FIVE WAYS TO EVALUATE AN ONLINE BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY TO SEE IF IT'S RIGHT FOR YOUWritten by Violet Bartholomew
So you've decided you want to work from home, and you've signed up for a few of those 'Business Opportunity' mailing lists. Every day there are interesting-looking possibilities turning up in your email inbox... but how can you tell 'real McCoys' from 'get-rich-quick' scams that are proliferating all over Internet?I've got some ideas about that, and I may be able to save you some grief if I pass them directly on to you... 1. Is business opportunity based on a tangible product or service? Many online opportunities are simply based on signing up as many recruits as possible, without consideration for a viable product line. Yet real opportunities exist online to build a business selling everything from children's toys to ebooks to health care products. If product figures prominently in company information, is it a product that will sell, to folks who will buy it? That may sound silly, but it bears thinking about -- Elvis CDs may not be such a great idea anymore, while nutritional supplements, for example, are a hot item right now. 2. Is there plenty of company support or training to back up whatever effort you are expected to make to sell product or service? In other words, does company offer you, as a representative, free web space, a free company based email address, autoresponders, sales leads or any other kinds of sales support?
| | The Reality of Working at HomeWritten by Kimberly Hargis
I have spent last five years trying to work at home and have had some success. The following are a few facts I have to share with people who are either trying to or have given up trying to work at home. Q. What about places that put up "pay money to get a job" postings? Are they worth money? Will I get a job if I spend money? A. If a job asks for money, then it is not really a job. Think of it this way, would you pay to fill out an application for a job outside home? No, of course you would not, so why you would pay someone for a work-at-home job? Let's say that a listing says "Buy our software and you can work at home." This probably means that you buy software up-front and they give you a list of places that might hire you. The software is usually something similar to what you already have in your computer, like a word processor program or something you could buy in a local office supplies store's discount section. The list of jobs they give you is usually a list of companies they found in phone book and you can find same companies yourself just by using Internet Yellow Pages. And if companies were really hiring work-at-home people, then why would they give software to another company to sell? They wouldn't! They would list software requirements in their help wanted classified advertisement. Fact to remember: If they ask for money, then it is probably not a real job. Q. What about these places that advertise "Pay to join our group and we will help you find a job" or "We have hundreds or thousands of jobs listed" sites? A. I spent over $500.00 on those during my second year of job searching and never did get a job. I'm not saying they are all bad or tried to rip me off. Some were an all-and-all-out scam. Others honestly tried to provide a good job list for me to send my resume, but if you don't have requisite skills, it doesn't matter how many honest job listings are provided. Still others provided job listings that were so old, they were no longer hiring or no longer in business! These sites used old job listings so they could say they had "thousands of jobs" listed. There were also some that listed jobs found listed by "monsters" and headhunters. My best advice is if you want to join one of these places, then you should go to a "work at home"-type message board and ask for other experiences with company. Ask questions like: Did you really get material they promised to send to you? What kind of jobs do sites offer? Did you find a job? Remember that people who run these companies often go to these message boards and reply to questions posted by people like you , so be sure and wait till you get several replies so you can get to truth. Fact to remember: Do your homework before spending money – take time to ask around and check out company with BBB (Better Business Bureau) to find out if there have been any complaints listed against company. Q. Are Medical Transcription (MT) jobs good jobs and is this type of job for me? A. Just because you take MT (Medical Transcriptionist) classes doesn't mean that you will get an at-home job. I took all classes and got certified. I then tested for jobs for a year before giving up on that type of work at home. This is not to say that it isn't a very good job for some people, it just wasn't ever going to be right job for me. I know several people who do MT work at home and love it. Most MT jobs require that you have at least six months' to a year's experience at an in-house job before they will consider you for independent, at-home production. Once you have gained your in-house experience (or you have been lucky enough to start out at home), you have to be prepared to work eight hours or more in a row transcribing. Most transcription jobs call for tight turn-around time (TAT). A typical scenario is that they give you a set time to record their audio using to your transcription-recording machine (either via phone line or web site). Then you have a set number of hours to do transcription and send it back to company. This means you have to have these hours set aside five days a week to work, just like you would if you when out to a job. Not all MT work will be consistently supplied, so you might find that you work fast and furious on Monday and Thursday, and have no work on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday. My best advice is if you are interested in becoming an MT, then you should first check out schools with BBB. Go to an MT message
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