Working From Home, Freelance Business Opportunities

Working at home in a freelance job means that you are not guaranteed a regular pay cheque. But the advantage is that you can make a lot more money.

So what kind of jobs can you do as a freelance operator?

The best kind of work involves creative ability. Working as a freelance writer can be lucrative. Your business could involve writing text for web pages, writing articles and submitting them, being a ghost writer for a busy executive, proof reading and even just basic data entry.

Knowing how to use the internet is helpful because often you will be asked to write about subjects where your own knowledge is very limited.

Working at home as a free lance web designer can be profitable if you understand web site design and are a bit of a techie! According to recent reports 53% of small businesses now have a website. This means that there are still 47% of businesses that do not have a web presence.

Another area of opportunity lies in getting targeted traffic to existing and new websites. Most people assume that once they build a great website, traffic will come naturally. This is far from true.

Another type of business that you can work from home is turning your passion for taking pictures into a serious free lance business opportunity. With the advent of digital cameras this is no longer as expensive as it used to be and you can view all the pictures on your computer screen before deciding which ones to use and which ones to print!

To make it successful working from home it is important to become very good at one skill. There are many opportunities out there for people who are dedicated and can perform a task well.

Working from home is also becoming very popular with larger businesses who allow their employees to work from home. This allows them to keep great staff who feel they would like to spend more time with the family. If more companies followed suit then just maybe there would be less traffic on the road during rush hour.

Here's to your success.

Selling Yourself As A Freelance Business Writer: Skills, Or Knowledge?

You know the secret to a long-term, and profitable, client relationship is delivering effective communication tools. But you may not realize that the impact of your writing has more to do with your skill as a writer than with your knowledge of the subject.

And unless you help your clients understand the value of your skills, you limit your opportunities to sell those skills again and again.

Every business has its own specialists, people who know more about their products and services than you'll ever know. So why can't they produce great marketing copy, clear user guides, or truly effective training for their employees and sales reps?

Because they don't have the skills that you do, the talent for communicating with impact to achieve specific results. We've all met experts who "know their stuff" but can't share their knowledge -- perhaps your math or physics or French teacher, or an engineer or programmer in a company you know, or even your doctor, lawyer, or insurance agent.

At some point, a company realizes they need help communicating, educating prospects, customers, and their own employees about the benefits and best practices associated with their products and services. They go looking for outside help . . . and then they forget why!

Your long-term success depends on reminding them of that need for communication skills. Most of these experts, whether clinicians or programmers or engineers or legal experts, are more comfortable talking to people just like themselves, rather than creative types like artists and writers.

Left to themselves, they'll hire someone who knows a lot about their area, but perhaps writes only a little better than they do. And a year or two later, they'll be looking for someone else to help them when they realize that all the copy and training content and documentation they have churned out has produced mediocre results.

Help yourself and help your clients.

When you get an opportunity to talk to a prospect about creating effective communications for them, keep pushing the conversation toward the skills they need to pull it off. Make sure they understand their own need for someone different from the resources they already have in house. Help them recognize that your skills complement their knowledge, that it is that combination that produces results in the form of higher revenues, more customers, or enhanced employee performance.

Even if you know their subject matter well, your skills are more important. After all, should their product line change, or new markets open, they may be dealing with a new body of knowledge in a year or two.

But their need for effective communication will remain, and, if you've positioned yourself as the "communication expert" of their team, you'll continue to have opportunities for business from existing clients even as their business practices and markets change.

Discover the Advantages to Hiring a Freelance Web Site Copywriter for Your Web Business

Ok…so you already have a crack staff of writers on-hand to handle your company website's writing assignments. So why should you consider hiring a freelance copywriter?

Well, as you know, today’s corporate belt-tightening often means too much work for too few people. This is especially true in the communications area, where cutbacks have strained the resources of our workforce across the board. The result? Stress, overwork and low morale.

And of course, this strain is more intense when those unusual or special projects come up. The disruption in the day-to-day activities of your staff can have two results. Either this project gets low priority or the day-to-day work suffers.

What’s the alternatives? Well, you can solicit the services of an established Ad agency or PR firm. And in some instances this can be the wise choice, especially when you need the kind of flashy productions intended to impress and entertain the client…the kind designed to win glitzy awards.

The problem? These fancy productions often come with a significant price tag. Face it, these firms have a lot of employees to feed and the cost of this high overhead is passed on to you. And that often means a budget under stress.

In addition, these firms tend to be busy with the best writers often assigned to the large, high profile clients. You may get a team of junior writers, but you’ll still pay the high cost.

The solution? Studies indicate that hiring a freelance writer can actually average 5% (or more) less expensive than work done internally. While at first glance the higher freelance per hour rate appears more cost, when you add the true cost of internal labor, not only salary, but benefit and overhead costs. And because you use him only when needed, there is no ‘downtime’ cost.

And with low overhead, the costs for freelancers are generally significantly lower than the established ad agency and PR firms.

What are some other advantages, besides cost, to having a freelance writer in the bullpen?

· Control…Office politics, personal sensitivities and organizational bureaucracies often effect control of a project deadlines and content. The freelance writer is your strategic sourcing partner for any project, working with you.

· Objectivity…Essential to creating powerful persuasive copy. Freelancers can give an impartial view and new perspective to your project.

· Writing experience…Intimate knowledge of a product or service is not necessary to write about it. Good copywriters are experienced researchers and adept at asking the right questions to get up to speed quickly. What is more important is the fresh perspective that comes from their diverse experience in meeting a variety of communication challenges.

· Better results… Many writers can write well…but few can produce the powerful and persuasive copy that optimizes lead generation or sales. The best copywriters are masters at pulling in qualified customers dramatically increasing profits.

· Fees…Copy fees are almost always a very small portion of the total project cost, but its effect on money generating results can be enormous.

Don’t wait until crunch time to start seeking relief. Have a freelancer in your bullpen to come to your aid…when you need him.

Copyright Alan Richardson