MYSTERY SHOPPING—WHAT YOU MEAN I NEED TO READ THE JOB DESCRIPTIONS?

Or as the old B movie bit characters might say “Read, I don’t need to read no stinking job descriptions.” But you do and here’s why.

I’ll use movie shops as a prime example of how much a job can change with just a few words. 

Movie shops are one of my personal favorites, they are fun to do, they generally pay well and sometimes you get a free movie or two plus concessions out of the deal.  It is all in how the job description is worded and just a single word can change the whole shop scenario.

The first of the single word change out is overt or covert.  Overt means you reveal yourself as an auditor at some point in the shop and by doing so you can prevent yourself from getting free movie shops in that theater for as much as a year or more. 

Covert means, you do not let anyone know for any reason why you are there.  In remaining a true mystery shopper you will get to see more movies for free if you don’t get spotted. 

Not getting spotted is generally a simple task, if you pay attention to who is around you.  These shops generally include counting the number of patrons, gathering ticket prices, concession prices and/or recording what trailers are showing, along with a number of other small bits of info. 

A few years ago I was at one theater and I spotted the mystery shopper by his paperwork that clearly said on it “Covert Movie Audit”  he was setting in the lobby filling out his report!  The man definitely needed to learn something about being covert.  The first rule is do not take your paperwork in with you.  You leave it in your vehicle out of sight.  Yet there he was in the lobby filling out his form. 

On such assignments I put my small spiral in my purse, or use an ipod to make quick notes out of sight of others (bathroom stalls work well for this). Or I will pretend I am playing a game on the ipod and make brief notes there.  The object is to not get spotted.

The first thing I look for in movie assignments is the c that makes the difference in covert and overt assignments.

The second single word I look for is ‘EACH’.  That word can make the difference in being in a theater for just the length of one show, or from the minute the theater opens to the minute it closes on a certain day. 

An example of this is a covert blind check (meaning patron count, and ticket prices) movie mystery shop I just completed last weekend.  The word EACH was on that paperwork.  I had a choice of three different days to do the shop as wekk as numerous local theaters and that made a HUGE difference in how many times I’d be seeing the movie.

The theater I went to was one of my favorites and I chose the Friday time frame because the required movie was only showing one time on that day on one screen.  That meant I got paid for two movie tickets and $25 to see a movie we wanted to see anyway, unfortunately this one didn’t include any free concessions, but then those also require more work.

Had I chose Saturday or Sunday I would have had to set through the movie three times and to do so covertly in the small theater I was at would have been nearly impossible.  We have done it with success before by claiming we were doing a movie review for a newspaper, but it’s not a scenario that is easy to carry off. 

If I had chosen one of the big multi-screen theaters it would have been even more complicated and would have required 1-2 partners to pull it off.  Because when the paperwork says EACH, it means every screen, every showing.  You are paid for your tickets and a flat pay for each additional screen, but you are also talking about trying to remain covert all day!  In this particular movie situation the first movie would have been $25 plus two tickets, but all the other screens would have been $12 plus two tickets, because they figure you have already spent the fuel to get there. 

While doing the multi-screen can net you a lot more money, it can also be very exhausting, and your cash layout until the reimbursement can be quite high.  These are things you must consider when reading over the job descriptions.

Another single word I look for is “FIRST”.  Some movie shops require you to be there for the first and/or last showing.  Since the first showing is often just before noon it becomes a problem for many part time mystery shoppers.  If you have a regular job chances are you are not going to be available for that time showing. Or if you get up early the midnight shows might not be for you either. It’s all in the wording.

After looking for these single words I also read the job description in full because, especially with movie shops, the description of the requirements can change constantly. It is important to fully understand not only the how to do it part of the shop, but the deadline for filing the report.

I have had movie shops where I have had to literally leave the theater right after the trailers to phone in the results immediately and then go back in to see the actual movie.  I do not like missing the first several minutes of a movie.

For other types of mystery shopping and merchandising the instructions can be as varied also.  One company I work for audits several different bank chains, each bank has the exact same basic requirements, but they also have differences.  One might require you to check if their free in the lobby coin counter is working, while another will want you to try to cash a check without being a customer, and a third requires you to take a covert picture of the bank exterior.  Because they are all three the same company it is easy to get them confused.  So it is important to refresh your memory with each job.

The documentation for a job might change slightly too.  While one location may require a receipt another might require you get a business card.  Wrong documentation, you won’t get paid.

Some merchandising jobs will have in them that you must be able to comfortably lift a certain weight, or have a vehicle to transport a box of a certain size, or you might only be able to do the job during a certain short time frame.  Or as I mentioned in my previous post http://cjpattersonontheranch.blogspot.com/2012/07/communication-key-to-good-mystery.html  You might be required to shop a certain department for a certain item.  It’s all in the paperwork both online and what you print out.  The thing is you MUST read the paperwork.

Many a job has not been paid for because the contractor has not read the paperwork and understood it correctly.  The understanding is an important key as well. 

When I first started mystery shopping I didn’t get paid for one fast food shop because I took the time frame of between certain hours to mean I needed to start the job between those hours and it didn’t matter how long it took me.  I was wrong.  It meant both segments needed to be completed between those hours.  I didn’t read the instructions all the way through and it ended up costing me money.

