When I first got into MSing.....2017ish...there were lots more full time shoppers here...
after a month or more, I threw my hands up, thinking there was no way I could build it beyond my little pile of simple shops.
As far as I could tell then, the people who got the best, most lucrative work, had worked their way up not by doing more shops, but by networking....
They suggested to others, to attend the conferences and seminars....
to get to know the schedulers personally, to develop relationships...to
become friends with the MSC staff.
At the time I already had a full time day job, so I never went that direction...
years later, I still haven't....many reasons.
So I have a question...did you start small - a few jobs here and there and then take on more work as you gained experience?
Did you network in person? Did you go to conferences? did that lead to more or better work for you?

I will say that meeting MSC staff DEFINITELY moved me into better shop options. It wasn't always at conferences, though. Some I would just offer to meet with when I was near their offices.

For me, I never did mystery shopping full-time or attended events. I remember signing up for the forums, but never visited since last year.

Around 2019, I signed up with MFI doing simple shops. As time went on, I remember receiving phone calls for bonused shops farther from me. I stuck with those simple shops on MFI, but then later moved onto Intellishop.

Intellishop became a favorite MSC for me. When I first saw a Jack in the Box shop, it seemed intimidating with all of the pictures and timings, but I tried one. After, I often did bonused Jack in the Box routes on weekends. I started doing more types of shops with the MSC and even noticed that my pictures would later be used in the shop guidelines. Over time, I found the schedulers helpful. I remember doing a long-term assignment for a national project where others reported on items through documents provided by the client. Back then, I thought of it as a fun gig.

Around the last two years though, I made the shift to long narrative, luxury retail, high reimbursement, and travel shops. One MSC has gotten lucrative clients recently, and I've been able to get assigned restaurant and hotel shops that I personally seek. I've built a good history with the MSC. I followed some clients to other MSCs, and it turned out to be good for me. Some have shared my info with other schedulers needing to fulfill certain types of shops. Some MSCs, they've adjusted the reimbursement amount for me on meals or been lenient with deadlines. Some other types of shops are recurring shops, where I'm familiar with the same scheduler and editor. Some editors give me feedback that build upon previously reports. Some schedulers are very flexible with me in rescheduling. I've had some go out of their way to make accommodations or resolve issues for me.

All in all, for me, it's all happened organically and holistically over time, by consistently delivering high quality work! (At least I think so.)

I've never attended a mystery shopping event. And I don't do networking. I know a couple schedulers, but I don't fraternize with them. I tried to be friendly with 2 different schedulers, and it bit me back both times. I am respectful, I explain what I need from them, sometimes I over-explain, but I'm not trying to be anyone's friend. Just to have a normal working relationship.

I don't consider myself a long timer, at least not like Bob and Steve. but I've been doing this for 13 years, I've made a lot of mistakes. And maybe not spending money I don't have on conferences and certifications was one of them, but probably not. I can do long narratives (I'm a frustrated english teacher at heart, but I don't like kids or enclosed spaces), but I burnt myself out on them early in my journey in mystery shopping, so now I try to avoid them. Which probably has a lot to do with why I prefer gas station audits and simple fast food and grocery shops.

Morledzep, I hear you on the long narratives. I had a 35+ year career in the legal field. Writing long narratives were my thing. I was called on across my industry as an expert in descriptive narration, so when I am relaxed and focused, I do well at those...but for me, the shops that required those - mostly, just didn't seem to compensate fairly, IMO, for the time requirement...perhaps it was because I was living in a high cost of living city at the time...where time was a valuable commodity when it came to trading it for money.
Now I choose shops where I check boxes LOL...because the time for money tradeoff is more equitable. I live near a much smaller city now, so now the opportunities aren't there....so maybe for me, I just haven't lived in the best places for shopping lol.
I do look for good opportunities and often find them, when road tripping, however.
I've toyed with the idea of going to conferences...but have yet to.
I wonder if they are different now than they were even 5-10 years ago?

I just plug in my Cat6 cable to my FiOS box and my network just flies...uploads and downloads exceed the rated bandwidth! I just built this latest desktop computer with components from Micro Center.

