VoIP Home Based Business
There are a few opportunities which deliver true residual income and a VoIP home based business is one of them.
So what is VoIP ? VoIP stands for Voice over IP. Simplified it is the means by which voice (& images) are transferred over the internet.
Instead of making a phone call on your home phone (landline), you can call people from your computer or one of a number of special phones which use the internet instead of a regular phone line.
Most VoIP service providers allow free calls between subscribers who have signed up for their service. There is a charge for calls to ordinary phone numbers and these are generally a lot cheaper than standard toll (long distance) rates.Usually there is no monthly charge for basic VoIP service.
Quite often people calling from ordinary phones, dial a special access code to make calls to VOIP phone numbers.
A number of VoIP service providers have affiliate and reseller programs as part of their marketing strategy.
Affiliate programs are pretty standard. When someone pays to purchase call minutes, hardware etc the affiliate that referred them is paid a one off commission.
More interesting is the reseller opportunity. As a reseller you are usually provided your own website/code where your customers buy VoIP hardware, call minutes etc. They are treated as your customer and you get a percentage of your customers ongoing spend. Most often the client is tagged to you for as long as their account is open with your VOIP supplier.
Being a reseller means that as you grow your customer base, your income also grows.
Among the advantages to using a VoIP connection for your phone calls are:
- Long distance calls are usually significantly cheaper than for a standard phone line
- As long as you already have a DSL internet connection you can use your existing computer to make the call
- There are now VoIP cordless and corded phones available, so making a call is as easy as using a standard phone
- If you have a VoIP phone, you can carry it around with you and make and receive calls from anywhere you can get internet access.
- Some nice add on features are available like automated recording of phone calls, seeing when your friends have their phone on, video conferencing and sophisticated messaging options.
- Its a growth market with good uptake and increasing number of hardware product releases.
There are some weaknesses too:
- Call quality can be variable
- You can only talk to someone if their computer or hardware is turned on
- Dialing into a VoIP phone from a carrier network can be complicated with some VoIP service providers.
- You are unlikely to be able to use the phone when the power goes off. i.e. no emergency calls
In assessing the opportunity, understand that VoIP is a maturing technology. It isn’t suitable for every one, but there are some market segments which show promise
- Home based business owners – they make lots of calls and VoIP will save them money
- Anyone who makes lots of international calls
- Parents with teenage kids – if they have a PC or PSP they can get a VoIP number for free, so the home phone line isn’t tied up by the youngsters.
What to look for in from a VoIP reseller agreement
- Assess how long you think the VoIP service provider will stay in business for. You need a company with good financials and a serious long term commitment to the industry. Your going to be building a customer base which will generate income for a long time to come – your supplier has to be in it for the long haul.
- Call quality. Probably the number one consideration to reduce customer churn. If the supplier’s call quality is poor, it doesn’t matter what their price is or what commission you are paid, as there will be no one who will stay as your customer for long.
- Overall pricing. To be attractive to your customers this needs to offer tangible savings compared to using an ordinary telephone carrier.
- Features – the more the better. Use features and options to differentiate yourself from the other VoIP offerings. Especially look for a supplier which has a good range of free local call options. This is better for margins and provides you with more reasons why your customers should buy.
- Existing customer base. The more customers your VoIP reseller has the more people your customers can call for free.
- International presence. Being able to order DID numbers in a range of countries opens up the opportunity for your customers to look like they have a local presence in a number of countries around the world.
Some Reseller programs to start your search:
- SKYPE
- BBP Global
- Triniticomm
Filed under: Opportunities
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I am curious as to when some of the Voip to Voip subscriptions will take off. Many of the services offer free computer to computer calls however when I was taking a look at the plans I had to take into consideration how many people I know that also call from their computer. I think as time moves on this will be more common so it would behoove people to jump on this now.
Found your site on digital point forums.
Cool post.
Most people don’t know how big VoIP and SKYPE are. I traveled around Europe and South America and every international student I met had skype.
Most cell calls in the US are already free as it is. I mean you can call anywhere you want and talk as long as you want without being charged a cent, in off peak.
Thanks for the information. I’ve never really thought of VoIP as a business or in any other manner actually. I’ve heard of it many times but never thought much about it. I will take a closer look now.
Thanks for the great explanation about VoIP business. I just realize that this could be also a great home business to start with.
Hey quite interesting that VOIP can also be a home based buisness. I have heard of computers online buisness but know this is really great. I’m very curious to know when this would be taken off.
Most cell calls in the US are already free as it is. Hey quite interesting that VOIP can also be a home based buisness.
