Susan Abbott, Abbott Research & Consulting
To Susan Abbott, founder of Abbott Research & Consulting – a virtual market research firm, human relationships trump everything else when it comes to choosing virtual team mates. “I have to like and trust a person… if I can’t find people I like – I don’t bid”. Susan doesn’t ask partners to sign a non-compete, “because if I feel I need to, it’s a sign that this is the wrong person.” She seeks people who have complementary skills with some overlap, so they can cover for each other when necessary.
FINDING THE RIGHT PARTNERS
“You need to find partners who share your valuesand it is really important to talk about these values up front.” For example, Susan is an economic-traveler and is careful how she spends her client’s money, which can be a point of friction when working with someone who desires classier accommodations. Once a project is underway, she never ups its price; “I will kill myself to deliver at that number”, while others do this routinely. When working with a new person Susan invests time in learning about them and building the relationship, usually on a smaller project. “I want to know the type of work they enjoy and what they are really good at.”
On a larger project, client coordination can be a challenge. “I have learned the hard way how important it is to be clear on who can make changes”.
NOT EVERYONE HAS THE HUNTER-GATHERER INSTINCT THAT BRINGS IN BUSINESS
Another area of challenge is sharing the business development. “Not everyone has the hunter-gatherer instinct when it comes to finding business, and you just need to accept this. Some partners are great at doing the work but not good at finding it.” It is helpful if you can talk openly about how to split the compensation. “Did I close the sale? How much time did I spend on the proposal? Did I have to use my partner’s resume to get the business?” There is no simple formula because there are so many aspects to selling and executing on a project.
YOU NEED AN EASY WAY TO SHARE STATUS AND INFORMATION
Susan uses basic technology to run her operation. On larger projects, she says “My chief learning is if you don’t have some other way beside e-mail to coordinate you will go nuts”. Several years ago she invested thousands in collaboration technology; today she is happy with BaseCamp – a software as service application, which costs $50/mo. http://basecamphq.com/ She also uses “Doodle” http://www.doodle.com/ to coordinate meetings. It saves her a lot of time when team mates understand how to work with MS Office templates. When people don’t it is easier for them to just send her plain text and she will handle the formatting. “As the project leader I always tell people what I need, when I need it, and in what format. I try to build time into the schedule to fix anything I do not like before sending the deliverable to the client (e.g., Tuesday deadline for a Friday deliverable).”
Overall, running a virtual company has worked very well for Susan. It’s given her the chance to get to know some great people.
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