Knowing where to get resources for making the most of work-at-home parents is an important step to successfully running your home-based business. In many instances, work-at-home opportunities are just a mouse-click away when you access computer based work-at-home opportunities. Tap the knowledge of work-at-home parents who have launched work from home companies rather than re-invent the wheel.

Connect with life coaches who support work-at-home moms and work-at-home dads to better balance your business and parenting duties. Seek out industry consultants for training on the latest trends affecting parents who work at home. Learn about home-based jobs designed for you and other individuals who work at home. Make the most of your home-based duties.

1. Hire a life coach to help you achieve goals designed for work at home parents.

2. Team up with consultants to stay on top of industry changes.

3. Join forces with employers who hire parents who work from home.

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Contact a life coach to make the most of your work-at-home opportunities

Working with a certified professional coach is one way work-at-home parents achieve their professional and personal goals. Life coaches empower clients to live their dreams by attaining value-based goals and overcoming challenges. A coach will hold you accountable to your commitments and simultaneously celebrate your achievements.

I recommend: Simple Ways Family Coaching helps families bond better by making relationships less complex. Contact their coach to simplify your family connection, a step that may lead to improved work-at-home strategies. Work with Encourage Enterprise, a life coaching business that designs balance for women. Explore ways to balance your home-based business along with parenting duties.

Contact industry experts for the latest news affecting the work-at-home parent

Connect with a consultant to stay informed of important industry updates. Many consultants offer advice about professional networking, salary negotiation tips and proven techniques for running a home-based business.

I recommend: Contact Consultant Moms for sales support and the latest resources for operating your company from home. Learn from experts with advice on home-based business necessities and building a successful business. wahpNetwork.com shows moms and dads how to be successful. Join their message board to network with other home-based parents, many of whom are industry experts.

Join companies who hire work-at-home parents

Team up with businesses that employ parents who work at home. These companies seek out individuals with professional skills and flexible schedules. Additionally, they often offer non-traditional work hours combined with minimal employer supervision.

I recommend: Women For Hire provide webinars, career expos and seminars to move your profession forward. Read their career advancement column for ideas about preparing for an interview and updating your resume. HireMyMom.com pairs jobs with home-based women professionals. Complete their application to begin receiving daily job postings.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  Keep a journal of your home-based business activities. Use your journal to write articles that help other work-at-home parents learn from your experiences.

You love your at-home business. You love your kids. How do you do right by both? To work successfully from home, you need:

1. Dedicated space and time for your business
2. Help with other household tasks
3. Support and ideas from other work-at-home parents

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Find support

Working at home creates challenges that your traditional colleagues may not understand. Find a network of other at-home working parents to swap advice and commiseration.

I recommend: Entrepreneurial Parent and Work at Home Moms are two sites dedicated to supporting and information at-home working parents.

Get household help

Consider investing in a cleaning service or grocery delivery service to ease some of the stresses of working and living in the same place.

I recommend: Simon Delivers is a nationwide grocery home-delivery service. The Cleaning Service Directory can connect you with a local cleaning service to lighten your load.

Take advantage of short-term or virtual offices

Meeting in an office outside your home may look more professional to clients.

I recommend: HQ can provide you with rent-by-the-hour office space or a "virtual office" including mailing address, voice mail and access to private office space.

Hire childcare

If your kids are at an age where their needs can't be put off, hiring a mother's helper or in-home sitter can help you stay close by — while somebody else fetches snacks and changes diapers.

I recommend: A Nanny On The Net is a nationwide agency placing full-time nannies, while Welcome To NannyVille hooks up parents with part-time nannies and mother's helpers.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  It's easy to get distracted by household needs when you're working at home. Set — and keep — regular business hours.
• •  It might be tempting to work in your pajamas, but going through the motions of showering and getting dressed — even if it's in comfy clothes — can help put you in a 'work' frame of mind.
• •  Set up separate office space, even if it's just a corner of the living room or kitchen, for your business.
• •  Don't isolate yourself. Going to networking meetings can help keep you connected to other adults and the outside working world.

