Grant Griffiths

Publisher

I moved my law practice to my home in January of 2005 and it was one of the best decisions I made. My overhead went down and my quality of work/life balance went up. I was able to work when I wanted and I no longer had to worry about getting myself downtown to the office. Working out of a home office also gave me a chance to spend more time with my family. But at the same time, I also found I spent more time in the office working. The move was well worth it. Shortly after I moved my office home, I started a blog called Home Office Lawyer. My purpose in starting that blog was I wanted a place I could discuss something I was quickly growing very passionate about. Working out of a home office. Then in September, 2007 we expanded that blog into what you are reading now, Home Office Warrior. I wanted to expand our audience to not just those in the legal profession. I wanted to reach out and write for anyone working from a home office. There are over 20 million of us in the United States who work out of our homes and I wanted to be just a small part of that.

New Design for Home Office Warrior

And now, December, 2008 you are seeing a completely new design for Home Office Warrior. We are taking the blog back to more of a traditional blog format. No longer will there be the so called departments as you use to see on HOW. Instead certain categories will be featured in the tabs on the front page. In addition to that, you will see some great contributing writers writing for these different areas. And you can read more about them below. I am excited to have such a great group of contributors freely giving some of their best stuff for the audience of HOW.

What am I doing now?

Besides publishing this blog, I also publish Blog For Profit where we discuss using a blog to promote and market a business or professional service firm. I am also co-founder and co-owner of G2WebMedia where we design and build WordPress blogs and blogsites. All of this is run from my home office. What is great about the ventures we are doing now is we can do them from anywhere. Especially from a well equipped home office. And if you are reading this blog and are considering moving your office to your home, I hope what we are providing will help you make the move and have a successful home office.

Disclosures and Relationships

While this blog is not meant to be a source of information on how you can make money from blogging by putting up ads and monetizing your own blog, I will have Sponsors and Suggested Resources on this blog. These are products and/or providers I know very well and some I have used myself. In addition, I will from time to time try other advertising on this blog. After all it is mine and one of the suggestions you will see from me from time to time is to add income streams to your business. That is exactly what I do, too. In an effort to give you full disclosure, the follow are sponsors or resources I do make money from.

• G2WebMedia — You will see a 125×125 banner ad in the side column for G2. I am co-owner of this company and I make money not by you clicking on that banner. But by you hiring us to do your blog design for you. However, I am always glad to discuss blogging with anyone with no obligation at all.
• Suggested Resources — Some of the resources I suggest allow me to have an affiliate link to their site. What this means to you and to me, if you happen to purchase one of these resources, I will make an affiliate commission.
• Suggested Books — Almost every book I suggest on Home Office Warrior will have an affiliate link to my Amazon Affiliate account. If you buy the book after clicking on my link, I will make a whopping 4 to 5%. The money I make there goes into my Amazon account and I use it to purchase my own reading material.

If I put a product, book, or resource on Home Office Warrior, you can be assured I have checked them out and not only like the product. I also trust who is providing it. There you have it. In an effort to be completely transparent and open with you, I wanted to provide you with the above disclosure. Now go buy all the stuff you can on Home Office Warrior, I have children in college.

Reader Involvment

I know I can speak for all of us who write for Home Office Warrior when I say, we want you to be involved in this blog. We want you to comment as often as you can on all of our post. Get involved in the conversations which are started here. Your involvement will help to improve what is provided here for all of us. And anytime any of you would like to guest post on HOW, drop me an email at grant@homeofficewarrior.com and let me know you would like to guest post. Finally, I want to thank each and everyone of you for being part of the Home Office Warrior community. For subscribing, reading and commenting here. Lets keep the conversation going!

Tina Hilton

Virtual Assistants

Tina Hilton is an odd combination of business owner, writer, parent, student of life and an adventuress.  Her latest adventure is opening her own home-based virtual assistance company; Clerical Advantage.

