Start Your Own Home Business After 50. Robert W. Bly

in technical and “hard” skills (local area network troubleshooting, Microsoft Office, sales forecasting, compensation management, regulatory compliance).

      PUBLISHING AND PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT. The late consultant Howard Shenson said, “Publishing is every consultant’s second job.” Much of the information disseminated through consulting can be packaged and sold as “information products,” including books, audios, workbooks, software, forms, checklists, phone support lines, Internet support, newsletters, and reference guides. Thus, there is an opportunity for almost every consultant to package part of his or her expertise as information products.

      CONTRACT AND TEMPORARY CONSULTING. Contractors and temps usually operate somewhat differently than a traditional independent consultant. The contract or temp typically works full-time on the client’s premises, devoting all or most of their week to that client for as long as they are on the assignment. They perform a variety of tasks in addition to just giving advice, often working for the duration of the project as part of a team comprised of both consultants and staff workers.

       MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR AGE ADVANTAGES

      As a 50+ consultant, you should take into consideration how and if your age will impact your ability to provide consulting services in any or all of the categories listed above. In other words, is the particular service capacity “age appropriate?” Age appropriateness refers to the physical demands, schedule flexibility, and level of social interaction in the context of your own personal circumstance.

      As a general matter, what makes consulting such an ideal profession for the older crowd is that the type and amount of work you do is totally up to you. So, when considering how you will be providing your services, you need to think carefully about the physical, mental, and time constraints involved. For example, you can probably safely assume that if your consulting services are limited to an advisory role or to publishing and product development, you will have few if any age-related challenges. A lot of your work can be done from your home, and travel will be limited.

      Similarly, contract and temp consulting can be advantageous for older consultants because your services are clearly time-limited, giving you the opportunity to schedule and take care of matters related to your own health needs or caring for older parents.

      Implementation consulting, on the other hand, depending upon what type of service you are actually offering, may be more physically challenging and consume more of your precious time. For example, if your computer systems consulting services are to include an implementation component, are you able to meet and sustain the physical challenges of actually installing the hardware associated with the computer system you have developed?

      The bottom line is that being able to identify the requirements of each type of consulting category will help you better identify how you want to conduct your consulting business, how you want to promote it, and which potential clients will likely be most interested in what you have to offer.

      

       STRAIGHT TALK FROM BOB

      In 1979, my first job out of college was with Westinghouse, working as a junior member of the marketing communications department. My salary was an eye-popping $74 a day—about $9.25 an hour.

      Right away, an interesting project came up, and I asked my boss to put me on it.

      He thought I was too inexperienced. Instead, he called in a high-priced consultant. The guy did, in my opinion, an extremely mediocre job. Yet amazingly, the product manager seemed reasonably satisfied.

      The job took the consultant three days. And, at $1,000 a day—almost 14 times more per day than the company was paying me—he billed the company $3,000.

      To this day, I believe I could have done as good a job or better than the consultant did. Even if the job had taken me four days, it would have cost my company only $296 instead of $3,000.

      “Hey, how long has this racket been going on?” I asked myself.

      If a company was willing to pay an outsider more than 10 times what I was earning for essentially the same work, I reasoned I could make more money as an outside consultant than as an employee.

      Not long after that, I quit the corporate world for good and I hung out my shingle as an independent consultant and copywriter.

      I’ve never looked back.

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       Home-Based Business Opportunity #3: Coaching

      Closely related to consulting is coaching. Consulting helps clients solve specific problems, while coaching gives clients ongoing guidance and motivation to achieve broad goals.

      In the 1960s, advertising executive and satirist Stan Freberg wrote a song called “Betsy Ross and the Flag: Everybody Wants to Be an Art Director.” In the 21st century, the title of the song could be “Everybody Wants to Be a Coach.” Coaching, along with Internet marketing, is one of the hottest business opportunities today. Could you make a living as a coach?

      By the time you are 50, you’ve spent years making a living through one or more venues in life. Now you would be happy to teach others how to do the same thing—and pay your bills while doing it. Being an independent coach may very well be one of the most rewarding careers you can get into, and it is perfectly suited as a home-based business. Plus, your years of experience and wisdom could make you quite attractive for those 30-something, would-be entrepreneurs out there who are “only now” realizing they could use some help figuring all this out.

       IS THIS FOR ME?

      Before you hang a whistle around your neck and call yourself a coach, make sure you’ve had some solid, successful experience in whatever area you plan to specialize in. You can only be a successful coach if you’ve got the background—if you’ve experienced the ups and downs in that niche and can show others how you handled difficult situations or overcame roadblocks. It is good if you have already taught classes or guest lectured in the area in which you would like to coach. If so, you’ll certainly know if you have the talent to relate and successfully impart to others what you know that they need to know.

      How would you go about building your coaching business? Your first step will be to decide which of the lessons you have learned in your life could be valuable to others. Sit down and make a list of what you have done in your life so far. From that list, determine what you feel you are quite good at and then narrow that list down further to the areas you would like to coach others in.

      Your next step is to outline how you would go about building this kind of business and what you will need to practice the type of coaching you want to offer. There are two broad areas of coaching: One is physical coaching and the other is motivational coaching—working with a client to change thinking patterns rather than physical skills.

      Needless to say, if you are a football (physical) coach, you will need a playing field and a gym, along with a team. But as a home-based motivational coach, you might be able to provide your services over the phone or by e-mail. So, you see how you could take a coaching career two different directions—physical or motivational—or combine it into one coaching package.

       CONSULTING VS. COACHING

      At this point, you might ask “What is the difference between consulting and coaching?” Let’s compare a business coach to a business consultant.

      A business consultant talks with a client, either by phone or in a personal visit to the client’s place of business, usually about a particular action the business wants to take. For instance, a marketing consultant helping to create a particular sales campaign would ask how customer data is being gathered and analyzed and what strategies are used for approaching customers. The sales campaign would be analyzed and the consultant would offer suggestions about materials and copy to be sent out. The business consultant would help develop new strategies and guidelines