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I saw a blog post from a lady who wants to be a Work From Home Mum but didn’t know what to do. She discussed some ideas but sought comment from her readers. As I wrote my own comments I realised it’s information I really should be adding here too, so here it is. Hope this helps a few readers out there!

What skills and abilities do you have? Those who successfully work at home use skills they’ve already developed and turn them into a productive business. There are so many things you could be doing but it’s best to start with what you already know and build on that.

For example over 13 years ago I started with word processing and data entry because that was my skill base at that time. Today I do so much more and my business has expanded. My daughters have grown up with mum at home which was such a blessing. And 3 of them at least (I have 5) want to work from home too - doing what they know. One is a seamstress so is planning to do bridal and formal wear, and perhaps children’s clothes too. Another works with horses and wants her own property so breed and manage horses. And another has great computer skills and plans to develop an eBay business and perhaps do some typing on the side.

If you look at yahoogroups.com you’ll find tens of thousands of discussion groups on every topic imaginable. Do a search on what your skills are and I be you’ll find a discussion group of people running home based businesses doing that very thing - why not join and learn from them?

So, what are your thoughts? KMT

work from home, wahm, home based business, home business ideas

Tags: Work From Home by Kathie Thomas
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Then you need to drop over to Splat Designs who have a contest on. But be quick!  The contest closes very soon and a winner will be drawn 1st August.

Tags: Blogging by Kathie Thomas
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The ‘paperless’ office is pretty much a joke these days. Email seems to generate much more of it, but even if we don’t print it off, we still have lots to read and catch up on - if we want to keep up to date with the world. The world has grown ’smaller’ but with it the amount of stuff we want to know and read has increased considerably. This leads us to being on lots and lots of lists and it’s easy to lose control of what we’ve subscribed to and where those things are on the web.

I started subscribing to lists back in 1997 or perhaps even earlier, definitely before spam became a problem and so every man and his dog seemed to end up with my address as it got passed or sold from one person to another. Of course spam legislations and other rulings now make that a ‘no no’ but it doesn’t change what has taken place in the past. The end result is that people tend to get an email address that they use for subscriptions only and then change it if the spam gets too much. And that’s where a new challenge comes - to the owners of the lists you want to stay on.

I frequently get emails from people asking me to change their details on my, or my clients’ broadcast lists. Or autoresponders that say ‘Johnnie doesn’t use this address anymore, please update your file to xxxx’. I guess that seems fair enough to the owner of that address but what about the list owner when they get this multiple times? Suddenly they’re faced with having to set aside time to update addresses on their lists.  Not to mention all the old addresses that need culling.

Many lists I belong to (and those I use) allow you to click on a link and update the listing yourself and I encourage you to do so.  Or if you want to get off a list, use the Cancel link rather than emailing the people who own the list to ask them to remove you - much less time and keystrokes involved for all.  And it’s easier.

And if you’re sick of changing addresses constantly, consider using a good spam filter online and then add the addresses of the lists you want to stay on, to the safe list so they can get through.  I use spamarrest and this has worked well for me for several years now.  KMT

Tags: Productivity Tips, Technology by Kathie Thomas
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I became aware today of a new conference taking place in September of this year. The topic is about Embracing Your Virtual World but the conference is on site in California with no mention of any virtual participation. I went and checked out their website with the hope of filling out a form or making contact - no contact information on the site at all - unless you register. What is this? A website (virtual presence), a conference about the virtual world, but no way of contacting these people virtually (or even by phone or fax) and no mention of any virtual participation. I emailed them care of their newsletter address so hopefully someone will get it!

I was recently made aware of your forthcoming convention but there is no contact information on your site promoting this and no way of making contact, unless you register.

I was interested in finding out why this isn’t being held virtually since it is about embracing the virtual world? And I am serious. I am a Virtual Assistant and belong to a fast growing worldwide community of virtual business operators. We’ve been holding annual conferences for two years now, over a 3 day period in May - all entirely virtual with speakers from 7 different countries or timezones.

I’m sure the topic of your convention would be of interest to people globally but because of airfares, accommodation and global unrest, many would not want to travel all the way to California.

What do you think? Shouldn’t a conference about something of this nature have a virtual component for virtual attendees? For those of you who aren’t aware, the Online International Virtual Assistants Convention was held online with attendees from many countries with a total of 23 speakers from different countries and timezones and was a fantastic event. Whilst the OIVAC focused on the Virtual Assistant industry anyone was welcome to attend as the variety of topics presented applied to anyone in business. KMT

virtual business, virtual assistant, starting a business

Tags: Business Operations, Technology by Kathie Thomas
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For many months now I’ve been writing a book. I’ve written other books which are sold as e-books online and are business ‘how to’ books, but this one is different and is being published by a company in W.A.

I began a blog (yes another one - I own several) in January 2006 which has proven very popular and when I mentioned it to my business coach late last year he said I should really do something with it and turn it into a book. I thought about that but didn’t do anything about it, and at the following session I saw my coach I mentioned I’d been booked to speak at a Christian Business Women’s Conference in Brisbane for September 2007. ‘Great!’ he said ‘you can launch your book there!’

Up till that point it was just an idea but suddenly it began to take hold and thereafter at each session he would ask me how many words I’d written? I took the idea of the blog and the content and built on it, and wove my story into it, and now it’s soon to be a full-sized paperback - probably to be listed in the ’self-help’ or ‘Christian living’ genres.

If you don’t have a business coach it is worth exploring.  I provide VA services to a few coaches and decided I need to get a coach I didn’t do work for - for a couple of reasons.  I didn’t want to have to choose one from the other, but also I felt they would already have a perception of who I am and what I do (based on what I do for them) and I wanted to have someone work with me from a separate viewpoint.  And then I went to a networking meeting about a year ago and saw a man from my church who is a business coach. We began talking and things just clicked.  Stuart really has been excellent for me.  Whilst my business had been moving forward, he’s had me dreaming, planning and pulling out things I had put aside because I was so busy concentrating on running my business.  Now I’m looking up and ahead again and the book has become one of those things that used to be in the distant future.

Going this road is new, exciting, scary and full-on.  I had to commit myself to write a few thousand words every weekend for months and had it set in my Outlook calendar to nag me into getting the work done. But now it’s done I’m filled with excitement and can’t wait to see the finished product.   Stay tuned!

Tags: Productivity Tips, Blogging by Kathie Thomas
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