Survey Determines Which MLM Companies Have Most Loyalty from Distributors?and Which is Actually the Best and Why

Hi, I am Gary Konigsberg of Los Angeles. I wanted to confirm that my chosen multilevel marketing opportunity was indeed the best of all the competitor internet and offline-based multilevel marketing opportunities before I gave it a full go at building it. So I decided to go to the top mlm online forums and survey the people there as to which companies had captured their loyalty and why.

I left the door open to be corrected in case anything truly exceptional came across his plate. The results of his postings at the top mlm forums can be found at http://myfavorite-mlm.com After taking a good look, I didn?t find anything more exceptional near my "plate" than my healthy coffee opportunity.

After getting many answers in different locations I ams now more confident than ever that his healthy coffee business is the best home based business ever.

It seems that the most popular at these forums are Success University and Usana. They are great programs I am sure but they don?t have the numerous advantages offered by healthy coffee. Most notably, their market is smaller and the response that you get when you try to promote the programs to people is one of unfamiliarity. So you have to do a lot of enlightenment. Whereas the market for the Healthy Coffee biz has the following advantages.

World?s second largest traded commodity second only to oil

Our coffee tastes better than oil. :)

Actually it tastes great.

All the other nutritional juice companies and such offer great health benefits from their product but they are all competing for a share of that same market.

Our market is pretty much everyone you meet.

And there is no sales resistance.

People are delighted to find out that there is coffee that is good for them.

How good? Our coffee has less caf than decaf,

It gives a nice energy boost that lasts throughout the day, not just until the next cup and without the jitters. Also promotes better sleep and? balances the ph of the body so that all systems and organs of the body get optimized.

Our compensation and bonuses plan is great and you can be a business associate for $100.

And we have had over half a billion in North American sales in our first year alone.

We have been overseas for 10 years.

We are launching a set and forget system in one week?s time so anyone can make money whether they are pro marketers or not."

I invite all who are seeking a fun and lucrative home based business with real benefit to all to help make a better world through healthy coffee. He further invites current business associates of other home based business companies to match up their present home based business against what they currently have. Take an honest look and be willing to make a change if anything better comes along. Such as healthy coffee!

Of course the real story here is that there is now such a thing as healthy coffee. With many Americans poisoning themselves with caffeine loaded coffee 2-5 times/day (one top chain has 300 mgs of caffeine in a single cup!) this is exciting news indeed! What makes this coffee healthy is an herb that has been used in Oriental medicine for 4000 years! Known as the King of the Herbs or Reishi (latin name ganoderma lucidurm) this amazing coffee has less caffeine than decaffeinated but still gives a great energy lift - one that lasts a whole day, not just until your next cup but without the jitters! It also has many tests showing it is beneficial to all conditions, systems and organs of the body? circulatory, digestive, elimination, respiratory, nerve systems all benefit, results have been obtained in treating high blood pressure, high and low blood sugar, prostate, liver and even mental health conditions. It normalizes the entire system and optimizes performance across all areas of biological function. It even detoxifies and promotes a good night?s sleep. This is why it has been known as the king of the herbs for 4000 years in the Orient. So this is exciting news for one and all.

To join me in my quest to make a better world through healthy coffee visit http://myfavorite-mlm.com where you will also find out the incredible health benefits that this healthy coffee does offer.

Gary Konigsberg Garko is on a mission to make the world better through healthy coffee! Join him! http://myfavorite-mlm.com.

Simple Steps To Taking Paid Surveys Online

Did you know that every year companies world wide spend an excessive amount of $250 billion dollars trying to sell their products and services. Almost a billion of this money spent goes straight into market research. And this is why online paid surveys pay so much.

If you spent a couple of million dollars developing a new product you'd want to make sure people like it and you'd also want to know all things that people don't like about it. Paid surveys are a perfect place to test new products and services before companies launch them publicly.

There are currently an estimate of 7,500,000 million companies throughout the world that pay for surveys offline and online. However due to the popularity of the internet surveys are recently been very popular and a good source of income for some people. If you did enough high paying surveys you can actually turn it into a side job or even a full time job. It's a perfect home based businesses for moms, students or anyone who's looking to work their own hours.

