December 13, 2017

Meet Kirsten S. Barnes of Kirsten & Associates in Cinco Ranch

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to Kirsten S. Barnes.

Kirsten S., let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
My career was in real estate until back in 2008, before the crash. When the bubble burst, I had to find another solution to earning an income. I was searching online for a way to earn a sustainable income when I came across the opportunity to become an inbound customer service rep working from home for large brand name companies. After the training class, within a few weeks, I became an home based representative for the company Direct Energy.

Eventually, the network I serviced had a video contest that I entered into and expressed why I loved working from home. My husband and our three boys joined in to help. We posted the video on YouTube and it was a huge success. I got a ton of views and ultimately won the contest over hundreds of other home agents. As a result of winning the contest, I got the attention of upper management who then offered me an opportunity to become a community sponsor where I would host small events to share with people in my local area the work from home opportunity. Anyone I recruited yielded me a small commission. It was during this time that I developed a true passion sharing the work-at-home opportunity with other people and helping them with the on-boarding steps as needed.

In a short period of time I brought in over 3000 work-at-home agents both locally in internationally. It became so much of a passion that I stopped servicing as an agent on the phones and devoted my efforts full time to becoming an staffing company. My responsibility is to help all US and Canadian residents obtain work-at-home jobs with brand name companies.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
When I first started out, of course there were challenges. Some of the challenges were just people needing to trust that what I was sharing something real and legit. After all, this whole work-at-home thing does have a stigma attached to it. People tend to be leery, especially for those who I may not have the privilege of meeting in person. The first thing they want to know is whether or not this the real deal. You always have that obstacle of trying to show them how you’re different. What’s helped my company is our strong record of doing right by our clients and the years we’ve been in the marketplace. We have many positive reviews on Google and on social media sites like Facebook. That helps the people coming in be able to research us beforehand. Also, we are listed on the Better Business Bureau website.

The BBB won’t accredit any work-from-home companies. However, they did investigate my company thoroughly and confirm that my company was reputable and in good standing. That’s how they were able to put my company up on their website so if anyone needed to look, they could see my company is on there with an A+ Better Business Bureau rating. That stigma is probably the biggest roadblock at times, just people being able to separate the real from the fake and understanding we are definitely on the real side of things.

The second challenge I had early on was that I wanted to help people that weren’t in my local area. To do that, you have to work virtually. When you’re working virtually, it can be hard to help people understand the steps to go through to get started. It’s one thing to send people an email and the email says, “Step one, do this. Step two, do that.” It’s another thing to be hands-on. That’s another way Kirsten and Associates differs from other employment agencies or other people who claim to help people get work-at-home jobs. We will Skype and screen-share in real time to walk each client through the on-boarding steps. “Click here, do this, do that.” We can see their screen and be on the phone speaking with them at the same time. That kind of guidance gives each client a personal touch as well as a peace of mind knowing they are doing the on-boarding steps properly to achieve the desired end result of obtaining a reliable work-at-home job which pays them hourly ($9 to $15 per hour) with a brand name company.

So, as you know, we’re impressed with Kirsten & Associates – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
My team and I help US and Canadian residents obtain reliable work-at-home jobs with brand name companies. The opportunities can be for inbound customer service, inbound sales, or inbound tech support.

Also in 2017, we added two more facets to our business so we’re no longer solely focused on staffing for work-at-home jobs.

We now staff in the Facilities Maintenance Industry. We help individuals with a maintenance and/or construction background provide their services to companies like Walgreens, Walmart, Best Buy, Old Navy and more.

We also staff in the Cable, Internet and Security Industry. We help individuals with a sales background provide commercial services to local businesses for companies like Vivint and Exede.

For all the companies and industries we staff for, each candidate client is able to set their own hours and get paid hourly plus commissions in most cases.

I’m most proud of our ability to help so many people in the Greater Houston area. With over 14,000 candidates in our database, we’ve done very well helping people realize their dreams of working on their own terms. At this point we operates mostly on referrals. We’ve done such a good job helping our clients that many of them share their experiences with their family and friends affording us a continual stream of business.

So, what’s next? Any big plans?
We certainly intend to expand to surrounding cities (ie: San Antonio, Dallas and Austin) in the coming years.

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