Zero Commute

What The Hell Is A Personal Maintenance Day?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 13:23:00 +0000

I try to take two days a week off for personal maintenance: Sundays and Thursdays. Life is one of those positions where flexible scheduling is mandatory, so this doesn't always work out. Even if you don't get paid sick days, everybody's entitled to some personal maintenance days.

We all have stress. From the acute stresses of traffic or a tight deadline to the longer lasting types of stress like a failing relationship or a crappy job, it is literally impossible to have zero stress. Consider also the technological times in which we live. We are now able, as a society, to be exposed to more potentially stressful information than ever before. Political scandal, economic troubles, environmental issues, and an almost disturbing variety in the amount of cell phone plans that are available are just a few of the things that were mostly only important to our grandparents on a local level. Now we can find out the gas prices on the other side of the world at the click of a button.

It's easy to get stressed out. I always hear people saying that they "need a vacation." Vacations are nice once in awhile, but it's not real practical to plan one every time you forget to charge your phone or some jackoff decides to cut in front of you on the freeway. Besides, almost every time somebody I know goes on vacation, I end up learning aound a week and a half later that they now need a "vacation from their vacation." Even getting away for a break from your stressors is stressful. How much luggage to carry, travel and lodging arrangements, cash or credit? Ungh.

What's a stressed out person to do? Take a personal maintenance day! Yeah, that was an exclamation point. It's something to get excited about. Every vehicle needs maintenance, whether it's a skateboard or space shuttle. The same principle applies to you, if for very different reasons.

So what the hell is a personal maintenance day? At first glance, you're likely thinking about grooming. The words personal and maintenance, when butted up against one another just so, frequently inspire ideas of neatly trimmed moustaches, scrubbed teeth, polished nails or shaven legs. That's not the kind of maintenance I'm talking about. Think about that vehicle I mentioned earlier. When you bring your car in to the mechanic for scheduled maintenance for example, does it get a paint job? Not at all. Oftentimes it doesn't even get so much as a soapy sponge dragged across its exterior. The maintenance is done deep down in the guts, within the engine or transmission.

I think of a personal maintenance day as a day off from whatever it is I am doing every other day. An internal changing of gears. So yes, your personal maintenance day might include a spa treatment but again, this only counts because of the de-stressing it brings to you psychologically, on the inside. A haircut because your sister made a comment about your split ends doesn't count, the same haircut because you want to catch up with the latest gossip from your stylist is more like it.

This is where the personal part becomes important. Changing your activities and their pace for the day to those that are less stressful for you is the key.

Sometimes a day to just focus on things that you can't (or just don't) normally get to is just what the doctor ordered. I try to keep Thursday available as a personal maintenance day, and you'll never guess how I spend most of it: cleaning the house. Sounds stressful, right? Not so much for me on Thursday. I abhor cleaning the house most of the time, so I have a tendency toward avoiding it like the plague. But for some reason, if I step away from the computer and turn the music up loud enough, I really get into it. At the end of the day, I can step back and be happy with how nice everything looks, the kids run around twice as hard, and the wife comes home in a much better mood.

Think about your situation. Do you spend too much time on the couch? Maybe a long bicycle ride, a sports league, yoga or kickboxing classes could be part of your personal maintenance. Work outside all the time? Maybe you want to tape Oprah all week and spend five hours on Sunday watching them all.

You could even dedicate a portion of your personal maintenance day toward listing things to do on future maintenance days. This way you'll be getting interst on your maintenance investment. Whatever it is, just make sure to allow yourself some scheduled time toward something completely different than the usual stressful humdrum so you don't breakdown from lack of maintenance.

Six Ways To Keep Your Lover And Blog Readers Clamoring For More

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 14:56:00 +0000

You learned in school that your lovers will share many traits with your parent of the opposite sex. Bet you never thought about how much your lover has in common with the people who read your blog, did you? Well, think about it today, because here are six tips to help you score big with both.

Props go to Brian Clark for inspiring this post.

Do something different.

After a little experimenting, you will discover some things that work well consistently, and earn you some kudos. It's easy to get into the rut of returning to these standby techniques over and over, like Pavlov's dog.

Don't be afraid to experiment a little. You will likely find something that gets their attention in a better, or at the very least, different way. And remember, experimenting is how you came up with those standby techniques in the first place, Romeo.

