Are you a stay at home mum who wants to earn some cash or perhaps start a home based business?  Well, working as a freelancer can allow you to do just that.  But how can stay at home mums work from home?

What is a freelancer?

A freelancer is simply someone who works for themselves by providing their services for hire to individuals or businesses that need them.  Freelancers, also known as contractors or service providers, generally work as independent businesses and may do so without much fanfare as sole traders or partnerships and through more complex vehicles as registered companies.

Freelance work can vary in length, but it’s not unusual for freelancers to work on short term contracts or jobs and for various ‘employers’ over a relatively short period unlike with permanent employment.

Can stay at home mums freelance?

Most certainly!  But not so long ago, if you were a freelancer, then more than likely you were based at a client’s site or at least needed to frequent the client’s premises.  Home based jobs were rare and it was common for freelancers to work away from home perhaps only returning during the weekends.  These freelancing opportunities still exist and are clearly unsuitable to stay at home mothers who want to work from home.

Fortunately, through the Internet, new freelancing opportunities have arisen enabling stay at home mums to conveniently perform various jobs whilst remaining at home or without the need to frequent an employer’s site and these opportunities can be local, national or even global in nature.

What skills are needed?

Many different skills can be used to successfully work from home.  There isn’t any prescribed list.  Some freelance jobs do, however, require specialist skills but others require the same skills you’re using right now to read this article.  So in fact, you already have the skills needed to get started in freelancing!

As a guide, however, freelance jobs include data entry, CCTV monitoring, phone answering, customer helpdesk, coaching, link building, online research, writing reviews, mystery shopping, e-marketing, article writing, graphic design, proof reading, Website testing, blogging & tweeting, dog walking, wedding planning, catering, online tutoring, translation, virtual assistance and so on.

How to get freelance jobs?

Job boards seem an obvious place to start to get an online job.  Yet job boards don’t specialise in micro outsourced jobs, which are the type of jobs you’re looking to get as a freelancer.  Moreover, jobs boards seek to capture CVs and not services, which may not be useful to stay at home mums that may not have a CV or may not have worked in recent years.

Specialist micro outsourcing job sites, such as p2people.co.uk,  are a better option.  They specialise in helping you advertise your services and not you CV and that’s important. You’ll also be able to interact online with job providers, which will help you better understand their needs or allow you to discuss your skills or experience.

Summary

The Internet has opened up freelancing job opportunities that do not require freelancers to be based at an employer’s premises.  This article has discussed freelance job opportunities in relation to stay at home mums and where such online jobs can be found to allow mums to work from home.

Rafa’s complete dominance on the clay of Roland Garros has cast a dark shadow on the career of his vanquished opponent, who is no doubt the greatest player ever to have played the game of tennis.

Federer has won 16 Grand Slams, the most ever, and is one of a few players to have won on all surfaces – grass, clay and hard courts.  His victory at Rolland Garros, however, occurred in 2009 when Nadal lost his semi-final match against Robin Soderling.  In that year, Roger won his first and only French title and completed a career Grand Slam.

Federer has faced Nadal no less that 5 times at Roland Garros, which includes 4 finals, and has come up short on each occasion.  On Nadal’s favourite surface, Roger has found the Nadal Puzzle hard to solve.  Yet Nadal first solved the equally puzzling Federer Problem 3 years ago on Federer’s favoured Wimbledon grass and regained the title in 2010 – Nadal missed Wimbledon in 2009 due to injury/fitness issues.

Head-to-head, Nadal leads Federer 6-2 in Grand Slams and has beat Federer 13 times in 19 finals.

Their current tally of Grand Slams also paints an interesting picture.  Roger has 16 titles while Nadal has 10. Even with the re-emergence of Ðoković as a top 3 player, it isn’t inconceivable that Nadal will continue to reign supreme on clay and rack up a number of French titles with a sprinkling of a few Wimbledons and US Opens in the next 4 or 5 years.

