Work At Home Business Opportunities Weblog
Yes, you CAN legally print your own “money” at home.
I’m not talking about direct mail, creating printed information products, sales letters or other ideas associated with “printing your own money at home”.
Instead I’m talking about IRS sanctioned local currencies.
The Grand Daddy of such currencies here in the U.S. is the “Ithaca Hour”.
It was started so people could barter their time, skills, and resources locally.
As long as ordinary sales taxes and income taxes are paid on the transactions, these
currencies are legal.
Could you start your own local currency to help jump start your town’s economy?
If you choose too, there’s lots of practical information from this site.
As the impetus for this program in your locality which could be run on a relatively efficient home computer, obviously you’ll barter your administrative time and expenditures for a fair share of the new local currency!
They even have their own online comic book like explanation called “We print our own money in Ithaca!”
If you can wade through the goody-two-shoes socialist rhetoric that occasionally pops out, this
could be a great way to make some money while helping your local economy pick up speed.
Just remember it’s as much a calling as a business venture!
(Click the image or here for more information.)
Though network marketing has been a work at home choice in the US for a generation, it’s just now
catching on in India.
From the Deccan Herald
All of 60 and no signs of slowing down. Jayanti aka Jay Mackay is as active as an ant. Sitting in the comfort of her swanky office room, Jay plays around with terms like referral marketing or hybrid marketing (as she prefers to put it) and deals with her colleagues, whom she calls her grandchildren, tactfully.
Referral marketing or network marketing, as it is popularly called, is not a new concept. But it had taken quite sometime to sink in among the Indian audience. Even now, it is not a preferred profession among the youngsters in India.
Jay, who had spent her prime in Canada, says that the situation is completely different abroad. It is considered as a very lucrative business among foreigners.
Jay feels the difference lies in the temperament of the people. “Indians, by nature, look for easy returns. Moreover, our mind is not open to new concepts. Indians are good entrepreneurs. But it will definitely take some time to catch up,� Jay, an advisor to Clearock, says.
With a BE from Indian Institute of Science and Masters from Canada to her credit, Jay says her career objective has always been to acquire personal, financial and time freedom.
Achieving financial freedom at a very early stage in her career, she dabbled in the managerial scene as well and even acquired key to the executive washrooms. It is at this point of time that she was introduced to a rather new concept called network marketing.
Though she was reluctant to take it up immediately, after some research, she decided to try her luck by joining Quorum in 1993.
In 1996, she came back to India and started a company called Quantum, an offshoot of Quorum.
She left the company and joined as a consultant at Clearock in 2004. Clearock Enterprises (www.clearock.in) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Clearock Inc. USA, that deals with life-enhancing and innovative value products at the same time give an opportunity to the entrepreneurs who will share in the collective growth and prosperity.
Jay says she is looking for a team of focussed entrepreneurs, who would be interested in taking this venture many steps ahead. “What we do at Clearock cannot be called network marketing because unlike other similar ventures, we are not looking at building up the network but selling the product,� she says.
Jay says referral marketing, if done in an honest, ethical way, will give any one, even a housewife, a chance to be financially independent. Considering the amount of experience and exposure she has left behind in her decade-long career, we have to take her words seriously.
Statistics show that the “sweet spot” for flipping a property (not a human being) is three to six months.
From Real Estate Journal
Question: I recently bought a home priced below market. I tried to sell it right after closing escrow. I received an offer the next day and we opened escrow right away. After two weeks, I was contacted by my broker telling me that I couldn’t sell my house right away and that I have to wait three months before putting it back into the market. Is this accurate? The escrow was cancelled and I need to know if my broker is right.
Answer: As far as I know, there is no law or regulation that prevents anyone from purchasing a house one day and selling it the next, a process known as “flipping.”
Some builders have clauses in their sales contracts that prohibit buyers from putting their houses back on the market for a period of time after closing — usually a year. Whether such clauses are enforceable has yet to be proven.
If you bought a new house, your agent may have been correct, or at least prevented you from winding up in court to test your rights. But if you purchased an existing home, I’d love to hear the agent’s explanation as to why you couldn’t resell right away.
