New from New England

[Lisa]

Hi everyone, I'm also new to this website and the thought of freelancing. It will be one year this week that I was laid off as a Production Planning and Scheduling Supervisor for a biotech company. I've loved the opportunity of being home with my children but am desperately missing my professional persona. So I started a temp job one day a week as a receptionist/admin. and thought to myself I can't believe I'm getting paid for this, this is GREAT (it's been some time since I did Admin work). Which prompted me to strike up the idea of doing admin work from home :idea: ! Imagine my surprise when I started looking around the web and saw that many other talented ladies were also struck by the same idea. So now I find myself wondering should I start doing some market research to determine the local demand for a VA or should I maybe start looking into a different area of helping businesses. Perhaps helping with their long term forecasting and/or demand planning. Does anyone have any thoughts, comments, suggestions???

Also, for those freelance mom's that have been doing this for a while. How do you conduct business from your home when you have little ones running around???

Thanks in advance. Best of luck to all :D
Lisa

[Lori]

Welcome Lisa!

It's great to have you with us. I know what you mean about wanting to nourish the professional part of yourself! A lot of us feel that way... and yet hate to give up these young years with our children.

Freelancing is really a terrific happy medium.

I'm not the best one to ask on working at home with little ones... I let them crawl all over me!

I get my best work done at night. But I bet you can pick up some good pointers from some of the more organized Mom's on the board :D

Lori

Hi everyone, I'm also new to this website and the thought of freelancing. It will be one year this week that I was laid off as a Production Planning and Scheduling Supervisor for a biotech company. I've loved the opportunity of being home with my children but am desperately missing my professional persona. So I started a temp job one day a week as a receptionist/admin. and thought to myself I can't believe I'm getting paid for this, this is GREAT (it's been some time since I did Admin work). Which prompted me to strike up the idea of doing admin work from home :idea: ! Imagine my surprise when I started looking around the web and saw that many other talented ladies were also struck by the same idea. So now I find myself wondering should I start doing some market research to determine the local demand for a VA or should I maybe start looking into a different area of helping businesses. Perhaps helping with their long term forecasting and/or demand planning. Does anyone have any thoughts, comments, suggestions???

Also, for those freelance mom's that have been doing this for a while. How do you conduct business from your home when you have little ones running around???

Thanks in advance. Best of luck to all :D
Lisa

[Debbi]

Welcome Lisa,

I'm glad you found Freelancemom. It's the best place to hang out, share ideas, etc.

I do have a couple tips from my adverture in freelancing:

1. Find a niche. I think this is very important at this stage of Virtual work, because the market, in my opinion, is becoming saturated. There are virtual workers EVERYWHERE, some of them willing to work for next to nothing. This is what a generalist is competing against. Now, I am speaking from experience, too. I am not saying limit yourself to a single skill, but a market (I am probably telling you what you already know). I've seen sites that cater exclusively to real estate websites, or medical websites. I think this is the wave of the future.

2. Kids. Now, first off, everyone is different. What works for one, may not work for another. But speaking from my experience, the kids must learn to respect your space. If you're easy going and work well with distractions, this may not be the case. I'm not, ask Lori :lol:

Anyway, I had to work FT to support our family of 5, so rules had to be made. It works for me because I have time to work, and less stress. The kids understand that when I am in my office, I'm working. I don't go in there to play games, etc. And if they need me, obviously, I'm right there. I take breaks at least once an hour, which is nice for me too!

Some moms would think I'm crazy, I'm sure. But this is what worked for me.

Best of luck, Lisa, and let us know how it goes.

D