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How to start your own home- based secretarial servi
HOW TO START YOUR OWN HOME-BASED SECRETARIAL SERVICE. . .
(Wherever you see "typewriter", think "computer")
A new approach to serving one of the oldest and most basic needs of
even the smallest business community, a home-based secretarial
service can satisfy the entrepreneurial needs of even the most
ambitious woman!
This is a kind of service business with a virtually unlimited profit
potential. Third year profits for businesses of this type, in
metropolitan areas as small as 70,000 persons are reported at
$100,000 and more. It's a new idea for a traditional job that's
growing in popularity and acceptance.
As for the future, there's no end in sight to the many and varied
kinds of work a secretary working at home can do for business
owners, managers and sales representatives. Various surveys
indicate that by the year 2,000 - at least 60 percent of all the
secretarial work, as we know it today, will be handled by women
working at home.
For most women, this is the most exciting news of things to come
since the equal rights amendment. Now is the time to get yourself
organized, start your own home-based secretarial service and nurture
it through your start-up stages to total success in the next couple
of years.
In fact, there are two ways to go. You could be a "sub-contractor"
for an existing home based secretarial service. Or, the second (and
much more profitable) avenue is to start your own secretarial
service. The second approach is the one we will discuss in this
report.
Our research indicates little or no risk involved, with most
secretarial services breaking even within 30 days, and reports of
some showing a profit after the first week! Your cash investment
can be as little as $10 to $25 if you already have a modern,
electronic typewriter. You can set up at your kitchen table, make a
few phone calls, and be in business tomorrow.
A typewriter would only be used for a "quick start". Today, you
can't be competitive without a computer! But don't let that worry
you. The prices for (and ways to finance) computer equipment have
become very competitive also. Great deals for these purchases (or
rentals) are very easy to find. After a couple of additional hints,
we will leave this up to you and continue with the discussion of the
service itself.
In the beginning, the only "software" you will need for your
computer is a good wordprocessing program like WordStar or
Word-Perfect. Both of these programs (and most others) have
tutorials and, of great importance, spell checkers. As you grow,
you will probably find a need for additional software in order to be
able to offer additional services.
A definite must is to also have a laser printer! Good lasers are
available for less than $600. Again, financing is easy and it's one
of the best investments you will ever make. (You'll see a couple of
reasons why a little later on.) The "more perfect" your finished
product, the more clients you'll attract and keep.
As mentioned earlier, you can start almost immediately from your
kitchen table if you've got the typewriter. However, in order to
avoid fatigue and back problems, invest in a computer table and
secretary's standard typing chair just as soon as you can afford
them. Watch for office equipment sales, especially among the office
equipment leasing firms. You should be able to pick up a new,
slightly damaged, or good used computer stand or desk for around $20
to $25. A comparable quality secretary's typing chair can be
purchased for $50 or less.
While you're shopping for things you'll need, be sure to pick up a
chair mat. If you don't, you may suddenly find that the carpet on
the floor of the room where you do your typing, needs replacing due
to the worn spot where the chair is located and maneuvered in front
of the typewriter. You'll also want a work stand with place marker
and a convenient box or storage shelf for your immediate paper
supply. If you plan to do a great deal of work during the evening
hours, be sure to invest in an adjustable "long arm" office work
lamp.
When buying paper, visit the various wholesale paper suppliers in
your area or in any nearby large city, and buy at least a half
carton - 6 reams - at a time. Buying wholesale, and in quantity,
will save you quite a bit of money. The kind to buy is ordinary 20
pound white bond. Open one ream for an immediate supply at your
typewriter, and store the rest in a closet, under your bed, or on a
shelf in your garage or basement.
In the beginning, you'll be the business - typist, salesman,
advertising department, bookkeeper and janitor - so, much will
depend upon your overall business acumen. Those areas in which you
lack experience or feel weak in, buy books or tapes and enhance your
knowledge. You don't have to enjoy typing, but you should have
better than average proficiency.
Your best bet in selling your services is to do it all yourself.
Every business in your area should be regarded as a potential
customer, so it's unlikely you'll have to worry about who to call
on. Begin by making a few phone calls to former bosses or business
associates - simply explain that you're starting a typing service
and would appreciate it if they'd give you a call whenever they have
extra work that you can handle for them. Before you end the
conversation, ask them to be sure to keep you in mind and steer your
way any overload typing jobs that they might hear about.
The next step is "in-person" calls on prospective customers. This
means dressing in an impressively professional manner, and making
sales calls on the business people in your area. For this task, you
should be armed with business cards (brochures also help...), and an
order or schedule book of some sort. All of these things take time
to design and print, so while you're waiting for delivery, use the
time to practice selling via the telephone. At this stage, your
telephone efforts will be more for the purpose of indoctrinating you
into the world of selling than actually making sales.
