Here are a few things you will need or eventually need for your virtual home business:
Computer – You will not need a super computer to do the tasks you will be offering to your clients. A basic desktop, laptop or tablet will do. You can later upgrade as you start making money and you feel the need for a faster computer with more capabilities. You can also go to sites like eBay and pick up a new or used computer for very little money. Remember this is not only an investment — it is also a write-off.
Printer – A printer is a must have for your home-secretarial business. If you already have a working printer you are set; again it does not need to be an expensive printer as long as it works. If you don’t have a printer, you can find new printers on eBay for as little as $50 which will also in many cases be a combo Printer, Fax, Scanner and Copier.
Software – Here is the list of software that will be needed for your virtual home business:
Word Processor – To start your home-secretarial business, the only software you will need is a Word processor. If you already have a version of Microsoft Word, then you are set. If you don’t we give you a 100% free Word processor in the “Resources” section in left side menu. We also give complete training for the free Word processor as well as Microsoft Word in “Clerical Data Entry Training” program if needed.
Excel Program – You will need an Excel or comparable Excel program. The free word process will have a comparable Excel program included. We also give complete training for Excel in “Clerical Data Entry Training” program if needed.
Office Supplies – The only office supplies you will need to get started is a ream of plain paper in both standard and legal sizes. If you are going to create and print business cards then you will also need hard business card paper. We suggest you go to OfficeMax or Office Depot; you should not spend more then $30 for everything we just mentioned.
Dedicated Telephone Line – To start your business you will need a separate dedicated business phone line. You can use your cell phone as your business line to limit costs at start up. Then eventually add a second line in your home when you start making money and getting a larger client base; your business will absorb all the costs.
So if you have a cell phone you can use that to start so you have no additional costs at start up, we would suggest changing your voice message to sound more professional. Once you do decide to set up a separate phone line in your home, we suggest getting a business line. It will be a little more expensive; however, you will get a free listing in the local online yellow page directory, you will notice an increase in work once you are listed.
Business License – When you first start your business, you don’t need to apply for a business license. However, once you start getting clients you will need to get a business license for your home business.
Note: You will not need to get a business license for any of the jobs programs we offer except for this virtual home business. Business licenses are inexpensive and easy to obtain, usually around $55-$100, depending on your city or county.
Taxes – If you are going to run your business as a sole proprietor, you will only need to file taxes under your social security number. If you decide to become an LLC or corporation, then you will need to apply for an EIN through the IRS. Sole proprietors can also file for an EIN if you choose, but it is not required for sole proprietors. We have a complete tutorial on how to set up an EIN in our “Resources” section in left side menu if needed.
Note: We are not certified to give you tax advice, so we would suggest you speak with a tax consultant. You will be surprised on how many tax benefits you will have for doing a home business. Only a professional tax consultant can provide you with your options. Trust us it will be worth the consultation fee to learn how you will be able to save running your own home business.
Business Name – You will need to choose a business name for your virtual home business.
You can use your name followed by the type of service you are going to offer; for example:
“Laura Kauth’s Reliable Word Processing”
or
“Laura Kauth’s Professional Office Services”
or
“Laura Kauth’s Fast Typing Services.”
You can also create a professional name such as:
“Allied Professional Typist”
or
“Dependable Office Help Of Texas”
We always suggest using words like “Professional,” “Reliable,” “Dependable,” “Fast,” “Creative,” and “Excellent” in your business name.
Once you have selected your name, you can register it with your city and county as required by local laws. You can contact your county clerk or your personal banker to find out how to register your name with your city/county.
If you are using any name other than your own personal name as your business, you will need to register as a DBA (Doing Business As), e.g., Laura Kauth doing business as “Allied Professional Typist.” Fees will vary and are very inexpensive in most cities or counties.
Get advice from friends and family. We suggest having a list of names of friends and family to get their input on your business name. Ask them what they think — is it a catchy name? Would they think it sounds professional? Would they send work to you with the business name you have? It is always good to get additional opinions when it comes to choosing your business name; just have an open mind.
