Home-Biz-Help BizOpp Review: Becoming The Avon Lady

For a lot of us, the sound of a doorbell ringing triggers those words in the back of our minds, "Avon Calling . . . "

Stay at home moms of earlier generations, formerly known as "housewives" would open the door to a friendly neighbor with samples of all sorts of cosmetics in a wonderful array of colors and scents. Together the two women would go through the catalog checking to see if favorite items were on sale. The Avon Lady usually left at least one sample product.

You can still do that, you know. There are still product catalogs, and sales, and a lot more stuff in the catalogs than nail polish, lipstick, and Skin-So-Soft. The biggest difference is there are fewer stay at home moms as potential customers.

So what do you do? If you work outside the home, there are always your co-workers. If you have kids, try handing out catalogs at parent meetings, in the parking lot when you lick kids up, on the sideline at the soccer game, etc. If you go to church you could see if the ladies there are interested. If you sew or craft or quilt or scrapbook, all those people are potential customers.

This is one of those home based businesses where your success depends on many things including your personality, aptitude for sales, customer base, creativity, even location.

If you like Avon products, check out the Avon website for more information.

If on the other hand you really don't want to start a business, you just want a job you can do from home, may I suggest The Home Job Group.

Home-Biz-Help BizOpp Review: That Great Offer In Your E-Mail Inbox

On several Work At Home forums you can find posts by members who received this or that "too good to be true" offer in their e-mail inbox and are asking whether or not it is legitimate.

The answer is an unqualified NO!

NO legitimate work from home opportunity or home-based bizopp needs to advertise by sending out spam.

One poor naive soul posted that the offer being questioned did not arrive in her spam folder. It was in her Yahoo inbox. Unfortunately that only means the spammers are better at sending stuff out that will get through the filters than the e-mail providers are at creating filters to stop the spam.

If you did not subscribe to that person's mailing list, it is spam.

If you get such an offer and are lazy or pressed for time, just delete it. If you want to you can open up the header, copy it, and paste it above the message body when you forward the spam to spam@uce.gov.

Home-Biz-Help BizOpp Review: Comparing "Data Entry" to "Envelope Stuffing"

Read the title and then read my lips: There is NO comparison!

I just read yet another article on a well established and well respected website about so-called data entry typing from home programs. This article basically equated data entry with envelope stuffing.

Huh? What in the world made anyone think the two concepts were anything alike? Has this author ever actually looked at either one?

"Envelope Stuffing" works like this: You answer an ad that tells you to send $5 for more info. You think, what the heck, I can afford $5, so you send it in. The answer comes back telling you to place ads like you answered, telling other people to send you $5 so you can tell them what the original ad placer told you. It is a genuine scam and illegal. Watch the Postal Inspectors make a bee-line to your door. I cannot for the life of me understand why Google shuts down accounts for legitimate online business owners (including ads for data entry) and yet continues to run envelope stuffing ads. Just boggles my mind.

Data entry typing from home offers are entirely different. First of all, they are NOT the mindless repetitive copying of info that some naive people think is going to make them hundreds of thousands of dollars a year for a couple of hours a day of work. Anyone who thinks that will happen needs a serious reality check.

They are an opportunity for the program buyer to learn affiliate marketing. All of these programs are more or less the same concept. They show you where to find affiliate products to sell online, they give you hints as to which kinds of products sell better than others, and they walk you through the process of placing pay-per-click (ppc) ads on the search engines. They also tell you where you can place ads for free; fewer results, less effective, but doable.

Most of them use a bit too much hype, but they do involve typing or data entry, and you probably will be doing it at home. They also show you screen shots of the ad forms you place in the search engines, and screen shots of a Clickbank Daily Sales chart.

To be successful, you have to have some skill, some talent, some insight, and probably a bit of seed money. Does it work for everyone? Absolutely not. Can it work? You betcha.

Example. I have access to the back office of one program that runs a monthly contest and gives prizes to the people who sell the most products, which is why numbers are posted. Anyway, so far this month, one person has sold over 1100 of this product. Rounding down to 1100, that is $38,445. Projecting out to the end of the month, (1100 / 23 x 31) = almost 1500 sales = almost $52,000. For one month. Not a bad chunk of change, for only one of who-knows-how-many products this person markets.

Person #25 has sold about 100 which projects out to about $4700. Could you use an additional $4700 per month? I know I could!

I have no way of knowing, but would not be surprised if these people are using the methods outlined in the program to actually market the program. No doubt this is not the only product they are marketing with this method, either.

So you see it can be done because it is being done.

You won't make that kind of money stuffing envelopes.

Am I doing this? No, I'm not, because I'm not that good. But that does not make the whole concept a scam, or the people that offer these programs scammers. Some, frankly are less reputable than others, and that's most unfortunate. But the concept is valid. It is a legitimate method of affiliate marketing that works very well for some people.

So where did the bad reputations come from? Envelope stuffing has a bad reputation because it really is a scam and it deserves a bad reputation.

Data entry typing from home offers probably got their bad reputation partly from the aforementioned hype (people see what they wanna see rather than what is actually there) but mostly because a few affiliates marketed using spam, and their accounts were not cancelled. They more or less got away with spamming, but the programs they marketed that way got blacklisted by e-mail servers.

Home Based Work Can Be Hedge Against Unemployment

From real estate to schools to beauty salons, jobs are going away.

Fewer agents can sell homes because fewer buyers make enough money to buy. So not only are the agents not making a living, but the people in title search offices and escrow companies are hurting as well.

Here in California, thousands of jobs are being cut in the schools due to budget issues. This includes teachers, aids, nurses, and principals among others.