Once you accept a job and print out all the required paperwork it is important to “read” or check that paperwork. As I pointed out in the

http://cjpattersonontheranch.blogspot.com/2012/07/communication-key-to-good-mystery.html  post I didn’t check my paperwork closely and didn’t see that it didn’t have the department and job information in the paperwork.

Another thing to check your paperwork for before you leave home is if the location address is on the paperwork.  With many companies it is not.  They use a generic form for all their paperwork and it is very frustrating to get out and discover you do not have the address for the location you are to go to that day.  It’s fine if the town only has one of that bank or fast food location, but in larger cities where the burger joint might be on every corner it is essential that you have the correct address.  Go to the wrong location, you won’t get paid—nearly did that once.

Time frame is essential, always check that again after you print out the paperwork.  I recently signed up for a lunch shop, for a job you request and they let you know later if you got it.  When the paperwork arrived it had been changed to a dinner shop.  So always check before, during and yes even after you do a shop to make certain nothing has changed.

Reading the paperwork will also tell you what company you are representing on that day in what store.  While there are the basic companies you contract to, sometimes you are there as a representative of an entirely different company.  An example is you work for merchandising company A but they are hiring you to do a merchandising job on behalf of corporation B and you must meet the dress codes, including name tags, and rules of corporation B, including signing in the vendor book as with corporation B not company A.

A word about vendor books and merchandising.  If the store has one, you absolutely need to sign in on that book.  Not only because it is the stores policy, but because the companies you work for WILL send someone out to check to make certain that you were there.  If you haven’t signed in it makes it much harder for you to prove you were there.

Yep, they audit the auditors.  On more than one job my assignment has been to check to see if the previous merchandiser actually did the job.  Unfortunately I’ve found several times the jobs haven’t been done. 

Don’t ever take for granted you can “let something” slide because you are tired, or don’t agree with how the job is suppose to be done, because you will be audited when you least expect it.

One mystery shopper I know tried cutting corners on doing bank shops by just grabbing business cards and not actually doing the personal banker interviews she was required to do.  Well she turned in a report stating she had spent time with someone who was actually out on maternity leave. She was fired by the mystery shopping company.

The companies have all sorts of ways of checking your job performance, so READ the paperwork and follow it to the letter. If you have a question about how it is to be done, then contact the scheduler and ask questions BEFORE doing the shop.

Also reading the paperwork might include surprising extras. For one merchandising job we were required to purchase cookies and take them to the departments for the employees while we gave a how to speech—problem was the company we were to take these cookies to did not allow such things.  By reading the paperwork ahead of time and checking with the company I headed off a potential problem for myself.

Another set of jobs has just recently added that I must visit their website AFTER I do the shop and do a price comparison.  The first time this addition appeared it was not on the assignment paperwork, but it was on the online filing of the report. This is one of the reasons I say READ afterwards as well.  Had I not read that little extra “click here” I would not have completed the assignment properly and would not have been paid.

Filing deadlines are another thing to read closely.  Two companies I work for deduct from your pay if you are late in filing, even by a few minutes unless there is a problem with their website.  If you don’t read the entire set of instructions you would not know that. Sometimes the deadlines are very short. 

One company I work for on a regular basis shuts down their website every night from 10:00pm to 12:30 am for daily maintenance and updates.  You only have 12 hours to file your reports with that company, and if you don’t get it filed before 10 pm you will be up quite late waiting to file the report and it can put you past your 12 hour deadline.

Read your contractor agreements as well. I enjoy merchandising and so when a company I have mystery shopped for years for offered me the opportunity to do merchandising as well I very nearly signed up for it until I read that I would have to pay for my own background check, and my own shirt the two of which came with a pretty hefty price tag.  This is a company I know to be legit, but I object to being required to pay for these things when I’ve already been working for them and their sister company (and doing merchandising for the sister company) for seven years.  They know my work.

I do not object to a background check being ran, I object to them wanting me to pay for it.  Especially when I’ve already had numerous background checks ran by various companies and passed them with flying colors.  Needless to say I am not merchandising for that company.  It would take a lot of jobs for me to re-coup the cost of those expenditures.

Another company that I have worked for a long time has recently changed over from requiring your social security number to requiring an ein I do not have an ein, nor do I want one, that would simply complicate my taxes—and I do pay taxes on the jobs I do. I regret that they have done this, I will miss doing the shops for them, but I do not feel I need any further tax complications, when a social security number has worked for this long and is all both the state and federal government requires to mystery shop.

All of this is in the contractors agreements.  So be sure and read those as well.

I’ve just touched upon a few of the many reasons to completely read all paperwork, but I feel I’ve given you enough to make you realize how important reading the paperwork is.

Jan who remembers a test in school where the first question said “read the entire test before starting” and it turned out that in the middle of the test it said “put your name at the top of the page and turn it over—you have completed the test.” In OK

COMMUNICATION, THE KEY TO GOOD MYSTERY SHOPPING…

Merchandising, and every aspect of life for certain, but today’s post is about mystery shopping and merchandising and how important a good set of communication skills is vital to being successful in your job.

The first thing I want to say is if you have ANY doubt about how a job is to be done you should check with the scheduler for that job to get it clarified.  This can normally be done from an online help feature with each company. Some companies have people on duty to answer your questions immediately.  Others you may have to wait as much as 48 hours to get your response.  So it is vital that you contact them as soon as you realize you have a question.

