The Wi-Fi drops mid-meeting
You unplug the box, count to thirty and pray. It comes back. Nobody knows why it went down, so it will happen again on a worse day.
For the accidental IT person
You're inoveryour head.
You started a business to do your actual job, not to reboot routers, chase passwords and wonder whether last night's backup ran. If you're in over your head with IT, ShowTech Solutions takes the whole pile off your desk for one flat monthly rate.
- Reset the printer… again
- Who has the admin password?
- Why is the Wi-Fi so slow?
- Is the backup actually working?
- Set up the new hire's laptop
- Renew the Microsoft 365 licenses
- Did someone click that link?
- The shared drive is full
- Update Windows (later, always later)
- Fix the conference room TV
- Move the old employee's email
- What's our router password?
Sound familiar?
Nobody hired you to be the help desk
It usually starts small. You were the one who set up the Wi-Fi, so now you're the one everybody walks over to. Five years later you own every password, every license and every "quick question." Here's what that job really looks like.
Passwords live on sticky notes
Half the team shares one login, the admin account belongs to someone who left in 2021, and the "password list" is a spreadsheet called stuff.
Microsoft 365 is a maze
Licenses, shared mailboxes, Teams permissions, OneDrive syncing. Every new hire or departure eats an afternoon you didn't have.
Backups you've never tested
Something is copying files somewhere. Probably. Whether you could actually get the business running again after a crash is a question you'd rather not ask.
Security keeps you up at night
Fake invoices, "urgent" texts from the CEO, a laptop left in a car. You know the risks are real, but you have no idea what's actually protected.
Every fix is a Google search
You've become surprisingly good at forum threads from 2014. It works, until the one time it really, really doesn't.
Run your own numbers
What is DIY IT really costing you?
Being the IT person is never on the schedule, so it never shows up on a report. Plug in an honest guess for a normal week. We don't see what you type; it all stays in your browser.
Formula: hours per week × your hourly value × 52 weeks
Hours a year spent being the help desk
260
That's this many 8-hour workdays
32.5
Or this many full 40-hour weeks
6.5
Your time, in your own dollars, every year
—
And that's only the visible part. It doesn't count the downtime for everyone waiting on you, or the cost of one bad click nobody caught.
Get those hours backThe honest comparison
DIY IT vs. handing it to ShowTech
Doing it yourself isn't free. It just sends the bill somewhere else: to your evenings, your team's patience and your risk. Here's the side-by-side.
| The job | You, winging it | ShowTech |
|---|---|---|
| When something breaks | You drop everything, or it waits until you can | Call a 24/7/365 help desk; a real person typically picks up in under 4 minutes |
| Security | Free antivirus and good intentions | Endpoint detection and response, DNS filtering and 24/7 monitoring |
| Backups | "I think it's backing up?" | Monitored in real time, including Microsoft 365 email, OneDrive, SharePoint and Teams |
| Updates | Postponed until "later" for months | Automated patching for Windows, Office, Java and Adobe |
| Staff training | A forwarded article about phishing | Monthly phishing simulations and security awareness training |
| Planning | Buy a laptop when the old one dies | Quarterly vCIO meetings, an IT roadmap and a budget you can plan around |
| Cost | Unpredictable: surprise repairs plus your hours | One flat monthly rate, no hidden fees |
What comes off your plate
One plan. The whole pile.
ShowTech One is our all-in-one, flat-rate managed IT plan. Instead of you juggling ten things badly, one local team handles them well, and you get your title back: owner, not office technician.
You still stay in the loop. You get a help desk portal to see what's open, plain-English updates when something changes, and a quarterly sit-down to talk about where your technology should be headed next year.
- Help when you need it: a 24/7 live help desk, onsite visits across Tampa Bay and a portal to track every request.
- Security that actually watches: threat detection on every computer, web filtering, secured guest Wi-Fi and admin rights handed out only when needed.
- Backups somebody checks: real-time backup and network monitoring with health alerts before small problems become outages.
- Microsoft 365, handled: licenses, permissions, security monitoring and training guides your team can actually follow.
- A plan, not a panic: risk assessments, a technology roadmap, budgeting help and guidance when an audit or compliance question comes up.
- The boring stuff: device inventory and buying the right hardware and software, so you never pick a laptop off a store shelf again.
How the hand-off works
Three steps to never being "the IT person" again
No giant migration weekend, no lecture about everything you did wrong. We start with what you have and fix it in a sensible order.
Free IT checkup
We look at your network, computers, Microsoft 365, backups and security, then tell you in plain English what's solid, what's shaky and what's urgent. You get a clear flat-rate quote sized to your business.
We take the keys
We document every password, account and device, clean up the loose ends and get monitoring and protection running. The sticky notes go in the shredder.
You go back to your real job
Your team calls us instead of you. You get updates, a quarterly planning meeting and the quiet satisfaction of a problem you no longer own.
- Hand off the help desk
- Keep your evenings
- Stop guessing about backups
- Sleep through the night
- Let your team call us
- Get back to running the business
The real question
Who should handle IT for my business?
If you're asking, the answer probably isn't "me, after hours." For most small businesses between five and a hundred people, there are three honest options:
1. Keep doing it yourself
Works when you have three people and one printer. It stops working the day your business depends on email, cloud files and customer data, which is most businesses now. The hidden cost is your time and the risk nobody is watching.
2. Hire a full-time IT employee
Great if you're big enough to keep them busy. But one person can't cover nights, vacations, sick days and every specialty from firewalls to Microsoft 365, and when they leave, the knowledge often leaves with them.
3. Outsource to a managed IT team
You get a whole bench of people for a flat monthly rate: help desk, security, backups and planning. That's what ShowTech does. And if you already have an IT person, we can work alongside them with co-managed IT so they're not drowning either.
Local
Small business IT help that's actually nearby
ShowTech Solutions is locally owned and based in downtown Tampa, and we've been looking after Tampa Bay businesses for more than 16 years. When something needs hands on it, we send a person to your office, whether that's in Tampa, St. Pete, Clearwater, Brandon or anywhere in between.
If you've been searching for IT support for a small business in Tampa, or thinking about whether to outsource IT in Clearwater, the first step is the same: a free checkup and a conversation with a real human.
What you can expect
Fast, human, and not going anywhere
<4 minTypical time to a real person on the phone
98%Help desk satisfaction, last 12 months
24/7Live help desk, 365 days a year
16+ yrsServing Tampa Bay businesses
We work with nonprofits, schools, law firms, CPA and financial offices, real estate teams and manufacturers. Different industries, same story: the owner was doing IT on the side and finally decided their time was worth more than that.
Start here
Tell us what's on the pile
Describe the mess in your own words. No tech vocabulary required, no hard sell. We'll set up a free IT checkup and a straight answer on what it would take to get you out from under it.
Rather talk it through? Call 813-793-4700. A real person answers, day or night.
Put the pile down.
One call. A real person. A plan to get you out from under your IT.