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If you are a experienced virtual assistant, you might want to consider starting your own virtual assistant business. Managing your own business could be very changeling, especially if it’s your first time running a business. Before you start, there are a lot to consider, and here is a list of things you need to think and plan ahead:

1. What services you plan to offer to your client. This of course largely will depend on your skills and experience. You might want to just focus on a few things that you do best and enjoy doing, and gradually expand your service later.

2. What are your goals for the first 3, 6 month and 12 month? This is just a simple business plan outline your short term expectation of your business. How much you expect to make and on what budget. Be realistic and adjust it to accommodate for change and growth in your practice.

3. Choose a business name, get a business licence and incorporate if you choose to set up LLC or S/C corporation.

4. Get all your necessary equipment ready - a good computer, internet access, fax machines, copier and printer and comfortable office chairs.

5. Design and print marketing supplies - business card, fax, letter head, flyers, broucher etc.

6. Design and build your company website, ideally your website domain should be yourcompanyname.com (or close), choose emails address that is based on your company website domain name. Website should be a professional business website.

7. Set up bank account for your business, and/or apply credit cards or loans to cover start up cost if you don’t have savings.

8. Get all the draft business document ready such as business proposal, invoice and billing templates, contacts or letter of agreement etc.

9. Decide how much you are going to charge for your service(s). Research Virtual Assistant industry rate and local business market.

10. Decide how to market your business and networking - Join local professional organizations, Yellow book advertising, direct marketing, Internet Marketing (local craiglist could be a start.)

11. Which industry(s) you want to focus on first - this largely depends on your experience. You might already know some or many potential clients in certain industry, you might find it more effective starting with the familiar territory.

12. Planning on learning new skills. Expanding your skill sets brings you more potential clients, increase business revenue and makes you more competitive.

This list might not be complete, but I hope it give you some ideas and a starting guide to get more prepared to start a successful virtual assistant business. If you enjoy administrative work, running your own virtual assistant business is a great option working from home!

Virtual assistants perform administrative work remotely (work at home), and they have the same level and kind of responsibilities as they work in the business office setting. Even though job duties for virtual assistants mainly refer to office secretary work, virtual assistants can actually work on a wide range of job functions, depending on individual skills. Such duties of virtual assistant include and not limited to: customer service, answering phone calls, book keeping, data entry, appointment setting, document creation, database creation and maintenance, ghost writing, emails management, Internet research, newsletters publishing, web logo and graphic design, voice over and many more.

A virtual assistant should have basic skills, such as, good typing skills for quick data entry and creating documents, know how to use popular office software especially Microsoft Office, customer service skills in order to be able to assist and help customers, computer skills to be able to handle tasks such as emails management and Interent research, basic book keeping skills for record keeping, and well organized to handle multiple tasks effectively. Advanced skills could including graphic and website designs, database creation and management etc.

The virtual assistant skills can be obtained on job or special training. Many community colleges offer administrative assistant training classes and certifications, and many related classes and programs such as database and web design etc. The more skills a virtual assistant has, the better job outlook for him/her.

To find a virtual assistant job, visit job bank sites such as careerbuilder and yahoo hotjobs, or major work at home sites and forums, occasionally employers posts jobs over there as well. Another place looking for virtual assistant jobs is freelance job sites (such as guru.com, eLance.com and GetAFreeLancer.com) - those sites might have more short term temporary projects you can bid on. The problem with freelance job sites is since you have to compete with lot of other bidders (especially those overseas), you might end up getting paid lower rate than you expected. However, it is a way to get your foot in the door and you might even be able to find a long term job or clients of your virtual assistant business. You can also search craigslist, start with local search. Some people find craiglist very effective especially when search locally. No matter where you look, make sure use common sense while searching and applying for jobs, and be cautious about work at home jobs scams.

Many experienced virtual assistants run their own virtual assistant business, offering the services I mentioned above. Running a business gives them great flexibility working from home and the sense of control and achievement. However, working skills and experience is not enough to run a successful virtual assistant business, it requires a lot more. I will be exploring this topic in my next post.

Online tutoring or teaching is when a tutor or teacher provides educational instruction and/or help to their students, at an online classroom. An online classroom is a secure web environment where the teacher can chat with the student using instant messaging, draw problems on an interactive white board, share files to review essays and papers, and browse educational resources on the web together. Lot of times the online classroom is an one-on-one session that tutors help children with their homework and various school subjects, there are also many companies or websites provide tutoring service to adult learning on subjects such as English language.

Online tutoring and teaching is a great work from home option. You might think that to be able to teach you must have a teaching degree and/or be a certified teacher. That is not always the case. Some companies require their tutors have a bachelor degree or currently enrolled in a university (such as tutor.com), others might hire those who have tutoring experience. So you need to check out each site’s requirement when apply for online tutoring or teaching jobs. Online tutoring and teaching jobs usually pay at least $10 an hours/session, and certified teachers often can make more.

There are tools you need to have in order to teach and tutor online. You need to have a reliable high speed Internet connection, a good and fast computer - a computer has enough memory, since you might need to download software or application tutor companies use to teach students, such as an online chalk board. Of course you will need to have headset and/or web cam.

While many tutoring companies allow flexible schedules, you need to commit to tutoring during the hours you’ve scheduled and arrive on time, you need to finish the session without any interruption and you can’t leave the session early. You must know your teaching subject well, be able to communicate with your students and be able explain concepts to people of a variety of ages within a online environment.