By that time, Nadal would have reached Federer’s current age of 29 and with Federer having, perhaps, only another 2-3 years left at the highest level, it’s possible that Nadal might capture an additional 8-9 titles while Federer picks up 3-4.  By my reckoning, that gives Nadal approximately 18-19 Grand Slams against Federer’s 19-20.  A dead heat!

With a margin of only 1 or 2 Grand Slams between them and with Nadal’s continuing dominance of Federer on all surfaces, not just clay, the title of the “World’s Greatest Player” might need to be handed over from the graceful and brilliant Roger Federer to the athletic and brilliant Rafael Nadal.

But for sure, if Federer is to secure his legacy and remain as the “World’s Greatest Player”, he’ll have to win a few more titles and at least 1 or 2 will need to be on the clays of Roland Garros against the enigma that is Rafael Nadal.

There’s no mystery to freelancing and a freelancer is simply someone who works for an agreed period on a specific job in return for a fee.  Freelancers are not employees of the businesses or individuals that hire their services.  Rather, they are independent workers and this independence gives them a number of benefits.

Freelancing – Choose how you’d like to work

Since you’re a freelancer, you’re not tied to any employer and this independence gives you freedom to decide how many hours a day you’d like to work, when in the year and so on.  So freelancers can work the hours that’s best for them, as long as the job gets done!  For example, you might not be a morning person, but being a freelancer working at home or remotely, you can do all your work in the afternoons or perhaps evenings. You can also block out dates during the year so you’re free to go on vacation.

Freelancing – Decide your earnings and earn more

Since you can decide how much you’d like to work, you also have control over how much money you can earn.  For example, freelancers are not tied to a 40 workweek (35 hours, if you’re from Europe).  So the more you use your time, the greater your potential earnings.

As mentioned, freelancers are independent of the businesses or individuals who hire them, so you can work on multiple freelance jobs to earn more money.  But freelancers also get paid much more than permanent employees who do the same job.  This is because an employer also has to pay a mixture of taxes, benefits and insurance for each employee.  Since a freelancer isn’t an employee, some of these cost savings are paid directly to the freelancer themselves.

Freelancing – Create a work life balance

With the ability to decide when you’d like to work and how much you’d like to earn, and often with the ability to earn more but work less, working as a freelancer can allow you to balance your work with your life.  There’s more time to spend with family and friends as jobs can be done at more convenient times.  Work at home parents can complete freelance jobs when the kids are at school or sleeping and you can even do freelance jobs whilst away on vacation!  Freelancing allows these and other home and remote working opportunities, and vacations can be taken when it’s best for all the family.

Summary

Everybody would like to earn more money, have more free time to spend with family and friends or go on vacation.  Freelancing offers a realistic way to do all these things to have a better work life balance.

What is outsourcing?

Outsourcing is the contracting of a specific activity, function or process to a third-party service provider.  The main market segments in outsourcing are business process outsourcing (BPO), where business-related activities, say in HR, finance and customer service, are outsourced, IT outsourcing (ITO), where IT-related activities are outsourced, and knowledge process outsourcing (KPO), where activities or processes of high value and/or high level of domain knowledge are outsourced, such as data analytics and investment research.

How much is outsourcing worth?

At the end of 2010, XMG Global projected the global outsourcing market to be worth £270bn ($425bn), this was a 13.9% increase on the £237bn ($373bn) 2009 market.  In 2008, the corresponding market was worth £212bn ($334bn).

Why do organisations outsource?

Business theory and experience indicate that businesses do best when they focus on those activities that give them a particular advantage over their competitors leaving non-core activities to be performed by other firms.  Therefore, British Airways focuses on managing its network of air services, leaving baggage handling to one of its outsourcing partners.

In a survey of members, the Outsourcing Institute found that the top 5 reasons why companies outsource were:

1. Reduce and control operating costs
2. Improve company focus
3. Gain access to world-class capabilities
4. Free internal resources for other purposes
5. Gain resources not available internally

Thus, a firm could control its operating costs by outsourcing its internal IT support function.  This could bring in technical knowhow and capabilities while significantly reducing its overall payroll and benefits costs, as employees would be transferred as part of the deal.  Similarly, a firm could outsource its payroll & benefits processing allowing the introduction of newer and more cost-effective payroll and benefits processing technology.