Make it all about them.

You can talk about yourself all day if you want to, but people will stop listening. Show that you are genuinely interested in the other person, either by showering them with attention whether they deserve it or not, or by gently asking them for feedback.

And would it kill you to show up with flowers once in awhile, just because?

Don't be afraid to brag a little.

Sure, your lover and your readers might already know how awesome you are. What about everybody else out there who don't already know? Someone has to tell them how awesome you are.

The trick is to keep it to just a little. Mention one or two of your best (and most pertinent) qualities or achievements in appropriate situations, and leave it at that. When every conversation starts becoming about you, you, you, it's time to change it up. See the above tip.

Be honest, not brutal

Honesty really is the best policy. Ask anybody who's had to learn to be honest, and they'll tell you the same.

With that having been said, remember that sometimes a question never asked is what it is because it need never be answered. A person can live an honest life without ever asking or telling how many people they have slept with, or if their books or blogs are written under a psuedonym.

Think before you speak...

...or hit the publish button. Remember that once you have said something, you really can never completely take it back.

By all means, apologize proptly when you screw up, but bear in mind that the slate is never completely clean.

Quit Complaining

We all have problems. Maybe you have a headache tonight, or maybe your pagerank went down to zero. While it's essential to your well-being to vent to some extent, you can't just leave the vent open 24/7.

Hey, it's a free country and you're allowed to complain if you want, but that doesn't mean you should make it your primary purpose in life. Your mojo points and RSS subscribers will drop like hot rocks if all you do is complain.

There are so many people who do this, Bloggrrl wrote a post just to complain about it!

Migrating Classic Blogger To Wordpress (Video)

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 18:52:00 +0000

I held out with blogger for a long time, mainly because it's completely free. Having recently discovered that visitors cannot leave comments that include their URLs, it has really hit home how little control I have over my blog presence with this platform. I don't want it to sound like a huge bitch-fest, because I understand and appreciate that Blogger is free, and it has served me well enough for the time I have used it. I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth (translation: I don't want them to delete my blog).

With that having been said, I have a feeling that I'm not the only pissed off person who doesn't want to alienate their visitors in this fashion, and has been waiting for an excuse to move to Wordpress and give one of those dofollow plugins a try. Lifecruiser has been good enough to post some detailed instructions on moving away from blogger, a move I have decided is right for me at this time.

I wasn't sure how the migration would go with my classic template, so I did a dry run using a test server and a fresh Wordpress installation. Fortunately for you, I got the whole thing on video screen capture using a free screen capture tool I found.

It's not exactly Hollywood quality cinematography, and toward the second half my voice starts getting way ahead of the video. What're you gonna do, right? It does show, however, how easy it is to make the switch for those bloggers who are still holding out for fear of technical difficulties.

I only did minor preparations before recording, and these were in the interest of shaving a little time off the video. These things were:

installed Wordpress (which is only a couple clicks and takes only a few minutes)

deleted the default "Hello World" post

opened up the login pages for my new Wordpress installation and Blogger

pre-typed the login information into above

opened notepad and named an empty text file

That's really all, and the video ends up being just over six minutes long. Keep in mind too, that users of the "new" blogger XML templates (a majority, I believe) will be able to skip logging into Blogger and doing anything in there at all, which accounts for much of this six-ish minutes. I was forced to do this only by my previous refusal to give way to change (a decision I will stand by, since it ultimately means I'll only end up having to design the site twice, rather than thrice), as the import is only supposed to work with the "new" style blogger blogs.

Of course, it takes some time to pick out a domain name and get hosting but hey, it's the holiday season. You have to expect to do a little shopping. I already have my new domain name in the oven. Stick around for the reveal.

I know it's a pain in the ass to comment here now, but if anybody brings themselves to going through the grueling process, make sure to paste a URL into the comment so I can give out some manual link love. Yeah, I said it.

Five Ways To Lose Blog Readership

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 18:46:00 +0000

This one's for the bloggers out there. Every once in awhile, I like to post a good list. This seems to happen fairly often when there are a bunch of drafts I am trying to get finished, and need to bang out a post so my loyal readers (that's you!) know I haven't keeled over and died over the weekend.

