This is the ultimate guide to learning how to work from home for stay at home mums, motivated entrepreneurs and their families — basically anyone that wants to start a business from home or find an online job!

In this comprehensive guide you’ll learn everything you need to know about working from home online, from the benefits it presents to how to do it effectively around your family life and plenty of exciting business ideas on how to work from home today.

Please feel free to navigate to the section that piques your curiosity by clicking below:

1. The State of The Workplace in 2020
2. How To Work From Home: Embrace Our Digital World
3. The Benefits of Working From Home
4. How To Work From Home Effectively
5. Top 6 Work From Home Opportunities in 2020

The State of The Workplace
in 2020

We are living in a world that is a lot (and I mean, “A LOT”) different than that our old folks knew and grew up in — bless them!

Gone are the days of having to (or even being able to) secure a position in a reputable enterprise straight out of university, working your way up in “the company” to retire having spent a lifetime making someone else’s dreams come true.

Sure, you can still do that if you choose to — and make enough quid to see out your golden years happily — but we are living in an age where the status quo is becoming increasingly more difficult to maintain.

A global pandemic that has brought the economies of the world to their knees, technology disruptors such as robots/automation that are replacing skilled laborers and a burgeoning population is making the work marketplace as competitive as we’ve ever known in modern history.

But, then, challenge is something that presents an opportunity if you’re someone like me who likes to look on the brighter side of life (the weather in the UK sure as hell isn’t going to do it for me).

Read “Why “New Year, New Me” Shouldn’t Be Your Plans For Change in 2021”

How To Work From Home:
Embrace Our Digital World

Despite all of the many challenges each of us are facing, we live in a digital world that offers a plethora of ways to make money without even getting out of our pyjamas/bed in the morning… 

Starting a business in the UK (or anywhere in the world with a decent internet connection) makes working from home 100% possible!

Our lives are dominated by software solutions and online platforms that make doing business from home as easy as you packing away your nan’s mince pie:

• Messaging: Facebook, Slack, WhatsApp — Click to see how I use it for business, I dare you!
• Con calls: Zoom, Skype, Google Hangouts
• Project management: Trello, Basecamp, OneClick
• Marketing: LinkedIn, Instagram, Hootsuite
• Sales: HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive
• Accounting: Xero, Quickbooks, Sage X3

The list goes on and on…

There is ABSOLUTELY no better time than now to educate yourself on how to work from home!

Seriously though, all we have now is time. 

Time to reflect, time to love, time to listen, time to learn. 

I’m personally using this time to help teach you how to work from home and make more money.

There are many ways on how you can go about creating the business and life of your dreams from home (I promise, we’ll get to this a little later), but, first, let’s take a look at the benefits of working from home.

The Benefits of Working
From Home

“Why work from home?” said no one, ever! 

I’ve been through the corporate ringer, I’ve done hard time pushing pencils for the man and I can honestly tell you: every single minute of it was worth it for showing me what I really didn’t want for my own life or for my kids.

There are plenty of benefits of working from home, with the most poignant being:

1. Being there for your children — never miss another milestone in their lives.
2. The extra time that it affords you — no more wasteful meetings that could have just been an email.
3. The flexibility to plan your day — time for yourself (go get that mani in the middle of the day), your business, your children, your husband, your friends, your life.
4. Being your own boss — you get absolutely everything that you put into your enterprise.
5. Everyday is casual Friday — never wake up stressing about what to wear ever again = happiness.
6. Save more money (and the planet) — zero commuting and less emissions. 
7. Customisable work environment — work from your sofa, a home office or even outdoors.
8. Being more productive — no office distractions or idle chit-chat around the water dispenser with co-workers.
9. Take more time off — go on more holidays with your family, take a sick day if you’re not well, YOLO (you only live once!)
10. Being happier — with all of these advantages, why wouldn’t you be? 

For all the wonderful things I mentioned above, working from home benefits those that have structure and the willpower.

It’s definitely possible to work from home around your family and other commitments, but, how does one do it effectively?

How To Work From Home Effectively

Maintaining a proper work life balance when your 9-5 grind is spent in an office is difficult for most at the best of times. 

However, taking the rigidity and structure out of that by throwing your home life and its varying distractions into the equation can make things even trickier, if you’re not prepared…

Working from home effectively comes easier to some of us than others (like everything, it just takes some practise), but consistently maintaining a certain level of productivity can be accomplished by following some of these top tips:

Wake up at the same time each day 

Follow a morning routine 

Many of the world’s most successful business leaders swear by cultivating healthy morning routine habits. 

Getting into a fixed daily routine sets the tone for how you wish to attack the day and it gives you a sense of accomplishment well before you start working.

