When you want to find a certain shop for a certain company, which is the easiest way to find it? Do you have to log on 100 or so MS companies? or is there a faster way.? How do you do it?

A couple of times per year I go through all 200+ companies with whom I am signed up. I did this in late December when shops were beginning to post for 2011 and my next pass will probably be around the end of March. I take my time because I am not only looking in my own local area but also state wide and nationwide. The purpose of this exercise is to identify who is shopping whom--especially in situations where there is a location of the client in my area. I keep my spreadsheet of clients by who is shopping them. Where I find a company I am not currently working with has a client with a location in my area, I move their website to the bookmark of shops I check monthly in hopes the local client location will appear. And I am not above emailing a company telling them that a client they are shopping in other areas is opening a location near me and indicating an interest in performing the shop if they get the location.

All of this takes a lot of time. It is time I find well invested in my business. This year I have picked up one local client from the diligence and it would appear that I am the only local shopper that has figured it out since I got a begging email with a nice bonus for the location the other night. Unfortunately I couldn't help them because even if I am the only shopper around they still have rotation requirements.

But I know of a number of shoppers who also take the time to do this for themselves, which is, of course, one reason there is some reluctance to deliver the product of hours of research on a silver platter to others.

Thanks, Flash....valuable info...appreciate your info.

And I would encourage you every time you revisit the companies you are signed up with but not checking regularly to 'update' your profile, even if it is a super minor change (add a pound, reduce a pound as appropriate) just to let them know you are still shopping. Then if something shows up in your area they are more likely to contact you.

Im so confused but i just signed up with market force. New to everything. whats next?

Now that you are signed up with them, go to their job board and see if there are any jobs that look interesting. If you are signed up with the 'blue portal', when you click on "WebFC Select Shops" you will see shops available near you. Right now the board is loaded with "Banking" shops that require you have your tax return prepared. That may not be of interest. But you may see other jobs that may look interesting. Note the available dates and times, the fee they will pay for successful completion of the work and the reimbursement amount, if any. Once you see something that might look feasible, go to the far right and click on "Details/Select". This will take you to screening questions for basic qualification for the job. These will usually give you a good idea exactly who the client is. If you pass the screening questions you will get a very brief description of the job and available dates to accept the job. On some jobs there are additional steps before you can accept the job. Once the job is yours, you go to "Get Paperwork" where you can open and print the CPI (which you will need to sign, scan and upload with the shop) and get to the actual instructions for the job and a copy of the questions you will answer on the report.

Flash, those are some great ideas. The research and resulting familiarity with different MSC's and their clients is important - you bring up a great point!

I use Jobslinger Plus to help me find shops. They only aggregate the data for the MSC's on the Sassie platform, but I get a lot of shops through those companies, anyway; Jobslinger saves me having to check over 40 Sassie sites just to see if there are assignments available. Jobslinger has a powerful search tool and many other tools. It is awesome, a real timesaver. I used the trial for a month and saw the benefit. I was hooked, so got a subscription.

I wish there were similar services for MSC's which use the Shopmetrics and Prophet platforms. Anyone know of any?

Great info, thanks.

I thought I had a good system but Flash wow, spread sheets and everything. You have opened my eyes further... I never even thought of using them. I just had the companies I was with in different catagories rgarding how close the shops were to where I lived then sub catagorized regarding what style the shops were.

Regarding rotation when schedulers beg for us to complete shops most of the time their willing to over look rotation. In some cases they can't because the clients are sticklers. But when that's the case ask the scheduler if you can have another shopper ID thus Iluding (sorry for the bad spelling, I don't have an internet spell checker, I can't find a good one, any suggestions?) But back to the rotation.... I have two shopper ID's with Frontline because of rotation issues.

PMW - and the MSC is okay with this? That seems like it would be a violation, no?

LateRain - I have to echo your statement there! In my opinion, it's cheating the system and being dishonest. (creating multiple ID's) - Unless of course, the MSC okay'd it; which would be weird.

Last I read is MSC's were trying to STOP that practice because of how it was cheating.

Dunno.. hopefully PMW will explain.

I keep a spreadsheet as well of who shops who, how often they get shopped, rotation requirements, typical pay, pay schedule, do they bonus and login info.


This way when I get a random email from a scheduler I haven't heard from in awhile, I pull up the sheet and see if I will be paid this year to do the shop.

Shopping under different names, wow.....how can that be accepted...don't you then need different Soc.Sec., they know it's you through your SS. Sounds
like your building a maze and will have trouble once your discovered.