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PROMO: You’re watching LIFETIME. Television for women.
ANNOUNCER: Coming up on NEW ATTITUDES… trendy, classic or sporty. Which style type are you? Why figuring it out might save you time and money. Plus, is your 9 to 5 starting to grind? From flexible hours to heaps of cash, which jobs are hot when you’re ready to work from home? Then, tired of getting your hair cut the way he wants it instead of the way you want it? Tips on finding the perfect hair stylist. So don’t go anywhere because it all starts right now.
(music & song… "I’ve got a New Attitude"…)
LEANZA CORNETT: Hi, I’m Leanza Cornett. Before we start today’s show I want to take this opportunity to introduce you to the newest member of our team. Straight from TV’s hit comedy "Living Single", Kim Coles!
KIM COLES: Singing… "With a whole New Attitiude… yeah!" (laughing)
LEANZA: Lovely.
KIM: I get on my own nerves. (Laughing) Listen! I’m having a great time being here and I just have a confession I must make to you.
LEANZA: Uh, oh. What?
KIM: Well, I knew when I took this job that I’m tall. I’m about 5 foot 9. I heard that you were really petite and I was worried about the two of us you know, being on camera together with the size difference and all, but you know what? It’s going to be just fine. We look great together!
LEANZA: We do look great together, but I also have a confession. I was a little self-conscious, too, so I brought along…
KIM: Um-hum…
LEANZA: …props.
KIM: Oh! (Laughing and looking at wooden box Leanza is standing on.) Come on down. Size doesn’t matter.
LEANZA: So they say.
KIM: Our first story…
LEANZA: Yes! Have you ever looked in your closet and found tons of stuff but nothing to wear?
KIM: Oh I get that every day. I did it this morning.
LEANZA: And if you have the same problem it’s probably because you don’t know what your style type is…
(Rest of segment on clothing types removed from transcript.)
(Music) In direct response to your letters… successful ways to work from home. Next!
(Commercial Break)
(Music)
LEANZA: Of all the stories you’ve requested for us to do, by far we’ve gotten the most mail asking for this next one. Whether it’s because you miss your kids or maybe you’re just tired of spending ten hours a day chained to a desk, you’re looking for ways to work from home. So in this next story, not only are we going to find the jobs that have the best earning potential, but we’ll talk to some women who have been there and done that.
(music)
LEANZA: The baby’s sick. The toddler is calling the housekeeper mommy (child calling ‘Mommy") and you haven’t been affectionate with your husband in what seems like years! It’s moments like these that make you want to chuck the job and just stay home! But the family needs the money. So what’s the solution? (phone ringing)
(Phone ringing) HOME-BASED CUSTOMER SERVICE WORKER: "Good afternoon, thank you for calling the ___ Motor Club, my name is Debra. How may I help you today?"
LEANZA: Home based employment. Debra J. is part of the latest wave in work at home professionals. A cyber agent. This mother of three works at home answering customer service calls for companies all across the U.S.
DEBRA J: It’s almost like an office job, almost, but so different. You’re able to schedule increments of time that are more suitable to you, and so by working an hour or two hours at a time, I can keep her (daughter) entertained and still be mom and be in the home with her. (To Daughter) Do you have homework? That’s a good question.
LEANZA: Debra works through a South Florida company called (removed) Cyber Center Network. (Company) trains its customer service agents and provides them with a list of potential clients to choose from.
DEBRA J: You may choose a client based on the type of service that they’re providing. It may be of some interest to you, or based on what they’re going to be paying per call.
(music)
LEANZA: To go cyber, all you need is a computer and an off-premises exchange. This special telephone line allows the agents to talk to their clients anywhere in the country with no long distance charges.
DEBRA J.: (on the phone while doing her job at home)… "Okay, she gave me a zip code. I’ll just verify it."
LEANZA: (monitor showing the moneyfromhome.com website) There are now more legitimate opportunities to work at home than ever before. Everything from sales & telemarketing to freelance writing and graphic design can be done from home. But how do you find out about these jobs?
