Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?
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@guyinpv said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
To NOT sign up for the free affiliate program seems to me like throwing away money for some sense of business or moral purity. I can understand if that is a top concern. I don't know if it's really all that concerting for clients one way or the other.
On no, absolutely, TONS of customers actively want you to do that. Not the CEOs or owners, mind you, but the IT guy looking to get something for nothing or to hide the fact that he's running a little scam of his own. It's often desired. It's normally someone on the customer side looking to do something a bit grey and looking for a business that will help him out, wink wink nudge nudge.
If you are driving by money and willing to sacrifice some moral purity, absolutely, VARs make the money. And you can tell those customers whatever you want, they are suckers anyway. But you can't tell other consultants that you are a consultant and not a VAR, we all know how it works. This is how the vast majority of MSPs work, they are wolves in sheep's clothing, but the customers often figure this out and don't care because... well the SMB market isn't very smart and are easily to pull the wool over (wolf, sheep, metaphors...)
It's all what you are wanting to do. We aren't saying that you can't. What we are saying is that one action compromises the other.
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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?:
My opinion is that in most cases, especially independents like me, the small affiliates I get from my favorite products are a simple value add, or bonus, for me. I would be recommending the product anyway.
Maybe you feel that everyone is like you and able to 100% ignore the fact that you get money. But this is not even slightly mirrored in the real world. To the point that I don't even know where you could find an example of it.
Small time folk like me? I was raised with a good Christian work ethic. I'm not out to give anybody bad advice or trick people. If anything I'm guilty of charging too little, rounding down, and not adding any time for emails, phone calls, driving, or my own research into subjects.
I'm sorry that these are the only sorts of people you've rubbed shoulders with! Perhaps you've been to too many IT tech conventions!!
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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?:
@guyinpv said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
"sales pays to anti-consult" <--- Really? By offering an affiliate/commission system, the product automatically becomes the worst choice in all scenarios? It's very possible that the product BOTH fills the need perfectly, AND offers commission. Another non-sequitur.
Absolutely, it just means that the consulting is corrupted. It says nothing about the solution. You are making an implication that was not said.
But why would someone pay for fake consulting when they could have gotten straight sales for free?
This doesn't answer it.
If a particular product fits a particular need perfectly, the inclusion (or not) of an affiliate bonus changes nothing whatsoever. The best solution is the best solution.That's not how that works, you are applying the logic after the fact. You are asking to get paid to provide guidance but are not providing that guidance and instead just "hoping" that in any particular example case that the sales approach just happens to match the need. That's not at all the same thing.
You say "in a particular case", but no product does that 100% of the time, not even 50% of the time. So sure, every now and then a customer gets a good deal by chance. But what about the others?
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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?:
@guyinpv said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
My opinion is that in most cases, especially independents like me, the small affiliates I get from my favorite products are a simple value add, or bonus, for me. I would be recommending the product anyway.
Maybe you feel that everyone is like you and able to 100% ignore the fact that you get money. But this is not even slightly mirrored in the real world. To the point that I don't even know where you could find an example of it.
Small time folk like me? I was raised with a good Christian work ethic. I'm not out to give anybody bad advice or trick people. If anything I'm guilty of charging too little, rounding down, and not adding any time for emails, phone calls, driving, or my own research into subjects.
I'm sorry that these are the only sorts of people you've rubbed shoulders with! Perhaps you've been to too many IT tech conventions!!
I don't know where you find these IT people. I'm not saying that there isn't anyone, ever, anywhere that isn't able to maintain a low bias rating... I like to think that I am and being autism spectrum tends to make me almost manic about that fact... but I know that getting paid tends to bias me, especially when it means making the mortgage payment or not. But the more you make, the more you get used to having bias, too. But in the real world, go look at SW, every person getting consulting is getting screwed like you would not believe.
ANd we aren't talking small potatoes. We are often talking a few hundred dollars of consulting and tens of thousands in commissions.
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As an ITSP that doesn't do sales, effectively every customer that we get is in the position of having been scammed by the company before us. Every one. It's always a similar story... they sell this one product or just one or two, it's what they know. We paid them to give us advice, they sold us the one thing that they had.
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But it is little things.... like will you really put in the expected effort into researching new products and comparing them if you have a good one in the pocket already? I mean this happens to some degree even without commissions, it has to. But the bigger the commission, the stronger the urge not to have something new come along.
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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 said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
Do you sell it for the commission, or do you sell it anyway and a commission is just a bonus?
I don't see any problem with a little earned commission on selling things you already promote anyway. Just as long as those little commission benefits don't cloud your judgement about clients' needs.
How can it not?
And while you might not not allow it to cloud your judgement, as someone hiring you, I can't know that.
