any advice

When I say outsource, I don't mean offshore. A local ISP was a business only IPS for years and only worked by himself. He branched into residential managed services but couldn't afford F/T staff. He started by finding an eager friend of his son's that was pretty good with network resolutions and had him work from home for call support. He would be called onsite as needed for piece work and now they have a staff of 46 who all work full time at great wages.

I recommend looking for an IT student or recent A+ grad and hiring him on a P/T or on-call basis. Even have hime/her in on Tues. and Thurs. until you have a stable revenue for two.

This way you are only paying the person when they are generating revenue and not to sit and wait for work. If you have the person in twice a week, you can sandbag work for when he/she is in the shop, that way you are always guaranteed they are working until you get busy enough to support F/T or don't need to save work.

Just remember, you will either need a handshake (under the table) agreement or else be prepared to start handlng taxes and premiums yourself, which you can leave for now until the employee is working more regularly. Students will jump at the arrangement as it will not mess up any training allowances they get.

Before everyone starts jumping on me for suggesting this,I will just say look around, it's a reality of modern times. (plus you can offer lower wages this way). {waiting for flame number two}

My opinion is you should contact your local High School or more importantly the computer department at the local community college or regular college. Here you will find eager people needing resume builders for part time work needing internship as they complete their studies wanting to learn the tricks of the trade. There really isnt much opprotunity when trying to get started. I got my first computer job at a local call center because of the community colleges recommendation and it was all about the hose and close not professionalism. Granted you will get odd people that might be unprofessional or some what unreliable but you can concentrate on your business while they do the mundane work freeing up you time and they will be easily replaceable. Benefits wont be an issue but you will have to be a MANAGER so you will have to practice your social skills with your employees learning to properly communicate when frustrated. As a perk allow them the ability to buy merchandise at cost rather than discount to avoid theft, just set limits to the amount of equipment per month to ensure they are not running a side business or supplying friends. After a while you will see the cream of the crop from the problem ones, but it will be frustrating. Good luck to you, I am glad to see some mom and pop business still around rather than corporate america.

I would start with a part time sales person in the shop to make sure that every thing runs well but at the same time not interfere with your already established reputation for repairs - service.

Again as others have suggested already you can contact your local school at whatever level you require if only for "Work Experience" as they call it over here and after you have had a few come through the doors you will get a very good idea on who is best to suit your present needs.

While I don't know about these schemes where you live over here the business who participate are paid for allowing these schools students into the place so if that is what happens where you are it will mean some money in your pocket for any inconvenience.

When you finally find some one to work part time which no doubt you already need I would follow the above recommendations about supplying product at cost as it works better than just a minor discount where the people feel ripped off by the "Rich Business Owner" which I'm sure none of us actually are because if we where we wouldn't be working in this field any more anyway.

Failing the "Work Experience" model if that isn't available where you are there will always be some ones son/daughter who will fit the bill and want to work if only for a short time to gain experience but there are draw backs in this area as well as these young kids tend to think they know it all and you being the "Dinosaur" that you are will only benefit from "their vast knowledge." But even this is great experience for you as a budding "Manager" as it will teach you "People Skills" which very few people actually have in the first place.

Then if all else fails you can always approach the local unemployment center to provide part time staff from the "Long Term Unemployed" as there are some great incentives for business to help train these people but again that will mean following the Laws to the letter about employing people in your area but with enough finical support it may prove useful as it will put you on the right track so you know exactly what to expect when you start employing people full time. However there are generally time limits on these schemes and you do not want to be perceived as using the system to your advantage by keeping the person there while you are reaping the rewards and then getting rid of them when the rewards cease and replace them with some one else who will bring in the money again if you do this for any length of time you will begin to rely on it and be running a "BAD BUSINESS" which can not support the staff that are necessary for its smooth operation. You will learn very fast if the person who you pick is right for the job and it is more a reflection on your self rather than the people who end up working for you as you where responsible for choosing them in the first place.

