Work at Home Grandmothers

We haven’t had a “featured grandmother” in quite a while, so it was wonderful to hear from Debbie Johnson today and have a chance to share her story with you.  I hope you enjoy reading it…oh, and if you would like to be featured, please write to me at claudiascorner[at]gmail.com.

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After receiving a legal secretarial degree from Bryant and Stratton and working at GE for engineers for six years, I quit to raise our two boys, born exactly one year and three weeks apart. (My husband said, “We’re not going to have your mom watch TWO, are we? Mind you, I was sobbing at the time as he went out the door with our oldest.)

Seven years later a third son arrived on the scene and I worked at a quaint little local restaurant an evening or two a week to bring in a little extra cash. (And, admittedly, to remind myself that I still could “process thoughts” – Oh, the stories I can tell!!)

I’m thankful to have been able to work around our family, but where does a closing-in-on-40 year old woman go to find a job? For me it was an Oral Surgery satellite office 20 minutes away which I managed for two doctors. They kindly allowed me the opportunity to work while updating my computer/office skills. Six years later, with one son in college, another a senior in high school and the third closing in on high school, I needed a full-time job to help with college expenses and high school extra-curricular activity bills. And that is how I ended up at a local business as a sales coordinator for nine years.vI know – trained for lawyers and worked for engineers, doctors and salesmen – nothing “relates”, does it?  Plus, nobody needs “secretaries” anymore – everyone does their own thing on computers! And, NOW I’m closing in on SIXTY!!

After we were blessed with 6 (yes, six!) grandchildren, with two more on the way, I left that job two years ago. In hindsight I am even more thankful because my father went to be with the Lord (and mom) this past Dec. 26.  These past two years were filled with many medical appointments for him that I am SO thankful I could do.  (I was thankful at the time, but even more so now!) I LOVE being with my grandchildren, but I’d also like to help my husband financially. Plus, they say our brains “go to mush” if we don’t use them.

Ameriplan®, USA, offers the chance for me to do it all. Yes, it’s network marketing and I’m learning, learning, learning – which is FUN! It’s VERY affordable to begin your own business. Plus, this company provides things I NEED in addition to a paycheck – discounts for dental, vision, prescription and chiropractic needs, as well as help with child ID, legal fees, medical expenses, identity theft (the fastest growing crime in America) and much more.

If you’d like to check out what this company has to offer, please visit one of my websites at:

www.freedomathometeam.com/DJohnson70 or

www.IBOPlus.com/DJohnson70 or

www.mybenefitsplus.com/DJohnson70 .

Or I’d love to hear from you via e-mail at DJohnson70@ameriplan.net or by phone at 716-355-4223.

We women need to STICK TOGETHER!! And we aren’t getting older, we’re GETTING BETTER!!

God Bless you all!

Debbie Johnson

I was looking about for something to share with you today, and came across a site called jobsformoms.com. Even though it is supposed to for Moms, I’m guessing it will provide information that will be valuable to those of that are Moms of grown children as well…and Grandmoms.

They charge a small fee to join, but claim to have a nice selection of jobs that are “scam free”, the site has been around for 10+ years. After you have visited, come back and let us know what you think.

If you know of other sites like this that might help us, please contact me or a comment.

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Sponsored Tweets. All opinions are 100% mine.

I do a few things to bring in extra income as a woman who works at home. Just a few weeks ago I was able to transfer $50.00 into my PayPal account because I’ve been doing a little “tweeting” for different advertisers that I’m connected to by IZEA.

How is this done?

1. First you have to be a member of Twitter and have a following, the more followers you have, the more appealing you will be to potential advertisers.
2. Next you are going to want to  sign up for sponsored tweets which isn’t hard to do at all.
3. After you have signed up for your account (much of the sign up information you will provide is in the image below), and have it “connected” to your Twitter account (this all happens automatically as you go through the sign up process), you will wait for advertisers to discover you and offer you things to tweet about.

How do you know you have been offered an opportunity?  You will be contacted by email or through a Direct Message on Twitter, your choice, and will have a few days to respond by either accepting or refusing the offer.

Something I like is the disclosure feature that they have, within each tweet you are required to include a word that indicates that the tweet is an ad, sponsored, etc., you can choose which word you want to include within your tweet if you choose to write your own tweets…oh yes, that’s another thing…you can choose to have the sponsor write the tweet, or you can write your own, I write my own.

Then you send your “tweet” through the sponsored tweet site for approval by the advertiser, and they are “tweeted” for you when approved.  You receive a message by email letting you know what is happening each step of the way.

There is also a new “API”, to be honest with you, I’m still learning about that one.  But you’ll find out all you need to know at the site.  There are quite a few celebrity “tweeters” using the site, like Leann Rimes, Bob Vila and more.

So take a little time to check this out…bit by bit the money builds up, and before you know it, you have enough to transfer to your account.  It’s so easy!

My son and sister have been looking for jobs using sites like Craigslist for some time, and while they are a good source (my husband and son have both found jobs using the site), they both tell me that many work-at-home business opportunists are using the site to fish for new people for their downline.

While I don’t think all ads posted are scams, which are generally defined as dishonest schemes for making money by dishonest means, or a way to trick somebody to obtain money or other goods from somebody by dishonest means…it may be a bit of trickery to post deceiving ads that look like they are salaried jobs when they are actually work at home opportunities for network marketing companies.

