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Home Is Where The Money Is
By: Jan Nieuwoudt
An at home business that can help others with their various jobs can be very lucrative. Busy people with busy lives - single mothers, overextended executives, and entrepreneurs are great prospects for jobs that offer virtual assistance or errand services that someone can run at home.
If the budding entrepreneur doesn't have that college degree and doesn't think he or she is qualified for jobs that allow him to create an at home business, he should think again. Errand services can be as simple as picking up the dry cleaning, ordering the birthday cake, dropping off the film to the photographer's or walking the dog. The great thing about these errand service jobs is that they don't need much start up money. Any jobs that let the owner do her business at home leaves her free from additional leasing overhead, additional utility deposits, minimal utility increases and the savings of the daily commute.
Of course, if that businessperson offers a pickup and delivery (as someone would have to with an errand service) the firm would take on the sometimes hefty cost of gasoline and wear and tear on its vehicle. The owner probably would incur an increase on the company auto insurance as well. These are things to consider when weighing options between those office jobs and an at home business.
If the would-be business owner were more highly skilled than the typical errand services jobs then he or she could be as a virtual assistant. If she has office skills such as word processing, clerical, computer database and contact database management and perhaps desktop publishing she could be the ideal virtual assistant. The advantage of a virtual assistant as opposed to a local errand service is that the VA can work for anyone anywhere and most of the work would be done by e-mail, IM, fax and perhaps overnight mail.
He wouldn't have the additional transportation costs, although for the jobs he'd be given at home the set up would be more costly up front. Unless, of course, he already had home office equipment in place such as a PC, printer, scanner, fax (or all in one), digital camera, file cabinet, flash drives, and a secure and comfortable home office environment that is ergonomically correct.
Whether a person wants to take a variety of jobs and assignments from various clients or wants to take a few clients who commit for an extended period is entirely up to that entrepreneur.It will just take a little brainstorming to find good opportunities.
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