Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?
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@scottalanmiller said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
@guyinpv said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
If I am a one-man-shop and my market is essentially residential clients to small businesses, they hire me to assess needs but also buy stuff, implement, and do all the labor. Sometimes the job is "help me Obi wan Kenobi" and they don't really know what they need, but other times they are more specific and ask for specific things.
Right, that market has no consulting, it's a VAR-only market. I don't think that anyone would disagree there.
My point is that the distinction is on a per-client or per-job basis. When Minion says she could never trust to hire anyone who had affiliate products, it's a blanket statement. What if the job has nothing to do with any of those products? Or what if there is a prior assumption that those won't/can't be used in the first place?
This is why I said 1200 posts ago you were throwing the baby out with the bathwater. You can't make distinctions at the per-job level? One job is pure sales, pure VAR, pure affiliate links as free advice? While another job is more "serious" consulting where none of that applies?
I'm just curious then. Does a little leaven leaven the whole lump? Or can an independent like me do a little of this and a little of the other?
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@guyinpv said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
I'm just curious then. Does a little leaven leaven the whole lump? Or can an independent like me do a little of this and a little of the other?
A little of both, I think. Let me give two wording examples of how I see it.
Case 1: You sell some lemonaid and you consult on computers. Are you a reseller? Yes (assuming you don't make your OWN lemonaid, of course, then you'd just be a seller.) Are you also a consultant? Yes. You can be both, there is a reasonable opportunity to know that one will not influence the other before an engagement begins.
Case 2: You sell some lemonaid and you also consult on soft drinks. Will the fact that you sell lemonaid ever influence your soft drink consulting? Almost certainly. Will it every time? Probably not. Is there a way to know ahead of time which cases it will influence and which it will not ahead of time? Not very often.
The later is the problem. Let's say you resell Cisco switches. And you consult on networking. Sometimes, you'll know before an engagement that there is no chance of there being switches involved. In that case, you can know that you can consult without the leaven of the VAR side tainting the engagement. It doesn't stop you being a VAR in general, but it does allow you to not be a VAR in the relationship. But it is rare that you would be able to know that you could be VAR-free before beginning the consulting. It's very rare that I get called in to consult and could tell you what would be likely or has no chance of being used during that consult. You just don't know until the consulting starts (most of the time.) In that case, you are kind of forced to bring the VAR nature with you - it can't be eliminated before the engagement begins.
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@guyinpv said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
You can't make distinctions at the per-job level? One job is pure sales, pure VAR, pure affiliate links as free advice?
You can, but only in cases where the VAR opportunity doesn't exist. So, for example, if you sell Vultr, you can't be VAR-free in any case where recommending Vultr is possible. Does that make sense? BUt if you were consulting on web design (a different discipline completely, it's not even IT) then you could be a straight consultant.
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@scottalanmiller said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
You can, but only in cases where the VAR opportunity doesn't exist. So, for example, if you sell Vultr, you can't be VAR-free in any case where recommending Vultr is possible.
But if there is already an assumption that there are to be no affiliate sales, i.e. it's a consulting gig.
If someone wants me to consult about webhosts and affiliates aren't allowed, does my having affiliate products (even when I know it won't be commission sales) still affect things?
See it isn't just the presence of the affiliate, it's the actual application of whether they are allowed for the job or not. If I affiliate for lemonade and consult on soft drinks but they say no affiliate products, I don't see how it's still affecting me, there is no more monetary potential.
Seems to me that all we're saying here is that what we're AFTER is unbiased, objective consulting, which cannot be so with any potential of monetary gain from a vendor. So then to remove bias, the ONLY thing needed is remove potential for monetary gain by saying up front they don't want to deal with commission sales and/or will acquire all products themselves or through another service.
All I'm trying to get to in this debate is where I can happily use an affiliate product where appropriate while maintaining full credibility as an objective, unbiased, consultant. It is absolutely not the case that my having affiliate products deep in the toolbox somewhere, ALWAYS affects decisions. All that is required is the understanding that purchases won't be made through me for a particular type of job. This removes monetary potential, and thus bias.
The second half of the debate revolves around how forthcoming I am about potentially offering these products and at what point in the hiring process they are mentioned.
Situation 1: Someone blasts out a quick question of "who is a good webhost". And me, not being paid for such advice, simply toss out a nice product from my affiliate bucket. I think of this like a person doing a google search and just buying the first thing in the ads that come up. That's all they seem to want. The ad may as well be my own. After all the product is used, vetted, and perfect good for what it is.