Business Bank Account – To start your business you can use your own personal bank account to deposit your payments you receive for your services. Once you start building your business, you can then open a business banking account. The only requirement to open a business account will be to have a DBA set up as I mentioned previously. The advantages of a business banking account is you can get more tax write offs and benefits and better interest rates, lines of credits and loans. Again speak to a tax professional to find out more on the tax benefits.
Basic Skills and Dedication
In addition to the jobs skills, you will need some basic skills to get started, such as:
– Basic computer skills – such as the ability to navigate through Windows programs and access the Internet.
– Simple typing tasks – Speed is not important right now. We offer typing speed and accuracy training in the “Resources” section in left side menu that will allow you to increase your typing speed.
– Good organization skills – including the ability to schedule and meet self-determined deadlines.
– Self-dedication and determination – to succeed and not give up because this will take an effort. In other words, if you are extremely lazy, We don’t recommend this program or any of our programs.
You will only need computer, printer, software and office supplies to get started. You will eventually need to address the remaining items mentioned above once you get going and start building your virtual home business.
To get organized and start setting up your virtual home business. Start with the following:
1) Set up a dedicated spot in your house for a desk, chair and your computer/printer. Try to find a place where you will have privacy from your kids and/or husband/wife. It will be important to let your family know that when you are in this dedicated space you are at work and minimum disturbance is required.
2) Create a business plan – Start with the types of task you will offer for your clients, followed by the way you will market your virtual home business; we will give you some marketing options you can apply later in this tutorial The task you offer will be determined by how many of our programs you decide to pursue.
3) Decide on your business name and start to create your promotional material, such as creating a business logo, flyers, brochures and business cards. You can also create invoices and proposal sheets. We suggest you create a nice letterhead for all your promotional letters. We will give you details on how to create this later in this tutorial.
4) Set-up your phone line or cell phone to begin receiving phone calls for your services. Once you have a phone number, be prepared to place that phone number on all your promotional materials.
5) Get a second e-mail account; try to use your business name in the e-mail address. You can get a free account through our “Setting Up an eMail Account” located in the “Resources” section in the left side menu.
As an example of creating a e-mail business name might be “alliedprotyping@Gmail.com”
6) Web site or Blog – We will show you how to create your own FREE blog. You will learn how to do this in “Blogging Income” program. You can use the same methods shown in that program for your own virtual home business. We might suggest investing in your own domain name as offered in Blogging Income instead of the free option if you are going to be using this for your business. That is only a suggestion!
You can then add your free blog URL address or your own domain name to your promotional materials. This will also give you a great place to make posts and advertise your services.
7) Let everyone know you are in business and start handing out your business cards to your family and friends. Give them extra cards so they can pass them out to their family and friends. This is not the primary promotional method that will create you tons of clients, but you will be surprised how fast the word travels.
Essentially the services you offer will be determined by the skills you possess. If you don’t have many skills at the moment, by using our job programs we offer it will teach you the skills you need to perform many different jobs tasks for your virtual home business.
Here is a list of the current top 10 work-from-home jobs available today:
1. Content Article Writing
2. Social Media Management
3. Word Processing – Data Entry
4. Audio Transcription (General and Medical)
5. Social Media Marketing
6. Business Evaluation Surveying (online and off-line)
7. Blog Posting
8. Outside Sales
9. Affiliate Marketing
10. Job Placement Assistant
With the exception of Medical Transcription, we offer the top seven out of ten work-from-home jobs through out all the training programs we offer.
You WILL have the skills if you put in the effort to do the training to offer top services for your clients.
Here are some typical services you can offer:
Word Processing – Excel – To do tasks like typing documents, promotional materials, invoices, letters, proposals, memos, articles, price lists, business plans, essays, term papers, transcribing documents, proofreading and editing, résumé creating, job applications, flyers, business cards, mailing lists, database mailings, etc. We provide complete training in the “Clerical Data Entry” program for using Word and Excel.
