March FreelanceMom.com News
03.11.05 (2:42 am)
[b]Numerous times I have been asked by women to share some home business ideas and also to give them pointers on how to recognize and avoid work at home scams. [/b]

The idea for FreelanceMom came to me when I was myself searching for work from home. I can recall the frustration of coming upon website after website with either a clearly bogus opportunity, or a website filled with advertisements for other work at home websites and no real content, or a website that did claim to have the answers but you had to purchase them.

Let's face it, women looking for work from home often times don't have the money to take a chance on memberships, or purchase materials for start up business opportunities, etc.

FreelanceMom.com will always be free to the work at home Mom community. I post as much information as I can here to help you find your niche' and I even have jobs posted from time to time. For home business ideas you can visit the [url=http://www.freelancemom.com/b...]bizop pages[/url] , and for work at home opportunities you can visit the [url=http://www.freelancemom.com/g...]freelance gigs page[/url] .

Now to answer the questions...

[b]Q. What are some legitimate home business ideas?[/b]A. I encourage women to start their own businesses whenever possible.
If you have computer skills or writing skills it makes sense to market yourself rather then buy into businesses that are being marketed to you. That isn't always true, but for myself I have found it to be lucrative and rewarding.

There are so many companies that are strictly virtual these days. They don't have an office building, but their online presence requires an office staff. That is a niche that is growing and will continue to grow.

I have a lot of information on becoming a Virtual Assistant throughout FreelanceMom's website. I am a VA myself, but also do website design and build my own websites - FreelanceMom is one example. I encourage all VA's to put together a business plan, and build a website for promotion. For an example you can look at my Virtual Assistant Website.

Recently I answered a post on my forum that you might find helpful also addressing home business ideas that are not scams.

But if you don't have computer skills, there must be something else that you are really passionate about. I genuinely feel that women are more successful in a home business that they dream up themselves and make happen. I've known women who do bookkeeping successfully from home, women who run daycare's, dog grooming or pet sitting, hair salons , errand businesses, scrapbooking, database design...

One day I took a look in the newspaper and realized that there are a lot of people out there who are running their own businesses. I really was astounded to see all of their advertisements and realize that although they were somewhat different from what I'm doing in my home office every day -- they were small businesses owned by people just like you and I.

[b]Q. How can I recognize a work at home scam? [/b]A. There are a few rules of thumb that I go by to determine if a work opportunity is legitimate.

1. Does it seem to good to be true? If someone is promising a lot of money, for little work - or it seems flavored to be a 'get rich quick' scheme, count me out.

2. Do they require money for more 'information' about the opportunity. Or do they require a down payment for materials (such as the envelope stuffing schemes, and other build craft at home schemes.)

3. Do thorough research on any business opportunity you consider joining. There are some legitimate ones. Avon and Tupperware for example. But it takes a certain type of person to make these types of biz ops work.

Enjoy!

Lori Redfield
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