There are many websites devoted to online tutoring and teaching for children and adults on a variety of subjects. Following are some of the legitimate online tutoring companies. I will be adding more to my work at home directory.

1. eSylvan - www.esylan.com
2. Tutor.com - www.tutor.com
3. goFlunt - www.goflunt.com
4. BrainFuse - www.brainfuse.com
5. KidSpan - www.kidspan.com
6. SmartThinking - www.smarthinking.com
7. MyTutor24 - www.mytuto24.com
8. Homework Tutoring - www.homeworktutoring.com
9. Aim for A Tutoring - www.aim4a.com
10. Tutors Teach - www.tutorsteach.com
11. A-1 Tutor - www.a1tutor.com
12. eHill - www.ehill.org

Besides online tutoring, online scoring is another great work at home option if you have teaching experience. ETS and Pearson both offer exciting work at home online scoring job opportunities. (links see work at home directory)

I am working on a REAL work at home directory - a directory that lists:

1. Legitimate companies that have telecommuting jobs;
2. Legitimate and practical home based business opportunities;
3. Various money making and income opportunities (not a job or a home business)
4. Best work at home resources - websites that are truly helpful and provide honest and comprehensive information.

The purpose of this directory is to provide a comprehensive and well categorized work at home reference, helping people quickly and easily find and research work at home jobs and business opportunities. I realized that there are tons of “work at home directory” websites already, but I am dedicated to make this one unique and truly helpful.

While using this directory, please make sure to read the description of each category carefully. Since some categories could list real companies that offer work at home telecommuting JOBs, others list home based business opportunities or other work at home resources. It’s important to know and understand what you are looking for and expect.

Building this directory will be a working progress, meaning it will not be done overnight. While I am doing my research on work at home ideas and opportunities, I will gradually expand the listing. So please come back from time to time, since it is very likely there are new listings added since your last visit.

Each listing on this directory is the result of my own independent research or from my personal experience, meaning I will NOT list anything unless I have looked into it or have tried it myself. So I am very confident this directory WILL BE the best work at home directory and resource.

If you have any experience (positive or negative) with any companies or websites on this directory, please feel free to contact me to share your story, and your comments and suggestion are always welcome and appreciated.

You can always access the directory through the Work At Home Directory link located at the top menu.

Pinecone Research is one of the best paid survey companies. They have interesting market research surveys, and they pay members very promptly. The only “drawback” is people have to looking for Pinecone sign up banners to join their panel, because Pinecone Research doesn’t accept new members on their website, instead they recruit new survey panel members through advertising or member referrals.

If you are looking for Pinecone Research banner or sign up link, look no further! I will post Pine cone Research banner or sign up link whenever it is available and keep it updated here at this page. If the sign up link is not active, you can bookmark this page to check back later.

If you are Spanish or Hispanic descent, and live in United States,

Please click this link or the banner below to sign up with Pinecone Research USA

I have been a Pinecone Research survey panel member for over 3 years. I really enjoy my survey experience with Pinecone. For me, I usually can complete their surveys within 5-10 minutes, and I especially like Pinecone’s product testing surveys. Typically I receive 1-2 paying surveys and a couple of household surveys per month. Pinecone doesn’t pay for household surveys which sort of like “screening” surveys that determine if your profile fits their upcoming survey opportunities.

Pinecone Research often two payment options - check and Paypal. Members can choose either one to get paid. Before Pinecone offers Paypal option, I used to receive survey checks within 3 days after completing the surveys. In fact, I have heard people received their checks before they take surveys (it was long time ago though). I chose Paypal option after Pinecone made it available to members - I have to say, it is even better, I always get paid the next business day after I take a survey! It is probably the fasted paying survey experience I have, Pinecone certainly is No.1 on this!

Right now Pinecone Research is paying new members $3.00 for each survey, and they have implemented a new reward program that members will receive $3.00 for every survey AND a sweepstakes entry for every household surveys. Members have the option to opt in the new reward program with the possibility of receiving more surveys from Pinecone. I understand many Pinecone Research’s “old” members who used to received $5.00 for each survey (including me) are not very happy about this change. However, I think Pinecone Research still is one of the best survey companies, due to the quality of their surveys and timely payment.

As I have mentioned, you can find Pinecone sign up banner and link right here whenever Pinecone is accepting new panel members. The sign up process is really quick and easy. The Pinecone sign up screen looks like this:

Once you finish signing up, you should receive a confirmation email from Pinecone Research 1 or 2 business days later informing you are accepted as a new Pinecone Research panel member. (I received the confirmation email the next day) If don’t receive the confirmation email it is likely you are not accepted but you still can try signing up later.

Note: you can use IE or Firefox Internet browser to sign up with Pinecone and/or take their surveys. I used to think you have to use IE browser to take Pinecone’s surveys, but that is not the case. I recently took a couple of surveys for Pinecone with Firefox and had no problems with it at all.

One thing I want to remind everyone is it is AGAINST Pinecone’s policy to discuss any survey and product testing experience with Pinecone publicly. When you sign up with Pinecone Research, you agree to keep those information confidential. And this is actually what you should do for ALL paid survey and market research companies.

Despite the recent change, Pinecone Research is still one of my favorite paid survey companies. Yes I make more money with a number of other paid survey sites, but I love the fact that Pinecone Research is reliable and fast paying, and provide panel members interesting and good market research paid survey and product testing opportunities.

I definately would recommend Pinecone Research to anyone who want to make some extra money with paid surveys.

For more discussions and tips about Pinecone Research, and other legitimate paid survey sites, please visit http://www.mysurvey123.com.