How Does Online Paid Surveys Work?

When a company decides to trial their new product or services they contact market research companies who have a list of database of consumers. Companies then have the advantage of testing their product or services on particular groups of people. Survey participants are then paid after each survey is complete by cash or cheque. However surveys are also conducted over the phone or in person and usually pay a high rate since it is not as convenient as an online survey.

Before you participate in a survey the market research companies usually profile you by giving you simple questions. Once they are able to place you in a profile you'll be called upon according to your profile to test various products and services. Some surveys may include:

* Watching movies * Test driving a car * Cosmetics * Opinions on a product or service * And much more

The Advantages of Paid Online Surveys You can do it at your own pace in the comfort on your home or office. You choose the hours to work and you'll get paid according to what you've just surveyed. Additional income for some people and a full time job for some.

The Disadvantages of Paid Online Surveys It might cost a fair bit to sign up to the paid survey database services who have all the connections with the marketing research companies. However you only pay this fee once and some paid online survey websites even offer a money back guarantee so you can try all of them out until you're happy with one.

Top 5 Online Paid Survey websites reviewed side-by-side. Find out which Paid Survey is our number 1 pick

Make Money Online With High-Paying Surveys, Auto-Surfing, and Data Entry, Using Very Little Money

With the advent of the internet, a new world of hope and opportunities has been made available to everyone. The problem is, this same world has been laden with many scams and con- artists as well, taking advantage of people looking to make a good income online. While there are almost an unlimited amount of ways to make money online, I will just focus on the three methods that have personally made me a fortune and hope that someday it will do the same for you.

Method One: Paid Surveys Online This first method has been made quite popular in recent years due to its ease and speed of making money. You get paid on a one-time basis by various companies to take a survey of your opinions about either an idea, product, movie, or any consumer item you can think of. These companies pay money for real people to evaluate their products because they need legitimate, real-world opinions about how good or bad their products are, or if there are any flaws associated with them. It is done all the time and it is very cost-effective for these companies to do these surveys, rather than go ahead with mass production and simply put the product out on the mass market, untested, where it may or may not be successful.

There are always new products being put out by successful companies so that they can stay competitive in today's fast-paced world, thus ensuring that there will always be a steady flow of surveys that will pay anyone to evaluate their products. This is how anyone can make a decent living if they wish to pursue this type of occupation full-time.

Paid surveys are subjected to frauds and scam artists because some unscrupulous individuals actually trick you into taking their surveys that claim they pay you, but never do. The real objective of these scammers is to collect your personal information, bombard it with spam and unsolicited advertisements, and maybe even sell your personal information to other third-parties.

The most common method of scamming people is to get someone to join their paid survey program, fill in their personal information, and then take a few surveys. This is what legitimate paid survey programs do. However, when you take the scam-surveys, they ask you questions, you answer them, and then are redirected to another website that asks for more personal information, and sometimes money from you. A legitimate paid survey would never or almost never ask you for money from you or more personal information other than the information you already gave them when you first agreed to take their surveys.

Most surveys pay from $5 dollars USD to $75 dollars USD, sometimes more or less. They can take anywhere from a few minutes to almost an hour to complete, depending on how much the company is paying you. The higher the dollar amount, the longer the survey will take to complete, generally.

I personally can complete the $75 dollar surveys in about 50 minutes, so that can give you an idea of how much you can make if you did this full-time. The $5 dollar surveys takes me about 3 minutes to finish.

Method Two: Data Entry Online This method involves filling in a few blank advertising text-boxes for various marketing companies. You get paid a commission if the company is able to sell their products through the ad you just typed in for them. This is far more lucrative than doing paid surveys, but does require a little startup capital of say, $25 dollars in addition to the memebership fee to join these companies.

Legitimate companies will tell you what to input into the text-boxes and do all the marketing for you. These companies actually find it cheaper to pay someone on a commission basis to do some of the grunt work for them, while they can concentrate on marketing and creating sales-ads (which is what these companies tell you to input into the ad text-boxes).