Some have phone numbers you can call for help while in the field.  Unfortunately that number is on the website and if you don’t have a smart phone, which I don’t, and you are miles away from your computer that phone number is not assessable to you easily.  To avoid this problem either enter into your phones memory the numbers for the help desks for each company, or keep a list of them in your mystery shopping bag.

What you don’t have a mystery shopping bag?  Why not?  What is it?  It is your all purpose tool for doing mystery shops and merchandising of all types.

Mine is an oversized purse with sturdy handles.  Into it goes my clipboard with my paperwork and route print out on it, my address book, spare ink pens, a stop watch, an ipod, a small spiral notebook, a pair of scissors, a small stapler, a camera, spare batteries for the camera,  a screw driver that has a Phillips head tip on one end and a flat head tip on the other, my cash envelope that is designated “reimbursables” for those small required purchases, my vendor name tag and any specific tools that a job might need.  In the past I’ve used a zippered three ring binder, but have found the tote bag easier for my personal needs.

I keep the bag fully stocked at all times.  I have found having it prepared and ready to go prevents getting out and into a bind for doing a job. 

I must admit that the small address/phone number book is a very recent addition to the bag.  I had a page of the numbers in the three ring binder when I was carrying it, but never got around to putting something similar into the bag until I ran into a problem recently that could have saved me a lot of time and frustration.

I was doing a reimbursable mystery shop that required me to shop a certain department of a store and ask a certain set of questions.  Over the last seven years I have done literally hundreds of such shops, but I still print my paperwork and go over it just prior to doing the shop to make sure the company has not changed how they want the job done.

I also read the entire job description prior to signing up for a job—more on why I do this in my next post.  On this particular job I had read the entire set of paperwork online before deciding to take the job, and then had printed the paperwork out immediately after making the decision.  I did not stop to read what had printed right then because after all I printed what was on the screen, or so I thought.  

Oh I looked at it to make sure I had all the pages, but did not reread all the pages at that point. There were two identical jobs to do at two different locations. Generally I will only print the instructions once to save on paper and ink, but for some reason I printed out both sets of the instructions separately.

The next day as I arrived to do the first of the two I pulled out the instructions to verify the department and scenario.  Everything was on the paperwork, but that!  The sentence was there, but where they normally put in the required department and item was blank on both sets of instructions!

Now I had a problem, nowhere on that paperwork was any contact information for the mystery shopping company.  I was over forty miles from home and no smart phone.  I had contracted to complete both shops on that specific day, before a certain time.  There was not time to drive home, look up the information and drive back.  I had to go with what I remembered from reading the night before and pray that it was right.

When I went to file my reports that evening the online paperwork said an entirely different department and item.  Great now what?  I had spent a lot of fuel, and made two purchases I thought I was to be reimbursed for, not to mention I would not get the over $20 I had contracted for, because you MUST do the correct department and item to get paid.

I was pretty upset, in all the hundreds of mystery shops I have done I had NEVER shopped the wrong department before.  Now I had done so with not one but TWO shops.

I decided honesty is the best policy.  I emailed the scheduler and explained what had happened and what I would have swore the paperwork had said when I signed up.

In the email I included the job number, the locations, and my auditor id number, along with my phone number. Then I did not file the two shops. I couldn’t because the department and item were wrong.

I went to bed that night pretty upset with myself.

Communication works two ways.  The auditor called me the first thing the next morning.  I was NOT wrong in the department and item, there had been a clerical error at the company that they had corrected mid-day the day before, while I was actually performing the shops, and they had changed the department and item at that time! 

She went on to apologize to me for the distress it had caused me, told me to file my reports that day and that I would be paid in full, including the reimbursements.  All past due notices would be removed from my file as well.

If I had not sent the email, the result would have been entirely different.  If I had taken the phone number with me, they could have notified me then that the department and item had been changed.

Other times having the contact info with me have paid off have included not being able to find a location.  I once could not find a $50 bank shop in a town as per the instructions, address, and map the company had supplied.  Luckily that day I had the phone number with me.  A quick call made me my $50, a typo at the company had put the bank in the wrong town.  Luckily the town it was in was actually a suburb of the larger town and just a few miles away.  No communication—no $50.

I lost one big shop for a similar situation on a fuel station, because the map supplied by the company had it at a residential location and not where it actually was over 50 miles away, in an entirely different town.  If I had taken the contact info with me I could have saved myself the two hours and fuel I spent looking for it with a simple phone call.

Another important reason for having the contact info is sometimes the companies you are auditing are not always nice to the auditors.  In one fuel shop I was literally cursed at and thrown out of the store for merely asking permission to take photos—the location had several violations.  I had not been rude, I had asked permission—as required, to take general over all photos.  The minute the manager saw my camera he went crazy.  I found out later he and the supplier were in a lawsuit and he thought I was collecting “evidence” for the other side.

I called the firm that had hired me and got permission to not complete the job and still be paid. 

One major retail store I audit often will not allow photos of any sort in their particular location, while others in the chain will.  The auditing job I do there requires photos.  So each time I must call the scheduler and tell them where I am and the situation.  I do all other aspects of the job, but don’t even take my camera into that store to avoid being escorted out.

Another important communication aspect is the “life happens” part.  No one schedules when their car will break down, they will catch the crud, when snow and ice will make streets impassable, or any other number of emergencies.  When this happens you need to let your scheduler know IMMEDIATELY.  Most times they will allow you to reschedule.  If not they will remove you from the job with little or no penalty as long as you let them know IMMEDIATELY. 

