Halina Zakowicz

Halina Zakowicz is a full-time freelance writer, investor and aspiring sci-fi novelist. In her spare time, she appreciates the finer points of zymology by brewing various hops-infused concoctions.

How to Create and Make Money From Your Own Online Course

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I’ll bet you $50 that you probably have enough material in your head to generate at least one online course. That course could be about a traditional topic like physics or chemistry or it could be something less academic, like how to refinish a hardwood floor or make quality moonshine. The bottom line is that any skill that took you time to learn can be marketable; i.e., your knowledge and experience can make you money. The trick is, how do you make your knowledge and experience marketable?

Using an online academy or online university

Nowadays, you can publish online courses via online academies (or online universities) that offer you an easy platform through which you can showcase your talents. Here are just a few such online academies:

Udemy

This online academy has recently gotten some good press from NBC Today and Forbes, among other high caliber places. At Udemy, anyone can create, publish and promote an online course, regardless of credentials. About 75% of the offered courses are free; the remaining 25% run anywhere from $9 for an Affiliate Marketing for Noobs course to $500 for Jack Welch’s Welch Way Management training course. Udemy keeps 30% of your revenue; if you directly refer a customer to your course (such as through a coupon), Udemy’s cut drops to 15%.

Odijoo

This site, much like Udemy, runs on an open platform and allows anyone to create and publish a free or paid online course. Even better, Odijoo takes only a 10% cut of your revenue. Odijoo also allows you to create your own “campus” from which your courses are displayed and taught, allowing you to create a veritable online education business. Another Odijoo perk is that you can syndicate your content, allowing other instructors to purchase that content and use it in their classes.

Litmos

Litmos prides itself on being a learning management system (LMS) geared towards business professionals. In tune with that philosophy, Litmos makes it extremely easy to create and add to your own online course and have it distributed on mobile devices. With Litmos, you get a lot of entrepreneurial perks like your own domain name, branding and landing page. There is no cut taken from your revenue; however, you do pay a minimum monthly charge to the site; the Starter membership runs $49/month. As you grab additional perks and students, your monthly fee can become quite high…so this platform may not be for everyone.

Using your own website

If you have a large enough following online, you can use your website or email newsletter to advertise your online course and get people to sign up privately. This allows you to keep all the profits and make additional money through back-end product sales. Additionally, you can offer your students a premium-priced version of your course by including something extra like one-on-one phone/email support. Alternately, you can send your students extra materials like ebooks or give them access to an online forum.

You don’t need a fancy-shmancy platform or software to generate an effective and informative online course. Your lessons can be sent out as weekly emails to your students followed by an assignment that is emailed back to you. Additional course information could be posted on internal website pages that only your students have access to. I know this because I’ve seen it done on several online courses including Linda Formichelli’s Write for Magazines e-course.

There are a number of free online tools available if you need to record your voice or provide a presentation. If you really want to go all out and give a webinar, AnyMeeting offers free web conferencing (up to 200 attendees).

But I’m not an expert on anything!

You might be wondering how you can teach anything when you’ve never received a qualifying degree or wrote a book about the topic. Well, I have a solution for you:

Tim Ferriss of The 4-Hour Workweek fame wrote the following “back-door” formula on becoming an expert in almost anything in 4 weeks*:

1. Join 2-3 trade organizations [in the field that you intend to teach].

2. Read 3 top-selling books on your topic and summarize each one.

3. Give one free 1-3 hour seminar at your closest university and company branches.

4. Offer to write 1-2 articles for trade magazines related to your topic, using steps 1 and 3 as your credibility points.

5. Join ProfNet, a site that journalists use to find subject matter experts and quote them. Then, get quoted.

Tim also makes the following statement: “”Expert” is nebulous media-speak and so overused as to be indefinable. In modern PR terms, proof of expertise in most fields is shown with group affiliations, client lists, writing credentials and media mentions, not IQ points or Ph.D.s.”

How I became a crowdfunding expert

I somehow became an expert on equity crowdfunding even though I’ve never crowdfunded a thing in my life. It all started when I wrote an article on equity crowdfunding for I’ve Tried That and then another one for a small business site. A few months later, the local SCORE Madison chapter contacted me to find out if I’d give a talk about the subject.

I happily agreed and started compiling my Powerpoint slides, learning a lot about exciting SEC regulations in the process. Fortuitously, my Evansville Area Inventors & Entrepreneurs Club hosted a venture capitalist who gave a talk about equity crowdfunding just days before my own talk. As a result, I got the scoop from a “real” expert on what pertinent issues I should discuss. And voilà! An equity crowdfunding expert was born. I now pitch crowdfunding to my clients.

What if I can’t answer a question?

Another major concern for budding online course instructors is that their students will ask questions that they cannot answer on the spot. There are several ways around this uncomfortable possibility, including telling the student that you will get back to him/her with an answer at a later time, asking the class to answer the question, or simply admitting that you just don’t know- but will return with an answer.

The best preventative measure by far is to initially not do live sessions with your students until you can safely anticipate a majority of their questions. And remember that, according to the Pareto principle, about 80% of your students’ questions will cover only 20% of your material, so make sure you learn that portion well. As for the other 20% of your students’ questions- well, while they will come up, it will be less common.

Also, you don’t have to know everything there is to know about your subject matter- you simply have to be one step ahead of your students. In light of this, try to stay informed about your topic and any news that are relevant to it. Set up a Google Alerts on your topic’s keywords and have those alerts go to your email account. In this way, if any new developments are at play in your field of expertise, you’ll be the first to know- and impress your students.

How much money can you make from your own online course?

A well-known name like Jack Welch, who has now sold his Udemy course to 109 students at $500 per student, has grossed $54.5K. No bad.

