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Introduction

The ABC's for

Work at Home Parents 

Why am I writing this? 

By: Amber Whitener

Rewriting Began - May 11, 2015
Version 3.0 in blog form @ abcbook.darkbluesun.com (If a post has been updated to my 3.0, it will be noted.)

What You'll Find Here: I must begin this interactive ebook/blog with a little disclaimer. I can make you no promise of money or success by reading this ebook. My objective is to write a how-to that is simplified and up-to-date for anyone who is investing any time or money into the options available to make money online. The internet business world changes all the time, so much changes so fast. The good part about this is that you have many opportunities to dive in. However, if you get nothing more from this book than the following sentence I will feel good about my contribution to your journey. Be skeptical until you know everything.

Credit Where It Is Due: These are my words, my hours, and my advise. If you want to share it, I only ask that you give credit where it due. The information shared in these entries are not to be copied and sold for profit or distributed for any other personal gain. This information is real, honest, and free provided to get you on your individual path to your online career potential. I am not a career advisor, I have just known so many brilliant people online who deserve a chance to share their ability to grow a better global business network. It has to be done one person at a time. There is no one business plan that fits all.

Q: Why do I care?

A: Because I am just like you. 

More On That: If I had been skeptical myself, I would likely not have made nearly as many mistakes as I have and would be much further than I am seven years into the "work at home" life. I have worked with lots of Virtual Assistants, both local and across the globe and the rules remain the same... Anyone can post testimonials online and post someone's picture next to it or post screenshots of their work in some e-folio somewhere. However, the proof is in the pudding. And in the virtual world, the pudding is live references and backlinks to and from great content.  

This has been written with the intent of educating stay at home moms and dads about real virtual business. There are way too many scammers and ponzi schemers on a feeding frenzy of the naive and inexperienced. They promise to sell you their “secrets” or stocked warehouses of "stuff" so you can start your own business and make money without having to have any prior experience doing whatever it is they are trying to push you into doing. But here’s the thing, the only people making all this "easy money" are the criminals pushing the schemes. Just because someone can afford to have a television commercial broadcast or a pretty website developed, does not mean they are a legitimate business.

A is for Analysis

You know what you are good at right? The following is a list of occupations that are easily integrated into an online business service. If you aren't on this list, oh well, there are millions of specialties that aren't here right? These are just general occupations. What are you good at and what will you be able to master?

You have something to offer the world. It might be in business, politics, media, or something for the private population. Whatever your calling is, you can use find a way to accomplish it while working at home.

Research Work You Could Do at Home

"Start with what you know."

Online Jobs	Ideas to Try or Places to Start
Administrative (Secretarial) Work	Look into virtual assisting.
Bookkeeping	Look into virtual assisting.
Cooking or Baking	Create some awesome YouTube Videos or Setup a website making your products available for purchase or write a recipe book/ebook?
Criminal Justice	Embrace the internet, it is now your new best friend… online investigation could be your new six figure job.
Data Entry	Test your touch-typing skills, get as fast as you can, then market your skills on places like our skills are needed.
Freelance Writing	* There is work for you everywhere: Advertising, Copy writing, Fiction Writing & Editing, Ghostwriting…
Fashion Designing	Start designing and start scanning and build an online portfolio. Get a sewing machine, create your masterpieces and show them off in a video etc.
Graphic Designing
Legal
Marketing	* Online marketing (social media and pay per click ads are still) opportunities are endless.
Photography	Sell your high quality photos to istockphoto or on your own site.
Physician or Medical Services	Look into working for/with companies like: Ringadoc, American Well, Teladoc, and iSelectMD, NowClinic and Soliant Health recruits offsite physician consultants for tele-visits here: Telemedicine Physician Jobs - Immediate Need!.
Programming	There is a HUGE market for app programmers right now. Look on Craig's list first if you want a local business to work for you may get very lucky. You can also check out Hire iOS Developer and find iOS Development jobs on Elance.
Project Management
Research of any type	Ancestry, People Finding, Background Checks, Market Analysis
Social Networking	Learn everything you can about Social Networks like Facebook, instagram, Twitter and even Vine. Find out what the kids are using, and start using it!
Social Services & Counseling	*
Technical Assistant	Become an assistant for daily or weekly technical jobs - you could be a BIG timesaver for many busy professionals. (Look on)
Web Designing	Look on Craig's list or go to local startup businesses and offer your expertise. (Take classes, constantly learn, and develop your skills.)
Teaching or Tutoring	Preschool, Elementary, Middle School, High School, College, Grad School, & Career Classes can be held on skype, Facetime, via video. . . YouTube is the oldest and probably still the best place for video content uploading.
Technical Support for End-Users	Write white papers, provide solutions via email, blog posts, or chat. Ask for screenshots, or utilize a screensharing program!
Therapy and Advice	Have a great website built for you or look into something like Dear Abby and see how they've set up their advice column. . .

In AllYou Magazine, there was an article called "Online Jobs That Really Pay - AllYou.com" that mentions online reseller, translator, and more. They have a great section for virtual assistants that include: As you can see, the possibilities for earning money from home are increasing all the time.

