Why Not Work From Home?
Are you 50 and trying to start a new career so you can have more financial freedom? Is it time in your life to be able to be your own boss and make your own business decisions? This may be the perfect time to start an online work-at-home business. I spent over 40 years getting up bright and early in the morning and traveling to work 5 sometimes 7 days a week. Since I retired I’ve been working from home and I love it!
There are five satisfaction factors that I feel you should look at before you begin any work-at-home business venture. These factors can increase your satisfaction of working online at home.
1. Rhythm – Are you a morning person or do you get more energetic in the afternoons? Some of us are total night owls, it’s quiet and there are no distractions. I myself after all of the years of getting up early am now sometimes working until 5am because it’s just become a productive time for me. So plan your work schedule so that you can work when you are most likely to be at your best.
2. Flexibility – Think before making decisions and without having to wait for the red tape machine to approve them. Be on top of the ball rather than behind it. You will learn to think ahead as this is so important and can earn you, or cost you, a lot of money. You need to be flexible and be able to change course from time to time. If somethings not working for you consider your options and always be patient and ready to consider making a change.
3. Authenticity – Set your own goals and be authentic in creating them. Don’t use someone else’s “been done” ideas and understand clearly why you decided on them. Authentic goals are ones you can really own yourself and be proud of. When you are happy, your business will benefit.
4. Strengths – Do you know what your strengths are? If not, there is a self-assessment exercise out there that can help you identify what your strengths are. Martin E.P. Seligman, Ph.D., a pioneer in the field of positive psychology, offers a self-assessment exercise to determine your personal strengths from a list of 24 personality traits. You can find the VIA Signature Strengths Questionnaire online at his website, authentichappiness.org. Plan to utilize the strengths you have in your business.
5. Purpose – When creating a mission for your business, embrace the greater purpose in yourself. In considering online work or at-home work, take the time to understand your passion and how you can tie it to a purpose. If you are passionate about the ways in which your business can impact the general public, you will have something you can do for a long time.
One of the advantages of working from home is, well, being home. It’s so convenient, yet it also means that you don’t cross paths with too many other people during the day. You should consider your network and associations with other people. We do need a certain amount of face to face interaction and not just live inside the computer. Your network is the life’s blood of your business. Connect with others, learn and share with them. Your network can create a steady stream of prospects for your at-home business.
Virtual networking is a great way to increase your network and thus, your business prospects. Social media offers many ways to gain traffic to your site. There are thousands of social sites on the web. But most experts advise to limit yourself to three at most, so make it Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Facebook – Create a fan page on Facebook then join groups that have a similar mindset as you. If you are trying to gain affiliates for a program you have started or even subscribers to a newsletter, join the groups that are working from home, earning money at home, home based businesses, etc. Be sure when you join them that they have a large membership (10,000 or more). You can then share your ads, posts, etc. with a large number of people and get some hits on your page and website.
Twitter – Twitter is a social networking and micro-blogging service that keeps people connected from their computer or phone. Twitter seems counter-intuitive. How can you network using only 140 characters at a time? One tax preparer added Twitter to his daily tasks and started tweeting about tax issues about once a day. He gained 7000 followers that were interested in his tax postings.
LinkedIn – Over 55 million professionals use LinkedIn.com, often for job hunting. It’s also a useful networking platform for home-based business owners. You use this platform to position yourself as an expert in your field. Ask and answer questions, post events, and it will help you become the authority on your subject or niche.
Starting a conversation on a social media platform is somewhat different from starting one in person. You must have engaging content to create a loyal following. Get people interested in what you have to offer and be sure that it is useful to the reader.
Evaluate your business idea. Don’t fall so in love with your idea that you skip necessary steps to validate your idea. Do testing on your topic and see if you can generate interest in that topic. A-B email tests are a great way to accomplish this goal. Test two different emails with different ideas and see which generates the most clicks, etc.
There are still many companies that age discriminate even though it’s against the law. Sell your age as an advantage. After all, you have experience, are loyal, responsible, and a hard worker. You still have traits that any employer would value – just sell them on you!
Working online and at home can be a very good way to continue to work even though you don’t want the downfalls of corporate America. Many older Americans are just tired of the rat race and the long, tiring commute. If all of this is what you are trying to avoid, then a home-based business that you can work online may be just what the doctor ordered.
Working at home allows you the flexibility to work when you feel like it and not when you don’t. So, if your health or stamina is a consideration, working at home can be a Godsend for you. Being able to sit in a chair or lay on your bed to do work, not to mention dressing any way you want and if you want, can alleviate health constraints for many workers that are not able to do the commute thing anymore.
You should choose when to work, how to work, and even what your business niche is before you get going on the project of your dreams. Choose what to wear, how to wear it, and if you wear it at all. Working at home is fast becoming a leader in the over 50 age group’s career choice and may soon be the main way to be gainfully employed over 50.