| Working at home can be a pain in the neck - and back |
| 09.27.04 (8:35 am) |
Working at home can be a pain in the neck - and back Associated Press WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - Lyn Donley thought lower-back pain was a permanent part of her life. The real estate agent who has worked from her home for the past 10 years tried everything to get rid of the pain. She bought a $200 ergonomic desk chair, popped painkillers and asked the trainers at her gym for advice. None of it worked. "I didn't know what to do. I just thought I was stuck with it," Donley said. Then, through friends, she met Ed Brown, the owner of Fort Lauderdale's A-2-Z Ergonomics, an ergonomic office equipment dealer and consultant. Brown saw Donley's office chair and suggested she try one of his for a week. The $400 chair "was like manna from heaven," Donley said with a mixture of enthusiasm and relief. She hasn't had a backache since she bought it. In a traditional office, where ergonomics now is often partially considered, Donley might have gotten help sooner. But she and many others who work from their homes whether they are telecommuting for a company, running a small business or taking home extra work from the office rarely have the resources they need to create workstations that won't cause them pain. The number of these workers is on the rise. A 2003 survey by the International Telework Association and Council found that 23.5 million people worked from home at least one day a month, a 40 percent increase from 2001. Of that group, 42 percent worked at home at least once a week. The survey also found that 23.4 million self-employed people worked from home last year, a 17.6 percent increase from 2001. "With the way computers and communication technology is advancing, it's just making the home a more productive place to do work than it ever has been," said Robert Smith, executive director of the teleworkers group. Though these workers have the freedom to set up their desks how they like, few think about office ergonomics until they are in pain. Also, cost can be prohibitive because they must pay for often-expensive modifications or doctors' appointments themselves. "It's actually worse than in an office, because in offices they're aware of the problem. At home, people tend to use whichever furniture is lying around because the companies aren't paying for the furniture," said Marc Resnick, director of Florida International University's Human Factors and Ergonomics Laboratory. It is difficult to pin down the number of area home workers with ergonomic injuries. Government records on workplace injuries don't specify whether they happened in the home or office. Many local physical therapists said they have treated few if any people who were injured while working in their home offices. But they acknowledge that these workers might not be seeking medical help. Rob Eubanks, who has worked from his Lake Worth home for two years, never considered seeing a doctor when his neck, shoulders and middle back began to ache. "I felt like it was something I could figure out on my own," he said. The self-employed career coach researched on the Internet, talked to friends who worked in traditional offices and got advice from his father, an orthopedic surgeon. Since then, he has set up a new workstation and uses a wireless headset so he can walk around while on the phone with clients. His pain has lessened. The cost of treatment also might be keeping some home workers from doing anything about their aches and pains, said Eileen Storch, occupational therapist and director of Americare Rehab in Boynton Beach. Storch said less than 10 percent of her patients were injured while working from home. But she thinks many more people are staying away, especially the self-employed. "It's just not worth it for them to come in unless it gets to the point where the pain is excruciating: what we call a 10-out-of-10 pain," she said. Before coming to her, Storch said many of these patients will try a cortisone shot, which only works in about half of the cases. Often, only if that fails will they then see a therapist. Finally, home workers simply might not realize that their workstations may be responsible for their pain. "A lot of times, (workers) are more likely to feel the pain and attribute it to the office," Resnick said, adding that at home there is no one else to blame. "People have a tendency not to want to blame themselves." Some resources for information are available to home workers. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration branch at the University of South Florida in Tampa offers free two-week rentals of ergonomic information videos that can be shipped around the state. Local USF consultants can also answer questions and provide information. Although they offer free ergonomics assessments, consultants will not go into homes for safety reasons. But after workers learn what's wrong with their home offices, they face another hurdle: expensive equipment to correct the problems. Ergonomically correct chairs run as high as $1,000, footrests and computer glare screens start at about $35 each, and an ergonomic mouse can cost as much as $140. The modifications can add up and take a bite out of your wallet, unless your employer is paying the bill. Therapists say there are low-cost ways to create a comfortable home office. For instance, computer users can tape folders to the sides of their computer monitors to decrease glare. They can roll up large towels to use for lower-back support. Other tips: Slide a three-ring binder underneath the monitor to raise and tilt it. Use phone books as footrests. Eubanks, the Lake Worth at-home worker, spent about $2,000 on a new chair, desk and computer equipment. He said the purchases are worthwhile because he spends most of his time in his home office. "It's easily justified," Eubanks said. "Physical health and my own atmosphere is as important as the work that I do." |
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| Tips for Working at Home with a Small Child |
| 09.27.04 (2:01 am) |
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Tips for Working at Home with a Small Child: Working at home presents many challenges but is especially tough when you have a little one vying for your attention. To some this is a contest of wills in itself where to others it is a perk. Oftentimes it is both. Short of shipping the kid off to Grandma’s or daycare, what’s a work at home parent to do? We all need routines, especially children. Establish a daily routine so she knows what to expect and you have a workable plan, yet keep it flexible. I like to work in the morning and have the rest of the day available for fun and games but it doesn’t always work out that way. My daughter knows that mornings are my work time and for the most part she entertains herself while I toil away. But some days she is just full of energy and needs more one on one interaction with me, she’s a preschooler after all. That’s fine; I can always take a break or plan to catch up later in the day or week. After all, she’s the reason I am home in the first place, she is priority number one. Allow yourself to go with the flow. Try to have a set time and routine for working but be flexible so you can truly enjoy the benefits of staying at home. Is it an interruption when your child barges in excited about some wonderful discovery or a welcome pleasure? Take a break, let it be a welcome diversion and enjoy the moment.
Here’s a trick both you and your child will benefit from: use a timer. Children love timers and respond well to them. If she knows you are all hers when the timer buzzes, she will be more likely to let you finish the task. This also helps balance your work time with your family time and keep your focus. Make sure you follow through, when the buzzer buzzes, time’s up. No cheating. (Hint: don’t make an important call 2 minutes before the buzzer is set to go off).
Design your office so that it is kid friendly. Toddlers love to imitate. Why not set up a play office within your home office complete with a little desk with a play phone, calculator and other safe office gadgets? Let her play "office" while you type up reports. Have special toys that she only plays with while you’re working. My daughter loves to bang on an old key board and click an old mouse. I’ll have her search for letters on the keyboard, in doing so she’s learning her alphabet and valuable computer skills to boot. For older children, hook up an old computer and load it with age appropriate software limiting computer time just as you would TV time, again use the timer.
Need a helping hand? Ask for help occasionally. My 3 year old daughter loves licking envelopes. Even though we have a self moistening Pitney Bowes machine, I put her to work licking as many envelopes as she can handle when I'm doing a mailing. It turns a mundane job into a fun time for both of us and the work gets done. She actually does a good job; she even stacks them in neat stacks.
If you're lucky and your child still naps, this is a no brainer, take advantage of it and work while she sleeps. If not, enforce an hour or so of "quiet time". All kids need it and so do you. Keep a stack of books, puzzles, playdoh and other activities handy and encourage her to play quietly and independently until quiet time is over (when the timer goes off).