Start by making your bed (get your kids to take turns being the drill sergeant to conduct an inspection in each room), gratitude journal/read/meditate/study for personal development first thing, plan out your day, workout for at least 30 minutes, make and eat breakfast together, and get ready for the day ahead.

Get dressed for work 

It goes without saying that your kids will be less than excited to get dressed and ready for school if you’re lounging around in your pj’s seeing them off.

Just because you can work from home, doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t dress for success. When you feel good about how you look, you feel good about yourself and we all know that it’s a recipe for great things to happen!

Set up your work space

Read “9 Ways to Increase Productivity Working From Home During Covid-19”

Take timed breaks

You’re your own boss, you own your time, just make sure that you time your timeouts. 

Scheduled breaks help you to recenter and refocus your thoughts and efforts throughout your day. If you have little ones at home, you can sync your breaks with feeding/play time so that you don’t sacrifice special time with them.

It’s all about getting into a rhythm and doing your best to follow it. This takes some practise to get right and sometimes you won’t so you shouldn’t be too hard on yourself. 

Feeling guilty is going to take away from the pleasures of working from home. Take everything in your stride, figure out what works for you and your commitments and plan your day accordingly.

Now that I’ve shared a few insights into how to work from home effectively, it’s time that we move onto exploring some ideas on how to work from home and how to find work from home jobs! 

Top 6 Work From Home Opportunities
in 2020

In this day and age, there are countless work from home opportunities out there just waiting for you to apply for/online business models you can get started with by yourself.

Please navigate to the section that tickles your fancy most:

• Online Freelancing Platforms
• Starting a Business in The UK
• Affiliate Marketing
• Network Marketing
• Start a YouTube Channel
• Create Your Own Online Courses
• Online English Teacher
• Dropshipping

Online Freelancing Platforms

If you’ve already got a specific set of skills honed over the course of your past few jobs then these handy platforms are where you can start to work from home online:

1. Upwork

Recognized as the world’s largest freelancing site, Upwork is an absolute gem for anyone looking to find something to keep them busy from home.

There are 70+ categories of work and over 5000 skills that can be put to work for companies across the world.

Be sure to compile/update your CV to the best of your ability, submit it when setting up your profile and start throwing some lines out there.  

2. Fiverr

Fiverr is another one of the world’s leading online marketplaces, named as such, for digital services starting at just $5.

You can become a seller on the platform by setting up a profile and creating a ‘gig’ around your skills and services that will be offered to a global audience. 

The great thing about Fiverr is that it is also the perfect place to outsource work tasks that can help you grow your own business relatively inexpensively.

My beautiful website was built by an outsourcer on Fiverr — let me know if you ever need a recommendation for that!

3. OneForma

OneForma is another freelancing platform, but it is somewhat different from the abovementioned platforms in that this group partners with some of the world’s biggest companies to offer you freelance jobs on behalf of them.

Upon signing up, you’re required to take a skills test to test your language proficiency so that you can become certified to take on jobs.

You don’t need to have a command of The Queen’s English to qualify here… 

With reasonably passable English (or any other language you might have under belt) you can expect to work on a bunch of different tasks you can complete anywhere. 

Take on everything from transcription, translation and copywriting to software testing and taking pictures with your smartphone for cash money (finally something everyone including their nan can manage).

Starting a Business in The UK

Starting your own business in the UK — or anywhere for that matter — usually involves many steps that will require meticulous planning on your part.

It’s certainly not something that you just rush into willy-nilly.

There are many things that I wish I knew before I became my own boss lady, but there are plenty of work from home opportunities that you can get started with right away that don’t require too much admin!

Nothing ventured, nothing gained as they say…

What follows are a bunch of my favorite ideas on how to work from home online. I’ll break down each one by sharing:

• What each idea entails?
• How much money, time and effort you’ll need to invest to get going?
• How much money you can make?

* Disclaimer: There is no such thing as a get quick rich strategy in today’s online marketplace. You need to put the time and effort in to make any one of these ideas work, but, trust me, with the right attitude, patience and persistence, anything is possible!

Affiliate Marketing

The concept of affiliate marketing involves referring certain products online where the referer can earn a commission when a sale is made. 

There are a ton of amazing free resources/paid courses online where you can get taught the skinny on how to best approach this, but in a nutshell you can look to:

1. Create a website/blog that you can use to write product reviews that include affiliate links
2. Start a YouTube channel where you create product review videos with links in your video description 
3. Build an email list that you can market affiliate products to
4. Run Facebook/Instagram ads marketing affiliate products

There are a number of reputable programs that you can open an account with, each with their own commission rates and referral policies. 

Do your research, find a niche that you’re interested in marketing e.g. health and fitness, beauty or software and start planning your affiliate marketing strategy.