Create Plan A

Choosing to leave a traditional job and be stay at home parent is not an easy decision to make. However, once you've made the decision, it doesn't have to be a decision to stop growing professionally.

Time will not stand still while you are at home with your children.

If your choice to be a work at homer does not mean "forever" then make your business plan include your goal to rejoin the workforce if and when you desire to do so.

It is time to write up a business plan. You can use the U.S. Small Business Administration website tool to build your business plan. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. There are two mistakes you must avoid when creating a business plan. (1. Spending too little time creating a plan and 2.Spending too much time creating a plan)

Leave enough room for change and when you create enough limitation to see progress.

Connect with Others Like You

Start blogging, setup a website, or even just an online social network profile to keep track of your research and to build an audience. Find other people who have ventured into your area of interest and network with them. Remember to stay in touch with them.

Do your very best to keep the conversation going.

While you are planning and researching, be smart and keep your credit card in your wallet.

Do not quickly begin racking up debt for software, services, and fancy home office products you may never need.

Do NOT work for free. Companies like internet girl friday can be a good place to begin. However, I don't know if it is still true, but when I worked for this company years ago I did a lot of work that I was not reimbursed for

Require a fair deposit on work done or services rendered. 

Use your time wisely. Do NOT sit in front of the computer all day for two to three weeks straight researching your online business plan. (Those red, foggy eyes are not attractive on anyone.) You have to give your self a well balanced diet of research, rest, and play time. Which leads me to my next post. . .

P is for Public Relations

The old vanilla ways of mass communication marketing are quickly losing their effectiveness in today's financially cautious economy. Now, everyone wants the personal experience and direct communication that has become available with social media like Facebook, Twitter, and interactive business blogs.

Public relation campaigns are finally turning away from mass message advertising and toward public relationships again. There are two ways you can approach any relationship: actively or passively. Social media is the new age way of fostering active relationships with your affiliates and target market. Social media isn’t supposed to sell, it is supposed to influence.

Social, A.K.A. Word of Mouth, Marketing

Since becoming a web presence consultant for small businesses, I have conducted hundreds of case studies and developed marketing strategies with and without social media. The companies that integrated social mediums into their plan began getting results almost twice as fast as those with a comparable investment of a website with an SEO and SEM only strategy.

Our social network profiles and integration with web 2.0 have a much broader potential reach (at an insanely more affordable price) than that of television and radio combined. Websites are instantly available to the 1,596,270,108 people in this world who access the internet. Of course, social media is catching on quite rapidly, as well.

Social media encourages businesses to be:

• transparent,
• consistent,
• and genuinely caring to their customers and clients.

As a business owner, you learn to listen in a whole new way.

There are so many ways to advertise and establish your business brands. Some companies use tactics like catchy (maybe a bit annoying) jingles, some really attempt to make a connection with their audience (people don't care about how much you know until they know how much you care, right?), and some are thought provoking and witty as if they want to guilt you into buying their product/service. Personally, I prefer the ones that really speak an encouraging message, although the funny ones are fun, too. :)

"Old-Fashioned" PR isn't Dead. . .Yet

Effective advertisement builds up, tears down, or educates. Here are two examples of mass communication via television and radio that I want to share that are good examples of my favorite types of advertising.

Advertisement Message 1:

We Care About Your Community

The first is an Allstate Insurance commercial called "Back to the Basics".


Advertisement Message 2:

We Care About You

I also want to mention a CVS commercial which I am sad to say I have no media file for.

Here's the basic message:
1. Starts with a Minute Clinic nurse helping a mom take care of her son's illness.
2. Mom goes home and gets a checkup call from the nurse.
   • The mom says, "Thanks for the follow up."
   • The nurse says, "We call that following through."

This left me with a good mental image of a health care provider that really cared about her patient. This was exactly what CVS was hoping for, right?

We want to give our customers that fuzzy feeling of comfort and understanding! More specifically, when working as a virtual assistant, you want your client to be a priority and more than satisfied with your work. It will keep them coming back.

Look at Publicity the Right Way

In the internet business everything is public. Don’t just say, "I can't" because you inadvertently burn bridges. You can always ask your new found business connections on LinkedIN or ask.com, questions about how to work through almost any situation.

The more you learn about your niche business and build complimentary skills, the better you will be able to meet your clients' needs efficiently. Remember, how you work on public relations and your reputation, is directly related to your influence and reach.

Read other people’s blogs and then leave them genuine comments. You know how it feels when someone takes the time to comment about something you wrote or did online. It's the same with everyone.

