Melissa Rich Author – Your Virtual Home Office Can Be a Reality!

Working from your virtual home office is a huge responsibility since you are solely responsible for your home business. Here are a few mistakes that you can avoid:

• Business hours-determine your set working hours or business hours before you begin working. This will alleviate problems separating working hours from family time.
• Rates-set your hourly rate or prices when you start working from home. Never agree to work for someone without a contract in place. This takes the awkward out of a business transaction. After all working from your virtual home office is your paycheck and you want to handle business transactions accordingly.
• Advertise-working from your virtual home office requires you to be the sole proprietor and responsible for adverting your work from home business or career. Never make the mistake of thinking that customers or clients are going to just come to you. Advertise-whether it is joining your local chamber of commerce or supporting your local soccer team-get your name and business out there to provide you with long term success working from your virtual home office.

Failing to plan and maintain scheduled tasks for a profitable home business can hinder success. Take the time to set up guidelines for your business to allow a lifestyle that provides balance between business and family. If you need ideas on a successful work from home business-check out Melissa’s book “Your Virtual Home office can be a Reality!”

Planning your work from home job is almost more important that a brick and mortar job. Usually if you go to a building to work, the schedule is provided for you. If you work from your virtual home office, you are required to fill your weekly work schedule. Plan weekly for work and projects in place and then make plans for future work.

Careful planning will make or break you in the virtual world. With the Virtual worker, work can be feast or famine. If you need help planning. check out Melissa’s book- “Your Virtual Home Office can be a Reality”

Working from home has many perks but it does not have the automatic support system offered from working the traditional brick and mortar job. I have a large support system of co workers and other contacts that are in my field that are also working from home. Social sites such as Linked in Facebook and Plaxo are great sites for keeping in touch with business contacts.

Business friends and acquaintances are great to have when you are in need of someone to bounce new business ideas off of or just need someone to hear about your day. Whether people are sitting in the desk next to you or 1,000 miles away, they can still make a big difference in your day.

I am sure everyone has heard the recent news on the budget cuts and jobs that are being eliminated in the teaching industry. Several teachers that I have talked with are seeking new directions and thinking of working from home.

Many have asked me how can I get started working from my home-based office. I always tell them to take their current skill set and start looking for work. If you want to continue in the education field, look for on-line teachers or colleges that offer courses for telecommuting.

Maybe you have other skills such as accounting or planning. Put together a plan for a home-based business doing something you love. I have a relative that bakes specialty cakes as a side business and is pursuing this full time in the event her position as a teacher is eliminated.

I believe things truly happen for a reason and if you are in the education field or any other position that is experiencing job cuts, think about working from your virtual home office.

If you need assistance with your work from home journey, Contact us at YVHO-“Your Virtual Home Office Can be a Reality”.

I talk about this subject since it is a lesson I am teaching my adult children. My son is seeking a job and has been taken in by all of the scams and ads that stated “ Apply here and earn $1,000 per week”. There are so many scammers out there looking for innocent people seeking to better themselves with a job. Don’t be fooled by the ads. When looking for jobs, steer clear of ads that just seem too good to be true.

Check out the job boards and always check out companies with organizations such as the BBB. Working in your virtual home office is truly a blessing and should not leave you with a sour taste in your mouth.

When working from home, you might find that the workload is not always steady. You will find times of feast and times of famine. When I started out working from my virtual home office, I decided I would dedicate a percentage of my paycheck to be put in a special savings account each month to use when business was slow. It is nice to know you have a back-up income source when the need arises.

Working from home requires more virus protection since working from home in your virtual office is your livelihood. You are the sole provider of your empire including all necessities such as virus protection and need to make sure you are fully covered. There are many kinds of protection out there. I personally use Avast. Avast is free to the home user and offers all of the same bells as whistles as McAfee and Norton.

Virus protection is very important to have working and up to date while working from a virtual environment since it is not only your work but keeps the your working information secure. If you lose your computer due to a virus or leak of information by an unauthorized outside source, you could be without your working tools for days or weeks. Prepare for the unknown. Murphy’s law states” Anything can go wrong, will go wrong”. Take time to be prepared and protect your family and virtual home office position.

I find this topic amusing. You hear about people that work from home in their pajamas and house shoes, but I cannot see my self as motivated if I crawl out of bed in the morning and start work. My day starts as any job would.  I get up at a set time, take a shower and get dressed in appropriate clothing for working from home and start my work day.

Motivation is different for everyone. My motivation is treating my work from home position just like a job that I would leave my home to go to the office.  The only difference is my commute time. The only traffic jam I encounter is the dog lying across the hallway to my virtual office.

There are 2 different types of job classifications for working from home. One is the employee or w-2 worker and then there is the IC or Independent Contractor. Why would you want to be an Independent Contractor? The pluses to being an IC are the flexibility to work when and where you want to. You are in control of your hours and how much you want to work.

You can also decide if you would like to work for multiple companies or if you would like to contract with a company and then outsource your work to someone else.

The downside to being a contractor is that when you are not working in your virtual home office, you are not getting paid. Contractor status can be feast or famine.  Learning to budget for the lean times is beneficial for budget stability.

They say you are never too old to learn something new. I truly agree with that statement. I cannot say enough how much I have learned from my wonderful boss. She has taught me so much on different software programs and techniques. I have also taken online courses to boost my knowledge base on different programs.

Every local community college offers classes that are beneficial to those of us who work on the computer from home. You can boost your business offerings by creating your own website or learning how to do search engine optimization. The possibilities are endless and so is the availability of continuing education.