However, lesser-known Miguel Hernandez, who sells a $297 Udemy course titled How to Create an Awesome Demo Video for Your Business, has outgrossed Welch by one entire figure and come in at over $483K. Your results will probably differ, but even this one example illustrates how creating a course that offers something relevant to your audience, especially a business/technical audience, can earn you some big bucks. And this can happen even if you don’t have a big name.

Fortunately, Miguel also offers another Udemy course titled How to Create an Awesome Online Course for those who are curious.

Much like with teaching courses in the “real world”, it takes time and persistence to create a highly popular (i.e., lucrative) course. But if you’re passionate about your subject matter and (more importantly) about teaching it, creating an online course is a great way to go.

 

*excluding neurology, automatic transmissions and school boards.

Why Giving Away Free Stuff Actually Helps Your Business

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Perhaps you’ve noticed the following online trend: Many websites offer a lot of good stuff completely free to their readers. To begin with, there’s I’ve Tried That and its 7-Day Intro to Success email course. Pat Flynn of Smart Passive Income currently offers an ebook on how to publish and market your own ebook. And to poor graduate students trying to make some extra money on the side, UW-Madison’s own Ryan Raver offers a free second income ebook.

How can these online entrepreneurs afford to give away so much of their stuff for free, and especially when many of their readers would gladly pay for this material?

A tale of two social experiments

To answer this question, let me tell you a little story about some behavioral research scientists who had a little (too much) time on their hands and decided to run some human experiments (incidentally, human experimentation can be quite lucrative). These researchers offered their subjects two types of chocolate for purchase: Hershey’s Kisses and Lindt truffles. While both items are made of chocolate and are certainly a treat, Lindt truffles are hands-down a better quality chocolate and far more expensive than Kisses.

The Kisses and truffles were priced at 1 cent and 15 cents, respectively. Normally, Lindt truffles cost about 30 cents per piece, so the 15 cent price tag of these truffles was a good value for the money. Naturally, about 75% of the subjects chose to buy the truffles over the Kisses.

Then, these researchers altered the pricing structure of the chocolates by a single penny; the Hershey’s Kisses were reduced from 1 cent to free and the Lindt truffles from 15 cents to 14 cents per piece. Again, both chocolates were offered to the test subjects. What happened?

In this situation, 69% of the subjects chose the free Kiss over the value-priced truffle.

The results and analysis of this intriguing human experiment are discussed by one of the researchers, Dan Ariely, in his book “Predictably Irrational”. Suffice it to say, people go nuts when something free is offered, even if that free item isn’t that great.

However, people will still go nuts over a free item even if that entails buying more. When Amazon ran a global “Buy a Second Book, Get Free Shipping” promotion, every country jumped on the offer…every country except France, that is. When Amazon marketing execs examined why France wasn’t taking the bait, they found out that the promotion had been slightly altered in that country: Instead of being offered free shipping, the French were being offered shipping for only 5 francs (our equivalent of 20 cents).

It was still a fantastic deal…but it wasn’t free.

Once Amazon execs restored the free shipping promotion to France, the French also jumped on the bandwagon and started buying books galore.

What the emerging field of neuromarketing is showing us is the following: Consumer psychology is messed up. Furthermore, it’s not just messed up- it’s predictably messed up.

This means that you can use the concept of free to your advantage.

People like love go krazy for free stuff

It’s no secret that people will spend an inordinate amount of time- a resource that, like money, is limited- to obtain something for free. Just look at The Krazy Coupon Lady, a super-couponing website that often advertises small items that can be obtained for free if the correct alignment of coupons is used. These coupons take time and effort to acquire. Some super-couponers spend 20+ hours or more per week obtaining and matching coupons to store sales. Such time would be better spent at a part-time job. However, no “sane” super-couponer will listen to you if you try to point out that fact.

Because people are innately attracted to free stuff, you can offer free ebooks, software, courses, etc. as a way to build traffic to and interest in your business. However, you might be wondering how these interested parties won’t just leave your business page as soon as they collect their freebies. After all, once the free item has been obtained, what’s there to keep your audience interested and loyal?

Give away the store- for a price

Savvy Internet marketers know that there’s no such thing as free and even items advertised as free come with a price. In many cases, that price is the consumer’s name and email. Thus, the actual price of “free” stuff is usually information.

Once a potential customer’s information is known, he or she can be placed on an email newsletter and contacted directly with promotional materials, programs and offers. The email list is where most business is done and where the real sales are made. In fact, there’s even a saying: “The money’s in the list”.

Additionally, an email list is forever. If you lost your business website or blog or were otherwise forced to close up shop, you could still take your email list with you and use it.

Give away the store- but make sure your customers return

There are several ways you can help ensure that your audience takes your free items, uses these items, and then comes back for more.

1. Give away the highest quality. The first way to ensure audience return is by giving away only your highest quality items for free. Yes, this tactic may seem odd, but hear me out: If your audience downloads an ebook or other item from you that is filled with blatantly obvious or general information, it will assume that you have nothing of value to offer. That audience will never return to you.

However, let’s say your audience downloads something from you that is just packed with useful and even unexpected information. Not only will your audience be impressed with what it received for free, it will automatically assume that what you are selling must be even better. After all, if even your most useful advice is free, imagine how good your paid stuff must be. In this case, your freebie has served as a great promotional item by establishing your credibility and expertise in the field. But wait- there’s more…

2. Go viral. A quality freebie is invariably shared with others. Your audience members may find your free content so useful that they end up passing it on to other people that they know. These people are also wowed by your freebie, visit your website and even sign up for your email newsletter.

You can help initiate and perpetuate a viral share trend by announcing your free content on social media platforms like Twitter or Facebook, or making social media syndication a requirement of content download.