Just be honest about starting a business, and sincere in asking them
to consider trying your services whenever they have a need you can
help them with. Insurance companies, attorneys and distributors are
always needing help with their typing, so start with these kinds of
businesses first.
For your business cards, consider a free-lance artist to design a
logo for you. Check, and/or pass the word among the students in the
art or design classes at any nearby college, art or advertising
school. Hiring a regular commercial artist will cost you quite a
bit more, and generally won't satisfy your needs any better than the
work of a hungry beginner.
Be sure to browse through any Klip Art books that may be available -
at most print shops, newspaper offices, advertising agencies,
libraries and book stores. The point being, to come up with an idea
that makes your business card stand out; that can be used on all
your printed materials, and makes you - your company - unique or
different from all the others.
I might suggest something along the lines of a secretary with pad in
hand taking dictation; or perhaps a secretary wearing a dictaphone
headset seated in front of a computter. You might want something
distinctive for the first letter of your company name, or perhaps a
scroll or flag as a background for your company name.
At any rate, once you've got your logo or company design, the next
step is your local print shop. Ask them to have the lettering you
want to use, typeset in the style you like best -show them your
layout and order at least a thousand business cards printed up.
For your layout, go with something basic. Expert typing services,
in the top left hand corner... Dictation by phone, in the top right
hand corner... Your company logo or design centered on the card
with something like, complete secretarial services, under it...
Your name in the lower left hand corner, and your telephone number
in the lower right hand corner...
Everybody that you call on in person, be sure to give them one of
your business cards. And now, you're ready to start making those
in-person business sales calls.
Your best method of making sales calls would be with a business
telephone directory and a big supply of loose leaf notebook paper.
Go through the business directory and write down the company names,
addresses and telephone number. Group all of those within one
office building together, and those on the same street in the same
block. Be sure to leave a couple of spaces between the listing of
each company. And of course, start a new page for those in a
different building or block. Now, simply start with the first
business in the block, or on the lowest floor in a building and
number them in consecutive order. This will enable you to call on
each business in order as you proceed along a street, down the
block, or through a building
You'll be selling your capabilities - your talents - and charging
for your time - the time it takes you to get set up and complete the
assignment they give you. You should be organized to take work with
you on the spot, and have it back at a promised time; arrange to
pick up any work they have, and deliver it back to them when it's
completed; and handle dictation or special work assignments by
phone. You should also emphasize your abilities to handle
everything by phone, particularly when they have a rush job.
Establish your fees according to how long it takes you to handle
their work, plus your cost of supplies - work space, equipment and
paper - then fold in a $5 profit. In other words, for a half hour
job that you pick up on a regular sales or delivery call you should
charge $10...
Another angle to include would be copies. Establish a working
relationship with a local printer, preferably one who also has a
high quality copy machine. When your clients need a sales letter or
whatever plus so many copies, you can do it all for them.
Only make copies on the very best of dry paper copying machines, and
only for 50 copies or less. More than 50 copies, it'll be less
expensive and you'll come out with a better looking finished product
by having them printed on a printing press. When you furnish
copies, always fold in your copying or printing costs plus at least
a dollar or more for every 50 copies you supply.
By starting with former employers and/or business associates, many
businesses are able to line up 40 hours of work without even making
sales call. If you're lucky enough to do this, go with it, but...
Start lining up your friends to do the work for you - girls who work
all day at a regular job, but need more money; and housewives with
time on their hands. You tell them what kind of equipment is
needed, and the quality of work you demand. You can arrange to pay
them so much per hour for each job they handle for you - judging
from the time you figure the job would take if you were doing it; or
on a percentage basis. I feel the best arrangement is on an hourly
basis according to a specified amount of time each job normally
takes.
Here is a good place to talk about a laser printer again. Lots of
people you can line up will have computers at home but few will have
lasers. Don't tell them they need one or how much more they could
do for themselves if they had one! Let them be dependent on you.
They can do the typing and spell checking and then copy the file to
a disk which you can then put in your computer and print out on your
laser printer. This can keep your workers from going into business
for themselves and competing against you.
Whenever, and as soon as you've got a supply of "workers" lined up,
you turn all your current assignments over to them, and get back to
lining up more business. If you're doing well selling by phone, and
your area seems to respond especially well to selling by phone, then
you should immediately hire commission sales people. Train them
according to your own best methods and put them to work assisting
you. Your salespeople can work out of their own homes, using their
own telephones, provided you've got your area's business community
organized in a loose leaf notebook style. All you do is give them
so many pages from your notebook, from which they make sales calls
each week.
Even so, you should still make those in-person sales calls... If for
some reason you get bogged down, and can't or don't want to, then
hire commission sales people to do it for you... Generally, women
selling this type of service bring back the most sales... And for
all your commission sales people, the going rate should be 30
percent of the total amount of the sale... Point to remember:
Sooner or later, you're going to want to hire a full-time telephone
sales person, plus another full time person to make in-person sales
calls for you - Eventually, you want workers to handle all the work
for you, and sales people to do the selling for you - So the sooner
you can line up people for these jobs, the faster your business is
going to prosper.
