Woring from Home

There are very, very few work-at-home situations that really allow you to make a reasonable income. The best option is to work for a company for years and after you have a baby ask if work-at-home options exists. Some insurance companies and other large organzations with significant phone / online customer service needs offer at home jobs but from what I can tell the people who get those jobs are those who've worked for the company in their offices for a long time. Good luck mama.

I just googled it. A lot of articles saying its bogus. Good luck.

Please be careful when you are looking at the MLM/direct sales, etc. There are a lot of bogus things out there to attempt to trap you.

The working at home post comes up often and you will be hit up by the MLM/direct sales people on here. If that is what you want, read everything carefully and tread carefullly into it. It is high pressure sales, recruiting, etc and depending on the product not many programs have consistant sales. EX: there is just so much pampered chef you need, etc. and people get tired of parties.

That said, working at home is WORK. You do not get paid to watch your children. We run our company from home and there is no way I could do it with children under foot. I have to be spot on 100% accurate or I could cost us thousands of dollars. We are not MLM/direct sales, we are raw materials (plastic) and deal with major companies in buying/selling/recycling plastics for manufacturing.

Some companies do allow telecommuniting but it is usually established employees who they know have strong work ethic. Most companies still require child care for working at home.

You can't reasonably work on the phone and have children, pets in the background making noise. You have to have a professional environment. You have to be self motivated, self disciplined for it to work.

Think outside the box and don't rely on sales gimmicks to suck you in and make you think you will make a fortune working at home. Some people do well with MLM but they are working it 24/7 recruiting others, etc.

Think about babysitting, working part time at night so hubby can watch children, sell things you don't need on craigslist or EBay, etc.

Best wishes.

Like I said... You'll be hit up with beautifully worded responses with no info other than " contact me personally for more info". Red flag warning!!!!

Any place that makes you PAY THEM to work for them? Scam in my book. Especially when they say "hurry!!! we have 2 places left for this great deal!!!"

I'm sorry - but working from home is WORKING. You can find legitimate sites out there. I work from home. I recruit. But I WORK!!! i'm not playing around. My kids are older and pretty self-sufficient so I don't need to be on them like white on rice.

I know there are people that have tried http://www.hiremymom.com - I have NOT personally used it. So I can't tell you anything about it. There are companies that do have consultants/customer service agents that work from home - however - again - YOU ARE WORKING. That means they don't want to hear dogs barking in the background nor do they want to hear kids screaming/playing.

I hope you find what you are looking for.

GOOD LUCK!

MLM/direct sales is an old an honorable industry - but that doesn't mean every company in it does a good or honorable job! There are good movies/bad movies, good restaurants/bad restaurants, honest insurance agents/bogus insurance agents. Fuller Brush is an old company, Tupperware and Avon started in direct sales, Mary Kay is well known.

If you have to pay a lot of money up front, it's not honest. If you have to purchase inventory, make sure there is a one-year buy-back (e.g. 90% with a 10% restocking charge). If annual "dues" are $25 or $50, that's okay but not thousands of dollars.

The best, most ethical MLM companies are invited into the Direct Selling Association. Only about 200 of the 5000+ companies in the US are invited in after a year of scrutiny, interviews with their distributors, open books and all that.

Among the DSA members, make sure that you have a product that is consumable (so people want to buy every month and you aren't constantly looking for new customers). Make sure you can bring on as many distributors below you as you want - if you can only sponsor 2 people and they sponsor 2 people, etc., that's a binary system. You will never make any money. If you can only sell through parties, it's very time consuming. It might be a good company, might not.

Consumable products include food, nutritional supplements and, to some degree, cosmetics/skin care. But they have to be unique and in demand. Luxury items, or items that only appeal to a segment of the population, are more difficult. Baskets, jewelry, kitchen gadgets, craft/scrapbooking supplies, children's toys - they may be wonderful (and I buy some myself!) but ask yourself if everyone needs them and if they need them every month. It's hard to make a living with something that people buy a lot of before Christmas and then don't buy again for months. That doesn't mean it's not an honest business - it just means it's got a difficult product to sell.

If you have to constantly recruit new customers, you cannot make much money. If you can work with customers and distributors at various levels, and if you never lose distributors who come up to your profit level (some companies call them "breakaways" because you work to recruit & train but then they ultimately can leave your downline and start their own), and if you can make money in various ways (e.g. 5 different avenues), if bonuses are available to new people and long-timers alike, then you have something.

If there is a business guarantee, free training, and the opportunity to attend training for free before you decide, you're on the right track. If you can sell in other countries, that's great. If you can have people under you that you've never met, that's good too.

Let me know if you want more guidelines.