TELECOMMUTIING employ ment

TELECOMMUTIING employ ment

All trademarks mentioned throughout this publication are property of their

respective owners

Published in 2001 by Edward B Toupin, Las Vegas, NV, United States

Copyright  2001, Edward B Toupin All rights reserved

Manufactured in the United States of America

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,

or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,recording, or otherwise without the prior written permission of Edward B

Toupin

Contact the publisher at publish@toupin.com and the author at

etoupin@toupin.com

Visit the online library at http://www.toupin.com/library/

Provide your feedback at http://www.toupin.com/library/form_main.html

Table of Contents

List of Tables vii

List of Figures viii

About The Author ix

Acknowledgements xi

Preface xiii

Introduction 1

Why do it? 1

Can I do it? 2

What do I do? 2

How do I do it? 2

Making the Decision 3

Influencing Factors 3

Do I have what it takes? 4

Making It Happen 6

What are the steps? 9

Preparing Your Plan 9

Set Yourself Up 10

Prepare Your Business 10

Market Your Product or Service 10

Pack Away the Money 11

Easy Does It 11

Quit Your Job 11

Planning 13

Determining the Objectives 13

Steps to Defining your Objectives 14

Defining Your Mission 15

Steps to Creating the Mission Statement 16

Defining Your Vision 17

Steps to Creating the Vision Statement 17

Redefining Your Goals 18

Steps to Defining Goals 19

Establishing an Action Plan 19

Steps to Creating the Action Plan 20

The Basic Business Plan 20

Setting Yourself Up 23

Establish Yourself 24

Locating a Job 25

Make Yourself Known 26

The Presentation 27

Interviews 28

Offers and Acceptance 30

Telecommuting 31

Possible Telecommuting Jobs 32

Business Ideas 35

Business Consulting 35

Booklet Publishing 40

Home-Based Typing 41

Personal Factors 42

Imagination 42

Ensuring Success and Survival 43

Lack of Money is No Excuse for Failure 43

Your Banker 44

Naming Your Business 44

Pricing 45

Service Guidelines 45

Pace Yourself 45

Information Brokering 46

Phone Counselor 47

How do you qualify? 48

How do I get started? 48

Ok, I can read tarot Now what? 49

How does this work? 49

What's the catch? 50

For you, I see 50

Resume Writing 50

Setting Up 52

Resumes and Cover Letters 52

Marketing 53

Interviewing the Client 54

Preparing the Resume 55

Fees for Your Service 56

Cover Letter 56

Make It Happen 56

Self-Publishing 57

Find Your Market 57

Cash in on Your Creativity and Expertise 58

Packaging 58

Focus on Salable Material 58

Fill the Material with Benefits 59

Emotional Appeal 59

Advertising 59

Remote Temporary Help 61

Setting Up Your Business 69

Creating the Organization 69

Sole Proprietorship 70

Partnership 70

Limited Liability Company 71

Corporation 72

The IRS 73

Payroll Taxes 73

Federal Income Tax Obligations 74

Sales Tax 75

State Tax 76

Insurance 76

Business Resources 77

Marketing Your Wares 79

Writing Free Content 80

Using the Internet to Promote 81

Web Site Madness 81

Discussion Groups 82

Zines 82

Newsgroups 83

Make Sense of the Search 85

Why so many? 85

I'm over here! 86

The Search Methods 87

Using a Tool 88

The Presentation 88

What's next? 88

Locating Opportunities 91

What can I do? 91

How do I smell? 92

Locating Opportunities 92

Search Sites 93

Other Resources 93

Make Yourself Known 94

The Interview 94

Landing a Job 95

Balancing Your Finances 97

Financial Planning 97

Paying the Bills 98

Working & Living at Home 101

Wear Your Pajamas to Work Day 101

Combining Work and Home 102

Your Home Office 104

Can your business thrive out of your home? 104

Dealing with Customers and Suppliers 105

Neighbors and Family 106

Being Your Own Boss 106

Professionalism 107

Healthy Lifestyle 107

Work Hours 108

Legal Restrictions 108

Tips to Help You Telecommute Successfully 109

Taking the Leap 111

Before You Quit 111

Quit—With Dignity! 112

Things to be aware of 113

Security 113

Socializing and Being Liked 114

Promotion and Visibility 114

Fear 115

Bartering for Work 115

Sure, I'll Do It For Free! 116

Scheduling Your Time 117

Starting Out 117

If You Schedule It, Make It Happen 119

Last Minute Scheduling 119

A1 General Links 122

A2 Research Links 124

A3 Tools and Software 125

A4 E-Book Marketing Links 127

A5 Web Site Marketing Plan 131

A6 Telecommuting Web Sites 132

A7 Telecommuting Companies 134

A8 Government Links 138

A9 Personal Objectives 139

A10 Do I have what it takes? 140

A11 Am I ready? 142

A12 Business Plan 143

Information Resources 144

A13 Job Search Checklist 147

