More Money Now

Use Your Existing Skills, Connections and Technology to Start Earning Cash Today

Michael Zechmann

• Publisher: Morgan James Publishing
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781683504634
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Entrepreneurship
• Index: Business

Working in the financial services industry for the past decade, Michael Zechmann has met a lot of people looking to make some extra money right now. Usually, they aren't looking for a new job or to switch careers, they just need to make more money. This includes retirees, stay at home parents, or the average working family trying to save extra money. More Money Now teaches everyone how to find multiple ways to make money that they will actually enjoy doing.

PROVIDING SERVICES FROM HOME

CHAPTER 4:

Being a Remote Worker—

An Overview and Some Starting Points

According to Global Workplace Analytics, more than 3.7 million people worked from home at least some of the time in 2015—an increase of 103 percent since 2005. While most of these people were full-time employees of a company, many were part-time and/or temporary workers brought in to a fill a role that’s suited to working remotely.

There are two things that have led to this explosion of opportunities to work from home. The first is technology like high speed internet and Skype, a software which enables people to speak, message, and hold virtual face-to-face meetings in real time regardless of how many time zones separate them. The second development is the change in attitudes about utilizing remote workers. Companies now understand that not only can they save money by hiring telecommuting workers (as much as $10,000 per worker in savings for office space, absenteeism and turnover, according to Global Workplace Analytics) but the workers are also happier and more productive than on-site employees. In fact, one study found that remote call center workers made 13.5 percent more calls than their office-bound peers, and were half as likely to quit.⁴

Home-based jobs used to be limited to functions like graphic arts and writing, but they’ve recently been extended to all kinds of positions including customer support, software development, legal services, and even executive-level positions. A terrific example of this is a retired woman I know (I’ll call her “Nancy”) who has used her extensive accounting and business skills to help companies in need of a temporary chief financial officer (CFO). Nancy is basically a “CFO for rent.” She works out of her home office for anywhere from three to 15 companies at a time. These are companies that need an interim CFO to step in for a little while, usually less than six months, until they can hire a replacement for an employee who was let go or one who has retired. Sometimes Nancy works for free because she believes in the business and wants to give back. In other cases she takes an ownership stake in the company in exchange for her work. But most of the time she’s paid above-market rates for her expertise. Nancy has been able to leverage her stellar reputation and comprehensive skills in a way that guarantees she’s never at a loss for work. And with flexible hours and zero commute, she’s never been happier.

You don’t have to be an executive-level performer like Nancy to make money working from home. All it takes is a marketable skill (you’ve probably got more than one of those!) and the knowledge of where to look for work.

How Much Can You Earn?

You can make anywhere from a few dollars a week to six figures a year working from home. Your earnings are totally dependent on your skill set and the amount of time you are able to devote to the task. It doesn’t cost a lot to get started working remotely; in fact you’ve likely got everything you need already. Computer? Check. Internet connection? Check. A burning ambition to make some extra cash this month? Double check.

Who’s it For?

Remote work is a good fit for people who are well-organized, confident and disciplined. Let’s talk about discipline for a moment. Most people believe that folks who work from home have to be disciplined in order to keep from slacking off, but the remote workers I know tell me the opposite is true: having the self-control to stop working is sometimes the greater challenge. Working from home can consume your entire life if you let it, so you must set firm boundaries to make sure you don’t overdo it and negatively impact your work/life balance.

You may also have to set boundaries with family members and friends who might think that just because you’re home, you’re available… for running errands, taking care of kids, going out for an impromptu coffee break. And that’s why remote work veterans recommend establishing consistent “office hours,” communicating those hours to everyone around you, and then sticking to them as best you can. That way your loved ones (and your clients) will know what to expect from day to day.

Getting Started

The great thing about offering a service from home is that you can give it a try without making a major commitment of time or money. Today’s technology makes it relatively easy to find and step into a role, walk around in it for a while and see how you like it. Some of the more popular remote work opportunities are in the following functions:

• Accounting

• Consulting

• Bookkeeping

• Virtual Assistant

• Appointment Setting

• Graphic Design

• Web Development

• Mobile Development

• Writing

• Customer Service

• Sales and Marketing

We’ll explore some of these roles in greater detail in subsequent chapters, but for now let me say this: if you already have the skills necessary to do any of these gigs, it’s conceivable that you could start earning money today, especially if you’re experienced in customer service, user interface design, virtual assistance or web/mobile app development, as these are the fastest growing segments in the work-from-home arena. There are several websites dedicated to linking workers who can perform these types of roles with companies and individuals looking for help. Let’s take a look at a few of the more popular ones.

UpWork.com and Guru.com

If you’re an aspiring home worker, logging onto Guru or UpWork (formerly known as Elance/Odesk) is like being a little kid in a well-stocked candy store. UpWork calls itself “an online workplace for the world,” and that’s the perfect way to describe sites like these. You’ll see one job listing after another on UpWork, Guru and similar sites… and it’s all there just for you, ripe for the picking. Talk about opportunity: workers earned $941 million from 2.8 million job listings on UpWork alone in 2014.⁵

UpWork and Guru provide a platform for job listings posted by clients from all over the world. The sites manage the proposals that candidates submit in response to those job listings, and their system helps clients and their chosen workers come up with fair terms and agreements. They serve as a conduit for making and receiving payments. They mediate any disputes that might arise. And for hourly gigs they even have technology that allows clients to track the true amount of time their hires have worked.

