are not cheap but it blows me away how you as a small business are able to fill with a large profit margin to be able to make money and still do the job and have a good business and I think it does bring people back to you. So very excited for you, congratulations on 20 years I think that well I think I might be a little bit off because you know my memories that it might be maybe more like 19 years. Oh my god well it's for my mind yeah my mind kind of jumps sometimes. Well we'll have to sit down and figure it out because if it really is I want I think you could come up with some awesome stuff with your market and bring to to figure that out to celebrate so you might get off with some specials or do something so well I'm really proud of what you've done I think it's amazing I think that anytime we can celebrate a small entrepreneur and somebody who has really lived in the area their their whole life and grown up and go into school here but then turn around and have a business and give back to the community the way that you do I just think it's awesome so congratulations on what you've been able to do and we're out of time so is there anything you'd like to to share with anybody before we go? No I think I think we hit a lot but I mean we could go an hour we could go an hour on hand and talk about stuff that we do but I think we hit we hit um most of the main points. All right well if you're looking for the three that he is located on Gilmore Street and in downtown Brazil and obviously very easy to find online as well so thank you for being on the show today we really appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Yes sir. All right well that is it for today's show and we are excited to see what the rest of 2024 holds so stay tuned and we'll see you soon.