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I'm all for helping newbies, but if it is a subject in which you have no knowledge it's always better to not even post, there is already way to much misinformation being posted in forums nowadays.
"Trustno1, you're wrong. The ads are triggered by the surfer choosing to visit a site on the advertiser's wishlist, which is made up of his competitor's sites together with a generic list of URL's relevant to the industry. It has absolutely nothing to do with keywords."
Misinformation
Wellzy...I hope you take your kids out for a nice big dinner come tax time ;) - Dave
Dave - They take me out at tax time! ;)
I'm sure you'll equally as horrified to learn that I pay people to pump my sump, sizzle my quarter pounder, arrange a bouquet of flowers, pull my cracked tooth, clean my house, and suss out my payments to the IRS.
But you don't choose how much they get paid, do you?
If you decide they aren't being paid enough, you can give your custom to an employer which gives those employees a better deal.
However, you do choose how much your employees get paid, Labyrinth, and by your own admission, you choose to pay them a sum, for which you would never work.
That's not the basis for employment, sean, that's the basis for rampant exploitation.
Are we to meekly accept that it's impossible to run a business and pay employees a sum equal to the value they create? >;->
However, you do choose how much your employees get paid
Bad assumption, buckaroo. Contractors set their own prices.
Labyrinth, and by your own admission, you choose to pay them a sum, for which you would never work.
That part's absolutely true. But then again, I'm very expensive.
Let's say I earn 3-digits per hour as a jack-of-many-trades, but have a growing need for more data entry. Should I pay data entry people triple-digits per hour? Or can I avoid being a bad person by paying them fifty percent more than the going rate, even though I no longer get out of bed for that kind of money? Shouldn't there be plenty of room here for a win-win situation?
I simply can't square it with my conscience to take on an employee and pay them less than the value they create. Obviously an allowance has to be made for the fact that doing that work within the incubator of a company allows the work itself to become more valuable (by being part of a sum of parts) - but I wouldn't want to cream off in profit value that the employee had generated.
This is why companies give out bonuses, isn't it? To assuage their guilt about the fact that most of the time they're ripping off the employees (oh, and to keep the employees thinking that they're on a really good deal if they keep working hard). If a fair wage was being paid in the first place, I doubt there would be much of a margin for bonuses.
Perhaps for me a non-hierarchical partnership, revenue sharing proportional to results would be the best system.
I hate pyramids. >;->
Labyrinth> Ah I see. They're not your employees then. My mistake, I should have read your first post more carefully.
If you're in business for yourself and you want to make as much money as possible then you need greed and selfishness. If you don't have these qualities, the people that do will rape you and your tree hugging colleagues for every cent, then laugh when you go bust. This is business, dog eat dog.
Why not join a religious or community/social program if you feel like that, or work for a non-profit? Or become a doctor, or a teacher.
If I pay someone to do a job for me and they agree a rate that's lower than might be fair, more fool them. That's good negotiation, not explotation. If they're not happy with the deal, they need to say something - if they can't, they're not going to last long in any business, mine or anyone else's.
I simply can't square it with my conscience to take on an employee and pay them less than the value they create.
And this statement points to another assumption on your part, ronin. Paying someone less than I am willing to work for does NOT automatically equate to paying them less than the value they create.
The fact is that not all skill-sets are created equal. The prop guy does not get paid the same as the mega-star -- that does NOT mean that the prop guy is being exploited.
If you're in business for yourself and you want to make as much money as possible then you need greed and selfishness.
I'll grant you that it's easier to make more money when you cast ethics aside, but if you're smarter than the average bear, it's not a requirement to do so.
I think you should proceed by asking more accurate questions, then you might not get surprised at the responses.
I replied to you further down. The comments above were not related.
"The prop guy does not get paid the same as the mega-star..." I don't understand this. Did you think I was proposing equal pay for everyone? You've lost me.
Michael Anthony> I'm not sure that your comments are even relevant to the discussion, but you seem very competitive, well done.
Does anyone here have employees on a pay-per-productivity basis and if so how do you evaluate the level of productivity?
Did you think I was proposing equal pay for everyone?
I'm not really sure what you were proposing... just that you assumed that if I paid someone less than I was willing to take as a salary that I was paying them unfairly. I believe "revolting" was your exact choice of words.
I replied to you further down. The comments above were not related.
Fair enough.
I've still got an issue with all these "I won't take advantage of anyone for my own gain" posts though :)
It really comes down to, is that person willing to work for that amount of pay.
As for this "green hippy outlook" vs. "greed, win at all costs outlook" - I choose to do business from a keep-everyone happy point of view. Why would a contractor or employee want to work with you if you were greedy/evil anyways?
Getting back to the discussion from the beginning - I think several of the things you have to keep in mind is:
a) when you hire someone, you have to spend time with them (ie. communication, follow-ups, pre-planning work) and thus you don't want to spread yourself too thing. To combat this, i work with IT project managers that take a load off me to do some of the things i could do myself but would rather not cuz i'd rather focus on the "higher picture" type stuff
b) only expand the amount of people working for you when you are ready. You don't want to pay out too much upfront, even if you have the savings for it, if you're not going to maximize the work they do for you in a short amount of time.
c) always go out of your way to make your workers feel that they are appreciated - saying "thank you" and "you're doing a great job!" goes a long way. Bonuses, gifts, and throwing Christmas/other parties for them always work too :)
d) I'm planning on creating a yearly retreat for everyone that I work with, including partners, friends etc... This type of thing really brings all the teleworkers together and gives them a sense of community...much like WW I would think
Let's face facts if your making more than 8k a month and can afford to start bringing people on, even part time, your probably in the top 5% or better.
That person working for you has the opportunity to work closely with a very rare and talented person and would be a complete idiot if they didn't take advantage of that.
Also I have a feeling mfishy and michaelanthony are probably in the top 2% and probably better so dissing on these guys isn't exactly smart either unless you make more and know more than they do.
pflyers - welcome to webmasterworld. I like you lots already!
We should stop the game of who earns more and focus on how everybody can make more imho.
