Fantastic Work-At-Home Information At the present time, Fantastic Transcripts is not hiring work-at-home transcriptionists, but we have used work-at-home people in the past and we are interested in hearing from you if you have a background in business, finance, high-tech, legal and medical. We are also interested in hearing from people who can transcribe in a foreign language and people who can also translate transcriptions. We will keep your e-mail address on file and contact you when there is an opportunity. In a few instances we've been able to team up a transcriptionist with a client who lived in their area, so if you're in the market for work, it pays to contact us. Also tell us if you live in the Boston area and can pick up work from our downtown offices. We tend to give preference to people who live nearby versus people on the other side of the country to save on FedEx charges. To be added to our contact list, send us an e-mail at jobs@fantastictranscripts.com. In your e-mail, tell us a little about yourself and your experience, and the kind of equipment you have. We will contact you when there are any opportunities with our company. Please don't call our offices asking for work-at-home employment. We will only tell you to visit our Website or to send us an e-mail. And you can also save time and money by not sending us any letters or paper resumes through the US mail, because we don't keep them on file. We do everything electronically. If you have any questions, e-mail us and we will be happy to answer them via e-mail. Work At Home Advice We hear from a lot of people looking for work-at-home opportunities and we thought we would share some advice. Firstly, do not buy any books or pay money to subscribe to any work-at-home Websites. From what people have told us, the listings are either bogus or the companies listed are so besieged by people writing, calling and e-mailing, that any job they originally had was grabbed a long time ago. Secondly, do not pay for any training or equipment in the hopes of getting work. We have heard of scams where companies are really selling transcribing equipment or envelope-stuffing supplies and they never deliver on the work-at-home jobs they promise. To be quite honest, there are very few legitimate work-at-home jobs. There are lots of jobs people can do at home, but getting them is difficult. Most people who work from home work for themselves, in businesses they have created themselves, or have convinced employers to let them work from home after years of excellent work. Starting Your Own Business Starting your own business in the United States is pretty easy, but finding customers is the difficult part. To start your own business, all you need to do is to go down to your local town hall or city hall and fill out a DBA (Doing Business As) form. There is usually a nominal $5-$50 charge for filing this form, but doing this allows you to legally operate under the business name you choose. You will be given an official copy of the DBA form. With this copy, you can open a business bank account in the name of your company. Banks don't like to cash business checks through personal accounts because they charge more fees for business accounts, so they will usually be more than happy to help you open a business account for cashing checks in the business name. Once that's done, you're officially a business, and you can do whatever you need to do to get your business upand running, such as printing up business cards, ordering phone service, and so forth. A lot of people think they need to be incorporated or pay a lawyer a lot of money to set up some kind of business shelter, but this really isn't necessary for a husband-and-wife or one-person business. There are DBAs that generate millions of dollars of income. If you're the sole proprietor or you're indistiguishable from your business, incorporating won't stop creditors from coming after you should your business fail. Also keeping track of your taxes is easier as a DBA. Basically, you take your revenue, deduct your business deductions on Schedule C, and whatever's left over is income. With a DBA, you're also allowed to mingle your money; for example, paying business bills from your personal account without having what's called a "Chinese wall" between your money and company money. If you're incorporated, the only way to transfer money from you to the company is by having the corporation take out a formal loan. As you can see, things get complicated with incorporation and it should only be done if you have non-family partners or non-family investors. Another thing to think about is to keep your expenses low while you're trying to establish your business. We know of many people who go out and spend thousands of dollars buying desks, chairs, computers, software and so forth, where they could have worked at little or no cost at their kitchen table to establish their business. Which brings us to the other half of the equation, where do you find your customers? The harsh reality of the answer is if you don't already have customers, or don't know who and where they are, you might not want to start your own business. It takes on average three-to-five years to start a business from scratch, and two-thirds of businesses fail within the first five years. One of the reasons they fail is that owners did not understand who and where their customers were. Most successful businesses are started by people who have already worked in the field and know the business inside-out. Otherwise, it's a gamble. Maybe the business will take off, maybe it won't. Success will depend on timing, ability and luck. You might be in the right place at the right time, or you may not be. One of the best ways to start is a business is to do it part time from your home. Get a DBA, open a bank account and use the tools you already have at hand, such as your PC and your phone, to get the business going. When you start getting some clients and some money starts coming in, then you can start thinking about giving up your day job and buying office furniture and equipment, installing business phone lines, and so on. But first, prove that your business can succeed as a business. Look at your results at three-month and six-month time periods. If things aren't working out then you haven't spent a great deal of money and you can move on to something else. One way to learn whether there is a market for your business is to join your local chamber of commerce, Rotary Club, or Lion's Club and mingle with the members, asking them what kind of product or service is in short supply in your area. You might even find a business opportunity that you had not even considered, but there are people ready to sign up if someone simply offered it. There are plenty of books and Websites devoted to starting your own business, so be sure to do some research before diving in. Good luck in starting your own work-at-home business. | 