Can micros and SMEs benefit from outsourcing?

Outsourcing has traditionally been under-utilised by micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (micros and SMEs), as it involved contracting with the large outsourcers to strike multi-year, multi-million or even multi-billion mega deals.

However, micro outsourcing (also known as micro sourcing) allows these firms to gain process efficiencies and cost savings by outsourcing their work to highly skilled freelance workers or independent businesses (service providers) based locally, nationally or anywhere across the globe.

Some of the key benefits of micro outsourcing for micros and SMEs include:

1. Makes processes more efficient

As with outsourcing, micro outsourcing allows firms to gain process efficiencies and increased effectiveness, as experienced service providers with specialist skills, knowledge, best practices and up-to-date technology & equipment carry out activities and processes.

2. Delivers cost savings

Micro outsourcing has a positive effect on a businesses’ cash flow by reducing overhead costs and capital expenditures.  For example, by micro outsourcing, a business could save on not only salary costs but also pension and other benefit costs.  With a reduced headcount, other cost savings would follow such as office space, heating and equipment costs.

Note.  Estimates indicate that cost savings of between 50 and 70% are achievable.

3. Ensures the deployment of competitively priced resources

With micro outsourcing, service providers bid for your jobs ensuring that costs truly reflect the service provided.  Essentially, it is like eBay but in reverse with prices going down rather than up!  Thus, firms are able to deploy competitively priced resources, sourced locally, nationally or globally, after considering not just price but also the expertise and experience of the service provider.

4. Allows “on-demand” access to skilled resources

Many businesses cannot afford to employ certain skills permanently or may need other skills only infrequently.  This has been exacerbated by the recession and the slow recovery that has followed it.  Micro sourcing provides access to specialist skills and expertise enabling organisations to “plug in” skills and expertise on an as-needed basis.

5. Enables greater focus on core operations

It is generally accepted that firms perform best when they focus on the core business activities, which gives them an advantage over their competitors.  By micro outsourcing non-core activities, a firm can use more of its resources, e.g., management, staff and capital, on value-adding ones, like in the British Airways example above.

6. Allows jobs of relatively small duration or cost to be outsourced

Outsourcing offers a number of benefits, but these only materialise when businesses contract for several years for multi-million contract values.  With micro outsourcing, jobs requiring only a few months or days can be outsourced.  Similarly, jobs measured in the thousands or hundreds of pounds can be outsourced.

How to get started?

There are many sites where you can place your job ads.  Popular job boards and CV aggregators include jobseekers (jobcentreplus), s1jobs.com, CV-Library, monster, fish4jobs and simplysalesjobs.  You can also tweet your jobs or put them on Facebook.  However, these sites do not provide a service optimised for micro outsourced jobs or, for that matter, for freelancers.  Their aim is to provide you with a large pool of CVs from which you can choose a candidate.

Fortunately, there are specialist micro outsourcing sites where you can micro outsource your jobs.  On these sites, you will be able to indicate your requirements, receive real-time bids from freelancers and work with your preferred service provider to agree milestones.  You will also be able to invite freelancers to bid on your jobs as well as submit jobs privately, so that only the freelancers you invite can place a bid.  On these sites, freelancers present their services and not their CVs, which may detail irrelevant work experience and skills.

Summary

Outsourcing is an effective method to help businesses reduce costs and improve processes.  However, its benefits have been limited to large firms that could afford to engage in the outsourcing process.  Micro outsourcing, through its different approach, allows micros and SMEs to gain the benefits of outsourcing without paying the costs.

What are the UK government’s local government plans?

As part of the Coalition Government’s deficit fighting measures, it announced that local government funding would be reduced by 28% over four years.  In 2011-12, 9.9% would be cut with a further 7.3% cut in 2012-13.

The Local Government Authority, which represents councils in England and Wales, has calculated that the real cut in 2011-12, once the police grant was excluded, was closer to 12.1%, meaning that central government funding for council services was being reduced from £28.3bn to £24.9bn.