Remember they are also under contract with the companies you are auditing and if you don’t do the job they don’t get paid either.  It is far better to be honest with the company and allow them to hire someone else to get the job done on time then to make up a fairy tale as to how the evil step-mother prevented you from doing the job on time.

Communication skills are also important in filing your reports, particularly ones with narratives.  Some companies want simple short sentences, or descriptions of 100 characters or less.  Others want a detailed accounting of exactly what transpired and when.  Know your company, know their requirements and do your job well.

Some companies will rate you on your communication skills and will only hire you for the jobs your skills cover.  To help improve your rating consider writing your narratives in Word or other similar word processing programs before filling out the online report.  Run a spelling and grammar check.  Let the narrative cool a bit and then re-read it aloud to yourself.  For some reason reading aloud helps you pick out incomplete sentences and narrative flow, or at least it does for me.

Then do a simple cut and paste into the form to file the report. The extra time you take to do this can make a difference in the availability of jobs and the amount you will be paid.

Communication is also essential while doing the tasks. If you are not good at making up a scenario on the fly and sticking to it convincingly when doing a mystery shop, plan your scenario out in advance.  As a person who writes both factual and fictional stories on a regular basis I can usually come up with a scenario easily, but there have been situations where that would not have been true because I knew nothing about the subject matter and needed to do some research prior to the shop.  A short cruise around the web can tell a person who doesn’t own a pool some common pool conditioner problems so they can easily do a pool supplies shop. 

I know nothing about playing golf, yet I can do very convincing golf equipment shops after doing just a little bit of web research.  After all it doesn’t take much to pretend to be a novice golfer. You just need to have just enough knowledge and good communication skills to get the golf pros talking.  They’ll do the rest.  Same for the home improvement scenarios. Car repair telephone shops for luxury cars when you are personally driving a beater are a snap with just a little bit of web research.

It all comes down to communication.

In my next post I’ll discuss the true importance of really READING the job requirements BEFORE you sign up for a job.

To read more on mystery shopping and merchandising how to’s visit the following posts:

WHAT DO YOU NEED TO BECOME A MYSTERY SHOPPER:

 http://cjpattersonontheranch.blogspot.com/2009/09/what-do-you-need-to-be-mystery-shopper.html 

FURTHER EXPLANATION ON MERCHANDISING

http://cjpattersonontheranch.blogspot.com/2010/11/long-time-no-typework-at-home-jobs.html 

ARE REINBURSEMENT SHOPS WORTH THE INVESTMENT?

http://cjpattersonontheranch.blogspot.com/2010/02/are-reimbursement-only-mystery-shops.html

Jan who hopes her communication on communication has been very clear in OK

LONG RANGE PLANNING AND A CHALLENGE

Saturday, November 27, 2010

Anyone that has ever been me around very long knows I am a planner and a list maker. I’m big on planning things out. I’m not always great at following the plan, but generally I’m within the neighborhood of it by the time a project is finished.

For the last month or so I’ve been drifting. Simply mystery shopping and merchandising, letting others steer my path in this sea of life. As a result Thanksgiving was okay, but not the meal I wanted and my timing was way off on it. Let’s just say not everything finished at once like it normally does and cold mashed potatoes are not a big hit.

I could give the excuse I had a horrible head cold, but that would simply be an excuse. Granted I spent all of Friday in bed trying to kick the worst part of it and still managed to sleep almost until noon today. But it’s still just an excuse. It was lack of on organization on my part.

Well, I didn’t really sleep that late, the last hour or so I laid there thinking rather than getting up. What I was thinking was I needed a plan, a goal, something to get me back in gear on everything.

While I’ve been working hard at working I’ve let other areas slide. Areas we can’t afford to slide. I had fallen slack on cooking, keeping the budget up to date, cleaning the house and have not been carrying my share of opening the new business.

So as I laid there mulling it all over I decided it was time to get back to a plan, but what plan would spur me on the most. After all a plan has to be a goal you really want to achieve. Everyone plans on doing chores, but because they really don’t want to do them they often don’t get done if something better comes along.

I’ve got the Princess Plan and it’s good, but I needed more. I needed to have a carrot dangling in front of me, something I REALLY wanted. Then I realized that one year from today we want to be in Walt Disney World for a 2-3 week vacation. Only there were several barriers (mainly bills) in our way for this. So that is when my plan started forming. How to make that goal become a reality. So…

This next year you will be receiving reports on the goal and how we as a family are going to achieve it.

First I need a title, hmmm something catchy, but not to silly. Since the Princess Plan is included in this goal I think I will call it. “The Royal Getaway” or RG for short.

Now I need to decide what I want in the plan, what must be achieved to make this vacation not only possible, but relaxed and enjoyable. So sticking with the format of the Princess Plan I broke it down to 12 categories.

I. Finances, after all this is to be a cash basis only trip, that’s the number one rule.

II. Incorporate the Princess Plan

III. Actual Vacation Planning

IV. Menus, for the year and the trip (also part of the Princess Plan), but it needs its own category for this plan.

V. Sticking with the budget (I know this falls under finances too, but you’ll see why it gets its own Roman Numeral as time goes on.