Do I have anything against network marketing? Not at all, a well run network marketing company that doesn’t make outlandish promises can be a good way to bring in extra income, but I do have a “pet peeve” about sounding like you are something you are not.

If you are posting an ad for a Work at Home job, be honest about what you are offering, and the how it will benefit the person, this way you can be sure that whoever “bites” on your ad is really interested, and not just a “lead” who is likely to be turned off when they hear what you are actually offering.

The latest Twitter statistics are out, and even though I’ve had a love-hate relationship with Twitter this week due to outages caused by the hacker that shut down Twitter for a day or two, it’s still one of my favorite ways to network. 

I thought I’d share some of statistics with you, and a thought or two on how they might affect your business communications on Twitter…now realize the study was done over a 10 day period…and I hope not within the past week - just kidding

1. 40% of tweets are pointless statements of fact, stating what the person happened to be doing at the moment, like “I’m eating a cookie”, “I’m watching television” etc.
2. 39% were conversational tweets, and take place between 2 - 4 pm…what time zone I don’t know, but the report I heard was on the east coast.
3. % of Spam and self-promotion is quite low
4. News Media tweets peeked at about 2 pm Tuesdays
5. Retweets took place most often on Monday mornings

I’m not sure how relevant all of this Twitter trivia is, but knowing when the most conversation is taking place was surprising to me.  I tend to spend my time on Twitter in the evenings, perhaps it would be better to visit during the afternoon hours when there is conversation going on.

One thing I know for sure is that if you want to promote your business, you have to first take time to share yourself, and I mean sincerely, not just to get, people will see right through that.  

A mistake I made early on was to set up my blogs with “Twitterfeed” so that each post to my blogs was automatically posted to Twitter…and I never conversed at all…definitely wasn’t a good idea, any more than blasting out phrases like ”Made $1000 in my first week” etc…posts like that may bring in some, but don’t appeal to me at all.  I still use Twitterfeed, but spend a good bit of time conversing, too, and only have Twitterfeed tweet my posts every 24 hours.

It is possible to converse in 140 characters…take some time watching conversation,  ”follow” people you enjoy and hope that they will follow you back, you can “tweet” a person that is not “following” you, but you can’t send them a Direct Message.  Jump in and say hi.  Check your “replies” (if you tweet from your Twitter home page, you’ll find your “replies” in the right column where you see your username with a @ in front of it, in my case that would be @happynutrition) and “Direct Messages” regularly and respond…you can reply any time, even if the person who wrote to you isn’t online tweeting at the moment, they’ll see it when they check in again.

Do you have a Twitter business success story to share?  Please share in a comment!

Related Posts:

Networking With Grandmothers on Twitter

Wall Street Journal Article on Twitter

Twittering Grandmothers

Actually her name is not “SuccessGrand“, that’s the name of her blog. The author of the blog is Sandy McFerren, and she’s also a member of the Work at Home Grandmothers network - see the “widget” in the sidebar to jump over and pay a visit.

Sandy has been married about 20 years, and has at least 2 grandchildren. She has two children, a son and daughter…just like me:-)

Sandy shares personal insights and business ideas at her blog. Stop by and pay her a visit…her posts are great and maybe it will encourage her to share even more.  You’ll find a picture of her there with her grandchildren.

Does your business need a makeover? I’ve heard of people getting makeovers, but not a business, so was curious when an opportunity to explore what AT&T ’s idea of a “makeover” is came my way.

All of us know about AT&T, and know that they are a huge company, but they are showing their concern for those of us who are small business owners through their AT&T Small Business InSite.  

I can think of many areas in which the way that I do business could use a makeover if I were to win the contest I’ll be mentioning later. I do a lot of work on the web, but also do some Nutritional Counseling and help people find natural alternatives for their health concerns.

 Here’s just a few areas I could use a makeover..to view them visit the site and look along the top of the page at the tabs and visit the drop-down menus:

1. I could use some help learning how to work anywhere and still stay connected.  This is something that I know would be helpful to me as I work from home…which means that I (and many of us who work at home) work between keeping up with things that we to maintain our home.  That can include shopping, and other things that take us away from our desk and home, so having a means of communication with me at all times so that during my business hours customers can keep in touch is essential. 
2. There is information on managing your technology…I am often overwhelmed by technology and could use a lot of help in that area. Perhaps, like me, other work-at-home grandmothers or baby boomers may not know as much about technology as “younger” business owners who have grown up with technology, or who have been trained in school programs that exist now, but didn’t when we were in school.   
3. The “Idea Exchange” Tab shows courses that you can take to develop your skills…definitely something that would benefit me with my “business makeover”. 

 When I visited the links above, I found that they are having a contest, and the winner will receive a business makeover, which includes a year’s worth of AT&T Products and advise from the experts.

Head on over to one of the links provided and see if you can find as many things to help you in your business as I did…as a matter of fact, I know you’ll find more!

A lot of people are doing a little affiliate marketing, but only those who are focused and determined seem to really make enough to make their efforts worth while.

I do a good bit of it myself, but am not a “pro”, so look often for ways to learn. I have sent for one program, and since then have come across another similar one that looks legitimate, and more straight-forward than what I just sent away for. Take a look right here and see what I mean.

If you have ever wanted the keys to unlock the mysteries of affiliate marketing, I think this woman will be able to help you.