Unemployed in Austin? Become Self-Employed

• The elderly. After a certain age, it becomes more and more difficult for people to get around on their own. Limited mobility makes shopping a true nightmare, and family members aren’t always available to take care of the chore.
• Working professionals. Many professionals find it hard to complete tasks during busy workdays, which makes shopping trips hard to schedule.
• Other service professionals. Interior designers, wedding planners, and other professionals in the service industry may find it necessary to use personal shopping services in order to get all their tasks completed.
• The wealthy. People with a lot of money have a lot of ways to fill their time – and they don’t want to waste any of it on mundane tasks like shopping. The upper-middle-class and the upper class can be a rich source of customers for all personal service professionals.

Personal Consultant

Personal consultants are not common outside large urban areas, but they are out there. The term “personal consultant” is a very broad one, and may be applied to any number of self-employed professionals who essentially earn their money by giving advice to others, usually persons who are highly successful in their chosen career fields. Explore some of the skills a self-employed personal consultant may use to get the job done:

• Style. Image is everything for some high-powered professionals, even those whose careers are not considered to be part of the entertainment industry. Look at the most successful businessmen and politicians, and they look pretty fabulous. Chances are, somebody got paid to help that professional pick out just the right looks while they’re attending all the right public events. A certain brand of personal consultants may help accessorize, dress, and in all ways style their clients.
• Marketing. Many performers, athletes, business professionals, and politicians have very important jobs to do…but, they’ve also got to turn themselves into a brand name. Marketing is important to every professional, and it’s often a task assigned to a personal consultant when one is in place. Business cards, websites, social networking profiles – a personal consultant may take on all these tasks for a single client to create an image that will present the person in the best possible way.
• Advising. Even the most successful entertainers and professionals may be complete clods when it comes to managing their own fame. Some may hire personal consultants to tell them which social events to accept, what comments to make to the press, and even where to go on vacation. General life advice-giving is often a task that personal consultants tackle on a regular basis for their clients.

Work at Home Jobs for Foodies

Foodies already have a highly lucrative skill at their disposal, one which can be translated into money-making opportunities. Learn how to become a private chef, and become self-employed. The work at home jobs in this field may not always be in the professional’s own home, but they’re no less lucrative for this geographic deficiency.

Become a Private Chef

First, be aware of one fact: there isn’t a huge, huge demand for private chefs. Generally, only the wealthy can afford to hire a private chef to tend to all their eating needs. However, there is a big demand for prepared foods and meals. Branch out a little in cooking services, offering to do meal catering as well, and this career becomes that much more lucrative. Becoming a private chef, however, isn’t as easy as going into the kitchen and cooking. Private chefs will need to have the credentials to back themselves up; sadly, just cooking great food won’t always do the trick. It’s a good idea to take a few courses on food preparation and pastry-making, perhaps even study the full culinary arts if that’s at all possible. When schooling won’t work, get some real-world experience by working for restaurants, catering companies, etc.

A recipe book

Already got the cred to be a private chef, and want to take the act on the road with a freelance job or two? For almost all careers, there are a few basic things one will need to learn how to do to become self-employed. Those who aspire to earn as chefs might want to provide even more to the standard formula. Chefs who want to show off their skills should create a portfolio of sorts, featuring pictures and a basic ingredient list for signature recipes (for example, herb-encrusted salmon served on a bed of wild rice, seasoned with saffron and lemon zest).

Work at Home Scams

There are a lot of myths about self-employment out there, and it’s time to start telling the truth about working at home. There are five myths – and truths – every professional should know before taking that big leap into the great unknown.

Hate waking up in the mornings? Can’t stand having a boss looking over shoulders? Wish that working at home every day was an option? To tell the truth about self-employment, it isn’t something that just anyone can do. Why not? Don’t those who work at home…simply work at home? While being self-employed may often mean being your own boss and calling the shots, there’s nothing simple about working at home – and not everyone can handle the pressure.
1. Self-employment myth: Self-employed professionals always work at home, having no real-world contact with employers.

The truth: While some clients and employers may be happy to conduct business via e-mail, there are those who want to have real-time contact. In some cases, it may be necessary for self-employed professionals to speak on the phone with these employers and clients, or even download an Internet messenger service to exchange on-the-spot comments. Sometimes, work at home professionals even has to go to a real-world office to take meetings with the ones who write the checks.

2. Self-employment myth: Sitting at home and working is a lot easier than going into an office and working.

The truth: That’s debatable. Many self-employed professionals don’t have to set an alarm, wake themselves up, and get dressed for success. But some who work at home have to be on the Internet at certain times during the day even when the job is telecommuted. Also, many self-employed professionals find it hard to draw the line between home and workspace. Home is the office, the office is home. Daily distractions and the sheer inability to get away from them can make working at home incredibly tough.

3. Self-employment myth: Professionals who work at home labor for fewer hours than those who rely upon one employer for income.

The truth: This is absolutely untrue. Many times, self-employed professionals find it necessary to put in ten, twelve, even fourteen hour days. Sometimes, projects come all at once and deadlines suddenly seem to appear out of thin air. There may be days when those who work at home do so only for a few hours, and sometimes a 40-hour workweek isn’t necessary. But many other times, the self-employed get stuck working weekends, holidays, and late-night hours when others are already off the clock and enjoying reality TV.

4. Self-employment myth: Those who work at home are free of the employer criticism and petty inter-personal problems that arise in an office setting.

The truth: Professionals who work at home may be on their own through most of their working hours, but that doesn’t mean self-employment comes without criticism. In a world where almost everyone knows how to get online and share their own opinion, everyone is judged. Freelance writers may work in the safety of their own home offices, but reader comments still find a way inside. E-mail, messenger services, online forums – all of them can be excellent opportunities for the world at large to malign the work of a self-employed professional. Consider this: those who work at home view those comments from home as well, often inviting criticism right into their most private sanctuaries. Those who don’t work from home simply leave the office and go to the safe environment of their homes. For the self-employed professional, there is no safe environment. Too, the self-employed are never – really – alone. There is always someone to buy the work, look over the work, judge the work – and there are still all those petty little problems that occur when human beings are forced to deal with each other.

5. Self-employment myth: It’s easy!

The truth: Successful self-employment is a never-ending journey of job searches, networking, reputation-building, and skills maintenance. There is always some new program to learn, some new boss to please, some new client who wants something out of the ordinary. Every single project must be tweaked to suit each and every buyer, and sometimes it’s necessary to re-do a project several times before it’s even accepted. The self-employed are truly all on their own when it comes to paying their own health insurance, coming up with a retirement plan, doing their own taxes, and finding their own work. There’s nothing easy about being self-employed.