She began her professional career, after 17 years of being a full-time, stay at home parent who taught scrapbooking classes on the side.  At the urging of a friend, she began working as a remote loan processor, and did so for several years before venturing out into the traditional office environment.  She then took a position as an Accounts Administrator and Check Processor for a local collections company.   From there her business path lead her to a short tenure with a large mortgage company as a Sales Assistant/Loan Processor where she learned skills that would serve her well during her two and a half years as a Title Processor for a local title company.  During that time she also attended evening classes at Seacoast Career Schools and earned a Certificate through their Health Claims program. In September of 2007, Clerical Advantage, Virtual Assistance Services was born, and she left the traditional business office behind.  She hasn’t looked back since.

Besides her work as a virtual assistant and writing for the Home Office Warrior and her business blog, The Conference Table. Tina has also taught classes on virtual assistance through a local adult education program and has written an e-book; “An Introduction to Virtual Assistance for Businesses” to help businesses find and effectively utilize a virtual assistant.

She enjoys the perks of being a home office entrepreneur. It allows her to enjoy listening to her 18 year old son play his guitar, debate with her 22 year old psychology major daughter and occasionally work in her slippers.

Andrew Flusche

Ask Legal Andrew

Andrew is an attorney licensed by the Virginia State Bar. He graduated from the University of Virginia School of Law in May, 2007.

Andrew Flusche runs his own law firm in Fredericksburg, Virginia. He focuses on business law and estate planning for individuals.

Please contact Andrew if you have any questions or would just like to chat. You can email him at aflusche@gmail.com or IM him on Google Talk: aflusche.

Legal Andrew

Andrew Flusche started this blog as a place to share some of his thoughts and ideas with other like minded people. Andrew’s intent is to post a few tips a week pertaining to law school, internships, and legal careers. Andrew does not claim to be a prophet in any of these areas, but he hopes that people will find a kernel of insight here and there (or maybe they will all be “old maids”).

Kris Rowlands

Organization and Productivity

In her former life, Kris was a upper level retail district manager for many fast food and retail chains. Being organized and able to produce, she was sent around from store to store to organize them and bring them into the black. She has dealt with many a challenge, including customer growth, employee restructuring as well as bring red stores into the “black”.

In her current life, she was pushed into school by someone who thought her to be wasting her talents on the retail realm. Now she is degreed in computer aided drafting and design, and currently employed by a Fortune 100 company in another organization capacity. She has the responsibility of organizing and restructuring the corporations’ entire plant history, which includes government aerospace defense contracts, ITAR controlled equipment, and daily maintenance processes. She is responsible for both digital and tactile medias.

Kris, being the child of a hoarder, has grow up her entire life organizing things around her: it is as natural to her as breathing. With over twenty-five years experience, she is honored to offer you her services, in this time of need for busy professionals and entrepreneurs. She can step into any situation , assess it, and determine both the quickest and most productive way to come to an organized solution. Kris is both an expert and professional in her field. Her ability to Get Things Done and teach you how to do it is amazing. She will work with you as long as you need, is always professional and treats each customer with the utmost confidentiality.

Kris is available for private and corporate consultations, by phone, WebEx and in person. Please feel free to contact her at any time to set up an appointment. She’d be overjoyed to share her skills with you and get you on your path to Getting Things Done with organization and productivity.

Please feel free to call her at 330.441.4563 or email to coaching@freshfocus.info. If she is unavailable, she will definitely contact you as soon as possible.  You should also visit Kris’ great blog Fresh Focus…On Productivity!

David Billings

David Billings is an illustrator, animator, and writer. He currently runs two businesses from his home studio near beautiful Mount Hood, Oregon.

Sparky Firepants Images is focused on building kids’ brains to ginormous sizes while they have a crazy time. David creates fantastic, colorful images that complement books and educational media for preschool and elementary-level kids. A unique perspective on children’s publishing and the business of illustration can be found on his blog.

He also uses his technical expertise in creating corporate graphics and presentations to consult with and assist presenters of all types, keeping their audiences rapt with attention. Prepared Graphics focuses on helping individuals and small business owners with great content who don’t want to mess around with that PowerPoint stuff.

David lives with his wife and children on an alpaca farm. No, they don’t really smell that bad.