Situation 2: Company wants central backups and NAS evaluated and solutions recommended, they
will use their own VAR that they have an account with for tech purchases. My affiliate stuff wouldn't matter, it can't benefit me anyway.Situation 3: Smallfry job they just want stuff "to work" and have no care in the world what I recommend or who I want to buy as long as it fits in budget and works. They may even just hand me a company credit card and the keys to the kingdom and say "make it happen by the time I return on Monday". I may just buy the affiliate stuff (if appropriate for solution) just because of the situation. Is there bias here? Probably, but acting as a VAR here is also what they asked for. A solution only.
It's like if I gave the Best But guy a credit card and said "put a big flat screen in my living room, don't spend more than $1500". Well of course they will get the best they can within budget as there are really no particular requirements except that it acts like a TV reasonably well. Why would they try to skimp on quality/size/whatever when the budget has been clearly defined?What I DON'T want to happen, is see situation 2 client running for the hills due to the ways in which I may work with situation 1 and 3. There shouldn't be any reason why situation 2 can't fully trust me.
If there is, well it has to be considered then.
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So what's the progress on starting a business?
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I've been freelancing web dev on Upwork.
It's really difficult working full time and balance family, two kids, and run a side job. But at my best I've only pulled in an extra $1000 in a month working evenings.
Given that my full time job is around $3200 month-ish, I don't exactly feel like I can quit and go freelance full time. Maybe I'm just scared of it. We don't have savings enough to live on while building up freelance clients. My time is maxed out earning much more than that on the side.
I enjoy freelancing and web dev. If I could drum up enough online freelance clients, and then some local businesses, I could probably turn this thing into a living. I just don't know how to work out the transition without losing a regular paycheck.
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Transitions are always the hardest part. You need to leap from a fully functional business to a basically non-existent one and get the new one up to speed more or less instantly.
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Been another year and a half, anything worth updating?
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Little late to this thread, but some of the businesses that seem to do well in my area (population 75k) are security systems/home automation and phone systems.
One of the main guys here who does security systems does them for individual homes and well as school systems or other businesses. Many of these are tied into alarm systems and have a residual revenue. Additionally, as home automation is growing, he's branched into setting up full systems for people. He stays busy and does very well.
I know @scottalanmiller @JaredBusch do FreePBX phone systems and that in reality they can be deployed/managed from anywhere, but in the South, people still want to know who they're dealing with and know that if they call Johnny, he can be on-site if necessary. EVERY business needs (wants) phones, and therefore if you can get really good at a phone system that will save businesses money but can also create some residual income for yourself, that could be another option.
The primary phone systems company in my area deploys Samsung systems. I've thought very seriously about trying to get into this business because I know a FreePBX or similar offering would likely save these people a good amount of money and would be a semi-easy sell compared to their current offerings. My phone system knowledge is limited however and I'm trying to grow it as I get time.
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Winning the lottery, liquidize your assets, mega millions really works!
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@zachary715 said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
I know @scottalanmiller @JaredBusch do FreePBX phone systems and that in reality they can be deployed/managed from anywhere, but in the South, people still want to know who they're dealing with and know that if they call Johnny, he can be on-site if necessary.
Just a long winded way of saying the south isn't business savvy. In reality, most companies aren't savvy and cater to their own emotional desires and ignore business benefits. That's universal and not unique to the south. The south just isn't exempt from it.
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I haven't updated this in a while, this is a fat thread!
I've stuck with freelancing so far, got some good regular clients, working much less in my day job, hopefully will be leaving some time this year for good.
Also, it appears since my last post, I had another baby, lol. This complicates things even more. But also, I noticed after having a 3rd kid, the family needs me as much as the day job does. So many times I have to come home, illnesses, hospital visits, whatever. Working from home would be a huge plus at this point in my life. I need to be more available and set my own schedule more.
The challenging part now is organizing my little business, it's still just me doing everything, and this is already hurting as it pertains to savings and record keeping and taxes and all the junk I have to do that is unpaid time. I know, there are personal assistants that can do this stuff, but I have no extra cash for paying anybody anything yet, not even a tax man. We got hit with over $3000 in taxes due. On one hand this is good cause it shows I had a lot more freelance income this year, but I never tried to calculate for any pretax payments or whatever. There is SO much stuff to keep track of and balance and prepare for.
What I have to do is reverse engineer our income needs and then figure out how to make that. At this point, if I'm charging, say, $65/hr for freelance work, I would have to be billing 6 or 7 hours each weekday to get the income where it needs to be. But I find this goal not very tenable. Freelancing is really hit and miss as far as when there is work to do, and I can only attempt balancing so many active clients.
With 10 clients there can still be two weeks with nothing to do. But if 2 clients have heavy projects and tight deadlines, I'm suddenly swamped. It's very stressful sometimes, there is really no way to just have a nice constant flow of work for a clean 6 hours of billable daily time. Everything is random.Also, this income will top out eventually. I mean, even if I can bill $65/hr and get 8 hour days, this limits the top end of my income, so I have to scale somehow. I can charge more, which might make finding clients harder. Or I can try to find some flat rate work at much higher amounts. A single $10k job that takes me a month is nice, but can I get one of those a month consistently? Doubtful.