One of the biggest obstacles when working is making or taking a phone call. It never fails, as soon as the phone rings somebody starts squawking or “has to go potty”. Use email as much as possible and plan outgoing calls around quiet time or first thing in the morning before your child gets restless. I usually mention that I’m working from my home office with a little one at my side and have found most everyone is supportive, interested and even a bit jealous that I have this opportunity to work at home while raising my daughter.
BZZZZ! My work is done, my daughter is waiting.
Pamela Dimmick Founder, WorkatHomeOffice.biz Pamela is in charge of Sales and Marketing for a large auto glass company in |
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| What does being a Work at Home Mom mean? |
| 09.24.04 (6:00 pm) |
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[url=http://www.freelancemom.com/b...][b]Cereal Mom[/b][/url] [i]By, Sharon Davis[/i] I recently heard a woman say that being called a "work at home mom" was professionally demeaning. Being one myself, my initial reaction was to agree with her. "That’s right, I’m a professional, I’m not just a bored housewife dabbling with a hobby here," I said to myself. Upon reflection however, I came to realize that I disagree. Deeply. Working out of your home while caring for children makes for some unique (and comical) situations. If you can’t have a sense of humor about these things, then maybe a field job is more your style. But let’s face it, just how professional can you be when much of your work is done with a toddler on your lap? And that is, after all, one of the great benefits of working at home; you can consult with clients wearing bunny slippers if you like. Who’s to know? Sometimes we just need to keep things in perspective. I know that the work that I do is top quality, and I don’t sweat what others think of my work environment. But I do wonder how that woman deals with some of those little challenges that come with being a work-at-home parent. For example, maybe she feels that going out of the house with soggy Cheerios stuck to her behind would be professionally demeaning. She must have found a way to avoid this. I should call her... Not being able to locate a pen because they’re all in use fishing Barbie clothes out of the toilet. This might be seen as unprofessional. Or, while trying to convince a potential client how you would be the best choice if he’s looking for quality, professional results your 2-year-old is proclaiming proudly, "I went poo-poo Mommy!" over and over. I've known others who have tried to mask their true work environments using some creative metaphors. For example: "As soon as my colleague completes his current assignment" really means..."As soon as my 5-year-old is done with his Mr. Potato Head CDRom" "We'll be outsourcing the finishing work" really means..."My teenaged daughter will be earning her allowance by collating and stapling your reports" "I have an urgent matter to attend to" really means..."My 3-year-old has been awfully quiet for the past few minutes and she was recently asking for a haircut" Does this mean I should lock my kids in their rooms while I’m on the phone? While that can at times seem like a perfectly sensible idea, usually basic time management helps to avoid these situations. My view is that if a client thinks that the quality of my work will be less just because I have children, he can look elsewhere. Maybe I’m shutting the door on some business, but I refuse to have my children feel that they come second. And I do, in fact, think of myself as a Mom first, and a business owner second. Besides, I think that the day is getting nearer that people really won’t mind their projects delivered with a few soggy Cheerios on them. ------------------------- ------------------------- ---------------- Sharon Davis is the Cereal Mom to two girls, the owner of [url=http://www.2work-at-home.com/...]2Work-At-Home[/url] and the Editor of the site's monthly ezine, [url=http://www.2work-at-home.com/...]America's Home[/url] . In her spare time she reminisces about what it was like to have spare time. To subscribe to her free ezine, Click Here [b]Related articles:[/b] [url=http://www.freelancemom.com/b...]Balancing Home & Work: The Challenge of the Home-Based Business [/url] By, Vishal P. Rao [url=http://www.freelancemom.com/b...]Treasuring Your Home-Based Business Dreams[/url] By, Julie Frost [b]Related forums:[/b] [url=http://www.freelancemom.com/f...]Balancing work and family[/url] |
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| How to Promote Associate Programs With Pay-Per-Click Search Engines |
| 09.23.04 (11:02 am) |
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[b][url=http://www.freelancemom.com/p...]How to Promote Associate Programs With Pay-Per-Click Search Engines[/url][/b] [i]By, Marlon Sanders[/i] For many products, pay-per-click search engines can be very good. The idea is that you decide what you're willing to pay per click through to your web site. In fact, now that advertising prices are much cheaper than they used to be you could really clean up by using the Pay Per Click Search Engines. It all comes down to knowing your numbers. What marketers call your metrix. We'll talk about the metrix of advertising in a moment. If you know that you make $1.00 for every visitor to your web site, you could theoretically bid 0.75 cents per click and make money. Assuming, of course that the traffic was the same quality as your existing traffic. Of course, I've found with advertising that is rarely the case. The most well known of the pay-per-click engines is "Overture" at http://www.overture.com With Overture you just pay to be listed when the search results come up. In other words, you pay for "placement". It's relatively easy to get started. All you do is come up with a list of keywords that you want to check out, go to overture.com and in the search box on their main page just type in your first keyword. When the results come up you'll want to look at the top right and click on "View Advertisers' Max Bids" so you can get a peek at how much everyone is paying for the keyword you're thinking about buying. As an example you can use the keyword: Marlon Sanders Type that into the search box and you'll see the first nine results are from paid advertisers. ** Please don't click the links in the search results. Copy the URL from the results and paste that into a new browser if you want to see the site. When we click the link to see the max bids Overture shows us the top 3 people are paying anywhere from $1.00 per click to $0.21. Of course these bids change all the time. That's just what I am seeing today as I write this. With some other keywords like "hosting", the cost can be around $7.00 a click! It all depends on how much the advertisers are willing to pay. I'm sure they're watching their conversions closely and probably wouldn't continue to pay that unless they were profitable though. If you're interested in promoting your favorite associate programs in the Pay Per Click Search Engines it's easy to get started. Just go to overture.com and access the advertisers center. Overture has created some pretty good demos to show you how their service works so you can watch those. Or, you can just go to the main page and type in a search term to see who's bidding on it and what they are paying "per click". Anyway, a lot of my friends bid a nickel to a dime on keywords. In the old days, you could bid a penny or two but the minimum now is $0.05 "per click". (Per click means that anytime someone types in the same keywords you are bidding on and actually clicks your link, you pay the amount you've bid. Unless they click and visit your site you don't have to pay anything.) I'm told by those who specialize in this form of paid advertising that the most important thing is to be on the first page of search results. What I learned is that it takes patience and experimentation to get profitable although you can get listed in the #1, #2 or #3 spot very easily if you're willing to pay to be there. What you do is bid on all the logical words. Then, you watch your clicks like a hawk and see what converts and what doesn't. Next you cut out the bad words. You probably won't be profitable until you cut out the words that generate a lot of clicks but no sales. Those are the dead wood that cost you money but don't make you money. To make sure you know which keywords are converting you'll want to use some sort of ad tracking service. If you don't you'll never know which keywords are making you money and which are draining your balance. Overture isn't the only "Pay Per Click Search Engine". You can hunt down the other pay per click search engines by typing "pay per click" in google.com I know I tried advertising on Findwhat, Kanoodle and some others. I got clicks but my clicks didn't convert. I told my friend John Keel about this. He's a "pay-per- click" guru. John told me I just didn't know what I was doing! He says you have to refine the results. The bottom line is, you have to learn what you're doing and become an expert. That's what you'll find with many of these methods. Whatever you do, you need to become an expert at it. That expertise is your competitive advantage. I don't know of any way to make money where you just click a button and forget about it. I've seen methods like that before. But if they're that easy, in a heartbeat everyone else finds out about them, starts clicking the same button and the market is saturated overnight. The path