VI. Mystery Shopping and Merchandising

VII. Getting our business up and running, as well as keeping it going while we are gone.

VIII. Gardening, a day to day plan. You’ll see why this is important for the coming year.

IX. Weight loss. If you have EVER been to Walt Disney World you will know why being in good physical shape is a major plus going there. That place is HUGE!

X. Wardrobe, ours is starting to look pretty ratty and a new one requires cash only. Plus if we lose weight…

XI. Animals, we have a lot of plans for them for the coming year. Plus there are two to go with us and the rest will remain home and all sorts of plans and actions have to be made for this.

XII. Miscellaneous needs prior to the trip. In other words, everything else I forgot to list.

This all sounds pretty general I know, but that is the way a good plan starts. You start with the general categories and then develop the sub-categories right down to the daily plan as you go.

Take #VI. Mystery shopping and merchandising. After doing it for around five years what planning should I need for that right? Actually a lot of planning needs done.

Sean and I have been taking it on a day to day basis and as a result we have ended up working weird hours, rushing to finish jobs, overbooking ourselves, wasting gas and then having days where we have no work. Trust me the reason Sean and I were both so sick for Thanksgiving was because we let ourselves get run down because we didn’t plan.

Plus now we have this business we are opening up and we need to allow time for it or it will never get off the ground. The problem is mystery shopping and merchandising are guaranteed money, the business is a maybe. So MS/M must be the priority of the two at this time. This could easily change in the near future, but for now we must get in as much of the first two as we can and squeeze opening the business in around the edges. That takes planning.

So on the overall plan it would look like this:

VI. Mystery shopping and merchandising.

A. Locate jobs to do

a. Check daily on the self assign websites for mystery shopping

b. Try to contract for as many weekly/monthly/quarterly merchandising jobs as possible.

c. Always take the higher dollar jobs first

B. Print the week’s paperwork as much as possible on Sunday

a. Print additional paperwork as soon as available

C. Try to stack jobs when scheduling as close as possible on locations, preferably in the same building.

a. Limit out of town trips

i. Only do out of town trips when there are numerous jobs for both parties to do and make a full day of it.

ii. Incorporate household and business errands into the daily ms/m schedule to save time and fuel.

D. Study all paperwork the night before so there are no surprises (this has been a big problem for us lately—too many surprises)

a. Gather any necessary tools or supplies the night before

i. Make a ditty bag of tools used often and leave it in the truck.

E. File paperwork immediately upon arriving home, no late nights allowed.

F. Store documentation immediately.

a. Assign a set place each set of paperwork must go as soon as it is filed.

G. Cull old documentation when the need to keep it has expired.

H. Keep a calendar up to date as to any long range jobs to avoid double booking.

I. Arrange for merchandising jobs to be done while we are gone on the trip ahead of time.

J. Set as many accounts up as possible for direct deposit or paypal.(This one is pretty much done)

K. Wash our work wardrobe as soon as we have worn it for the week in preparation for the next time it is needed. (Too many late nights of doing a hurry up load for the next day’s job).

So you can see that by the time I do this full list of 12 this is going to be a very long plan. Then I will take that list and turn it into a monthly, weekly and daily list like I did the Princess Plan.

Making a plan is pretty simple. AND once you have a plan it’s easy to follow.

So I challenge each and every one of you to make a plan and let’s work on our plans together. Why wait until New Year’s Day, why not start now? I’ve got my plan started, what’s yours?

Jan who says if we work together we can accomplish anything in OK

LONG TIME NO TYPE—WORK AT HOME JOBS

November 10, 2010

I haven’t forgot you all, we’ve just been super busy. Life is good right now, but then it generally is, you just need to know how to look at any given situation.

I thought once Gary went back to work life would slow down, but instead it has kicked into a higher gear. Something that I didn’t think was possible prior to this last couple of months..

Sean has become my mystery shopping/merchandising partner. We planned on doing mystery shopping on Mondays and Thursdays for just a few hours each day until the mystery shops died their normal death this time of year. Remembering this time last year when we had trouble finding mystery shops to do we figured we’d probably be down to one day a week by late November.

We started working on an idea for a small home based business and doing all the business plans and such required to make a knowledgeable decision on whether or not to do the business has been very time consuming—WHEN we have had time to work on that. More on the new business another time.

Because even though the mystery shopping has slowed down, it has not ceased like we thought it would and the merchandising has quadrupled in volume. We have been putting in 9-10 hour days 5-6 days a week for nearly two months now. NOT complaining Lord! Even better it doesn’t look like it’s going to let up between now and the end of the year.

Gary has not only gone back to work, but has been on overtime for three weeks now and it looks like that too may last through the end of the year.

We are so gazelle intense around here it is crazy! For those of you who are not followers of Dave Ramsey that means we are running from the debt cheetah at gazelle speed to become totally debt free. Every spare penny we make is going on our debt snowball. It has become fun to pay bills! No I am NOT crazy, I said fun.

The three of us now have our Step 1 Baby Emergency Funds fully funded and are now working on our Baby Step 2—the debt snowball (see Dave Ramsey’s book “The Total Money Makeover”) and are making great progress on it.

Sean has paid off a medical bill that was eating him alive and nearly has his only credit card paid off as well. The credit card of course is long gone as we no longer use credit cards in our household. That will leave him with a few truck payments and his student loans and then he will be debt free. I’m so happy for him.

