I am writing this post in attempt to create a opportunity list for South Africans looking to work from home.  I am hoping that readers will contribute with any opportunities they know of and post them as comments.

Working from home is probably appealing to most as it gives us much more free time to spend with our family, the opportunity to work hours as we wish and more time for our hobbies and passions. Some start looking for work from home opportunities because they can not find work or they have been fired or retrenched from their job. It makes no difference what your reason is for wanting to work from home, if it is on a part-time basis of fulltime, what you need to know is that there are opportunities and if you keep knocking the doors will open.

The mistake most of us make is to wait until we are in desperate need for money before we start searching for alternative income methods than the traditional employment. If you are reading this and you are well of at the moment, i  believe you should still keep reading as an extra income can only benefit you and that day when you are in need you will have something to fall back on.

What opportunities are there in regards to working from home in South Africa? I believe working from home can be divided into 3 main categories, Network Marketing,  Home Business and  Making Money on the Internet.  Network Marketing is a business opportunity i believe everyone should get involved in for creating financial freedom, even if it is on a part-time basis, as when you are not working , the MLM system is working for you and your down-line might be  doing enough for you to do nothing at all more than motivating them. The same goes for making money online threw PPC ( Pay Per Click ) /Blogging and Affiliate Marketing. Once you put an affiliate link or content out there, it might be generating you income for years to come. You might be sleeping, but when you wake up you have made more money then when you were awake. I am not a sales person, but have no problem with marketing, and do my networking online. You might be more of sales person and whould take a more direct approach. Starting a home business is a bit more of a commitment and you will not have the same freedom as with MLM and Affiliate Marketing / Blogging , none the less, working for yourself is much better than working for a boss.

MLM ( Network Marketing / Multi-Level Marketing )

MLM gets confused by so many with a pyramid scheme.  Pyramid Schemes normally have no products and are just poeple paying people and the pyramid scheme owners and then recruiting more people to pay and recruit more people and so the loop continues.  Network Marketing companies have a product and money that normal business’ spend on advertising and marketing goes back to members and because MLM companies grow big they can buy the product at a cheaper price than normal companies and the money saved on the purchase price, advertising and marketing are turned into network marketing earnings .

Here are a few MLM companies in South Africa that i know of:

Boltron ( Social Buying ) ,  Jamming ( Rewards Card ) ,  ICI – Independent Client Introducer  ( JSE Investment threw StratEquity ), VOX ( Voip Telecoms),  DTN – Dynamic Travel Network  ( Travel ) , My Lekker Life ( Travel ),  Fwendz ( Mobile Subscription ) ,  Herbalife ( Health Products ),  Bemotivated2day ( Motivational Messages )

Web  Money

Making money online is one of the most searched for opportunities in the world and is also the place were most scammers prey. There are a lot of ways of making money on the internet. Affiliate Marketing, Blogging, Freelancing, Get Paid To,  Building Profitable Websites, Ecommerce, Drop Shipping, Selling Stuff on Auction Sites, Selling Ebooks, Domain and Website Flipping , Creating Your Own Product and Selling it are to name the most popular. Then there is also Forex and Stock Market Trading.

These get rich quick schemes are a misleading and are meant to prey on opportunity seekers lack of knowledge on making money online. Yes you can make money quickly, but becoming a millionaire overnight is just not realistic and there might be a select few who have achieved it, by taking initiative when opportunity presented itself. The other millionaires are probably the scammers, that became millionaires by telling people they were already millionaires and had the secret blueprint that only a select few can buy,  just to come back tomorrow after you bought the blueprint and the number of select few copies are still the same.

Making money online is all about eyeballs;  how many visitors do you have to your website or blog, how many people click on your affiliate link and how convincing your advertisements are, how many facebook friends you have, how  many facebook page likes you have, how many Twitter followers you have, how many people have signed up for your newsletter, how many people have joined your social media groups on different social and business networking sites,  how many linkedin contacts do you have. etc. It boils down to how many people you can reach or how many people can find you via the search engine and if your offer is on par for what they are looking for.

3.GPT ( Get Paid To ) – PTC ( Paid To Click ) and Paid Surveys

I have only come across 1 PTC ( Paid To Click ) company so far that I made about R150 in 3 months, and it didn’t take much more than about 3 minutes of my time every day. I look at it as free cash, as when I am online I just log in quickly click on a few ads and then continue with what I am doing.  They have paid me out twice already and you get paid once a month on the 16th if you have reached the minimum payout amount of R50. You can visit them here.

There is no real money to be made with paid surveys. Survey Basket seemed to be the answer for South Africans in regards to paid surveys, but then died out. They have just teamed up with Elighten Panel and might just find some new life. You can read what I really think about paid surveys here.

1.Ecommerce / Drop Shipping

Drop Shipping is a something that a person can start on a part time basis, as you need no capital to start and only pay for what you sell and there is only a minimal monthly fee to for having access to the products threw the drop shipping company.  Computer Wholesalers and Drop Shippers SA are two companies that South Africans can use to start their own ecommerce website or shop. You can read my post on Drop Shippers here and on Computer Wholesalers here. You can use vstore to create your own online store for free or sell on bidorbuy . If you want to move later on, as your business expands, to have your own website developed the option still exists.

2.Domain Name and Website flipping

Domain name flipping is one of those opportunities that you can make money quickly, but it can also take time, as you might flip one domain name with a huge profit today and then loose small amounts on 10 not so great names, or it might take a while before you find a buyer. Domain Name flipping involves registering or buying existing domain names with the intention of selling them for a profit. There are a lot of things to consider when buying a domain name. The existing traffic it receiving and the brand-ability are two of the most important. Website flipping takes much more work as the idée is to take an existing website increase its search engine ranking and traffic, monetize it, and then sell it.

You can read my quick start guide to domain name flipping here .

5. Affiliate Marketing / Blogging

After a lot of searching online and not finding that get rich quick program that works most people realize or find out that affiliate marketing and blogging are the most solid opportunity online for creating passive income.

You can read my mini-course on affiliate marketing here.

6.Freelancing

With freelancing, unfortunately you need some sort of skills. Freelancentral.co.za and ItFreelance.co.za are two South African freelancing sites that have been around for a while, with the first being a portfolio site and the  latter being for IT proffesionals. Forum posting and blog commenting are two more GPT ( Get Paid To ) opportunities that any one can do and you may find gigs on a site like fiverr.com and make some quick cash, although you will be paid via paypal and will need a FNB account to bring the money into SA.

Home Business:

Starting a home business is different for every person as our knowledge and skills are in different areas . There is no point in starting a business if it is not something you enjoy doing. E.g. I might make R50000 a month selling plastic bottles, but have no joy in it and would rather settle for making R10000 a month for something I will enjoy doing running a computer business. Mmm …  Maby plastic bottles isn’t such a bad idee after all, and i pull back what i said.

This is where you come in. Do you know of any Home Business Opportunities? Online Opportunities?  Multi Level Marketing Opportunities? Other Ways of Making Money?

Please don’t post affiliate links to high hype , no description of what it involves , opportunities. Each affiliate link will be reviewed and it will be deleted if I believe it holds no benefits to readers. Affiliate Links to solid opportunities are allowed.