Fail to post for an entire year. Guilty as charged. It is advisable to post every day on a new blog, in order to garner interest in what you have to say. I agree that posts should come often, though I personally am not in the habit of posting much on the weekends. Monday seems to be a good day for readership, I'm guessing that this has to do with people reading when they get back to work or school. Saturdays are almost always the weakest days for my blogs, with Fridays and Sundays standing a decent chance of lesser readership as well, especially during widespread nice weather.

Make your readers jump through hoops in order to comment. Oftentimes, people will stumble onto your blog by way of a link from another blog or site, or from a search, and have an opinion on your content. Remember, it's these interactions that make a blog a blog in the first place, so avoid blogging in such a manner that a casual reader won't be able to comment without logging in. Make it easy for otheres to join in on the conversation, or risk pissing your readers off.

Post your everyday play-by-play. This one isn't set in stone, since many people have blogs which are specifically intended to keep in touch with family and close friends. If, however, you are blogging towards a slightly larger audience, you should really think twice before spitting out hourly posts with titles like I Finally Got That Crap Off The Wall Behind The Wastebasket or You Won't Believe What Color My Cat's Diarrhea Is Today. Posting often is important, but not if you're just going to write bullshit.

Don't Link To Anybody. I have somewhere in the vicinity of a zillion blogs in my reader. Every day I find posts that are relvevant to whatever it is that I'm writing about, or better yet, give me a fresh idea or two, and I sprinkle links to these into my own posts. If you're blogging, you should be doing this too. I could only think of two or three reasons why linking is one of the things that makes bloggers bloggers, so I defer here to Penelope Trunk's more comprehensive list.

Post Too Much. "But Chris," I can hear you wondering, "You just said that not posting enough was a problem. Now posting too much is no good, either?" That's right. In fact, I just finished getting rid of a bunch of feeds for this very reason. I enjoyed some of the content, but find that I simply cannot devote the time to wading through 30 posts a day from one blog. It makes me a little frazzled to open up the reader and see an insane number of unread posts. Anything exceeding 800, I generally consider insane. There was actually a small study published about this very topic earlier this year, see for yourself.

About You

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 17:07:00 +0000

You've seen my about page. This is the page where you get to tell a little about yourself, and also see who else has been reading.

I'd really appreciate it if you'd take a minute to let me know a little about you, it helps to prevent me from feeling like I'm talking to myself.

You don't have to give out your address or anything, but I'd be interested in knowing what kind of work or business you've tried from home, if any, and what types of things you like or don't like about Zero Commute.

By the way (and this is important), I completely stole this idea from Pearl over at fresh-perspectives.net. You can see her implementation of it here.

About Me

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 14:00:00 +0000

My name is Chris, and I've always believed that there are better ways to earn a living than getting paid a salary or an hourly wage (as decided by someone else). These don't seem to go up as quickly as the cost of living sometimes, and if you have to do twice as much work one day, you likely aren't going to get paid twice as much.

I've tried a number of things, some have met with wild success, while many have met with quite the opposite, or worse.

Zero Commute is dedicated to discussing various ways to make money from home. These include telecommuting, freelancing, blogging and various kinds of businesses that you can start on your own. Especially of interest are any kinds of businesses which can be started without having to have huge amounts of startup capital available.

I am always willing to look at success stories or guest posts, so don't be afraid to let me know if you have some of these.

Are You a Work at Home Scam Magnet?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 16:36:00 +0000

Do you need to find a job where you can work at home, and need to do it today? Do you need a few hundred dollars this Friday in order to pay for last month's heating bill?

If the answer to either of these questions is yes, then you need to step back and look at the big picture. Not your work at home needs, nor your bank account, but the big picture of the internet. You need to take a step outside of yourself or you're going to get scammed.

True Story: My mother came over this weekend to hang out with us and the kids, and we got to talking about about work at home stuff, as we often do. She told me that she stumbled across an "opportunity" where she could cash checks for some third party, and she would keep 20 percent or something.

Let me tell you, the only reason I didn't smack the crap out of her is because she gave birth to me.

The point: if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. If somebody can make 200 bucks by cashing a check (without risking some jail time), why the hell are they going to pay you to do it?