3. Provide payback opportunities. If you consistently impress people with your high quality freebies, many will look for ways to pay you back for your gesture(s) of goodwill. Don’t pass up on these opportunities! Create areas in your free content where readers/users can actually buy a product that relates to your freebie item and helps them become more adept at whatever they’re learning or doing. Likewise, be sure to mention that you have more in-depth versions of the same content, software, etc….for a price. Don’t be shy about tooting your own horn and discussing all the benefits of the paid-for item. If possible, give your audience the best sample of the touted item so they understand why you’re charging for it.

The Bottom Line

The concept of free, especially in the hot and emerging field of neuromarketing, works best with consumers because it is an emotional trigger. Roger Dooley, the primary blogger at Neuromarketing, aptly explains how free works to not only make us buy, but buy even more than we originally intended. Thus, if you’re worried about putting out high quality, free stuff on your website or blog, don’t be. By offering “something for nothing”, you’ll not only be establishing a sense of goodwill and credibility with your audience, but you’ll also be helping your business grow and generate revenue.

10 Totally Free Educational (and Other) Resources for Freelancers

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The world is full of freebies- if you know where to look. And that also includes the online world; nowadays, there is more free stuff online and on the Web than ever before. Part of the reason has to do with simple supply-and-demand economics- having more people online also means more competition for traffic and page views.

Internet marketers and subscription sites are more willing to give away educational and other resources for free. Likewise, by giving away some free stuff, these businesses hope to entice you into eventually purchasing the full package deal. For freelancers just starting out in the freelance world, having access to free online courses, ebooks, magazines, etc. can be a real help.  Here is a list of 10 totally free resources for freelance workers:

1. Online courses from top universities

If you think you can’t afford a Stanford or Harvard education, think again. Sites like Coursera and Udacity offer various courses from different state and private schools as well as through leading industrial experts. Khan Academy is well known for offering free online educational courses to some of the most remote geographic locations around the globe.

MIT offers a huge selection of courses on its MITOpenCourseWare website, where you can learn about topics as diverse as cognitive robotics and game theory. Of course, as a freelancer, you might just be looking to enhance your web design or editing skills or pick up some medical terminology for a white paper you’re writing. Not to worry- these websites offer basic undergraduate-level classes as well.

2. Legal documents

Whether you’re a freelance business consultant, web designer, writer or something else entirely, you are well advised to create and sign certain legal documents before undertaking or paying for any work. With Docracy, you can access a wide selection of free legal documents such as contracts, work agreements, employment offers, etc.

Docracy also allows you to e-sign the document and then generate a .pdf version to send to your client or employee. For freelancers and business start-ups, having documented proof of a business transaction is imperative if you wish to ever take legal action against client non-payment, intellectual property theft, etc.

3. Magazine editor information

For freelance writers trying to write for or even become employed by magazines, finding editor information can be tricky. At Mastheads, you can quickly browse through a plethora of magazines such as Seventeen, Good Housekeeping and Guns and Ammo to find out who is editing what. Mediabistro offers informational posts on how to pitch writing ideas, which magazine is looking for new blood, and how much certain publications pay per word.

The site also has a job board; however, most of the jobs, even those listed as freelance, are location-specific (i.e., not work-at-home). Finally, if you want to know the scoop on which editor has been hired or fired, what jobs may soon be opening up at XYZ magazine (via the trademarked WhisperJobs site), and the probable contact email formats of major magazines, check out Ed2010.

4. Photos and images

You can obtain completely free photos and other images at Pexels. When using this free content, be sure to comply with the originating site’s rules and regulations.

5. Work timers

There are many work timers out there, helping you keep track of your billable hours and better stay away from time sucks such as Facebook and Angry Birds. One of the simplest and free time trackers out there is SlimTimer, which allows you and other members of your project team to input tasks and maintain timers on all of them.

All work data can be backed up and imported into an invoice. Another free time tracker is Tick; the no-cost subscription option comes with one project tracking, project reporting and exporting (including RSS). Tick projects can logged into and used by an unlimited number of users.

6. Audio recording and editing software

At Audacity, you can create, convert and edit audio files from the comfort of your own home office without needing to purchase any software (although you may wish to invest in a microphone if you’re creating podcasts). This is because Audacity offers open source audio software that is completely free to download and use.

7. Photo and image editing software

Love PhotoShop but can’t afford its price tag? GIMP is an open source PhotoShop-like software program that you can download and use for free.

Just like PhotoShop, GIMP allows users to upload and edit images, changing such features as exposure, contrast and color saturation. Users can also utilize the advanced scripting functions (via Basic Scheme) of GIMP to add in images or create new effects.

8. Web development tools

While you can view the source code of almost any web page by simply going to its “View” tab and clicking on “Source”, you cannot perform very much editing or debugging work unless you really know the code. Plus, most web pages are such a mess, script-wise, that it’s a headache trying to get anything done with them.

With Firebug, you can more easily see and edit a site’s code, whether that code be in CSS, HTML or Java. Furthermore, Firebug will even point out certain scripting errors to you, streamlining your editing. The free open source software will also monitor your network, reporting where sluggishness is occurring and why.

9. Keyword tools

Sure, there’s always the free Google keywords tool to help you figure out which keywords are the most commonly searched. However, the Google keywords tool was developed with PPC advertisers in mind, not folks trying to create searchable content for blogs or business websites. Likewise, the tool doesn’t report on keywords that your competitors are using to become #1 on the SERP (search engine results page).

To this end, sites like KeywordSpy are much more apropos. Although accessing all the site’s features requires a paid subscription, you can gain many of the tool’s benefits by signing up for a free subscription and plugging in some candidate keywords. WordTracker is another useful keyword tool that you can use for free (although for a very limited time) to check on your competition.