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O is for Organization

I wish I could offer you better advice on staying organized. Fortunately, I can do a lot of the technical stuff, but when it comes to virtual organization, I knew I had to call in the most organized virtual office professional I know. The following article has been written by Jenny, Virtual Assistant and an expert of organizing and re-organizing your virtual workspace. This is her rewrite of my "O for Organization":


Keep It Simple Sally (K.I.S.S.) This is the best advice I can give anyone. Here’s the thing about technology, some tools and processes work great for some and just add complexity for others. You have to keep your tasks, contacts, calendar, emails and your documentation in places that are easy to get to. You don’t want to save information in multiple places because that will just bog down your computer. It’s a good idea to use a web based e-mail program at first if you have a computer that is really old or unreliable. A few good ones are Gmail or Yahoo. Both are pretty reliable. It’s basically your preference, but whichever web-based e-mail program you choose, you should ask yourself the following questions first to ensure you have the right program in place:

1. Does the program have the capacity to group your contacts?

2. Can you save your important emails into separate folders or labels?

3. Do you have the capabilities of saving important documents that have been sent to you?

4. Does your program have a place to store your tasks? Does it show percentage complete or completed tasks?

5. Can you sync your emails, contacts, etc. to your phone?

6. Does your program have the capabilities of sharing calendars, if necessary?

As your business grows or you outgrow your web-based email, you may want to consider switching to Outlook. This program has great capabilities and can sync all information to your phone, if necessary. It can even create groups within groups for you!

Whatever you decide, make sure to K.I.S.S.! This is especially important for all of you Post-It Queens and Kings! You need to clean out your inbox, tasks, unnecessary emails and contacts, AT LEAST once a week, if not every other week. If it’s easier for you, set up a recurring reminder on your calendar if you need to. And don’t worry, it will become easier the more you get in the habit, I promise!

N is for Never

Never forget where you came from.It's people like Gary Vaynerchuk who stay relate-able and exciting that also stay successful.

Never give up.Gary embraces his humble beginning and acknowledges that there really is no "easy" way to become and remain successful in our fast paced world.

Never miss out on an opportunity
because you are afraid of the word "NO".The word "No" is a tricky one to use; knowing when you are supposed to say it and knowing how to handle it when it is said to you. Do not let doubt get in the way of your awesome message. (Make sure you have one.)

Never stop learning.In the virtual business world, once you get to the point to where you are set in your ways - it's sad to say, but you might be replaced by the newest “upgrade”. Human beings are the most complex creatures with an incredible ability to adapt to our environment…if we choose to.

Inbound Marketing Education Info

Virtual Business Resourses

Learn Virtual Assisting through Experience

M is for Money

How much can you really expect to earn by becoming a virtual assistant?

How do you make sure that you get that money?

These questions are VITAL to ask and answer yourself before ever considering work at home. The whole invoicing and money exchange can really get tricky. Of course, all jobs require different amounts of money per hour. So, let’s use nice, even numbers for our example. If you charge $20 per hour (for something like data collecting/entering/interpreting or market research etc.) for 3 hours per work day (and as a stay at home parent, you may not want to schedule yourself for much more than 3 to 4 hours daily at first) this would be the kind of income you can expect working Monday through Friday: about $15,600 per year. And that's if you are good at keeping a good client base going.

( $20 an hour x 3 hrs. a day x 5 days per week x 52 wks per year )

After paying state and federal taxes on your misc income, this really isn't much, but it can be comparable for a part time job outside the home.

Let’s face it. . . .that can seem like chump change when there are scam artists out there saying they make $10,000 a month part time right? However, when you consider not having to put your 2.5 children in day care for $150 a week (per child) and that ½ kid will be 250 per week when it turns six weeks old and goes to daycare because that’s when society decided was long enough for the baby to be with its mother. If this was your scenario (2 or three small children in daycare), you could save an extra $500+ on daycare every week!

Another big question is: Can I get anything done with my kids at home?
The answer is: Absolutely.

Why do you think they keep ratios for kids to caregivers at 4:1(or more)?
Because children need to have adult interaction, but they also need to be able to play alone at times. It's really good for them and you!

The more VA’s that succeed will encourage more companies to employ Virtual Assistants or Consultants. So, work ethically and you will get the financial reward you deserve! Here are the rules I work by:

1. I never charge my client for time I spend learning how to do something. For example, if some system is upgraded and I have to go and read the "how to" page, I don’t charge my client for that. That is my time that I spend learning my trade. And, most likely that same week, I will use the same system for another client, so why would I charge my first client the time it took me to figure something out?

2. Download an invoice template from Microsoft’s free templates page to use to invoice your clients, Or you do a search on invoices to see what services you can use and track online. KEEP TRACK OF THESE. You will definitely need them when you are filling out your 1040 Schedule C documents for the IRS!

3. Sign up for account with PayPal so people can pay you online, or require payment via check within the week the project or task is due. Some VA's charge an upfront fee and then bill the rest at the end when the solution has been satisfied. Someday, when you are more established, you can setup and get payments via credit and debit cards. If you think you are ready to research this option, you could go to Google checkout and see their setup for credit card transactions.

My best advice is to encourage you to start small, be honest, and learn to work smarter not harder.

There was a really fabulous article in the December 2009 issue of "The Virtual Entrepreneur" called: The ONE Self-Sabotaging Thing You Do Every Day That Keeps You From Making 7-Figures In Your Business page 16-18. It's quite insightful.

If you have any advice or questions, you are always welcome to leave your comments.