GC>  When you hire new employees, do you interview them 
 GC> in person or just via email and phone?  Do you 
 
So far my partner has taken care of all of that.  He does travel to the place 
to meet people face to face.  He puts together contracts,  If he decides a 
person is worth going ahead with, he does the contract in several stages, 
sending a preliminary to the person asking if they think its fair, so that 
the person has contact with me.  I talk to the person over the phone.  
Between us we decide if the person is going to work out.  If not the contract 
becomes something no one will agree to, and they don't going us.  We have had 
only one person that my partner fired outright, and we currently have one who 
we wouldn't be sorry to lose (but he isn't bad enough to fire - we just 
wouldn't weep if he quit)  The main thing is to set it up in such a way that 
they're working for themselves to eliminate the need for the "boss over your 
shoulder" set up.
 
 GC> require that all the staff use certain programs to 
 GC> eliminate incompatibility (ie. Wordperfect vs 
 GC> Word)?  How do you maintain a central number where 
 
Yes, they must use the same programmes we use (even if they hate Word) for 
compatibility.  If they don't have the programmes, we supply them.
 
 GC> Word)?  How do you maintain a central number where 
 GC> clients can call to order?  Can they call a central 
 GC> answering service and then be call forwarded to 
 GC> your home?
Our business number is in the phone book, and the 800 number is available 
through directory, plus our phone numbers are on all of our ads and 
stationary.  The phone numbers are call forwarded either to my home office, 
or to the answering service after office hours (9 to 5, Monday to Friday, 
Pacific Time)  If I'm on the phone the call automatically goes to the 
answering service who take a message and fax it to me.  Usually when I put 
the phone down there are three messages waiting for me to answer.  People 
rarely get through to me directly after that first call in the morning - 
often not then because the messages taken over night are waiting for me when 
I walk into the office, and I start by picking up the phone to answer them.  
The answering service can transfer calls to my home, but since the reason a 
call went to them during office hours was because I was on the phone (so our 
clients never get a busy signal) there's not much point in trying.  Once in a 
while they'll feel the need to put a client through to me after hours, or 
feel the need to keep trying me until they can get through.  They're pretty 
good that way - they've never yet transfered a frivolous call, and they have 
been able to detect a personal call and put it through to me when there was a 
personal problem.  Most of the orders are done by the people on site, and the 
applications are then faxed to me to process.
--- Maximus 2.01wb
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