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

Working from my virtual home office is the best thing I have ever done for myself and my family. However, not everyone feels that way. There are some virtual workers that need the everyday office drama and feel somewhat isolated from the day to day grind of the traditional brick and mortar job.

I personally have more interaction with people working from my home office than I would if I worked outside of the home. By working virtually, I am able to pick and choose my working relationships. In a traditional office, I would be required to interact with everyone.

It seems that business is really heating up and I am keeping plenty busy to meet the demands and needs of my growing business.    I have been working 50-60 hours each week lately.   While that can be overwhelming at times, the convenience of my home office makes the long hours more comfortable and less stressful.   

I am thankful for each and every day from my home office!  Hopefully, you are achieving that same level of satisfaction in your career.

Hard to believe that we just started another new year with renewed visions and renewed goals.     We also need a strategic plan to reach each of those goals.    Deciding to increase your 2011 earnings is certainly a worthy goal, but how will you reach that goal?   Are you ready to market more aggressively?  Are you prepared to full embrace your work at home environment?  

If you need help along the way, please do not hesitate to contact us directly.  Our book and our webinar series will certainly accelerate your success!

We are pleased to announce our upcoming certification webinar series.  This exciting webinar series will jump start your work-at-home journey and prepare you for your work-at-home journey. This six week course will allow you to embrace the work at home office environment; and therefore, increase your home office productivity and success rates.  For more information, please review our website.

As we approach the holiday season, I have developed a list of projects to accomplish during the holiday lull.   The holidays can be a great time for catching up on long term projects.    My home office may be filled with holiday cheer, but I know that underneath it all, I must remain focused and driven.

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.

As this year closes, I will be renewing my home owner’s insurance for another year.  As part of that process, I will be reviewing my insurance coverage to make certain that my policies continue to meet the needs of my growing home based business and virtual office.   

I also use this time of year to create a new home office inventory with a list of all business assets and serial numbers.   In the event of a loss, I can quickly and easily calculate home office losses in working with my insurance agent.

If you have questions regarding your virtual home office and your related insurance coverage, you may wish to re-read Chapter 12 regarding Business Insurance for a quick refresher.

While working from home, it is very very important to back-up your files. I find this topic one that has hit home recently. My husband’s personal computer crashed this week and he lost all data stored. His data was important since it housed all of our financial information. Since working from your virtual office is your main source of income, it is high priority to schedule time to back-up your computer files.

Some telecommuters complete this task weekly and others once per month. It does not really matter when you back-up files for your virtual business, but think about the position you would be in today if you lost your entire computer and all data and how easily you can avoid that situation.

Insurance is such an important factor in working from a virtual home office. We have to have insurance for everything from our health, cars, home and even working from home. I don’t know about you but I have invested a large portion of my income in software, computers and generally all equipment in my virtual home office.

Mention your working environment to your insurance agent to verify you are fully covered in the event something happens to your home. Prepare for catastrophic events by taking out an added insurance binder to protect your working investment. Always prepare for the unknown.

When working from home, do you need business cards? I would say yes. I can’t say how many times someone will ask me. “You work from home, what do you do?” Times like this, I like to give out business cards.

It gives all the pertinent information about my job, website information – as well as advertises the company I work for. This is a great business tool for creating business in your community.