Something I had never thought of, but a manicurist told me the other day that people are removing their artificial nails because they cannot afford to maintain them. I guess if you have to buy gas at more than $3.50/gallon to drive to the unemployment office, you would put acrylic nails down at the bottom of your list, too. (I have NEVER had them but . . . . )

There are no doubt many more stories of people losing their jobs. This will bottom out and recover, but it hasn't yet. Until it does, you might want to start looking now for some sort of home based work, either your own home business or home employment.

It could be the best financial decision you'll make for a long time!

Home-Biz-Help BizOpp Review: Bizymoms Crafters Career Kit

Back in November when I made this post about assembling crafts at home, The Bizymoms Crafters Career Kit was not available. Even if it had been, The Bizymoms Crafters Career Kit is what you should do INSTEAD OF the types of things I posted about in November if you are interested in making money by doing crafts at home.

The Bizymoms Crafters Career Kit is designed to help you take your own original craft items and sell them to people who prefer to buy hand-made items instead of mass-produced ones. These would be the types of items you would find at your local craft fairs such as:


Stained Glass
Colorful Scrubs
Scented Candles
Handmade Clocks
Specialty Pillows
Children’s Clothes
Custom Wedding Gowns
Knitting and Crochet Items
Stuffed Animals
Covered Photo Albums
Handmade Bridal Accessories
Quilts
Etc. - you already know what you create!

If you have been to these fairs and would like to market what you make but don't know how to get started, or how to expand your business, The Bizymoms Crafters Career Kit just might be for you.

Remember, this is not for someone who wants to mindlessly piece together machine-produced parts. This is for someone willing to roll up their sleeves and work hard at producing one-of-a kind creations, and sell them.

If you think this might be you - if you have something you have created that brings joy to others, check out The Bizymoms Crafters Career Kit .

Home-Biz-Help BizOpp Review: 2-up programs

2-up programs have been around for a few years, which might make you think they are OK. Think again. Most people need to run as far away as they can, as fast as they can.

Here is how they work.

There will be some kind of ad - TV, print, internet, phone, whatever. The pressure to join is relentless - they are skilled in making you think you are really blowing the opportunity of a lifetime if you don't sign up RIGHT NOW! That ought to be a big red warning flag right there. If the offer isn't as good tomorrow or next week as it is right now, it isn't any good at all.

Anyway, if your resistance folds and you sign up, you are frequently if not always into the program for $1000-$2000 up front. You get your money back by selling the opportunity to others. There is a product of some sort so they skate barely on the legal side of the Ponzi issue, but you make your money selling the opportunity to others.

Unfortunately there are just enough people who are able to make it work that the desperate wannabes are drawn like moths to a flame in the hopes of escaping their intolerable lives and living a better one.

The catch ~ and why the offers are called 2-ups ~ is that the commissions from your first 2 sales go to your upline sponsor! Most people who get involved in this type of thing are not natural-born sales people, have few if any sales skills, and have no chance whatsoever of convincing a total stranger that parting with $2000 hard-earned dollars is a good idea.

Therefore they turn to their "warm market" aka friends and family. Or should I say former friends and family. Before this comes to a pitiful end, the poor hopeful soul will have totally alienated everyone he or she knows, probably without making a sale. Not only that, but the upline sponsor is all over their case because they haven't produced any commissions and "what the heck is the matter with you anyway can't you try a little harder?"

In the end the once hopeful person is out $1000-$2000 and the laughing stock of the family - circle of friends.

Here is a list of just a few of these programs in alphabetical order:

Automatic Money Machine
Coastal Vacations
Easy Daily Cash
EDC Gold
Emerald Passport
Passport to Wealth
Perfect Wealth Formula
Road Map to Riches
Your New Fortune

They promise you the moon but leave you smelling like moldy cheese.

JMHO

For home business opportunities that might just work for you, check out the links in the right hand column.

When The Traditional Work Place Doesn't Work For You

I spent 33 years working for the same employer, and saw a lot of people come and go. Some were viewed a absolute assets - the "boy, if we only had a few more of those" types. Some were viewed as liabilities because, frankly, they were. They thought the world owed them a living and all they had to do for pay was show up and hang out.

But some didn't fit either category. There were a few people whose health - or the health of a family member - just kept getting in the way. These people were intelligent, capable, hard-working, loyal, and all those things you want in an employee. But they came to be thought of (usually not to their face) as "high maintenance." They became "a bother" because they always needed something - time off, to leave early, a schedule change, something. There were times when the air was just thick with impatience as management was forced again and again to deal with their neediness, and forced to pretend that it was OK when it wasn't.

No one wants to be treated this way. No one wants to be thought of this way. No one wants to be sick, and no one wants to be in the position of caring for a chronically sick family member. At the very least, the stress is not healthy for anyone involved.

But life happens.

It has made me realize just how many people would be better off working from home. Depending on what type of work they did, they could sit or stand as much or as little as necessary. They could move around and change positions if that was what they needed to do. They could - again depending on they type of work they did - be interrupted as necessary and it would be OK.

They could work in short spurts - odd hours - frequent breaks - whatever. Perhaps they could even work on a laptop in a doctor's office waiting room!

They could work long hours one day and no hours the next, if that is what needed to happen. They could work 45 minutes and rest for 15 if that is what needed to happen.

The point is, there are countless ways to work from home - either as an employee, an independent contractor, an freelancer, or a home business owner.

If working in the traditional workplace is not working for you, look seriously into the ways you can work from home.

Check out my 2 sites below. There you will find many opportunities that fit into one of the above mentioned categories. To the best of my knowledge, there are NO scams. All require work and ability on your part, but can be done. Check them out and see if one is for you!


123 I From Home 4 Me
123 Home Based Business Works For Me