Web Worker Daily

Say you’re a web worker doing tech support off the beaten Google map. You work in a cubicle answering the phone all day (or night), maybe teaching newbies how to handle calls because you’ve been on the team the longest. But you dream of something different — a chance to leave that cube, to travel, work on new things every day, be your own boss. How do you get from here to there?

Shane Bell figured out how, and he thinks there’s plenty of room for others to use his secret weapon too. It’s OnForce, a service like Best Buy’s Geek Squad, that matches buyers of on-site technical support with the technical pros who can do the work. As ZDNet described it, “Not only is it very Priceline-esque in the way it operates (I have this job that needs to be done and here’s what I’ll pay for it), it also serves the market of buyers that need IT services and need them now (like, within the next few to 24 hours).”

Three years ago, Bell, who lives in Midland, Texas (yes, the home of President George W. Bush), was teaching DSL to other tech support people from a cube. He signed up as a provider with OnForce, focusing on break-fix work. Now his company, iTechWest, handles desktop repairs, server work, TV installation, point-of-sale, “a little of everything.”

In 2006, he generated $54,000 through OnForce. This year, by mid-June, he was sitting at $64,500. That doesn’t count the 10 percent paid to OnForce for each job. (The buyer pays $11 on each job posted.) Nor does it count the billings generated by the other five people he’s added to his company. Bell estimates that OnForce generates between 80 and 90 percent of iTechWest’s business. A yellow pages ad generates additional job leads.

A lot of that work is done on the road — requested by clients doing rollouts in multiple locations. (This interview took place while he was working on a Cisco wireless installation in Round Rock, outside of Austin, for a company that expects to continue using his services for many months to come.)

When he or a member of his crew doesn’t know how to tackle a particular kind of work, the larger clients will oftentimes provide training.

Which leads to Bell’s first piece of advice for others who want to go this route: “The relationships you build are how you get further and more profitable work orders. The project I’m on here, they found us on OnForce. Got to know us. Asked us about doing other stuff.” He estimates that nine out of 10 work orders are routed directly to somebody on his team through OnForce because the buyers already know them.

That leads to the second bit of advice: Whenever he travels for a job, he updates his location in the OnForce system to monitor for new work he can pick up in his spare hours. That also lets existing clients know he’s in a given area and can handle additional work for them.

Third, Bell said, make sure you have tech experience and “great people skills.”

Fourth, be willing to go after lower-paying work. “Not every work order is going to be $150 or $200,” he said. “Be willing to do those $40 work orders. In the long run it pays off.”

“We didn’t do POSs. We didn’t mess with credit card reading machines or wireless systems,” said Bell. “This is a great way to keep up to date on technology…[Great for] those guys thinking about starting a side business — to do something to keep them scintillated.”

What’s your success story for generating work through the web?