Telework People - Discover A New Way Of Living

Two Options to Find a Job on the Internet

alexis — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 18:37:03 +0000

The most frequently asked question I get from readers of Telework People is “where do I find a job on the Internet?”, a quite reasonable question, and to answer it I've decided to join forces with two interesting services online: Trabajo Freelance and Pajama Nation.

Trabajo Freelance was formed in Argentina and reaches a global Spanish speaking audience. You can publish projects or offer your services in categories ranging from web development and translation services to graphics design and legal advice.

Pajama Nation was born in Belgium and was created for teleworkers or, as they call them, pajama workers. It reaches 53 countries and offer an auction based marketplace of microjobs. I'm Pajama Nation's country manager for Peru since a few months ago.

I will publish more information about each of these sites soon but you can already register and start looking for your next teleworking project today.

Good luck!

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How To Make Your Blog's Posts Pay

alexis — Sun, 12 Nov 2006 01:18:51 +0000

Do you have a blog? Do you write about products and services you use, love or find interesting?

Now, imagine being paid for that.

That's what ReviewMe, the new venture of the guys at Text Link Ads, offers bloggers.

ReviewMe is a marketplace where bloggers and advertisers come together. Unlike conventional ad networks, ReviewMe enables advertisers to ask bloggers to write a review of their products or services and pay a fee according to the blog's popularity. The more popular a blog is, the more it costs buying a review. ReviewMe pays 50% of a blog's review price to bloggers.

Advertisers can browse through blogs in many categories and order a review with just a few clicks.

Right now, technology and web development seem to be the most popular categories, but I guess that's because the geek types were the first to know about the service (I got the word from Patrick Gavin at Text Link Ads), but soon, with more blogs in the system, the marketplace will appeal to more people and types of businesses.

I've seen a few blogs priced at US$250, that means US$125 per post for each blogger, but most seem to be in the US$60 to US$40 range.

Other companies were already running pay per post services but I find some advantages in ReviewMe:

By asking bloggers to disclose that they are being paid for writing, the market is, or should be, clean of people looking for the quick buck. Most of us wouldn't write about products we don't like. I'm being paid for writing this and I really like the idea.
ReviewMe is a service backed up by Text Link Ads, a company that many bloggers use and trust. I've been with them most of this year and have had just good experiences.
Bloggers don't have to write positive reviews to get paid.
ReviewMe Roy is a really cool-looking guy.

The service was officially launched a couple of days ago and became their first big advertiser, offering up to US$ 25,000 to bloggers writing about them. It seems it worked: the next day Andy Hagan reported the ReviewMe network had a few dozens advertisers ordering reviews and almost a thousand bloggers. Way to go!

Blogs need to have a minimum amount of traffic and subscribers to participate, ReviewMe's application form will tell you right away if you are in or out.

Non English blogs are accepted and payments are made via Paypal.

Once a blogger gets an order for a review he has the option of accepting or discarding it. If accepted he has 48 hours to write it and report it at ReviewMe's site. A reminder email is sent 24 hours later if you haven't completed the process and the reviews must be at least 200 words long.

There you have it. Another way of making money without leaving home and possibly doing something you already did and enjoyed.

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Buying and Selling in the Stock Market From Home

alexis — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 19:38:21 +0000

A couple of years ago I started working with this young fellow in Florida, Jimmy Hernandez, a Cuban who had been trading stocks online for some time with relative success. Jimmy thought that everything he had learnt making, and sometimes losing, his money while trading stocks on the Net could be the subject of a book and that's when How to become a millionaire in the stock market was born (that's an affiliate link).

When I met Jimmy on the phone I only needed a few minutes to say “why not?, let's give his idea a try.”

Jimmy had just a Word file with the first draft of his book and a template based website, which I never liked that much and now I'm helping to redesign for launching a better version in a few weeks. I spent some time designing the book, learning about the publishing business, enabling the payment processing in his site and testing many many times.

Now it sounds quick and easy but there were a lot of details involved and it took us more than six months until the first book was sold.

Jimmy's case is a clear example of a successful teleworker. He has profited from his knowledge in buying and selling stocks using many of the Internet based brokers and then transformed that experience into an information product that in nine months has sold more than 5000 copies. Go get a calculator, I'll wait here, and think about that. Yes, it is a lot of cash.

But my good friend hasn't stopped there, now we are working on new features and products for his site and there's an affiliate program on the horizon. It has already been proved that Jimmy's book sells and sells good, why not sharing a few bucks with others?

I'm proud of having collaborated with Jimmy and see him running his operation completely online. I've never met this guy in person but we've been able to create a healthy business relationship and put a completely virtual business on fire. Isn't that cool?

Has Jimmy Got a Secret?

I don't know. Maybe being patient enough and spending nearly two years in creating a good product?, the title of his book?, or perhaps being one of the few Internet merchants, if not the only one, helping Spanish speaking people how to trade stocks online?