The scam companies want you to do all the work, come up with the marketing, pay for everything, including marketing costs, and then when the sales are made, they do not pay you your commission.

Method Three: Auto-Surfing This is my new favorite form of making money online. It involves joining a website that will require you to "auto-surf" webpages for you to get paid. Auto-surfing is simply letting your web-browsesr visit websites submitted by advertisers for about 10-30 seconds each. When your browser visits the minimum amount of websites (usually 50), you are rewarded with money based on how much cash you paid into the auto-surfing website (this is called your membership/upgrade level). Note that I said your web-browser, not you, doing the work. That means you just log in, click the auto-surf link, and then let the computer do all the work for you. Making money does not get easier than this.

Legitimate auto-surf programs will pay you on time. They spell out all the rules and agreements in their Frequently Asked Questions links. They also pay somewhere around 1% to 3% of your memebership level, each day. Any number higher than that is very likely a ponzi scheme. These auto-surf programs also are backed by businesses or foreign currency exchange, which is why they can afford to pay out such high returns. They also place a small cap on how high your membership level can go, which is how these programs stay in business and not make them go bankrupt. Some programs also have membership expirations, which means the amount of money you put into the programs disappears after a fixed time (usually 1 year). You are also usually limited to one or two accounts, in addition to the membership level cap.

It is entirely possible to earn several thousand dollars a month doing legitimate auto-surf programs, but that usually costs around $20,000 dollars initially. The upside is, you can start auto-surfing with as little as $6 or $10 dollars, and work your way up from there, and still earn that 1%-3% per day on that.

Scam auto-surf programs usually offer ridiculously high returns each day, with an impossible membership expiry duration. For example, an auto-surf that pays 7% daily and upgrades never expire, is very likely a ponzi scheme. However, an auto-surf that pays 12% daily with an expiry of 12 days, is not since if you really look closely at the numbers, the returns per month is relatively low, but high enough to keep everyone happy.

Another sign of auto-surf scams is that they simply do not pay but continually ask for more money despite the company's "problems." It is best to go with auto-surfs that pay on time and have had relatively good reviews by people on the internet.

Most autosurfs pay you weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly. Any duration longer than that is asking for trouble.

Sarah Lauren is a self-made rich woman who runs her own business reviews and scam-watch website at www.richlemongal.com in addition to explaining her own personal experiences with various money-making online programs. She has spent several thousand dollars of her own money researching what are the legitimate programs and which are not (and losing thousands as well). She also explains

The Importance Of French Property Surveys

In general, when people buy property in this part of France, they do not tend to have structural surveys done. This is very different to buying a property in the UK where nobody buys a property without having a survey.

In the UK, a bank or building society will insist upon a valuation survey to make sure that the property in question is suitable collateral for the amount of the loan. In France, the lending source doesn't always require a survey. A lot of emphasis is put on "Honour" over here. So if you tell the bank that the house is worth 150,000?, why should they think otherwise?

If you do want to get a Languedoc property survey done you can either have a friendly builder take a quick look, or you can have a formal survey done by a qualified surveyor. Languedoc Property Finders always work with companies who have RICS (Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors) qualified surveyors to survey your house for you. Weather you want a full written report, a bullet point report , a simple verbal report or a combination of these they can tailor a survey to suit your requirements.

They will obviously look out for obvious things such as damp, the condition of the roof and any structural defects but they should also be able to advise you on whether the property is prone to flooding and any other information about the local area which could affect the future value or sale of your property.

With my experience of selling property in both France and the UK I can't emphasis enough the importance of having a survey done on any property which you are buying. It would be like marrying someone without dating first!

We have heard of people buying their dream holiday home and it turns into one disaster after another. We have also all seen the programs on TV which highlight both the ignorance and to a degree the laziness of many holiday home owners who seem to arrive in France with there heart and head no longer connected.

To give you an example of the costs of the surveys we have just arranged a survey for some clients who were purchasing a ?150,000 house. The survey cost ?900, at first this seems a lot but it only represents just over 0.5% of the value of the property, this in my opinion is money well spent.