What does this mean?

In short, local authorities are being challenged to provide the same quality of frontline services, e.g., domestic waste collection, but with much less money from the Government.  To bridge this £3.4bn funding gap, local authorities are exploring various measures that could help them reduce their costs.  Could micro outsourcing be one such measure?

What is micro outsourcing?

Micro outsourcing, or micro sourcing, allows organisations, e.g., small and medium-sized enterprises, public sector bodies and third sector organisations, to outsource work to highly skilled freelance workers or independent businesses (service providers) based locally, nationally or anywhere across the globe.

This is distinct from traditional outsourcing where organisations engage in mega deals over several years with global outsourcers for multi-million or more contract values.

Why should local authorities micro outsource?

Micro outsourcing shares many of the benefits of outsourcing but also offers some new ones, too.  The following describes the top 6 reasons why local authorities should micro outsource:

1. Make processes more efficient

As with outsourcing, micro outsourcing allows organisations to gain process efficiencies and increased effectiveness, as activities and processes are carried out by experienced service providers with specialist skills, know-how, best practices and up-to-date technology & equipment.

2. Deliver cost savings

Micro outsourcing has a positive effect on an organisation’s cash flow by reducing overhead costs and capital expenditures.  For example, by micro outsourcing, an organisation could save on not only salary costs but also pension and other benefit costs.  With a reduced headcount, other cost savings could include office space and equipment costs.

Note. One estimate is that cost savings of between 50 and 70% are achievable.

3. Ensure the deployment of competitively priced resources

With micro outsourcing, service providers competitively bid for your jobs ensuring that costs truly reflect the service provided.  Essentially, it is like eBay but in reverse, as prices go down rather than up!  Thus, organisations are able to deploy competitively priced resources, sourced locally, nationally or globally, after considering not just price but other factors such as the skills and experience of the service provider.

4. Allow “on-demand” access to skilled resources

Many organisations cannot afford to employ certain specialist skills or need certain skills only on an irregular basis.  This has been exacerbated by the recession and the period of uncertainty that has followed it.  Micro sourcing provides access to specialist skills and expertise enabling organisations to “plug in” skills and expertise on an as-needed basis.

5. Enable greater focus on core operations

Business theory and experience indicate that organisations do best when they focus on the core business activities, which gives them an advantage over their competitors.  By micro outsourcing non-core activities, an organisation can use more of its resources, e.g., management, staff and capital, on value-adding activities.

6. Allow jobs of relatively small duration or cost to be outsourced

Outsourcing offers a number of benefits, but these only materialise when organisations contract for several years for multi-million contract values.  With micro outsourcing, service providers can work on jobs that might require only a few months work or only just a few days.  Moreover, “deals” might be relatively small and valued in the thousands or hundreds of pounds rather than millions.

What can be micro outsourced?

Activities include Website development, IT support, debt collection, bookkeeping and accounts preparation, report writing, translation, payroll, clerical work, budget forecasting, data entry and training.  As can be seen, outsourced jobs can cover a wide range of business activities and tasks.

Summary

With reduced funding from central government, local authorities have been challenge to find effective ways to deliver existing front-line services without raising local taxes, such as council tax and business rates.  Micro outsourcing provides an effective way not only to reduce back office costs but also to improve the efficiency and focus of local authorities.

How to get started?

There are several Web sites that can help you micro outsource your jobs.  On these sites, you will find a number of freelancers with differing experiences and skills offering their services at various rates, who can do your job.  You can also advertise your jobs, indicating your job requirements and your budget, and invite selected freelancers to view your job and bid.

One such site that allows you to outsource your jobs is p2people.co.uk.  p2people.co.uk allows free and unlimited job advertising and there is no joining fee.

What is a freelancer?

A freelancer, also known as a contractor or service provider, is someone who offers his or her services for an agreed period in return for a fee.  Freelancers are independent of the businesses or individuals that hire their services.  Generally, freelancers work on short-term contracts, although contracts can vary in length and can be and are often extended (renewed).

