Kudos to Mary Naylor, CEO of VIPdesk for her award from the U.S. SBA as Home Based Business Champion of the Year.

VIPdesk offers customer service and virtual concierge work-at-home jobs. The hire their agents as independent contractors rather than employees. If you’ve read our book, Undress For Success—The Naked Truth About Making Money at Home (Wiley 2009), you already know the difference between the two approaches. If you’re still waiting for you copy to arrive from your favorite online bookseller (hint, hint), the biggest difference is that as an independent contractor, you do not receive health insurance, sick days, and other benefits and you’ll owe both the employer and employee share of taxes (which adds up to an extra 7.5% tax). While you’ll also be able to write off your home office and other business expenses, that would be largely true if you were an employee because your employer would not be providing you an office.

The are currently hiring work-at-home Brand Ambassadors, their name for call-taking agents. A minimum FICO (credit) score of 500 is required. Some of their positions involve making outbound phone calls as well as answering inbound calls.