Content Article Writing – This is currently number one when it comes to work-from-home job opportunities and should be a prime focus for your virtual home business. This by itself can keep you extremely busy and allow you to earn real good revenue. We do provide a very detailed and in-depth training to teach you how to be a professional content writer in our “Content Writer” program. Also you will see we provide a special section on how you can promote this through your virtual home business at the end of that program.
Audio Transcribing – Basically, doing transcription work is real simple; you simply transfer recorded data into textual documents. We have many online jobs you can receive; we offer a tutorial in our “General Audio Transcription” program that will teach you the skills needed to perform these tasks.
Online/Off-line Researcher – We offer training to do online and off-line research for business evaluation services as well as focus study groups. You can get all the needed training in our “Online Researcher” program to do these jobs as part of your virtual home business. In addition we also provide training to do field audits of business in our “Associate Auditor” program.
Social Media Management – Marketing – One of the fastest growing jobs is in social media. As social media networking grows it is opening up more opportunities in social media jobs. All of the job tasks are done from your home and can easily be incorporated into your virtual home business. We offer a very detailed training program for all the social media jobs in our Social Media Jobs program.
On-Site Jobs – You can even offer on-site services such as filing, answering phones, scheduling and faxing. We will only suggest offering on-site services at first as an option to get your foot in the door to some companies.
Proofreading and Editing – If you have a good eye for grammar and spelling, this is another great service you can offer to your clients.
There may be more you can offer services such as tax preparation, computer consulting, website designing, medical or legal coding if you have any of these specialized skills.
We are now going to tell you who your potential clients will be, how to find them and how to get their business. All of the businesses we will list will be in need of some of your services. What services you decide to offer will determine how many of these businesses you will be able to acquire. Some different markets you will be able to target are:
1. Business & Industries
2. Academic Agencies
3. Organizations
4. General Public
5. Online Businesses – e-Commerce
1. Businesses & Industries
When selecting businesses and industries, we suggest you target smaller companies with employees of 40-50 or less. The problem we found with larger companies is that they are harder to get assignments from, due to the seemingly unlimited resources they have.
The best businesses to get word processing and desktop publishing work from are retail service and sales businesses. You will find many assignments for business cards, flyers, mailing lists, newsletters and brochures for these types of companies.
Here are some other types of businesses you can target and the types of work you can expect:
Ad Agencies – You can type overflow work of ad copies and brochures.
Banks – You will receive contracts, newsletters and brochures.
Beauty Salons – You can do business cards, flyers, brochures, price lists, coupons, and gift certificates.
Car Dealers – You can get business cards, flyers and other promotional assignments. You can also get correspondence and mailing work as well.
Caterers – Type up menus, invoices, flyers and brochures.
Construction Companies and Contractors – You can do almost every type of work for these companies from invoices, letter, mailings, letters, flyers, business cards and proposals.
Conventions & Events – You can offer your services for dictation, posters, flyers and transcribing. Many exhibitors will need a transcriber to take notes from potential clients.
Consultants – Letters, contracts, presentations and reports will be common assignments.
Engineers – Reports, graphs and charts.
Escrow Companies – These are great for notary public and miscellaneous outsourced work.
Insurance Agents – You can type notices, letters, proposals, manuals, flyers, policies and reports.
Manufacturers – Training and operation manuals, brochures, reports, letters and catalogs.
Marketing Companies – Brochures, flyers, handouts and letters.
New Businesses – You can get a list of new businesses from your city; also check the public notices that will give details of new business licenses. This is a great way to get your foot in the door right away for business cards, flyers, brochures, letterheads etc.
Photographers – Brochures and flyers.
Politicians – Type speeches, create mailings and brochures.
Print Shops & Mailbox Stores – These are great places to leave your business cards and ask them if you can post a flyer to any bulletin boards they may have. They might even have some outsourced work themselves.
Real Estate Agents – Here is another place to get some work for a notary public, also flyer, brochures and contracts.
