Darina Loakman.com

I recently carried out 2 small surveys on the visitors and members of my site. Well actually one survey but sent separately to 2 different groups. I was interested to see if there would be a noticeable difference in the results.

The survey had 2 quick questions about the preferred working hours and the income goals of work at home Mums.

The first group it was sent to was mainly made up of potential Work at Home Mothers, those who would like to work from home or are considering it and looking for their ideal route. Here are the questions and the results.

1. How many hours would you ideally like to work each week  

36 or above  6 %
20 -35 45 %
10 to 20 46 %
Less than 10 3 %

The same question was then put to a list where in theory most are already working from home or are very close to it and know what they are going to be doing.  here are the results

36 or above 7 %
20 -35   40 %
10 to 20 49 %
Less than 10 5 %

So not a huge difference in results there, I know the sample sizes were a little different but I think it gives us a good overall picture. Most people don’t want to work full time while working from home, I can understand that one - there have to be some benefits !

That question was about their ideal number of working hours, it doesn’t show what the reality is for those who are working from home, I’d say somewhere well above the preferred number !.

Ok the second question was on income goals.  First up the results from the “wannabe” WAHMS

2.What is your monthly income goal (gross) for your work from home opportunity ?

100 - 200  9 %
201 - 500 30 %
501 - 1,000 26 %
1,001 - 2,500 27 %
2,500  8 %

Now the same question to those already working from home.

100 - 200  9 %
201 - 500 20 %
501 - 1,000  19 %
1,001 -2,500 34 %
2,500 + 19 %

I thought those results were really interesting !  Look at the high income goals up from 8% in the wannabe WAHMs to 19 % in those already working from home !

What does this tell us?  That those who are just thinking about working from home don’t really believe you can earn a full income ? That those thinking of working from home don’t really want to earn too much money? or that working from home is still seen as the poor man’s cousin to getting a “real job” or having a real business ?

I have to confess before I started working from home I did feel a little bit like that, I felt that by choosing to stay at home and earning an income I would only be able to earn enough to contribute to a few bills or christmas presents, that that was the end of my genuine earning power. However once I started, and learnt more about the options as well as coming across some very succesful work at home Mums I realised the greater potential and now I probably have higher income goals and dreams than I ever did when I was working for a pay cheque.

I think the disparity in the figures is actually encouraging !  If those who are already working from home have higher income goals I believe it shows that the reality actually exceeds the expectations, it would be worrying if it was the other way around !

Frank Fullard of Mayo County Enterprise Board refered recently to the growing band of WAHM’s in his blog. He believes (as do I ) that the WAHM world has the potential to become a significant part of our economy with many kitchen table enterprises becoming substantial businesses

from Frank’s blog

“Given time many of them will develop and grow, some into very significant businesses. Undoubtedly the US has been ahead of us in this particular field, but I believe that we are catching up fast”

Frank mentions the US there and I’m going to throw something else into the mix here which I think is both interesting and relevent.

I actually got the idea for the survey from my pal Kelly McCausey of WAHMTalkradio she posed the same earning goal question to her listeners, most of whom would be existing work at home Mothers and when it came to the choice of 2,500 and above (in dollars this time !) the result was a huge 58 %.

What does this tell us? Are American women more ambitious than those this side of the pond? - I don’t believe so. What I do believe is that yes they are ahead of us, and they’ve had time to realise the genuine potential of working from home, having more control over your schedule and your earning goals.

You may say that they have a larger market to target so their earning potential particularly for direct sales type businesses is much greater. However with the technology available to us today, there’s no reason why we can’t increase our target market and look at opportunities that allow us to do that.

I know not everyone want’s to earn a full income, that many do just want the “pin money” and that’s one of the great benefits of working from home, you have that flexibility, it can be whatever you want it to be ! 

So if I felt that the low figure of just 8% wanting to earn 2,500 or above a month from the wannabe WAHM’s was simply because of that I wouldn’t worry about it, but I don’t believe it is,  and I think this shows because of the increase in the 2nd group but it also shows we still haven’t fully realised the full potential that we as work at home mothers have !  (why aren’t we at 58% or above) 

What are your views on it? I’d love to hear some comments and some feedback.  Did you find the results interesting, surprising? Have you changed your views on the work at home world at any stage?  Are the Americans just more ambitious ! (Kelly what do you think !)

Darina