Top Three Things my Son is Thankful for

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 23 Nov 2006 15:59:00 +0000

It's thanksgiving for those of us in the U.S., so take the day off and have some turkey.

Top three things for which my younger son is thankful, as reported by his written answers to the following question from school: If you had to travel to a faraway land like the pilgrims, and you could only take three things with you, would would you bring and why?

Food
because it makes you healthy

Video Games
because i love video games

Parents
because they take care of you

Top one thing for which I'm thankful: Mommy and I still rank in the top three.

eBay Powersellers, Part Two -- Interview with Powerseller Zzzzinga

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 18:20:00 +0000

Now that you know the definition of a powerseller, you're probably wondering how to go about becoming one yourself. I sure hope so, because I just got off the phone with one.

Jerry, owner of the successful eBay store Zzzzinga's-zBay and bona fide powerseller, was kind enough to set aside some of his time this morning answering all my questions. The store's most popular offerings include area rugs and quilts and quilt sets, as well as some high-end wooden furniture lines such as hand-crafted beds and hutches. Many of the same products are also available at his new website Decor Village, where the product line will soon be expanding beyond the scope of his eBay offerings

Jerry and his wife have been selling on eBay since February, 2003. Around that time, he was working at one of eBay's customer centers, initially working on email security issues such as spam and spoofs, and eventually manning a powerseller helpline, where he was consulting with top sellers and helping them to grow their businesses. Having of course been aware of eBay before all this, and now having direct contact with successful powersellers, Jerry's main motivation to open his account was to gain experience with the user end of the site. As an employee, he needed to know his stuff.

What was he selling in those early days? He already had previous retail experience, which got him off to a good start in the area of product sourcing. "We immediately set up ebay stores as fast as we could and contacted a lot of manufacturers we had dealt with for years, and made arrangements to sell their products on eBay." The first offerings were mostly area rugs, on which he was able to get wholesale pricing. These manufacturers were also willing to ship directly to his customers from their warehouses, eliminating the need to develop dedicated storage space and handle the technicalities of physically shipping the products. Yes, I intentionally avoided the term "dropshipping" there, though that is technically the correct term for this kind of arrangement.

We got into discussing the benefits of dropshipping, and there's an important distinction to be made between real manufacturer dropshipping and the websites that come up when you type the word dropshipping into a search engine. Regarding the latter, Jerry speaks from experience, "I've looked at their prices, and I've looked into what things are selling for on eBay, and unless you're willing to make a penny or two pennies on a sale, it's not worth it. When you can work directly with a manufacturer that will ship right to your customers, that's a good deal." It's important to note that these manufacturers are not all over the web advertising themselves as dropshippers. If you're not lucky enough to already have some contacts, a good way to get started is to locate manufacturers in a certain industry or product area and give them a call. Have your notes ready, get a sales rep on the phone, and explain to them that you understand that this may not be their usual business model, but if they're willing to work with you, you just might be able to help them make some sales. You might get hung up on a few times, but you might also be surprised at some of the names that have small, unpublicized dropshipping departments, often because they received a few of these types of calls.

So dropshipping really does work, as reported by a powerseller. That said, area rugs and solid wood furniture are large, heavy items, and I had a feeling that the US Postal Service's flat-rate priority mail service wasn't going to be as useful to Jerry as it is to somebody selling more manageable products like clothes or shoes. Nope. Most of these products have to be transported by freight carriers, the cost of which may easily be many hundreds of dollars. If you call the next number you see on the back of a tractor trailer and tell them you want to ship six hundred pounds of furniture from Georgia to California, you'll see what I mean.

After working with this issue for what's quickly approaching four years, Jerry has found that the best way for him to handle it is to offer free shipping on the area rugs, and charge his customers a flat rate on the furniture items. This flat rate represents a reasonable portion of what he expects it to actually cost to get the product out to the customer. Since there's no way to know ahead of time where the next customer's shipping address will be, this means the actual freight bill often turns out to be more than the shipping charges he passes onto his customer. That's the cost of doing business sometimes, but at least it covers a portion of his shipping expenses.

Regarding the area rugs, they basically have to be offered with free shipping, because that's what the competition is doing. The quilts and other more easily handles items are usually shipped UPS, and for these the eBay shipping calculator is used to try and pass on at least most of the actual shipping costs.