MONEYFROMHOME.COM SPOKESPERSON: (showing the moneyfromhome.com website on camera) These are some of the helpful features of our web page. (scrolling)
(music)
LEANZA: In the last decade the work at home phenomenon has literally exploded. More than 40 million workers according to the Labor Department. Now there’s a website in San Antonio, Texas specifically for them. Her unique service connects people who want to work at home with companies hiring home workers.
MONEYFROMHOME.COM SPOKESPERSON: (as the camera shows actual jobs included in online membership) As far the job information, you can go into the website, you can search through it for the types of jobs you’re looking for. You can see all of the information that we’ve researched…the company, where they’re located, how they want you to contact them, what the job title is and a description of the work. And it’s available 7 days a week 24 hours day for searching by anybody who wants to.
LEANZA: For $35 a year you can access the service and find every job imaginable.
MONEYFROMHOME.COM SPOKESPERSON: You can do assembly work, different types of crafts. There are companies that will buy craft items. Some people love to make crafts and have no outlet for them. You can do telemarketing. You can do customer service. With today’s technology you can basically work at home at the other end of a phone number.
(music)
LEANZA: You can also now find books specializing in home-based businesses. Carolyn Hall and her partner, Tanya Wallace co-authorzed Moneymaking Moms. As moms working at home themselves, they say the first step is to ask yourself some hard questions.
CAROLYN HALL: What do I hope to gain from this? Why am I doing this? Do I want to spend all of my time with my children? Do I want to be a millionaire in five years? Why am I looking into this option? And she should really examine why she’s doing it, and then go from there. What can I do from home?
TANYA WALLACE: I don’t think its for everybody. You definitely have to be self-motivated. You definitely have to be self-disciplined and you have to be prepared to take the bumps in the road, you know, if you run across a hurdle that’s hard to clear, you can’t be discouraged by that. You have to forge ahead and keep trying and your business will eventually take off.
LEANZA: They also caution women to watch out for potential scams.
CAROLYN HALL: The best advice we have for that is, if they ask for money up front, get from them in writing what it is they’re going to give you in return. Check them out with the Better Business Bureau, Federal Trade Commission. Make sure that they’re a solid company, but by in large most of them advertising "work at home make $50,000 a year", um, you’d be very lucky, they’ll probably just send you information you can find yourself in the public library.
(Group of kids talking.)
LEANZA: Home-based Day care center operator.
HOME-BASED CHILD CARE OPERATOR: (to group of kids) What is this?
KIDS: A cow!
(music)
LEANZA: One of the most in demand home-based businesses is day care. It’s estimated there are nearly 300,000 regulated facilities throughout the country and the numbers are growing. The day care option is a great option for working at home because if she’s a mother with her own children she’s already doing that business, so in order to include a few more kids and get paid. She does have to have quite a bit of patience.
(Music)
LEANZA: Nancy Wyatt became a family child care provider in 1985 when she was pregnant with her second child.
NANCY WYATT: I decided not to try to work at home at anything else because I realized that it would take me longer to establish myself. With the child care I only needed to find six families that wanted to place their children with me. That seemed like a do-able thing in a reasonable time.
(music)
LEANZA: Running an in-home day care center requires long hours and a lot of energy. You also need a license and insurance. But it doesn’t take much start up money.
NANCY WYATT: You need to have some money to buy some children’s toys but you can keep those type of costs down. You can go to yard sales and find things that are hardly used. So there are ways to do that. I also highly recommend that you have some back up money.
(music)
LEANZA: If working at home seems like the perfect solution for you, you might want to give it a whirl.
MONEYFROMHOME.COM SPOKESPERSON: You want to work at home, you’ve cleared it with your family? I would decide what I want to and I would test it, just try it an hour or two a week. Try it and see if you like it. If you like it do it some more. And then if you really like, then maybe think about giving up that traditional job if you have one and make the full conversion to working at home.
(music)
LEANZA: For more ideas (on starting your own home-based day care) you can get on the web and check out NAFCC.org.
LEANZA: Coming up! From ten bucks to three hundred. How to find a hair stylist that won’t cut you short…
(End of transcript.)