Gary Ingram is a partner at Languedoc Property Finders are a personal property search company based in South West France. <br /> Visit our website: Languedoc Property Finders or call us on 0044 207 193 9341

Manufacturing Optimism Survey by TR Cutler, Inc

Every two years the Manufacturing Marketing firm, TR Cutler, Inc. conducts a national survey about the optimism of manufacturers throughout the U.S. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported the survey results at: http://www.jsonline.com/bym/news/dec05/380879.asp

When last conducted, November 2003, the manufacturing sector was coming out of a long-term slump. Indeed the economy of the manufacturing sector has improved drastically in the past two years. Among the 2429 privately-held manufacturers surveyed, optimism was stronger in almost all geographic sectors, with few exceptions. The most optimist geographic regions are:

With a rating of >70% saying 2006 will be better or much better than 2005

Louisville (77.1%) Dayton (76.9%) Dallas (76.3%) Cleveland (76.1%) Milwaukee (75.2%) Kansas City (75.0%) Atlanta (74.1%) Nashville (73.6%) Memphis (73.1%) Tampa (72.2%) Charlotte (71.8%) Cincinnati (71.6%) Chicago (71.4%) Orlando (71.2%) San Antonio (70.8%)

According to Cutler, "Milwaukee has really rebounded since we last conducted this manufacturing optimism survey. The mean age of the manufacturing CEO's was considerably younger than two years ago and apparently some of this "fresh blood" has really impacted the overall enthusiasm and optimism for the manufacturing sector."

Thomas R. Cutler, who founded the consortium in 1999, has grown the participation from 300 journalists to more than two thousands key clients, journalists, editors, trendsetters, and key business leaders worldwide. Cutler has authored more than 1000 articles for a wide range of manufacturing periodicals, industrial publications, and business journals including most of the leading monthly trade publications. TR Cutler, Inc., (www.trcutlerinc.com), is the nation's largest manufacturing marketing and public relations firm, based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

TR Cutler, Inc. www.trcutlerinc.com Thomas Cutler 954-486-7562

Paid Survey Overview

The paid survey industry has matured and should be considered a viable home based job option. For a very small fee, you gain access to a database of hundreds of research companies who will pay you for your opinion in the form of surveys. The small up front fee can be recovered with as little as the first survey you take.

This is an opportunity for stay-at-home parents, students, entrepreneurs, retirees - anyone who needs a flexible source of extra income and enjoys using the internet. These online surveys can typically be done no matter where in the world you live, although the vast majority of them are in English.

Online survey jobs do require effort and persistence as not all the survey companies will select every individual to participate. The more you complete, the more you make. Many people do paid online surveys for part time extra incoe, while the number of stay-at-home workers doing it full time is growing rapidly.

Companies pay as much as $99 per survey but more typically $5-$5- per survey depending on the company, the individual, and each type of survey or focus group. Future: Look for large scall growth as the business of "connecting" credible survey takers with paying companies explode.

Visit our extensive article library find more information on home business at http://www.5starideas.com and at our sister site, http://www.hsfenergy.com

Making Customer Satisfaction Surveys Work

 

Why bother?

Good customer service is the life blood of any business. Although new customers are important good customer service will help generate customer loyalty and repeat business. With each satisfied customer your business is likely to win many more customers through recommendations and remember, if you are not taking care of your customers, your competition will.

A Customer Satisfaction survey will help you not only identify problem areas but will also demonstrate to your customers that you care and are proactive in looking for ways to improve the service that you provide.

Where to start?

Objective - Before you start compiling your survey you should first consider what the objectives of the survey are, in that way you will remain focused and find it easier to decide what questions to ask.

Analysis - In addition to the objective consider also how you will analyse the answers having completed the survey. Keep in mind that closed questions (where the respondent is asked to choose from a limited number of responses) are easier to analyse than open questions (where the respondent can reply in anyway they want). Much will depend on the volume of respondents, the higher the volume the more important it is to have an easy method of analysing the results.