Two years ago I thought the book's title was a little pretentious, now I'm not so sure. Why don't you take a look and maybe you can also learn how to become a millionaire in the stock market.

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Make Money Helping Others to Become Teleworkers

alexis — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 06:33:51 +0000

That's right. I've just setup an affiliate program (run by Ventanazul LLC, my highly efficient one man company) so that you can promote the teleworking book, and soon other products I'll have available, and earn 20% of each sale.

Please play fair and publish your affiliate links where appropiate, spammers will be removed from the program.

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A Very Special Offer

alexis — Sat, 04 Nov 2006 01:41:28 +0000

It's not too late for giving you a Halloween surprise.

I've improved the checkout process for Telework People and decided to run a very special offer during this weekend.

Enter the discount code flenser when buying the ebook version of Telework People and you will get it for just US$ 10. More than half the regular price!

Remember, offer valid only during this weekend: from Friday 3 to Sunday 5 of November.

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It's Like Making Fun a Job

alexis — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 00:16:37 +0000

I've said over and over again that one of the most important elements for being successful is doing something you just love to do. I'd like to stop saying and start showing, and what better way of doing it that using a simple example, as simple as this word: mumobo.

Most of us love listening to music and watching a good flick, and many just can't stop reading a good book.

I've been reading between three to six books a month during the last couple of decades and I'm always looking for ways of absorbing more in less time, like listening to audiobooks in the iPod or getting everything I can as an ebook into the PDA. It's literary crack. Yes, I'm a sick person.

A couple of years ago, when I started writing my first personal blog, I included pictures of the books I was reading and the music I was listening linked to Amazon. I had seen that in other blogs and thought it was nice letting others know about it.

Later I wanted to share a little more and wrote my first reviews on books I had loved, which new musics bands I had discovered and even a few movies that I thought sucked big time. I had a few readers commenting and nice conversations started. That's the beauty of connecting with like-minded pals.

I never thought of it as a job. It was just great writing about a modern Swedish band I'd found, with a rockish '60s sound, and then discovering, thanks to one comment, similar musicians.

The same happened when writing about books I had devoured or movies I could watch over and over again. My readers came with new ideas, recommending a host of works I didn't know about.

Some months ago, after putting my web development business on hold to find time to work on my first book, I started thinking about other projects online, but not any kind of project, funny projects.

That's how the mumobo concept was born, as an extension to my earlier reviews. This would be a site focused just in that: music, movies and books. The African sounding word instantly stroke a chord in me and was the first domain name that took me less than a couple of minutes to figure out. I had one more minor detail to round the idea: how to make money from this?

In those days I had the pleasure of interviewing Tim Westergren, one of the masterminds and founder of the fantastic music site Pandora. Tim told me they were doing quite well selling music thru Amazon's and iTunes' affiliate programs. That was it. My site would offer good quality, highly personal, reviews of music, movies and books, plus links to Amazon and iTunes (and a little of good 'ol Adsense).

It's a one man operation and I don't pretend to become a millionaire with this, but it's one of many income sources and every nickel counts. Oh, and don't forget, it's like making fun a job.

Besides, I was already writing my reviews, the only change is that now I can focus on a dedicated website for all of them. Some years from now it will be great revisiting mumobo and remembering what I was reading in 2006, don't you think?

And now, everytime I'm lying in bed listening to Muse's fantastic Black Holes and Revelations, I can tell Yesenia, with not guilt at all, “my dear, I'm working, please wake me up at four.”

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Telework Book Available From Amazon

alexis — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 21:59:27 +0000

Telework People is already available on print from Amazon. It took a little longer than the electronic version but it was worth the wait.

For all of you, lovers of words on paper, grab your copy today.

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Teleworking in CNN en Español

alexis — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 12:15:37 +0000

Two days ago Adelantos, a show in CNN en Español, featured a report on teleworking.

It's good to see that such an important channel for the Spanish speaking market dedicates some minutes to talk about teleworking. I knew that Chile is already working in some legal proposals to regulate teleworking, that's good news.

Even if teleworking is not considered a viable alternative yet, specially by employers, I think we'll be getting there soon.

The same show presented a report on how several U.S. companies are reviewing their employees' electronic mail. I wonder, how could these employers allow their people to work away from the office when they can't trust them even in the same building?

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What Inspires Me To Work At Home?

yesenia — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 19:44:03 +0000

Every day, after leaving Beatriz at school I walk by a river.

Many times I just stand there and watch, take a deep breath and feel happy. The sun, the fresh air, the noise of the water against the little rocks, it's magical.

In the rainy months I close my eyes and feel the river's roar, it's the power of nature, it's here, life is all around me. The river is alive. And when the rains have gone I can see its bed, I can even cross it jumping from rock to rock.

That's how many of my days begin, with a smile of my daughter and a walk by the river. Full of energy and willing to grow and create.