A huge job for $20-$30k without a tight deadline is something I can trickle out over 6 months or the whole year, but where would I find that work if I'm not at the top of my field? These types of clients aren't typically looking for small town freelancers. That isn't really my market.
So basically my challenges are:
- Consistent clients/work and/or finding large cost jobs that even out my income over time.
- Streamline and make very efficient the record keeping and billing/taxes/receipts crap that wastes my time.
- Expand marketing to find clients from more networks (currently still on Upwork and word-of-mouth only). I'd like clients to find me and reach out to me, versus me spending lots of time trying to find them and sending proposals that take a lot of time to write.
- Figure out how to scale income to get past natural limits of hourly-labor work.
- Still need to quit the day job. It's still a surprisingly stressful and big decision when I've got 4 people depending on me. If I leave that job, I would not be able to find another in this town with decent wages in any decent amount of time, we'd be screwed. I have to make freelancing work, period! But on the other hand, this last billing cycle I only made from them about $330 a week, which is like nothing for having to show up there three times in those weeks.
- Education is always on the list. I have like 200 books on subjects relating to my craft and skills and business and marketing and all things between. Plus I'm registered in about 30 online courses with similar subjects from programming to web design to graphics and marketing and business management. Nobody pays me to take my course and read, so they don't get high priority. Making money always gets priority, and everything else starts falling apart.
So goes the journey!
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Whoa! Sudden update appears!
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@guyinpv said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
Also, it appears since my last post, I had another baby, lol.
You should look into that and verify for sure, LMAO.
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@scottalanmiller said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
@guyinpv said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
Also, it appears since my last post, I had another baby, lol.
You should look into that and verify for sure, LMAO.
Confirmed. I wake up every day with it scratching my face off and biting me.
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@guyinpv said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
$65/hr
Just no.
The billed rate for our part time (primarily helpdesk) person at the lowest rate for any client is $80-$85. Forget their exact rate.
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@jaredbusch said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
@guyinpv said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
$65/hr
Just no.
The billed rate for our part time (primarily helpdesk) person at the lowest rate for any client is $80-$85. Forget their exact rate.
Help for what?
There is a difference between charging $80/hr for 20 minute calls, versus $65/hr working 4 to 7 hours strait.
There are certainly web devs that charge up to $100/hr. And programmers are typically $80 to $200/hr depending on the languages and project.
An agency I work for does charge $100/hr but they get their work by being seen as an agency. So as a simple freelancer, I either need to be a household name in web dev, top of my game, or appear bigger than I am, or something else.
Keep in mind that in the web dev space, I compete with 3rd world countries who charge $10/hr and claim to do all the same stuff.Heck I'm not saying I'm not worth more. I only started freelancing 2 years ago and started at $40/hr, so I do plan on getting higher, but hourly rates do top out eventually. I have to scale in other ways too. And small towns just don't charge as much as "big city" agencies and corporations.
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@guyinpv said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
There is a difference between charging $80/hr for 20 minute calls, versus $65/hr working 4 to 7 hours strait.
Actually no.
And she is on site 4-6 a day 2 times a week plus other work form home time.
On average we bill one client 15-20 per week for her work.
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@jaredbusch said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
@guyinpv said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
There is a difference between charging $80/hr for 20 minute calls, versus $65/hr working 4 to 7 hours strait.
Actually no.
And she is on site 4-6 a day 2 times a week plus other work form home time.
On average we bill one client 15-20 per week for her work.
For a help desk person? I think I'm missing the bigger picture here. You're talking about MSP and business management of technology right?
For me, at least until I run in bigger circles, my clients tend to be mom-n-pop sites who cringe at a new feature costing more than $100.
That's part of the problem, I need to get a foothold into networks with bigger ticket clients. People who have custom sites that need unique and specialized features.
Any time I run into work and it's just some person with a goofy Wordpress site, they don't have $80/hr for 15 hours weekly. That's for sure!
But to the point. Are you saying you wouldn't bat an eye at hiring a developer to work on a website for $80/hr? And do you realize that general developers can be found on Craigslist for $10/hr? You can definitely penny-pinch in this game if you wanted!
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@guyinpv said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
There are certainly web devs that charge up to $100/hr. And programmers are typically $80 to $200/hr depending on the languages and project.
These are often rates broken down for salaries. When consulting, you can normally be way higher than salary rates. $200/hr would be amazing for a developer on salary, of course. But when you consider that salaried people have insurance, taxes, etc. getting $200 on a 1099 is only "so" good vs. a salaried $250K salary with vacation and benefits on W2.