Oh, are you speaking about a different kind of network?

Ditto Moreled's comments for me. I'm unsocial and have no interest in smooze. I still managed to be a valued shopper (years ago when there was such a thing) by doing a good job every time. And, on occasion, when screwing up, making it right in any way I could. I used to enjoy narratives but got tired of them.

The landscape is dramatically different now, though. There are very few human schedulers and higher-ups are hiding away with no available contact information. Now, with many MSCs, shoppers are faceless, nameless entities with stats like in sports - wins/losses/fouls, etc. It's all about the algorithms so there's really no advantage to human networking in the low-end categories I shop.

Just started a few years ago and I never networked to any in person events. The only networking I have done is in this group. I have learned so much from each and every person here. I also work full time at a regular job so this is part time, added income for me since there just never seems to be enough money.

I started doing just a few shops here and there, slowly got hooked. I watched and learned. When I first started, there were less shoppers. I could easily watch those bonuses come in time. I learned to be patient and wait. I made more money doing less shops but now I feel like I have to hustle. If I wait too long for a bonus, the shops are gone. Too many eager beavers around here lately.

Do I have a relationship with the MSC's? Not really, I email the schedulers and communicate if I have an issue or a question. I "hope" they recognize me as a reliable shopper who rarely misses a shop. I don't think they have ever given me a heads up or an offer directly to me. I don't think I am any different than any shopper here.

My work increased as I learned more and became more comfortable with different kinds of shops. I became more confident as time went on. It took me awhile to work my way up to doing one of those Kia shops and then I couldn't stop doing them. There are still some shops I won't do, some because I hate them, some because I am petrified. It is a learning experience and I think I have been successful and I didn't really need to do any hardcore networking to get where I am now.

I've been at this for over 20 years now. When I started I had more energy than brains and tried all sorts of crazy and complex shops not really knowing what I was in for....covert gas stations, hotel overnights, fine dining, golf course evaluations, massage, airports, dentists, banking, cell phone stores, investments, casinos and plenty of retail. Oh, and I'll never forget those flush holes. Ugh, the thought of doing some of those now makes me shutter. I am self-taught and never attended a conference. I had and have friendly relationships with schedulers but in a professional way only. I've not socialized or met any in person.

Nowadays I am retired from my previous profession and still shop several days a week, but my focus is on easy in, easy out, fair paying jobs...bank tellers, gas stations, post office, casual dining etc. Once in awhile I'll do an airport circuit or fine dining, but I avoid most retail, and cell phone stores. I detest phone call shops but I just love counting cars and getting a cheap sub sandwich.

I hope to continue shopping as long as I'm able and the MSCs are willing to put up with me.

I should add that when I started, it was relatively normal to have an occasional phone call with a MSC owner if you worked for them. Once you were an established shopper, they might call to ask you to cover a last-minute cancellation, or get involved if there was an issue with a shop. And I was working for mid-level MSC's doing mostly hotel and restaurant work. Not the giant companies where shoppers were nameless. Asking to meet up for coffee or drink from there was not unusual. Since I worked for MSC early on in my career, I also met some of them at non-shopper events.

That's a large part of networking to me; Just having people you work with put a voice or face to a name, and to know a little about you, personally.

I practice the same method in my career. I could probably continue to push for remote work moving forward at my main job, but whenever I can, I attend a meeting in person. Truth be told, I think the business aspect of my job functions better over Zoom. At a remote meeting, I'm center screen when talking, with my name plastered on the screen, and basically making eye contact with everyone at once, but it's the non-working moments at in-person meetings where you can be more memorable. Sitting down for a lunch with people you have only interacted with online for year gives you a chance to connect in a different way.

That's probably the core of the conference networking as well. It's not the business meetings, lectures, demonstrations and such where you network best. It's sitting down and having a drink, or two...or three, with that scheduler or MSC owner you have only emailed with. Finding out you like the same wine, have a similar pet, both were at the same concert at one point in your life, or follow the same sports team goes light years beyond just doing good work for the company in my experience.

Regarding one's career, I do agree that networking is vital. It's something I struggled with when I was younger and more shy. Especially at big companies, where you have to work across departments and manage up.

