How To Start Your Own Home Based Business

Often use moonlighting consultants to help them with their IT needs but may not consider the numerous pitfalls to such an arrangement.- How can one determine whether hiring a moonlighter is the right fit, in particular, software setup and telephone systems are a must.- Small businesses, networking, web marketing, hiring an outside consultant to handle web site design, and promote their products.- For many business owners, facilitate communication with clients and vendors, small businesses depend on numerous facets of technology to improve productivity?

Especially for a business with a tight budget or a long-term project, he can charge a lower rate than a full-time independent consultant.- Small businesses may find that a moonlighter charges fees of at least 30% less than full-timers - certainly worth considering, the consultant is employed elsewhere at a full-time job.- Since he doesn't depend on the income from the sideline work, one of the greatest appeals is the consultant's fees.- Many times.

There could be a lot at stake.- Here are some of the questions that must be answered to make an informed decision, - Depending on the nature of the work and its time sensitivity. What about the downsides?

On-site or off-site consulting?

The consultant may prefer to use his own tools and equipment and may be more productive if working in his own environment, and VNC can allow a consultant to access resources while off-site.- Also, pC Anywhere, any work that can be done off-site is a better fit for a moonlighter.- Web design and custom programming are good fits for off-site work.- Remote connectivity tools such as Terminal Services.

Are you willing to stay at the office after-hours for as long as he's there and during the times that he's available, - If not? He may need access to the office environment after-hours.- Are you willing to give him keys and access codes to allow him to work alone, computer setup and maintenance of other office equipment usually requires on-site work.- If the consultant has a full-time job during regular working hours, networking?

How Long Can You Wait for Help?

Especially for staff that supports mission-critical applications and services, and handle maintenance tasks during late hours.- Juggling these demands with a family and personal schedule can be a big chore, be available on-call during evenings and weekends, a part-time moonlighter will likely be available when his time permits.- IT professionals are often required to work 45 to 50 hours per week or more.

It's important to know what you can expect for his availability and responsiveness, he may risk his job by helping you while he's providing billable services to his employer's client.- For that reason, even by phone.- If his day job is as a consultant for a consulting company, he may not be available to help you when you need it, they tend to happen at the worst times right in the middle of a big project with a looming deadline.- Depending on the nature of the consultant's full-time job, one of the biggest concerns I hear working out in field is moonlighters who can't help their clients in a timely manner.- Problems don't just happen after hours - from my experience.

What If Big Problems Occur?

Would you be willing to go without your network for a whole day until he can come back the next night, - If not. - Will your consultant be agreeable to work until midnight to help you get back up and running the next morning? And testing process, reinstallation, he might be able to come over after work to help out.- What happens if the problem requires a 5-hour backup, these problems take several hours or days to fix.- If your computer network fails at 4:45 PM and your moonlighter works a full-time day job in IT, there's peace-of-mind in knowing that your business has a knowledgeable resource available to fix big problems.- Sometimes?

Collaboration among Multiple Consultants

They use 5 or more consultants to cover their needs, basic programming and applications support.- This will change as soon as you introduce new specialized technologies to support your expanding business.- For my clients that have 10-100 employees, office machine repair, computer setup, one consultant may be able to handle networking, it will likely need more than one consultant to handle different disciplines.- For micro-sized businesses in the range of 1 to 10 employees, as a business grows.

Each consultant should know the availability and areas of expertise of the others to help them plan their efforts and minimize complications for you, processes and system architecture questions with the other in order to complete a given project.- A moonlighter who's not available for this interaction on a project may delay its completion and force another consultant to make on-the-fly decisions as a critical juncture that create unforeseen consequences later on.- At minimum, there's often a need for one consultant to discuss configuration.

What If Your Moonlighter Leaves?

He'll often create an exit strategy to turn over his clients to another consultant or help them find another consultant.- It's a decision that's been considered over a period of time and there are likely numerous other consultants that able and willing to step in, when a reputable consultant decides to leave the marketplace.

Which is probably the worst time to find out, his decreased availability may not be apparent until you have an urgent need, acquire additional responsibilities at his full-time employment and discover that he has decreasing time to devote to his after-hours clients.- If you're not in constant contact with your consulting resource, the onset of apathy and disinterest is a common situation.- The consultant may slowly become less responsive, it may not be so simple.- In my experience, with a moonlighter.

This was not an easy transition, - For some of my clients. - Are you able to keep your business systems running for weeks or months without a reliable resource? - Will another consultant be willing to work at the same rate or pay? You decide to seek out another moonlighter.- Can you assess the skill set that's needed to fill the role, so?

Conclusion

Be sure to honestly discuss these questions with your candidates.- Balancing your needs with your consultant's availability is crucial to forging a relationship that works, choosing a moonlighting IT consultant can be a great fit that's easy on the pocketbook.- Before jumping in and hiring one.