Dispatch, Trolling, and Independent incomes are more likely to be near the high-end once you establish yourself with regulars and obviously increase with the more hours you invest. Trolling and Independent incomes can also increase exponentially to unlimited potential based on your own marketing skills, client recruitment, and customer maintenance.
Companies that require you to call customers should provide you with a code or reimbursement procedure for long distance charges. If they require you to pay for long distance, then the pay rate should be higher to accommodate. Of course, this isn't an issue for services that only feature direct-connect.
Now, many of the above numbers are pretty much below the poverty level after taxes, so obviously if an intelligent gal such as myself is doing this, there is something more.
Incentives, requests, tips and self marketing is where you'll be made or broken. This is how you'll know if you're good. On dispatch services, quality johns like to talk to the their regular girl (or girls) repeatedly and regularly. They can be a very dependable source of income and should be taken care of with attention to customer maintenance. Girls who get requests and good feedback from johns get fed more calls by the service dispatcher (this is because they often work on commission, too, so the more you make, the more they make). Many services offer bonus and incentives from things as simple as logging in and keeping your schedule every month to rewarding high earners. The better you are, the more your service should appreciate you. There are few cash bonuses for the second-rate.
With cash bonuses, that $300 a week can go to $600+ easy. Get a couple johns who tip per call and making a living gets a lot easier. And the sky is as easily the limit as the floor. Some generous freak could call and leave you a $200 tip for one call. A few of your regulars could go on vacation or disappear and you're scrambling.
It isn't for the faint of heart. Dems the breaks when you're your own boss.
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Ambiance
Many sluts will scoff at this section, but I’ve found it to be a fundamental element of my personal success in this biz, so I’m sharing it. Many phone sluts will brag about working a john while doing housework or sitting in the living room watching The Price is Right.
Aside from the potential skank factor of that kind of thing, there is a serious toll distractions will exact from your focus. It is significantly harder to give a john your full attention when you're worrying about beating the high score on Tetris. It will hurt the quality of your service, and you’ll be pigeon-holing yourself and your earning potential from the start.
There is also personal reasons to separate your workspace from your living space. Not only is it something that helps you with tax-exemption definitions, but there are psychological reasons as well. You are not your job and you need to be able to get away from it and have an identity without it. This is easy when you work in an office. You go home and you're away from that working environment. It gets tricky when you work from home.
Try to have an area set aside - a spare bedroom or divided portion of a room - where you can take your calls and keep your equipment. It should be a quiet space where you'll never hear or be heard by children, neighbors, or the delivery man. It should be comfortable and readily accessible - and quiet, Quiet, QUIET. You can also take some time and effort to create an atmosphere - candles and erotic art - a place that puts you into the mood more readily. Ideally, it should be a place with a door you can close (and lock) as need be. Try to avoid entertainment overload. It’s better to have a computer in the corner where you can research advertising opportunities than it is to sit in front of soap operas. The more discipline and professionalism you maintain, the better your calls will be and the more you’ll earn.
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Tools o' The Trade
If you're going to be a phone slut, there are some items you'll just need.
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A good phone. Maybe six of them. At least one of them should be a cordless headset variety for the long calls where you're going to need to get up and stretch a little. It should also have a privacy/mute feature so that you can cough or sneeze without breaking the mood, and programmable dialing so that you don't have to enter your codes over and over.
A good stopwatch. It's just easier than trying to figure out "okay, I started at 10:24 and hung up at…"
A method for taking accurate records. The two more popular mediums are computer databases and index cards. This will not only help you to track your time and payroll, it will help you keep up a more personal relationship with johns that call sporadically. You'd be shocked how ego-fulfilled a guy will get will be when you appear to remember him after two months of not speaking with him.
