If you have seen all the hype about work at home jobs and you wish it were real,
but figure it is too good to be true, you may have jumped the gun. There are
several legit work at home jobs if you have the right skill set. However, you
are right to be wary about the vast majority of jobs that promise unlimited
freedom and, “Income while you sleep!” Learning how to discern between real,
income-producing jobs from the home front and scams is the first important step
to getting the extra freedom you idealize.
Before you go out looking for legitimate work from home, you need to ask
yourself two questions, and answer them honestly (sometimes even being honest
with ourselves is hard when we really want something). The first question is Can
you successfully motivate yourself to wake up in a timely manner, get to work,
and maintain motivation five days a week just as you would if you had a boss—can
you self-motivate? If you can truly say yes, ask yourself another question. Ask
yourself if you are the kind of person that is willing to meet new people daily,
and sell your product (usually your product is you, since the service you
provide usually is not a physical product). Very few people truly have the gift
to sell themselves to potential clients and if you are not one of them, there is
no reason to leave the structure of a nine-to-five job.
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However, if you have identified yourself as a disciplined person who is outgoing
and ready to have freedom to create, and maintain your own schedule, do not be
afraid to find the coveted, work-at-home-job for which you hunger. At home work
includes: sales, writing, editing, proofreading, copy work, affiliate linking,
blogging, data entry, and networking. To help you understand where you will best
fit, all of these jobs break into three categories. Consider sales, affiliate
linking and networking all part of satellite marketing. Consider writing,
editing, proofreading and blogging as freelance writing. Data entry and copy
work are considered contract jobs.
Most contract jobs can quickly be filed into the legit work at home jobs file.
The upside to contract jobs is its financial certainty. Most data entry jobs,
for example, are hired out directly from the employer which means (most often)
that you will be an offsite employee of the company being paid by an established
business. Companies like PayPal, Qwest, ConAgra and even Coke hire remote data
entry specialists for some jobs. The two downsides to contract jobs are the pay
and the tedium. Data entry is low paying even for fulltime employees and the
repetitive nature of the work makes it boring for the majority of those who do
it day in and day out.
Because most strictly contract jobs are so low paying, freelance writing jobs
are the preferred route of most people looking for work at home jobs. Several
well-established “Content Mills” are good places to begin work as a freelancer.
These companies pay little more than a data entry job, but guarantee work for
their contracted writing employees. Databases for these content mills are always
stocked, and while the topical context may not always play to your strengths
(because people do better writing about things that they know), you will have
work whenever you want it. However, to really make money as a writer,
proofreader or editor from the confines of your home, you will have to venture
out beyond the safe waters of content mills.
Legitimate opportunities to secure freelance work are more difficult to find.
The two major tips to remember when investigating a writing job are contract
appropriations and efficacy of communication. You will likely do all of your
work, getting the job and preparing it, via e-mails and virtual mediums. Because
you rarely talk to a client, even over the phone, you need to understand how to
read their cues and how to refuse work when a client is too risky to guarantee
payment. The safe employers will send 1099s to any hire. They will sign a
contract for the job and provide several ways for their contractor to contact
them. If you pick up a client who offers “under the table payment” refuse and
keep looking. It is not fun to pay taxes, but at least when you enter into an
agreement with an employer through legally binding tax paperwork they will be
forced to pay one way or another.
If you have read this far and feel a sense of despair because you did not leave
the working world to do data entry in your dining room, and you know your
writing skills are not a strong suit, the final route will appeal to you.
Satellite marketing is not only the most unsecured of the work at home jobs, but
it is also the most lucrative, when you know how to select your jobs. You do not
have to be a good writer, or deal well with tedium. You really can work any
hours that please you, midnight to five in the morning if you please, so long as
you put in enough time to see financial yield. Moreover, if you put in
excruciating hours for the first few years, you might even find yourself making
the kind of money that most people are suspicious of, and angry about.
You cannot expect to make thousands of dollars a week when you first begin
satellite marketing. Immediately disqualify any company that promises such
things from your search. Any company that requires you to pay upfront for entry
into their ranks is a scam. Any company that does not list a specific product is
a scam. To work for an affiliate marketing company, conduct research. Do not pay
attention to links on the pages of the affiliate business, but instead, find
consumer reports. All public libraries grant access to free consumer report
webpages—access for which you would otherwise have to pay. Consumer reports are
usually very up to date and provide all the information you will need to
evaluate a potential marketing employer.
Once you have found a company that sells product or performs affiliate duties
you are comfortable with, the last step is to get the job. Most legit work at
home jobs only pay commissions and so they will hire the vast majority of
interested parties. Some will provide training; others will throw you out to
learn on your own. Either style is acceptable depending on how self-tasking and
motivated you are. It is best to keep one foot propping the door when you first
start work for a new at-home-job. Though everyone wants to tell that to succeed
you must jump in with both feet, if you quickly see that the company is taking
you hours of time for meagerly pennies on the hour, find a new job and try
again. As long as you do not give out your personal information, you can afford
to try many different work-at-home opportunities.
