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| Name: Jubilee | Date: Feb 6th, 2008 8:24 AM |
| Hi. I just came across this forum and I have been looking for opportunities to work at home. I have been afraid of actually trying anything because of all the scams out there and some opportunities seem like you could not make make very much money. I did see a talk show not to long ago and it was talking about a company that was legit for working at home. I think it was called Working Solutions. I think they were based in Plano, Texas. Basically it provides Fortune 1000 companies with sales and customer service support using remote home based agents. They help consumers with travel, health care and consumer products. (www.workingsol.com) I have heard of another good company for working at home called LiveOps. You just handle incoming calls like questions from shoppers buying products. (www.liveops.com) Has anyone worked with any of these two companies? ↑ |
| Name: homemommichele | Date: Feb 6th, 2008 9:28 AM |
| Nope, I have done Work at Home United for almost 3 years. Mia Bella for 2. And some small others for about a year or so for extra advertising small change. Have not heard anything about those you just mentioned. That is another very good way to check things out though, develop relationships online with other wahm's and ask around!! ↑ |
| Name: maxieellis | Date: Feb 6th, 2008 9:43 AM |
| Hey Michele......really well explained if ya were askin me lol. I read it all and i think it address things that run through peoples minds anyway. Provides a clear avenue of thinking on issues like this. I think something (at least for me) that might hinder some people is HOW do you go about the advertising part. HOW do you get 'past' feeling like every friend you ever had NEEDS to have your business card.......and 'past' feeling uncomfortable about.....informing and handing that very sort of information out. Too, so many of the ladies here say for instance......are sort of in positions where they really dont get out that much. Either for health issues, family issues, financial issues, lololol.......children...or just location. In other words....how do you build that customer base.....in these cases....enough to make it profitable for them? ↑ |
| Name: Jubilee | Date: Feb 6th, 2008 9:52 AM |
| Hi Maxieelliss! I understand what you are saying! A lot of working at home opportunites require you to be a sales person which is not my style at all. That is why I am currently researching companies like working solutions and live ops. It seems as though you do not have to be involved in any sales work. You just provide a service for really well established companies that contract some of their work out. Here is a really good article on these companies. Job opening? Work-at-home moms fill bill By Stephanie Armour, USA TODAY Like many stay-at-home moms, Christie Thomas spends much of the day doting on her daughter, reading her stories, making her lunch and putting her down for afternoon naps. But Thomas is among a new generation of moms who have chosen to stay at home but earn an income, too. She's a loan officer and independent contractor for Pacific West Financial, doing loan work and research while Carlyjo, age 2, sleeps or watches TV. She also gets some work done after her husband, a teacher, gets home from work. "It's very lucrative," says Thomas, 33, of Morgan Hill, Calif., who also manages other loan officers. "You do have to manage your time very well. I can work in my pajamas." Many moms are redefining the stay-at-home experience by using today's technology — and employers' growing reliance on free agents — to earn an income without ever setting foot in an office. These home-based working moms — known as mompreneurs or WAHMs, which stands for work-at-home-moms — also represent an increasingly attractive labor pool for employers, allowing companies to outsource domestically instead of hiring workers overseas. They're moms such as Alyson Struwe, 41, of Beaver, Pa. The at-home mother of three fields calls from her office for LiveOps, a call-center company whose independent agents work from home. "I can still feel I'm a productive member of society and bring in an income, but my children have never gotten off the bus and not had a parent there," Struwe says. "How many parents can say that?" Agents for the Palo Alto, Calif.