Sound effects devices. All phone sluts have their own items that work. Here are a few examples:
a. Vibrators - the guys are going to want to hear them from time to time. If you own one or buy a real one that's cool. I know women who use electric razors, beepers or cell phones on vibrate mode, and any number of other objects to emulate the sound.
b. Lubricant - some of the johns are going to want to hear how wet your pussy is. Yes, I'm serious. Some nice hand lotion or baby oil on your fingers as you wiggle a finger or two in and out of a clenched fist will give the same effect, however. My favorite method is to get my index finger lubed with lotion and squish it in and out of my navel. It makes a very lewdly moist gushy sound and holding the receiver there allows me to make pleasure noises from the proper distance to the microphone.
c. The Bathroom Buddies - If you’re going to service Scat Johns they’ll beg to hear you pee or perform other acts of bodily function. Over time you may or may not have an objection to actually doing it. But, pouring a cup of water slowly into the toilet will give pretty much the same effect as will dropping a small water balloon for *ahem* the other sound.
d. High Heels - This is a must-have for Toe Jam Johns. Have a floppy, clicky pair of heels somewhere near a tile or wooden floor area. If the whole house is carpeted and you don't feel comfortable walking in the bathroom, then just have a small piece of plywood on the floor nearby. Your foot fetish johns will go ga-ga over it.
e. Paddle and/or Flogger – Dom Johns will want to hear you spank yourself. I kinda get off on the concept, so sometimes I just spank my thigh or ass with a slightly cupped palm (delivers a better sound). If you’re looking to avoid a red bottom and settle for a convincing sound effect in its place, it’s best to get a small hard-leather paddle or even just a wooden ruler and have something handy to whack that sounds like flesh. The best potential whacking candidates are items of any sizeable mass made out of silicone or latex. One girl told me she used cheap breast enhancement inserts and whacked them with a padded leather paddle. I bet the experiments that led to that were fun.
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Training
It depends on the service, but you really aren't going to get a lot of direction or training except in rare circumstances, so don't expect it. It's pretty much a sink or swim type of operation. However, it is reasonable to ask if you can listen on for a call or two just to get a feel for things if you've had no experience with them. If you've never done Dom calls, for example, and you want to hear how one goes before tackling one, it never hurts to ask if someone will let you listen. Keep in mind this is a VERY generous gesture on the part of the phone slut who is letting you listen in because, effectively, you're her competition - so, be grateful for that sort of good turn.
Services that require you to self-dispatch and run your own charges should ALWAYS train you on how to handle client financial information discretely and responsibly, and you should do a little research with the merchant bank if at all possible to find out if there are any extra precautions they require to guard against chargebacks.
Companies with specific payroll procedures should tell you that up front, and should take extra care the first two or three pay periods you are with them.
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Personal Safety
Learn to guard your privacy. *67 blocks your Caller ID being read in most areas - USE IT ON EVERY CALL. Don't reveal too many specifics about where you live. If a john wants to send you something, refer him to a PO Box used by the service you work for. Most services are happy to forward things on. If you’re an independent and don’t have a PO Box GET ONE. Remember that, outwardly, Ted Bundy seemed perfectly fine to most people. Also remember that YOU are not your job - but that is how the johns will perceive you. There's a reason serial killers go after hookers - they lift out of society easy and they're regarded as rental services not people. Be smart. Be cautious. You don’t have to be paranoid, but you do have to be responsible for your own security.
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Beware
Watch out for services that require too much from you right off the bat. Some of these pimps want you to spend hours online picking up johns on AOL and internet chat rooms and trying to get them to call. Some may ask you to pay for your own training, or buy books, toll-free lines, or equipment from them. Again, dispatch is a tough row to ho - there are too many bored housewives and shut-ins willing to give it away for free. Any reputable service should be wiling to help you get set up for as close to free as possible if they think you have earning potential.
Some services may or may not require you to have a separate phone line for business purposes - that is not outside the norm. Some require you to have your own 800# number and while that is certainly to your benefit, it just isn't necessary. However and this is a big however if you pay to have a toll-free number set up, then that number should BELONG to you if you ever leave the service.
Watch out for services that require too much footwork on your part and too many start-up costs. And, if they keep leaning on you for some kind of “deposit” for training or anything like that - discontinue with them entirely. Scams in this business work both ways - against the johns AND the phone sluts.
Your first paycheck is a first impression of what you can expect. If a check is late once, it will be again. If you inquire about late pay and it meets with stonewalling or harassment, discontinue working. This is the first sure sign of a company out to screw you, and if they’ll dicker with your pay, they’ll find other ways to skim you as well.
