Char Zimmerman

Who I'd like to meet:

......................TRUE TESTIMONY....................... My Story for the mom's group by Kerri White Mar 3 at 02:42 PM Hi! I'm going to add my thoughts in here as well, and you have had some great responses from others! I have done several stay at home, be your own boss, become a millionaire, *small* sign up fee, do it your way businesses as well. I love staying home with my children (whom we've adopted) and I think that it's so important to do that if you can, especially with babies (I don't want to pay someone else to raise my child for me for the majority of their awake hours each day). So I hope you don't mind if I tell you a little bit about me. Several years ago I was an Independent Beauty Consultant with Mary Kay. I loved Mary Kay, I loved the team building, I loved the friends, I loved the girl friend time, I loved seminar in Texas, I loved 99% of it. I didn't love the selling part of it. I made some money, but you get so caught up in being a star consultant and trying to recruit people and trying to convince them to buy thousands of dollars in product that you put everything you earn right back into it. Now for anyone that is successful at Mary Kay, my hat goes off to you, but for me, it wasn't the best thing for me, but I did love it. Around my third year as a consultant (I was a team leader which meant I had 5 people signed up under me) a friend in Mary Kay asked me if my husband and I wanted to host an exchange student. We weren't able to have our own children (since then we've adopted) and it sounded like a lot of fun to have a teenager for a year, so we said yes. Our student was from Kazakhstan (part of the former Soviet Union) and she was great. We were having so much fun with her I decided to be an area representative for another student that was here already and I just thought she was the best too! I decided I could earn some money by locating host families for the students coming in the fall and maintaining monthly contact with them after they got here. I started placing students with host families and I was shocked to find that people were more receptive to volunteering to host a stranger in their home for 5 or 10 months than they were to using good skin care or sunscreen. In a month I placed 43 exchange students in loving homes all over Colorado. Now this is not a get rich quick scheme, and there is some work involved, but when I figured out that I would spend about 2 hours doing a Mary Kay class and that I might sell $50 to $100 of makeup, at a 50% profit, that was a lot of work for not a lot of money. But to place a student with a great host family, that was so excited to e-mail and talk to their student on the phone that they would call me any time they heard from their student was such a wonderful feeling. And, I got paid $800 per student that I placed (we get paid $400 for the placement and orientations for the host family and the student and $400 for the supervision during the year). So for the same 2 hours of initial work I made $800. There is no start up fee or investment. You are a private contractor for ICES (International Cultural Exchange Services) which means that you get to have the tax deductions for a home business without buying inventory or worrying about anything being shady with some get rich at home jobs I've looked into. Again, there is work involved, this is not a gimmick, there is actual work you have to do to get paid. ICES is hiring and we are looking for team players (there is no reason for us to be cut-throat, so we all work together, from all around the country). ICES does training and support by phone, so you can truly work from home. And the best part is that you get to meet some of the world's greatest teenagers. This year we are hosting a lovely young lady from Norway and I can't believe that she will only be here for 3 more months, we are all going to miss her so much! Our family has been invited to go to Azerbaijan to be in one of our other student's wedding this fall. We are so excited to see her again! Plus, our first 2 students met us in Florida when we took our newly adopted children to Disney World so that we could celebrate our family with ALL of our children! I know that this is a bit different than the other replies you received, but I hope that you see the difference in the type of stay at home job this is compared to so many others out there. I would love to talk to you (or anyone else) who would like to place exchange students with great families or anyone that is a great family and wants to host a great student! Kindest Regards, Kerri

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