Opportunity Keep in mind that as well as obtaining valuable market research data customer surveys are also a good way to publicise aspects of your service that your customers may not be aware of. After you have drafted your survey read through the survey from a market research view point and check that you are asking the right questions in the right way and that with the feedback information you will be able to make informed decisions. Then, read through the survey from a marketing view point, check that you have phrased each question so that every opportunity has been taken to promote your business? The ideal question will perform the following three functions:-

Market research provide valuable feedback to help you improve your customer satisfaction levels and in turn your business

Marketing promote aspects of your business

Information/Education advertise a service that you provide that your customers may not have been unaware of

For example:-

Do you find the in-store baby changing facilities useful?

By asking this question not only will the store receive good feedback on the facility they provide but they will also advertise their baby changing facilities and promote themselves as a family friendly store beyond those customers who have a specific need for the facility provided.

Warts and all to benefit most from a customer survey you need to be prepared to dig deep and accept the worst. A customer satisfaction survey should be designed to highlight problems so that they can be addressed; regular customer satisfaction will prevent complacency and will also give early warning on where your competitors initiatives may be loosing you business.

What to ask?

Although each business is likely to have specific and unique factors that are important in providing good customer services there are common areas that are relevant to all businesses be they a physical store, Internet based or a service industry. The following are some key areas to providing good customer service.

Communication - Do you make it easy for the customer to communicate with you? When a customer telephones is the phone answered promptly; are enquiries about products or services properly handled? A good business will make every effort to ensure that whatever the customers query it is resolved by the right person, quickly, politely and fairly. If a problem is not resolvable immediately do you promise to respond in a given time period and do you deliver on your promise? Use a customer satisfaction survey to confirm that all your staff are perceived by your customers as being helpful, courteous and knowledgeable.

Location Do your customers find it easy to visit you, if a physical store, is it conveniently located with good access?

Making it pleasant, making it easy - For a virtual business it is important to ensure that your website is aesthetically pleasing and easy to use. Physical store or website, is the store properly laid out, can your customers find what they need and is there sufficient information and help on hand to explain how a particular product works?

The right quality products Not only should you measure the quality of the service that you provide but you should check that the products and services that you market are what the customer wants and closely match their expectations.

Value for money Cheap or expensive is not always a good measure, value of money is. Do your customers equate your business with value for money, if not, why not?

Speed and attention No matter what the business, the majority of customers will want to be dealt with quickly but attentively. Are you doing everything you can to avoid delays? Good businesses will try to treat each customer as an individual, does yours? Attention is one thing but this has to be hand- in-hand with a quick and satisfactory resolution of the query.

Demographics and Specific issues Take the opportunity to profile your customers, for example where do they live and what is their age group? The more you try to understand your customers the better you will be able to target your business. Within the survey allow customers to highlight specific problems and provide contact details.

What next?

Having completed the survey analyse the results.

Trends Look for common and specific areas where the service is failing. Ask yourself if the criticism is valid and is there anything that can be done to resolve or minimise the problem?

Training Are the staff properly trained and do they have sufficient knowledge? Where staff training programmes have been implemented have they had a positive impact on the business?

Follow-up If a customer who has completed a survey has raised a specific issue ensure that they are contacted and their complaint addressed. Dont loose an opportunity to resolve a problem and keep a customer.

Continuously Monitor - Make-changes and then measure by issuing further surveys.

The following sample customer satisfaction survey for a store demonstrates some of the areas discussed please visit:-

http://www.surveygalaxy.com/surPublishes.asp?survey_id=1140

Martin Day is a Director of Survey Galaxy Ltd a website that allows anyone to create, design and publish online surveys. For more information visit http://www.SurveyGalaxy.com

martin.day@surveygalaxy.com

How To Conduct Effective Online Surveys

Although they are inexpensive and product fast results, online surveys still need to be conducted properly to be really effective. The key steps for conducting effective online surveys are:

• Identify your objective

• Decide what information you need

• Develop a questionnaire

• Conduct the survey

• Analyze the responses

• Recommend a course of action

* Identify your objective

Online surveys are conducted to find out the characteristics, behaviors, opinions, and knowledge of a particular population. No matter what the subject matter, all surveys are conducted with an objective, to gather information relevant to a specific problem or situation. And the key to a successful survey is clearly identifying that objective upfront. To do that, ask yourself "what problem am I trying to solve?" The ideal objective has a narrow scope and can be clearly stated. The wider the scope, the more complex your survey and the less meaningful its results. Always remember, your survey is only as good as your understanding of your objective!