Capital Investment

You can pretty much start this up with little to no money by simply recommending products to your friends. It really just depends on which marketing channel you wish to proceed with. 

If you want to scale your efforts by creating a website or running Facebook ads you’ll need to budget for at least £200-£500 to get the ball rolling.

Time Investment

If you’re fresh off the boat when it comes to anything digital marketing, then there will always be a learning curve. 

For this particular strategy, you’re looking at between 4-6 weeks for a website to be made and much, much longer for articles to be published and to rank organically in Google’s search results pages. 

You could do this a lot faster by simply running Facebook ads to an affiliate product page, but if you’re not Facebook savvy or you’re skint, then you’ll need to study up!

Earning Potential 

Your earning potential is entirely dependent on how much traffic you can push to your affiliate pages. 

There are loads of people that are making 6 figure incomes with this strategy today, but you will have to want it enough to stick it out until you get there!

Network Marketing

Network marketing requires one to build a network of business partners, sales people, and, ultimately, friends, to facilitate person-to-person sales through recommending products or services that they use themselves.

With the help of a network marketing company, you can choose to:

1. Earn commissions by selling/recommending products or services to your close friends/neighbours/local network
2. Build sales teams to help you generate commissions on your team’s product sales

I’ve built my own multi-million pound business with Forever Living and their amazing aloe vera products by utilizing the power of social networking.

Download a Free Chapter of My Bestselling Book 
“How Social Networking Doubled My Business” here!

You can make a very comfortable living from home by simply recommending the products, services and business opportunity to others.

Interested in learning more? Check out 9 Network Marketing Tips For Starting An Online Business in 2020

Capital Investment

To get started with network marketing, you simply need £199.75 to purchase a starter pack that includes all of the bestsellers for you to try out and recommend to your inner circle.

Time Investment

You don’t require any previous experience in order to get a network marketing hustle off the ground, just the right support and mentorship and a can do attitude!

You can work either part-time or full-time depending on your commitments. It’s certainly one of the most flexible online working opportunities out there today.

20 Must-Read Network Marketing Books To Maximise Your Earnings in 2020

Earning Potential 

By getting into retailing, you can earn £200-£400 a month.

If you get into team building, you can earn £600-£2000 a month.

Those that become a business developer can earn £2,000-£20,000 per month as a residual income which is then willable to your children. You can also earn a share of the company’s profits, including a car plan and global travel incentives.

I’ve personally helped many stay at home mums and their families set up network marketing businesses that are bringing in 6 figure incomes for their households — check out some of these network marketing success stories!

I’ve also helped hundreds more earn a second income of a few hundred a month (and so can YOU!)

Read 23 “Reasons Why Network Marketing is the Biz To Be In Right Now”

Start a YouTube Channel

Starting a YouTube channel may seem like something only millenials do these days, but there is no denying the marketing power of video and it is easy to see why this is one of the most sought after careers today.

YouTubers can monetize their video content by: 

1. Serving ads on YouTube to their subscribers and viewers
2. Partner with brands to get sponsored/including affiliate links (see affiliate marketing above) in their video descriptions
3. Get into merchandising by creating their own brand 

There are heaps of YouTubers that teach other YouTubers how to YouTube.  

Being successful on this platform really comes down to having a unique idea, skill set or perspective that you can share with others — and knowing how to optimize your videos with YouTube’s algorithm in mind to be found.

Capital Investment

Anyone with a smartphone, computer/laptop (screen recordings at home) or GoPro can create video content. 

You do not need to invest in the most expensive camera and microphone as you can upgrade your equipment once you start making money.

When it comes to video editing software there are plenty of paid and free ones to help take your video editing skills to the next level, it just depends on what your specific needs are and how much you can afford to spend.

Time Investment

If you’ve never filmed yourself before or have any experience with video editing, then prepare to spend a lot of time (at least 6 months – 1 year of filming and editing) mastering these arts as you shoot and cut more videos.

Uploading videos consistently is a key factor in getting better at it and it helps to grow your subscriber base — you’ll need to get to 1000 subs before you can begin to monetize your channel with ads so prepare to work hard to get there.

Earning Potential 

As hard as it might be to get a channel going, there is so much money to be made for anyone that rolls up their sleeves proper. 

Your videos stay online, forever, so it’s likely that you can continue making money as long as you keep doing your thing and building your brand.

There are many YouTube millionaires that have several income streams just from monetizing the traffic they get from their videos, including the next idea below.

Create Your Own Online Courses

eLearning is a massive industry that is set to climb to $325 billion by 2025 and believe it or not, everyone knows something that they can teach someone else online.

