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.
We have talked about it before, and it’s worth talking about again, the importance of your presence on the web, and finding the right webhosting service for your business.
One of my favorite things to do is to build and add to my business website, and to write on my blogs through the web hosting service that I use. Finding a good service that is cost efficient, yet provides you with the tools you need is essential. In fact, you can visit this link to a site that lists the top 10 webhosting services of 2009.
When you are looking for a service, you want to consider some of the following:
How many domains does the service allow you to have?
How many email accounts?
How easy is it to transfer your site from one domain to another if you want to move to a new hosting service?
How much disk space do you have to work with and how much bandwidth?
What “extras” do they offer?
Do they offer you templates to build your site?
How many FTP accounts?
Those are just a few things to consider in your search if you are interested in building your own sites for your business.
What do I think about FREE web hosting? I used it for a while, but you can only do one site, and, well, let me just give you this link to a blog post that explains it quite well called Free Hosting Is Not Always The Best Choice.
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
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.
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.
% of Spam and self-promotion is quite low
News Media tweets peeked at about 2 pm Tuesdays
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!
A month or two ago I visited Learn.com, a website that provides a unique learning experience - courses that help you whether you decide to work from home, or work outside the home, in the following ways:
There are courses on a vast number of subjects to help you develop your skills and knowledge base, I noticed many more courses this last visit than were there when I first signed up.
Through Elearning and tracking your learning you develop what is called a “Skill Score” that helps you know how well you are grasping what you are learning, and lets potential employees see your strengths.
Companies and businesses looking for employees may not only find you through this site, but will have a good idea what skills you bring to the table by your Skill Score.
If you have knowledge about a subject, you can write up a course at the site and receive a percentage of the income received for the course.
So that covers a broad base…helpful to those who want to make some income at home writing up courses, those who want to develop skills to be better workers whether you work at home or outside the home, and provides potential employees with a window into your abilities, skills and knowledge through the unique “Skill Score” feature.
Using myself as an example, I do a lot of work from home on the computer, and during those times when I consider looking for outside office work, I see so many jobs that require computer skills that I don’t have….but when I joined Learning.com I did see courses to help me develop those skills, and develop my own skill score.
You can learn things that aren’t necessarily job related as well, and as I said, the number of courses has grown considerably since my last visit.
I’d encourage you to stop in and see what Elearning experiences are available that might help you.
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:
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.
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.
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!
I don’t have to tell you that the real estate market is going through challenging times. We have had a foreclosure or 2 on our street, though it there is anything about living in a modest neighborhood, it’s the fact that people don’t tend to over-extend themselves and are forced to live within their means…so those of us who have been living modestly and simply all along know how to survive during times like this.
Many are learning to work the real estate market as it is in their favor. I know some who are getting distressed market training so they can help buyers and sellers to make the most of their purchase.
I know others who know how to buy and sell properties with little money of their own, I don’t know how they do it, but if this is something that interests you, maybe the information available if you click this link may be useful to you. Check and see if the tools provided might help, and whether this might be a way for you to bring in some income.
Today I viewed the following video on placing Google ad units on websites. I maintain several blogs and sites because I love to write about things that interest me, and over the years have added some Google ads. I get a check every couple of months, but didn’t realize how the placement of the most visited ad units affected my income…could be doing better! I need to listen to this again, and want to share it with you.
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