Entrepreneurship | BizSieve.com

Working at Home – Know Your Stuff and Avoid the Scams

Having the opportunity to work from home is a dream for many people. Some people choose remote working as a way to earn a little extra money while looking after their kids, while others opt to work from home so that they can avoid the daily commute, or just structure their work day a little differently to the average 9-5 job.

Because remote working is so popular, this has led to a lot of scams job advertisements cropping up. Job sites do their best to try to remove the scams, but it can be difficult for them to stay on top of the sheer number of job postings that are submitted. If you want to avoid dodgy work-at-home advertisements, try the following tips.

work at home

Remember That Real Jobs Don’t Cost Money

If a job posting asks you to pay money up front, steer clear of it. A real employer would not charge money for training materials or equipment. Never hand over cash when you apply for a work-at-home job. You won’t see that money again.

Don’t Expect to Get Rich

Avoid listings that promise good incomes for part-time hours. Those listings are almost always pyramid schemes, MLM, or something similar. Work at home jobs are still jobs, and you’ll have to put in real work to earn real money.

Read the Advertisement Carefully

Before you apply for any remote working job, make sure you understand exactly how it will work. Many jobs work on a commission basis, or a revenue sharing basis. This doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re a scam, but it does mean that your income isn’t guaranteed. If you need a fixed income to pay the bills, be careful applying for commission related jobs.

Common Scams to Avoid

Until recently, assembly related jobs were a common work-from-home offering. These jobs tend to require fiddly, difficult assembly work. You can expect to work long hours to meet your targets, and will then have a sample of your work quality tested. If any of your work fails the test, you won’t get paid for that batch. Home assembly jobs might sound nice, but you’ll probably do a lot of work for very little money.

Another common remote working scam is data entry. While fast typists can do very well financially from real data entry jobs, in the work-at-home world, data entry is a euphemism for posting spam advertisements on forums and job boards. Your income (if you get any) will probably come from scamming other people into paying to buy the “data entry” start-up kit that you just purchased yourself.

Finding Real Work-at-Home Jobs

The best way to approach the work from home job hunt is not to look for jobs that advertise themselves as “Work from Home”. Instead, treat it like a normal job hunt. Figure out what your marketable skills are, and look for jobs in those areas. Jobs such as tech support, public relations, accounting, and software development all support working from home these days. Look for jobs with well known, reputable employers, and negotiate remote working with them if you want to avoid scammers.

About the Author: This post was written by James Harper on behalf of Maintel the remote working experts.

Image: Eric__I_E / Flickr

Reasons Why People Don’t Buy From a Website

Even if you have a lot of traffic coming to your site, these visitors might not be doing what you want them to on your site. Whether that’s buying a product or filling in an enquiry form, these visitors aren’t converting. Often, website owners will look at this problem and decide what they need is more visitors coming to the site, rather than making the most of the potential customers that are leaving. This can be expensive, especially when you’ve got the potential customers visiting already – you just have to appeal to them a bit more.

This is all about conversion rate optimisation, which can help you get the most out of the potential customers already coming your way. Below are some tips to consider when looking to optimise your site.

Can you find items easily?

If you look at your site as a customer would, can you find things easily? Finding a certain page should be easy and straightforward. Easy to read sign posts that direct people are necessary. If people can’t find exactly what they’re looking for straight away, they’ll look somewhere else.

However, trying to get every link on every page may make the site look a mess and cause more problems than it solves. As long as the directions are there, it should make sense.

Is the information there?

When potential customers have found the page they’re looking on, they’re going to need some information on what they’re looking at. Whether it’s a product or service, the attached description could decide whether they buy from you or someone else.

The description should contain enough information so that a potential customer can decide if it’s right for them, as well as being written in high quality, detailed enough to cover everything and completely unique.

Online, you don’t have the ability to hold an item like you do in a store. The description needs to replace and recreate that feeling, or you won’t give your customers the confidence to buy from you. High resolution images that customers can zoom on to see the items in detail and technical specifications are really good things that should be included on the page too.