A14 Glossary 148

Index 151

List of Tables

Table 1: Potential Telecommuting Jobs 32

List of Figures

Figure 1: Creating Your Goals 18

About The Author

Edward B Toupin is a freelance consultant, writer, and published author living in LasVegas He currently handles technical writing tasks for various companies in New York,Chicago, and Denver as well as imagineers and markets feature-length and shortscreenplays

Edward provides quality Web site design, development, and marketing as well aswriting, document design and planning, and e-book publishing services You can visithis Web site at http://www.toupin.com or contact him at etoupin@toupin.com

First and foremost, I want to thank my clients and my friends for supporting me when I

decided to take the leap into the telecommuting lifestyle It was very much like

skydiving for the first time—massive fear and adrenaline until you land on the ground Ifyou get it right once, you want to do it again and again

Above all, I want to thank my wife for not passing out the day I showed up at home forlunch—and never went back Through my odd little twists and turns in my latestendeavors, even though you didn't understand everything I did, you have been mostsupportive! Thank you

I actually had a wonderful career as a software engineer I worked on real-time,process control systems for the larger oil companies I had a big house in the

mountains, two fancy trucks, and all the bills that usually come with the idea of living

comfortably I was caught in Corporate America by the golden handcuffs, but I had to

have more Not more money—I wanted more time to spend with the family and more

time to do the things that I wanted to do.

Being in Corporate America for so long, I took the standard approach to finding more—I

started searching for higher paying jobs I was able to locate and qualify for numeroustechnical and managerial positions; however, I began to realize that I was going deeperinto a corporate hole Unless I was willing to give up my identity, my creativity, all myspare time, and my ability to enjoy life, then finding a new job was not going to work Ifound that I was spending more time at the office, more money maintaining the imageand less time with my family Even with a higher paying job, I still just broke even on allfronts!

One of the major issues I had when I left my former company was that I no longer feltlike I was accomplishing anything, because everyone wanted me to do something I

know, this sounds whiney, but the problem was that I was a Web developer, a writer, a

software engineer, and a mathematician I was working in every department doing allkinds of things from tutoring developers in software engineering processes, to writingInternet applications, to Web design, to writing manuals and white papers I was evenused in various meetings, and on various documents, to translate highly technical itemsinto layman's terms for the clients

One day, I decided to play hooky I just relaxed on my deck and read a book Out ofthe blue, I felt this cold chill go down my back—all the tiny hairs stood up on end Avision of freedom flashed through my brain and I finally realized that I had to quit my day

job! Yes, tell the boss that I've had it and I quit! Then I realized that I still have that big

house in the mountains, two fancy trucks, and all the bills I was stuck!

Here is where I have to explain something For the past decade or so, I've been writingfor various publishers and developing Web sites on the side My little part-time hobbywas grossing more than my full-time day job I never realized that I could succeed on

my own until I took a long, hard look at what was happening in my life I wasbrainwashed by the corporate mentality! I felt as though I needed to work for others tomake it in this world My actual realization was not that I just had to quit my job—I had

to work for myself

During the past six years, I learned how to find telecommuting work, how to contactpublishers, how to contact producers, and how to make it happen With the experience

I gained over the years, I knew how to make it happen all along—I just had to do it!

What I'm going to show you is how to use your experience to begin establishingyourself In this way, you can eventually break out of your golden handcuffs and turn

your life, and your career, into something that you want It's not easy! In fact, at the

beginning, you'll end up with sleepless nights and probably end up wishing you wereemployed full-time again But, after all is said and done and you break out of thecorporate mind-set, it's rewarding and it's yours!