to profit is gaining specialized knowledge and information. What does that mean? That means becoming an expert. Buying "how to" products. Learning what you're doing. Becoming better at it than the next guy. What Jon taught me is that the words you bid on have vastly different conversion ratios. What often happens is that you bid on a word that gives you high clicks and almost no sales. That will screw up your numbers really fast. So you track everything and kick out the words that don't produce. You have to tweak and prune. You do that and you'll soon be profitable! The price of profit is study and experimentation. Everybody I know who makes money in this business makes it by working at it. For example, I ran across this helpful stat: 43% of all clicks go to the number 1 16% to the number 2 spot 9% to third result. If that is true, then it gives you important information for your bidding! You'll find out about all the little tricks. For example, Overture has a spreadsheet where you can bid on your words in mass. Submit a whole bunch of words all at once. That's pretty cool. You can also use their "Keyword Suggestion Tool". Just type in your word and Overture will suggest other words for you that are similar. Once you know how much you're making from an associate program on a dollars-per-click basis, you theoretically should be able to buy lots of traffic and make money. The only hang up with that theory is your conversions. First of all, your sponsor's conversions will fluctuate within a range due to random variation. Some days and weeks you will convert more due to pure random chance and influences. What's more, all traffic is not created equal. You can convert a high percentage of visitors to sales from one source of traffic and a low percentage from another source. Traffic quality is everything. Every now and then we get an email from an associate who says he/she sent us lots of "hits" or "clicks" and didn't make a sale. They want to know why. The answer is that "hits" or "click" mean nothing. Where did the traffic come from? What is the quality of the traffic? How does the traffic match or fit the program being promoted? Those are the questions you have to answer. In our associate program we see the traffic that comes through our site. We can see every visitor and how long they spend on our site. We will see traffic come through from a source that is obviously some form of very poor paid advertising. The visitors will stay on the page only a few seconds and NEVER click to a page two. It makes me wonder if the advertising the person purchased is really a computer program that generates false click throughs. Why? Because if real people were involved, by default someone would click to page two sooner or later. So the old saying "buyer beware" holds true. Don't buy a large amount of advertising from any source until you test a small quantity and make sure the traffic is good quality. Why There Is No Such Thing As Cost Per Impression or Cost Per Click Let's say you send 1,000 visitors to a sponsor or affiliate program. You buy those visitors from a pay-per-click search engine for a .10 each. In U.S. money, that is $100. Now, let's say you made two sales. What you really paid is $50 per sale. You spent $100 to make 2 sales. So those two sales cost you $50 each. If you made 10 sales from the same traffic, your sales would have cost you $10 each. What I'm saying is, ultimately there is no such thing as pay-per-click. All you really have is pay-per-sale. You bought traffic. You made 10 sales. The 10 sales cost you $10 each. As long as your affiliate program pays you more than $10 per sale, then you made money. Your goal is to double your money at bare minimum. Triple is better. So here are a few bottom line figures for you. Assume a conversion ratio of 1/2 of 1%. That is low for some sites. High for others. But it's a good figure to use as an example. That means you make 5 sales for every 1,000 visitors you send your affiliate program or sponsor. If you pay .10 each for those visitors or $100, and you make 5 sales, each sale costs you $20. So your affiliate program needs to be paying you a $40 to $60 commission for those numbers to work for you. If they're only paying you $20 a pop, then you need double the conversion. You better be converting 1% of your visitors to sales. Let's say you're on a pay-per-click search engine and that primo top spot costs you .50 per click. What are the numbers? For every 1000 clicks, you're going to pay U.S. $500. Let's say your program turns 10 of those clicks into buyers. You have $50 a pop invested in each sale. If you want to double your money, you better be getting $100 per sale. To triple your money, you need $150 per sale. Either that, or you need a higher conversion percentage than 1%. Let's say your program converts 2%. Now what are the numbers? You have 20 sales. 500 divided by 20 equals 25. Each sale costs you 25 smackers. To double your money, you need a commission of 50 bucks a pop from your affiliate program sponsor. Why cost per impression doesn't exist Same story. You go to a banner advertising network and buy 10,000 impressions for the same $500. You get 1000 clicks when your banner runs. Your cost per click was .50. But cost-per-click means nothing. You can't bank that. You can't buy food with it. You must have sales. So you get 1,000 clicks and the same 20 sales. You're back to the same numbers as above. The point is, in actuality, you aren't buying impressions. And you aren't buying clicks. The only thing that matters to you as an affiliate is cost-per-sale. What if your program isn't giving you conversion rates that are profitable for you? Or they aren't paying you as high a commission as you'd like. What do you do? You have to try to increase your conversion ratio. The way you do that is by writing an endorsement for the product and placing it on your web site. By adding testimonials or other proof the product works. By displaying photos of the product. You have to work on your end BEFORE the click to increase the results AFTER the click. Perhaps you ask people to contact you if they have questions about the product. Perhaps you use one of the instant messaging systems to allow people to contact you live with their questions. Another thing you can do is juice up the incentive to subscribe to your mailing list. That way, you can follow up with your prospective customer more than one time. This puts the odds in your favor. ------------------------- ------------------------- ------------------------- --- This article courtesy of Marlon Sanders "Associate Program Marketing Handbook" [url=http://www.howtoresell.com/cg...]from How To Resell[/url] . For 22 other ways to get more traffic and sell more associate program products grab your copy of the Associate Handbook today! Just go to: [url=http://www.howtoresell.com/cg...]How To Resell[/url] |
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| Being a mom |
| 09.22.04 (3:21 am) |
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[url=http://news10now.com/content/...]Source: News10Now.com[/url] Melissa Cox used to be a successful book editor. She tried to balance motherhood and work for about a year. It didn't work. Now she's put her career on hold and stays home to spend time with her children. "I wasn't being a great mom, I wasn't being a good wife and I wasn't a great employee and I'm a type A personality and it drove me crazy and so I realized something had to give," she said. District attorney Amy Castner balances both, although she's the first to admit it's not always easy. "I think in our particular circumstances, financially it's required to keep, to maintain the standard of living that we have and I think yes, most people could sacrifice a lot and do it. But I am a better mother I think that's because I work for whatever reason. I get my intellectual and social stimulation," Castner said. So is one choice better than the other? Pediatrician and author Ari Brown says there is no clear cut answer. "It's what makes your life work and for some women, they need to work outside of the home because that's part of their identity and they're much happier and for some women they really do well staying at home and they're perfectly content, Brown said. But when it comes to what's best for the children, the early years are crucial. "I think if you have the opportunity to stay home with your child in their first three years of life, go for it because you will never regret that time that you have with your child, Brown said. Doctor Brown says that doesn't mean children of working moms can't thrive, the key is spending quality time together. You can enhance that quality time by staying organized. Doctor Brown suggests: make meals ahead of time, pack spare clothes for you and your baby, prepare the night before and have a back-up plan, in case you get a phone call from daycare that your child is sick. Melissa may have more time now that she's not working, but stay-at-home moms have their own challenges. "It was really a change of philosophy trying to figure out, I'm at home, how do I make the most out of a budget. How do I interact with women who were really good at cooking and cleaning and all the different things that I struggled with tremendously, Cox said. Doctor Brown's helpful tips for stay-at-home moms: Join a neighborhood playgroup look for adult support through a "parent and infant" class Make time for yourself by finding a "mother's day out" program It takes a serious commitment from either kind of mother to do what she does. 