From my experience however once you start to employ people your time might be more freely available but the responsibility of keeping a job for those people is enormous and your take home money drops until you have expanded the business to the stage where it can support what ever number of employees that are working there and the "Paper Work only gets bigger" and more time consuming so you have even less time to go out and make the money that you originally started the business for in the first place.

I hope that is of some help to you.

Col

Are you in the US?

If so, you need to take a close look at labor laws and related issues before adding any staff.

Many a small company is not able to grow because of the costs of the first paid staff addition.

The main costs are liability and workman's comp insurance.
Depending on the laws in your state, you may need to start paying into the unemployment insurance pool.

The cost to add 4 or 5 workers are nearly the same as for adding 1 person.
That is why you see many small businesses make a sudden jump from family to a large paid staff.

The rules are usually a lot looser if your "staff" is family members.

Check with your lawyer.
You may need to either go in debt, or wait until you can't take on any more business even though you are putting in 100 hour weeks.

Chas

That when you do have some staff treat them like the asset that they are as good people are hard to find. That is provided that they are good to start with.

A tip here that is something that I've learned from experience while you need an accountant you should listen to what they say but never allow them to run the company as they only see things as what they cost and not what they bring in as income. Now this is a broad statement and I generally dislike making broad statements but here goes "Accountants seem to think of everything as easily replaceable and will tell you to carry as little stock/staff as possible as you can order it and have it within a few hours which of course you can't in some cases." They tend to think of everything as being easily replaceable and your reputation is not a thing of any value even though it is what is responsible for all of your work as it is something that can not be put on paper with a price beside it to most accountants it simply doesn't exist.

Absolutely never under any circumstances allow an accountant to follow up on outstanding accounts as they tend to display as much tact as Adolf Hitler did to the Jews in WW11. They may get the money but you will lose the customer which may not be a bad thing if it is only the one who is a consistent late payer but it is a entirely different story when several big accounts go south because of the actions that where taken in attempting to recover the debt. In large companies a 30 day account will just not work as they have several departments where the invoice has to go through to be finalized and this takes time. I can remember some Government work that I was once involved in we kept receiving checks for work done up to 18 months after we stopped working for that department.

I also can vividly remember an accountant telling us what a good job he had done in recovering an unpaid account which was only worth $100.00 he actually spent $500.00 to recover the original account. Now if I was in charge of the thing at the time I would just have let it slide as it didn't make economic sense to me to pay that much to recover far less than what you had to outlay to get the money paid to you even then the money was paid to us over a time period as ordered by the courts so it eventually ended up costing even more.

Of course if you have an accountant who understands how your business runs all of the above doesn't apply but if not be very careful in how you apply their advice as quite often they will end up sending you broke in an attempt to get paid for a small amount of outstanding money and lose you a lot of good customers into the bargain.

You have worked hard to build your business and you certainly do not need some stupid person ruin it in a very short time as any damage that is done by whoever takes a very long time to make good if it is possible at all.

Col

It would help to know where you are located as the employment rules change quite a bit.

You can hire qualified casual staff on an hourly basis provided you have a minimum or 3 or 4 hours work for them (check local laws on minimum payment periods for casuals), or you could sub contract some work.

recently I was studying full time to get extra qualifications and taking on casual work etc for extra money. I registered my own business name and set up shop as a sole trader. One thing I did do was to get extra work for othe sole traders or small businesses as a part-time tech sub-contractor. Now this can be risky as you have to sub-contract to someone who you can trust not to try and steal your client, something I never did but I have heard of others doing.

How it worked was that the other person either called me in to work in her premises or to go out to the client's site, I charged the client and issued a receipt on my own behalf at her rates and I used her parts and they were receipted from her receipt book.

Admittedly this required a high level of trust, but it allowed maximum flexibility and kept the overheads down, no parts paperwork for me, no staff salaries paperwork for her. It also allowed me a bit more freedom re billing costs, if I felt that the client could not afford the full cost I could under bill without getting into trouble. There were a few clients who preferred to have me do their work but all the work but accepted the main contractor if she turned up instead and all the work went through her. The only time one of her clients contacted me direct, got my details via his daughter talking to me son at school (talk about networking), I told him to call the main contractor.