About a year ago I wrote Gainfully Unemployed It was a short e-book about how I

planned the steps to quitting my full-time day job and go to work for myself It sold well,however, readers wanted more than just my view of how to get into telecommuting So,

I took that e-book and expanded it into this e-book to give you what you wanted

Throughout this new e-book, you will notice references to independent and

telecommuting That's because the idea of telecommuting has several different

definitions To some, it is working at home a few days a week To others, it is workingfull-time for a company in their home office For others still, it is simply working at homefor themselves The one common element is the idea of being independent in your lifeand your choices In the long run, what it is to you is up to you!

Why do it?

I had a hundred reasons to want to telecommute and I knew I had to do it I justdidn't know how to go about fine tuning my desires and still maintain my quality oflife I eventually sat down and same up with a small list of reasons why I wanted totelecommute I ultimately wanted

• the freedom to be creative;

• to eliminate the commutes to the city;

• the time to spend with my family; and

• my wife to enjoy herself.

Those few points were my underlying reasons for wanting to telecommute Ofcourse, my managers, at that time, scoffed at the ideas But what better reason to

do anything than to do it because it is something you

want and you enjoy

You might think that your reasons for telecommuting

are invalid Believe it or not, all of the possible

reasons that anyone can think of are valid reasons for making it happen Of course,your current employer might not take kindly to some of the reasons, and others maynot fully understand your motivations It really doesn't matter! As long as you feelstrongly enough about your reasons, then you should pursue your desireddirections Once I made the decision, I realized that the money and the flexiblehours came along with the package—an added bonus!

Can I do it?

Of course, various personal attributes that can make or break you, but many of theissues involved in telecommuting can be overcome There are a few items,however, that are born into each of us making it difficult under any circumstance.These traits, too, can be overcome as long as you can recognize that they do exist

Do what you enjoy and the money will follow!

Making the Decision

Making the decision to leave your full-time job is one of those big decisions They say

marriage, birth, death, changing residence, and changing jobs are five of the morestressful situations that a human being can encounter—they all take a lot of courage.Courage, however, doesn't pay the bills To be successful, you not only need courage,but you also need a combination of hard work, skill, perseverance, and several personalfactors that can ensure your success

I made the change after years of preparation For some, you may have the time toprepare, but for others, there may not be any time Downsizing and job loss are twomajor reasons for starting out on your own Other reasons may be that you want to takeadvantage of your talents or simply change careers There are many reasons But, ifyou still have a job, why leave? Right? Maybe not

Influencing Factors

Before you can take the leap, you have to step back and look at things to make sureyou're making the right decision First, analyze why you want to make this move.The different reasons that people decide to leave their jobs can be divided into two

categories: reactive reasons and active reasons Reactive reasons detract from

working for others—negative reasons that push you out Active reasons attract you

to leaving your current situation—positive reasons that pull you out It's usually

better to be pulled out than pushed out as reactive reasons tend to stick with you

from job to job If you are pulled out, you're going somewhere for greener pastures

instead of leaving because you've become dissatisfied with the environment

In either case, the following list contains some of the more common active reasonsthat cause people to leave their full-time jobs:

• Finances: The desire to get paid for the extra effort you put into your work.

• Freedom: The ability to decide for yourself and maintain a flexible schedule.

• Quality of Life: Being able to live a better and healthier life.

• Family: Being able to spend more time with your family.

• Adventure: Breaking out of the mold and taking a risk.

• Bureaucracy: Tired of dealing with the red tape and in-fighting.

• Creativity: Being able to express your ideas and produce your products.

• Control: Taking total control of your life and your direction.

Can you see any of your personal reasons listed? If so, you're not alone But, whatcan you do to resolve those issues and the reasons you have? Keeping reading,we'll discuss that shortly

Do I have what it takes?

Most people do have what it takes, but they don't know it yet Being able to workindependently is not as easy as working for someone else, especially since youbecome the workforce and the management Once you take the first step anddecide to work for yourself, or by yourself, you then have to make it happen,successfully That's an entirely different situation

It takes a certain set of characteristics to make an independent endeavor successful.Some of the more common, yet unique, traits of successful independents are asfollows Pay attention to them and judge yourself for each!

• Achievement: Many people measure their achievement based on their

money, while others through their accomplishments You'll need to gaugeyour success on your accomplishments and achievements This means thatyou must be able to accomplish your goals and move forward to the next in

an established pattern

• Social: It's a lonely world out there, and being independent amplifies this

issue To be successful, you can't have a need to be around people all of thetime, nor should it matter if you're liked Exercising power is important tomany people and, in most cases that's all that some people know You're inbusiness to achieve your goals, and that's all there is to it! Be a non-conformist