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| Moving the mommy track |
| 09.21.04 (2:27 am) |
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Source: Daily Camera.com Moving the mommy track |
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| Pay-for-Performance Drives Results |
| 09.20.04 (3:09 pm) |
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Commission Junction, the largest pay-for-performance advertising network, acts as a trusted third party managing the network, tracking and reporting on the ads in real time, and handling monthly commission payments to network members. Publishers can get started today for free by signing up online and get paid in one monthly paycheck for all the online partnerships they develop through Commission Junction. Advertisers pay only for performance - sales or referrals - instead of paying up front for advertising. Learn more about Commission Junction today. |
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| Internet is helping moms at home build careers |
| 09.17.04 (3:51 am) |
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Source: Annabelle Robertson Cox News Service Sept. 17, 2004 12:00 AM http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/arizo naliving/articles/0917wor kathome0917.html" title="http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/arizo naliving/articles/0917wor kathome0917.html" target="_blank"http://www.azcentral.com/ariz... [LINE] ATLANTA - Jennifer Elin Cole begins her mornings like many moms - with a group cuddle followed by breakfast with her family. But while Mollie, 5, and twins Sophie and Alan, 3, eat, Cole checks her e-mail, glances at incoming faxes and pulls up the FedEx Web site. She prints shipping labels and applies them to two packages of books prepared the night before. After helping the kids dress, Cole loads the dishwasher, piles everyone into the car and drives her children to preschool, making calls on her cellphone. She takes her packages to a drop-off point and then drives to work. In her case, that means heading back to her home in Lawrenceville, Ga. Like countless mothers around the country, Cole juggles the responsibilities of full-time homemaker and mother with work. But in her case, her job is based in her home - a job she says she couldn't do without the Internet. A new generation of moms who want to work but want more flexibility are using technology to set up home-based businesses. "I don't have to choose between being home with my kids and what energizes me professionally," says Cole, a self-published author. "I can work on the time frame of parenting - in between pouring cereal, playing Barbies, learning to read - and the interruptions never disrupt the final project. Thanks to the Internet, my office is open all day and I'm present, even when I'm with my kids." The number of women like Cole appears to be on the rise. "More and more people are jumping on the bandwagon," says Cheryl Demas, who runs WAHM.com, an online magazine for work-at-home moms. Page views of her site, which has been featured in Forbes, BusinessWeek, Family Circle and The Early Show on CBS, have increased from 25,000 last summer to 40,000 this year. "And as more people become aware of this trend and it becomes accepted, it will grow even more," Demas said. Lesley Spencer, who founded the National Association of Home-Based Working Moms in 1995, said her membership, sales and advertising have jumped about 60 percent since last year, and views of her Web site (HBWM.com) are up 20 percent. "We have members from every field imaginable," Spencer says, "but the most popular jobs seem to be related to the Internet. It's flexible and it allows women to work according to their children's schedules." Cole is convinced that the success of her latest children's book, which has sold almost 25,000 copies, is directly related to technology. Not only did she write the story with her twin sister, Jessica Elin Hirschman, who lives in Buffalo Grove, Ill., but she also secured the printing company, which is based in China, through the Web. The authors interviewed and negotiated a contract by e-mail with their illustrator, Bonnie Bright, who lives in California. The three viewed drafts of the illustrations on a secure Web site but have yet to meet. "The Internet is the only way that three people in three different states, in three different time zones, could conceive, produce and publish a book cost-efficiently, in a reasonable time frame," Cole says. Now that the book has been published, Cole tracks down wholesalers, distributors, booksellers, reviewers and individual buyers through the Web. Her current distributor is based in New Zealand. The work-at-home trend has been increasing in the corporate world, as well. According to a recent study conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management, 36 percent of the 459 companies surveyed offered part-time telecommuting to their employees. Nineteen percent offered full-time telecommuting - an increase of 2 percent from last year. Additionally, 34 percent of the companies offered compressed work weeks, which increased 3 percent from last year. Anandhi Bharadwaj, associate professor of information systems at Emory University's School of Business, is involved in a study of how information technology is helping to redefine the nature of jobs and organizational structures. She says this trend will increase as technology becomes more advanced. "There is clearly a rise in the percentage of workers who are telecommuting or teleworking," she says, terms that apply to both the self-employed and those who work for companies. Ayana Glaze of College Park, Ga., created a virtual public relations agency after she became pregnant with her second child. After placing an ad on Google, Glaze signed a contract with a client based in Canada. Her company, Just Write PR, began to take off. Now Glaze, who had worked in public relations and as a software tester, works for clients as far away as Michigan and Toronto. "Virtual for me means global," she says. "I can work anywhere, anytime. And if we ever need to move, it's not a problem. I take my business and my clients with me." Glaze holds meetings on the phone with potential clients and networks online using special-interest groups. "There's a whole revolution out there - the virtual revolution - and it allows us to be home with our children," Glaze said. Working at home isn't without its downsides. The women say they multitask like crazy and work long hours. Cole says her most productive hours are between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. She sleeps just five hours a night. Also, the women's income level may not be the same as it was when they were in the corporate world. Glaze says she earns less than when she was a software designer, but that it evens out because she spends less on work items like clothes. "We don't want to trade being full-time mothers and enjoying our kids for full-time work," Cole says. "We're in the middle of the pendulum between our grandmothers and mothers. It's the '50s thing and the feminist thing all at once. We've blended the two." http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/arizo naliving/articles/0917wor kathome0917.html" title="http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/arizo naliving/articles/0917wor kathome0917.html" target="_blank"http://www.azcentral.com/ariz... [LINE] |
| 0 Comments |
| Work at Home Business Spotlight: Coastal Vacations - redefining "work-at-home mom".... and turning i |
| 09.16.04 (4:54 pm) |