Speaking of eBay tools, they're all Jerry uses to manage his eBay business. He has never purchased any subscription services or third-party software, nor hired any outside help to manage his listings. He saves time by having his items automatically be relisted, and uses Selling Manager Pro and Turbo Lister, all tools offered directly from eBay. He also makes healthy use of the marketplace research tools and traffic reports that are offered to eBay stores, and the email marketing tools help him keep his name in front of his customers.

He also advises that as a store owner, it makes sense to use all the tools that are made available for free.

"Take advantage of whatever features eBay offers. If you have a store there are a ton of free features available, and sellers need to get in and look at those and determine what's really going to be able to help them. Every feature in there is designed by eBay to help a seller be more successful. eBay doesn't put features in there just because they think they're pretty, they put them in because their research shows that these are the features that are going to help sellers be more successful, so take advantage of every free feature that you can."

Jerry's final advice for new sellers:

"Don't get discouraged. It seems like it's going to start slow usually, but Hang in there. Learn the rules, learn the policies. Over the years, especially as an eBay employee, I've seen a lot of sellers get very discouraged because they didn't take the time to understand the policies... As a first time seller, I used to tell people to buy twenty or thirty items first. Find out what it's like to be a buyer on eBay, and that will help you as you sell. Successful sales come basically because people have the right titles, they have the right keywords in their titles, good descriptions and good photographs."

Special emphasis is placed on the importance of having good quality photos to represent listed items. Jerry accounted some of his experiences where he's listed items two or three times using a certain photo and failed to sell the item. A couple weeks later, the same item listed with several photographs taken from different angles would sell for a profit. "Because people are online, they can't see, they can't touch the item like they're used to in a [brick and mortar] store... Good photographs are very important."

Thanks again Jerry, for sharing some of your first-hand experience with us. Everybody else, if you want to take a look at some real ebay powerseller professionalism, do have a look at Zzzzinga's-zBay and Decor Village.

Powerseller Update

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 01:10:00 +0000

I just wanted to let you all know that I have gotten my hands on a couple of real live eBay powersellers. Interviews are taking place Wednesday morning, and we'll find out what's really going on from those who know it best by lunchtime!

Sorry about the brevity of this post, but I have some notes to take.

eBay Powersellers, Part One -- What is a Powerseller?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 13:33:00 +0000

"Looking to work at home? Don't know where to start? Sell your stuff on eBay!" Unless you've been hiding under a rock for the last ten or eleven years, you've probably heard this more times than you can count (even if you use both hands, and your toes!). With $32 billion worth of goods having been sold on eBay in 2004 according to USA Today, this sounds like it's worth taking a closer look.

Last week I touched on becoming a virtual assistant, which is a service industry. This week, I'm digging deep into what's really involved in becoming a powerseller. This is a different animal, most often involving selling goods rather than services, although servces can also be offered. I'd also like to share some success stories from work at home eBay powersellers this week, so if you are a powerseller who wants to share your journey (and plug your auctions), shoot me an email so we can talk.

What is a powerseller? eBay is a huge venue, and there's a lot to learn. Taking it one step at a time, let's first look at the big picture. The principal powerseller requirement is sales. eBay bases powerseller status on average monthly sales. At the time of this writing, the bare minimum is $1000/month average gross sales for a three month period. That will get your foot in the door as a bronze powerseller.

That's just the ground floor. The powerseller program has five tiers, so there's plenty of room to climb the powerseller ladder. The quick rundown:

$1,000 = Bronze Powerseller

$3,000 = Silver Powerseller

$10,000 = Gold Powerseller

$25,000 = Platinum Powerseller

$150,000 = Titanium Powerseller

That's not a typo, one hundred fifty thousand in sales is what it takes to join the elite few in the highest tier. I hate to say it, but I have so far been unable to learn how many have reached this level of income on eBay, as eBay doesn't seem to make this kind of information public. Rest assured that I am making every possible effort to find out.

While sales are the driving factor behind achieving and maintaining powerseller status, there are a few more requirements that must be met. I am presenting them here as secondary, since they're only relevant if you're making the sales. Here are the other criteria:

Achieve a feedback rating of 100

Have 98% positive feedback

Have been an active eBay member for at least 90 days

Remain "in good financial standing"

Comply with all eBay policies

Average 4 listings per month over last 3 months

Some of these are time sensitive, so if you're considering making money from home the eBay way, it's a good idea to set up an account sooner rather than later. The hardest thing is deciding your user name, if you don't count deciding what you want to sell.

