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This was the cover story of the
Fall 1998 Work at Home Resources newsletter, written and
edited in its entirety by Stu Watson.
Enterprising Networkers
For Cynthia Tam, phone lines let her and two business partners work remotely to build a Web-based link between hungry San Diego office workers and nearby restaurants.
For San Francisco writer David Garfinkel, phone lines link him and four business acquaintances for twice-monthly meetings to set goals and solve problems.
Different enterprises, true, but similar in their use of phones, the Web and e-mail to create powerful networks.
Tam led the construction of LunchNet in 1997, reviving an idea first developed by partner and programming whiz Dean Rosenberg. Tam projects break-even revenues of $300,000 before LunchNet's second anniversary in the fall of 1999.
Garfinkel says his Master Mind group--two or more people sharing skills, training and experience to help each other succeed--has helped his business boost revenues by 53% in one year. It works, he says, because of the power of conference calling.
In each case, technology supports virtual networks. Tam came to her new business with an appreciation of long distance. For four years after moving to San Diego, she had used phone and fax to help manage 46 apartment units in Washington, D.C.
So when she approached Rosenberg about reviving his LunchNet idea, she knew she could do much of her marketing work from home. Rosenberg has T1 access to his house and the site's server. When he hires out programming, it too is done remotely.
The third link on the LunchNet, Ken Cohen advised Tam on the potential for e-commerce, and now manages the database for more than 60 restaurants from his home.
Corporate customers place orders online at www.lunchnet.com. Orders emerge from fax machines at restaurants.
"With the Web, we can distribute and change information with relative ease, and quickly," Tam says. "We use technology to do what we do quicker, to enhance productivity for us and our users, and to reduce costs to vendors."
As a home-based writer, Garfinkel had taken part in Master Mind groups for 10 years, but hadn't found the right fit until he met Terri Lonier, author of "Working Solo" and a corporate consultant on work-at-home matters. She lives in New Paltz, New York. They decided to form a virtual group. It now includes a newsletter editor in St. Louis, a financial adviser in Michigan, and a banking consultant in Minneapolis. They meet twice a month--by phone.
"We call in to a bridge line," Garfinkel says. "We're talking as if we're in the same room."
One member takes notes, then e-mails group members the goals they each have committed to achieving by the next meeting two weeks later.
"Meetings happen wherever and whenever, because the phone is such an easy communication tool," Lonier says. "The last meeting, I was in Hawaii. In the past, others have called from the lobby of a hotel or from an airport lounge."
Lonier says videoconferencing is probably next. She says it's important to see people if you're spending two hours a month with them.
Garfinkel says he gets three things from the long-distance collaboration: commited expert attention to his problems; peer support from other entrepreneurs; and better ideas quicker.
"I'm able to come up with more creative solutions in my own mind as a result of my association, the dialogue, the learning and observing how other people are doing it."
He says group members keep him from procrastinating, and that has definitely "accelerated my business."
"If we had to meet in person, this group would never have happened," Garfinkel says. "Thank God, we've got the ability to do this by telephone."