Undress for Success: The Naked Truth about Making Money at Home

Undress for Success offers honest, real-world information on home-based jobs, businesses, and careers that can change your life. Based on the authors' three decades of experience working from home, this comprehensive guide explores and explains everything you need to know about how to simplify your life with a work-at-home job or business. It's the perfect guide for anyone who's sick of the office lifestyle and ready for a change.

This practical step-by-step guide details the who, what, why, and how of working from home—the advantages and disadvantages, the skills and traits you'll need to succeed, and how to avoid losing your shirt as you attempt to undress for success. If you're an employee, you'll discover how to successfully pitch a work-at-home program to your boss or find a new employer who loves the idea. If you want to freelance, Undress for Success offers a guide for how to find, price, and get paid for your work. And if you want to run a business, it reveals the motivations, talents, and resources you'll need to get started; identifies best-bet home businesses; and offers true stories about what it's like to work where you sleep. If you're an employer or government leader, you'll find a fascinating look at the ways at-home workers are more productive, help reduce traffic, increase productivity, and even slow global warming.

This book offers work-at-home hope for everyone from high school grads to PhDs, secretaries to programmers, Gen Y'ers to Baby Boomers. From interviews with people who work at home, you'll learn about the techniques, technologies, and strategies that make them successful. Undress for Success is the ultimate guide for making the road less traveled the way to work.

"The best collection of teleworking 'How-To's' and 'Why's' that I've seen anywhere. This book is a gold mine for anyone seriously considering working from home. Whether you want to freelance, operate your own business, or stay fully employed while you work at home, you'll find dozens of hints and insights in this wonderfully entertaining and insightful book. And if you're an employer who wants to attract and retain talented people, give them a copy of this book, send them home, and reap the benefits of their productivity and motivation. They'll love you for enhancing their lives."

—Jim Ware, cofounder, Future of Work Program

"No one should attempt e-work until they understand how to be a competent e-worker. This unique and enlightening guide will help you open the door to e-work success—and improve every aspect of your life in the process."

—Marcia Rhodes, Public Relations Director, WorldatWork

"There's never been a comprehensive guide to all aspects of telecommuting, until Undress for Success. Whether you want to work remotely occasionally in your current job, find a full-time e-work job, or start a business that allows you to work from or at home, Lister and Harnish cover all of the bases in this comprehensive, easy-to-read guide that clearly outlines the rules of success."

—Cali Williams Yost, Fast Company expert and author, Work + Life: Finding the Fit That's Right for You

Unlike the many "change-your-life" books that promise much and deliver little—Undress4Success provides expert, practical advice about: 1) what home-based jobs are available, what talents they require, what they pay, who’s hiring, and how to land one; 2) how to use the Web to search for work-at-home jobs and business opportunities without being scammed; 3) how to turn professional talents into a freelance business; and 4) how to convince an employer to adopt a telecommuting program.

Based on interviews with dozens of employers, home-based employees, successful freelancers, and leading telework researchers, this book shows readers the way home.

Tom Harnish is an expert on the technologies that make home-based jobs possible. As a consultant, project director, company president, and business owner he learned what it takes to make money using computers and telecommunications from over thirty years of successful and not-so-successful business development in fields as diverse as health care, home banking, and elec-tronic publishing.

For more information, please visit UndressForSuccessOnline.com

Acknowledgments.

Introduction.

1 E-work, The Bare Essentials.

1 Who E-works and What Do They Do?

2 What’s in It for Me?

3 Expose Yourself—Are You Right for E-work?

4 Dirty Underwear—Uncovering the Scams.

2 Pajama Paychecks: Jobs You Can Do in Your Jammies.

5 Who’s Paid to Work at Home and What Do They Do?

6 Take Your Job and Love It.

7 The Naked Truth about Your Boss.

8 What’s in It for Your Employer?

9 Making Your E-work Pitch.

10 Best-Bet E-work Employers.

11 Work as a Call Center Agent.

12 Work as a Virtual Assistant.

13 Work as a Medical Transcriptionist.

14 Work as a Teacher or Tutor.

15 Work as a Remote Tech.

16 Work as a Writer.

17 Work In Telemedicine.

18 How to Navigate the Web in Search of E-work.

19 Using the Job Boards to Find E-work.

20 Your Digital Resume.

21 Collaboration and Social Networking for E-work.

3 Freelance in Your Frillies.

22 Who Freelances and What Do They Do?

23 Putting Your Best Slipper Forward.

24 What Am I Worth?

25 Proposals and Contracts.

26 Finding Freelance Work.

4 Bedroom Businesses.

27 Who’s Running Home Businesses and What Do They Do?

28 The Right Fit.

29 Designing the Perfect Business.

30 The Business Model.

31 Best Bet Businesses.

32 Business Planning.

33 Naked Truths about Home Biz.

5 Does It Come with Batteries?

34 Home-Based Technology.

6 What If Everybody Did It?

35 Let’s All Undress.

Resources Available at UndressForSuccessOnline.com.

Notes.

Index.