If you have visited the mystery shopping job boards in recent weeks, you may have seen numerous posts from several highly skilled and knowledgeable mystery shoppers. These are mystery shoppers who state they have been mystery shopping for years and earn a decent full-time income as a result. You, on the other hand, may be struggling to find even a single assignment to work on every day, and you may be stymied as to how anyone could earn a full-time living at this job. Here are three things that may be holding you back from achieving your mystery shopping dreams.
Your Providers
The fact is that very few mystery shoppers who work in this job on a full-time basis only work with one provider or even with two or three. Most providers offer a fairly limited number of assignments that need to be completed on a daily basis, so it is a necessity to sign up to work with multiple providers. Keep in mind that if you work in a large urban area, five or six providers may be sufficient. If you work in a more rural area or a smaller town and would prefer not to travel hundreds of miles, you may need to sign up to work with far more providers.
Time Management
While your ability to find assignments may be one thing that is holding you back from being highly productive and successful in your job, another factor may be related to your own time management skills. If you want to earn a great income each day by completing five, six or more assignments, it is not feasible to drive back and forth between the site locations and your home numerous times per day. Instead, you need to attempt to complete all site visits in a single trip out. Then, when you return home, you can complete all of your reports at once. This will require you to improve your time management skills and to find a way to remember and keep straight all of the different site visit details.
Your Choice of Assignments
A final thing that may be holding you back from achieving greatness as a mystery shopper may be your ability to choose the best assignments. Many newer mystery shoppers will pick and choose assignments based on how fun and exciting or how easy they sound. This is one way to choose assignments, but it is not the most lucrative way most of the time. If you are serious about earning a great living as a mystery shopper, you will need to treat your job more like a job. Work isn’t always fun and exciting, and sometimes you will need to select assignments that you are less than enthused about because they are lucrative or because they make since with your work schedule for the day.
Many mystery shoppers commonly make the decision to work on one assignment at a time and to pick that assignment with care. However, if you are ready to start earning more money as a mystery shopper, you will need to take a different approach with your efforts.