-based LiveOps handle incoming calls, such as inquiries from shoppers buying products. They have more than 3,000 agents in 48 states. Many are work-at-home moms. In a poll of its agents, LiveOps found nearly 55% are mothers with children who are school age or younger and at home at least part time. Fifty-four percent say they're working to supplement household income. "It's tough today to have a mom stay at home and not earn any income," says Bill Trenchard, CEO. "We make it flexible around their lifestyle. They schedule when and how they work. We have a lot of moms who decide to do this as a home-based business. "The Internet has opened these new opportunities." Setting their hours Other companies are also capitalizing on stay-at-home moms. Working Solutions, based in Plano, Texas, provides Fortune 1000 companies with sales and customer service support using remote, home-based agents. They help consumers with travel, health care and consumer products. The company has more than 28,000 agents. About 80% have some college education. Agents generally earn $10 to $14 an hour. Agents set their hours. Says Scott Anderson of Working Solutions: "We have moms and single moms who want to be at home for their kids. We expect no pets, no kids, when you're on the phone. With broadband at home, companies can save money. That drives the movement to working at home." There are no statistics on the number of work-at-home moms, but there are more than 10 million female-owned businesses in the USA, according to the National Association of Women Business Owners. Work at Home Moms (www.wahm.com), an online magazine for mothers who work at home, notes that the phenomenon is growing as more businesses tap this growing labor pool. The labor-force participation rate of women ages 25 to 54 with at least four years of college declined from 84.7% in 1994-95 to 81.8% in 2003-04, and the decline was most pronounced for married women with children under age 3, according to Regional Review, a publication of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. "There are more mothers working for companies, doing call-center work," says Cheryl Demas, in Folsom, Calif., at Work at Home Moms (WAHM). She now gets 15,000 to 20,000 hits on her Web site a day, double the number from a year ago. "Economically, it makes a lot of sense," she says. "(Businesses) don't have to set up large call centers." She also warns that some moms can be preyed on by scam operations that try to get victims to send in money in order to do work from home. The job never materializes. Technology helps The ability of at-home moms to earn an income is also being driven by technology such as high-speed Internet access, the increase in home computers and a greater willingness by cost-conscious companies to rely on free agents rather than hiring full-time staff. Brenda Gruss, 51, of Chevy Chase, Md., works as a lawyer — handling criminal law, immigration and related work from her home office so she can spend more time with her three children, ages 19, 14 and 10. She says there can be some challenges. "With the new technology, it's harder to separate work life from home life," Gruss says. "The kids are doing homework, and I'll work on my computer." The work-at-home moms might work irregular hours, after their husbands come home from work or when their children are in school. They often work as independent contractors; most don't get health benefits. Networking services for this labor pool are also growing. Home-based working moms are organizing their own business conferences, and many glean business tips from others through Web sites devoted to making money while staying at home with children. Find this article at: http://www.usatoday.com/money/jobcente r/2005-07-19-call-center-moms-usat_x.htm ↑ |
| Name: maxieellis | Date: Feb 6th, 2008 10:07 AM |
| Hi Jubilee. Good article. Yes, a sales person ....to my friends..for some reason...im not comfortable with. I may need....another way to begin looking at it. That may help. After that.....back to the how do you build a customer base....without having to go 'door to door' if you will. If we could sort out some of these issues..........it might help others. Thanks again for the article. ↑ |
| Name: Jubilee | Date: Feb 6th, 2008 10:14 AM |
| You are so right Maxieellis! I am researching these opportunities and really considering jumping in and making money from home. I am just not a sales type of person. I am going to contact the Better Business Bureau and see if LiveOps and Working solutions are reputable. I really like the idea of not having to sell products and just providing a service. Anytime online sales are involved I get suspicious because there are so many scammers out there. I have even heard of pyramid schemes. Some of these companies put emphasis on recruiting others to join the program, not on selling the product. Everyone who joins has to pay a fee for product samples and new recruits who make the investment to buy product samples keep money coming into the system, but very few products are sold. Sooner or later the people on the bottom are stuck with a saturated market, and they cannot make money by selling products or recruiting. When the whole system collapses, only a few people at the top have made money—and those at the bottom have lost their investment. ↑ |