Watch out for companies that continually bemoan how often they get screwed by other phone sluts. This is often a set-up for justifying why they’ve established certain “safety precautions” like holding back a percentage of your pay. Anyone with the “I might as well screw you before you can screw me” mindset isn’t someone you need to be working for.
Be wary of companies that want you to not only troll and recruit clients, but also run your own charges. Basically they’re just letting you operate under their merchant account and that is not always permitted by the merchant bank. Moreover, if you’re recruiting your own customers and running your own dispatch service what exactly do you need them for again?
Read the fine print about who is held responsible for chargebacks and chargeback fees. If you go trolling chat rooms and get hit with a fraudster who charges back 10 calls, you could get stiffed your pay PLUS the service fees ($20+ each). If you’re working for a company that handles its own dispatch, you shouldn’t be held responsible the shoddy verification of one of their dispatchers. If they do refuse to pay for chargeback calls, they should not hold you accountable for chargebacks as you had nothing to do with the verification process. The most reputable company I know doesn’t hold phone sluts responsible for chargebacks and pays their performers regardless. However, any girl with a suspicious number of chargebacks will be dismissed. If your company (or you as the case may be) handles verification properly, you shouldn’t experience more than a handful of chargebacks per year. Also, you may be asked to help provide information to help recover funds from a chargeback, but shouldn’t ever be expected to chase down the fraudulent john yourself.
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So, you wanna be a phone slut, eh?
First of all, know now that most of my information on this page will only address dispatch services that hire phone sluts to work from their homes. I'm sure there is a phone slut out there somewhere who likes working in a phone sex sweatshop and more power to her. I won't promote what you could never pay me enough to do. I will also be adding tidbits here and there about being an independent phone slut. Everything in these pages should be taken as merely one woman’s opinion from her own personal experiences. You should take the time to research on your own prior to undertaking any serious attempt at this profession.
Many women think about the perks of phoneslutdom and half-heartedly consider dabbling in it for fun and extra income. After all, you work from home and you make wads of cash for just moaning into the receiver, right?
Sorry, cupcake, this ain't the Ice Capades.
Contrary to popular belief, phone sex is work. Real work. Work that requires you to use your head, be organized, and make a few sacrifices here and there. It isn't for loafers, dabblers, or morons. Seriously.
Yes, it can be fun, it's certainly convenient for those of us with the discipline to work it right, and it can be one hell of an ego rush - but don't think that translates to EASY.
If you're genuinely thinking about being a phone slut - or you're just curious about the biz, here's some straight-up 411.
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The Mindset
Not everyone has the mental perversion and discipline to be ready to talk about explicit sex every day at the drop of a hat. There are going to be days when your mind just isn't in it - days when you could care less that some crotch-yanking Neanderthal wants to fuck his mother’s pet cat.
But even if you'd rather be getting a skin graft with a rusty curling iron, you still have to be able to sell it. You have to sound interested. You have to be able to focus on being intuitive to what the john wants and matching it up with your imagination - or stock fantasies. You have to be able to sound interested, even when you're not.
Plus, you have to be ready to be shocked. You have to be ready for the sweet johns and the sick johns and all the johns in-between. Every call could be the one you hate - or the one you always look forward to. If you want to be successful you have to be ready to talk about the spectrum at all times. There are no convenient headaches - you're ALWAYS in the mood. As time goes by, you may be able to cater and tailor, but if you go in with a prima donna mindset, you’re wasting your time. Must services have already filled their quote of prima donnas long before you considered this as an option. Be prepared to do some grunt calls, or be prepared to go hungry.
Another thing you have to get your mind around is that even though this is skirting the limits of socially accepted entertainment this IS a real JOB. You have to commit to it like you would a 9 to 5 gig at an office with florescent lighting. You have to stick to your schedule, manage your time, keep up on your paperwork, etc.
Last in this brief introduction, you really have to be able to have fun with it. You have to be comfortable with sex. You have to see the humor in the sickos. You have to get a little hot from the studs. You have to be ready to play with the naughty boys, or else they're going to recognize you as the really the stuck-up bitch from down the street in disguise and all you'll end up, one again, hungry.