More about eBay powerselling coming soon. It's just too huge to do in one post, so I'm making this week eBay week!

Get a Spa Treatment, it's the Weekend!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 20:05:00 +0000

The weekend is upon us once again! What better time to take a break from all this hard work and have enjoy a little spa treatment over at Susan's Spa! I recently discovered Susan's spa, and it's a great place to relax and find a good read.

Susan covers everything from to health and beauty tips to celebrity news and gossip to earning money from blogging. My most recent discovery over at the spa: Even celebrity killer O.J. Simpson is trying to make a quick few million from home. Check it out here.

Work at Home Job Profile - Virtual Assistant

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 16:36:00 +0000

While large companies are laying off employees in efforts to keep costs down, many small to medium sized business owners are seeking to avoid this problem from the start. This is being done by enlisting virtual assistants (VA's), self-employed independent contractors who work from home or a small satellite office, and are able to help these clients with administrative support on whatever level is needed.

Contracting yourself out to clients as a virtual assistant can be one of the most profitable ways to become success while working from your home, and the need for qualified VA's isn't going to be shrinking anytime soon.

So, what exactly is a virtual assistant? You'll find a variety of answers to this question, and the answers really depend more on for whom you're working than anything else. The short answer is that, as a virtual assistant, you will be usually be performing administrative functions, and possibly miscellaneous support as needed. You should be equipped with a modern computer, a high-speed internet connection, a fax machine, possibly a dedicated phone line, and probably MS Office software (Excel, Word, Powerpoint, all that fun stuff).

These things will cost some money if you don't already have them, but keep in mind that this one major reason telecommuters are so attractive to business owners. Think about it, suppose you start up a business working from home, and you meet with such success that you need help getting everything done and keeping organized? It's certainly more attractive to find a qualified VA, and get started paying him or her by the hour or by the project, than to invest the time and money into getting more space, furniture, computers, phones, software licences-- you get the idea. Having these things already in place makes you marketable.

Any specialized experience you have or can acquire (medical coding, desktop publishing, transcription, web design and database management are a few examples of things you can learn in a relatively short time) will of course be an asset. It is essential to have a resume or portfolio, and helpful to have a website with a little information about your credentials and experience. You can always hire a work at home webmaster to whip up a small, professional looking site for you at a reasonable rate.

If your organizational skills are good, you can keep yourself on task without direct supervision, and are reasonably comfortable with technology (it really doesn't take too much, there are people making 50K in offices who don't know how to clear a paper jam), you may want to consider gearing up and taking on a client or two.

Fifteen Bucks to Make Thousands from Home? Sounds Phishy to Me...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 12 Nov 2006 15:27:00 +0000

It looks like inflation has kicked in again. Used to be that you got paid every Friday for all the hard work you put in during the week. Now, they want you to pay for the privilege to work from home. Who are they? They are the scammers and spammers, and they're coming up with new ways to try and prey on work at home hopefuls every day.

Tammara Nelson warns of one Email Processing Work at Home Scam she found on the web in a recent post here, and is out in the trenches scouring the web for the latest phishing scams and work at home fraudsters to warn us about on her Phishy-Pedia Guide.

It can't be stressed enough: Never pay for a job whether it's to work at home or otherwise. You may be able to do a lot of things, but one thing you aren't going to do is get rich quick in your underwear by sending your hard-earned cash out to unresearched sources.

Blogging and Link Building

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 19:23:00 +0000

Last time, I recommended blogging for everybody. After all your other work at home responsibilities have been attended to (or maybe when you're taking a well-deserved break), I hope you've considered this idea.

If you've already got a blog set up for yourself, you are probably asking, "How can I get the word out about my blog?"

That's a good question, and one which will frequently be addressed here. Yesterday, I discovered a brand-new site, the Link & Blog Directory. This site is currently in its infancy, and looks to be getting better every day. The up-to-the-minute scoop can be found at the link and blog blog.