I am still paying on our first installment of the debt snowball, but it will be completed by this time next week. It was a $2,400 medical debt and we are paying it off over three years early based on the scheduled payments. Next will be a credit card that we hope to shave three years or more off the scheduled payoff on. It is truly exciting to see our debt spiral downward for a change. I am so glad we found the Dave Ramsey Total Money Makeover. By staying on this plan we should be totally debt free in 3 years or less including the house! Not bad for a family that was maxed out credit wise and unemployed this time two years ago.

If you are a user of yahoogroups, you should visit with the knowledgeable people at Dave_Ramsey_Debt_Beaters@yahoogroups.com it’s a free to join list and I’ve learned so much from these people!

Now back to merchandising. I’ve never really covered merchandising when talking about mystery shopping so I thought I’d expound a little more on it today.

Most of us walk into a place like Wal-Mart, Target or any number of stores and take for granted the sparkling displays were all placed there by the store’s employees. NOPE! While the employees do re-stock and are responsible for certain merchandise many of those displays and what’s on them is placed there by merchandisers. Here’s how it works.

The store will receive a certain set of merchandise. For this scenario let’s use gift cards. The store will receive the materials to build the actual display case, along with the materials needed to set the display up and stock it. Sometimes they will set up the display themselves other times a merchandising company will send out a merchandiser—or two to set it up. That’s where we come in.

We go in, unbox the display case, assemble it, add the hanging pegs and then set the cards to a planogram and are paid for our services. Then either the store will keep the display stocked OR they will send the merchandiser back once every 1-4 weeks to restock it. Depending on the company the merchandiser gets paid anywhere from $8 to $15 an hour to do the job.

We have each acquired several repetitive weekly jobs. That means guaranteed income weekly until the project runs out. Once the project is set-up often times the hourly rate will drop slightly because it will simply be a short walk in to verify the display is still in good shape and the move onto another project. We’ve been blessed enough on some of our merchandising shops that we have been able to “stack” jobs. Meaning that Sean or I will have a job from one company in a certain store. The other of us (or sometimes the same person) will have 1-2 more jobs in that certain store from other companies. That makes the gas usage is far less and the possible income for each of us greater on a single stop.

I once spoke with a person who did nothing but merchandising and she said she cleared after taxes and expenses over $4,000 per month. We would like to achieve that goal. That could really speed our gazelle along! We aren’t there yet, but we are working toward it. Be aware though merchandising has to be done between certain hours, like a regular job, but generally you have 1-5 days to get the project done. So it is a great “part time” job if you are going to be staying home. We didn’t do these the last two years because we were traveling, but now that we are home for at least 2-3 years it is the best plan for us.

Don’t get me wrong, some of these merchandising jobs are HARD and tiring. Some sound simple to do—repackaging a product and do an inventory of said product—13 hours later you are worn out and the job still isn’t finished. So if you decide to do merchandising READ the instructions closely BEFORE you accept the work, including the fine print. Also be prepared to stand for LONG periods of time.

Another possible source of income is demonstrations. You know the people you see at Sam’s Club handing out samples. This is also contract labor work and can be applied for through several companies at volition.com as well. All three types of work are listed at volition.com.

If none of the above is for you check out the legit jobs at ratracerebellion.com Most of them are work at home jobs. There are all sorts of jobs for all sorts of talents. So if you want to become a earn a little extra money to survive unemployment, earn extra money for the holidays or become gazelle intense volition.com and ratracerebellion.com may have the answer for you.

As always if you need more info or a referral to certain companies feel free to leave me a message and I’ll answer as soon as time allows.

Jan who has no affiliation with any of the websites she mentioned in OK.

APPLEGATE COVE, CORPS OF ENGINEERS CAMPGROUND, SALLISAW, OK

ALSO INCLUDED, WHAT YOU TRULY NEED TO MYSTERY SHOP
July 19-23, 2009

Camping $16 per night, dump station $5 if you are not a registered camper, electric hook-ups only.

The various Corps of Engineer campgrounds across the US can provide a way to cut your camping costs IF you are willing to give up certain luxuries. Most do not have sewer or water hook ups at the sites. You'll have access to drinking water, but you cannot hook your camper to it. Some will limit you to how many gallons of that potable water you can use a day as well. At many the bathrooms are outhouses. With generally one or two shower houses elsewhere in the camping area.

Such a location is this campground. We thought we were being oh so smart camping near the bathroom and were completely settled in when we discovered it was a really fragrant outhouse we were near. Not nice at all, P.U.!

While our camper has a very well working bathroom in it if you can't dump you have to be careful how much you put into the holding tanks. This meant we did most of our "business" not at the camper or the restroom we'd camped so close to, but at the one that was a pretty good little walk from us. Oh well, we needed the exercise and we were just there for a little over 3 days. The holding tanks on the trailer will generally make it three days, but we weren't taking any chances.

Shops in the Ft. Smith area went well, and we had a reasonable internet connection most of the time thanks to my air card also known as broad brand mobile connection.

We were there for a very short time, relatively speaking, and other than purchasing some really good melons from the local Wal-mart there was not anything spectacular to post about this clean little campground (if you don't count the outhouse air pollution).

They have a nice boat ramp area, with a swimming area marked off, I'm posting photos so you can see the prettiness of the place.

So I guess I'll take up most of this post talking about the things you truly need to mystery shop on the road the way we are. It's basically the same things you'd need doing it from home, you just need to keep it compact.

