Work At Home Job Tips: Smaller Gigs Can Lead To Bigger Jobs

Some people think accepting smaller, low paying gigs aren’t worth their time and I agree and disagree. Here’s why…

Only you know what’s good for you and your financial situation. No one should say to another that accepting XYZ job is not worth the time. Of course, you’ll have to evaluate how long it will take for you to perform the job and it could be well worth your while.

There are smaller gigs that pay decent and are simple and offer a lot of flexibility. They don’t require a lot of experience and often if you stick with them, they open doors to other paying opportunities or jobs that offer higher paying wages.

It’s true what they say. Little things add up quickly and this also applies to smaller paying gigs.

~Sophia

Vacation or Staycation When You Work At Home

People who don’t work at home think that people who do work from home are on a constant vacation. Hey, I can understand where they are coming from, but I know they are wrong.

Yes I work from home and I have complete control of what I do and when I do it with my business, but it doesn’t mean I don’t have a routine or schedule I follow on a daily basis. It’s kind of difficult to reach my target market if they are all sleeping, isn’t it?

With that being said, it equally important to take time off and unplug during the summer months or when you really need it. It’s called balance and we all need balance to function in a healthy way.

You can reduce your hours of work or you can re-arrange your schedule — work 4 hours in the morning and break in the early afternoon or use downtime as filler time to work on the non-computer aspects of your business. Figure out what works for you, but don’t miss out on the fun things life has to offer.

If you can’t take a vacation, then take a staycation and rediscover your hometown with your family and friends.

~Sophia

Beware – Self Professed Home Business Guru’s & Experts

Today I would like to share a home business tip with you that I feel is very important…especially if you are networking and/or doing business online.

When online, you will come across many self-professed work at home experts and guru’s but you need to be careful in who you trust.

I have been networking and working online for 14 years and I can personally tell you that I have run into way too many to count folks who claim to be an expert in home business, business coaching, training, etc. Most of these times, these folks have had NO professional training and ‘think’ that after 1-2 years of running a home business, that it qualifies them to be an expert. As you can see…it is a big problem online.

My tip & advice to you today is this…if you are thinking about buying someone’s ebook, coaching or training services, you really need to check this person out. Ask them for references, educational/training background etc. You can not take their word on it nor can you figure out if they are legit or not.

Anyone can make a name for themself online…good or bad and when it’s bad…it takes some time to come out.

So always proceed with caution & ask for references and check them out before signing up or purchasing anything from home business guru’s or self-proclaimed experts.

Shelly

Work At Home Tips: Patience Is A Virtue

One thing I’ve noticed a lot when people apply for a telecommuting job is they expect instant replies. What they don’t realize is that the employer have thousands of resumes to go through and they won’t be able to email everyone with a response.

Not all employers use autoresponders for the canned reply, “Thank you, we’ve received your application…blah, blah, blah.”

It’s not unheard of to hear from an employer months from now for a job you applied for months ago. It could simply be a new position opening. Whatever the case may be don’t let it bother you. Be sure to keep track of how, where, when, why and who you applied for so if they do come knocking on your door, you’re not taken by surprise.

And if they aren’t looking for you, then keep looking for yourself. Be consistent and patient in your job hunt because something soon will come your way.

~Sophia

Twitter and Setting Up Your Account To Tweet Later

Twitter is an online popular social media web site that has become the flavor of the day in regards to marketing your home business, communicating with clients and customers and so forth.

A popular trend on Twitter is for home business owners to set up tweet later accounts. If you are not familiar with this, you can set up tweets to go out various times to your twitter followers whether you are online or not. There are several online sites that offer this type of tweet later application.

I believe that setting up tweets to go out when you are not online or too busy to tweet…however, you need to change them frequently. If you are tweeting the same 20 tweets over and over for days on end, it will irritate your twitter followers and many will quit unfollowing you.

Just like your web site and blog, your tweets need to include updated content often. If you are using a tweet later type of application, I suggest changing your content at least every 2-3 days if not more frequently.

Your followers don’t want to waste their valuable time reading and seeing the same handful of tweets from you over and over.

What are your thoughts?

Shelly

It’s Just Not About Selling Your Products

When it comes to having a Direct Sales home business, its just not about selling your products to your customers. Direct Sales and Network Marketing is also about building relationships with your customers, party hosts, team members, etc.

Many times a consultant gets too focused in pushing the product sale that they forget about building a trustworthy business relationship with the customer/client.

One of the ways you can build a relationship with your customer is to keep in contact with them. Let the customer know that you appreciate their business and that you are there for them when then need additional items.

When I work on building a relationship with my customers and clients, I like to talk to them about some generic personal topics…such as: Are they married, have children, hobbies, holidays, vacation plans and so forth. By allowing some personal chit-chat when you are conversing with customers/clients, this opens up the door to some ‘personal’ relationship building.

Studies have shown that customers/clients are more apt to do business with you or refer their friends and family to you…if they feel like they have a good business & personal relationship with you. It reminds me of the old saying “Customers will do business with those they know & trust” so its your job to get to know your customers and to let your customers get to know you.

When you take the time to build relationships with those who you come into contact with…this will lead to future sales, additional party bookings, new team members and so forth. Relationship building is well worth your time & effort and should be done on a consistent basis.

How do you like to build relationships with your customers and clients?

Shelly

Direct Sales – Harassing Potential Customers By Phone

Today I wanted to share with our blog readers a very unpleasant situation that I recently experienced in regards to someone having a Direct Sales home business.

As you know, I have been in Direct Sales since 1987 and have a lot of DS experience. Recently, a distant family member joined a Direct Sales company. For the purpose of this blog post, I will refer to the company as Company ABC.