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Source: [url=http://www.emediawire.com/rel...]eMediaWire[/url] [i]Stephanie Johnson, from Atlanta, Georgia, has redefined "work-at-home mom".... and turned it into "work-at-home family!" After 5 years selling travel packages for Coastal Vacations, she is having just as much fun now as when she first began... and she is making great money![/i] (PRWEB) September 16, 2004 -- Many women dream of being able to stay home with their kids, and some get that opportunity. Some dads want to stay home with their kids, but very few get that chance. But even more rare is having both mom and dad stay home! That's exactly what has happened at the Johnson's house. John and Stephanie Johnson both stay home with their kids, and all because they finally found a work at home opportunity that really works. The Johnsons started looking for alternative ways to make money from home almost 10 years ago. After trying dozens of M.L.M.s, Network Marketing businesses, gifting programs and anything else they thought was worth trying, they found that they had lost over $15,000 in the process. "I was really discouraged," Stephanie said. "I really started to think it was just me... my self-esteem was rock-bottom... we had failed miserably at every business we had tried. I really wanted to be home with our kids, and I was afraid it just wasn't going to happen." That's when things started looking up for them. In September 1999, John had purchased a new fax machine. Somehow the Johnson's phone number ended up on a marketing list, and they awoke each morning for the next several weeks to flyers printed out on the desk. One of them caught Stephanie's attention. She called and spoke with a guy from Washington state who told her about how he was consistently making $4,000 or more per week in a non-MLM business. He told her about the incredible value of the Coastal Vacations Travel Package, and how she could make $1,000 per sale. "I was skeptical at first," she said,"because of all the negative experiences I had before in multi-level marketing, but I really wanted to believe it was for real. I wanted to stay home with my son, Jacob, so badly... he was just 6 months old, and we really needed the extra income." The next problem was how to get started. Since Stephanie had been out of work since her son was born, things were really tight. "I knew it would take money to make money and, unfortunately, money was the one thing I didn't have." She said she was unable to sleep at night. She would stay up for hours brainstorming... trying to come up with a way to get the capital she needed to get her business off the ground. Then it happened. "I realized that it wasn't really the money holding me back," she said. "It was my lack of belief in myself. I felt so beaten-down by my past failures that I doubted myself. That was a huge turning point for me, mentally. There was no standing in my way after that!" The next day, Mrs. Johnson did some things that most people would see as rash... she pawned the title to their only car at the local pawn shop, and then she dragged all her livingroom furniture out onto the front lawn and had a yard sale! She had raised enough money to get her initial advertising set up. John was working long hours at that point selling home security systems door-to-door, and he usually got in well after dinner time. Stephanie decided the only time she would be able to get anything done would be after the kids were in bed. And that's exactly what she did. Each night, starting at 9pm EST, she would sit at the kitchen table and check her voicemail. She had decided to do fax blasting as her first marketing, since that was how the guy with Coastal had originally found her, and she had run her ads specifically on the west coast so she could work from 9pm to midnight while the kids were sleeping. "All I did was call people back that had left messages on my voicemail. I'd give them a website and a phone number, and that's it. By the end of my first week... I had 3 sales! By the end of my first month, I had 16 sales, and John quit HIS job and came home too! and that was over 5 years ago. We love being home with our kids. This is more than we ever dreamed we could do. We never imagined it would work out to where we could both be home." Stephanie is now a Level 2 Director with Coastal Vacations, selling the International Travel Package worldwide, and hosts her own team conference calls. She also runs a special Coastal Training website (www.coastalfreedom.com) just for her own team. She has personally trained hundreds of people who have wanted to learn how they could work from home with Coastal, and expects to be doing this for years to come. The Johnsons really enjoy their freedom. They now have 3 kids, and they homeschool the older two. Stephanie works her business 3-4 hours a day, and John no longer works outside the home. He simply watches the kids while she is on the phone. She earns enough through Coastal Vacations to pay all their bills (and then some) all by herself. They travel frequently and enjoy the relaxed lifestyle they now have. "It has been such a blessing for us. I think Coastal is the best home business out there. If we want to go out of town, we just go. We don't have to ask anyone's permission. We just go. The freedom is incredible... and the tax advantages of being self-employed are awesome! I think this is how families were meant to be... together." Working from home is a growing trend in the United States, and many, like the Johnsons, are finding new and more creative ways to make it possible. There are plenty of resources on the web for those interested in learning more about franchises and other work at home opportunities. A century ago, the majority of Americans worked for themselves. Since then, we have done exactly the opposite... most of us work for someone else. But with the current trends, it looks like the next hundred years may see us return to the way things used to be. People value their freedom. Working for yourself is one of the greatest freedoms we can have... the freedom to control our own lives. ### |
| 5 Comments |
| Mothers Who Work Outside Home Risk Shortening their Sons' Lives Study Shows |
| 09.15.04 (12:44 pm) |
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SCRANTON, September 14, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Population Research Institute of Penn State University has completed a study on mortality among US men. "The Long Arm of Childhood: The Influence of Early Life Social Conditions on Men's Mortality," has shown that men and boys whose mothers left the home to work have a shorter life expectancy. Data was collected between 1966 and 1990, a time in North American history that saw unprecedented numbers of married women, under the influence of feminism, go out to work instead of staying home to care for their families. In the face of the 'baffling' persistence of socioeconomic disparity, despite expensive social welfare programmes, the study attempted to discover the more systemic problems that cause life-long poverty and a concomitant shortened lifespan. The study uses an approach that "encompasses the idea that adult mortality… is the long-term outcome of a range of childhood conditions and experiences, beginning as early as in utero, combined with the cumulative 'insults' experienced during adulthood." One of the 'insults' that seemed to surprise the study's authors was the correlation between early adult mortality and working motherhood. The study's findings will not come as a surprise to those who advocate traditional family life however. One of the 'discoveries' was that an intact family made up of the biological parents of the child provides the most healthy environment and greatest chances of a long life. "Marital discord (weakens) an adult offspring's familial and social ties, lowering socioeconomic achievement, and diminishing psychological well-being." Furthermore, remarriage after divorce is cited as a negative factor in adult children's health and longevity. "Men who resided with their stepfathers and biological mothers who worked outside the home faced a mortality risk that was 1.46 times that of the reference category." [url=http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2...]To read the study click here[/url] |
| 0 Comments |
| Techniques for Finding Telecommuting Employment |
| 09.10.04 (2:13 pm) |
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[url=http://www.freelancemom.com/F...][b]Techniques for Finding Telecommuting Employment[/b][/url] [i]By, Pamela La Gioia[/i] It seems everyone wants to do it: Work from home, that is. Whether it’s being able to work in their pajamas, or getting to spend some extra time with their children, something is prompting people to consider giving up their day job to look for this "alternative" form of employment. The only problem seems to be actually finding a work-from-home job! Where are these companies that have openings for telecommuters? In the paragraphs that follow, you will learn how to research and find home-based employment. [b]SCAMS [/b] The first thing to be aware of is scams, such as when a person or company poses as an employment firm, yet requires you to pay X amount of money in order for you to be placed. Or, a company claims to be a hiring company, but requires you to pay X amount of money in order to “process your application”. If you are looking for a home-based job, you should follow the same procedures that you did when you sought traditional employment: send a resume, get an interview, fill out some tax forms, and agree upon wages or commission. [b]JOB CATEGORIES [/b] Thanks to the widespread use of computers and the Internet, working from home has come a long way since envelope-stuffing and craft assembly, To demonstrate, I’ve broken down different types of telecommuting arrangements into four categories. 