Mixergy, Sara Sutton Fell Legitimizing One (Telecommuting) Company At A Time

Mixergy, Sara Sutton Fellof FlexJobs

Our Mission: To be the most trusted, overall best job site for telecommuting, freelance, and online jobs!

FlexJobs not only walks the walk and talks the talk (our staff all work from home), but we also spread the love to help others do the same! Our site serves up only the “best of the best”, hand-screened, legitimate job opportunities for our users.

Anyone who’s ever looked for a work from home or telecommute job knows how much junk is out there, and it can take seemingly endless — and frustrating — hours to sort through which ones are just scams, ads, or or too-good-to-be-true business opportunities and which ones are really great jobs. So let our trained staff do the extensive, painstaking, and ever-important (due to aggressive online job scams and frauds) research for you!

• (07 min. ) When choosing a company to handle something critical for your business you have a couple choices choose well:

1. 1. A small up and coming company – be cautious that they aren’t trying to grow to quick and don’t have the people to handle all the business and end up with a crappy product
   2. A large reputable company – You may end of as a small fish in a big pond with little real interest in your product
   3. Contractors – Maybe the best of both worlds if you can find the right people.  A small group of contractors allows you to create a relationship and have input in what they are doing.

• (10 min.) Chicken or the egg problem that most companies face, when starting JobDirect they chose trying to get the job seeker first.  She felt she understood that user better, being a recent college graduate herself.  The method they chose was a bus tour they travelled the country to colleges getting students to sign up for email services and created relationships with career centers.  Sponsorship on the bus helped pay expenses during that time, yet purchasing multiple buses proved expensive.

• Understanding your audience is key to any business

• (29 min.) FlexJobs reached a point when their business model wasn’t working (charging employers) so they made a tough decision to flip the model and charge the job seeker but provide quality telecommuting companies.  They pride themselves on shielding the job seeker from the spammers and scammers, which is very prevalent in the telecommuting industry.  Adding the Better Business logo, having a money back guarantee and a 800 number along with getting reputable press helped prove integrity.

• (36 min) How did you get the press, let’s be honest your business isn’t too sexy?  They do all the leg work out in creating relationships, Haro (help a reporter out), being on the homepage of Yahoo!, reaching out to anyone associated to a news channels.  The entrepreneur story can also be very compelling.

• (46 min.) Everyone that works for FlexJobs is a telecommuter and when asked how do you balance life (mom vs. career)?  Sara comments that she has daycare but can see the kids whenever she wants, her office is separate from the house and stays disciplined to the work at hand.

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