When I was younger, I found that BRGs (business resource group) and volunteering were a good way to meet people across departments and for potential internal transfers.

Things like visibility and influence are more important at some workplaces than others. If you work on a team though, you do have to be able to connect with your team members on some level with things like daily huddle and owning the work.

Switching between technical and management tracks, I found that the technical track and less structure best suits me personality. What I found that worked for me, was taking on high-profile and complex projects. It naturally leads to growth and relationships with other key stakeholders, experts, and departments in the company over time.

From reading these comments, I sense that in this industry, the importance of networking is fading, especially as technology continues to proliferate.
I've told the story before here of the mystery shopper who lived in Arizona and traveled to Northern CA and died in a parking lot under mysterious circumstances while shopping. She was referred to as a "master of disguise" and I wonder how deep one would have to get into MSing to get a nickname like that and make it worthwhile to travel several states for shops. It didn't sound like she was a burger and gasoline type of shopper making a route. It sounded like she was a well known professional shopper who wore disguises because it was worth it. Her death was only 10 years ago.
I wonder if those kind of shoppers even exist anymore..

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/28/2025 04:30PM by BarefootBliss.

@BarefootBliss wrote:

I wonder if those kind of shoppers even exist anymore..

I say it's a definition of what "those kind" means. I go from state to state shopping. I just don't do it for a living.

The disguise becomes a requirement when you are repeating assignments over and over, and don't want to be known. If you want to shop full time and earn good money, you will have to repeat locations. Sometimes inside of a required rotation. I think there are people who still do that as well. They are probably not here on the forum because they are busy mystery shopping all day every day!

We [shoppers] are tools the MSC utilize. When you need to get every gas station in a state evaluated, there's a tool for that. When you need someone to look like that can afford to purchase a very expensive piece of jewelry, there's a different tool.

So I guess part of my point was wondering how the MSCs acquire the different types of tools they need. For low end, low dollar, they don't care too much, they just list the jobs available and if a shopper bombs on them, the MSCs relist and wait for the next noob....for the shopper groomed to take on more sophisticated assignments...I assume (?) it's someone who kept taking on assignments of greater and greater complexity until the MSC felt confident they could whatever kind they needed....maybe there was no networking required?
Speaking for myself, I probably don't have the patience or else might not want to put in the time....I am just curious mostly....

@BarefootBliss wrote:

for the shopper groomed to take on more sophisticated assignments...I assume (?) it's someone who kept taking on assignments of greater and greater complexity until the MSC felt confident they could whatever kind they needed....maybe there was no networking required?

I think the answer is somewhere in between. A lot of my opportunities came from MSC owners sharing my information with one another, and schedulers as well. But you need to get your foot in the door somehow, so having a track record with one MSC is surely a way to get started. They would probably reach out to you if they had better opportunities.

Many of the more sophisticated jobs require debriefs (I.e. Meeting with hotel/resort managers before leaving the property. These days a lot more happen on Zoom as well). I think just about every MSC I have done a debrief for has met me in one way or another in advance of giving me the assignment. I certainly would not send in someone unknown to do that, no matter how good their scores were.

And I don't think Zoom is enough if you are setting up an in-person meeting with a shopper. What if they have terrible body odor, or halitosis? What if they smell like alcohol in any meeting before noon? I am pretty certain that meeting me in person gave many MSCs the confidence to send me in on high profile assignments.

Off topic, but SteveSoCal, are you familiar with the TV show Bull? In my mind I picture Michael Weatherly when I read your posts..sophisticated, but fun. Do you resemble him?

I went to two events and felt out of place at both locations. There were too many cliches and not enough socializing. I don't get the conferences and paying for the classes and certifications if no one uses them.

I stopped socializing on Facebook because of the mean girls and bullying that occurs. I lurk on Facebook and find some of the chosen ones are the meanest. I see how these people interact on Facebook; why would I want that in my professional setting? I do better without the interactions that aren't going to help me anyway.

@MsJudi wrote:

Off topic, but SteveSoCal, are you familiar with the TV show Bull? In my mind I picture Michael Weatherly when I read your posts..sophisticated, but fun. Do you resemble him?

