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Making Work-At-Home Work For You

By Kevin M

There probably isn’t a soul in the workforce who hasn’t dreamed of or at least contemplated the possibility of working from home. There are many benefits to this arrangement but it’s important to understand the limitations as well.

I’ve spent a good deal of my life working from home and I strongly recommend it as a preferred work style. But I’ve also become quite familiar with both the advantages and the downsides of home basing. For years I worked from home as a mortgage loan officer. It was a natural advantage because it provided the ability to concentrate all of my efforts on serving my customers. It also forced me to learn to work independently and to identify and utilize outside sources who could enable me to do that fully.

Over time I became comfortable with the proverbial “chief cook and bottle washer” aspect of self-employment, and was able to transfer those skills to subsequent businesses, including recruiting and this weblog.

One element of work-at-home that I know to be absolutely critical above all other concerns: your contribution must add tangible value to your employers business.

Work-at-home isn’t about us nearly as much as it’s about our employers and what we can do for them through the arrangement. Never forget this.


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Cultivate Multiple Income Sources

STRATEGY #5 TO SURVIVE A DOWN ECONOMY

By Kevin M

In the dreary job market of the moment, people are having difficulty with two major areas in particular: keeping a steady income flow and increasing that flow. The increasing level of unemployment is not only eliminating jobs, but it’s also putting a lid on raises and promotion opportunities. This is in large part, the driving force behind the credit crisis and the epidemic of foreclosures and bankruptcies. Is there a way to deal with it without taking unnecessary risks?

In 10 Ways To Survive a Down Economy (published on Christianpf.com June 1) we listed ten strategies to help us deal with the bad economy. Our topic for today, Strategy #5:

Be prepared to cultivate and balance multiple income sources. You may have a full time job and a part time business, or vice versa. Think of your work in terms of an investment portfolio, in which diversification adds strength. There are probably several jobs you are potentially good at; always be on the lookout for new opportunities.

Why increasing income or broadening the income base matter


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Steady Paycheck VS. Self-Employment; Which is Right For You?

By Kevin M

It often seems that people who work for someone else, who hold traditional jobs, dream of the day when they’ll break out of their cubicle and go it alone, running their own business. But talk to many of the self-employed and you’re likely to hear of a deep desire to pitch it all for the predictability of a steady paycheck. Is anyone actually happy where they are? And how do you know if you’re best suited for one or the other?

Many of the discussions of traditional employment versus self-employment center on the financial side of the debate. For example, questions might center around the amount of capital you have to enter and maintain an upstart business, or on your track record of success as an employee at other businesses. While these certainly matter in the decision to transition into self-employment, I’d like to center this discussion on some of the more personal characteristics that could mean the difference between success or failure.


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Selling Your Skills on the Open Market

By Kevin M

This is a weekly open forum dedicated to increasing income, cash flow and customer base, for anybody who needs to increase business or supplement a paycheck. Salaried employees, homemakers, small business owners, commissioned sales people, entrepreneurs, retirees—this is FOR you, and we’d like to hear FROM you. What works in one household or business may not work in another, but then again it might. Or it might be modified and adapted to different situations.

In Can You Barter For What You Need? we discussed using your skills and services to barter for products and services you need. You can take the same principle however, selling your skills and services direct for a cash income, and nearly everyone has one or more skills to do this. You can do this as a side business, and eventually make it full time.

”What skills could I possible sell?”

Most of us don’t think that the skills we do at work would be of much value to people on the street. Think again. Right now a lot of small businesses either can’t afford to hire someone or have had to let people go. Even though staff is reduced, the work is often still there and needs to be done.


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What Career Will You Have in “Retirement”?

By Kevin M

You didn’t read that title incorrectly—that’s the question I’m asking, What Career Will You Have in Retirement? For most people the answer to this question should be given at least equal weight with the more popular focus on retirement savings.

I’m not saying that we should de-emphasize retirement savings—quite the contrary. Most of us probably need to be saving more for retirement than we are, and that’s the basic problem. How much can we save between now and retirement while navigating the cost of living in an uncertain economy, and in unpredictable financial markets? Can we ever know for sure that we’ll have enough?


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