Work From Home Companies

As with going out to work, there is any number of work from home companies. It really does depend upon what you want to do. I think that it’d be useful also to say that as well as working for yourself, or being freelance, you can also work from or at home for an employer.

There are some genuine work from home companies out there, and also some scams. Please be wary of such work from home scams. Normally, a job won’t come with a fee, so never send money up front to people or companies who claim they can give you work at home. If you are interested in an advertised work from home job do some research into the company and contact them with your questions. A legitimate company will be very glad to speak with you and give you as much information as you require.

Beware the Scammer

One of the more common ones involves adverts about addressing and stuffing envelopes which ask for a registration fee. If you pay the fee, all you get in return is advice to place adverts like the one you saw, but no actual work. Another type will ask you for money for home assembly kits, promising your money back and additional payment for the kits that you complete. The advertiser will pocket any money you send and then claim the kit you assembled didn’t meet the necessary standards. If you feel that you have been the victim of such a scam, you will need to inform your local Trading Standards Department – be insistent with them too. Sometimes you can get passed from pillar to post, insist that someone takes responsibility for your complaint, after all it’s their duty and they do have this responsibility to you.

Three Legitimate Companies

I’d like to discuss three of the more well known work from home companies in the UK. All involve catalogues, but all have different business models. No doubt you will have heard of them, but I’ll give you the names anyway. There’s Kleeneze, Avon and Betterware. All are direct sales companies, that is, there is no middle man between you as a distributor of products and your customers. I believe that Avon and Betterware both operate with territory systems – that is they tell you where to put your catalogues, where as Kleeneze does not – it is up to you.

With Betterware you receive your catalogues from the company at no cost, but you are told how many you need to put out. Avon does charge you for your books as does Kleeneze, but the difference is that with Kleeneze you can put your books anywhere – you build your own territory. I have heard of a lady who was advised by someone from Avon that she could just drop her books out wherever she wanted to. This resulted in nothing more than an irate call from the lady whose Avon territory she’d stepped on. Ouch!

Kleeneze charges an upfront fee to join. Now as I have discussed above, a legitimate company which Kleeneze (like Avon and Betterware) is, will be glad to answer any queries that you have. Furthermore, it is likely, especially with Kleeneze, that you will be joining up with a sponsor, again they will have no problems in discussing the business with you. In many respects there’s something which seems almost shady about some of the methods used by Kleeneze Distributors to encourage enquiries. You may have found a mysterious card on your card, or seen a flyer or even poster – not to mention newspaper ads. This is because upfront mention of the name Kleeneze does put people off. However, if you were to look at the Kleeneze opportunity in any depth you would realise that there is a direct relationship between work done and reward received.

Conclusion

With all three opportunities, as in life really, you don’t get anything for nothing. You have to put in some work, there’s just no way that you’ll make a single penny if you do nowt. I guess what concerns people is whether or not they’re doing the right thing, as doing lots, but of the wrong things gets you the same place as doing nothing. So this leads us back to another question, namely how do we know if we’re doing the right thing. Well dear reader, research is key, as is listening to your own gut instinct, if something feels wrong then it probably is, so leave it alone. Try and make sure that your research is as independent as possible. There are plenty of forums out there and all sorts of people will post on them. People post for various reasons – positive, negative and neutral, so be wary and read as much as you can to get the best possible range of opinions.  Ultimately though, it’s down to you.  Good Luck.

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Work From Home Ideas

There are many reasons why one would wish to work from home. To compliment this, there are probably just as many ideas for what you could do as a home worker. So let’s run through a few:

Work From Home Ideas 1. Run Your Own Website

In this day and age, the internet seems to be a good place to try and earn a living from home. But what should you do on the internet? Well, this is the first point at which I think that you should take stock of the situation and think very carefully. Be wary, there are a million (should that be billion?) and one opportunities out there, and everyone is the best. A good rule of thumb is that if something seems too good to be true, then it probably is.

The internet has become an extension of our day to day lives. Therefore, you should think about your skills and interests and use these as basis for your self employment idea. Even if initially this is just a hobby or an extension of your hobby then go with it, see where it takes you.

Here’s a slightly odd example, but please bear with me. What if you’re really good at ironing. You know, you can get creases in trousers that nobody else could even dream of. Well apart from offering your services, doing people’s ironing for them, you could write a website about ironing, documenting the history of the iron, developments in the technology of ironing boards, that sort of thing. With carefully placed adverts you can make money as people come to your website to learn about ironing, see an ad that takes their fancy, click on it and voila, there’s a small commission for you. You don’t need to know everything about the web or how to build a website, there are plenty of sites out there that can give you the platform, Blogger.com is a good place to start.

Work From Home Ideas 2. Sell Stuff On eBay

eBay claims that $1,900 worth of goods is traded every second worldwide on their myriad sites around the world. Surely some of that would look good on your bank statement? Stick to what you know – irons, ironing boards and other ironing board paraphernalia in our case. Even if irons and ironing are not your thing, think about all the junk that you have in your house. Your junk could be just what somebody else’s heart desires.

Work From Home Ideas 3. Write Articles Or Other Copy For Websites

Want to tell the world about irons and ironing boards? Well if you don’t fancy doing it on your own website, why not do it for others. Or if writing really isn’t your forte, why not compile a list of all iron manufactrers or do some web searches and compile a list of websites related to irons or ironing. Believe it or not, this may well be a useful resource (just remember irons and ironing is a silly example that I have made up).

Work From Home Ideas 4. Use Your Hobbies Or Skills

As I mentioned above, why not offer to do other people’s ironing. Many people absolutely abhor the idea of spending even a minute ironing. If you’re good at it and you enjoy it, why not take this burden off others who don’t. It’s not like you’d offer to do it for free – LOL. Of course ironing is just the tip of the iceberg. There’s all sorts of things you could do, from mowing lawns to walking dogs, delivering leaflets to childcare, baking, knitting – the list is only limited by your imagination.

Work From Home Ideas 5. Door To Door Catalogues

Arghh! I hear you cry. I can’t do that, imagine the shame of it. Well if you need a few extra pennies, this line of work, with the right company could be very rewarding. The beauty of this type of work is that you don’t have to be a sales-man or -woman. The catalogues will do the selling for you. In the UK there are three major catalogue opportunities – Avon, Kleeneze or Betterware. Each has its own merits and drawbacks, you can easily research them all with a quick Google search.

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