How do you manage remotely?
In FSB's story Managing remotely (and well), small business owner Ted Murphy successfully established a remote relationship with his business partner. How do you supervise your employees and business operations from out of the office?  What technology do you use? Have you established effective communication routines? Share your experiences!
From FSB Magazine Funny you mention that, Yadgyu. FORTUNE Small Business recently published an article about "The 4-Hour Work Week," which you can find here. While you're there, be sure to check out all our other How I Work features, too.
Best,
FSB
From Yadgyu, Harkeyville, TX I suggest that anyone thinking about managing remotely read "The 4-Hour Work Week" by Timothy Ferriss. This book gives great advice on how to reduce your workload and outsourcing services that can help you to run your business remotely.
From Dr.Osteo I just finished a one year trip on a motorcycle around Latin America and decided to move to Nicaragua after working in the US. I returned to work for my former employer a consulting company to the pharmaceutical industry located in California.
I set up an office in my new home in Managua where the key factor to make this relationship work was a high speed internet connection, a power generator (we have daily power cuts), laptop and VoIP phone.
The VoIP and email makes it cheap and easy to communicate on a daily basis with the office in the US. Every two weeks I submit a simple Microsoft Excel invoice for the hours worked. On the invoice I have to outline the activities done during those hours. The work deliverables, the time sheet/invoice and daily communications is all the company needs to see that I'm working.
Moving forward I'll add video conference capabilities, an extra internet line with a different provider and I'll start flying to the US on a regular basis.
Having worked from the HQ office 3 years was enough to established the necessary trust for the owners of the company to let me work from Nicaragua.
My best advice would be to hire people that you trust, which is especially important for people working remotely.
Here at PartnerUp, we have quite a few people who work on the coasts, despite the fact that we're headquartered in Minneapolis.
Our CEO has required that before we hire anyone who doesn't work at our headquarters location, he and the other key people on our management team have an opportunity to meet with the candidate, get to know them, ask questions, and decide whether they feel a sense of trust in the candidate.