Uncategorized | Home Office Warrior

Ask Legal Andrew — Zoning and Permits

Aug 15, 2008

This is the first installment in a new weekly series here at Home Office Warrior, where I (Andrew Flusche) will answer your legal questions about running a home business.

I am a business attorney who works out of my home office in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Which certainly makes my understanding of the legal issues of a Home Office Warrior unique. I regularly assists clients with business formation, licensing, zoning, intellectual property, litigation, and other issues. I has been blogging himself since 2006, and I love the giant online conversation!

If you have questions about trademark registration, be sure to sign up for the free webinar Andrew is hosting on August 18th: Trademark Registration Basics.

Now, here’s the first question for Legal Andrew:

Q:

Do I need a zoning permit to work from home?

A:

Most likely, yes. Most local governments have enacted zoning ordinances that regulate the specific things you can do out of your residence. Since a business can disrupt the quiet enjoyment of your neighbors’ homes, municipalities commonly enact special rules regarding home businesses.

The easiest way to find out what you need is to call your local zoning or code compliance department. The employees there should be able to tell you if your home business requires a special permit, commonly known as a “home occupation permit.”

Obtaining a permit is usually a simple matter of filling out the application and paying a small fee (maybe $30). But if your intended use runs afoul of the zoning ordinance, you might have difficulty with your permit. That’s when you could have to make a hard decision about changing your business, moving it elsewhere, or finding a new place to live.

Even with a permit, you will likely be limited as to specific business activities that you can do at home. Common limitations include: no outside business signs, no non-resident employees, and only one commercial vehicle allowed on the premises.

Disclaimer: Andrew Flusche is a licensed Virginia attorney, but these posts do not constitute legal advice, nor do they create an attorney client relationship. For legal advice, consult an attorney licensed in your jurisdiction.

Uncategorized Written By Andrew Flusche Comments (5)

Posting have been light the last few days.

May 27, 2008

I must apologize for the lack of new post over the last few days. I took some time off over the long weekend and did not have anything in place for such a break. Since I usually don’t take time off, I caught myself by surprise. Regular updates and post will resume tomorrow.

In addition, we will post a double “hints & tips” this week too. We are also working a very exciting project for Home Office Warrior which I am looking forward to taking live. It will be a great tool for everyone working from home.

And as many of you know, I also have the blog, Blog for Profit. Not only are we working on a great project for HOW, we are also working on one for Blog for Profit. The project will tie in well with using a blog to market your home business. It is not a “how-to” monetize a blog. It is about using a blog to communicate with your niche/target and clients; about how to provide information to your niche/target; and how to actually use a blog to market your business to your niche/target.

We are looking forward to getting all of this live and available to you.

Uncategorized Written By Grant Griffiths Comments (1)

Home office tips and hints…Links

May 16, 2008

Here is this weeks installment of the Links. This week’s version is a bit different as there is not much about the home office. What I found this week were tons of post and articles about blogging, social networking and social media. I hope you enjoy it. Why am I focusing on those topics this week? Because I firmly believe those topics are extremely important to your success as a home based business. Please leave your comments and if you provide us with some links for next week, you will get linkage back to your own Web site or blog.

Cook up something brilliant in your home office comes to us this week from Home Office Organizer one of the Business Channels from Sparkplugging.

I get questions from clients and people I talk to about how to get exposure for my blog. Here are 10 free blog directories worth submitting your blog to. The post is from hobo. What I like about this is the fact the services are free. FREE is good for those working from a home office as we try to control our overhead. Give them a look and let me know what you think.

One of the best ideas I saw all week came from a great blogger MIchael Martine who does consulting and coaching and post over at the Remarkablogger. What Michael suggested is to create a blog pack to get blog traffic and increase subscriptions. I joined a blog pack made up of a large group of us on twitter. What I am planning to do is start one here for bloggers who work out of a home office or “shed”. Be watching for details.

Another use of the web and social media I have been exploring is using video to communicate with our audience. Online Video Tool Kit is a FREE set of tools you can use to help you get started. I have watched them and plan to watch them again. They give you a great set of tips to get you started doing your own videos. The tool kit is provided by Jim Kukral, video blogger and veteran Internet marketer. Check them out. Jim recommends the Flip Video Ultra Series Camcorder and I do too. It is cheap, yes CHEAP and actually does a great job.

Google liberates the home office, Part 1-Gmail is the first in a series of post from a fairly new home office blog, Home Office Web Tools. I like this blog and this new series is just one example of why. As you all know from reading some of my recent post, I am a heavy user of most of the great tools Google offers. Gmail being one of them.

To continue on with the Google apps theme, Enhance your Google apps with Greasmonkey scripts comes from one of the first blogs that I read, Web Worker Daily. Right after I read this post last night, I took advantage of most of the tools mentioned. Still diving into using them. But, so far what I have seen they will help.

What I am always amazed at is how I am bouncing around questions and thoughts in my head about something to do with blogging, and Darren Rowse puts up a post to answer that question. I am not sure if I should be happy Darren helps to answer my concerns or questions. Or that I should be upset he beat me to the post. Happy has to be the thought. I have been blogging for over three years now and I still read Darren’s blog Problogger daily. 5 emerging trends in blogging was the blog post that answered one of my questions last night. It is one of Darren’s video post and it really hits home. And watching Darren’s video post is another reason we are planning to implement them Home Office Warrior and Blog for Profit soon. And be watching for a completely new design of Blog for Profit very soon. Along with a new ezine series and other features.