Restaurants – You can create gift certificates, coupons, flyers and displays.
Transportation Companies – Invoices and forms.
Temp Agencies – You can refer work to them in exchange for referrals to you.
Traveling Business People – Go to local hotels and tell management about your services for guests of their hotel. Leave them with your business cards and flyers to hand out to their guests that request your service.
Become an active member of your local Chamber Of Commerce; attend meetings and introduce yourself with the services you provide.
Check you local newspaper for ads for clerical or secretaries. You can contact these companies and offer your services as an alternative to them hiring another staffed secretary.
Go through the yellow pages and local online business directories and gather addresses to send your brochures and business cards, then start mailing them out.
2. Academic Agencies
If you are near a university, state or community college you can get many assignments from them. Many professors, students and faculty don’t have the time to do the services you can provide.
Teachers And Faculty – Type research material, mailing lists, grants, textbooks, essays and resumes.
College Students – Theses, résumés, term papers, essays, letters and book Reports will be common requests from students.
To get work from Academic Agencies you can place flyers and business cards on student bulletin boards at school, libraries and housing dorms. Place flyers on windshields in college parking lots. make a special flyer for students advertising services you can provide them; make it catchy with bright colors, etc. Contact faculty and introduce yourself; leave them with flyers for your services. Ask if you can leave flyers in mail slots of professors or other staff.
Offer the students that after they create their own work, you will provide clean-up work and proofreading.
You will find that if you are reasonable in price, the word will get around campus very quickly thus producing an endless supply of work for students and faculty.
3. Organizations
Government Organizations – Local government organizations can provide you with a steady flow of work, not to mention that they might also let you use their public bulletin boards. To get a list of local government organizations, go to your local directory which you can do online. You will see public health, parks and recreation, clinics, and public libraries. You can mail them or visit them in person. You can get a variety of types of work from these organizations. With government cutbacks you really can get a steady flow of work.
Professional Organizations – Mailing lists and brochures are common work you will get from these organizations. You can also find these in your local phone book or online local directories.
Charitable Organizations – The work you will get from these are usually for free or at best they pay very little. The point of doing this work is to get references and exposure, not to mention it is a very nice gesture to give back to the community. Many times you will get people who see what you are doing and will give back to you by sending you their business.
Home Owners Associations – You can get a steady flow of work from these associations mailings, brochures and newsletters are very common. Offer to maintain their newsletters, brochures and mailings at a reasonable price. You can get a list at your local library, or online/off-line yellow pages. Just search for “list of local home owners associations.”
4. General Public
We suggest you post your flyers, business cards and brochures on public bulletin boards, coffee shops, movie theaters, libraries, super markets etc. You will slowly get your name out to the public which can get referrals for the services you offer.
5. Online Business – e-Commerce
This will be by far the best way to get work for you virtual home business. You will focus on businesses that are 100% Web based and there are millions upon millions of these to target. Because most of the jobs we train you on in this program is geared to online business will put you on the top of list with many online businesses to get work. We will dedicate a special section to these types of businesses and how to promote yourself and get work in the next section of this program.
As you can see your target market is huge. With our training and guidance along with your determination and desire will be a recipe for success with your virtual home business!
We are going to break this down into two sections to explain the best ways to promote your virtual home business both off-line and online:
1. Off-Line
2. Online
Here are some great way to promote your virtual home business using off-line methods:
1.) Word of mouth will be the best way to promote your virtual home business off-line. Don’t be afraid to tell your friends and family you can offer many services to help their businesses.
2.) Visit small businesses within a certain radius of your home. This is up to you on how far you are willing to travel from your home. A good rule of thumb is about a 10 mile radius to start. Offer a free or discounted trial to try your services.
3.) Leave your business cards and flyers everywhere you go. We suggest investing in placing magnets on your business cards so you can place them on metal objects where it is appropriate.
4.) Visit every copy shop, office supply, mailbox store with in your selected radius of your home. Ask them if you can leave business cards, place flyers on bulletin boards and if they could refer any work to you. Don’t be shy about bringing in a dozen donuts or coffee in when you visit, place your card on the box and let them know you were there.
