With Mystery Shopping Expert Melanie Jordan
Author of
The Perfect Work-At-Home Job: Mystery Shopping
How To Finally Make Money As A Mystery Shopper
The Quick And Easy Guide To Making Money
As A Merchandiser
Award-Winning Publisher of
Perfect Work-At-Home Job Update E-zine
Wishing Won't Make It So
As I get a few minutes here and there, I regularly answer questions from mystery shoppers on a couple of select mystery shopping boards. I don't mind trying to give some guidance to someone who asks a question, but what breaks my heart are the mini "employment wanted ads" that I regularly spot. I'll see a post titled "Mystery Shopper" or the popular "Mistery Shoper" (yes I really saw that posted, and in the message the person went on to say they were "deatiled-orented"). Others try to emphasize the urgency with "Need Work Soon". And the best of the bunch at least say where they are looking for work.
I'm really not sure whether it's a case of laziness or a complete misunderstanding about what it means to be a mystery shopper. But here's the real story. First, as a mystery shopper, you are almost always an independent contractor, which means you are a business owner with a company name of "You". Except in rare cases, it's not employment where you go to work for "a" company and they give you the work to do, you do it and then wait for your check every two weeks. As the business owner of "You", whether or not you get assignments depends on what you have done to bring them your way. So you not only have to do the shop, but you have to simultaneously be working to generate those next assignments, so you have new jobs to do when you are ready.
How do most small service businesses (what you are as a mystery shopper) keep making sales? They do their best to "wow" their customers and they constantly make efforts to network, build relationships and market themselves. In mystery shopping, your goal is to make connections, develop good relationships with company or independent schedulers where you can, and do a great job, so that you get more jobs and become, where possible, the person that gets called when a rush job comes in or another shopper bails. (If you need help doing this, you should strongly consider getting one of my books to get started or add some new methods for getting work to your arsenal).
Now going back to our mystery shoppers who are hanging their hats and waiting for someone to magically drop a job into their laps. I won't say this couldn't happen, but the other reality is that schedulers are busy, busy people. So unless, like the chance of a lightning strike, they just happen to see a post by someone who lives in a town where they are having trouble filling a shop when they are making a posting themselves, the odds are not good. And that's too bad, because many of these people would probably make great shoppers, but they'll get discouraged and say "I tried mystery shopping and I couldn't get a job" and that will be the end of it.
As a subscriber to this e-zine, if you didn't understand how this all works before, now you do. So please don't just wait for someone to find you. Professional mystery shoppers take the initiative and regularly take action to get known in a positive way. When they do, a funny thing usually happens. The more effort they make now, the less effort they have to make down the line because then the jobs actually do start to come to them. Try it. You'll see the difference and so will your bank account!
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