I resemble him in spirit, but not looks. And I'm apparently 11 months older than him! (I had to look him up).

A part of me wants to quit MSing altogether, start a YouTube channel about travel and MS and come clean about my identity. Another forum member, who I am now good friends with but has not been active recently, had apparently been combing social media and located a Steve she thought was me, but was shocked when we met IRL and I was not THAT Steve.

The issue with maintaining my anonymity is that I am "Googleable"...but thankfully Steve was a popular name in the 60's. A pretty good number of MSF members have met me, though. I used to attend shopper events in the past.

@SteveSoCal wrote:

I think the answer is somewhere in between. A lot of my opportunities came from MSC owners sharing my information with one another, and schedulers as well. But you need to get your foot in the door somehow, so having a track record with one MSC is surely a way to get started. They would probably reach out to you if they had better opportunities.

Many of the more sophisticated jobs require debriefs (I.e. Meeting with hotel/resort managers before leaving the property. These days a lot more happen on Zoom as well). I think just about every MSC I have done a debrief for has met me in one way or another in advance of giving me the assignment. I certainly would not send in someone unknown to do that, no matter how good their scores were.

And I don't think Zoom is enough if you are setting up an in-person meeting with a shopper. What if they have terrible body odor, or halitosis? What if they smell like alcohol in any meeting before noon? I am pretty certain that meeting me in person gave many MSCs the confidence to send me in on high profile assignments.

My path is similar to Steve's. I also worked as a scheduler and editor at one point. I have met many MSC owners and schedulers in person. Some shoppers are big BS'er online and are not presentable or articulate in person.

I used to do debriefs and meetings with the clients frequently. Lately, I am focused more on my career and less on big shops and accounts.

@BayShopper22 wrote:

My path is similar to Steve's. I also worked as a scheduler and editor at one point. I have met many MSC owners and schedulers in person. Some shoppers are big BS'er online and are not presentable or articulate in person.

I used to do debriefs and meetings with the clients frequently. Lately, I am focused more on my career and less on big shops and accounts.

And I think we first met in person at a shopper event...right?

Networking!

I was a full-time mystery shopper with no other income from my beginning in 2008. Attending an event may had helped me if I had attended within my first year of mystery shopping. I attended 3 "national" events during my next few years after I had done hundreds of shops, but those events did nothing for me. To me, they were just expensive social gatherings that necessitated my taking off work.

I have always had more shops available to me than I have had the time to do them (pandemic era excluded). I like to believe that I have brought that about by being dependable, taking some tough shops, new shops, and out-of-town shops, by making sure my reports read and look as professional as I can make them, embracing technology to save time, and most importantly by building a relationship with my schedulers and shopping companies.

"Take a few hard ones, show them that you are dependable, turn in quality work, and they will give you more of the easy ones." --Me

I've been mystery shopping since the 1990's, when many surveys were filled out by hand and mailed in. Over that period of time, I've had good working relationships with schedulers and mystery shopping company owners, as many shops were scheduled via phone call. Because of that, I did network with schedulers who, when they needed to have a shop done by someone they could depend on to do good work, I was offered more lucrative plum shops and also was often referred by schedulers to other schedulers who were needing a shopper in my geographic area. I have never attended conferences or met in person with a scheduler or company owner. I just tried to excellent work and in return I have often been offered more desirable work. Of course, many years back, there were so many more different mystery shopping companies than there are today. So many small companies have been swallowed up by large companies it has changed the landscape of mystery shopping. I feel like schedulers have so much more on their plate that they often don't have time to develop working relationships with shoppers like they used to.

I started shopping in the mid-1990s, just a few shops here and there - mainly Panera Bread and Starbucks. A few years later, I ms'ed almost full-time when our daughter moved out to attend medical school. It was severe empty nest syndrome, and I wanted to help with medical school expenses. I did everything: banks, retail, gas stations, cell shops, hotels, dining venues, video, and even merchandising. After COVID, I'm lifestyle shopping and only shopping hotels, restaurants, and any "interesting" shops.