Customers need confidence

When it comes to conversion rate optimisation the first thing you need to assess is if customers have enough confidence in your site. Customers will not part with their credit card details on to a site they can’t completely trust, and they’re quite right too as well. With this in mind, it’s important to make sure that you and your site are doing everything you can to gain the customers trust.

Making your website look professional is the first step. The more professional the site looks, the more trustworthy it’ll come across as. It’s also a good idea to make your contact details as open as possible and to not hide them away or refuse to put them on the site at all. Customers will gain confidence if they know you’re approachable and they’re able to contact you should anything not go according to plan.

This post was written on behalf of Boom Online Marketing the conversion rate optimisation experts

The Challenges of Working From Home

Many people believe that working from home is a luxury. Yes, you don’t have to make the commute every day, and yes, you don’t have to deal with those annoying co-workers, but while working from home may save you from the boredom of your cubicle, it still poses the following challenges.

1. Communication Barriers
If you work in an office, and you need to ask a coworker a question, you can simply walk to their office, pop your head in, and get your answer. When you work from home, you rely on other forms of communication, such as email, phone and/or social media. While these are all great ways to communicate, you can end up playing phone tag or waiting all day for an email response. This is fine when the answer you need is not time-sensitive, but it can be extremely frustrating if your deadline is fast approaching and you have a question about an important aspect of the project.

2. Distractions
There are distractions at the workplace, but there are more at home. Those dishes piling up could be driving you crazy. Your dog could be begging you to go for a walk. Your bed is also a short distance away, and would anyone really notice if you took a quick nap?

While you are working in an office, you can focus solely on doing your job. Aside from your co-worker’s drama, there is nothing there to distract you for the entire day like that to-do list around the house.

3. Allocating time appropriately.
If you work from home with a lax schedule, it can be hard to allocate time to complete your work. Maybe you have errands to run during the day that need to be done while the stores are open. Then when you get home, you have to make dinner, and after dinner, you have to help kids with homework. By the time you’re ready to start working for the day, the day is long gone.

4. Lack of social interaction.
Sure you are working in the comfort of your own home, but working by yourself can be depressing. We all enjoy taking that five minute break to talk about last night’s game or discuss social happenings with our coworkers. We get to know each other and build a rapport, and having an adult conversation, no matter how trivial it may be, is good for our social lives. When you work from home, you miss out on that social interaction. You don’t talk to anyone face to face, and you’re left out of the “goings ons” at the office. Plus, think of all those tasty treats you’re missing at those impromptu office parties.

While working from home does have its benefits, it also has its challenges. If you have the choice to work at the office or work from home, consider the pros and cons of both. Working from home may be the gig for you, or maybe you would be more productive in the office.

About the Author: Hillary Fox is a marketing major at the University of Texas with a passion for writing on the side. She is a proud advocate of dining on quick and easy freezer meals. Hillary cannot cook.

The Fine Art of Bidding on Freelance Websites

In the last few years more and more workers have decided to go freelance and work for themselves. This is no surprise, both with the end of the old culture of ‘jobs for life’ and the precarious nature of the economy that makes it difficult to have confidence in your employers to keep your job secure. In addition, the global job market has been revolutionised by the rise of online contracting and freelancing sites where companies and people can outsource jobs that they need for their business and call upon the global workforce of freelancers to do their work for them. Regardless of what field you are employed in, there is a site somewhere that offers freelance work for you. A quick survey of the internet will show you that there are now hundreds of websites concentrated around connecting freelancers and contracts. The most established of these sites are Odesk, SoloGig, Virtual Assistants and Elance. Each of these provide work across all sectors, from Design and Multimedia to Engineering and from Marketing and Sales to Finance or Programming. Whatever your freelance niche, you will be able to find work. The only problem you will face is how to win the contract.

That’s because with so many people across the world also going freelance like yourself, the competition for all these jobs grows every day. No matter how good you are at your job there will always be contractors out there who are as good as you, or someone out there willing to bid lower than you to win the contract. So how do you get yourself a winning bid? Try the following:

(1) Immaculate Presentation – The first thing you should do is ensure that you have a well-written profile that is also immaculately laid out and appealing to the eye. The first place a potential client will look when considering your application is your profile and portfolio. So make it good. Put your very best work in there and outline all of your industry accreditations and qualifications. In addition, there should be a mission statement as to the way you work and a link to your own website and references. This area of the site will be your portfolio, business card and cv all in one place. Make it sparkle so people want to hire you.