I can't hardly remember the days when I was all day in an office, breathing smog and hearing the annoying traffic noises.

Now I work more, I work better. I can't even call it work anymore.

And what inspire me to work at home? Well, being with my daughter, with Alexis, living the way I want and where I want, being able to tell the world that I'm the one who decides what to do.

There are so many little inspiring details and sometimes I forget about them. We all do, but you must try to have them around at all times.

I've got a small yellow notebook, right, a simple little notebook, not a computer file. There I've written all that impulse me to live like I do, what fills my days with joy. When I'm feeling sad, and yes, we all have bad days, I open the little notebook and smile. It reminds me of all that's good and beautiful around me.

Of course I feel worried when I'm working in a project and I want everything to work right, I get anxious when my child is ill and even when I forget a bag at the supermarket, but I've learned to control my mood, I know when, how and why to worry.

Now I have control of my life. How many people can say that while trapped in traffic on the way to work? when we can't have lunch with our family? Having control of your life is great, if that's not inspiring I don't know what it is.

I remember when Beatriz was a little baby and I was still breastfeeding her. I took two purses to work, one with my lunch and the other with mommy tools: breast pump and feeding bottles, all that I needed to come back home with milk. It would have been great working from home in those days!

We all have a lot of things to do, dreams, projects, call them whatever you want. Fulfilling them is what moves us to action, to change. Living is changing.

I'm sure sometimes you may get tired of your work but don't want to accept it. When that happens it's time to change. Those with a conventional job are too afraid of losing it, but you have to know how to overcome the fear of losing your job.

It's not enough repeating phrases like “nobody values my effort at work,” “I deserve a better salary for what I do” or “I've got a lot of work and that's why I have so little time for myself”. It's absurd blaming others for your own choices. Take some minutes, think about what you are doing, it's quite possible you need to make some changes. Getting something wrong it's ok, the problem is when you don't want to see it.

Find what inspires you, make your job an important part of your life, enjoy it. If you don't love your job then leave it and get a better one, or create your own. It's the only way to keep growing.

This is the second part in my series the experiences of a teleworking woman. See you in the next chapter.

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How To Overcome The Fear Of Losing Your Job

alexis — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 00:33:15 +0000

Many persons have told me they'd love to be self-employed, work from home or while traveling, being their own bosses and deciding what to do whenever they want to. That's the problem, they've just told me. They haven't done anything to live their dream.

Why?

Because most of them are just too afraid of losing their jobs. Their secure, socially accepted, but boring, position where they can expect a paycheck every month.

Are you thinking that a dream job or business will come and find you while locked in a cubicle?

Are you aware that fear is the reason you are where you are in the first place?

Your parents, your teachers, even the priests (heck, how medieval!) told you to go to school, get a degree, then a job and spend the rest of your life that way. Just accept it, that's the way it is.

You are living in a constant state of fear and that's the first thing you need to overcome if you want to become your own boss.

Running your own business or professional practice, no matter if using the Internet or not, requires you to be smart, intelligent enough to make your own decisions, the right and wrong ones. Only that way you will be able to achieve success.

Jiddu Krishnamurti, I love that guy, once said:

Most of us, as we grow older, become frightened; we are afraid of living, afraid of losing a job, afraid of tradition, afraid of what the neighbors, or what the wife or husband would say, afraid of death. Most of us have fear in one form or another; and where there is fear there is no intelligence.

No intelligence. You see? What can we do with no intelligence? Nothing at all. We must overcome fear now, that's why I'm talking about the emotional issues first. I will review practical matters in later articles but first let's fight fear.

It's actually quite easy. Think about the worst scenario, what could happen if you fail?

Can't you stand the “I told you that was wrong” people? Who cares about what others say or think! Forget about them.

Would you feel a loser after failing?

People don't want to fail, that's natural, but also a big problem, because only by failing, lots of times, you will finally find what is needed to succeed. You may make a hit after 100 attempts, but to get there you have to go from 1 to 99.

Do you want to learn from each experience? Then you must accept failure as a possibility.

Of course I'm talking about failing after making a good, honest effort and then acting on the lessons learned.

Society has taught you that you must not fail, and if you do, you must hide the fact. When you are working in a conventional company most employees might fear sharing their past lessons because they could be interpreted as incompetence.

Right! We live in a perfect world and nobody ever was wrong, we all were born perfect. Come on! Are we blind?

We need to fail, and go on and fail again and again. That's learning. That's the way to success.

Smart persons know the power of experience and prefer working with people that failed and accept it, people that have overcome fear and know how to do it over and over again to achieve their goals.

I like to work with smart people, don't you?

So, don't be afraid of losing your job, of starting a new and better life. Start your own revolution.

Anything truly revolutionary is created by a few who see what is true and are willing to live according to that truth; but to discover what is true demands freedom from tradition, which means freedom from all fears.

Krishnamurti, once again.

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