There are a variety of small business ideas that fall in between regular employment situations and self-employment situations.
They are those that involve working for a remote employer from home.
When you work from home, you can control your hours and your work environment. This means that you can add a part-time job to your life if your salary isn’t enough in these tough financial times.
Working from home means you cut your commute…to two seconds! This means you save money on gas.
Customer service and database jobs are the most popular work-from-home arrangements.
On his website (clarkhoward.com), financial expert and talk show host Clark Howard addresses this growing trend.
According to Clark, “one area [has] proven legitimate over time: becoming a call center worker from your home. Employers like this option because they don’t have to rent office space for you, so it costs them less than setting up a call center.”
In general, it costs employers $31 per each call-center employee. If you work from home, this lowers the cost shouldered by employers to $21.
According to Fortune magazine, about 100,000 people are currently employed within these work-from-home small business ideas. It is projected that, within the next year or two, this figure will triple.
There is a lot of demand for this type of work. JetBlue was one of the first companies to take advantage of the work-from-home call center model.
Faced with the need to cut costs in any way possible, more companies are turning to this home-based model, as well. They include J. Crew and I-800-Flowers.
Clark Howard warns, though, that “a lot of work-at-home offers are scams. One stat has it that for every legitimate offer you may see, you’re going to come across 42 scams.”
So be sure to exercise caution and do your homework on any company for which you’d like to work.
On his website, Clark has compiled a list of approved, legitimate vendors that offer work-from-home opportunities. Here are just a few:
1. alpineaccess.com – Customer service provider that uses home-based calling centers and home-based customer service employees
2. convergysworkathome.com – Home agent program that provides a variety of human resources and customer solutions, including customer relations and billing services
3. intellicare.com – Healthcare call center that provides services (both clinical and non-clinical) regarding health plans, healthcare providers, and healthcare managers
4. liveops.com – Virtual call center company that utilizes home-based employees
5. msvas.com – Developed the Military Spouses Virtual Assistants program to provide “portable careers” for the spouses of military members; also includes other virtual assistant programs
6. teamdoubleclick.com – Provides virtual office assistants
7. workingsolutions.com – Customer service provider that uses home-based customer service agents
The above companies allow you the freedom to set your own hours without burdening you with the responsibility of finding your own clients.
The home-based careers they offer are a compromise between regular employment situations and completely independent small business ideas.
If you already own a small business, the home-based model can be a great resource for you. It allows you to outsource components of your business like customer service, human resources, and billing.
Then, when you need customer service representatives, you’ll always have them at your disposal. But when you don’t need them, you won’t end up paying for them.
So whether you’re looking for a job or for employees, keep this in mind.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I have been offered an oppertunity to start a home business. the cost if 2500.00. This is to sell things on E-Bay. I handle no merchandise. I though this would be good for me sine that I have trouble with crouds. I haave applied for a smalll business loan. I was wonderingif this is agood thing or not. I need help to decide if I ahould so this.
thanks
Kathy Ellis
541-267-2445
Hi, Kathy,
What exactly would you be doing? What would you use the $2500 to accomplish? What is the company that is asking you to spend $2500 to get started? What is their obligation to you? What is your obligation to them?
Would you just be promoting articles on Ebay? Is someone asking you to bid up prices, which is not a good idea and in fact, might be illegal to do? It might be a great business since so many people want to sell things on Ebay and don’t know how. Several store fronts in New York City have cropped up. People can bring their goods and these stores will photograph your cherished item, upload it on Ebay and take a percentage of the sale as compensation. Is that what you’ll be doing? Give us a better understanding of your business model, and we’ll be able to better answer your question.
A last word of caution; do not spend any money on any business model until you have a trusted attorney review the terms of the deal. Nina Kaufman is our “go to” person who has kept a lot of small business owners from losing a lot of money. She’s a small business expert and her website is: Ask the Business Lawyer.com
Tell Nina, Dawn Fotopulos sent you.
Dear Kathy,
It’s difficult to know if this is a good investment of $2500 or not. What will the $2500 buy you? What exactly will you be doing? When will you hit break even? Where will your customers come from? How will they find you? How much will you charge? How will you get paid? Our apologies it took so long to respond to your question, but if you really need advice, we strongly suggest you take advantage of our “Panic Button” where an experienced consultant can answer your question more thoroughly. You don’t have to be in a Panic to hit the Panic Button!