From The HIB…Home Job Market Looking Up
This article is from The Home Income Blog, a great resource for fresh, daily home job leads and income opportunities. Make sure to visit the HIB for more great information for the serious home-job seeker.
With national unemployment continuing to hover near 10%, more and more people are turning to look towards alternative income opportunities, including working from home. For many, the lure of being able to earn an income while eliminating the costs of commuting is especially enticing. Meanwhile, many others are attempting to juggle a family schedule, and the ability to have a flexible schedule is just as important.
Every day we hear of hundreds, even thousands of people showing up for a handful of openings at a new store opening, or office expansion. This trend is no different for the home-based positions. In fact, with many positions being open nationwide, we often see many more people turning out for a single job.
Home Job Market Improving
The good news is that while the job market has a long way to full recovery, we’re seeing big strides in the home-job market. The fact is, many companies are realizing the cost savings associated with outsourcing traditional jobs to home workers. Companies can cut expenses related to maintaining work environments. Sometimes they save on payroll by hiring home workers as independent contractors instead of employees, and sometimes pay a lower wage.
Job Seekers Must Be Persistent
Of course, all of this means that someone who is looking to work from home must make sure to remain persistent. There’s lots of competition for open jobs, making it important to do anything possible to get an advantage. Here’s a few steps every serious home-job seeker should take now to increase their chances for success:
- Be consistent. Spend time every day searching for home based jobs and applying.
- Update your resume. Tailor your resume for each job you apply to .
- Widen your horizons. Review your professional history, and try to increase the types of jobs for which you apply.
- Be careful. Don’t get scammed… be careful when replying to any work at home offer.
Above all else, don’t get discouraged. Make sure to stay positive, and don’t give up your job search. When you become one of the thousands of people employed as a home-worker, you’re hard work will all pay off!
From The HIB… Home Office Technology
This article is from The Home Income Blog, and is part of our series: “Home Office Technology” in which we examine the various technology pieces you’ll need in place to successfully manage your home-based career.
The telephone. Once upon a time this was a pretty simple solution — just using your local phone company to provide you with a land-line. Today, while this may still ultimately be your choice, you have many, many other options to sort through. There are so many options that you can now tailor-fit a solution that takes into account the needs of your job and the limits of your budget.
Types of phone lines
A land-line is of course your first option here. Still considered to be the highest quality option for phone service, the traditional land-line may very well fit your needs. Less affected by weather conditions, electrical issues or other problems that can wreak havoc on VOIP or digital lines, a land-line may in fact be required for your job. With a home office, you needn’t get a full-fledged business phone unless you have a need to be listed in the yellow pages, perhaps for a home based business. A simple residential 2nd line will work fine.
If a land-line isn’t required for your job, you might want to consider a VOIP line. VOIP lines use your high-speed internet connection to provide you with phone service for less then traditional phone company lines. VOIP services line Vonage work pretty seamlessly, allowing you to use all your regular phone equipment. You have a standard phone number, and often you can even transfer your existing number if you choose. Unlimited long distance, lots of user features and internet access to your voicemail are all great reasons to choose a VOIP line.
Another option may be a digital phone line through your cable company. These tend to be more expensive then the VOIP lines, but offer similar features. Plus, you can often get a great discounted rate on a cable digital line for the first 6-months or even a year. Just keep an eye out for promotions.
Features you need
These days there are lots of features that come with phone lines, some are trivial while others are essential for a successful home office. Here’s a few top features you will want to look for:
Voicemail. This can be important to your home office, and there are a few different systems. A lot of services have website access to your voicemail, so you can choose to listen to messages either over your phone or on your computer. Website access may also allow you to email a voicemail message to someone, or download and save it to your computer.
Forwarding. There are various forwarding options that can be helpful, including allowing you to forward calls to a mobile phone, set do-not-disturb hours, or route calls to a variety of phones in order or randomly. You may also be able to setup special answering rules based on caller id, allowing you to provide priority service to important clients.
Call Waiting. This is another pretty standard feature that’s been around for a long time. The simple ability to place a current conversation on hold to answer another incoming call is pretty much a must-have. However, new and enhanced systems now let you conference 2 or more calls together, forward calls to other phones, or even play hold-music while a call is on hold. Some of these new features may not be necessary for your situation, so don’t be over-sold on a system simply because it has countless features.
Quality equipment
Finally, you’ll need a quality phone for your home office. The type of phone you need will depend on your needs and your working environment. You may find a cordless phone allows you the freedom to move your work to the kitchen table or back patio, providing you with freedom to move around. Don’t skimp though, if you decide to go cordless make sure to purchase a quality phone. Cheaper phones tend to have interference or short battery-life.
A 2-line phone is handy too. You can use one line for your home phone line and the other for your business line. Make sure you can adjust the ringer volume for each line so you can turn your home-line off during business hours.