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The Lifestyle
When you work phone sex there is one fact you can't sugarcoat or dodge: you are a sex-industry worker. That's right. Maybe you're not deep-throating John Holmes ala Marilyn Chambers and maybe you're not wagging your ass in the Red Light District, but you are a SIP (Sex Industry Professional).
And, going in, you need to decide something - either you're in the closet or you're out. No doubt about it, SIPs who are open about their lifestyle face discrimination, personal attack, and in some cases, legal action. But, there is a certain comfort in the fact that they are true to themselves - there's no duality to contend with from within.
The much safer option - that of remaining in the closet - is my personal choice. Yeah, whatever, maybe I'm chickenshit, but I've got a few comfy pillows on the floor, a nice pretty shade of pink on the walls and a picnic hamper full of snacks. There are worse places than the closet.
This way I don't have to cope with the Freudian nightmare of explaining to my parents that I work in the sex industry and talk to men as they beat off to scat stories. It means if I choose to be in a relationship with a man or woman who has some manner of professional life they won't be confronted at their workplace with pictures of my exposed twat. It also means that any nutcases from the radical right are going to have to buckle down and do a shitload of homework before they can effectively fuck with me. Or it used to. Considering the dissolution of privacy as national policy these days, being in or out of the closet may not make much difference.
Regardless of if you're in the closet or not, you're going to get lopped in with some pretty unsavory characters. It doesn't matter if you're just as disgusted by the piss-guzzling pimps in Thailand who sell five year olds into sexual slavery - you'll be considered on the same level as those reprobates by many people. You'll automatically be considered the lowest common denominator and it will surprise you who will alter their behaviors toward you. Some will be fascinated, some revolted, and all the spectrum of responses in between. Deal with it, don’t deal with it be bold or be demure, but don’t be naive or rash. Think about it. Decide. Research. Then do what is right for you. No one else has the right to judge, though they will and delight in it as they do.
Oh - and people will expect that you'll do anything for a buck.
The good news is that most of the SIPs I know are accepting good eggs on the whole. There is an understanding that sex is the oldest profession and business can really be just business. Also there is a common belief that "your perversion is no worse than my perversion." Although, let's face it, we all have limits.
Just like anywhere else, you have the skanks and assholes, the sharks and schemers. You have the people who give the industry a bad name (stop laughing, I mean it). But, it's not all like that. You also have the people willing to do a good turn - those who will help and encourage you. Sure, part of that is because if you do well, they're hoping to be able to call upon a favor down the line, but that's true of any business associations. The only difference is that it's crotch-scratching instead of back-scratching. And, okay, the industry parties and get-togethers are a little different from your customary corporate affairs. Again, be cautious and do your research. The sex industry gets a bad rap but the rules are the same here there are predators lurking in the dark corners. And, our industry casts many shadows.
If you're in the closet like me, you're also going to have to be prepared with ready explanations. Fibs. Falsehoods. Convenient little while lies (and maybe a whopper here and there). You're going to have to lie and be comfortable with the act of lying. You're going to have make up plausible excuses to anyone you want to hide from -- your family, your friends, your accountant, your neighbors, and pretty much everyone in your immediate community. And if you get found out, it could have some pretty unhappy implications about trust and truth and all that jazz. People will feel betrayed.
I always just remind myself it could be worse - I could be a republican.
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The $ Money
Yes you little phone slut wannabes. I know this is the part you jumped to first.
Whores - all of us.
First of all, you know those advertisements about making thousands of dollars a week? Forget them. It's bunk. Being a phone slut will not get you that dream house in the Caribbean. There ARE girls that make a couple thousand a month, but they didn’t do it off the bat they put in time and developed clientele and researched marketing. Services make thousands girls make hundreds and, independents make somewhere in between.
Out of those “thousands” or “hundreds” are other factors to consider. Taxes, for one thing. Being a phone slut means you are an independent contractor. That means you pay BOTH your customary half of employment taxes and the half that usually gets paid by an employer. You need to keep track of expenses and be ready to pay an accountant at the end of the year to help you get whatever part of it back you can. But, the more you make, the more you need to set a percentage aside so that you don’t get screwed, blued, and tattooed by the IRS at the end of the year.