10. Magazines

For several years now I’ve been receiving an absolutely free subscription of Website Magazine. This publication offers timely e-commerce news and advice that has served me well with my online (and even offline) clients.

I also receive a bunch of other free (or really cheap) magazines like Money, Forbes, The Economist, Martha Stewart Living, etc. through ValueMags and Mercury Magazines, both of which periodically offer free trial subscriptions of 6 months to a year to some very well-known publications. These free magazines are a veritable font of writing inspiration as well as information for me. And they sure give my mail carrier a workout!

Bonus freebies!

Go to any well-known website and you will invariably be “encouraged” to sign up for its email newsletter by being offered a rather chunky educational product (e.g., e-course, e-book). These products were likely sold at-profit some time in the past but are now available for free.

Sites that offer some rather hefty sign-up products include Marketo, Smart Passive Income, Make A Living Writing, The Extra Money Blog, etc. They are great instructional products and packed with useful information.

How to Build Your Own Revenue Share Site

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Do you currently generate content for revenue share sites such as HubPages, Examiner, Infobarrel, Helium or Yahoo! Voices? Do you envy the money that these sites make and how little of that cash goes to you (via page views)? If you’ve dreamed about collecting all the revenue that a site like Yahoo! Voices makes or even selling such a site one day (Yahoo! paid $100 million for Associated Content), then read on. Here are the steps that you will need to take to build your own revenue share site:

1. Buy a domain name and web hosting.

Obviously, you need to have your own website before you can generate any income from it. Fortunately, the cost of doing this is rather minimal with sites like HostGator and GoDaddy charging you roughly $10/year for a domain name and another 10-$15/month for web hosting expenses.

2. Create a Google AdSense account.

Google AdSense is probably the most ubiquitous adshare program around, offering instant platforms through which publishers can generate income via posted content including articles, blog posts, photos, videos, etc. Google AdSense also offers a range of useful tools to track page views and ad clicks and generate ad campaigns. For the purposes of a revenue share site, Google AdSense offers a software tool called the AdSense Host API; this tool offers the opportunity for a pool of publishers to each earn his/her own separate income from one publishing site.

3. Install Google AdSense on your website.

Before you can install the AdSense Host API, you should first install Google AdSense on your website. AdSense will report how many visitors your website is getting, where these visitors are coming from (both geographically and online), what keywords are being used to locate your site, etc. Having such information is critical for increasing your site traffic and recruiting other publishers. It’s also imperative because, as step 3 notes, you won’t be able to implement the AdSense Host API without a certain level of traffic.

4. Install or build your revenue share infrastructure.

Google releases the AdSense Host API only to those websites that generate at least 100,000 page views a day. Yes, Google’s page view requirement does make things difficult for publishers who are just starting out with a revenue share site. If your site is hovering a just a few 100 page views/day, you may want to take these alternative approaches to AdSense revenue share:

a. Create your own revenue share infrastructure. If you have any programming knowledge, you can generate code that will allow you to incorporate different Adsense codes and payment percentages into a single revenue share site.

b. Hire a programmer. With sites like oDesk and eLance, your outsourced programming costs could be rather minimal; i.e., a few hundred dollars should have you set up with your own personalized AdSense revenue share site.

c. Find and install a clone script. Sites like HotScripts offer scripts that can be used to implement a revenue share model onto your website. Likewise, you can look up and copy the coding of revenue share sites like HubPages, then make some edits to that code and use it on your own site. However, unless you’re familiar with coding programs and what they are capable of, your best bet is to go with option b and work with a programmer.

5. Decide how you will pay your publishers.

Now that you have your revenue share model up and running, decide how you will compensate your fellow publishers via Google AdSense earnings. Some sites initially give publishers 100% of their generated earnings in order to inspire more and better content. However, if you are concerned about covering your investment costs, you could set up a 60/40 earning model where publishers receive 60% of all earnings and you receive the remaining 40%. You might even wish to pay certain publishers up-front for selected pieces of content that you request. Such up-front payment could go a long way towards promoting your site and attracting a higher caliber of publishers.

6. Promote your site.

The hardest part of owning a revenue share site is driving traffic to it. Traffic is the lifeblood of your business because it generates AdSense income, thus keeping you and your publishers happy. Traffic can also lead to lucrative ad offers from outside advertisers, lessening your reliance on just Google for your income. Finally, traffic works through a positive feedback loop: more traffic equals more publishers signing up to your site, which equals more content, which equals more traffic and more publishers producing more content, ad infinitum. Of course, once your traffic levels reach 100,000 page views/day, you can implement the AdSense Host API and receive account help and information from Google itself. How can you best promote your site? Here are some time-tested methods:

a. Create a referral program. Provide your current publishers with a strong incentive for bringing other publishers on board. Those incentives can include a share of the new publisher’s earnings, a referral bonus or a prize.

b. Use social media. Use social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to talk about your revenue share site and what it offers to publishers. Encourage content submission by posting a contest or some other buzzworthy event.

c. Go local. Consider setting up a booth at your city’s or town’s next career fair and advertising your website. Place an ad in your local paper. Put up flyers on college campuses and in town (with permission, of course). Don’t forget to talk about your revenue share site with everyone you meet; oftentimes, you might recruit publishers simply by the fact that they know you.

7. Create incentives for star publishers.

How do you motivate your current publishers to stay with your revenue share site and keep publishing good content? By providing them with various incentives. For example, you could create publisher levels based on a certain number of page views; with each page view level surpassed, that publisher earns a higher AdSense income. Alternately, you could target certain assignments and payments to a select group of “emeritus” publishers.