| Name: Jubilee | Date: Feb 6th, 2008 10:27 AM |
| Actually one big work at home opportunity I have read alot about is called Melaleuca. They sell alot of the tree oil stuff. I understand it to be a pyramid scheme. This article is from Forbes! If You Believe By Phyllis Berman Put your faith in thrift, hard work and Melaleuca's household products and you can better your lot in life. Also Frank VanderSloot's. Frank L. VanderSloot sells items like Classic Tooth Polish ($3 a tube), Replenex (90 glucosamine pills for $10) and Nicole Miller Timeless Age Defying Serum ($18 a bottle). He doesn't hit the road himself to ring doorbells. At 56, his sales days are far behind him. He leaves the pitching to an army of part-time hucksters who sell these and 350 other household and "health" products for Melaleuca, his privately held firm in Idaho Falls, Idaho. Melaleuca is a pyramid selling organization, built along the lines of Herbalife and Amway. Vendors get commissions on the products they sell and also on products sold by vendors they recruit. From a near-standing start 19 years ago, VanderSloot has built his firm up to an expected $620 million in volume this year, roughly half of that to be paid out to the vendors as commissions. A few of them make a very good living off Melaleuca; most do not. Enough of the money lands at the top that VanderSloot's 50% share of the business, we estimate, is worth $700 million. "This is not a get-rich-quick scheme," says the entrepreneur, referring to what his sales force can make, though he insists that the income of a hard-working "marketing executive" can still "make a real difference to a family earning $30,000," he says. Such talk sounds patronizing--until you realize that VanderSloot seems to believe his own sermon. Ever since he took over what was then a small and poorly managed company in 1985, he has preached (and practiced) frugality: Live within your means, he frequently tells his sales force, pay off your debts, think twice about that new car. You see it reflected in the 36,000-square-foot headquarters, a two-story concrete affair (and former hardware store) in a strip mall. And, in a departure from many multilevel marketing schemes, VanderSloot is insistent about not burdening new recruits with huge startup costs or a garageful of inventory. Everyone buys a $29 kit, crammed with sales materials for demonstrations as well as VanderSloot's motivational tips, and signs up to buy a minimum of $45 a month worth of Melaleuca wares--from a $2 Hot Shot, a breath spray, to a $30 bottle of ProVec CV, a grape seed extract that supposedly reduces LDL, the bad cholesterol. (VanderSloot says anyone can opt out of the $45 commitment.) Most of the items have a health or environmental flavor to them, like sunscreen with Vitamin E or phosphate-free detergent. VanderSloot is pretty up-front about how tough it is for most salespeople to earn any money. And unlike, say, Amway, Melaleuca tells its new recruits that they're starting out as customers on the bottom of a towering pyramid. There are approximately 150,000 of these participants, buying the soaps and potions for themselves but not yet making any significant sums from their 7% commissions (350,000 people are pure customers). As they move up the rungs, though, they can see some revenue, because they get 7% as well on sales by vendors they have recruited (the chain of commissions extends to seven levels). It appears that there are 30,000 or so serious players near the bottom averaging $1,750 a year in commissions. The big bucks, of course, go to those who sign a large number of disciples who go on to recruit other vendors. Senior directors, as they're called, have 650 customers in their network, of whom 25 or so are actively recruiting. Executive directors claim 2,400 or more customers, with perhaps 90 of them on the proselytizing trail. This crew of veterans, of whom there are 359, can expect $186,000 a year in commissions plus $1,000 a month from Melaleuca toward their automobile costs. Leading producers: three presidential directors who got commissions topping $1 million in 2003. VanderSloot thinks five people will scale those heights this year. Before VanderSloot bought into the company, it subsisted on a handful of products tied to the melaleuca, or "tea tree" of Australia. Discovered in New South Wales in 1922, the melaleuca sprouts leaves that supposedly have antiseptic and analgesic properties. Colleagues at Cox Communications, where VanderSloot was a regional vice president, were so skeptical of his move that as a parting gesture they set up a tree and strung tea bags