5.) Send several mailings with newsletters, flyers, and business cards to local businesses on a regular basis usually once a month, especially to companies that have shown interest or have sent you work in the past. You can get a list of companies from the yellow pages or online local directories.
6.) Visit your local post office; usually you will find a public bulletin board to post your flyers and business cards.
7.) Try to locate other colleagues in your area that are not your immediate competitors, and ask them if they have clients in your area that they can’t service. In return, you will do the same for them.
8.) Contact temp agencies, not only to see if they have assignments for home-work, but to let them know of clients of yours that are looking for in-office workers. If you refer companies to them, they sure will go out of their way to get you work in return.
9.) Make sure to ask your current clients for additional referrals and a testimonial as a reference.
10.) Try to locate a secretarial association in your area so you can network with other home secretaries. You can use this to do co-op advertising with colleagues to save costs.
11.) Place small ads in local print newspaper and community newsletters under “Services Offered.”
12.) Make up or purchase promotional materials when you are able to afford it, such as calenders, pens and notepad. These are great to hand out to current and potential clients.
13.) When you have a budget, place an ad in local directories under “Temp Agencies.”
14.) Contact very small businesses that are usually located in industrial areas. We found that a small 3 – 4-person office will have a variety of needs and are on a budget which your services at a good rate could answer their needs.
15.) When contacting any businesses in person on a cold call, always ask to speak to the owner or office manager. Never just speak with a receptionist or secretary. They will more than likely just throw out your flyers and business cards because they may feel threatened. It is best to try to call an make and appointment with the office manager ahead of time. This will assure that time is given for you to pitch the services you offer.
Using online resources to target online businesses will open the door to a vast amount of opportunities.
1.) Use social media to start building an online business. Although Facebook and Twitter are great resources, you will find LinkedIn for what you offer might be your best bet. LinkedIn will deal with many business professional and business owners. If you can set up a Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn that would optimal, but you if only wanted to concentrate on one, we would suggest LinkedIn.
We have two free courses that will take you through the steps to getting set up and getting tons of clients using LinkedIn.
Guide 1. “Linked-In-For-Business-Main-eCourse“
Guide 2. “How to Land Tons of Clients on LinkedIn“
2.) Use online freelance websites to promote your services directly to millions of potential clients. We will list the top services for you to explore. Most are free to use and will allow you to list your services you offer to many online businesses. You only pay a fee when you get work through these resources.
We will give you separate tutorials on how to get set up with these freelance websites.
The tutorials were given on our Social Media Jobs. The only difference is when you set up your account you can add additional services you offer through your virtual home business.
3.) Craigslist – One of the best resources to use for your virtual home business is Craigslist. You can set up a free Craigslist account, then post an ad in your local area under “Services Offered.” A great title in your advertisement is “Virtual Assistant.” You can then mention the services offered and will get great response from local businesses and individuals needing assistance.
Note: Make sure you are always paid before you submit the work. Never meet in person with any new clients if requested. Just make sure you use good judgement when using Craigslist.
4.) Use third-party virtual assistance placement services – We will list some reputable third-party virtual assistant placement services for you to review. How this works is you get set up with these agencies and they will find the clients for you. Most are free to use and you will only pay when you have clients. You can use your own judgement whether these agencies will be worth using.
Here are the agencies we recommend:
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All of the promotion method we have suggested do work very well if you put in the effort to use them. The virtual home business jobs will not come to you unless you put in the effort to go out and make yourself known.
In general you will charge what ever fees that make sense for you for any of the services you offer. We will discuss some typical rates being charged by virtual home businesses.
Word Processing/Excel Documents: $30/hr. (applies to most document creation)
Desktop Publishing: $40/hr. (applies to flyers, newsletters, brochures, business cards and postcards)
Résumé Writing: $50–$100. (completed résumé including cover letter). Longer than normal résumé would require additional charges.