What else can you do with your revenue share site once it’s generating page views and money? In some cases, you may receive a buyout offer from a major online player such as Yahoo! or even Google itself and thus ensure a very comfortable retirement for yourself. You might also team up with another revenue share website or two and create an online network such as Demand Media has done. In short, the sky is the limit and you will definitely be surprised by where your revenue share experiment takes you.

Funding Your Invention (Without Going Bankrupt)

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If you are a creative individual at heart, you may already have an invention idea or two up your sleeve. However, realizing your invention requires a more entrepreneurial spirit. Even if you never intend to start a business based on your invention, there are still the matters of finding a market for your invention and filing for a patent. Once these preliminaries are complete, you might consider licensing your patent and collecting royalties. Alternately, you may wish to sell your invention idea outright.

However, before any of these actions can take place, there is usually the matter of locating interested parties who will provide up-front capital for you to build and market your prototype. Where do you find these interested parties? There are actually many different sites and approaches. Listed below are the most common ways in which inventors can obtain funding for their invention idea.

1. Venture capitalists/angel investors

Traditionally, inventors looked for venture capitalists and/or angel investors to pitch their invention ideas and receive funding. This is still the path that many inventors take; however, such funding has its pitfalls. For starters, venture capitalists, or VCs, are typically looking for big-time inventions that can net $100 million in a year. VCs will also “take the reins” of your idea and hire their own business executives, manufacturing company, etc. As a result, you and your invention might be completely written out of the picture.

Angel investors are more of the mind to simply provide you with your requested funds and leave you alone; however, angels are also looking to make a good return on their investment. Thus, angels will want to know if you have a product development team and if the group has any business experience. As a result, securing the typical angel sum of $50K-$2 million is very unlikely- or it might simply be more money than you’ll ever need.

2. Invention “realization” sites

There are online invention sites like Davison Inventing that will build and pitch your prototype for you. In exchange, you are asked to pay for prototype creation and any associated marketing fees. While some of these invention sites may be completely legitimate and helpful to budding inventors, my experience with Davison was not ideal: while the site does have a self-publicized track record of bringing some inventions to the marketplace, there is also a lot of criticism from burned inventors who shelled out $10K+ and never saw anything result from their investments.

Personally, I became suspicious of Davison’s business practices when any invention idea that I pitched to the company was immediately accepted as brilliant and marketable. I also did not hear of any inventor receiving his/her rejected prototype back after spending the money to have it built.

3. Crowdsourcing

For about three months, I participated in an invention crowdsourcing site called GeniusCrowds. This site solicits invention ideas from an online community in the categories of children’s toys, tools, hobbies, etc. Community members vote for their favorite invention ideas and those ideas with the largest number of votes are supposed to receive special consideration by the participating companies (which are never named). These companies also perform their own evaluations of the invention submissions.

Some community members were in fact selected for “the next step”, but no one was really informed what that step entailed. There was also a lot of community controversy concerning idea theft, since most of the product ideas presented on the platform had not been patented. In the end, I quit GeniusCrowds because I found it to be a waste of my time; furthermore, I preferred to keep my bigger ideas under wraps until I received at least a provisional patent for them.

4. Invention contests

There are quite a large number of invention contests out there with the prizes being rather hefty: for example, Walmart sponsored an invention contest that offered contestants the possibility of having their inventions stocked on Walmart store shelves. Other invention contests include the Rubber Band Contest, Collegiate Inventors Competition, Wood Stove Design Challenge and Proto Labs Cool Idea contest. There are also invention sites, such as Invent Help, that aggregate invention contests.

Sure, contests can be a long shot and require a lot of preparation, but most do offer honest feedback about your invention idea if you are not selected as a winner or finalist. Such critique can be invaluable for your future work. Furthermore, most contests make the utmost effort to protect your intellectual property rights. Of course, winning an invention contest is even better and offers you the opportunity to build your prototype, show off your invention in magazines and/or trade shows, work with a company to commercially develop your product, etc.

5. Crowdfunding

Lately, the best resource for budding inventors has been the rise of crowdfunding sites such as Kickstarter an Indiegogo. These sites allow inventors to post their invention ideas along with funding goals (e.g., $5,000) and have the online community “back” those ideas with pledges. In many cases, backers have funded invention prototypes that have then gone on to attract attention from outside manufacturing companies. Backers are usually rewarded for their pledges with the actual invented item; for example, Pebble Technology Company raised over $10 million on Kickstarter by promising to ship a Pebble watch to any backer pledging $99 and above.

While there has been some worry over publicly disclosing invention ideas through crowdfunding sites, these ideas should be reasonably protected from being scooped if they have at least a provisional patent filed with them. Also, the inventor is not obligated to form a partnership with or otherwise hand over control of the invention to his/her backers. Due to these advantages, crowdfunding may be the best and fastest way to fund your invention.

Scam Alert: Is Your College or University a Diploma Mill?

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Recently, a friend of mine who received her bachelor’s degree from Westwood College was shocked to discover that she did not qualify for the master’s degree program at a national university.

The reason? Her bachelor’s degree was considered bogus because Westwood College is not regionally accredited. In fact, Westwood College is only nationally accredited.

Other Westwood alumni have also been surprised to discover that their degrees are considered useless by employers; as a result, some of these alumni have sued Westwood. In January of 2012, the Illinois State Attorney General also filed a lawsuit against Westwood, stating that the school’s (which is actually run by several corporations as a “DBA”) “many misrepresentations or false promises to Illinois students and prospective students constitute violations of the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act”.

What is accreditation?

In order to be considered legitimate, post-secondary schools in the U.S. must be accredited by a government-recognized accreditation agency. The two big accreditation categories are national and regional. National accreditation is currently applied to non-traditional schools such as online or distance learning universities. Regional accreditation, meanwhile, has typically been applied to liberal arts schools that operate in a more traditional sense (e.g., use in-class instruction).