The site has a new concept which will help bloggers in all areas find blogs in which they would be interested, even if the main subject area of the blog is something the reader wouldn't ordianrily think to look for. This means a brand new community to check out, with the always nice side effect of more traffic to your blog, and another way for the search engines to find you.

This looks like one of those "ground floor oppurtunities" you always hear about. I wanted to make sure I'm listed when this site goes huge, so you can find me on there as Chris.

A little off-topic maybe, but I just love new sites, because where else can you snag a username like Chris? Sorry all you others with the same name, I beatchya to it this time!

Working at Home for Free?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 13:30:00 +0000

Whether you're just starting out trying to make a living working from home on the internet or are a seasoned veteran, you've probably stumbled into the den of many a snake-oil salesman. You know the sites I'm talking about, the ones that will sell you the secret to making a million dollars from home, just as soon as you fork over a cool $49.95...

Ask yourself this. What is your budget for money-making secrets? It is often said that you have to spend money to make money. I'd like to be so bold as to propose that this is not always true. Not only that, but it's actually a downright bad idea to spend money on anything non-essential if you're not already self-sufficient.

It's a good idea to look at your internet ventures the same way. You didn't get into this to pump all your existing cash into the system, did you? While there are some things in which you may want to invest down the road, your first goal should be to always be at least breaking even. Find one, or better yet, several work at home gigs that are either making money for you without costing you anything, or are at the very least not costing you anything.

If I could make one single recommendation to everyone who is committed to working from home, even if it's just part-time, it would be to build a blog. Today. Why? To establish a web presence for yourself. If you're knowledgeable about something, and feel like you could get out a unique thought on this something at least once a week or so, start a blog about it. Whether you're handy with home or auto repair, watch a lot of TV or movies, or are a parent willing to share your experiences in raising an infant or teenager, there will be some people out there interested in what you have to say.

Even if you don't know what knowledge you can offer, or don't fancy yourself to be a very good writer, having your own little piece of real estate on the web can give you your own place to network with like-minded people. A place where people can get a little bit of an idea of who's commenting on their blogs and participating in their forums. And who knows, maybe you'll build a better mousetrap someday or write a bestseller. Where better to tell everybody, than on one of your blogs?

Time vs. Money

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 01:17:00 +0000

What's more valuable, your time or your money? This is a question every work from home body should be constantly asking him or her self, since the answer is an elusive, ever-shifting fog.

So, while I've been spending these days tweaking this and that on my newest site, I managed to step back for a second and look at the site's content for a minute, instead of just the layout and et cetera. It hasn't been updated in quite a few days now. This reminded me of something very important, and now I'm typing text instead of code. It's a welcome change.

As usual, it's a good idea at this point for me to explain. As a home worker, freelancer, entrepreneur or whatever it is you're working towards (note to self: figure out a way to shorten that phrase for the future), you need to find your rhythm. If you've been reading, studying and learning for months and you have yet to take your first step, stop yourself. The most common reason for failure to succeed is failure to act. I have stumbled around in this muddy area more times than I care to admit, to varying degrees.

If you seem to have a million ideas that might be good ones, and are on a pace to make a million and a half by month's end, I'm writing this for you. It's time to stop collecting ideas. It's time to organize them, and put them into order of either importance or greatness. Only then can you start converting your valuable time into money. This organization process can take a lot longer than it might seem like it should, so start as soon as you can. Are you busy right now?

Fine Tuning

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 22 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0000

I see a few people are already checking out my new blog. This is great, as I have much knowledge to share.

Just wanted to let all you viewers know that I've been trying to spend time working on the look and feel of the site; This is why I haven't added any fresh tips in the last few days.

So go easy on me, there's some excellent material coming up over the next week or two!

Skills That Pay the Bills

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 16 Oct 2006 19:30:00 +0000

As a researcher of the work at home marketplace, you are hopefully paying close attention to the many differences between the brick and mortar job market and the WAH job market. There will be times when it seems like everything you've learned is as useless as a spoon at a slaughterhouse (and yes, I totally just made that up on the fly-- if you don't beleive me, go ahead and Google it while you still can, I'll be applying for trademark rights soon). This doesn't mean you should just flush all common sense down the toilet, which is what some people seem to do.

