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Someone in the private forums requested I post about having employees, so I’ll write a series of posts about my experience with my employees.

I want to go over a list of pros and cons about having employees, so let’s not waste time and just get to it!

Pros

• Getting Tasks Done – You pay your employees to get shit done. They know the job when you sign them on (if you’re a good manager), and even if its the most boring crap you could think to make a job for, if they don’t do it, you just pay someone else to do it! You can also hire people to do things you don’t know how to do. Keep yourself doing the thinking, give tasks you don’t want to do, don’t have enough time for, or can’t do it yourself to your employees.
• Teamwork – Affiliate marketing can be a lonely job, sometimes. I did it alone for about 2 years before I hired my first employee to work in my office. Let’s just say my social skills went down the crapper. They were never that good (if you met me at ASW, you might agree. I’m pretty shy). With a couple employees on my team now, we can chat a bit, talk about whats going down in BKK and just have someone to talk to.
• Extra Thinking – When you give your employees time to think about what they are doing, they can get pretty creative and give you some help with your own goals. The new guy I hired came from a more offline marketing background, and he has some great ideas to expand my business online, and eventually take it offline.
• Ability to work at home – Since most of our work is done on PCs and the Internet, if you are sick or just feeling like you need a personal day, you can let your employees work from home. Last Friday, I did this myself to keep some stress off me when I launched the forums.

Cons

• To Close For Comfort – Your employees have a chance to get very close, sometimes too close to the core of your business. It’s important you make them aware of what they are doing and how your business works. It is your job, though, to make sure they don’t know so much that they steal all your shit and make a business with your business. If you need to, hire someone you know that wants a job, not lead their own business. There are people out there that don’t want the risk of running there own business. I pay my employees a commission on top of their salary, and that’s my incentive to keep them in their jobs, and not stealing my stats (and oh yeah, I don’t let them touch my stats or go into my affiliate networks).

  Also, having them sign non-competes and non-disclosure agreements is key!

• Sick days/not showing up/etc – It sucks when your employees don’t show up when you really need something done. It means you have to find someone else to do it, and probably pay a contractor more, and they aren’t next to you so you can take them through the steps to get it done right. Of course, you can probably just keep your employee working at home. If they don’t just show them the back of your hand against their face! (JK, yo)
• Buddy Buddy – Because we don’t have traditional jobs where we run a big, traditional office style job, things can get a bit comfy. Your employees become friends, you go party together, and share some good times. They might start slacking a bit on their job. You’ve got to keep your employees in check. I run a lax office out of my condo, but I can’t stand it if someone thinks they can just slack on a job I give them during office hours. Just gotta let them know who’s boss, remind them what they’re working hours are, and that they can’t undermine you just because you are friends.

Got any pros or cons with your employees? Let them be known in the comments below or the forums!