There are six regional accreditation agencies, with each agency covering a given geographic region in the U.S. You can check if your school of choice is accredited by one of these regional agencies by finding out where the school is located and then going to the specific regional agency that would be in charge of that school’s accreditation.

Overall, regional accreditation is much more valuable than national; also, a school that passes regional accreditation will typically have no trouble gaining national accreditation. The reverse is not true. Furthermore, so-called “diploma mill” schools fail to achieve either regional or both regional and national accreditation.

What is a diploma mill?

Westwood College, alongside other institutions such as the University of Northern Washington and Monticello University, is what is popularly termed a “diploma mill” or “degree mill.” According to the FTC, a diploma mill is defined as the following: “a company that offers ‘degrees’ or certificates for a flat fee, requires little course work, if any, and awards degrees based solely on life experience.”

Furthermore, “although many diploma mills claim to be ‘accredited,’ their accreditation is from a bogus, but official-sounding agency that they created.” This fits the bill for my own personal diploma mill of choice, Ashwood University (which actually operates out of Pakistan). I decided to check out Ashwood’s website one night and even chat with one of its customer service representatives. Here’s a synopsis of my chat:

Please wait for a Site Operator to respond!
Info : You are now Chatting with Angelo Parker.
Angelo Parker : How may I help you?
Halina: I’m looking at a degree in biology
Angelo Parker : Sure. How many years of working experience you have in the field?
Halina: I took some high school biology
Angelo Parker : I see.
Angelo Parker : So you want to study or you need a degree based on your experience?
Halina: what courses do you offer? I’m hoping to get a bachelor’s in biology so I can eventually start a Ph.D.
Angelo Parker : Well this is a life experience degree program. We award you the degree on the basis of your working experience and past qualifications. What we do is we take down your life experience and convert them into credit hours.
If these credit hours are equivalent to the credit hours that are required to complete your desired degree then you qualify and we award the degrees accordingly.
Angelo Parker : So there are no courses or classes with us
Halina: OK, but then is this legit for a Ph.D. program at a school like Northwestern?
Halina: I forgot to mention that I did work as a lab tech for a few years. But I don’t have a BS or BA in biology
Angelo Parker : I see. Well now you can get a degree with us in 15 days based on what you already know. The fee for bachelors will be $599
Halina: OK, but will this transfer to Northwestern University?
Angelo Parker : Yes it sure will.
Halina: Do you have any stats about transfer students and how well their degrees transfer to universities like NWU or University of Chicago?
Angelo Parker : Well as the documents are recognized and accredited. You will not be facing any problems getting it accepted
Halina: So, is Ashwood regionally accredited then?
Angelo Parker : Its nationally and internationally accredited
Halina: which national agency?
Angelo Parker : Its mentioned on the website
Angelo Parker : Please check the accreditation tab
Halina: Neither of those agencies are mentioned on Northwestern’s website as recognized. They are asking for regionally accredited agencies like the north central association.
Halina: You said the degree was recognized by Northwestern.
Info : Chat session has been terminated by the site operator.

When I tried to reconnect with Angelo, my chat was terminated immediately. Was it something I said? In any case, if all I need is $599 to get a bachelor’s, why oh why did I spend 4+ years at a community college and then a state school? I really should’ve known better- and apparently my “life experience” bachelor’s degree does transfer to Northwestern University!

Not all schools are as blatantly deceptive as Ashwood University. Westwood is actually nationally accredited by the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools (ACICS), which is recognized by the U.S. Department of Education (DOE). In contrast, Ashwood is “accredited” by scam accreditation agencies such as the Board of Online Universities Accreditation (BOUA) and the World Online Education Accrediting Commission (WOEAC). These two agencies are not recognized by the U.S. DOE and may as well be imaginary.

Unfortunately Westwood, although nationally accredited, is not regionally accredited by any of the six national accreditation agencies recognized by the U.S. DOE. This means that most post-secondary and regionally accredited schools (e.g., Penn. State) will not recognize a degree from Westwood as legitimate. Furthermore, many employers will also not recognize a degree from a non-regionally accredited school as legitimate.

However, the fact that Westwood is at least nationally accredited means that its students do qualify for and receive federal student loans. This is because the U.S. government only requires that a post-secondary institution be accredited by one U.S. DOE-recognized accreditation agency in order to receive federal funds.

As a result, many Westwood students end up with $60,000+ in student loans by the time they receive their degrees, which is just perfect for the bottom line of a for-profit school like Westwood. Unfortunately for the students, their monetary investment in a Westwood diploma isn’t as worthwhile.

How can you avoid a diploma mill scam?

True institutions of higher learning used to be easy to spot- they were the “classic” brick-and-mortar-and-ivy schools portrayed in such movies as “Back to School”. Nowadays, many colleges and universities are completely online and operate out-of-state or even out-of-the-country. For all you know, these schools could be operating out of a P.O. box or someone’s basement.

However, even the physically present colleges and universities can be scams. After all, it’s not hard to rent a few rooms or even a building, slap a school logo on the doors and call sham classes into session. When a scammer is reaping tens of thousands of dollars per student, even paying several thousand dollars for a physical school is worthwhile in terms of return on investment.

Thus, if you are thinking about signing up with a relatively unknown college or university (i.e., no known alumni and recently founded), first check this school’s accreditation. Then, check the school’s reported accreditation agencies against those posted on the U.S. DOE website and see if they are federally recognized.

Finally, go to the respective regional accreditation agency, such as the North Central Association’s Higher Learning Commission, and input your school of interest. If your school doesn’t pop up, look elsewhere for your educational aspirations.