Consultation, Writing, or Rewriting Content Articles: $35 – $50/per article. (should cover a 300 – 500 word article)
Social Media Management: Will depend on the task at hand. We will refer you to the “Social Media Jobs” program to get a better understanding on what to charge for the provided social media management services.
Online/Off-line Research: The price is usually determined by the business evaluation service. It works out to be around $35 per hour.
Audio Transcribing: Doing transcription is a high demand job with very few qualified to do the needed jobs. This is why we provide our “General Audio Transcription” training program. Audio transcribers are now making as much as $70 per hour and is a fee you can charge if you offer this service through your virtual home business.
Clerical Office Tasks: If you are performing general clerical services such as answering phones, organizing, etc. you can charge around $25 per hour and possibly more depending on the workload.
Turnaround time is 24 hours.
For most assignments depending on the size of assignment will be considered a 24 hour turnaround. Same day service is considered RUSH. Extra fees are billed for rush jobs, same day service, after hours, and weekends.
Here is what you can use to charge for rush services:
Minimum charge: A minimum of $20 is billed for all tasks.
Express Service % to add to bill:
Less than 8 hours + 30%
Less than 4 hours + 75%
Less than 1 hour + 100%
While you wait + 100%
Evenings + 50%
Weekend + 100%
Rate Calculation For Billed Time:
If you are billing per hour, then you will need to know how to properly bill for your time. One thing we will strongly suggest is to keep a time sheet for each project which will give a breakdown for all the work you are billing per hour.
Be descriptive when logging your time.
For example if you were writing a report:
19 minutes: Research and preparation
28 minutes: Set up coversheet
38 minutes: write report
22 minutes: Closing statements
____________________________
Total Hours Billed: 1 hour 47 minutes
The rate-calculation sheet makes it easy to calculate charges for your services in 5-minute increments. Here’s how it works.
For example, if you charge $30/hr for word processing and it takes you 80 minutes to do the work, then you should charge $40. If you charge $40/hr for advanced word processing and it takes you 80 minutes to do the work, then you should charge $53.33.
You should charge a minimum amount. Most minimum amount for any work is $20 even if you just change a phone number or address on a list; you still can use your own judgement especially for good clients.
Use the lower amounts to add them up to longer times. For example, here’s how you calculate 2 hours and 15 minutes. 2 hours. at $30/hr = $60. Then look at the table below and you’ll see that you should add $7.50 for 15 min. work. So, your charge for 2 hours 15 minutes of work will be $67.50.
Get a Contract Signed
The first suggestion we will make when working with new clients is to get a contract signed that will describe the terms of work to be completed and the payment terms.
You don’t need to have a lawyer write a contact up. Simply create your own contract and have both parties sign it. Before you write the contract you want to make note of the scope of work to be performed, the amount you will charge, how you will be paid and the payment terms (i.e. due upon receipt, net 30 days, etc.)
If you going to deal with a client on a regular basis then you can create a general term contract which will only need to be signed once. This way you won’t need to send contracts for every job you perform.
Payment Terms
Each client will be different on how they will pay for your services. If you are dealing with a business more than likely they will want to pay you on a Net 30, which means they will pay you at the end of the month, or within 30 days.
If you are dealing with an individual we will suggest to collect all the money in full before releasing the work. Unless, you have other arrangements and feel comfortable with billing that is up to you.
There are some great services you can use to assure you get paid and the client gets their work. A websiteEscrow.com can provide a go between for just this and may be something to look into.
How to Receive Your Payments
You are more than likely going to receive payments in two ways:
1. Payment by check
2. PayPal
Most business will send you a check for the payment for your services. Most online business will pay by PayPal or another payment processor like Moneybookers.com, Payza.com etc.
You can also make arrangements with good clients for direct bank transfer if they are willing to submit payments in that manner.
Here we have some business documents you can use for your business. Just fill in your home-secretarial business information where applicable. You can save these and use them when needed.
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So get out there and start earning money with your Virtual Home Business!