Its also important to make sure your phone can use a headset. If you need to be on the phone and typing on your computer simultaneously, a headset is a must-have. This is another piece of equipment that you don’t need to break the bank to purchase, but be careful not to settle for low-end merchandise either. Take some time to look at the options available.
Of course more and more people are switching to using a cell phone exclusively for their home office. While the cost still remains higher, unlimited plans have made this a more viable solution. However, if you are working for a company doing customer service or call-center work, you likely will not be able to use a cell phone to take calls.
From the HIB… “Do You Have What It Takes To Work At Home?”
Do You Have What It Takes To Work At Home? by Jennifer Lavoie
Working at home … it has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? Many see being able to set their own hours as a dream come true.
For those who have little or no self-discipline, that dream can quickly turn into a nightmare.
There may be times when a deadline is approaching as well as your favorite sports team on television. Without the discipline to set your priorities to your work, your home business will fail.
When you make the commitment to work from home, you are telling your clients or customers that you are ready to do whatever it takes to get the job done within the promised time. If fail to do that, you are telling them that you do not care about their needs and your time is more important to you than their project.
This also rings true if your work at home option is to start a home business, an internet marketing business or a online store. You need to dedicate time and resources to make it happen … without distractions.
If there is no one around a majority of the day then there should be no distractions to keep you from getting your work done. But be careful. Those first weeks of freedom can lend more to procrastination than working. The first few days may be wasted as you get up in the mornings and think about not having to go anywhere. How nice it is that you can work whenever you feel like it .. and soon enough you find yourself not working at all and finding all kinds of busy work that keep your days full but not productive.
You might start struggling to hit deadlines and having trouble finding new projects. These are all serious danger signs for your new business venture.
Here are some tips to help you get started on the right foot.
1. While you can work in your pajamas, until you are settled into your routine of working at home, get up in the morning and get dressed for work.
2. Set a schedule. Plan to hit the office at a specified time and establish regular hours. Once acclimated to getting your work done on time, then you can play with your schedule and your dog during the day and finish your work in the evening.
3. Plan your priorities. There can be competing requests for your time so set a priority schedule and don’t let distractions like phone calls or emails pull you away from those priorities.
4. Set aside time for business housekeeping, like invoicing, returning non urgent emails or phone calls and touching base with clients. If you set the time aside to do it, it will be less tempting to interrupt a priority task for these activities.
5. Celebrate successes. Working at home can be lonely if you let it. So connect with others, go out for networking lunches and celebrate your business achievements. It will make the work more enjoyable.
In addition to discipline, another key attribute for successful work at home entrepreneurs is organization. This ensures that little details, or big jobs, are not overlooked and forgotten. Nothing worse than missing a critical meeting or deadline because you forgot about it.
Once you are organized and disciplined, be prepared to work more hours than normal. It takes time to build a successful business and get yourself established, but in the long run, the effort is worth the reward. And, the reward for you is time freedom and more disposable cash.
One final tip for you: finish all the hard projects at the beginning so if you get behind, the easy ones can be done quickly.
Jennifer Lavoie is a home-based business coach. Using Robert Kiyosaki’s teaching, she helping others to build passive income businesses and retire early and free.
From the HIB… “Career Blogging”
Career Blogging: Blogging for Cash by Suzanne Bucciarelli
Want to Work at Home? There are many ways to make money online working from home. Career blogging is one of those ways. Career bloggers are in high demand. Businesses realize the many benefits of a company blog. These companies are willing to pay you to blog, usually on a contract basis. In addition, there are numerous sites that pay you to host links and ads on your own blog or to provide a review of the site on your blog.
Getting Started as a Career Blogger
First you will need to create your own blog. This will serve as your portfolio or blogging resume. Two popular blog sites are blogger.com and wordpress.com. First you need to decide what to blog about. Since you will be blogging for businesses, you could show off your business-sense in your blog. If you are a marketer, you could blog about sales and marketing. Blog about a topic you are very familiar with or an expert in. If there’s a particular niche that you want to blog about for hire, show your expertise on the subject in your own blog. Read more…
From The HIB… “Career Blogging”
Career Blogging: Blogging for Cash by Suzanne Bucciarelli
Want to Work at Home? There are many ways to make money online working from home. Career blogging is one of those ways. Career bloggers are in high demand. Businesses realize the many benefits of a company blog. These companies are willing to pay you to blog, usually on a contract basis. In addition, there are numerous sites that pay you to host links and ads on your own blog or to provide a review of the site on your blog.
Getting Started as a Career Blogger
First you will need to create your own blog. This will serve as your portfolio or blogging resume. Two popular blog sites are blogger.com and wordpress.com. First you need to decide what to blog about. Since you will be blogging for businesses, you could show off your business-sense in your blog. If you are a marketer, you could blog about sales and marketing. Blog about a topic you are very familiar with or an expert in. If there’s a particular niche that you want to blog about for hire, show your expertise on the subject in your own blog. Read more…