Voip is an incredibly powerful tool. It is amazing that more businesses do not use it, but it can be hard to find a competent provider. The first one we used was terrible, and that experience would have been enough to turn many people off from voip. Now we have found a very reliable and competent provider and could not even imagine going back to a traditional phone system.
I have considered using SKYPE and probably will in the near future. It has some amazing features that are to valuable for a small business to pass up.
We are a premium VoIP portable phone service provider, not software driven like Skype. Our service is state-of-the-art and comparable to Vonage but by leaps and bounds better all the way around. We are one of the fastest growing VoIP providers in the nation with more than 150,000 customers on our network enjoying unlimited, crystal clear and low cost local, long distance and international calls.
Refer new customers to our Crystal & Free Residential and Small Business Truly Unlimited VoIP phone service and earn BIG! Not only do we pay between $15 and $50 per new residential and small business customer, we also pay $1 to $3 per month per customer for as long as they are a customer! Performance bonuses are paid also. So, for example, if over a year you have 5,000 people signup, on the low side at $15 per, that’s $75,000 paid up front plus $5,000 per month ongoing deposited electronically right into your PayPal account. We have a growing resource area to help you build your part time or full time business full of banners, flyers, etc. Our opportunity is unique in the industry and is FREE. For more info on becoming an Independent Representative, visit this page https://store.triniticomm.com/sales_reps.asp or call 1-800-218-7791. Join the TrinitiComm movement and start getting paid today!
This is one of those opportunities that are just made for work at home folks. The key here is the residual payment. Yes it’s nice to get the sign-up but one reason it is more is because you spend more to acquire that customer. The residual is what you get every month just for them being a customer. That is where the real “mailbox money” is.
I like these kinds of products (up front sell + monthly recurring) especially in a “need” category like phone service. Getting into something like satellite radio could hurt when that discretionary income is used to pay for things like, um…a phone!
Great post and great information. Thanks!
This is a great article!!! The future is diffently VoIP customers as well as Business Seekers. I am a independent rep for company that offers VoIP along with a varity of other telecommunication services. My website is chainsolutions.biz feel free to respond if you have any questions.
The most annoying thing when I’m using Voip is there’s a second delay when I make a call. It make sense, especially there is a single silent when I make the phone call.
However, I really love voip. It reduce huge amount of my phone bill, especially I usually make phone call to Europe.. It’s really great help. I don’t skype because I’m not a computer savvy, I just love using regular phone,,
Yes, voip is really useful. I am a home user voip (so I get cheaper price than the business voip) and I can save much much money. Even there are single delay within the call, I still enjoy voip because the voice is clear and the value is really cheap. I also don’t need to be attached into the computer, just buy the usual phone for Voip
I am a frequent user of VOIP. That is after recieving a 2000 $ bill for my old phone, then I decided to swich to voip. The one thing that I was not sure about was the quality of the voice but I was really surprised when I tried skype..
I am saving a lot of money now so thank you all you nerds out there :)
My only concern about Voip systems, is that from what I have head, is that all the voip companies have not yet been profitable, and have only been losing money. Is this true?
VOIP is really starting to improve now, when it first came out i found that you could hardly hear the other person – although the cost benefits really do make it worth while.
Interesting post about VoIP based business. hope this suits for only US based countries since the call are free and cost only in cents. anyway great to goahead to make money through VoIP.. nice idea.
Voip has saved my business! Considering that i call all over the place everyday all over North America every day, I know what my long distance costs will be every month.
I managed a reseller program for a voip company before. Great experience.
It was great to see how some of our resellers were making money in this industry.
Yes – this is a growth industry!
This VoIP sounds like a very interesting new piece of technology, but I wonder if it will be widely used as there are so many free alternatives.
It would be good as a small scale business idea.
I use VoIP through skype currently for work and I can say it’s GREAT! Cuts my expenses in half, no lies. Hopefully they won’t find a clever way to make this more expensive in the future.
Crawford – it will go to India, then come back when people realize that the quality can’t be insured….ask Michael Dell.
I use the service linked above – EarthLink DSL & Home Phone service. The phone service part is a different kind of voip. It works on all my regular phones + jacks without any kind of box like vonage has. Not free by any means, but it’s much cheaper than regular phone service. ANd you can get unlimited calling in your bundle. I think its great. Not sure if they have any affiliate opportunities as mentioned above. Maybe? Good luck.
I’ve personally looked into starting up my own VoIP provider for a long time. The initial investment would be somewhere in the $50k-$80k range, so a reseller program seems more probable. One of the best ones I’ve stumbled upon so far is ViaTalk White. They’ll give users an entire white-branded website and handle practically everything except the marketing for you. If any of you are interested in reselling VoIP, I’d suggest you take a look at their site.