First you need an internet connection. For us it's via a USB port broadband mobile device. All the major cell phone companies sell them, they average about $60 per month and are all either 4 or 5 gig in capacity. Ours is a 4 gig and we have NEVER exceeded it. They will work better than your cell phone in any given area because they are set up just slightly different. I don't know what the difference is and I certainly don't pretend to be knowledgeable about them. I just know that I can get signal on it when I can't on my cell phone with the same company.

Anyway, most mystery shopping companies require you to check your email twice a day if you accept an assignment. Most, all that I work with, use the internet to give you your assignments. So have that HIGH SPEED connection is a necessity. You can possibly get by with dial up, but you could go bald tearing your hair out waiting for some pages to load. I would not recommend trying it with dial up. I know how bad it can get when I have a low connection on the mobile broadband and it's still faster than dial up.

Second, if more than one person, or piece of equipment–see next section, is going to use this wireless service you will need a router. Ours was purchased through our cell phone provider for a one time cost of about $149. It will handle up to five pieces of wireless equipment at a time.

Third, you need a computer, of course. I use a laptop because carrying a desktop is simply not a good option in a camper for me. Plus, because we often do 8 or more shops a day I will file shops while flying down the highway from one shop to another. Gary is doing the driving of course.

Third you need a printer. Many merchandising shops require signatures on the paperwork. Therefore you MUST be able to print out the form for them to sign.

I'll explain the difference between merchandising and mystery shopping shortly. I do both.

Of course to go along with that printer you need ink and paper, LOTS of both if you do the volume of jobs I do. There are ways to cut this expense and there is a lot to consider where printing is concerned as well. You are absolutely going to have to print, so you really need to look at this cost SERIOUSLY, next to fuel and camping this is our biggest expense.

It's easy to think any printer will do, but when you consider several factors you will see the right printer can save you a ton of money and time.

First there is the cost of the printer itself. The cheapest one is not necessarily the best one. We have one that was given to us that is a nice simple little printer that we used continuously for a while, we still use it as a back up.

The ink for that machine looks to be cheap at first. That is until you realize you only get 350 pages per black cartridge and less per color cartridge–and yes you will be doing some color printing.

If you are printing 100s of pages a month that can add up really quickly. We were, in the beginning, going through three of those $16.99 cartridges a WEEK. It was a very basic machine, which meant if we wanted to print on both front and back of the paper we had to physically turn the paper ourselves–read time wasted.

Plus draft mode on it, for some unknown reason, was illegible. It also jammed easily.

During one mystery shop for an office supply company I was to evaluate the salesmanship of an employee on printers. The printer demonstrated to me, at first glance, seemed awful expensive. However as I read the brochures and did the math I discovered it would pay for itself in less than one month and would also have scanning, photo quality, make copies and a fax machine All features that are missing on the cheap machine. All features you will eventually need while doing this type of job.

It used a double cartridge, which was just slightly more expensive than two of the single cartridges for the other machine, but would print FOUR times the copies. So right there I was basically getting two cartridges of ink free every four cartridges in comparison.

It's colors were all sold separately, a huge advantage over any printer that has an all in one cartridge. It would also do double sided printing AUTOMATICALLY. Copies could be done in bulk with a self feeding feature. But that was not the biggest feature we fell in love with.

It is wireless! Even better it uses the same router my broadband mobile does. So we no longer had to jump up and down every time we printed something, or have too many things plugged into one outlet at a time in the camper.

Add to all of this well thought out information the fact I was required to make a $5 or more purchase, that I would be reimbursed for that shop, I had a discount card that would take another 15% off the purchase price, points on the rewards card for that company and a cash back bonus from my credit card–which I paid off immediately-- it took LESS than a month to come out ahead. I love my new printer. The hours it saves me monthly is well worth it.

Over the months I have taken on more and more shops, but I have also learned how to cut paper and ink expenses in other ways. It now costs me less than half of what it did to print, for twice as many jobs.

In the beginning I printed the entire instructions for every single job, even identical jobs. Now I print one master copy of the instructions and compare them to each new job to make sure nothing has changed. That step alone has saved tons of time and lowered printing costs considerably, plus it's printed in draft mode now that I can and still read it.

Also, some companies–who shall remain nameless, will actually have you print out the same form twice in two different versions–pick the version that works best for you and only print those pages. Another huge savings. One form that comes to mind I actually only need 3 pages of the 25 the company has setup for you to print out each and every time you do that shop. I recently did 28 IDENTICAL shops for that company. It doesn't take a math genius to see that saving 22 pages x 28 jobs is a big savings. Just make sure you print EVERYTHING YOU need to do the job properly. What works well for me may not work well for you.

Next you need to consider storage of your completed reports. All companies require you to keep copies of your receipts and your report for 1-18 months. I recommend you keep each company separate. I file separately, by date AND assignment number. I also keep everything on pdf. There are several good free pdf programs you can download and electronic files are soooo easy to search. They take up far less space too. So I keep the hard files for x amount of time–depending on the company and the electronic files longer–for tax purposes.

Oh dear I used the dreaded T word. Yep, you make over $650 you are going to have to pay taxes. The better records you keep, the better off you are.

That means keeping good records of all your expenses too. I'm still working on the best way to do this, but I definitely am keeping everything. This next April I will do a mystery shop for a tax service and hire my taxes done. If it's like last year it won't cost me anything to do it that way and I will feel better knowing they were done properly.

