Hi, I have gotten to the point where I can almost not keep up with all the updating and adding of products between myself and my husband. My industry continually changes products at least 2-3 times per year and with adding new manufacturers, etc., it is getting to be way too much.

Does anyone have suggestions on hiring employees to telecommute. I work from home and don't want a person here, but I'm skeptical about finding people whom I don't know to do this for me.

Any feedback is appreciated.

Michelle

I have a person in another state who handles major projects for me.

For example, I periodically send him a long list of images to be removed from the site. It takes forever to remove them one by one, and he can do that easily in a couple hours.

I've had him do many other things, too, such as writing short descriptions for all of our products, adding related products, making price changes, adding quantity discounts to selected products, etc. When we first switched to , he helped add all the products to the new site. Then I sent him our inventory list and he checked that every item had been added (of course we missed a lot of them - there were about four of us working on it and we had some communication problems).

It's worked out great for me because I don't have to keep him busy all the time - or pay him all the time. Just when I need something "special" done.

I'd suggest finding someone you trust since you'll be giving them access to your site. You'd be surprised to find out how many people can do the job. Since I've told some of my kids' friends' parents about our site, I've been amazed to discover just how many people out there have ecommerce or Web design experience.

If you have children, you may want to check with their schools' principals to see if they know of any parents who are looking for part-time work while their kids are in school. Or check a local community college for students who would like to work from home (although I don't know if that's a good idea).

While I agree there are many things you can and should delegate, let me also sound a note of caution.

As President Reagan used to say "trust...but verify." Check multiple references (for nearly identical work/tasks). Even then, make sure you alot plenty of your time to check their work for awhile. (It is all too tempting to turn something over and run off to the other fires that always seem to be burning.)

Believe me, if you don't...you can get burnt bigtime. (In a previous life I hired a seemingly qualified coder with great references and a nice portfolio of successful completed projects. I stupidly turned over a big client development project to him with only short monthly reviews. He snowed me for 3mo and then bailed on the project and moved out of state (taking all of what little work he had done with him). That left me empty-handed for a customer milestone review. So I lost the project, was out everything I'd already paid him for 3mo and suffered a big reputation hit with a pretty large long-term client.

The morale of the story is...don't trust nobody!!! (You won't have as much at risk, but it still pays to be more than a little wary.)

Good luck,
Ed

Excellent point. I hired someone full-time to work in-house on our site. What a disaster that was! I didn't check her work because she came so highly recommended.

She copied everything word-for-word, including pictures, from one of our competitors.

These are all the things I'm so worried about

Suggest you hire someone who telecommuted for a previous job. (This was pretty standard for many computer and sales folks.) Then, have them come into the office (or your home office) 1/2 day, 3 days a week, until things get rolling.

Another place you might want to check on people is a local college- community or otherwise.

My last position was lead instructor of electronics at a small community college in my hometown. I would've been overjoyed if someone would've called me asking for a student to do some web design work for them. Most of my students were already pretty good kids, but I would've definitely have steered away any, undesirables, shall we say from a situation like this.

You'll probably have to work a little harder at the beginning working with a student versus an actual pro, but I'm sure you could have a student for a lot less, and really, what kid wouldn't want to do some web design over the summer versus working fast food or a grocery store or something?

DistNursuries - I'm in the SAME exact position as you.
It is hard to find a trustworthy employee nowadays...!

I've been looking around for people who might know any hs or college students that would be able to assist me as well.

Well, good luck - if you find anyone, share your tips with me.

On an average how do you figure a fair wage for this kind of outside work?

Somewhere else someone had posted $$$ on this but we cannot find it again?

well what my boss thinks is fair and what I think is fair is two different things! the industry going rate for a web designer/maintenance person is around $50-60 an hour...

however, since I get to work at home, no set hours, be home with the kids, etc...I do not charge nearly this...(although no raise in two years is kind of creepy)

anyways, I would say $25 an hour for someone that will work out of their home to maintain a site is decent...if they have to physically travel to an office, then the industry wage is probably more inline..

judy
ironcompany.com

Hi Folks

My name is Brian Tesch and I work for a large non-profit company in WI doing web development. I built a site using MonsterCommerce for one of my friends and would be willing to take on assisting others with their sites.

If you are interested, I'd be happy to talk with you further as well as provide a resume and references.

Please email me at tiebassbugs at yahoo.com

Brian

Have you thought about contacting the work instead of hiring? (1099) Then you don't have the usual worries about having an employee.

Well, I hate to appear like a a vulture or troll since this is my first post.

However, I am thinking of starting up an online business myself which is what brought me here among many stops today. I am just getting started. I dont even know LLC or Corp, etc just yet. That is how new this is to me. It will be in the food industry.

Anyway, I just moved from Sacramento Ca to Rochester MN. My wife is working and I am not. I would love to find some part time temp or long term work. I worked for Intel Corp for the last 6 years in tech support for 3 and the last 3 were in SAP and Supply Chain work. Not that it is related. My wife is a social worker and is employed with the Mayo Clinic. I am: Generic Christian, have high moral and ethical standards, honest, hardworking, and available.

Please feel free to visit my personal site of TimList.net if you would like to learn more about me before approaching me. You can email me at tim@timlist.net.

Again, I am just starting out and found this site which I am happy for. But I am starting a business as I would like to have what you all have. Mostly freedom to be with my wife and kids for camping, sports, travel, etc. But I am in need of work. This is a serious offer and I hope I do not offend any as this is not my intent.

Peace and Blessings

We have a girl we have hired to do our website once we became a fast growing business. She has been with us for 2 years now and I have to say - the farming out of the website gives myself and my business partner time to concentrate on other areas and growing the business.

She is a contractor who works for us part time and I fully trust her - she has very reasonable rates as well - PM me if you want her info.

To everyone involved with this post;

not to toot our own horns, but we do offer some services that my help (we may be a bit more expensive than that college student or friend) but we do know how the cart works a little better

I would encourage anyone looking for help to view this page:

http://kb.monstercommerce.com/Services/TechServices.asp

and see if we can make you job easier.

If you decide to use one of these services refer to this forum post, that way we can see if this forum post helps.

Thanks