Swollen Pickles and Goal Setting

Goal setting is a good idea. And it's an especially good idea for us work-at-home folks trying to make a go of things online.

I came across a site called Swollen Pickles. Can't recall how or why I came across the site. In any case, the bloggist here has kept track of his online earnings for 2007. He has set specific goals regarding the amount of money he wanted to make from his blogs and the number of site visitors he was hoping for. He also set a goal for his body weight. He then month by month posted updates on this progress toward his goals.

This got me thinking that I should set some goals, post them here, and update my progress. Not a unique idea in the blogoshphere but worth a try.

Even if you're not interested in goals, check out Swollen Pickles for some ideas on how he made money online in his own work-from-home scenario.

Considering Work in Medical Transcription?

I was talking with my wife this morning, and she suggested that I write something about medical transcription work-from-home jobs. My wife works at Queen’s Medical Center in the emergency room as a psych assistant/tech. She told me she had met Queen’s employees who work from home doing transcription work for QMC. The work basically involves listening to dictated messages left by doctors and typing out notes for medical record keeping.

For instance, Doctor Wong does a heart surgery on Joe Q. Payshun. During and after the surgery, Dr. Wong dictates notes about the operation that are recorded. These notes are then forwarded to a transcriptionist, who may be employed by the hospital where the operation took place, self-employed and doing contract work for the hospital, or employed by a medical transcription company contracted by the hospital.

According to the United States Department of Labor, medical transcriptionist jobs are projected to grow 14 percent in the next ten years. This, says the USDL, is “faster than average” compared to other occupations. The reason: the increasing population and more specifically, the increasing population of the aged. This makes sense because older people require a greater number of tests, treatments, operations, and procedures. Most of these require documentation. And medical transcriptionists are needed as part of the medical records documentation process. I couldn't find any job postings for transcriptionists at Queen's but I did find one local listing that may be worth a look for those interested.

Accordingly, employment prospects for current and job-seeking transcriptionists are good, particularly at physicians’ offices, especially those that are part of large-group practices.

What are requirements to be a transcriptionist? Understandably, most employers want transcriptionists who have experience. Additionally, employers seek transcriptionists who have completed post-high school training in transcription work. Here in Hawaii, medical transcription classes are offered by at least one of our local community colleges—Hawaii Community College on the Big Island. I couldn’t easily find other classes here, but they are likely to exist. Nationwide and online, numerous options exist for transcription training and certification.

What do transcriptionists get paid? According to the USDL, medical transcriptionists make on average $14 an hour. Medical transcriptionists in the bottom 10% pay range made less than $10 an hour while those in the upper 10% range earned more than $20 an hour. In some situations, particularly for work-at-home transcriptionists, the pay is based on production rather than time. In other words, the transcriptionist is paid by the number of lines he or she produces. What this means that fast, accurate, and adept transcriptionists can potentially make more money in eight hours than a transcriptionist who works for an hourly wage.

For more information and suggestions about working as a medical transcriptionist, there is a good article on Associated Content here.

Photo credit: www.answers.com

MaxGXL

I've exchanged emails with a guy who is promoting a product called MAXGXL.

A local guy, Frank Carillo, passed word to me about the product, which is being pitched as "the world's most powerful antioxidant." Frank has a blog up here.

MAXGXL is known as a glutathione accelerator and was formulated by an immunologist named Dr. Robert Keller. If you are curious or skeptical, head on over to www.pubmed.com to peruse the thousands of studies done on glutathione.

I haven't done this (yet) but it sounds like it's worth a look.

Primerica

Ever heard of this company? I have. Here's how.

A couple months ago, my wife got to talking with a guy at work (she works at the ER at Queen's Medical Center). The guy, in addition to his day job as a social worker, was involved with a company called Primerica. He asked my wife if she was interested in help with our finances and if she was interested in making some additional income. Yes and yes to both questions.

Soon thereafter, the guy is at our home in Kaneohe gathering info about our debts for a financial analysis and also giving us a pitch about Primerica. The pitch sounded good to me (and even better to my wife). But I am a cautious and skeptical guy.

My wife ended up signing up with Primerica. She's in the process of learning what's necessary in order to take and pass a licensing test to sell life insurance in Hawaii for Primerica. Out of pocket costs so far $99.

I did some digging on the web for Primerica and found mixed reviews. Some call it a scam. Some call it what it is: Multi Level Marketing (ever heard of Amway?). Some call Primerica a good company with plenty of upside "for those who work hard at it."

Kinda like Amway, the big bucks come not from product sales but from getting folks to buy in to the company and hustle to bring other folks in.

I'll be helping my wife with this venture and will report in about our progress.

One Way to Get Traffic

I've made a decision to devote my time to a couple or three blogs and making a go with these.

Consequently, I've been spending a lot of time searching around on the web (which is starting to bug my wife) for biz ops and biz ideas. One of the key ingredients to success in business on the web, in addition to keeping our spouses happy and content, is traffic, meaning the number of people who visit our sites/blogs.

A suggestion I come across repeatedly is to write specific, helpful content targeted to the designated readership. And to write a lot! Doing that over and over is the start of a good foundation for a successful blog.

Another path to success is come up with a gimmick that isn't just fluff but that can really help people. And I found one gimmick here, which tells you how much your blog is worth in $$. Now whether what you find there is helpful or not, you make the call, or the click, as it were. What I found myself doing is plugging in blog site URLs into this site to see how much various blogs are worth. Lots of amazing numbers.

For the record, this blog is worth a whopping total of $0.00. Yup, nada. But I hope to persevere and see what happens.

Another blog I maintain, is worth over a grand. :-) I've been working on that one a while longer so there is hope. Again, Happy New Year to all!

From CNN.com: 10 jobs that can be done at home

Happy New Year, everyone!

My day job is a teacher. Specifically, I teach English at Leeward Community College. Have done so for the past 17 years. A handful of my colleagues work from home, conducting their classes via the internet. I have been considering doing the same, if not for my entire load of classes (5 per semester) then perhaps just one or two. My wife recently took a class (from UH-West Oahu) via the internet. I saw how her internet classes were conducted and how much she learned, all without having to be sitting in a classroom for an hour, three times a week for sixteen weeks.

So when I came across this article by CNN.com, I thought that other people who had job experience or aspirations in other fields might want to know that at-home opportunities do exist in all kinds of areas.

CNN has also some stories about telecommuting. Worth a look.

What kind of home business should you start?

This is a question lots of you probably have? I found an answer here and it's worth a read. Also worth perusing is the askjim.biz site. Lots of good answers to common questions that prospective business folks like us have. If you want answers to specific questions about starting a business in Hawaii, here is a good resource. As a result of reading the post from the askjim.biz link, I also have added links to the Hawaii Chamber of Commerce and others in the "links" section of the blog. Good reading!