If my goal is to hire you as a consultant looking for the best option for me, it's in my best interest for you to only be getting paid by me and no one else (at least in relation to the products/project that I want your consultant opinion on).
Likewise, that partner is paying you to sell their product, rather than to listen to my needs. You cannot serve two masters. There is no way to "do right" by both, you have to pick. And one pays more than the other, and more consistently.
Affiliate commission is not a partnership. They don't call me, send me brochures, offer me vacation packages, send me to conferences and sales training etc. I don't even get a free T-shirt.
I just sign up for an affiliate of my own will, for products I already love and recommend a lot anyway. I never hear from them, there is no pressure from them to influence me at all. -
To some degree you can offset this by getting paid for EVERYTHING. Like Synology... if you also got commission for Drobo, ReadyNAS, ReadyDATA, Buffalo, etc. you could mitigate the commission effect to some degree....
But it would not mitigate the problem of telling a customer to either buy nothing at all or wanting to sell more than is necessarily needed. Only the problem of favouring one vendor over another. But it is something.
We used to do this with email... we knew that customers needed email and that we earned lots of money doing any on site install. So to even out that effect, we sold Office 365, Google Apps and Rackspace email. We resold every reasonable option that we could find, and passed no commissions on to anyway to mitigate that as well. We disclosed that and it was all above board and everything. Since then we dropped them all, but there are times when it makes sense... what customer doesn't need email? And there was no reasonable way that we would "oversell" since no customer would buy email twice, etc.
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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?:
Lastly, commissions are not the only thing can cloud someone's view. If the client is cheap and wants as fast as possible, you might be tempted to recommend products you are most familiar with and can work quickly with.
Yes, as long as you are disclosing that you are being offered money to act against the potential interests of the customer. But it's all on your shoulders to make it ethical.
This kind of sentence is what keeps bugging me.
No, how about I am acting exactly in the best interests of the client AND recommended the best solutions AND getting a small finder's fee?
Why is this impossible? Of course it's not impossible.
Sure the negative aspects of human nature may take over in many or even most all cases, but you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater here.
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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 said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
Do you sell it for the commission, or do you sell it anyway and a commission is just a bonus?
I don't see any problem with a little earned commission on selling things you already promote anyway. Just as long as those little commission benefits don't cloud your judgement about clients' needs.
How can it not?
And while you might not not allow it to cloud your judgement, as someone hiring you, I can't know that.
If my goal is to hire you as a consultant looking for the best option for me, it's in my best interest for you to only be getting paid by me and no one else (at least in relation to the products/project that I want your consultant opinion on).
Likewise, that partner is paying you to sell their product, rather than to listen to my needs. You cannot serve two masters. There is no way to "do right" by both, you have to pick. And one pays more than the other, and more consistently.
Affiliate commission is not a partnership. They don't call me, send me brochures, offer me vacation packages, send me to conferences and sales training etc. I don't even get a free T-shirt.
I just sign up for an affiliate of my own will, for products I already love and recommend a lot anyway. I never hear from them, there is no pressure from them to influence me at all.Some programs work that way. DO, Vultr, Linode for example. The payments are tiny, too. But it is very easy. A lot of things, like Ubiquiti, though, have HUGE requirements and you have to work super hard to be able to maintain your agreements. Every company is different.
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@guyinpv said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
Sure the negative aspects of human nature may take over in many or even most all cases, but you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater here.
Only if the baby is the commission. If the commission comes across as the baby, doesn't that show why we feel concern? If the commission is tiny, is it worth the conflict? If the money is big, then there is big conflict.
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@guyinpv said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
No, how about I am acting exactly in the best interests of the client AND recommended the best solutions AND getting a small finder's fee?
Why is this impossible? Of course it's not impossible.
What you are doing is going from the wrong direction. IF in a given situation these things all come together, sure. But what about all of the times when they don't? Your logic only works if you never get clients that don't match up like this. And how many do? Realistically, what product or even product category is so ubiquitous that you could do something like this?
I know for us, that getting paid to do cloud computing recommendations or storage like Synology... all of which we really like as vendors or ideas, would influence us in ways not beneficial to a large percentage of clients. I understand what you are saying, but having been in the consulting space for nearly two decades without being a reseller... I don't know what product I could pick to have the effect that you describe. Certainly nothing in the hosting or storage space.
The only things that we've found are antivirus and hosted email and the latter required four vendors to cover what we felt was necessary bases to remain above board. I would potentially agree with cloud VPS posting if you cover a number of bases, but we've declined to do that there as the questionability is too high with nearly zero payoff. We'd earn nothing but have to disclose it constantly.
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Something that seems to be missing is the stated fact of the selling of a thing and the recommendation of a thing.
