Not surprisingly, ninety-six percent of virtual professionals were based in home offices. This is not unusual for small businesses; for some this is a stepping stone and for others, a permanent lifestyle. Many had home offices already set up and found transition easy once Internet technology became available. Some, like Janice Byer at Docu-Type Administrative & Web Design Services, had both corporate and entrepreneurial experience working for her dad but "didn't want to 'go out' to work when he retired." The majority of virtual professionals are solo entrepreneurs without any employees.

Thirty percent of virtual professionals said that child care was major factor in starting their business, and for sixty percent, their business provides their sole income. Women working at home with small children in background have their own unique challenges, but imagine education their children will get about entrepreneurship. Renae Bolton, owner of Triple J WordProcessing Co., left office to fix her son a snack and he called out "Mom - one of your clients is blinking you!" when an Instant Message came in.

A virtual professional can be anywhere on planet, again assuming technology is available, and for that reason, survey purposefully did not collect geographic information from respondents. However, survey respondents came from global networking environments online in order to get a diverse response. Although United States was a leader, a significant number of virtual professionals were from Australia and Canada.

Working virtually can be a challenge, and without right technology, it can be downright impossible. In next two articles of this series, we will look at perks and perils of working this way, and later, what tools and technologies are popular amongst virtual professionals in 2003.

### © Eileen Parzek, SOHO It Goes! 2003

Now that we've established some guidelines to follow process is actually very simple. Search through home based business advertisements and listings that you've found (by doing a search on Home based businesses on one of many search engines) and simply look for businesses using guidlines mentioned above.

However, remember that choosing right product is just as important as finding a business opportunity. You can have best business plan around but if your product is not very marketable then you will just be spinning your wheels.

If you would like more information on choosing right product then feel free to send an email to turntine@FreeAutobot.com and you will recieve that FREE report from my autoresponder immediately.

Learn a thirty day plan to internet marketing success from internet gurus that know how to get things done. These are best of best Mark Joyner, Joe Vitale, Michael Glaspie, and many more too numerous to mention but well known "gurus"! Learn from best of best at: http://hop.clickbank.net/?turntine/joekumar