* Decide what information you need

Once you have defined your objective, identify the information you need to gather to achieve your objective. If the objective is clear and narrow, the information you need to gather will be apparent. Be specific and avoid the temptation to gather "extra" bits of information that are "nice to know" but not relevant to your objective. Once you have identified the information you need, you should explore the possibility of gathering it from existing data sources. With an abundance of information available from corporate databases and public information sources, you might gather the information without even conducting a survey!

* Develop a questionnaire

Developing the questionnaire is undoubtedly the most important part of conducting a survey. The quality of the questions will determine the quality of the results and the effectiveness of your survey. Get tips for developing an effective questionnaire.

* Conduct the survey

Once you have developed the questionnaire, you need to test it on a few people to determine if it is clearly written and can be understood by people representing your potential respondents. Testing the survey might take several iterations, but it is well worth the effort. Once you are satisfied that your questionnaire is clear and unambiguous, you are ready to conduct your survey.

If you are going to distribute your survey through email, make sure that your email message is clear and compelling. A boring message will not get the attention of your potential respondents and decrease your response rate. Additionally, you should also remember the following things:

• Address emails to a single person whenever possible.

• Always use the blind carbon copy (BCC) if you must send a single email message to a group of people.

• Include a valid email address in the "From" field or the recipients will consider your message as spam.

• Provide the URL that will take people directly to your survey, if you are inviting them to the website to take the survey.

• Tell recipients how to contact you if they have a problem or concern.

• Identify the source of purchased email addresses so recipients know who to contact if they want to be removed from the list.

• Ignore the "flame" or "hate" messages you might receive in response to your email invitation. A small percentage of the recipients always take offense to something or the other.

If you are going to distribute your survey from your website, you need to consider how will get visitors to take the survey. If your site has just enough traffic, you can probably place a hypertext link on your home page through which visitors can reach your survey. If you have very heavy traffic, you can use a program on your web server to randomly deliver your survey to some of the visitors. However, if your website doesn't have enough traffic, you should consider sending invitations by email or other traditional methods.

Once you have sent out notifications, responses will begin to come in immediately. For online surveys that invite individual participants (email or postal mail), most people will respond within 72 hours of receiving your invitation. Surveys that rely on passive participation (clicking on website links or responding to indirect advertising) generally take much longer. In either case, you need to decide how long to keep your surve active based on your target audience and how many responses you need to collect. If you are surveying a known group of people (e.g. customers, employees, students, etc) you might need to send out reminders to remind some people to take the survey.

* Analyze the responses

You can begin to analyze the responses as soon as you receive them. Unlike traditional methods, online surveys make it possible to analyze responses without human intervention. Responses are received in electronic format and immediately added to a database. Once in the database, they can be manipulated with a variety of tools, including the survey software, statistical packages, spreadsheets, and presentation programs. The key to proper analysis of online surveys is no different than that for traditional methods. You must be able to filter the data and display results in a variety of formats for effective analysis. And always remember to relate the analysis back to your objective.

* Recommend a course of action

The last step in conducting effective online surveys is to recommend a course of action. With your objective in mind, you should be able to recommend specific actions as a result of your survey. Your recommendations can vary widely depending upon the nature of the problem you are trying to solve. If you cannot identify any actions as a result of your survey, then it is highly possible that your objective was too broad, your information needs were incorrect or incomplete, or your questionnaire was poorly written. In these cases, your recommended action should be to conduct further study.