Why do people freelance?

We’ve put together 7 of the top reasons why people freelance – in no particular order:

1.  To be your own boss.  Freelancing is one of most successful ways to start your own business and businesses can be as diverse as you can imagine.  Personally, I offered IT services but freelancers offer a varied set of services, some of which include:

•   event management
•   editing and proof-reading
•   online-marketing and SEO
•   book-keeping and accounting

Being your own boss also allows you to decide how many hours you work, when in the year and in which locations.

2.  As a lifestyle choice.  Some people enjoy new challenges and may find working for the same employer over many years uninspiring.  Freelancing allows you to work for different organisations and individuals, experience new job challenges and develop career opportunities.

3.  To travel.  If you enjoy travelling, then freelancing can allow you to do just that and get paid!  Freelance opportunities can occur locally, regionally or internationally.  If you’re willing to travel then you’ll have more opportunities open to you.  In my freelancing career, I worked across the UK in Milton Keynes, Cardiff, Hemel Hempstead and various locations in Central London.  In Europe, I worked in Austria and Germany, and internationally, I worked in Australia and Brazil.

4.  To work remotely or from home.  If your preference is to work remotely or from home then freelancing offers this flexibility and freelancers can enjoy a successful business doing just that.  The key question to ask is can the work you would like to do be done remotely or from your home.  If the answer is yes then there’ll be businesses and individuals looking to employ your skills.  Website development is a popular activity but others include data entry, virtual assistance, copy writing, translation, online & private tuition, and so on.

5.  As a quick way back into work.  If you’re between jobs then getting back into permanent employment can take several months.  Freelancers can be hired and receive their first payment within a few weeks of initial contact by an employer or agent.  Moreover, some contracts can lead to permanent employment as the hiring firm seeks to retain your services.

6.  As a quick way to earn money.  Freelancers can be paid not only more quickly and frequently than permanent employees but also a premium for not being on an employer’s payroll or for working on a short-term job.  This allows a freelancer to earn much more in a given period than a permanent employee doing similar work, which could be used to quickly pay off credit card debt or for a long overdue holiday.

7.  To gain experience and specialise.  Working as a freelancer allows you to develop and utilise your specialist skills more fully, which working for the same company might not provide.  Thus by working on different contracts for different businesses, freelancers can quickly gain experience and become subject matter experts in their chosen field.

These are just a few of the reasons why people become freelancers.  You might have a different reason from those already discussed.  If you feel that freelancing is right for you then why not give it a go.  I did!

Summary

Freelancing has increasingly become a career choice for thousands of workers in the UK and across Europe.  This is because freelancing offers many advantages and can provide a flexible and fulfilling alternative to working as an employee.

How to get started?

There are several Web sites that can help you freelance your services.  On these sites, you’ll find a number of different jobs with differing requirements and levels of skills needed at various budgets.  You can also advertise your services, indicating your skills and your minimum rate, and make contact and chat with job providers.

p2people.co.uk is one such site where you can join for free and freelance your services.  And with p2people, it’s free to advertise your service!

StartUp Britain - The Government supported new business initiative

I applaud this initiative and the government’s front-foot step, please excuse this cricketing metaphor given the current Cricket World Cup, to support British entrepreneurs, who have long laboured on unequal terms in comparison to our transatlantic neighbours in Silicon Valley and elsewhere in the US.

However, more needs to be done. Progressively lowering corporation tax, as announced during the recent Budget, is also a good step, as would be reducing the crazy 50p tax rate, which discourages high earners from doing so in the UK!

But the rational why the government needs to do more to support new businesses is simple.  Businesses create jobs and the only way the UK is going to recover from this recession and grow is by businesses creating jobs.  Simple.

And let the beautiful multiplier take effect!

The Egyptian people have shown that through their courage, numbers and sheer will they can remove even the most stubborn of dictators.  A dictator who has enriched himself beyond excess whilst impoverishing a people and a proud nation.

Well done, Egypt and Thank You, Tunisia!

PS. It looks like the Obama teleprompter is much more mightier than the Bush bullet!