I attended many IMSC and MSPA conferences in multiple states. It helped me get started with new home video shops. Overall, I learned more from rooming and socializing with other shoppers than from the owners or the classes. They were fun until they weren't.

@BarefootBliss wrote:

When I first got into MSing.....2017ish...there were lots more full time shoppers here...
after a month or more, I threw my hands up, thinking there was no way I could build it beyond my little pile of simple shops.
As far as I could tell then, the people who got the best, most lucrative work, had worked their way up not by doing more shops, but by networking....
They suggested to others, to attend the conferences and seminars....
to get to know the schedulers personally, to develop relationships...to
become friends with the MSC staff.
At the time I already had a full time day job, so I never went that direction...
years later, I still haven't....many reasons.
So I have a question...did you start small - a few jobs here and there and then take on more work as you gained experience?
Did you network in person? Did you go to conferences? did that lead to more or better work for you?

I have gone to two conferences. One MSPA in 2017, and a Video Con in 2019. Everything I learned about mystery shopping I figured out on my own. I didn't learn anything from the 2017 conference. VideoCon I learned a lot. I would like to see another conference like that.

I started small, staying local. Once I learned it was legitimate, I made this a full-time job. I started doing mystery shops regularly and moved into video in 2019. I found that the conferences were places where friends met up and partied or vacationed together. I did not find the networking beneficial to me.

Interesting to hear from everyone. I was never interested in doing MS full-time. I just do it for extra money and/or to offset living expenses.

I started "really" doing this only a couple years ago, in the summers (teacher), but I've been dabbling in it for about 15 years. I know of at least two schedulers who, after I completed some assignments, began reaching out to me personally to get me some nicer assignments/assignments that didn't show up on my board. One is for a now defunct company (and I absolutely loved doing shops for them), and the other is one where I've pretty much exhausted all of their local shops over the course of two summers. There is another where I've applied for shops, but noted that it would only be worth my time if I got all of the shops I asked for, due to the distance plus the jobs' proximity to each other, and I got them, so, I like to think it's because I deliver quality work, since I've never met a scheduler in person (although the scheduler for the now defunct company basically "interviewed" me via phone before giving me better jobs).

@AZwolfman wrote:

I was a full-time mystery shopper with no other income from my beginning in 2008. Attending an event may had helped me if I had attended within my first year of mystery shopping. I attended 3 "national" events during my next few years after I had done hundreds of shops, but those events did nothing for me. To me, they were just expensive social gatherings that necessitated my taking off work.

I have always had more shops available to me than I have had the time to do them (pandemic era excluded). I like to believe that I have brought that about by being dependable, taking some tough shops, new shops, and out-of-town shops, by making sure my reports read and look as professional as I can make them, embracing technology to save time, and most importantly by building a relationship with my schedulers and shopping companies.

"Take a few hard ones, show them that you are dependable, turn in quality work, and they will give you more of the easy ones." --Me

I am newish to mystery shopping and started during the pandemic. I do a couple of hundred a year. I had one early shop rejected because I missed something in the instructions, but otherwise get great scores. A couple of years ago I emailed a scheduler about Amazon Fresh delivery shops which I heard were not posted and assigned to a specific list of people. I wasn't able to get on the list but did complete 24 shops in December of that year to help the scheduler catch up. I hoped that would get me some credit and get me on the list, but alas no luck. How to you develop a relationship where a schedule will ask you directly to do shops? I feel like randomly emailing them would be annoying.

@SteveSoCal wrote:

@BayShopper22 wrote:

My path is similar to Steve's. I also worked as a scheduler and editor at one point. I have met many MSC owners and schedulers in person. Some shoppers are big BS'er online and are not presentable or articulate in person.

I used to do debriefs and meetings with the clients frequently. Lately, I am focused more on my career and less on big shops and accounts.

And I think we first met in person at a shopper event...right?

Networking!

The first time - yes. I recall using all of the drink tickets and polishing off all of the wine in the schedulers' hotel room before you escaped into the night in an Uber. I think that was in last in-person "event" although I have done many team-shops with other shoppers since then.

My DD still refers to you as, "Uncle Steve."

I guess when I retire, I will do more multi-day travel shops. For now, It's either very high paying or fast and easy.