Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?
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Please define your job and your responsibilities for us. With this new company of course.
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@Dashrender said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
Please define your job and your responsibilities for us. With this new company of course.
I work full time for a retail/manufacturing/ecommerce business.
My side business is general IT. However I do list "consulting" as a line item. For example:
- Installation
- Upgrades
- Consulting
- Web services
- SEO services
etc
I see consulting as something a business "can do" as a service. Not as something the business "is" in its entirety. Hense, general IT services.
You kind of have to be a generalist if you want to find any work in a small town. I can't be that one specialist guy who only does consulting and only consulting about edge routing. I'd never get a job.
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@guyinpv said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
@Dashrender said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
@guyinpv do you have some reason why you want to call yourself a consultant instead of a VAR? If not, just call yourself a VAR, and collect those affiliate fees all day long.
If a landscapper creates wonderful landscapes all day every day but deep down in their list of services they also replace clothes dryer vent caps, should people on the Internet tell him he should just call himself a plumber and be done with it? Install dryer caps all day? Just don't call yourself a landscaper because you do that one dryer vent thing, you're actually a plumber.
I don't follow - installing dryer caps doesn't conflict with you being a landscapper, so this analogy doesn't track.
Being a PAID consultant directly conflicts with being a VAR. You can't just switch hats and decide for the next hour I'm going to be one, then the next hour be the other.
If your real goal is to be a solution provider, you're not really a consultant at all - you're a solution provider. Because from the sound of this thread, you're desire isn't to just consult and make recommendations, instead it's to make recommendations then implement them - that is what sounds like your non stated goal is.
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@guyinpv said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
I say, simply being an affiliate does not create responsibility at all. I'm not obliged, obligated, required, responsible; there are no quotas, requirements, contracts to stay in the program. Therefore I actually have ZERO responsibility to the vendor whatsoever. Heck I don't even have to sell/recommend their product even once, ever. Therefore I have a hard time describing them as a "master" when they have zero control over me and how I run my business.
Sure, but as I said before, that's no different than the client who pays for consulting. You are also under no obligation, so they are not your master by that definition. We're going around in circles. I pointed out earlier that if you accept this definition, you have no masters. If accepting money drives you, you have two.
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@guyinpv said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
Once again, the only thing on the table is a potential for a bonus should I happen to choose them in a scenario. This then begs the question, how much does the bonus have to be to create a real dilemma of bias?
That's essentially correct. Compare it to the money from the customer, how much does their money influence you?
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@guyinpv said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
Yes, words have meaning, definitions are important, but only a Sith deals in absolutes.
I've always seen the Jedi as the bad guys. Every played KOTOR? The Sith are more honest.
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@Dashrender said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
@guyinpv do you have some reason why you want to call yourself a consultant instead of a VAR?
That's the right idea. This is where I think we are all confused. No one is saying what you want to do is bad, only that it makes you a VAR. What's wrong with using the accepted correct term and calling it a day?
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@Dashrender said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
@guyinpv said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
@Dashrender said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
@guyinpv do you have some reason why you want to call yourself a consultant instead of a VAR? If not, just call yourself a VAR, and collect those affiliate fees all day long.
If a landscapper creates wonderful landscapes all day every day but deep down in their list of services they also replace clothes dryer vent caps, should people on the Internet tell him he should just call himself a plumber and be done with it? Install dryer caps all day? Just don't call yourself a landscaper because you do that one dryer vent thing, you're actually a plumber.
If your real goal is to be a solution provider, you're not really a consultant at all - you're a solution provider. Because from the sound of this thread, you're desire isn't to just consult and make recommendations, instead it's to make recommendations then implement them - that is what sounds like your non stated goal is.
This is what most mom-n-pop operations do, yes. First consult/recommend/estimate, then implement. If it's beyond my abilities, they hire elsewhere. Structured wiring, phones, etc.
Why I'm hesitant about the VAR definition is because it seems to suggest rather absolutely that I'm completely in bed with simple affiliates. Like they own me. Like whoa there, you have an Amazon link, you're totally a VAR, you can't possibly consult any more, you're mind is warped, your business is twisted, you will only ever push products on Amazon, in fact you have an obligation and responsibility to! Your entire business is now "Amazon VAR"!!!
I reject that kind of definition of VAR that says I MUST be utterly controlled by and biased toward anything I happen to have an affiliate with. And should anyone want to hire me, they should just assume I won't be objective and will simply do the car-salesmen routine to up-sell them to my highest paying affiliates.
These sorts of things are offensive to my work ethic. I can have an affiliate link at Amazon for recommending the odd $80 inkjet or whatever. The $1.18 I might make has little influence over me, and I wouldn't want to be called an "Amazon VAR" as if that is what I'm all about and ONLY about and my entire business and income depends on dollars and pennies from Amazon.
