How I Started Working From Home

In my last post I talked about my prayer and thought process that led me to believe that I should look for work that I could do from home. Now I’m going to tell you about the various different things I’ve tried and why they did or didn’t work for me and how they landed me where I now am.

My biggest piece of advice to anyone thinking about working from home is to just jump in and start doing something! In a book I recently read it talked about how God cannot use anyone who just sits around and waits for something to happen. The author used the example of Gideon in Judges 6:11. This verse talks about how Gideon was working, sure he was hiding from the bad guys while doing it–but he was busy, he was doing something! God frequently talks about needing to be diligent, needing to be faithful, and condemns laziness and slothfulness. So if you’re just waiting for some magic light bulb to go off or something to magically drop in your lap you need to realize that in order for God to bless you most of the time you need to be taking the first steps towards Him in faith!

What I’m not saying is to go jump into the first job opportunity you find and throw a bunch of money into it. Absolutely do not do that!!! Every step in the process should be filled with research and prayer! As I looked around to begin with I decided to go into the only legitimate work-from-home job I knew of at the time-direct sales. I spoke with many of my friend who worked for a bunch of different companies, asking about the start up costs, pros and cons, and whether or not they actually made any money from it. The refrain I heard from many of them was that they mostly just did it to get the products they bought for a big discount and not because they made any real money from it. They all told me that there was the opportunity to make money, it would just require dedication and work. I then asked around with my friends and family and talked about the company I was thinking about selling for and asked them to give me a brutally honest answer in whether or not they would purchase from me if I did start selling. (No need to dump money into something no one is going to buy from you!) After going over all of this information I decided I would still like to try and chose a company that I liked very much, had purchased a lot from, and that had a tiny start up fee and no inventory requirements.  I had stuck my toe into the world of working from home and was thrilled when I made my first sale! I picked right before Christmas to start which was the perfect time as I was able to get many of my friends and family to purchase from me and I purchased most of my gifts for others at a discount. I was able to make a nice little bit of money since the first month you received a large percentage of your sales and everything seemed to be going wonderfully!

After that first month, however, several things started to surface that made me rethink being a part of the company. I had several problems with communication with the company itself, I realized that I was not a good sales-woman at all-if someone gave me a “no” I just said “ok no problem” and didn’t try to convince them at all, and on top of that my personal life became a whirl wind due to hubbies military career and (yet another) cross country move. After much prayer (again) I decide to quit working for the company right before we moved.

I was happy for the experience because it taught me a lot, but now I wondered-what else was there that I could possibly do?

Copyright © Nicole Elliott, Moms of Faith, All Rights Reserved