These two acts should be done by two different entities. If both are done by the same, then the potential of bias to to great to be ethically bound to one side or the other.
Let me put this another way. If you are a reseller of servers, your companies goal should be to make as much money as possible selling servers - it does not matter if a the customer needs it or not, your goal is to sell it to them.
But, if your company is a consulting company, you goal is to sell the best recommendation of a solution to a customer.
Now here's a rub - How does NTG resolve the conflict between being a consulting company and an implementation/maintaining company? i.e. Scott is hired to build a network plan for a company, then Gene installs/configures those things that the customer bought from someone else, based on Scott's recommendation?
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@Dashrender said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
Now here's a rub - How does NTG resolve the conflict between being a consulting company and an implementation/maintaining company? i.e. Scott is hired to build a network plan for a company, then Gene installs/configures those things that the customer bought from someone else, based on Scott's recommendation?
To some degree, we don't. Although no one is commissioned off of sales of anything, including implementations, so that's one component of that. Another is that we simply point out that if we recommend lots of labour, that we obviously get those hours. Most people laugh because that is obvious. But, you know.
Generally you are correct, though, I don't do implementations so if I do a design it is separated. Customers can hire us for just one piece or the other, as well.
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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?:
Sure the negative aspects of human nature may take over in many or even most all cases, but you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater here.
Only if the baby is the commission. If the commission comes across as the baby, doesn't that show why we feel concern? If the commission is tiny, is it worth the conflict? If the money is big, then there is big conflict.
The baby is the consultant themselves. They can ONLY be a good consultant when there is zero monetary gain from recommending any particular solution. But if there IS gain from any particular solution, they become a CORRUPT consultant immediately.
You are unwilling to allow for someone to continue giving solid advice and solutions irregardless of affiliations.I'm suggesting there is a lot of reasons why a consultant might be biased, money is only one angle. Maybe they are just used to it. They work faster with it. The setup process is smoother. They have some kind of remote abilities. They find tech support easier to use.
All these create "bias" too. The best solution might actually be a product the consultant has never heard of yet. The best solution might be the one they avoid because it's too complex or requires too much of his time to train the client.
Bias is everywhere, but you are suggesting monetary bias is especially damning. But any of the above can lead to bad solutions too. -
@guyinpv said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
The baby is the consultant themselves. They can ONLY be a good consultant when there is zero monetary gain from recommending any particular solution. But if there IS gain from any particular solution, they become a CORRUPT consultant immediately.
Not quite... it's in intentionally choosing to be paid for the recommendation. It's not that they get paid, it is that they choose to get paid. If that makes sense. There is always bias, but there is strong bias that you seek out.
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@guyinpv said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
You are unwilling to allow for someone to continue giving solid advice and solutions irregardless of affiliations.
Pretty much, that's correct. Someone choosing to have money drive their actions, who then accepts money given for the express purpose of driving their actions in another way, will be influenced by that money. And doing sales under the guise of consulting is unethical.
That is correct, I feel that that is essentially black and white. If you consult for the purpose of making money, you can't not be swayed by someone giving you money for another purpose. The fact that this is your job makes you influenced by money.
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@guyinpv said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
I'm suggesting there is a lot of reasons why a consultant might be biased, money is only one angle.
DId you read my article on understanding bias? There are bias that are good, bias that are bad, bias that you can avoid, bias that you cannot. Consulting is about paying for good bias. Selling is about bad bias. If you intentionally introduce an unethical bias against the interest of the people who are paying you, that's a bad bias that could have been avoided.
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@guyinpv said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
Bias is everywhere, but you are suggesting monetary bias is especially damning. But any of the above can lead to bad solutions too.
Correct. Because in this situation....
- People are heavily influenced by money in general.
- The fact that you are paid to consult means you are affected by money specifically.
- The fact that you are willing to be paid to sell means you are affected by money more than if you were just a consultant. This only comes up as a concern at all because you are strongly influenced by the effect.
- It's an avoidable bias that doesn't need to exist. Some bias are unavoidable, this one is not. It's not unethical to like a product, but it is to take money from another party to mislead the first (even if you don't intend to.)
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Let me try a completely different tact. In talking to us about this, you feel one way because we are consultants. So we trigger one mental or emotional response.
Think of it this way, if you had a customer reading your logic on this thread, would you feel comfortable with that? Would you feel confident that they would agree with your logic and reasoning? Would you feel squirmish? Would you feel that you needed to amend what you had said?
It's totally up to you, of course. But imagine going into a client after making recommendation and finding out that they had read about your approach and that you were getting paid, even just a little, to sell whatever you had ended up recommending to them. Would you be happy that they read how much thought you put into it? Would you be upset and feel that you needed to explain?
