Working From Home

Starting Out

Becoming an unclaimed money finder is one of the easiest and most profitable businesses one can run from home. When I first started in 1998 working from home was almost unheard of. Some people didn’t take it serious if you were not commuting to a job even to an office building if you did have your own business. However, with the prevalence of high speed internet, low cost telecom service, and everything you need to run a business, working from home is more common and accepted as normal.

As with any business, there are still certain things that must be done in order to run it in a professional manner. There will be many skeptics, therefore you will want to appear as professionally and as businesslike as possible. There are several steps involved in running a successful, professional, home-based business.

Name
The first step in starting your business involves naming it. You will want to keep your name as simple as possible. Also, try and have it relate to the kind of business you are running. Something like “Jones Asset Finders” tells a little about the type of business service you are providing. When it comes to “unclaimed money” it is probably best to leave that term out of the name of your business. People may have an idea of that term, but you want to perform a service for them, that with a little effort, they could possibly do themselves. In this instance, you don’t want to spell it out completely.

Registering Your Business
Once, you have a name it is important for you to register your business and make sure you have taken care of all the legalities. You can register in most cases simply by going to the county clerks’ office and paying a small fee. In most cases, registering as a sole proprietor will be sufficient. If you feel the need to incorporate, there are several options you may want to consider. You may want to go to your local library and consult a book on the various forms of business ownership. The best thing to do if you do want to incorporate is to talk to an accountant that handles that type of thing. You can always register your business and then incorporate later. The main thing is to have some type of business information to be able to bring to a bank and open a commercial account.

Banking
To keep track of your business expenses, and to keep them separate from your personal account, it is wise to set up a business checking account in the name of your company. This is usually accomplished by bringing a copy of your business registration or certificate to a local bank dealing with business or commercial accounts. Try to look for a bank that offers low transaction fees.

Office
One of the best things about being a “finder” is that you do not have clients coming to see you. Therefore, you do not need the added expense of renting an office. You can run this business out of a spare bedroom, den, etc. However, you do want to portray a professional appearance as much as possible. You will want to do this in the two ways in which you are coming in contact with your clients: stationary (by mail) and the telephone.

Stationary
Very often, your stationary will be the first thing your prospective clients come in contact with. You will not need business cards, but you will need letterhead and envelopes. Your letterhead should be professional in appearance and contain your company name, address, telephone number, and fax number (if you have one). Your paper should be heavy, professional quality white or off white. Utility Refund Solutions uses Certificate Royale 20 lb. paper and envelopes’ in its correspondence. Your envelopes should be number 10 and contain your address as the sender. You can also have number 9 envelopes printed with your company name and address to use as reply envelopes when necessary. Professional stationary with a professional appearance goes a long way.

Telephone
Your telephone is one of the most important aspects of your business. It is extremely important to answer your telephone in a businesslike and professional manner. When working out of your home, it is highly recommended that you have a separate line installed for your business. If you have children, instruct them not to answer your business line. Since you will not always be around to answer the telephone, it is recommended that you use a good answering system or voicemail and leave a professional sounding message.

Another important aspect regarding telephones involves the use of a toll free number for prospective clients to call you on. Many times you will be calling out of state and your prospective client may not be home; but they will most likely have an answering machine or voicemail. If you leave a message informing them that they have unclaimed money coming to them, chances are that they will want more information. They will probably be more receptive calling you back if you have a toll free number.

Besides having more calls returned, a toll free number gives a professional appearance to your prospective clients. You do not need to have a new line installed for a toll free number; it can ring on your existing line. Most businesses find toll free service to be an excellent investment.

Normally I leave it up to you to decide what service you want to use, but there is something so good and so inexpensive, I feel obligated to let you know about it. RingCentral is a Virtual Phone System that lets you sound like you are working in a professional office, even if you are in your own house.

RingCentral lets you sound professional and offers you a ton of features.

You can:

have a toll free number ring to your home, cell phone, or office.
set up different extensions
have your number follow you from your home to your cell phone
get your voicemail sent to your email and many other features.

Best of all plans start at only $24.95! Also, there are no contracts; you can pay month to month and cancel any time and there is a free 30 day trial.

To learn more about RingCentral, please Click Here

Website
These days, if you have a business, you should definitely have a website to go with it. This is especially true with an unclaimed money finder business. People are either getting a ph0ne call or getting a letter from you out of the blue. Most of these people are going to want to do some investigating to see if you are legitimate or not. Having a website explaining who you are, what you do, and your contact information will help prospective clients with their decision to use your services. It also helps to have some examples on the website showing clients what kind of results they can expect.

Our website, http://www.urs-refund.com , is just a simple site that explains what we do, how we go about it, and shows some examples. We also have a page on frequently asked questions (FAQ) and a contact page. Most people aren’t going to this site unless they receive a letter from us, so we address that on the home page as well. This simple site helps answer questions and show that we are a legitimate business that can help them get money back that they otherwise would not have known about.

Your Own Website
If you are just starting out, it is tough to get new customers from a website if you do not have examples to show. For that reason, we will build a website for you similar to this, http://mymoneyfindersite.com , at a very reasonable price. This way you will have a presence on the web and somewhere for a prospective client to go after they have been contacted by you, which they will most likely want to do.