Beware of schools that claim that you can receive a degree for your life/work experience with little or no class time. A bachelor’s degree that takes just a few months to complete, classes where almost every student gets an “A”, and pressure by school advisors to receive as much financial aid as possible all hint at a diploma mill scam. In short, do your research and utilize your critical thinking skills for more than just class tests and quizzes.

Congratulations, Murphy!

On a happier note, my dog Murphy just received his acceptance letter from Ashwood University. I listed Murphy’s life experience in biology as working in a medical lab (he went to several veterinary appointments with me) and proctology (Murphy excels at butt-sniffing). Here is his congratulatory letter on his upcoming bachelor’s degree in biology:

Congratulations Murphy!
We are pleased to announce that based on your resume and your profile score calculated using the CPAAS® profile evaluation system, the evaluation committee at Ashwood University has finally approved you for Bachelor’s Degree.        You are among the 5% of candidates who qualified under the CPAAS® profile evaluation system.

CPAAS® is globally renowned and patented evaluation system that performs detailed analysis of your resume, online profile, past accomplishments, and professional and educational background through proprietary global libraries and databases.

You can now pay the amount from the link provided below and get your Bachelor’s Degree within 30 days from today. Once you make the payment, you will also be able to access the Alumni Area of Ashwood University and get exclusive privileges and discounts.

Future Ashwood University baccalaureate

I always knew Murphy was smart.

24 Paid Online Focus Groups You Can Join

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In one of my more risqué moments of earning side cash (and before the advent of paid online focus groups) while completing my graduate studies, I got to look at market campaign ads for K-Y Jelly.

A group of about 10 women, including me, sat in a small room and commented about which ad appealed to us the most and why.

While we wrote down our responses and discussed them amongst ourselves, we were monitored by observers sitting behind two-way mirrors.

At the end of an hour, we exited the room and collected our $60 checks at the front desk.

I ended up making $120 because I participated in two such ad campaigns.

Later, I participated in a weekly online market research survey that was conducted for Domino’s Pizza.

Each week, I answered five multiple-choice questions about the company and its products. Each answered question earned me a dollar. At the end of the five-week study, I had amassed a tidy $25 that was paid to me via PayPal.

In both cases noted above, I participated in a consumer focus group.

What are consumer focus groups?

Companies that are about to launch a new or improved product typically gather consumer feedback about that product prior to launch.

This helps these companies tweak the product to fit different consumer needs and address relevant concerns. Consumer focus groups typically consist of 8 to 20 members of their target audience for the product in question.

These group members are asked questions by a moderator after reviewing the given product; their responses are recorded and analyzed via hidden third-party observers. For their efforts, focus group members are paid quite well, with some members earning as much as $100/hour.

Paid Online Focus Groups are the New Norm

Consumer focus groups used to operate strictly on-site in big cities like Chicago, San Francisco, and Atlanta.

Focus group participants would have to go in person to designated locations and spend anywhere from half an hour to several hours.

Back then, most companies feared that online focus groups, where participants were unobserved, would dilute data quality.

Today, however, many (though not all) companies prefer the online consumer group format, feeling that it encourages a truer response because the participant is not being affected by the act of observation (also known as the observer effect). This is great news for folks who wish to work from home or who reside in rural locations.

How you can get involved in consumer focus groups?

There are several well-known market research companies that regularly recruit focus group participants.

I’ve compiled a list of companies below that are actively looking for participants.

Sign up for as many as possible.

Invitations come infrequently, but by signing up with all of the companies below, you will maximize your chances of actually getting to be able to participate and get paid.

24 Paid Online Focus Groups to Join

In some cases, the companies operate both online and in-person focus groups.

Here is a list of companies that you could consider:

1. Survey Junkie

Survey Junkie pays users for joining focus groups, as well as answering surveys and testing products.

Their payment model is simple. Complete your profile information when you sign up to get a welcome bonus.

You’ll be asked to complete a more detailed questionnaire afterward, which they use to determine which focus groups and surveys you’re best suited for.

Payment is through PayPal or various gift cards.

2. Swagbucks

Swagbucks allows ANYONE to take part in short, easy focus groups.

They also have daily surveys and poll their users and offer rewards for participating. Quick, easy, free. One of the best. Free $5.00 offer just for signing up.

Don’t pass this one up.

3. Toluna Influencers

Become a Toluna influencer

You have a voice and companies are paying top dollar to hear what you have to say.

Sign up, confirm your email, and start helping brands shape their products and you will get paid just for sharing your opinions.

4. Formerly 20/20 Panel

This company has been operating since 1986 and pays $50-$150 per focus session, which may be performed through in-person focus groups, one-on-one interviews or online sessions.

The studies can involve a few hours of your time and/or may also be spread out over the course of one to several days.

Prescreening (i.e., filling out a short qualification survey) is required if you wish to be considered for inclusion in an upcoming focus group or product test.

5. Adler Weiner Research

This marketing research company mainly offers in-person focus groups in the Chicago and Los Angeles areas, but they also allow individuals all over the US to participate in paid online focus groups.

The reported pay for 1- to 2-hour focus group participation ranges from $100-$200.

6. Inspired Opinions

This UK-based company welcomes people from all over the world to join paid focus group opportunities.

Inspired Opinions has 3 types of focus groups: online-only, by phone and in-person (if you’re in the UK or other on-site location listed on the job). These focus group studies pay from $50 to $250.

To start participating with Inspired Opinions, create your profile and complete your personal details. Be as comprehensive as you can, since your information would be used for matching participants.

If you fit the demographic needed by a particular study, you’ll receive a notification via e-mail or by phone.

7. Mindswarms

This site has you answer in-home survey questions via a short video, using your computer with a webcam, or via the Mndswarms Android or Apple Store app.

The pay can range from $10 to $50 per study/survey, and sometimes even greater than $50 depending on the survey.