Anyway, back to mystery shopping.

You will also need a digital camera that you know how to put the photos of 1 mb or less on your computer and then upload.

A cell phone is a major plus. Because dh and I work as a team it is very, very handy to also have a blue tooth. Here's why.

One fast food company I work for requires both walk in and drive in strict timings. You must be accurate to the split second. Sometimes this is hard to do without being caught because there are three separate timings to do for each section. Ideally you can do it with a lapse timer on a good stop watch–another MANDATORY item, but it's a LOT easier if you are on a blue tooth, with a code worked out and a person with the stop watch on their phone on the other end to get the EXACT times.

Another type of shop, like one I recently did, requires you to do price comparisons, without being caught. One person goes in the store and the other person tells them the items to get prices on, the first person then tells the second the price and it is wrote down away from the store at their location. It is so much easier than concealing a list you have to write on.

A notebook, page dividers, a GOOD multipage three hole punch, reliable ink pens, post-it note flags, and a clipboard.

I put all printouts for the day in a notebook with two weeks' worth of daily dividers for each day. A good multi-page three hole punch makes life easier. You can get by with a cheaper one, but it's going to be harder to line up pages and it will only do a few pages at a time. Invest the $12 you will be glad you did. Do a mystery shop for an office supply store and get paid for buying the three hole punch.  That's what I did.

The ink pens go without saying. I use the post-it note flags to tag each different job and make it easy to find the correct one quickly. My flags/tags have the shop type and the address on them and are color coded with the over all address sheet I have in the front of the notebook. It saves time searching for the right shop address at the last minute.

Speaking of which, traveling the way we do a GPS is a lifesaver. We call ours Fiona, she gives turn by turn instructions and as long as we truly listen to her she gets us to the exact location 99.9999% of the time easily and quickly.

The clipboard is handy when doing merchandising and revealed mystery shops to have a good firm surface to write on.

You also need to have at least two business casual outfits to wear for each season. One to wash, one to wear. Comfortable shoes are a must too, some shops, especially merchandising ones can have you on your feet for a long time.

So that's it, that's what you need to be a mystery shopper.

Now you will notice I mentioned, mystery shopping, revealed mystery shopping, and merchandising. All mystery shopping companies will sooner or later have all these types of shops offered.

Mystery shopping is just that, they NEVER know you are there checking on them, you are covert.

Revealed mystery shopping is you shop, and then you let them know you were a mystery shopper. Sometimes this is to give a reward, rarely it's to give a critique, most times it's to then do an inspection of the facilities.

Merchandising is all revealed. It is to do a job for the store, it might be re-boxing a piece of merchandise, doing an inventory, putting up signage, restocking or similar jobs. Some companies do nothing but merchandising. A few of those actually hire you as an employee, complete with a benefit package to do it.

I do very little merchandising because it means you MUST be at a certain place in a certain town, on a certain day at a certain time, every month for the length of the contract. That doesn't go with our lifestyle. However, if Gary should go back to work I'd merchandise every day of the week I could because it is generally a fair wage for the job you do and you have some flexibility with your hours.

So that's the basics, more on actual mystery shops another time. That's all you need to do a mystery shop.

What you DON'T need is to pay to mystery shop. NEVER pay to mystery shop.

Jan who hopes this helps someone in OK

See the USA, the Mystery Shopping Way: Intro

Everyone has dreams and goals. Ours is to truly SEE the USA. We've dreamed of doing it "when we retire" all of the 36 years we've been married. Thanks to a bad economy my husband found himself suddenly "retired" in March, or as some put it "he became unemployed."

We spun around on our heels for about two minutes, going UH OH! Then we went, "Yippee! It took us just a blink of an eye to realize that we could truly "See the USA" now. I know that sounds crazy, no income and we are going to travel right?

Well wrong, sort of. Not exactly, no income. You see I am a Mystery Shopper, a merchandiser, and a vendor. You can Mystery shop anywhere in the US except Nevada. In Nevada you must have a Private Investigator license.

Are you starting to see my plan? No? Let me explain it.

The job my husband was "retired" from is in a field that hundreds of others were let go at the same time, my son being one of them. That means the pickings for a new job are pretty slim.

In today's age everything is done via the Internet. You file for unemployment on the web. You apply for jobs on the web. You network in your chosen field on the web. I get my mystery shopping assignments and file my reports via the web. So we do NOT need to be tied to the house. So why should we?

OOPS! There is a little thing called the Rock ‘n Tree Ranch, with its large flock of free ranging birds that need to be watered and supplemental fed. That's a pretty big anchor. Only, there is my son who is also unemployed, and job hunting, who lives in our home while the home he was building is put on hold until he finds a job.

So...he becomes zoo keeper and rancher while we hit the road pulling our fifth wheel behind us. Mystery shopping as we go. Camping, boondocking, and exploring the US. Bills paid, and a dream fulfilled. We've been doing it for a on and off for four months now. Testing the waters to see if it could be done. We have been home about every two weeks.

This trip out we going to try not rotating home, but string shops together to keep us moving from place to place. . I've decided to blog and scrapbook our travels.

The blogs will include the sights we see, review the places we camp each night, give traveling on a shoestring hints, recipes, photos and whatever else pops into my mind. I hope you will "See the USA with us."

Jan who always signs her posts with whatever she is doing in or away from OK