© Web Based Survey Software (http://www.web-based-survey-software.org) 2004

http://www.web-based-survey-software.org.

webmaster@web-based-survey-software.org
nick@web-based-survey-software.org

Survey Says.! Telecommuting Ranks High On Job Seekers List

Its tough to find employment in todays job market, especially if a person lacks a formal education or has minimal work experience. Still, even without such background deficits, attempts to find home-based employment may be fruitless at best, financially and emotionally draining at worst.

According to the International Telework Association and Council (ITAC) of Washington, D.C., there are more than 19.6 million people who reportedly work from home (1999). The ITAC estimates that by 2010, there will be around forty million people working part- or full-time from their homes. (http://www.jala.com)

Sage Research, Inc. reported that companies will continue to initiate telecommuting programs. The use of remote workers will become a necessity as overhead costs continue to rise. (http://www.sageresearch.com/)

Yet, even though the trend of telecommuting (working from home) has steadily grown over the past two decades, it remains an untapped benefit for the majority of North Americas workforce. This makes many job seekers ask: Where are the companies that allow individuals to work from home? What does it take to land a home-based job?

With a bit of thorough research, this information can be found. Without proper research, however, there are plenty of unscrupulous people trying to make a lot of money from others need to find home-based work. Through tricky advertising they take millions of dollars from the very individuals who are trying to earn a living. These scammers, as they are commonly called, are all too aware of how desperately people want to earn a paycheck from their homes. And their target market grows by leaps and bounds every year.

Compared to the amount of misinformation out there, the amount of reliable information about working from home seems scarce. Thats why its important to search it out and take advantage of it when it becomes available.

To learn what it is like trying to find and actually land a telecommuting job, Telework Recruiting, Inc. surveyed dozens of people who frequent online E-mail groups that focus on telecommuting issues. The results of this survey will help give job seekers an understanding of whats involved in a search for a telecommuting position. These results should also help employers realize the value that having a telecommuting option has for so many candidates.

Although telecommuting is a work option that increases each year across North America, it is still not the norm. According to Telework Recruiting, Inc.s survey, the average length of time a job seeker spends searching for a position that allows telecommuting is two years. For individuals who want to start out with a new company as a teleworker, it can take longer than for those who try to persuade their current companies to allow them to telecommute full- or part-time.

The number-one reason survey respondents believe that it takes so long to find telecommuting work with a new company is that they simply cant find legitimate companies to work for. Their research usually takes them to companies offering bogus job opportunities or scams. These supposed hiring companies either want people to pay for information about the job or to file an application or, they want people to perform idiotic activities such as sending spam E-mail or posting advertisements all over the Internet.

The second reason is that they believe companies are afraid to trust them to perform their work from home. Despite numerous studies that indicate that teleworkers are actually more productive, it still seems to be a concern for employers that home-based employees will be sitting around watching television, rather than working.

The third top reason people feel they cant find work from home employment is there are simply too many people competing for the few telecommuting opportunities that are out there. This may be true, which only reinforces the point of how it is important for job seekers to invest in creating a top-notch resume and to continually hone their skills.

Other reasons attributed to the inability to find telecommuting opportunities include:

-- Lack of training or experience for the jobs they are seeking

-- Not being open to other types of work; that is, being too narrow in their job seeking focus

-- Not looking hard enough

-- Or not actually having a home situation conducive to telecommuting. (I.e. Having a child around that requires almost constant attention.)

For survey respondents who have been successful in finding and keeping telecommuting positions, we asked for their input on what were some factors related to their success. The number one reason they gave: Diligence. They believe they were successful mainly because they didnt give up looking. They researched everything. As one person put it: Leave no stone unturned.

Another top factor for their success was having a good employment track record. These days background checks are almost always performed. (The growing number of background checking services out there evidences this.) Maintaining exceptional references by previous employers is extremely important.

The third top factor for successfully finding work from home is being able to demonstrate how they could perform their jobs from home just as well or better than if they worked onsite. However, they didnt wait for an interview or meeting to start coming up with reasons why they felt their company should let them stay home. Each person came prepared with a proposal. A well thought-out proposal that would answer any questions or objections an employer might have. Bringing samples or examples of work already done from home was an added bonus to a proposal.

Other important elements to successfully finding work from home include:

-- Opening doors for themselves by starting out as volunteers.

