The RatRaceRebellion.com Blog

VIPdesk Seeks Home-Based Concierges

VIPdesk contacted us recently to mention their recruiting drive for full- and part-time Concierges. Candidates must reside in one of the following locations:

Arizona, California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, Ontario (CAN)

To find out more, you can attend one of two VIPdesk virtual information sessions, the first being held tomorrow, April 29, the second on May 12. For details, click here.

A "Content Scam" in Action

Scammers are adept at putting up websites quickly, often with pirated content. A work-at-home scam that Chris and I exposed last year rested on a pastiche of such content, including photos of the entire Opera software team, rechristened with made-up names to give the appearance of a stable company. This morning I came across another such site, ArticlesWorld.com.

Rather than an employment scam, ArticlesWorld is an ad-driven site, attracting traffic through what appears to be a wide selection of stolen intellectual property -- hundreds of articles, written by experts from all over the Net. The catch? The experts' names have been eliminated, and the pieces are now attributed to "Tolik," "Admin," etc. (Whoever they may be -- and we'll get to that in a sec -- they deserve a Pulitzer for prodigious productivity!)

I discovered Articles World this morning, when a Google alert came in with the title of a piece that Chris had written some time ago, "Virtual Careers / Self-Employment -- Self-Assess or Self-Destruct." Clicking on the link, I found her article at AW, with Chris' name replaced by "Tolik."

I won't go into a full-blown analysis of the site and the miscreants here, but a check at Whois shows that the domain was registered in 2004 to a gentleman named Ihor Hasyuk, whose address is given as Lukasha 5, in Lviv. Who lvivs in Lviv these days, you might well ask. I don't know; it's in Ukraine. (Compete.com estimates 15,000 unique monthly visitors to AW; not a lot, but a good toehold, with traffic on the upswing.) 

How to rectify all this? Well, we'll see. FWIW, I'll email Ihor (Whois gives his email address as on5bg@yahoo.com, though that could lead anywhere, or nowhere), and take it from there. In the meantime, if you've posted any articles to the Net in the past few decades, you might want to see if your new name is Tolik, too.

 

How to Become a Virtual Assistant

Chris and I receive many queries about how to become a Virtual Assistant, or "VA." (For background, Chris is credited with founding the industry in 1995. She and I founded the International Virtual Assistants Association, the industry's nonprofit parent, in 1999, and turned it over to its members as planned shortly thereafter.) Here are our five top tips for entering this growing field.

1. Assess your skills, and upgrade where necessary. In a nutshell, VAs provide office-support services remotely. Their expertise may range from basic word processing to calendar management, bookkeeping, website design and beyond. But all VAs have one thing in common: their services can be conveyed virtually. In other words, if you specialize in massage therapy or bricklaying, you'll need to acquire "knowledge worker" skills before launching a VA business.

2. For clients, core skills are usually more important than VA-specific training. While prospective clients will appreciate that you have a VA certificate from a community college or similar institution, the VA's most important asset is expertise in his or her niche (i.e., desktop publishing, bookkeeping, etc.). Even so, a reputable training program can teach critical business-management and related skills and add a competitive edge to the business, so weigh your individual circumstances as you consider the options.

VA certificate programs are now offered at a number of community colleges, including
Owens Community College (Ohio), Palomar Community College (Cal.), Portland Community College (Ore.), and Red Deer College (Alberta, CAN). Our own 15-hour VA training program is available to active-duty military spouses at no charge at military bases listed here. 

3. Get that first client ASAP. If you've read our manual for Virtual Assistants, you know that Chris and I preach one two-pronged principle in particular: Keep debt to a minimum, and land that first client as soon as possible. A VA can have the most elaborate business plan in the world (and a beautiful office, dazzling gadgetry, and a website bigger than Wikipedia), but without a paying client, he or she will soon face failure. The first client not only generates revenue, but boosts morale and energy, and enhances focus. And if the VA takes good care of the client, positive word of mouth can rapidly follow, bringing more clients through the door.    

4. Marketing is key. Most VAs fail due to ineffective marketing. Identify the types of clients you'd like to work with, determine where they "hang out" (what they read or listen to, where they go online or off-, etc.), then get in front of them in an appropriate context, and impress them. (Examples: Contribute an article to a client-oriented website, give a radio or podcast interview, donate two hours of your services at a local fundraiser. Offer free input in online forums where prospective clients gather.) Network through IVAA or other VA groups, and read marketing and freelancing blogs such as Seth Godin's or Michelle Goodman's for additional thought-starters and advice.  

5. Don't forget to make it a family decision. A significant career decision should involve your partner (if any), and any older children at home – but especially when a home-based business is involved. Launching a VA practice requires serious commitment and sustained effort. The family, too, will have to make adjustments. (And bear in mind that, like individuals, not all families will be ready for a home-based business, even if it's only part-time.) Excluding them is not only unfair, it can jeopardize your success. In other words, before you leap, you should not only look, but bring the trampoline into the picture.

Activist EPA Should Mean Higher Octane for Telework

We don't preach politics at RatRaceRebellion.com (as we say on our site, "Our political party is the Boston Tea Party"), but it's worth noting that the Environmental Protection Agency's new stance on dirty air may well accelerate the telework movement, which had lost a little gas as petrol prices declined. 

