The first thing is to find a job which provides you with the flexibility to work at home. More and more companies are finding that it is to their advantage to offer their employees the option of working from home. It can save the company the expense of maintaining an office for them as well as many other costs.

Given the availability of high speed internet, they employee who works at home can send and receive files and information very easily and effectively. There can also be video conferencing which can greatly reduce the need for face to face meetings. So there are many good options when it comes to being able to work from home effectively.

However in order to learn how to work from home, you should consider several important things. First of all you need to set up a good office space. It should be well organized and dedicated for that purpose. Try to set up your office in a private room and make certain it is equipped with key things like a computer, fast internet connection, printer, and possibly a fax machine. You should also a reliable phone connection and desk phone.

Treat your office as your place of work and minimize interruptions from your family while there. If you do so, you’ll find that you can operate very effectively from home and turn this into a very positive option.

A handwritten note will do that because it is a tangible object that keeps your name in front of others.  It is something that your contacts can feel, touch and even keep.  After all when was the last time you printed out an e-mail message, looked at it on your desk from time to time and said to yourself, “How nice.”

If you didn’t already have enough good reasons for writing notes, add these to your list.

Personal notes are your very own marketing and sales tools.  They are your creation, crafted by you and delivered in your special handwriting. Never mind how it looks.

Notes can build relationships.  They give you the opportunity to express something on a personal level to a business connection in a way that stands out.  They tell the client that you care enough to go to some extra effort.

Notes raise your visibility.  When your special message, whether it is congratulatory, appreciative or just thoughtful, is noticed so are you.

Notes will give you the edge over your competitors because chances are they aren’t taking the time to pick up their pen and paper.  When it comes time to decide with whom to do more business, your clients will remember you.

And notes get read.  In a stack of typewritten envelopes or computer-generated labels, hand-addressed mail stands out. It not only says, “Read me;” it says “Read me now.”  Think about it.  You know that it won’t take long. It’s not like a letter that you are likely to put aside until you have more time.

Use notes to connect with people whom you can help and with people who can help you.  Consider them as part of your networking activities.  You can’t have too many connections in business if you want to be successful.

Lydia Ramsey is a business etiquette expert who travels the world teaching etiquette and manners.  You can learn more about her at http://www.mannersthatsell.com.

So what can a business do in order to survive this recession? Well a number of the company directors that I have spoken with have contracted a cost reduction service to enable them to reduce their business overheads. This, they say, has massively helped them as it leaves them with additional money to spend on “the things that matter”.

Just a quick point before I continue; I am not a cost cutting expert therefore please do not think that I am trying to sell you something here. I am in fact a person who offers various forms of stuttering aimed at helping people to achieve fluency.

In which areas could a business potentially reduce their costs? There are, of course, many however the more obvious ones would be the electricity, gas and the telephone. Then there are the telephone charges; there are many company’s now offering a “cheap calls to mobile phone service”. There is also computer services, window cleaning, general maintenance, I.T, to name a few others.

There has never been a better time to think about ways in which your business could cut costs. I personally believe that we are now very much in the middle of this recession and I am yet to see any of those infamous “green shoots”.

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I then hired someone to do some proofreading and writing for me on a very part-time basis and six months ago she had a family crisis and stopped responding to my e-mail. She left an assignment half done and never invoiced me for the work she completed.

Is it just me or is it difficult to find part-time or virtual help these days? In all my years as a Virtual Assistant I’ve never disappeared on a client nor have I left work undone.

Finally, I got fed up and decided to find a service, rather than a person, to do my proofreading and editing. I tried several services and my final section is Scribendi. They have an automated system that provides quotes based on word count and the type of document you want edited. They also offer you a variety of turnarounds so you can upgrade to get work done faster.

Scribendi has done several projects for me now and every one of them has been on time and the work has been perfect. The writers give lots of feedback and offer suggestions that are very helpful. With Scribendi I have a team of writers at all hours of the day or night and I can’t recommend them more highly. To learn about Scribendi visit their website.