Most of us are taught to get busy right away building our business and for most of us, that means calling up and/or talking to our family and friends to book home shows or to come listen to our sales presentation.

However, there is a right and a wrong way to go about this. I do agree you need to work the phone and call up family, friends, co-workers, neighbors, etc and let them know about your new home business. This includes asking them to book a party, look at a catalog or to come to your presentation.

Where I have a problem with this is…when some Direct Sales consultants take this too far. For the past month, my distant family member has been calling me numerous times (more than 10+ times) as well as other family members and harassing us to come to her presentations, to give her orders, book parties from her and so forth.

Many of our family members have called me to complain and voice their opinions about this. I totally agree with them as I too…am being harassed by her. To make this clear…YES, we have all told her that we are NOT interested, NO we don’t want to book a party and NO we don’t want to place an order. Several family members have even gotten rude with her and hung up on her because they are tired of the harassment.

I think its great that Cousin B is busy working her new business with company ABC…however, she is going about it all the wrong way.

When a customer or potential customer tells you FLAT OUT and STERNLY that they are not interested in attending, booking or buying…you really need to thank them for their time and MOVE ON to the next one. You need to be the constant professional and that means accepting the word NO graciously and moving on.

One of the best ways for you to lose customers and/or potential customers is to keep harassing them or hounding them via phone, email or in-person meetings.

You ask once and move on. If you want to ask a second time, you should wait for a few months and then ask again. However, it is very unprofessional to be calling up people and hounding them to death several times a month to come and book a party or place an order with you. This is a SURE FIRE way to drive a customer right out the door.

So the next time you get a ‘no’ I suggest you move on to the next person on your contact list. If you decide you want to approach customer A again, you should wait a few weeks or better yet…a couple of months.

There is a big difference between being a driven go-getter compared to being someone who harasses.

Shelly

Direct Sales – Eliminating Tasks That Waste Your Time

When it comes to a Direct Sales home business, we often find ourselves too busy to complete all of our daily business, personal and family tasks. One way to solve this problem is to eliminate the tasks that are not yielding you the results that you seek.

I recently sat down and made a list of all of my tasks in any given day…I separated this list into 3 categories: Business, Family and Personal. Once I had my lists compiled, I re-examined them to see what was working and what wasn’t working and decided to change the things that were not yielding me the results that I needed.

Business- I decided to lighten my load and not take on any more business projects. I also decided to delegate some tasks to others to free up more of my time. You can do this yourself by hiring an assistant…a virtual assistant would be a great way to go if you are doing business online. A VA (Virtual Assistant) can answer your emails, write & draft up your newsletters, handle some of your social media networking and update your blogs and sites for you. In my case…I decided to unload some of my business tasks to others.

Family – I am pretty good at keeping up with my family obligations since I no longer have children at home. However, I found that even adult children can interrupt your day with things they want you do to for them. To solve this problem, I have left my daughter know that between the hours of such and such…I can not help her unless it’s an emergency. I also observed on my list that my housework from time to time would slide so I could work on business projects. I have now decided to pencil in 1 1/2 hours a day to work on housework, cooking meals, running errands, making family phone calls, etc. When it comes to handling all of my family tasks, I find that a schedule and list making…is the way to go for me.

Personal – In my personal area I found that I wasn’t taking enough time out for myself every day. When you don’t take care of YOU…everything else suffers. I have always allowed myself 1 hour of personal time every day. After looking over my list, I have realized that its not enough. So…to solve that problem, I now give myself 2 hours a day to do whatever it is that I want. This can include going out for a walk, gardening, crafting, shopping, whatever.

I guess what I am trying to say with my blog post today is that I feel its important to sit down and make 3 lists every other month. Go over your task lists and review them to see what is and isn’t working. If you are participating in any tasks that are not yielding you the results that you want…it is time to elimate or change them.

Shelly

Proper Times To Make Business Phone Calls

As a home business owner myself, I can tell you that I absolutely hate it when I get a business phone call before 8am or after 9pm EST.

What I have learnt over the years is that you should never make any type of customer/business phone calls to a persons home before 8am or after 9pm unless you have that customer/clients permission to do so.

It is perfectly fine for you to accept phone calls any time of the day or night that you see fit…but it’s not okay to call people up at inappropriate times because it ‘fits’ into your business schedule.

Furthermore, If you don’t know the time zone that your customer/client lives in…then your best bet is to try to call mid-day or early evening your time…that way you are not calling too early in the morning or too late at night in their particular time zone. (North America Time Zones)

Nothing will irritate a customer/client more than being waken from bed at 7am to take your call.

When making business calls, use common sense.

Shelly

Spamming Social Networking Site Invites…

Almost every day when I get online to check my email I receive some type of spammed invite to come join some type of social networking site or networking group. Frankly, I am just tired of it now.

In my personal and professional opinion, it is NOT okay to spam everyone on your contact list with an invite every time you go out and join some new networking site or group. Sure, so and so might be interested but surely, not everyone will be.

If I wanted to receive these types of emails from people, I would sign up for them or I would let you know. However, I feel that this is just another type of spam email method.

I am a very busy person and I am sure you are busy as well and getting emails on a daily basis to come check out this new forum, this new social networking site or group is becoming ridiculous and frankly, I am tired of it. To me and many others…its spam!

Now on when I get these types of ’spammed’ invites, I reply with a not so nice message about it and then, I block them from emailing me that nonsense again.

If you want to keep those who are in your contact lists and email address books happy, I suggest that you NEVER spam email invites to them unless they have specifically told you that they would like to receive that type of communication from you.

How do you feel about this issue?

Shelly

Next Page »