Re: Long-distance contracts

[Bill Brucksch <bbruck -at- HALCYON -dot- COM>]

Greetings, all

Just want to add to the discussion of long-distance contracts, if I may.

I'm writing because I want to figure out how to best deal with a manager's
questions around telecommuting. Thought for starters I'd share my success
stories, such as they are, and go from there.

All my work has included some face-to-face contact, i.e., working in the
same general location as the customer. I started working as a tech writer
as a sub-contractor to a technical marketing communications firm. They did
all their work off-site, so the precedent was already established. No one
to convince. But what I did was make sure that my work was as good as
possible and that I met all deadlines. So far, so good.

Then I started shopping around the contract agencies in the area. Got work
through one of them. When I first met with the manager, I told him that I
preferred to work off site whenever possible. He said that his team all
worked on site, and I agreed to do so.

But my first day of work there, he said they were having problems with
office space, and would I mind working from home for two weeks or so. A
fortunate break...then, in those two weeks, he had a crisis; he needed
something edited ASAP. I turned the work around to him within the hour, and
he was pleased with it.

Over the course of working for him in the next six months, sometimes I'd
work from home a week at a time, sometimes I was on site all week. It
depended on the type of work, who I needed to speak with, etc. Whenever the
opportunity came up, I was sure to tell him about how much more productive
I was at home (which I figured at 30%).

What seemed to work for me was the fact that telecommuting was less
draining on their resources, I established my credibility early in the
process, that I met all deadlines, and that the job was getting done.

Bill Brucksch

----------
> From: John Posada <JOHN -dot- POSADA -at- EY -dot- COM>
> To: TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU
> Subject: Re: Long-distance contracts
> Date: Monday, June 23, 1997 12:33 PM
>
> >>But I'm not sure if the reason is because they know it won't
> work, and that successes are the exceptions. There are plenty
> of web sites with documented/researched successes (e.g., Yahoo<<
>
> The manager's that are so web-familiar that they would use it for the
research
> are the easy ones to convince, and in the minority.  It's the majority of
the
> managers that are electronic-phobic (maybe too strong of a word) are
still the
> majority of those out there.  Those are the ones that need to be
convinced.
>
> >> telework, telecommute), and not many with documented failures. This,
>
> How many people are going to voluntaritly document their failures?
>
> >>As to hints, procedures, and processes, anyone interested might join
> the t-telcom mailing list (To: listserv -at- twh -dot- msn -dot- sub -dot- org Message:
> SUBSCRIBE t-telcom) and "ask around." (Those web sites I<<
>
> I was subscribed, fairly low activity.  If you are going to be successful
in
> convincing your management to let you telecommute, or convince your
customers
> to let you work for them long-distance, it's going to take more than "I
don't
> understand...I have all the tools" It's going to take creative selling,
just
> like anything else.
>
> John Posada
> Ernst & Young
> john -dot- posada -at- ey -dot- com
>
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