Keep yourself well informed of the latest issues involving parents who work at home. Regularly visit online websites that track trends faced by work at home parents. For instance, several websites and blogs provide tools for running home-based businesses and developing work-life balance. Additionally, these sources feature work-at-home opportunities such as networking and idea sharing.

Tap resources for work at home parents through your fingertips. In other words, use your laptop or desktop to acquire these sources. Most of these treasures provide business solutions designed exclusively for work at home moms and work at home dads. Moreover, some of them give you family-focused ideas such as home-schooling solutions and parenting tips.

1. Connect with online sources established by folks who are work-at-home parents.

2. Read articles written for parents who run home based businesses.

3. Check out consultation services designed for individuals who work at home.

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Contact web-based solutions for the work-at-home parent

Join forces with other parents who embody work-at-home moms and dads. For instance, scores of individuals start home-based businesses immediately after having children. These entrepreneurs leave traditional 40-hour weeks in an effort to raise a family and run a business. Most of these web-based companies develop as a resource for networking, idea sharing and assistance.

I recommend: Contact Home Based Working Moms, a company launched by the founder after birthing her first child and leaving full-time work. She saw a great need for support and information for stay-at-home parents. Sparkplugging also provides resources such as work-life balance and home office productivity for the work-at-home parent.

Peruse articles on work-at-home parents news and trends

Regularly read home-based business articles written for the work at home mom and the work at home dad. These reports provide timely information based on industry facts or experience encountered by the writers. Additionally, you can print most of them or bookmark them for future reference.

I recommend: Work at Home Parents Online offers assistance to parents who work at home. Read home business articles and get parenting tools including home-schooling resources. Subscribe to BNET Business Network to gain timely reports about the work-at-home parent such as new trends for balancing work and family schedules.

Tap consultants for specialized support to parents who work at home

Many online services focus on specific services including marketing your business and developing an online presence. Some companies offer telephone consultation to give you expert advice from the comfort of your home. In addition, many of them provide timely updates on national news shows to keep you abreast of the latest issues facing the work at home industry.

I recommend: Contact Alternate Business Solutions to gain affordable consultation services and assistance for the work-at-home parent. Tune into online news sources such as ABC News Good Morning America to access timely information from featured consultants.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  Leave comments on weblogs written by work-at-home parents. Connecting with others is a terrific way to stay on top of industry news and trends.

These days, a lot of folks with children are headed toward a specific pinnacle of the multi-tasking world: working from home. Work-at-home parents manage children, a home and a job all at the same time, every day of the week. There are many specific challenges that a work-at-home parent faces. Knowing a lot about the fundamentals of this kind of entrepreneurship will help those involved get a better grip on potential success.

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Work/life balance

This term doesn't just apply to work-at-home parents, but it is often especially relevant to their lives. The work/life balance just means juggling parenthood and a career. Many mothers do that with conventional jobs away from home, and work-at-home parents face particular challenges.

I recommend: Get more on the Work/Life Balance at WorkLifeBalance.com.

Short-term offices and conference rooms

One good resource for a work-at-home parent, or anyone operating out of his or her home, is knowing where local short- term offices or conference rooms are located. These handy temporary solutions provide a place to meet potential clients, supply reps or anyone else who may have a bearing on a home-based business.

I recommend: Find out more about conference room options from Fedex for meeting the need for a short-term office away from home.

Home schooling

The alternative of home schooling children allows parents to function as caregiver, breadwinner and educator all in one. Many rural children are home schooled, but with an increasingly diverse work force, home schooling may be a popular option for other groups, such as work-at-home parents.

I recommend: Find out more about home schooling at HomeSchool.com.

In-home child care options

Another big factor for work-at-home partents is in-home child care or other options for when children are too young for school. Hiring a nanny or sitter can be an efficient solution.

I recommend: Read up about in home child care and the hiring of nannies or sitters at Family Education.

Virtual office

The virtual office is a term that has been getting a lot of coverage in recent years, and it means using technology and resources to create a better 'first impression' for callers and let the business focus on doing work rather than administrative tasks.

I recommend: Find out more about virtual office at AllBusiness.com. Get more virtual office setup guides for useful virtual phone solutions from Phone.com.