by Carmel Brulez

Created on: October 25, 2009

There are several ways you can get paid for talking on the phone.

If you are looking for part-time work or work from home then it will be more difficult but still possible to find something suitable. There are a lot of people seeking work from home on the phone, competition is strong and the pay is a lot less, but if you are stuck at home anyway you might find it pays some bills and relieves the loneliness and boredom. If you can go out to a call centre and work full time there are a lot of different opportunities. A lot of out of work actors tend to end up doing this type of work.

Sales calls where you get a basic plus commision are the norm. This can pay quite well. But it can often mean working evenings and where you need to make a lot of sales to get enough commission to justify the time and travelling. Sales companies advertise on the net and locally.

If you seek work from home on a part time basis women usually end up with a job as a 'psychic' who listens to worried and upset callers who need to hear some news, make a decision or simply feel better about themselves. Others might become sex chat line operators talking to men who are lonely. Some of these can be quite rude and insulting, so you need to be thick skinned and a good actress. In both cases the pay is quite bad and you may be waiting for hours for your next call, but you do not have any expense, callers do not know your real phone number so cannot ring you otherwise, and you can usually choose your hours. If you are willing to work evenings and weekends, when most callers ring, you will be more popular and get offered more work. You need a landline for this work, a mobile is not suitable.

Some companies also employ canvassers and sales people to work from home where you chase up leads and get paid per lead. This is interesting and a challenge but you only get paid for leads themselves. The truth is that if you are not good at it you spend a great deal of time on the phone, saying the same things over and over again.... which becomes quite boring for you.... and earn nothing then. You would also have to make sure that your calls are paid for so that you do not end up with a huge phone bill.

Working from home on the phone does not pay much, and there are lots of times when you can make yourself available and still get no work. But if you are going to be stuck at home anyway it might be worth doing,especially if you are also doing other work inbetween.

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