from it. VanderSloot soon discovered the company's putative 80% ownership of the tea trees in Australia was really more on the order of 5%. Moreover, Melaleuca's claims about the health benefits of oil extracted from the leaves of the trees were a bit shaky. And distributors were griping about being forced to purchase large amounts of inventory that piled up in their garages. VanderSloot shut down the company, purchased its inventory, trademarks and product recipes and rechristened it Melaleuca. Half his 1,000 distributors quit. Reason: They couldn't pass along tons of inventory to salespeople below them in their networks, thereby depriving the earlycomers of quick profits. "At the beginning it was just me and some ladies in the office," he recalls. To rebuild the business, VanderSloot created an R&D department that evolved into a 20-person staff, including three Ph.D. chemists. The company has racked up nine U.S. patents--from inhibiting adenosine (an enzyme that prevents fat-burning) in an energy bar to the use of benzophenone in a shampoo to protect hair from ultraviolet exposure. VanderSloot insists his salespeople also tout the price advantage of his products. Melaleuca's detergent, for instance, costs 16 cents per load versus 28 cents for Tide ↑ |
| Name: Jubilee | Date: Feb 6th, 2008 10:39 AM |
| Homemommichele, isn't Work At Home United a team of individuals that are all working together to grow their Melaleuca business? Do you make money on referrals? Is it a pyramid scheme? ↑ |
| Name: maxieellis | Date: Feb 6th, 2008 10:54 AM |
| Sorry gals i gotta run. But i am very interested, to get right down to the 'nitty gritty'...and if it helps others in the decision making process .....thats an added bonus. Once you strip away some of the concerns.....too, the uncomfortable affects of involving people you know....then you might well be more inclined to hop aboard. But they are thing that I know I have either wondered myself...or...was not comfortable with. I am mighty busy these days with other things...but I do always welcome cold hard facts.....and encouragement lol! So....ya never know...(that goes for anyone reading huh) but.....these things at least for myself...must be addressed. Take care girls....have a great day! ↑ |
| Name: Jubilee | Date: Feb 6th, 2008 12:42 PM |
| Also homemommichele, is it true that if you become a Mia bella distributor that you have to pay a monthly fee of $39.95 plus shipping. For that money each month you receive a 16oz jar candle of the company's newest fragrance, 1 dozen 2.5oz votives of the same scent, and a body bar soap alternative. Along with the products, you also get a company website? ↑ |
| Name: Jubilee | Date: Feb 6th, 2008 12:58 PM |
| I also looked into the opportunity Jerky direct that you mentioned. Is it true that you are required to pay a monthly fee to be a distributor and as I understand it one of the optional ways of earning money is by enrolling other monthly commitment purchase customers which would mean it is based on a pyramid structure. ↑ |
| Name: kryst | Date: Feb 6th, 2008 1:23 PM |
| Jubilee I also work from home for Arbonne which is a health and wellness company. It costs $29 to start and there is no monthly minimums. I too have done many other wah opps to have them turn out to be a scam. Such as TCN and other survey companies. You can look at Arbonne at www.arbonne.com or email me at karbonne2005@yahoo.com I quit coming here to advertise and talk very often due to that I also homeschool the kiddos and they have been sick. The advice Michele gave about being able to contact your upline I think is extremely important. In the other companies you could only contact your direct and then they had to contact so and so and on up the chain Good Luck in your endeavors! ↑ |
| Name: homemommichele | Date: Feb 6th, 2008 2:16 PM |
| Jubilee. Wow, lots of questions and I don't have time to answer completely right now, need to go get my son from school, but in a nutshell: Yes, what you asked about Mia Bella is correct about the Candle of the Month Program. Also with that you sign up distributors under you. This and Mela are Network Marketing. There is a vast difference from a "pyramid scheme" which is often confused. Pyramid schemes are illegal and have no product. They are simply signing up other people under others and basically a chain letter fashion. Also they have breakaway clauses. Basically illegal and non what we are about. We are no more a pyramid then when you go buy a franchise and have a district manager, regional etc etc above you with they exception that with this you CAN surpass them in earnings. Will post more info later. ↑ |
| Name: homemommichele | Date: Feb 6th, 2008 2:17 PM |