Now the good news. If you take your work seriously, have a knack for it, you WILL make a decent living. If you put in the hours and the effort, you can live very comfortably off the monies you'll generate. It all depends on what kind of time and energy you're willing to devote - oh, and how fucking good you are at it.
Dispatch -- If you're working for a reputable dispatch service, you'll get a standard per-minute rate. If not, you're (likely) getting shafted. So you have a per-minute rate that should be at least 25% of the charge rate and which should offer incentives for longer calls and personal requests. So, a service that charges, say $1.50 - $1.99 a minute might have a base pay scale of 40¢ - 60¢ per minute. The percentages may vary based on call length, whether or not the call was a request, and other factors. Most will require you to be logged in for at least 25 hours, but have no maximum log-in limit. It's important to note that log-in hours are not talk hours - you might go three hours without a call and then talk for an hour and a half straight. I always figure 10 minutes talk time per log-on hour as my base with a dispatch service. With most dispatching services (as with all phone sex venues) it will take a while to blend into the system, establish yourself with their existing client base, and develop a rapport with regulars. My first week on the job, I had a total of 5 calls after 40 hours log-in time. There’s a learning curve and an assimilation period. Expect it.
BEWARE dispatch services that base your pay rate on your “overall” average and not a per-call length especially if they have a dramatic pay scale like 5¢ - $1.25 per minute. Many of these services recruit a herd of new girls and then drive down their call times with dropped calls and fake hang-ups so they don’t have to pay the lavish rates they never intended to pay in the first place. Reputable companies that want to motivate longer hold times are much more likely to offer bonuses, but their base pay rate will not fluctuate from one extreme to the other.
BEWARE BEWARE dispatch companies that offer a very low pay base (10¢-25¢) but then promise to keep you busier than higher-paying services. Think about that for a minute. You’ll be doing twice the call volume at half (and often less) of the pay. These types of companies are acceptable for beginners who are looking to cut their teeth on a variety of clients, but by and large, they aren’t economical, and they are often charging the customer bargain-basement prices so that they can undercut the market.
Trolling -- I don’t like trolling companies. To my thinking, a reputable service doesn't make you go out and stand on cyber street corners - they bring the johns to you. They advertise and have an established client base. But, some girls swear by trolling, so I’ll list it. But I don’t like it. If you’re working for a company that intends to have you troll chat rooms and do your own advertising, it’s important you get some fundamental facts about their system before pledging to anything. Do they provide an on-line area for you to harvest from potential clients, or are they sending you off into AOL chatrooms? (Trolling is against AOL’s Terms Of Service and is likely to get your account terminated if you are reported). Trolling companies will pay higher (between 75¢ to $1.50+) but that’s because you’re doing all the hard work. And, once you add up your time spent sitting in chat rooms talking up guys that are always more interested in trying to convince you into giving them one for free, your pay base is going to be minimal (unless you’re good at generating call backs and maintaining the clients you establish yourself with). In my opinion, if you work for a company that requires you to troll, you might as well become an independent and have a full-fledged marketing strategy.
Independent -- This is my choice and should be (in my opinion) the long-term goal of any savvy phone slut. As an independent you make your own business choices, set your own schedules (although, obviously, you should accommodate the market), create your own marketing strategies, and genuinely enjoy the privileges of being your own boss. If you have a bankroll, you can pursue your own merchant account, advertise in adult media, and establish your own presence. You can go the Keen route which I have very negative feelings about, but other girls swear by. Or, you can do what I do, which is to align with an affiliate program of an existing service (that you’ve researched and trust), and allow them to skim a percentage of your earnings. Either way, you can reasonably expect to make $.99 - $3.50 per minute as an independent depending on niche and marketing.
Sweat Shop -- Most sweat shops pay an hourly wage with skimpy corporate bonus system. Expect to make anywhere from minimum wage to $10 per hour and expect to be busy on call after call for the duration of that hour talking to bad penny johns and wankers. I hope it pays for your gas to get there.
Overall, the average weekly take should look something like this:
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