There are some things that will probably always be as applicable at your home office as they are out in the rest of the world. Here's the main one: Most of the work that can be done in this world can be categorized broadly into a very few categories. The first is referred to as unskilled labor, and yes it is a crude term. This type of work can be pretty much anything that doesn't require much education or experience. Unskilled labor is also categorized as usually paying a relatively low wage.

Then of course there's skilled labor. This usually pays incrementally more than the unskilled varieties, and having some kind of degree or related experience usually helps here.

Other than skilled and unskilled, you really only have a couple of big ones left. There's what I like to call pseudo-skilled labor. You may never have heard of this, but there are people out there who can bullshit their way through a resume and greatly increase their chances of finding some decent paying work without all the bother of getting a masters in middle-management or some similar nonsense.

That brings us to the point where all we really have left is working for oneself. This can mean a lot of things, of course. Be aware that it's always these entrepreneurial personalities that end up making the big bucks. That's right, always.

Okay, I really do owe my readers an explanation about the common sense remark. I'll explain: Working from home has evolved over the last few decades from a crazy notion, to a wonderful solution, to something else altogether. Kind of a potentially wonderful solution, with a lot of misinformation and crazy ideas going around.

In the beginning, technology started making it possible for certain office functions to be performed remotely. Employers large and small (mostly large, initially) started allowing people to spend some of their work days at home on an experimental basis. Then, all of a sudden, it became all the rage to judge which were the best corporations to work for based on things like the possibility to work at home, in-house daycare facilities and gyms.

Today, technology has reached the point where an employer doesn't have to be large by any means to take advantage of homeworkers. Anything that can be done with a computer or a phone, can and more and more often is being done entirely with a force of workers that work from the comfort of their own home. This is great when it works. Do be aware of the following conversation, however:

"How can I make money working from home?"

"Well, what's kind of experience/skills do you have?"

"I want to or need to work from home."

"What are you good at? What do you enjoy doing?"

"So long as I can stay home, I'll do anything."

My point here is that if you don't have a skill or group of skills that you are able to demonstrate via experience, a degree or by being a good enough BS artist to get your foot in the door, you may well end up as unskilled work from home labor if you don't start either expanding your range of skills or get into entrepreneur mode.

More Than One Way to Skin a Cat

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 16:12:00 +0000

So, you're serious about this working from home thing. You've made a good choice, and a difficult one. That's a huge step, and you'll soon see that it is the first of many, many difficult decisions that you'll need to make. This last statement especially applies to those who haven't made their first dollar from within their own four walls, but many who choose to quit the rat race find that diversification is an effective way to find what best fits their individual expectations and needs.

The next logical step is to decide how to go about it. Nobody may have told you yet that these decisions are going to get more difficult before they get easier, but that's how it's starting to look at this point.

There are a lot of folks who literally just want to work from home in the most basic sense of the phrase. Maybe start at 8 or 9 in the morning and put in eight hours, maybe take an hour for lunch. Just without the getting dressed and leaving the house part.

This has the potential to be a very nice arrangement for those lucky enough to find an employer offering it. Employers the world over have become aware of the money that can be saved by working with home-based help. If you're one of the many wondering how I can read your mind and blog at the same time, don't get too excited yet. As it turns out, being an at home job seeker may just be more competitive than any industry out there (without the benefits of actually being an industry, if you're the one doing the job hunting).

That said, it's not realistic for everybody. In order to be successful on this route, you'll have to treat it like any other job hunt. Identify your marketable skills, and decide on an industry or industries where you're likely to be able to make best use of them. Write a resume, and get it out there. If you don't have any marketable skills, you're going to have a tough time finding this type of work from home, right from the start.

Sound familiar? It should, it's not that much different than looking for work outside the home in these respects. Except that as a candidate for a telecommuting position, you could be competing against people from all over the country or world, rather than only those who are located within commuting distance. It is also a good idea to consider adding an additional section to your resume, one that briefly outlines your home office capabilities. This is where you'll call attention to your high-speed internet connection, dedicated phone or fax lines, and any special software you have installed.

Whether this is the best approach for you depends on your reasons for wanting to work from home in the first place. If you're trying to get away from working for "the man," need a very flexible schedule or do not have any special training or experience, you should probably be looking at alternatives to the often unrealistic 9-5 work at home job.

These will be covered next time, stay tuned.