(2) Reputation, Reputation, Reputation – The next most important thing to your profile is your reputation. This will be defined by the feedback that you get for every job you do through the site and will mean you are only ever as valuable as the last few jobs you have done. Get a poor review and you will find yourself struggling to get any work. This is why you always have to give 110% to every job you do through an online site – so that you build a reputation as an effective and reliable contractor. Bear in mind one thing as well – when you start out you will have no feedback at all so you will need to bid low for a while in order to win the bid. If you do this and manage to win a bid, make sure you get that all important top quality review for that first job.

(3) Tactical Bidding – There are two things to remember when it comes to bidding. Firstly, only go for those jobs you have a chance of being awarded. Bid on too much and you look desperate (plus you use up all of your credits). Secondly, you need to work out a bidding strategy that suits your work-style. Some people prefer to set themselves a minimum price that they will do a job for and then be the first to bid on a job at that price. The obvious advantage of this is that their bid will be the first one the client reads and will sit at the top of the list, getting the most attention. If the buyer likes your bid they will accept it and end the bidding early. Others prefer a different method, choosing to wait until later in the process. This has the advantage that you are able to watch the bidders before you and then put in a competitive bid that combines good quality work with a bid that sits in the middle between the highest and lowest bids.

(4) Immaculate Proposal – Lastly, make sure the proposal itself speaks to the client. Make it more appealing and more impressive than any of the other bids and show the client you have thoroughly engaged with their brief. Never, ever use a standard template to bid on jobs. They never work and you will never get the job. Highlight in your proposal how you will approach their job and include a timeline for each stage of the job and for completion.

Start with these important steps and you will quickly win your first bid.

Esther is a journalist and blogger who writes about small businesses and entrepreneurship. She also blogs for a Illinois injury attorneys.

Setting up a vending machine business

Vending machines have a strange psychological effect on humans, perhaps one of the reasons why they are one of the profitable businesses today. Consider a person walking past a row of combination vending machines displaying all sorts of bottled drinks, snacks in colourful and attractive tins and packs, candies, sandwiches, dairy products – the list goes on and on. It is observed that even if a person is not that hungry, he/she will make a purchase because, for reason’s unknown, people just love to see their money go in and the food coming out. That’s the way the vending machines are designed – attractive and persuasive.

So, starting a a vending machine business may give you very quick returns and you shall be sitting on a pile of profits in no time. You can obtain a license from the government of your country or state, purchase a few vending machines, bid for a few locations where you shall set up the machines and there you go, you are all set with your business. However, there are some pieces of advice which you should keep in mind so that it works out smoothly. Here’s a list of dos and don’ts for you to remember:

DOs

Research. This is the secret behind the success of all those big companies and organisations out there. Do your research and analysis and try to find out places with high foot traffic. Find out as much information on the internet as you can. Sometimes, the government conducts certain surveys and the results of these surveys are available for free or for a little fee. Try to find out if there are any relevant surveys for you.

Calculate. You need to calculate your profit margins and plan your costs and expenses so that you are not surprised by any sudden expenses during a cash crunch. Decide the pricings of the vending items so that you can make enough profit to sustain the initial days of your business. Be vary of future expenses like maintenence or repair costs, insurance, etc..

Tie-ups. Imagine the profit you will make if you make an alliance with some organisation. Sure, you might have to share the profits but there is a certain security since incomes are guaranteed. For example, making an alliance with a hospital will assure you that your vending machine will have a busy time.

DON’Ts

Know your customers. You don’t want to set up a vending machine selling junk food in a school, do you? Have good business acumen and make sure the right products go to the right places.

Begin small. No huge investments in the initial stages, please. This fact is true for any business, no matter how lucrative the market potential may seem, start small, gain experience, get familiarised with the market and consumer behaviour, and then you may make expansion plans.

The possibilities are limitless in a vending machine business – malls, banks, stadiums, hotel lobbies, large corporations, factories, mills, etc. Just use your imagination and make it a reality.