That said, a new research study by Christopher Cagan, an unusually glib economist who is director of research at First American Real Estate Solutions, indicates your agent may have been doing you a favor. As it turns out, the “sweet spot” for flippers is between three and six months. Hold a house any shorter or longer than that and you won’t do nearly as well.
Of course, we’re not talking about scam artists who use false information to buy a house. Rather, we’re talking about savvy investors who purchase distressed or undervalued properties, raise their value by making repairs or even remodeling or simply taking advantage of a hot and getting-hotter housing market.
In New Jersey, the most recent census indicated that 106,000 - 2.7% of the population - work from home.
Nationwide the number is expected to jump to 15 million by 2008.
Most work at home entrepreneurs highlighted in the article are not employed using the “packaged” business opportunities so popular online or in home business magazines.
From the NJ Start Ledger…
Here’s the context of that question.
I was on a discussion group for folks interested in operating Collection Agencies. The founder of the group had actually started her own agency from home and now helps others do that.
Someone posed the question… “What about collecting child support?”
I happen to know the county deputy assigned to the district attorney’s child support division here so I am answering this question based on information “straight from the horse’s mouth”…
1. You must realize that enforcing child support orders is now a well funded government bureacracy complete with a district attorney assigned to this one specific task in each county or region. Why? It’s a way for the government to reduce welfare expenditures… for folks wanting “family assistance” here in TN, one’s required to let the D.A. collect child support. No child support enforcement, no “family assistance”.
2. The penalty for not paying is jail time. And it’s used so frequently here one judge called the child support law “a life sentance served 6 months at a time” for some who fall hopelessly behind. They assume that all folks behind on child support really have wads of cash and 6 months’ jail time will drag it out of them. Many times it doesn’t. It’s America’s last vestige of the debtor’s prison.
3. Professionals and others who can avoid the jail time face the inability to renew professional and business licenses and the inability to renew their passports until they pay up. Probably commercial driver’s licenses are up for grabs too… anything that bites at the other person’s ability to move or make a living are fair game.
State and federal tax refunds are regularly intercepted and wage and unemployment benefits garnishments are routine.
So my question is… what debt collection agency can really apply more leverage than this (legally)? Nobody.
But there’s more that makes this an insane proposition in my estimation.
Once a child support order of enforcement has been filed, the person paying MUST pay through the local state office. There are no exceptions.
If a person owing child support tries to get around this provison and pays the other person cash (even if they get a receipt from them) or pays by check, the district attorney’s office is allowed to consider these GIFTS and prosecute the person for the full amount!
Now, how do child support collection agencies work?
On commission… usually 25% to 50%.
So - at least in my state and I’ll bet YOUR STATE soon if not already - someone paying a collection agency a past due child support payment will
1. Not have ANY part of their payment credited
2. May be able to SUE the collection agency for presuming to collect on this debt when in the cases outlined above the only entity entitled to collect is a government agency.
One person on the list said they ran an ad for this service, got a lot of calls, and then asked “what do I do now?”
Please, check with your local district attorney before you get yourself in big trouble and expose yourself to liability for collecting a payment that cannot be legally credited for purposes of absolving the debtor and for which the state will likely resent your commission being subtracted.
I was working at a Disaster Assistance Center yesterday for persons who have left their homes due to Hurricane’s Katrina and Rita.
I was reminded that home business entrepreneur’s are being displaced too.
I got to speak with a single mom who’d worked a flex time job for a local chamber of commerce in the affected area.
As the conversation unfolded, it turned out that here “salary and benefits job” was at the chamber. It was a flex time position, so she also had a straight commission job helping new businesses set up credit card processing.
We’re in a rather rural area, so we wondered how she got here… she hadn’t mentioned any relatives nearby.
“Oh, I’m a travel agent and I logged on to my travel website and started looking for places that could accomodate me and my friends so our kids can start back in school together.”
A travel agent with her own website too…
And blazing the trail for a pack of other folks.
I’m sure she’ll be a credit to any community she chooses.
Of the folks I saw yesterday, I’ll bet she has one of the best chances of “bouncing back”.
Not just because she’s a home business person, but because she’s an entrepreneur and WORKS at her home business.
Many in the biz opp world just think about working at their business.
In “Ethical MLM Part 2” I warned about how the creation of “proprietary” can simply be a ruse for padding the price.
