Legitimate Work From Home Opportunities – Understanding What Is Real And What Is Not
When investigating legitimate work from home opportunities, people often get confused about what they are searching for.
Most are searching for a “job” what they usually turn up is a business idea, company, or some other method to make money from home.
Unfortunately there are many, many websites out there posing as a legitimate work from home opportunity that are nothing more than an attempt to separate someone from their money. So with this in mind, let us investigate what is a legitimate opportunity and what is commonly referred to as a “scam.”
1. The “Job” Opportunity
A legitimate work from home job opportunity will involve and employer and some type of set work in exchange for pay for that work. The work has to be measurable, on a clock, or something in order to know how you are getting paid.
For instance, there are many call center opportunities that have come up. These are jobs that allow you to work from home fielding calls (or making outbound calls) for a company. I’ve never dealt with these, but I am certain they measure your work and pay you accordingly.
Work must also be for something that seems legitimate. I’ll discuss “stuffing envelopes to make money” in a bit, but if it sounds like something a machine should be doing instead of a human, it is probably not a legitimate job opportunity.
2. The “Business” Opportunity
Now that we know what the job is, lets talk about the business. First, assume anything paid on commission is a business and not a job. In other words, if you are being offered a guaranteed exchange of time for money, then you are being offered (most likely) a business opportunity.
Most businesses on the Internet work on either the network marketing, direct sales, or affiliate sales.
Direct sales is when you sell a product to a consumer and you get paid a commission which is the difference between retail and wholesale. Often times you will have to stock product to sell. You make money on what you sell only.
Network Marketing often involves direct sales incorporated into building an organization sales agents. You get paid on the sale of a legitimate product or service to a consumer as well as sales of a legitimate product or service sold by those in your sales organization.
This model has been used by industries before, such as insurance, but often gets a bad rep due to the amount of people that fail. Unfortunately, what critics fail to point out is that failure is not always the fault of the company but 99.9% of the time the fault of the individual. Not everyone is meant to be a business owner, and network marketing is no different.
Finally there is affiliate marketing, which is very similar to direct sales. Most times affiliate marketing is 100% online selling a digital product. Successful affiliate marketers often make their own products which they sell or develop it into an affiliate opportunity that engages others to sell the product for them and paying them a flat amount per sale.
All of these three are legitimate work from home opportunities. But often times what I am about to discuss will look like either a legitimate job or a legitimate business.
3. The “Lose Money” Opportunity
The “Lose Money” opportunity exist solely to remove money from your pocket and put it in the pocket of greedy individuals we affectionally call “scammers.”
They often look like a job, such as stuffing envelopes. You get offered an amount per evenlope returned that you stuffed. But what usually happens is they charge you to start and teach you how to offer the same opporutnity to others. The money you make from stuffing envelopes is money that others pay to learn how to stuff envelopes!
So how do you spot a legitimate opportunity? Look for a product, or look for time exchange. If there is not a real product to sell to consumers (people NOT in the business) then it is a scam. If there is no pay for work done measured by the work done, then run.
I could write a TON on this subject, but its been beat to death online. I just wanted to write a bit on my perspective on it all.
First, I believe that a business is the way to go in today’s economy. With layoffs around the corner for anyone, building a business can help offset any surprises that you may get at work. Now, don’t let it interfer with work, but build your business after hours to help provide stability.
And I believe network marketing to be a great business model to build. I believe it so much that I am currently building a network marketing business.
You can always contact me to know what it is or dig through my blog.
I also promote affiliate opportunities. I’ve talked about one coming up that I’m very excited about that pays very, very well.
But the bottom line is, I am taking charge of my financial future instead of leaving it solely up to my employer. And neither should you.
So know what you are looking for with a legitimate work from home opportunity, build it, protect yourself, and build your dream.
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