Working at Home
Be your own boss, set your own hours,
no commute. Working at home is really great eh? Well,
there are downsides too. Too many distractions, you
can't get anything done, no interaction with others.
Keep both the good and the bad in mind when starting
your home business.
Work at home opportunities are all over
the web. Many are very good, but many are just scams
to get your money. There are real jobs available, jobs
that pay you per hour, along with business opportunities.
You have to be careful of both.
One example of a real work at home job
is the call center. Many companies are offering work
at
home jobs handling calls.
The
typical
starting
pay
is around
$8.00 per hour. The Yankee Group estimates that there
are
over 670,000 people working as phone agents from their
home. The companies doing this kind of out-sourcing,
are finding that people who are working out of their
home tend to be better educated and loyal than the
people who work out of a huge call center.
An example of a scam work at home job
is envelope stuffing. It works like this. You buy a
starter kit from a company who tells you that you will
be earning $1800.00 every week stuffing envelopes.
You can earn $2.00-$3.00 for every one. When the kit
arrives, you find that you will be sending out information
on the envelope stuffing business. You do the mailings
at your own expense, and keep the money from sales
of starter kits. That is, if you actually make any
sales.
The internet has provided us with some
work at home opportunities that will run as a business,
and has a real chance of making excellent profits.
These are not "Get Rich Quick" opportunities.
In fact if a company tells you you're going to get
rich quick
and has hot cars, yachts, cash, and jet planes in their
ads, you need to get away. Quickly.
Working from your
home in your own business means that you're the boss.
This can be both a good and a bad thing. You get to
set your own hours. You decide what needs to be done,
and
you do it. However, you will need to be self-disciplined.
You will also need a way to get rid of all the distractions.
If you have a family, they will need to be involved
in this. Everyone has to understand that when you are
working, you cannot be interrupted except for extreme
circumstances.
There are some really successful entrepreneurs
operating out of their home on the web. The possibilities
are endless, and you don't really need to know much
technology to do it. There are many marketing gurus
on the internet who will even help you get started.
The problem is finding the right one. Many will charge
for their courses, then you have to buy the up sell
course to get useable information. After you do that,
you have to purchase a domain name, web hosting, email
responders, etc, etc. A couple of thousand dollars
later, and you may well be right where you started
from.
You will need to do a lot of research
on the things you will need to get started. You also
need to decide on what kind of business you want. You
should choose something you have a real passion for
to be the centerpiece of your business, then as it
develops, you can build additional revenue streams
to sweeten your income.
One company that we recently came across
really excited us. They provide all the tools to succeed
with a website for a price that is only slightly higher
than
web hosting
alone. They will provide advertising tools, traffic
tools, your domain name, an opt-in email system, web
hosting, website templates, and site editors that anyone
can use. They have an affiliate program for an additional
revenue stream, and provide information and help every
step of the way. In fact, they have laid out an entire
roadmap that you can follow to success. You can check
this company out here.