Scott's argument is, why have it at all then? My response is that I think of the $1.18 as free money. I'm sending the Amazon link anyway, $1.18 almost buys a coffee at the corner store.
On the other hand, he's right that if I wanted a pure-as-snow consulting-only business, I'd just drop all that. But in a small town as a mom-n-pop, generalist, I have to consult and implement. Send the bid, estimate, and do the thing. Most people don't care about specifics, they want their problem solved as cheaply as possible and they want you to do it.
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@guyinpv said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
If a landscapper creates wonderful landscapes all day every day but deep down in their list of services they also replace clothes dryer vent caps, should people on the Internet tell him he should just call himself a plumber and be done with it? Install dryer caps all day? Just don't call yourself a landscaper because you do that one dryer vent thing, you're actually a plumber.
You are mixing concepts to make it sound better. It's not if he is also doing plumbing. It's if he is a service person (landscaper) or selling things that he thing installs (salesman.) The plumber idea is a bad analogy, that's an unrelated task that does not interfere with his primary one. It's not an opposing force.
But a landscape consultant, hired to determine the best landscape purchases, why secretly sells the things that he is then recommending... that's what we are talking about. Keep to a matching analogy and it's clear why it sounds bad.
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@guyinpv said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
Because it's NOT "my job" to sell the item I have an affiliate with. I DON'T "work for" that company.
If you are part of their affiliate program, I beg to differ. They pay you for doing their bidding. Just like the customer does. You can say you don't work for either, but the reality is, if you are paid by them, you work for both.
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@scottalanmiller said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
@Dashrender said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
@guyinpv do you have some reason why you want to call yourself a consultant instead of a VAR?
That's the right idea. This is where I think we are all confused. No one is saying what you want to do is bad, only that it makes you a VAR. What's wrong with using the accepted correct term and calling it a day?
Because to me it sounds like telling the landscaper that he must now be called a plumber because he fixes dryer vent caps.
It's the assumption that something trivial like Amazon links changes one's entire business model and reason to exist from "helping the customer find the best solution" to "making the most money from my affiliates as possible and up-selling everything".
That isn't just a semantic, it's changing the entire business model.
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@scottalanmiller said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
@Dashrender said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
@guyinpv do you have some reason why you want to call yourself a consultant instead of a VAR?
That's the right idea. This is where I think we are all confused. No one is saying what you want to do is bad, only that it makes you a VAR. What's wrong with using the accepted correct term and calling it a day?
I have to guess because in general the term VAR is looked down upon - i.e. you know that VARs are trying to sell you something. Perhaps @guyinpv wants to be a consultant - but really, don't user either name, call yourself a solution provider. Solves all the problems. You don't get the possible stigma of being called a VAR, and you resolve yourself running into the Scott's of the world if you called yourself a consultant. But this doesn't elevate your need to inform your customers that you are paid by your vendors if the situation is right.
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@guyinpv said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
It's a car salesmen JOB to earn commission, it's their bread and butter, it's what they DO.
Exactly, just like you. They are Chevy affiliates. They don't "have" to sell a car, but they only get paid when they do.
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Think of it like this....
You hire a car consultant to help find the best car for you. You pay, say, $5K for them to research, seek out and get you the best car for your needs.
Then it turns out that "on the side" that guy is ALSO a Chevy salesman (affiliate, in your terms). Sure he's not an employee of Chevy, he just gets commission when he makes a sale (lots of employees work this way that are full time salespeople too, by the way.)
That's what we are talking about.
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@guyinpv said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
@scottalanmiller said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
@Dashrender said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
@guyinpv do you have some reason why you want to call yourself a consultant instead of a VAR?
That's the right idea. This is where I think we are all confused. No one is saying what you want to do is bad, only that it makes you a VAR. What's wrong with using the accepted correct term and calling it a day?
Because to me it sounds like telling the landscaper that he must now be called a plumber because he fixes dryer vent caps.
No, totally different concept. Not FIXES dryer caps, if he uses his position as a landscape to SELL them.
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@guyinpv said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
It's the assumption that something trivial like Amazon links changes one's entire business model and reason to exist from "helping the customer find the best solution" to "making the most money from my affiliates as possible and up-selling everything".
That isn't just a semantic, it's changing the entire business model.
Correct. The business model changes when you switch to accepting money against the interest of the customers paying you to not be unnaturally biased against them.
In the legal world, this is a black and white issue. It's not the gray area of semantics you are making it out to be. It's a clear ethical breach under the law and very, very well defined for industries where consumers are not as well prepared to differentiate between sales people and consultants. Businesses are left to their own devices, but their legal recourses remain.