You’re usually not considered to be an employee of the people or companies that hire you on sites like UpWork and Guru. Instead, you’re an independent contractor. Generally speaking, you’re an independent contractor if you supply your own equipment and materials to do a job and if you get to decide when and where you’ll work. Conversely, employees receive all the necessary tools and materials from their employer, and they work when and where the employer tells them to. Employees have their taxes withheld by their employer, while independent contractors are responsible for paying their own taxes.

To be able to apply for gigs on these sites, you first have to create an account and pay a small fee, which you’ll be charged on a monthly basis. As of right now those monthly fees run anywhere from $10 to $35 dollars depending on the membership level you choose. You’ll be asked for your name, address, banking information, and social security number (the social security number is for tax purposes). Then you’ll create a profile that details your skills and describes your experience in your chosen job category(s). You’ll be given the opportunity to upload a photo of yourself, a resume and references.

Many of these sites also have skills tests you can take to prove your proficiency, with the scores being posted to your profile for all the world to see. For example, writers can take grammar and spelling tests. Bookkeepers can take an exam to prove their competence with QuickBooks. Virtual assistants and customer service reps can take tests to demonstrate their expertise with telephone and email communication. You may have to pay to take some of these tests, but the cost is minimal and it’s a terrific way to set yourself apart from the pack.

And now let’s talk about “the pack,” because it’s something you need to be aware of up front. Competition on sites like UpWork and Guru is stiff… extremely stiff. You bid on these jobs, meaning that you have to submit a proposal with the fee you’d charge to do the work and an estimate of the amount of time you think it will take for you to finish it. You’ll be competing for the jobs with people from all over the world, many of whom will be able to charge peanuts compared to what the rest of us are used to earning for the same work. But if your skills are solid and if you present yourself professionally and stick with it, you really can find and land nice gigs that pay well.

For example, I have a friend whose husband, “Chad,” started moonlighting as a graphic designer on one of these sites back in the mid-2000s. His first client was a video poker machine manufacturer who hired him to create on-screen graphics for their machines… graphics like playing cards with various illustrations on the backs, logos, screen designs for all the different themed poker games they were making, and so on. Chad started out earning $200 to $300 from this company every few weeks for the first couple of years. But the company grew to the point where they needed his design services more frequently. They’d become so reliant on Chad that they offered him a retainer of $2,000 a month just to make sure he’d always be available when they needed him.

That arrangement continues to this day, and it has worked out great for both sides. Chad makes enough from this one gig to pay his rent and take his wife out for a nice dinner every month, and most months he doesn’t have to do anywhere near $2,000 worth of work. Still, the company thinks it’s a great return on their investment. They get guaranteed access to their favorite graphic design professional—on call—for much less than the cost of hiring, training and equipping someone to work in-house. And there’s an added bonus for Chad: every time this company pays him they post a glowing review to his online profile, which has made him one of the top-rated graphic artists on the site, worldwide. His business has grown by leaps and bounds as a result. In fact, he was able to quit his day job and now makes a nice living working at home, doing what he loves.

eaHELP.com

Historically, eaHELP was created to fill jobs in one particular profession—that of the virtual executive assistant. But since their founding they have also begun filling social media assistant jobs as well, and other types of work may not be far behind. If you have top-notch administrative support skills, eaHELP is a must-visit site for you.

This award-winning INC 500 company matches clients who are senior-level managers with a dedicated, U.S.-based virtual assistant who handles all the small stuff so the client can focus on the big stuff, like running their business. Virtual assistants do things like managing their client’s business and personal calendars, tending to their email and social media accounts, making travel arrangements, event planning, project coordination… whatever the client needs done on a day-to-day basis. Consequently, virtual assistants working through eaHELP should have a bachelor’s degree, be extremely well-versed in a variety of skills and technologies, and possess what the company calls “a servant’s heart.”

eaHELP’s virtual assistants work anywhere from five to 20 hours a week during regular business hours. The company doesn’t publicize how much it pays its workers but based on the level of expertise they require, it’s probably at least market rate or above, which is in the $20 to $45 per hour range for U.S.-based virtual assistants.

FlexJobs.com

More than 1.8 million people have found money-making opportunities via this website, which is billed as “a service that aggregates jobs that offer some type of work flexibility… entry-level to executive; full-time to part-time.” For a monthly fee of $14.99 (as of press time), you get access to thousands of current, legitimate, pre-screened, ad- and scam-free job listings for services like consulting, tech and administrative support, sales, customer service, tutoring, accounting, software develop...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• LAYING THE FOUNDATION FOR SUCCESS
• PROVIDING SERVICES FROM HOME
• PROVIDING SERVICES IN YOUR COMMUNITY
• SELLING GOODS
• ADDITIONAL INTERESTING GIGS
• Conclusion
• About the Author