Create your own online courses by:

1. Building a website to host your courses where you can offer a monthly membership program 
2. Filming and editing a short course to host on an online teaching platform to sell for a once-off fee
3. Starting a YouTube channel teaching something to grow a following that you can sell your future courses to

There are plenty of excellent online learning platforms like Skillshare, Udemy and Teachable where you can sign up to share your knowledge with the world.

Capital Investment

Your previous work experience, schooling and life is most of the capital investment you would have spent getting to know what you know.

Otherwise, it’s pretty inexpensive to film yourself on a smartphone and a reasonably good microphone will set you back about £40-£50.

Time Investment

Preparing, filming, editing and uploading your course material can take anywhere between 3-6 months to do (or longer depending on how in-depth you want your course to be). 

Short courses can be done in 6-8 weeks, but it’s recommended that you shoot for quality to stand a better chance of being able to sell it for a better price. 

You’ll also have put in time to market it in the very beginning to get some good reviews and student feedback to optimize it further for sales.

Earning Potential 

Some of the teaching platforms are free, but they take a % of each sale so that will cut into your profits somewhat.

That being said, like with YouTube videos, your online course has staying power on the internet as a passive income stream that can provide you with a good living if you can get the numbers there. 

If you’re a subject matter specialist having a membership site where you can gate your course content for a monthly fee is an excellent way to create brand advocates that pay you month in and month out. 

Online English Teacher

There are many reputable platforms for you to find online teaching jobs where you get put in touch for students all over the world.

Capital Investment

You’ll need a decent laptop or computer, a fast internet connection and a headset to conduct your classes. 

In order to teach English to second language learners you’ll need to be TEFL certified. These certification courses are not all made equal — you do get what you pay for — and range anywhere from £100-£800+.

It is an important investment as most ESL jobs require the applicant to have a TEFL certificate, and having one from a more renowned institution could land you higher paying gigs.

Time Investment

120hr – 200hr online TEFL courses can take anywhere between 4 weeks – 6 months. It’s also worth noting that if you have a bachelor’s degree, it’ll likely be a lot easier for you to secure work teaching online.

Earning Potential 

For teaching online you’re typically looking at rates of £11-£20/hr. 

If you’re able to fill up your week with around 10 – 15hrs you’d be looking at an honest salary by working from home, but it’s definitely not going to make you a millionaire any time soon — unless, say, you start and grow a YouTube channel teaching English and develop your own online English course.

Dropshipping

Dropshipping can be accomplished by:

1. Creating a store on an ecommerce hosting platform and driving visitors to it through the use of Facebook/Instagram ads
2. Build an email list that you can send to your store
3. Create a website and produce content to drive traffic to your site and store through SEO

There are some great videos on YouTube that go into the nitty gritty of this method. 

Selecting the right product is also super important here and you’d best check out Oberlo to get the job done.

With dropshipping you don’t spend any money on inventory, and it reminds me a lot of another method that I can mention in the same breath called Print On Demand — this is excellent for creatives/designers to make extra cash by applying their graphic design to white label products that a third party sells on their behalf.

Capital Investment

No inventory is a massive saving and a lot less risky than going all in with a product that might not sell. 

That being said, setting up on an ecommerce platform like Shopify will set you back £23/month and you’d need to spend at least £8/day on Facebook/Instagram ads to get some targeted traffic to your store. 

You’d also need to create an ad video/design an image ad and if you don’t have the chops for that you can get it done on Fiverr for around £10-£25 — just remember, sometimes buying cheap is buying expensive.

Time Investment

If you know nothing about digital marketing, ecommerce or running ads then you’re going to have to spend a few weeks or a couple of months getting your head around this. 

Of course, you can pay someone to do everything and get a shop up and running within a week or two, but if you’re worried about staying within your budget, then investing the time to learn is best.

If you’re happy to build a brand of sorts and tackle this seriously, then building a website on WordPress with Woocommerce integration and writing search engine optimized content to drive free organic traffic to your store is the way to go!

Earning Potential 

There are plenty of success stories of spot-faced high school kids making hundreds of thousands of quid each month hustling from their bedrooms.

The money is crazy good if you can source a winning product and throw some serious money behind ad spend to scale your conversion campaigns.

Time To Get Busy!

There are so many more online avenues to explore that couldn’t possibly fit into one post, but you should have enough information to pick a lane and start doing your “homework”!

Leave your comments below and ask me anything about working from home or tell me about other opportunities you’ve heard about and keen to explore.

I sincerely hope that you found value in this mammoth guide on how to work from home.

Please feel free to click the social icons below to share this bible of remote working wisdom with your besties and I’ll see you all again soon,

With love,
Nat

Download a Free eBook on What I Wish I Knew
Before Starting a Network Marketing Business here!