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@guyinpv said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
That isn't just a semantic,
I hate that term. Using "semantics" makes it sound like we are talking about meaningless words. We are not at all. We are talking about accuracy, honesty, ethics and business models. We are absolutely not talking about "getting the words to sound right." We are talking about "honestly representing the business model."
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I think that you answered the issue yourself, if you really step back and look at the thread. I had asked if you felt that your customers would feel that you acted unethically towards them if they found out. Do you feel that you can treat it as ethical in a case where you are hiding something that your customers would find (you think) is a breach of ethics if they had known the business model ahead of time?
Bottom line, that means that you are not providing to them what they think that they are paying you to do. I think that that is where the question of ethics ends. If you tell them up front, we know it is ethical. If you don't tell them up front, I think everyone involved from the customer to you knows, deep down, that it is not ethical. Not like murderous unethical, but not clear conscious ethical, for sure.
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@guyinpv said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
These sorts of things are offensive to my work ethic. I can have an affiliate link at Amazon for recommending the odd $80 inkjet or whatever. The $1.18 I might make has little influence over me, and I wouldn't want to be called an "Amazon VAR" as if that is what I'm all about and ONLY about and my entire business and income depends on dollars and pennies from Amazon.
Scott's argument is, why have it at all then? My response is that I think of the $1.18 as free money. I'm sending the Amazon link anyway, $1.18 almost buys a coffee at the corner store.
Amazon does not manufacture printers. Sot than being an HP VAR who only sell printers.
I will warn you of this, Trying to make a $1.18 is seen as a slap in the face by most clients. This guy is selling me consulting services for $500 on a printer then he tries to make $1.18 out of me by sneaking it into an affiliate link? That would piss me off.
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@scottalanmiller said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
@guyinpv said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
It's a car salesmen JOB to earn commission, it's their bread and butter, it's what they DO.
Exactly, just like you. They are Chevy affiliates. They don't "have" to sell a car, but they only get paid when they do.
Wrong. It's NOT my "job" to sell affiliate things. It's my job to do what a client wants. Period.
If you cannot get past this concept, we're done. Affiliates links don't make me beholden to a company in the least, not whatsoever. Why in the living hell would I bend over backwards for the $20 affiliate and screw over the $500 from the client by giving them twisted advice?
My only goal is do good for the client. I want their business, I want their repeat business, I want their recommendations and word of mouth, I want their good testimonial, and I want my solutions to work over and above their expectations.I don't give a two-bit rats behind what an affiliate thinks about anything. So no, I don't work for them.
You keep suggesting that "making money" from a client is the exact same thing as "making money from affiliate" and therefore I have to be working for two people. Wrong again. Affiliates don't direct me, hire me, tell me what they want, have budget restrictions, goals about what it means for the job to be completed correctly. I don't consult them when someone hires me, I don't go download brochures about how best to up-sell them, they don't hold my hand in trying to convince customers to buy their stuff. They literally have zero to do with anything in my client relations.
They have zero say in the final analysis. I don't send them the estimates and invoices, they don't send me anything. If their product happens to be the right solution, then a bonus is there.
@scottalanmiller said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
I think that you answered the issue yourself, if you really step back and look at the thread. I had asked if you felt that your customers would feel that you acted unethically towards them if they found out. Do you feel that you can treat it as ethical in a case where you are hiding something that your customers would find (you think) is a breach of ethics if they had known the business model ahead of time?
Bottom line, that means that you are not providing to them what they think that they are paying you to do. I think that that is where the question of ethics ends. If you tell them up front, we know it is ethical. If you don't tell them up front, I think everyone involved from the customer to you knows, deep down, that it is not ethical. Not like murderous unethical, but not clear conscious ethical, for sure.
This conversation is partially about ethics but it's also about business models. Having an affiliate link to one product does NOT necessarily turn my entire business into the "THAT THING VAR COMPANY" where I go around trying to force everybody to use that product only because that tiny payout is just so alluring I can't help myself.
As mentioned earlier, people like me who are generalists kind of have to do everything. So for sure I don't call myself purely a consultant, nor purely a VAR. The very word "solutions" is in my company name in face. But AS a generalist, I do offer "consulting" as a line-item offering. Perhaps you would argue this is impossible??
What if, in the event I am hired as a consultant, I simply go into it with no thought of affiliates? In other words don't use them, if it's pure consulting they want? My suggestions can't be biased if I know there won't be bonuses.One thing I never thought to call myself is a reseller or VAR. In fact I don't think "resell" is the same as affiliate at all. I used to work for an IT shop who did reselling, they just quoted people products from Newegg with a 20% markup, kind of pathetic really.
If I truly wanted to be a VAR I would go all-in with any number of vendors with their maximum payout programs as well as become an expert on their stuff.
