What the Tech? How to Start a New At-Home Career
We’ve looked at some ways to earn money online before, taking surveys, driving for Lyft or Uber and while you can certainly pick up a little extra money doing that, you may be looking for something more permanent.
A new career, or owning your own business. These two websites and services can help.
Upwork is a site that matches companies looking for people with specific talents and abilities for mostly office type work. If you’ve got experience as an administrative assistant, marketer, sales, or IT or creative design, Upwork lists your abilities and what type job you want to do.
Companies and small businesses often hire freelancers for those jobs, and they can pay very well.
Virtual assistants usually can make $25-$45 an hour. On the site I found one freelancer who has earned over $5,000 and one woman who’s made over $90,000 finding leads on LinkedIn, doing web research and writing for companies that can’t or won’t hire a fulltime employee to do those tasks.
Another freelancer charges $63 an hour writing for sales, and email marketing.
People with IT backgrounds earn as much as $100 and bookkeepers charge $95 an hour.
What’s even more attractive is that someone can work for multiple companies at the same time depending on the workload. And you can work from anywhere. Got a laptop but want to go to the beach? There are stories of people traveling the world while freelancing for companies thousands of miles away.
Some recent college graduates say they opened up shop on Upwork right after graduation and make a nice living doing freelance work for small businesses and large companies.
Your listing is free, companies are charged 3% for processing payments. Upwork is highly respected and has been in business since 2003 it has an A+rating with the Better Business Bureau.
HomeAdvisor is similar for people who work primarily with their hands. If you can do construction work, yard work, moving or staging a home for real estate agents, you can start your own business by answering a few questions about your work, undergo a background check and offer some referrals which can be from family or friends.
If this sounds familiar, HomeAdvisor acquired competitor Angie’s List in 2017.
Depending on the work you do and where you live, HomeAdvisor often says it will start sending you leads by the end of the day. You don’t need to take out any ads, customers find you using the HomeAdvisor website.
Home Advisor does not take a percentage of what you make, but charges $288 a year for the listing. It does not have a rating from the BBB.
Many will be more likely to hire freelancers rather than full-time employees who require benefits.
Fortunately, Technology has eliminated any barriers to entry to starting your own business By creating a free Facebook page for your business you should be up and running, very little cost to get started.