Why twitter matters comes to us this week from one of the mainstream media sources, Business Week. I don’t know what more to say. But be watching for some upcoming post on Blog for Profit and Home Office Warrior on using twitter to promote your business. I think there is a clear set of rules you should follow to successfully use twitter to actually promote your business. And a clear set of rules to not be overloaded with the amount of information you can get on twitter.

On a different note, and one I don’t agree with, ten reasons I won’t use social media sites is from Small Business Trends. I disagree with the position as I firmly believe if done right, following a set of rules you put in place, social media sites can be one of the tools you use to promote your business. And what really got my goat in the post was the statement, “real business people don’t use social media.” I guess those of us who use blogging, twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and other social media tools just aren’t real businesses. We are living in a different world than our parents lived in. Even different than I and those in my generation have lived in before. Totally discounting the benefits of social media to a business is a short sighted reaction to something someone may not understand. And that is why I will continue to post about the advantages, tools and rules for using social media on our blogs. And the name social media is a whole other matter altogether too.

Finally, and another example of what is to come, apps like twitterFone signal the future. Fun application you can use with twitter.

Well that is it for this week, hope you enjoy it and find some useful information contained within. Get me your suggestions for next week before 10:00 a.m. on Friday and I will include them. And as I mentioned, you will get a link back to your own blog too.

Tips and Hints, Uncategorized Written By Grant Griffiths Comments (0)

Essential Tools for the Home Office Warrior Who Works Online

May 14, 2008

Like many of you, I spend most of my working day online using the tools available to do what I do. From keeping my calendar, backing up my work, collaborating with my team, communicating with clients and others, retrieving information and just working.

In order to work online, and to answer some questions I get often. I decide to put together a list of tools I use and some I don’t. There are so many great online tools, there is no way I can mention them all. So leave your comments with your own suggestions.

I am using the Google Calendar currently as my calendar. I have multi-calendars, such as one for my business, home and a new one called “editorial calendar”. I like Google calendar as it will sync with my iCal and than my iPhone via Spanning Sync. In addition to keeping track of where I need to be and what I am doing, I am able to use another great service inside the Google calendar called, Remember the Milk (RTM). RTM is a great way to manage the task I need to complete and it is right in my Google calendar. I can also access RTM via my iPhone.

Jott is another essential tool I use daily. I can use my iPhone to send myself reminders and todo’s directly to RTM. How many times do you leave a meeting or are just driving down the road and think of something you need to do. WIth Jott, I can send myself a reminder and a new todo that goes to RTM and than to my Google calendar.

Two other great tools similar to Jott are reQall and Sandy. I have tried them both and I still like Jott better.

At G2 Web Media we use activeCollab to keep track of our projects and communicate with each other and our clients. Each client has access to their project and know what is going on. Of course the more popular collaboration tool is Basecamp. Both of these work great. If you work on projects and have clients, you really need to check them both out.

The wonderful thing about working online is the great applications and services you find. Backup, backup, backup is a theme I live by. And to do this, I once again turn to the web for one of my tools. Box.net is an online file storage and collaboration tool. Not only can I use it as one of my backups. I can share files with it and I can access it with my iPhone too if I need to. And some of the newer features let you edit documents and photos online. This is one you really should take a look at.

Communicating with clients is always or should always be a priority and one of the web based services I am using to do that is GrandCentral. GrandCentral is a great tool. You give it the numbers you want it to find you at and if you don’t answer, it takes a message. I have mine set to send me both a text message on my iPhone and an email. I can check the voicemail with my iPhone or listen to it from the email. Most of you should be able to get a local number for GrandCentral and what is really amazing, it is FREE.

While I do exchange most items with clients via email, there are times I have to send or receive a fax. I don’t own a fax machine. What I do use is Maxemail. Maxemail is an Internet fax service that allows you to send and receive faxes from your computer without a fax machine or phone line. I have my own toll free number and get my faxes via email. I can send them via email too to the other person’s fax number. efax is another Internet based fax service most are more familiar with. I tried them both and decided on Maxemail.

Since I may need to access my office computer from time to time. Especially those times I get out of the home office and go to my favorite coffee shop. I need a tool that I could do this with. Free is always good too. Most of the time I use my iPhone again to do this and SoonR is the web based application I use. I can access all my files this way. Email them to a client if they need them. Or just review them for my own use. And it is FREE too.

Finally, at least for this post is Google Docs. I am using Google docs more now that you can access your documents even off line. Not that I use it for all my word processing, but it is handy to have an alternative. My main point is however, you can actually do all your work with web based applications and get almost all of them for free. Great for the budget.

Please leave your comments with the web based tools you use in your own home based business. I am always looking for different tools and you may know of some I am not aware. If we get a good list from the comments, I will update the list in a followup post and link back to your own site or blog.

Uncategorized Written By Grant Griffiths Comments (3)

April Fools Day should go by the wayside [Rant]

Apr 01, 2008

I am serious. I am really getting sick and tired of the April Fools post clogging up my RSS reader. We are busy enough as it is. And I darn sure don’t want to waste my time reading a post and get half way through it to realize it is some BS April Fools joke.