1) 100% REMOTE OR VIRTUAL Virtual or Remote work typically means that you will never personally meet your employer or your client. Your location is irrelevant. You will go through the entire application and hiring process online. Obviously, jobs under this heading will require that you are very computer literate. Typically, this is the hardest category of work to find because there are trust issues. You will need to be very good at selling yourself on your resume. Competition in this category is extremely high. 2) HALF IN/HALF OUT This category refers to work that is based from home but requires you to leave your home to complete important functions of the job. You still might never have to visit your company’s office, or even personally meet anyone that you work with or for. However, portions of your job must be performed away from the home. Jobs in this category will usually allow you to create your own hours, work at your own pace, and work around your own schedule. 3) MAKING AN OCCASIONAL APPEARANCE some jobs may require that you physically check in from time to time. Or you might need to receive your initial training in person, or attend weekly, monthly, or yearly meetings or conferences. If you aren’t local to the company’s headquarters, you need to be prepared for occasional travel, sometimes including overnight stays to accommodate meeting or training schedules. When you show up for a company meeting, be aware that you will be re-evaluated. Be prepared to continue to sell yourself as a valuable employee. Your boss will be asking him or herself, “Why should I keep this employee?” 4) LOCAL CANDIDATES ONLY Some companies may allow you to work from home, but want to make sure that you are physically accessible. Either that’s how they feel comfortable or, perhaps, there are assignments that need to be delivered to you in person. In this category, you will more than likely be under an employee status, rather than an independent contractor, which is common within the other categories. You might have to pick up your work assignments every day or week, and then deliver completed work to them personally at a determined time Once you have learned the various types of work arrangements that exist, and you are able to avoid the scams, the next step is to actually locate an actual job. For most people, this is the hardest part. There are several good sources to use when you look for home-based employment. They include: 1) Job boards 2) Staffing firms’ web sites 3) Fee-based job sites 4) Work-from-home sites 5) Freelance web sites The first place most job seekers look when they want to find employment is in their local newspapers. However, if you find even one legitimate work-from-home job ad there, you’ll be lucky. Companies rarely advertise at-home positions in newspapers. The Internet, word-of-mouth, and creating a job are the best ways to find a home-based job. For one reason, the Internet is the primary way a home-based worker and a company communicate. It also offers the widest array of job-hunting sources. So, if you aren’t Internet savvy it’s time to get that way. [b]JOB BOARDS [/b] The most common online source that’s used to find jobs is what I call Mega Job Boards. Monster.com and Careerbuilder.com are a couple examples of Mega Job Boards. These are general job boards and they will post any job, in any occupational category that a company pays them to post. While it is possible to find some good job leads here, you will have to do a lot of screening. A simple keyword search such as “work from home” will yield hundreds of results that are usually spam, scams, or something in between. (We'll talk about how to do a quick scan in a following paragraph.) Fortunately, there are other job boards worth looking into. One type is the NICHE job board, which only advertises jobs within a particular industry or category. RetailJobs.com is an example of an industry niche board. This site posts only job leads from companies seeking retail-related workers. NetTemps.com is an example of a category Niche board. Rather than posting jobs within a particular industry, they post for any industry as long as the job are all for temporary or contractual positions. Another type of job boards is what I call SUPERNICHE job boards. These boards focus on a single profession within an industry. IHireNursing.com is an example. This site focuses strictly on nursing jobs, and does not post jobs for the entire medical field. IHireAccountants.com is another example. Niche and Super-Niche boards carry a lot less junk than the Mega Job Boards because moderators of these boards screen ads more carefully before posting them. Therefore, these are good sources for finding work-from-home jobs. Now, when viewing search results from Mega Job Boards, you can scan these ads without actually having to read all of them. Look for some common denominators, so to speak. For example, if you have 50 job results on one page, and most of them start with “Work from home! Easy work!” you know to ignore it. Or, if you see that one company is posting dozens of the same ad for areas all over your country, you should probably avoid those, too. (Such ads are probably ads posted by a Webmaster or affiliate in an effort to lure to you a site to purchase something.) Look for ads that advertise specific positions, posted by a real-sounding companies or staffing firms. For example: Case manager needed for adolescents. Orange County Appraiser needed. Account executive for Northern territory Legitimate jobs rarely put “work from home” in their job title. Why? Because working from home is a benefit, or perhaps a requirement. It is not a job! So, scan past all the amazing results and focus on the jobs. Another internet job resource is STAFFING FIRMS’ WEB SITES There was a time when, if you wanted to apply for a job through a staffing firm, you would have to actually visit a firm in person. Now, you can simply visit their web site. You can browse their lists of jobs--even using search words, like on the bigger job boards--and submit your resume for their database in the event that they have a position that meets your criteria. And, since these companies are hired to find people to fill job openings, they will actively seek you out if you are qualified for a job they've been asked to fill. I suggest that you leave your resume on every staffing firm web site you can find. FEE-BASED WEB SITES are another option Due to the growing popularity of telecommuting, there are some people who make it their business to comb the job boards, online groups, staffing firms, and search engines for good job leads; and then arrange all their information into sensible formats so that, for a fee, you can simply log on to their web sites and view nothing but legitimate work-from-home jobs. Unfortunately, there are also people who think they see a quick profit by promising job seekers that they can help them find this difficult-to-find type of employment. Be careful to research these types of sites before you simply read the sales pitches and claims, and then pay their fee. You may not get what you pay for. If you do come across the right fee-based site, you are doing well. However, if you buy into the wrong one, you’ll end up in a mess: applying to companies that don’t really hire home workers, or no longer exist, or do not want their job ads posted on work-from-home web sites. Investigate each site before you pay them their fee. Just like spotting for scams, you should so some research before you join a fee-based job site. You need to check into the following: 1) Their guarantee of employment 2) The type of advertising they do 3) Their reputation 4) The length of time they’ve been in business 5) Verifiable references they provide 6) Contact information Guarantee of employment If a fee-based job site offers you a guarantee stating that by joining their site you will get a home-based job, run. Whether home-based or other wise, I think we all know that being employed is probably the last thing anyone can guarantee us! The type of advertising they do If you find that a fee-based company advertises itself on job boards as a company that is hiring, be wary. Advertising is fine; however, if they are trying to lure you to their site by posing as a hiring company, take that as deceptive advertising. If they can’t be upfront in the beginning, then don’t trust that they will be upfront throughout your membership. Their reputation Before you invest in a fee-based site--no matter how low the fee is--ask around. Visit telecommuting message boards and chat groups and ask members for their opinions of a particular site. Does the company respond to customers’ questions or complaints? Does it refuse to give refunds when reasonable? Length of time in business Just because a site is new doesn’t mean it isn’t valuable. However, if they make claims that they’ve helped thousands of people, yet they’ve only been operating for three months, then you should stay clear. You can usually check a site’s age by looking on Whois.net. While new companies might have the best intentions, due to unforeseen circumstances they might not last. If you invest money into a membership with one of them, and it