| Name: Jubilee • Date: 02/06/2008 12:58:50 I also looked into the opportunity Jerky direct that you mentioned. Is it true that you are required to pay a monthly fee to be a distributor and as I understand it one of the optional ways of earning money is by enrolling other monthly commitment purchase customers which would mean it is based on a pyramid structure. = Basically all organizations in the corporate world have this "structure" that does not make it a "pyramid scheme". More research later that I have looked up/written, really gotta go!! ↑ |
| Name: homemommichele | Date: Feb 6th, 2008 2:48 PM |
| Here is a good article with basic explanations with links to a few others http://www.profitclinic.com /MLM/boobytraps/pyramid_1.html Any questions let me know and I will try to find answers if I am not sure ↑ |
| Name: homemommichele | Date: Feb 6th, 2008 3:01 PM |
| Or an easy personal experience: I called a number when I was first looking for work at home, I had found it in an RN journal and the ad said "burned out nurses look here" it was an 800 number and I called and left a message, got a call back and they sent me to an info call. I listened, open minded like, however my ears and mind closed when they mentioned the start up price...$1,500!!! As I KNEW I would NEVER be able to come up with that!!!! Now how did the business work? What was the product? "Self improvement tapes" basically you get some sucker to pony up $1,500 and send that to you. You keep $1,000 and send $500 to the company (Liberty League, they have been shut down). They in turn sent the sucker a briefcase full of a few cd's on self improvement and marketing strategies, a pen and a legal pad (I know this because I later met a sucker looking to get out). Then the "home business owner" deposits $1,000 in their bank account and is off to find the next sucker. If the first sucker needs help, advice etc. Does the "mentor" care or need to help??? Of course not!! He gets NO more benifit from the sucker, he's off to find the next one, he's done with that one!! They are off to try to call people and convince THEM to spend $1,500!! The girl I talked to told me she was called some pretty choice names!! Now, What I do. I call people wishing to work from home who have requested info from my website. I talk with them and determine what they are looking for. I take them (with them, not sent alone as I was) to a presentation online or on the phone. I answer all questions. We simply switch stores and buy safer products that we would be buying from the store anyway that in my opinion work better and have stopped my husband and sons asthma and eczema attacks. I then am there for them ALWAYS helping them build their business. Talking to others with them, helping them every single day or as much as they want me, because if they don't get anywhere, I don't either. I hope this helps as this is not just a cut and paste, but my true life experience. ↑ |
| Name: Jubilee | Date: Feb 6th, 2008 4:56 PM |
| If you don't mind me asking, how many people have you been able to add underneath you since you started selling Melaleuca and how much has your income increased since your first year of sales? ↑ |
| Name: homemommichele | Date: Feb 6th, 2008 5:53 PM |
| I make enough for my business to support itself (meaning there is no investment that does not come out of my paycheck every month) except for extra advertising I do, which is why I have those little things. And also to help support my family along with my husbands disability. As for how many under me, I cannot give an accurate count, as with any business there is always attrition. There are some that came and some that went, some enroll a few, and then drop out and their team rolls up under me. I can honestly say I have no idea, as I have not sat down and counted my biz report in awhile. ↑ |
| Name: Jubilee | Date: Feb 6th, 2008 6:06 PM |
| The way I understand it is that Melaleuca customers buy a membership into a wholesale club, in exchange, the club pays its marketing executives for their word of mouth referrals. So do you get paid based on the number people you can get to join the Melaleuca wholesale club. The more people you get to join, the higher your monthly salary? Is Work at Home United a marketer of Melaleuca? ↑ |
| Name: homemommichele | Date: Feb 6th, 2008 6:53 PM |