Here at Rat Race Central in Northern Virginia (home of the walk-to-work-on-cartops movement), even an expanded Federal telework policy would be a godsend, as the Beltway is turned into a concrete canyon and more "Code Red" smog days can be expected. (Oddly, all of this coincides with Northern Va. ending free bus rides on Code Red days. Oh well. As long as we can still get those Hello Kitty Oxygen Masks at the Dollar Store, we'll be fine.)

I mean, come on. Even the Navy is getting into telework, and they're ships, on the ocean, with sailors and wind and waves!

Anchors aweigh, telework! 

Pixazza Accepting Early-Bird Applications for Fashion Expert Slots

Pixazza, a Google-funded startup that launched on March 25, is accepting signups for virtual "Fashion Experts."

Pixazza offers an advertising service for website owners. In a nutshell, the service (a line of code) presents product information to visitors when they mouse over a photo on the owner's page. Pixazza needs human help to match the products seen in the photos with products offered by its retail affiliates.

According to its site, "you get paid to find items that you might want to buy. Our initial focus is fashion-related items. The better you are at finding and matching similar products, the more money you can make!"

Pixazza, like Amazon's "Mechanical Turk" service, needs humans in the mix because software isn't -- yet -- capable of analyzing images to the level of the good old eyeball. (MySpace reportedly ran into the same problem when it tried to automate the task of spotting porn on its, um, members' pages. Software could whittle down the pile of likely infractions, but after that, humans had to help.)  

For Pixazza's launch press release, go here. For Pixazza itself, click here.

How to Find Blogging Jobs

Who wouldn't like to earn money writing about their favorite topics? Blogging jobs let you do just that. The recession may have dampened hiring, but jobs are still out there. Here's how to find them.

Who Hires Bloggers?
Some of the biggest employers of bloggers are blog networks. In some ways, these function as newspapers, assembling groups of writers to cover a range of topics or themes. (Blog networks are one reason that print-based newspapers and magazines are in decline. Why pay for "stale" news printed on dead trees, many people reason, when you can get it as it happens on the Internet, and often with video thrown in – for free?)

Blog networks often pay their bloggers per post, and / or a share of the advertising revenue generated by the blogger's pages. Bloggers are usually required to make a minimum number of posts per week, with a minimum word length per post.

Bloggers are also employed by newspapers, magazines, TV stations, non-media corporations and others. However, these positions often require more experience than blog networks do, and in the case of media blogs they are often filled by journalists doing double duty.

Blogger Job Listings
Although it has reduced its monthly minimum payment from $725 to $675, About.com, which is owned by the New York Times, continues to seek part-time bloggers, known as "Guides." Problogger.net, a comprehensive site maintained by blogging expert Darren Rowse (who works from home down in Melbourne), carries job openings as well. (Darren is also a co-founder of a large blog network known as b5media. According to the site, b5 has no openings right now, but it's still worth a look.)

Here at RRR.com, we also recently assembled over 35 screened links to additional blogger employers. 

Going Solo
Many bloggers get their start by simply launching an independent blog, using free or low-cost platforms such as Blogger or TypePad, with potential revenue from ads provided by Google AdSense, Commission Junction, or a similar service. (With revenue depending on the number of readers, effective marketing is key.)

Other aspiring bloggers join blog networks that are open to beginners. One of the most popular is Helium, which also offers the possibility of revenue from advertising, writing contests, and other sources.

From the Rat Race Rebellion Mailbag -- Virtual Assistant Training, Taking Surveys, Etc.

Chris and I receive many queries about working from home and other Rat Race topics. Here are some recent highlights from the R3 Mailbag.

Dear R3: I'm not a military spouse, but I'd like to take your Armed Forces Virtual Assistant training to become a VA. Is there any way I can attend one of your VA training programs at a military base near me?

R3: We have some bad news and some good news.

The "bad" news is, the Portable Career & Virtual Assistant Training Program™ is available only to military spouses. (It's generally paid for by the military bases, so they make the seating allocations.)

The good news is, our book, The 2-Second Commute: Join the Exploding Ranks of Freelance Virtual Assistants, is based on the same 15-hour training program. (And the $10.19 price ain't bad neither.)

= = = = = = = = =

Dear R3: You tell people to file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau when they're scammed, but the BBB is just a pay-for-membership organization. What good can they do?

R3: The BBB is indeed a pay-for-membership organization (which means that if a company does not purchase a BBB membership, it is not "listed" with the BBB). However, while they may not always be able to get your money back, when you report a scam to the BBB you can at least (1) help start or augment a file – often searchable by Google – on the scammer, which will (2) help others avoid the scam, and, assuming the scam is reported often enough, (3) spark an investigation by local or state law enforcement officials and/or (in the US) the Federal Trade Commission. (The BBB itself investigates scam complaints as well.)

Be sure to report scams to the FBI-run Internet Crime Complaint Center, too, at http://www.ic3.gov/default.aspx.

= = = = = = = = =

Dear R3: I want to take surveys to make a little money on the side. But with some survey sites, I get a few minutes into a survey and suddenly receive a message telling me I don't qualify. What's up with that?

R3: You may not match the "target consumer group" for that particular product or service. For context, survey firms are hired by companies such as Procter & Gamble to gather feedback and other data from consumers who are similar to the company's targeted purchasers. For example, a company that wants to sell laundry detergent may be looking for survey results from "women between the ages of 25 and 54, with children between the ages of 3 and 17."

Some survey companies will require your personal information up front, and will keep it on file and send you only those surveys that fit your profile. Others, however, will have you answer the profile questions with each survey, to see if you fit. If you don't, you receive the elimination notice.