Another way to determine whether the program is legitimate is this… are you told, up front, that your success depends on selling to end users.
I can’t commend Kevin Anderson, founder of a network marketing company, enough for posting this article called “The Secret”
The secret? Learn to be a salesperson; and sell [our] products and services in your community.
Selling is not a dirty word. With the tools and technology [our program] provides you for FREE; virtually anybody can become a top salesperson and earn a six figure annual income. You can do it with NO downline. You can do it yourself. You can become self-reliant; and unlike the pyramidal businesses some people try to build within [our company]; EVERY agent who is willing to make the effort can be successful.
Can your prospective MLM survive the “Secret” test?
Here’s how to know…
Determine the income you want to make monthy.
Determine the average commission you earn per sale.
Calculate the number of sales you must make monthly to reach your goal.
Factor in recurring commissions by determining the average length of time someone uses your service.
Knowing the lifetime value of a customer, you can determine how much to spend to acquire those customers.
Note: If you can’t make a superior living just with end user sales, your prospective MLM is probably a scam.
Here’s an interesting discussion thread about a beginner seeking to make money with Google Adsense at Phil Wiley’s forum.
His site’s 6 weeks old and he’s getting 30 visitors per day.
Frankly, I’d say that’s excellent.
Once you get the first click from an Adsense customer, you won’t turn back.
If you can get the first click, the main task is repeating the process.
If your cost for hosting a website is covered, then anything over your monthly cost is good. Your next task is to create more pages and/or more sites.
In an old book of classified advertising, I remember reading that if your classified ad made a profit of even $1 per ad after the cost of the ad, product production, shipping and overhead then your next job was to find more advertising venues that would allow you to make a profit every time you ran an ad.
The same thing goes here…
Basically, I launched the site 6 weeks ago, and I now get an average of 30 unique visitors per day (I used to get around 5/day for the first 2/3 weeks).
I also got one affiliate sale after just 2 weeks, but nothing else yet - however it was enough to motivate me to keep building my site!
Now, in the first 3 weeks, I made around $3.50 from adsense, and now, in the past 3 weeks I’ve made $18.32, which is not much but not too bad (I think at least!). So I am now making around $1-$2 daily from google adsense.
For more information on proper adsense ad placement, consult Adsense Secrets
Google’s Adword program is the favorite of low budget marketers because it allows pay per click bids as low as 5 cents per click.
With a 1% conversion ratio and 5 cent clicks, your customer acquisition cost is just $5.00 per customer.
If you have a product with a $10 profit per sale and a mechanism to sell additional products, that’s quite a cheap way to build a business!
But Google has thrown a monkey wrench into the works for many and they’re being accused of price gouging.
Their new “quality scoring” means that for popular keywords with high bids, your 5 cent bid may be history.
Each keyword now has a minimum bid that is based on the quality (also called Quality Score) of your keyword specific to your account. If your keyword or Ad Group’s maximum cost-per-click (CPC) meets the minimum bid, your keyword will be active and trigger ads. If it doesn’t, your keyword will be inactive and not trigger ads.
One solution is to find more related keywords is to use a service like WordTracker to uncover keywords related to your products and services that your competitors may have overlooked.
This may restore those 5 cent bids with a bit of effort.
Sign up for a test drive WordTracker and see for yourself!
From Google’s Help Center on “Why are my keywords being disabled?”
From Small Business Computing
The national chain has just announced its CompUSA Network for Business, a loyalty-based marketing program aimed squarely at the small office/home office (SOHO) market — a $70 billion demographic according to CompUSA’s Mark Anderson, director of loyalty marketing.
“SOHO is a growing market with important customers for CompUSA. This program helps us do an even better job of meeting their needs and forging a closer relationship,” he said.
The program lets you earn points on purchases you make at CompUSA stores, which you can then exchange for various rewards. “ConnectPoints are the way our members earn rewards. Members earn 13 points on virtually every dollar spent at CompUSA in-store, online or by phone,” said Anderson. “CompUSA Network For Business members can earn a $10 reward after spending as little at $177, or they can choose to let those points accumulate.”
A one time fee of $19.99 ($29.99 after the initial marketing period) is required to join.
