When you begin writing for your home based business, never lose sight of following facts:

1. People notice things (sometimes even most minute detail) 2. People remember things (sometimes even most minute detail) 3. People love to point out mistakes (sometimes even most minute detail) 4. People will magnify minute details.

Some people enjoy finding errors and pointing them out, even to extent of writing books on subject. Other people (and I admit to being one) can’t help noticing errors and find them so horrific that they (inadvertently and quite without malice) magnify them out of all proportion.

When you write for public, you are poking your head above edge of literary trench and inviting them to pierce your brain with critical bullets. It is only sensible to take proper precautions. The tin helmet is not a great fashion accessory but, in these circumstances, much preferable to a baseball cap.

I used to work for a lawyer who had a selection of favourite words and phrases which he would drop into correspondence or conversation in order to impress people. These beauties included phrase "most busiest" (makes me grind my teeth), "at end of day" (yawn), "in essence" (used relentlessly to introduce any minor point) and "very unique" (why does a unique word have to be devalued in that way?).

The day arrived when he discovered "vociferously" and latched onto it as his new favourite word. After several trial outings, he obviously became comfortable with "vociferously" and introduced "vociferous". Eventually he was managing to use one of them in every letter and conversation. He wrote to other lawyers informing them that he wanted to work vociferously to an early conclusion of matter in hand. He told insurance companies that his clients’ losses would have been smaller if those companies had worked vociferously. He wrote to clients assuring them of his most vociferous attention at all times.

I didn’t understand why he thought it was a good idea for everybody to be shouting. When awful truth dawned on me, I cringed: I realised that he didn‘t actually know meaning of word. I never did find out exactly what he thought it meant. I could hardly ask him. That would have led to a conversation I did not want to join in. How much good do you think it would do your career to impart to your boss information that he appeared not know meaning of a word he used on a daily basis? Trust me on this: promotion would not come into it.

The first rule of thumb is can you follow money? That is, can you figure out how company will be earning money from your efforts? If you’re offering lifetime free services to someone and earning a large commission every time someone signs up, where does money come from? It’s easy to tell yourself it can’t be a scam because no money is being spent, but you need to consider more possibilities. What information are you giving them? What about your customers? Can that be used against you? Do you have to download anything at any point? Spyware and/or affiliate commission theft could be goal.

Second, is pay commensurate with effort you are putting forth? If they are offering 2-3 times going rate for a job, but you have to pay for training, it’s probably a scam. They’re relying on your need to earn money and desire to earn lots of it with little effort to cloud your judgement. Similarly, if you are earning commissions for your efforts, does it look like company you will be representing can possibly be making a profit? This is very similar to point #1 above, but worth considering on its own.