Posted: Dec 30, 07 8:13am

Hi TeeBeeDee folks,

I'm the virtual business expert on EONS.com and run the Building A Virtual Company group there. This is one I wrote for my group that really hit home. Hope it works for all of you!

best,

Amy Zuckerman

So many of you have written to me about what you can do to earn money as a virtual business owner, I just knew it was time to talk about how following your bliss can lead to a revenue-producing niche.

A reminder: by virtual business I don’t mean online sales, only. That’s called running an online or e-commerce business. I mean you are running a lean operation from a small office that can be in your home or a rental. Your backup is your computer, the Internet a phone and fax along with whatever wireless gadgets float your boat. And you rarely have employees, though you might hire subcontractors or create alliances with others.

Back to following your bliss . . . There’s going to be a caveat. If you are urgently in need of cash it’s unlikely you will actually get paid for something that you are passionate about – at least in the beginning. The good news is that sometimes passions grow as you get engrossed in an activity.

But you won’t find that satisfying work until you throw caution to the wind and let your mind and desires roam to those activities that motivate you the most to get up in the morning. So, your first exercise will be creating a wish list. Don’t hesitate to write down the most unlikely things, whether they are making pizza sauce, swimming in Tahiti or collecting butterflies that only live in the high Sierra Nevada.

Now comes the next step: make a list of all of your skills that you can sell. Not your occupation, but the things you do that are marketable. For example, I sell my writing and editing skills, my marketing and global networking skills, plus I can package content, develop events, write grants and children’s fiction.

Once you have those two lists set up, identify which of the skills you can sell best match your dream activities. Take that short list and parse it again based on which will make money the most quickly versus those that need development. When I need to produce revenue in a hurry, for instance, I pitch more articles for sale. I can usually raise a few thousand dollars a month that way versus wooing high-paying marketing clients. Sealing those deals can take months or even years.

If you don’t need much revenue, your choices will be broader. The next step will be testing your selections in the marketplace. Those in financial need will have to select the choices that produce revenue the most quickly. Whatever you pick will become your “day business” while you earn money to pursue your dream business.

I’ll play this process out by telling you about my long-time friend Marge. You can find her on EONS in the Building a Virtual Business Group under the moniker “SunnyinTucson.”

If Marge had her druthers, she would probably read all day long. But no one has ever paid her for passing the time with a novel in her hand, so she became a teacher. In fact for a long, long time Marge thought her passion was teaching and she took that passion into classrooms in both Massachusetts and Tucson.

But now that she’s reaching retirement age, Marge is concerned with increasing her revenue stream. She wanted to develop a side business, but like many of you, she didn’t have a clue what to do. Ironically, the answer was sitting right under her nose – literally. Marge is a natural editor. She’s the sort of person who edits menus, newspapers, just about anything that comes her way. And, to my dismay when she reads my copy she always finds mistakes.

It didn’t take a seasoned career coach to see that Marge loved copyediting and editing. For a long time, though, she lacked the nerve to test the waters. But necessity is the mother of invention, they say. When she was between teaching jobs last spring (she does have a part-time job now), Marge took the plunge.

During a visit to Tucson last spring, she and I brainstormed ways she could sell her copyediting and editing skills. The list included newspapers, magazines and other publications such as tourist guides; editing doctoral dissertations; tutoring, and even prepping students for the SAT essay. We knew Marge had the skills to do all these things, but we didn’t know what would produce revenue the fastest.

So we decided to find out. We made appointments in the Tucson area at magazines and newspapers, where Marge took copyediting tests and interviewed. Not only was she the highest scorer ever on the Tucson daily’s copyediting test, but she walked away with a copyediting project by the time I was heading back to Massachusetts.

Clear Content, Marge’s copyediting, research and editing business, was born.

Six months later, Marge is editing a book on religion for a very decent fee. She copyedits a newsletter I develop for a global trade client, has helped local business people hone their slogans and is in negotiation to copyedit a monthly tourism magazine. And, I’m delighted to tell you, Marge is in bliss land. She’s getting to teach just enough to keep that skill set going, but she’s enjoying the diversity that comes with running a virtual business, plus added income.

And, by the way, she’s the best copyeditor I know.

AZ at the Edna St. Vincent Millay museum poetry walk