folds in three or four months, you’re back to square one. Verifiable references Testimonials look nice on web sites, but are they real? Ask a site’s owner/manager if you can actually contact previous and current customers. Is the owner open to letting you hear from other members? There is nothing wrong with doing this. It’s just like any other service. Find out from these references if they ever found work through the site in question. If not, was there at least an ample amount of leads that could have helped someone? Also find out what kind of support was available to members. Was there someone to talk to when they had questions? Contact information I can hardly tell you how many times visitors of my own web site have called and were surprised that they were actually speaking to me. It wasn’t a miracle; I simply posted my real contact information. If a site is asking you to pay for their service, yet doesn’t provide a way for you to reach them, be leery. You have the right to know who’s behind a service you are paying for. Take the time to look into these points before you sign up with a fee-based job site. It’s your money; don’t lose it trying to make it! [b]WORK-FROM-HOME WEB SITES [/b] Another option to consider is the numerous free work-from-home web sites out there. These sites are usually graciously run by stay-at-home moms, for other moms. Although they have only a fraction of the job resources that a good fee-based web site has, and often contain non-job-related content, they are still worth looking into. If you find just one applicable job lead, you haven’t wasted your time. [b]FREELANCE WEB SITES [/b] A quickly growing type of web site is the freelance site. AllFreelance.com is a one such site. Jobs posted on this site typically are projects, as opposed to long term, steady employment. Companies that have projects to be done, such a writing a manual, sewing a line of dresses, or creating a database, can post these projects online and let freelancers bid on them. The person who seems the most qualified at the right price wins the job. [b]CREATE YOUR OWN JOB [/b] Staffing firms, job boards, and job lead services are all valuable tools to use when seriously looking for a legitimate home-based job. Another option is for you to create your own telecommuting job. If you are a technical writer or medical transcriptionists, for example, why not contact a company who is looking for such a person to work onsite, and then meet with them to discuss working from your home? Some companies are leery of using home workers. But, if you get an interview and go in with solid qualifications and a clear blueprint on how this type of work arrangement will actually help them, you have a pretty good chance. This works particularly well with very small or very large companies. Just remember that you not only have to be qualified enough for someone to hire you for a job onsite, but you must spell out how you will be able to perform your duties just as well--if not better-- offsite. To help negotiate the arrangement, be willing to make a few sacrifices. For example, since you won’t have the commuting costs that other workers have, maybe you could agree to take on a more difficult project. Perhaps you could cover the office for them on Saturdays. This will help you get your foot in the door, at least. There are numerous jobs that can be performed from home. With a computer, a telephone, and a fax machine, there is almost no limit to the jobs that can be done remotely, partially from home, or occasionally from home. If you are clear on what your skills are and if you can sell yourself properly on a resume and in an interview, you can use the vast online resources to find a home-based job. It takes effort. But if you use the ideas we’ve discussed here, you can find a job that’s suited for you. ------------------------- ------------------------- ----------------Pamela La Gioia is Founder and Administrator of [url=http://www.teleworkrecruiting...]Telework Recruiting[/url], a premier job-lead web site that provides thousands of job leads and job resources for the US, Canada, and the UK. She is currently writing a workbook on telecommuting, which offers step-by-step guidance on finding real home-based employment. Questions or comments are welcome and can be sent to Pamela at pam@teleworkrecruiting.com [b]Related articles:[/b] [url=http://www.freelancemom.com/F...]How to find a Telecommute job[/url] By, Sharon Davis [url=http://www.freelancemom.com/F...]Finding Your Home Business Niche [/url] By, Stone Evans [b]Related forums:[/b] [url=http://www.freelancemom.com/f...]Freelancing... In the news [/url] [url=http://www.freelancemom.com/f...]Introduce yourself[/url] |
| 0 Comments |
| Ten Tips to Help Select Affiliate Programs & Make Money from Them |
| 09.09.04 (7:11 am) |
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[url=http://www.freelancemom.com/F...][b]Ten Tips to Help Select Affiliate Programs & Make Money from Them[/b][/url] [i]By, Bill Platt[/i] [b]SUPPLEMENTAL INTERNET INCOME [/b] Many publishers and webmasters undertake the process of picking and adding affiliate programs to add a few extra bucks to their bottom lines. When you have managed to pick a winner, the selected affiliate program can develop enough additional income to make it worth while to continue to offer the program to your visitors. Let's face it. Not everyone who visits your website will be interested in your primary products or services. The truth is that you cannot be everything to everyone. So, it does make sense to offer some additional products or services on outbound links to other sites that offer affiliate's an opportunity to earn a commission. [b]TIPS CONCERNING AFFILIATE PROGRAMS [/b] * You should always choose an affiliate program based on how many levels they pay to affiliates. If the program only pays on what you sell, I suggest avoiding the program. The only time it would actually make sense to use a program that only pays on your own sales is when the program is offering hard goods that must be snail mailed to the buyer. If you are using the affiliate link in an article, the affiliate program you use should pay on at least two tiers. In this fashion, if you turn someone else onto a program, then you will be able to earn on sales they make as well. Who knows? The person who signs up on your recommendation may be able to sell thousands of ice cream cones to an eskimo. * All outbound links on your website should contain the HREF property *target=_blank*. By setting the target to _blank, you are telling your visitor's browser to open the link in a new browser window. This will force your visitor to make a concious decision to leave your site, by making them pro-actively close the window your website resides in. * More so in an article than on a website, you should provide the link to your affiliate page through a Redirect link on your domain. From the webmaster's perspective, this makes sense because you can track the traffic to your affiliate website by checking your traffic logs. From the article writer's perspective, it is imperative since most publishers will trim off the affiliate id from your published URL. If you give the publisher a link from your own domain, then there is not an obvious affiliate id to remove from the link. * You should observe the click-through ratio's (CTR's) on all of your affiliate links. Try to make a determination as to why a particular affiliate link does or does not generate good CTR's. Perhaps it is the presentation of the link, or perhaps it is the offer that is being made. Make changes to try to improve on your results, and take action to remove the program if it does not generate good results. * You should also observe the click-through-to-sales ratio's also. At a certain point, you should make the decision that a certain affiliate program has failed at their end. If you are sending them lots of traffic, but you are not earning income from that traffic, then you should make the determination as to whether you want to create your own sales page for their product or give up on them altogether. * You should always strongly consider using the affiliate programs that you promote. By using the programs, you can offer people an honest assessment of the programs that you are promoting. In many cases, the personal testimonial of a product or service will help sell that product or service. * Don't be afraid to write your own ad copy or develop your own display banners to promote the program. By developing custom promotional materials, you are able to distinguish yourself from the thousands of other affiliates promoting the same programs that you are promoting. * Put a deadline on the profit expectations that you have from a single affiliate program. Let's say for example you do as I do. I give programs six months from signup to produce results. If the results cannot be improved