If you have been to the mystery shopping online forums in recent months, you may have noticed that there are a handful of mystery shoppers who have somehow managed to turn this job into a full-time career. They largely will be the first to admit that they aren’t earning what most people would term “big bucks,” and yet they earn enough money to earn the equivalent of a modest full-time salary.
Obviously, one way to do make this happen for you is to work full-time hours, picking up tons of assignments on a very regular basis. After all, you cannot expect to earn full-time money if you don’t work full-time hours! Yet if you do the math, you may find that there just aren’t enough hours in a day, even when you work full-time hours, to make your modest pay on assignments turn into even a smaller version of a full-time salary. This is a problem many mystery shoppers have faced as they consider whether to take their job as a mystery shopper into a full-time career.
The answer, of course, is to get more money for your time working as a mystery shopper. To a degree, time management and efficiency tips can help you make that happen, but you also will need to know how to make more money on the assignments that you work on, too. Here are some ways you can get your hands on higher paying assignments:
Don’t Overbook. If you have loaded down your schedule with lower paying assignments, chances are that you aren’t even looking at the job boards on your busy days to see if higher paying assignments are available. Often there are some last-minute, higher paying assignments available, and because the provider is so desperate to get the assignments completed, they are willing to offer you a hefty bonus. Sometimes you can negotiate for even more money on such assignments. You may think it’s counter-intuitive to give up on a sure-thing assignment for the possibility of more money, and certainly you don’t want to do this every day of the week. But you should leave at least a little bit of wiggle room in your schedule to pick up such assignments when they are available. If nothing else, you should be willing to work the equivalent of over-time hours for that extra bundle of cash.
Be Selective. The full-time mystery shopping providers have certainly become adept at being selective in their assignment choices. They have learned through their experiences which assignments give them the most money in the least amount of time. You can and should do this, too. It’s easy to take a quick glance at the “shop pay,” but that’s not the true value of an assignment. You will want to learn how to quickly place a true value on an assignment based on the required purchase and reimbursement, the travel time and cost, shop pay, and any bonuses. Then estimate the amount of time it will take to complete the assignment. From there, you can do an apples to apples type of comparison on the various assignments available based on the pay per hour you expect to receive. Make a conscious effort to constantly improve your pay per hour to earn more money for your time.
Ask for More. Now, you don’t want to ask for more money on every assignment you do. You are bound to become a real pain in the rear-end to your providers if you start doing that! However, there are times when it is appropriate to ask for bonus pay, travel pay, and so forth. You will want to be choosy about which assignments you do this for, but you will find that oftentimes simply asking for money (and offering a supporting reason for the request for higher pay) will yield a favorable result.
If you have dreams of becoming a full-time mystery shopper, or even if you just want to make more money for your part-time efforts, these tips can help you to make more money for your time.