| That is an oversimplification but sort of. It is a wholesale club of all natural products. I enroll customers, for example my best friend, who has NO interest in building a buisness but is just interested in shopping there..and many others who like organic products. I also enroll business builders, those who are interested in building a business from home, any customer can choose to build a business at any time, or not. If they choose to be a customer, I simply open the account and act as a customer service rep, if they have any questions, or problems I answer them or find out the answer for them. If they choose to build a business, I then partner with them closely (this was very important to me starting out as I was an RN and new NOTHING about business so I so appreciated my mentor) and I am on the phone with them as often as they wish, assisting them with advertising, new contacts, new enrollments...everything. I don't stop until they tell me "Michele, I got it, go away!! " LOL And even then if they EVER EVER have a question, they know they can always come to me. Work at home United is a team with Melaleuca. It is the company we partner with. Melaleuca pays me every month, Frank V signs my paychecks every month. The team provides my website, my training, my workshops, etc etc. It really can get quite confusing for people, and personally I don't know why there are so many different "teams". I I think it is just that especially when it went to being online, some thought they could do it better. I guess the best way to describe it is I work for myself, I advertise for Melaleuca and they pay me to advertise for them. The team is what provides my training and my tools to advertise and train with. ↑ |
| Name: Jubilee | Date: Feb 6th, 2008 8:03 PM |
| Are your friends that enroll just to shop required to spend a certain amount every month? No matter what, is a certain amount of money charged to them every month? ↑ |
| Name: homemommichele | Date: Feb 6th, 2008 8:19 PM |
| To be a member of the wholesale club we purchase 35 product points a month, this is still less than many wholesale clubs such as sams or costco charge. It is no new money and works out with tax and shipping to about $12 a week. Considering gas nowdays that is actually cheaper than would be running to the store and lots more convenient. I personally cannot keep it to that amount as much as I may try. With a hubby and two little boys....I go through 35 product points worth of stuff probably in a week or two!! ↑ |
| Name: Jubilee | Date: Feb 7th, 2008 8:15 AM |
| It seems like to make money you need to be able to recruit new people faster than the old ones quit since your income is based on the amount of people you have working underneath you. So it is really important that people don't quite the program. What is your retention percentage for your distributorship of Melalueca ? I also find it odd that you need to form a team name like Work at Home United and are not allowed to use the company name Melalueca in your sales efforts. ↑ |
| Name: homemommichele | Date: Feb 7th, 2008 9:16 AM |
| Every business, even a denist office has attrition. That is business. That is life. That is why there is advertising because every business is always looking for new customers. Even if you hung up a shingle and made your own product, you would always be looking for new customers to increase your profit. Our monthly reorder rate is 99% which is the highest in the industry. If ANY business in this world does not keep ahead of it's attrition, no business!! We are "supposed" to use the team name. However whenever anyone asks, as you did on here, or anyone asks on the phone or in person, I tell them about the company our team is partnered with. Melas main concern is with all the "teams" out there, they want to control how their name is used. ↑ |
| Name: homemommichele | Date: Feb 7th, 2008 9:54 AM |
| Also, look at it this way, which would you rather have? A mentor that CARES if you succeed and are happy and stick around? Or one like with Liberty League that signs you up, gets your money then really does not care if you quit working or not, as it is no skin off their nose if you quit or not? Personally I would rather partner with someone who cares about my success. Are there mentors out there that care only for what they can get from a person? Sure...but aren't there bosses out there that only care about what kind of work they can get out of you as opposed to caring about you as a person??? Of course!! As with anything there are good and bad ones out there. I am lucky. I have an awesome Mentor, and I aim to be just like her. ↑ |
| Name: Jubilee | Date: Feb 7th, 2008 10:05 AM |
| Is your monthly reorder rate 99% because in order to stay a distributor you have to place a order every month of a certain dollar amount? Are you saying only 1% of participants cancel their memberships? ↑ |
| Name: homemommichele | Date: Feb 7th, 2008 10:41 AM |
| I am saying that Melaleuca's company wide reorder rate is 99%. That means company wide, not one team or one person, 99% of people that shopped last month will shop this month. Yes, people drop off, as with any business, but enough people stay to make the attrition rate company wide an average of 1% per month. ↑ |