-- Knowing how to network.

-- Having self-discipline and good management skills.

-- Having a supportive supervisor or manager.

Before starting any type of venture it is always helpful to be clear on what that venture is and to have a plan for that venture. Very often people decide they want to work from home (for various personal reasons), yet they arent sure what type of work they will do, or even if theyre suited for a telecommuting life. Our survey respondents offered some suggestions and ideas to look at before even beginning a job hunt. In order of their most common responses, these suggestions are listed below:

1) Be able to recognize a scam. If you plan to use the Internet at all for your job search, save yourself a lot of time and energy by knowing the different types of scams out there so you can bypass them altogether.

2) Locate sources of legitimate telecommuting opportunities. This, of course, is easier said than done. But it is possible.

3) Learn how to research a company. Dont just browse a companys web site. They wont tell you on their site if they have a problem paying their workers, or if this is a third attempt to start this company, or if the work they have for contractors is extremely inconsistent. Look at the company from other sources, such as the Better Business Bureau, Rip Off Reports.com, message boards that focus on the type of business that youre interested in, and even Google.com will have information about them.

4) Understand what are realistic earnings for each type of profession when performed as a telecommuter. Do not be surprised if as a counselor you made $30,000.00 at your local rehab center, but only make $10.00 as a home-based, telephonic counselor. (Approximately $19,000 a year.) Companies that use home workers know that you wont have the usual commuting costs and work expenses. Working from home is NOT a way to get rich quick.

5) If necessary, get resume assistance. If you think you have a great resume, look at resumes of other people and compare. Chances are you could use a resume expert to write one up for you. Remember: Your resume will be what determines whether or not you even get in the door to make a proposal for telecommuting.

6) Be sure you have an up-to-date home office. Up-to-date does not have to mean top of the line, super expensive. It means that you must have: a computer with at least WIN98, a fax machine, a printer, and usually high-speed Internet access. None of these things are luxuries anymore. They are basics. Also, part of having an up-to-date home office is actually having a workspace that is separate from the rest of the house. The dining room table will not do.

7) Know the realities of a telecommuting life. Some most common ones are: constant interruptions by children or non-work-related phone calls, and distractions of the home such as laundry or the lawn. For some teleworkers, they have to constantly struggle with family and friends to convince them that just because they are home, they are still at work and cannot be at everyones beck and call. Their time at the computer needs to be treated as work time, without interruptions.

8) Companies who hire telecommuters do so to save themselves overhead. Part of saving money is hiring independent contractors rather than employees. This eliminates the need to pay employment-related taxes such as unemployment and workers compensation. This means that you will be responsible for your own taxes. Learn what it means to be an independent contractor from the IRSs perspective.

9) Another part of a companys telecommuting plan is often not having to pay for benefits. Be prepared to fend for yourself when it comes to health insurance. If your husband or wife works outside the home and receives benefits, this makes things a bit easier. However, health insurance options are still something worth researching in the event you end up being responsible for obtaining healthcare for the family.

10) Finally, the life of a telecommuter can be a lonely and independent one compared to those who work in a companys office with all the hustle and bustle of fellow workers. Not only do you not have someone close by to share the latest jokes with, but you also do not have a conveniently located person around to bounce ideas off of or discuss work-related issues.

Taking all these things into consideration, as well as all the bumps that come with finding a telecommuting position, how important is working at home for our survey respondents? On a scale of one to ten (one being the lowest), almost every one said ten. Having their independence makes it all worthwhile. Being able to spend more time with their family instead of on the highways outweighed any downside of telecommuting. Having a personal life, even if it wasnt an exciting one, was of more value to them than any other benefit a company could give.

Pamela La Gioia is Founder and Administrator of Telework Recruiting, Inc. (http://www.teleworkrecruiting.com), a premier job-lead web site that provides thousands of job leads and job resources for the US, Canada, and the UK. She is currently writing a workbook on telecommuting, which offers step-by-step guidance on finding real home-based employment. Questions or comments are welcome and can be sent to Pamela at pam@teleworkrecruiting.com