Work at Home Conundrum

I’ve been spending a lot of time in the last 2 weeks researching work at home opportunities. If you have seen these ads (and there are tons of them) that you get in your email or on job boards then you know what I’m talking about.

It seems like there are legitimate ways to make a living online but sifting through all the different programs is mind boggling. There are oodles of offers that promise a six figure income if you buy their $50 program. What you get is access to a bunch of e-books and articles that basically tell you how well they have done by following the program and doing what they did, so far all I have seen is people telling you can do it and make a lot of money. Very few of these actually tell you the mechanics of how to go about doing it and what it will actually cost you to get up and running.

So I went ahead and spent the $50 to see what you get for that. As it turns out, I was inundated with e-mails and e-books on what needs to be done to get traffic to your website (if you have one) or that you need to have a website. Of course they really don’t tell you how but they are happy to guide you through even more websites that will tell you the same thing.

What it boils down to is that you need to spend quite a bit of time reading and researching, talking to other people on forums (tons of these too) and generally the same thing you would have to do to start any business. So, when you see a website that offers instant money and success if you “join today”, be very wary. The only way to make money overnight is to steal it.

But if you are determined to have this kind of business (as I am) then you need to do your homework. This is what I am working on now and for the past week have learned quite a bit of information but have yet to make any money. If there is someone out there that is willing to mentor me and help me get up and running it would surely be appreciated and I would gladly compensate them for this. That is, of course, if it works and I can actually derive an income from it.

A few years back I actually tried to sell Herbalife with little success. I think the reason that I had trouble succeeding with this is that I am not, and never have been, a salesman and with Herbalife you have to be constantly selling. You sell to friends & family and put out flyers and talk the Herbalife talk wherever you go, it’s almost like a cult mentality. Unfortunately I don’t like people that much and don’t go out much so this method was not right for me. Even further back, when I got out of college, I tried to sell vacuum cleaners and insurance. Talk about tough sales! This involved in home demo’s and pitches and high pressure sales tactics. You got to respect a good salesman, the guys that don’t seem to have any problem getting people to part with their money, but I’m not one of them.