upon, I remove programs from my site. (I will be removing four programs from my site this week.) * When you have found a winner, step up your promotional efforts on those programs. Don't be afraid to tell people when you have found a winner. My winners are: * Drop Shippers Directory -http://thePhantomWriters .com/... If you want to find hard goods to sell online or on Ebay, then you will want to explore DSD to find wholesale companies and drop-shippers who can supply you with those products. * Quikonnex - http://thePhantomWriters.com/... Have you heard about the benefits of publishing an ezine via Dynamically Created RSS/XML Feeds? If not, then please take a few minutes to explore the promise of spam-free, accusation-free publishing with the Quikonnex Publishing System. Advertisement JOB BOARDS * As a final note, you should always try to select your affiliate programs based on offerings that your target visitors would actually be interested in. Although these visitors may not be interested in your offerings, there was something about your site that drew them to you, in the first place. So give them the chance to buy other products or services similar to your own. At every point in the process, your goal should be to leverage the traffic you do have into money that you will have. It is far better to have two dollars on the hundred dollar purchase, than it is to have zero dollars on any purchase. If you are going to lose your traffic to others anyway, make the conscious decision now to turn some of that traffic back into dollars. ------------------------- ------------------------- ---------------- Bill Platt owns [url=http://thePhantomWriters .com ]thePhantomWriters.com [/url] . Do you need free content for your website or ezine? Our archives deliver more than 300 free-reprint articles available for your use. http://content.thePhantomWrit... . Do you write your own articles? Let us distribute them for you to our network of 6000+ publishers & webmasters http://thePhantomWriters.com/... [b]Related articles:[/b] [url=http://www.freelancemom.com/F...]What is an affiliate program and how can it make me money? [/url] By, Lori Redfield [url=http://www.freelancemom.com/F...]MLM’s- Waste of time or Goldmine?[/url] By, Sharon Davis [b]Related forums:[/b] [url=http://www.freelancemom.com/f...]Promotion Tips [/url] [url=http://www.freelancemom.com/f...]Business opportunities [/url] |
| 0 Comments |
| Looking for an top notch business coach? |
| 09.08.04 (3:37 am) |
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[b]Successful First Year for Asset One Communication [/b][i] By, Bill Carney[/i] 
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| 0 Comments |
| 99.6% of 'GET RICH' Programs are SCAMS. Do you know the Signs? |
| 09.08.04 (3:07 am) |
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[b][url=http://www.freelancemom.com/F...]99.6% of 'GET RICH' Programs are SCAMS. Do you know the Signs? [/url] [/b] [i]By, Eddie Pennington [/i] If you're looking to make a legitimate income online, then you have to read this because there really are ways to make money on the world wide web. The problem is sorting out the scams from the genuine money-making opportunities. We've spent 18 months picking apart a hundred work at home programs and recording data and numbers. What we discovered was appalling! There are many 'writers' online that simply aim to capitalize off the dreams of people like you. Many times we could not reach these 'writers' via email,fax, or phone to obtain the refund they had promised on their sales page. That is why this site was conceived. We are here to help as many people as we can find the TRUEST, and most successful Online money-making businesses. There are obvious signs that will immediately tell you if you are being scammed. [b]1.[/b] Have you been on a site, and noticed the sales pitch you were reading failed to mention JUST WHAT PRODUCT OR SERVICE was being sold? Chances are you probably have. They paint this beautiful picture about fancy cars and mansions; trips to exotic paradise resorts, and all that can be YOURS?! Umm, not quite. These people are selling you the "Dream" of having a wealthy lifestyle. The name of these programs are 'Multi-level Marketing schemes'(MLM), or they're also called 'Pyramid schemes'. The point is to get YOU to recruit other people by feeding them the same dream that you were fed. The only ones making real money are the creators of the program. [b]A GENERAL RULE: IF THEY'RE NOT SELLING AN ACTUAL PRODUCT, DO NOT GIVE THEM $$ [/b] [b]2. [/b]Stuffing envelopes from the comfort of your own home? This is supposed to be an employment offer. Yet you are asked to send money to a company that claims they need it to add you to their database. It does NOT take money to input a couple lines of data into a server! This is another scam. Common sense will tell you that NO ONE in their right mind will pay up to $3 dollars to have ONE envelope stuffed. [b]3. [/b]Chain Letters Chain Letters, Electronic or Otherwise, are not legal. First of all, we want to point out that no matter what the scam artist tells you in the letter, these little schemes ARE NOT LEGAL, and people HAVE done jail time over them. For example, Dave Rhodes spent a number of years in a Federal Prison (and may still be there for all I know) for his starting of this whole scheme electronically back in the days of the Bulletin Board Services instead of the internet. Whether disguised as a "mailing list," selling recipes," a "free loan," "selling reports," a "gifting club," "lottery ticket club," or any of a hundred other thin veils, they are still chain letters, and still illegal. [b]4. [/b]Mass Emailing For example, many companies that promote bulk email will tell you that sending out bulk email is the road to riches. It isn't. And, if that stock really was such a good deal, why is this person sending you — and millions of other people — this “secret” tip? [b]5.[/b] "I Can show you how to make $36,000 in only 5 days!" This is quite possibly the most popular scam floating around the internet. How does this person know for a fact that YOU, a person he's never met, can make all that money in just 5 days?! For all he knows, the person on the other end is slightly brain damaged..or lazy even. The point is- never believe anyone who puts a set dollar amount without knowing anything about the person buying his 'program.' Individual results will always vary from person to person. The sad truth is that online businesses CAN NOT be operated by just anyone with a PC and internet connection. It takes alot of work to earn a living off the internet, but that's why it feels so amazing when the money starts to roll in. ------------------------- ------------------------- ---------------- [i]Eddie Pennington is an internet marketer and consultant that has several ventures online. You can learn more about Eddie's latest project by visiting [url=http://www.moneymoneyonline.c...]MoneyMoneyOnline[/url] [/i] [b]Related articles:[/b] [url=http://www.freelancemom.com/F...]Home Based Business Opportunities [/url] By, BB Lee [url=http://www.freelancemom.com/F...]Online Business: Work Smarter, not Harder [/url] By, Keith Bryan [b]Related forums:[/b] [url=http://www.freelancemom.com/f...]Search Engine Optimization [/url] [url=http://www.freelancemom.com/f...]Work Needed [/url] |
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| Freelance Mom September News |
| 09.04.04 (12:29 pm) |
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Hello Friends! I am so jazzed to share my excitement with you! This month my husband joined me in my 'home business'! A year ago we never would have thought this would be possible, dropping his salary as a logistics analyst to have him home every day with the children and me, doing what we love... but we've made it happen! When we really analyzed our finances, taking into account the gas money for his commute (2 hours a day), combined with several ways that we knew we wasted money. Although it was going to be tight, it was also going to be manageable. Fortunately I have a terrific client that I manage customer support for and he was very happy to invite John on board to analyze his business for him. With the income we have, we just cover our expenses so we're on the lookout for a little bit more work now. By the way, if you are looking for Freelance work, check out the [url=http://www.freelancemom.com/g...]freelance resource directory[/url] . For people who would rather get into direct selling, we have a [url=http://www.freelancemom.com/b...]business opportunity directory[/url] . I'll definitely share our story with you as it progresses. And we would love to hear yours... Please consider adding to our [url=http://www.freelancemom.com/y...]success stories[/url] to inspire others who want to start their own home business. |
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