Later on, you'll want a sales manager to direct your sales people
and keep them on track, so try to find a "future sales manager" when
you begin looking for salespeople.
Your basic advertising should be a regular quarter page ad in the
yellow pages of both your home service telephone directory and the
business yellow pages. You'll find that 50 percent of your first
time clients will come to you because they have an immediate need
and saw your ad in the yellow pages, so don't skimp on either the
size or the "eye-catching" graphics of this ad.
A regular one column by 3-inch ad in the Sunday edition of your
area's largest newspaper would also be a good idea. Any advertising
you do via radio or television will be quite expensive with
generally very poor results, so don't even give serious
consideration to that type of advertising.
By far, your largest advertising outlays will be for direct mail
efforts. You should have a regular mailing piece that you send out
to your entire business community at least once a month. This is
handled by sending out 200 to 500 letters per day. For this, you
should obtain a third class postage permit or else these postage
costs will drive you out of business.
Your mailing piece should consist of a colorful brochure that
describes your business. It should explain the many different kinds
of assignments you can handle - a notation that no job is too small
or too large - and a statement of your guarantee. Do not quote
prices in your brochure - simply ask the recipient to call for a
quotation or price estimate.
It's also a good idea to list the background and experience of the
business owner, plus several business testimonials and/or
compliments. You could also include a couple of pictures showing
your workers busy and actually handling secretarial assignments. The
most important part of your brochure will be your closing statement
- an invitation, indeed - a demand that the recipient call you for
further information.
All of this can very easily be put together in a Z-folded, 2-sided
self-mailer. Again, look for a free-lance copywriter and artist to
help you put it together. Once you've got your "dummy" pretty well
set the way you want it, make copies of it, and either take it or
send it to several direct mail advertising agencies. Ask them for
their suggestions of how they would improve it, and for a bid on the
cost if you were to retain them to handle it for you. Listen to
their ideas and incorporate them where - and if -you think they
would make your brochure better. And, if one of them does come in
with a cost estimate that's lower than your independent,
"do-it-yourself" costs, then think seriously about assigning the job
to them.
This is definitely the most important piece of work that will ever
come out of your office, so be sure it's the very best, and
positively indicative of your business. This will be the business
image you project, so make sure it reflects the quality, style and
credibility of your business - your thinking, and your success.
Your brochure should be on 60-pound coated paper, in at least two
colors and by a professional printer. The end result is the
Z-folded brochure - Z-folded by the printer - with your third class
mailing permit indicia showing on the cover side. This cover side
should be flamboyant and eye-catching. You want your mailing piece
to stand out in the pile of 50 or 60 pieces of other mail received
by the recipient.
When you're ready to mail, simply take a couple of cartons of your
brochures to an addressing shop, have them run your brochures
through their addressing machine, loaded with your mailing list,
bundle them and drop them off at the post office for you. This
takes us back to the planning on how to compile your mailing list. I
suggest that you begin with Cheshire Cards by Xerox. You type the
name of your addressee on the cards, maintain these cards in the
order of your choice, take your boxes of cards to the addressing
shop whenever you have a mailing, and there's no further work on
your part. The addressing shop loads their machine with your cards,
prints the address on your cards directly onto your brochures, and
gives the cards back to you when the mailing is completed. A
mailing of 100,000 brochures, via this method - generally could be
completed and on its way in one 8-hour day.
In essence, you'll want to solicit business with a regular routine
of telephone selling, in-person sales calls at the prospective
client's place of business, media advertising and direct mail
efforts. All of these efforts are important and necessary to the
total success of your business - don't try to cut corners or spare
the time or expense needed to make sure you're operating at full
potential in these areas! In addition to these specific areas, it
would be wise for you to attend chamber of commerce meetings, and
join several of your area civic clubs - you'll meet a great number
of business leaders at these meetings and through their association,
you will gain a great deal of new business - and even help in many
of your needs.
Once you're organized and rolling, you can easily expand your market
nationwide with the installation of a toll free telephone and
advertising in business publications. Perhaps you can add to your
primary business with a "mailing shop" of your own - the rental of
mailing lists - specialized temporary help services - telephone
answering services - and even survey work...
The "bottom line" thing to remember in order to achieve total
success, is planning. Plan your initial operation through from
start to finish before you even think about soliciting your first
customer. Get your operational plan down on paper - itemize your
needs, estimate your costs, line up your operating capital, and set
forth milestones for growth.
Set profit figures you want to be realizing 3 months... 6 months...
1 year... 2 years... and 3 years from your business start-up date.
Learn all you can about the "support systems" involved in operating
a profitable business - planning, advertising, selling, bookkeeping,
and banking - and continue to update your knowledge with a program
of continuous learning. Do your homework properly, and there's just
no way you can fail with a Home-Based Secretarial Service.
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