8. Sago

Sago is a global market research company that connects businesses with potential users of their products and services.

To participate in paid online focus groups with Sago, you can choose from online surveys, product testing, interviews, telephone surveys, focus groups, and online community discussions.

Anyone can join Sago, but participants are chosen either by location, profession, age, gender, and other demographics.

9. User Interviews

This company facilitates conversations about products, websites, and services both through in-person and online focus groups.

The pay rates vary depending on the company and the length of the session, but the average is around $50 per hour.

10. Respondent

Respondent is constantly on the lookout for all kinds of business professionals, such as software developers, marketers, business owners, and executives.

This is why the pay is higher than most of the other companies on this list, ranging from $150 per hour to $700 per hour.

11. PingPong

PingPong is a platform where app developers and website developers can connect with testers to help with their user experience (UX) research.

The pay ranges from €20 to €100 per hour, paid via PayPal or TransferWise.

12. American Consumer Opinion

American Consumer Opinion is a big survey company with over 7 million active members.

The pay isn’t normally that high; short surveys pay as low as $0.05. However, if you get selected for longer market research surveys, you can make as much as $50 per survey.

13. Focuscope

Focuscope has some of the best paid focus groups that allow you to make money in your spare time.

They hold around 500 research projects a year, with the average pay per study being around $150, and often as high as $250.

Some studies are held virtually, while others are in-person and can be in a small group or one on one.

Typically, you’ll be asked to talk about a subject or try out a product and give your opinion.

Join Focuscope by filling out your basic details and answering a few simple questions about yourself.

14. Survey Club

Sign up as a member of their research panels and be rewarded for participating in research activities such as online focus groups, surveys, phone interviews, and the occasional daily poll.

Aside from online focus groups, you may be invited to participate in other types of focus groups, such as two-way, moderated, or teleconference focus groups. Participants in these activities are usually paid between $50 and $200 per hour.

15. Probe Market Research

Probe Market Research is a US-based research recruiting firm that conducts focus group studies to get feedback for its clients.

They handle a variety of companies, so the focus groups could be conducted by phone, online, or in-person (as a group), depending on client requirements.

When you participate on Probe Market Research focus groups, you can earn somewhere between $50 and $400, depending on the time commitment and complexity of each study.

16. Plaza Research

This company conducts in-person focus group discussions, telephone and in-home interviews, and online surveys.

The focus group sessions last roughly 1.5 hours and pay a minimum of $35 up to $100+.

Click on the blue ‘Join Our Panel’ button to get started.

17. Nelson Recruiting

This California-based marketing company recruits participants from all over the country to join focus groups for their clients, which are companies from various industries and topics.

As with the other websites on this list, you’ll need to create a profile with as much detail as possible so that they can determine if you are the right fit for their focus groups.

You can subscribe to their email list to get informed if you’ve been selected to participate.

18. Ipsos iSay

Ipsos iSay has been around since 1975. It is one of the leading market research firms in the world.

They organize over 70 million interviews a year across 100+ countries, working with companies in different industries.

To join Ipsos iSay, sign-up as a participant, fill out the form, and get paid up to $100 an hour for focus groups and around $2 for quick surveys.

19. Focus Group by Schlesinger

This site pays $75-$150 for each successfully completed survey.

Participants must take an “eligibility screener” before being assigned to any online studies and must later pass four stages of screening.

20. Branded Surveys

Branded Surveys is another market research company that rewards users for sharing their opinions.

What makes this company a must-try is that they proudly announce that most of their clients are included in the list of Fortune 500 companies.

To join, register and complete the survey about yourself. Once you’re matched with a survey or study, you’ll be notified to answer a survey.

When Branded Surveys approves your survey answers, you’ll be paid points, which you can save up and redeem as either PayPal cash or gift cards when you meet the minimum cash-out amount.

In-house Consumer Focus Groups

Major manufacturers often offer their own market panel opportunities via their corporate websites. Here are just a few companies that you can work with to earn extra cash and receive free products:

21. Johnson & Johnson

This company offers consumers the opportunity to try new products, answer surveys, and participate in focus groups to try out upcoming Johnson & Johnson ideas.

22. Summer Infant

If you have a baby on the way or a newborn at home already, Summer Infant is paying new parents to participate in focus groups and try out some of their new products.

23. Engage

Engage has broken down their research groups into two categories: regular consumers and those in the healthcare industry.

Pay is determined by the company conducting the research, but Engage lists an average rate of anywhere from $50 to $250 to participate in a study.

24. Recruit and Field

Recruit and Field is searching for panelists to join their focus groups.

They are primarily seeking consumers, business professionals, and medical professionals, which covers just about all the bases. Do note that the more specialized your skills, the more you can get paid to participate. Rates can go as high as $250 per focus group completed.

Online Focus Group Pros and Cons

With online focus groups being more of the norm as opposed to in-person focus groups, you’re less likely to get stuck clearing your schedule for a day and traveling someplace only to find out that you’re not actually eligible for a particular study.

However, because focus groups pay rather well, competition for these opportunities can be stiff.

Thus, it’s best if you sign up with several market research companies and even follow them on Twitter or Facebook.

If you are notified of a focus group opportunity, don’t delay in applying for it as spaces often fill up quickly.

Focus group screenings can take up a significant portion of your time, from filling out your personal information online, to answering questions on the phone, to filling out additional paperwork before you are finally cleared for the study.

Disqualification can result from something as simple as not having the right type of smartphone, so make sure to read all of the requirements carefully before wasting your time.

The Bottom Line

Paid online focus groups aren’t going to replace your full-time income, but they can be an excellent way to make a few bucks in a day.

Companies do care what you think, and your opinions can help shape the future of some worldwide brands.

Plus, you get to see and use cool new products before they ever hit the shelves.

You may also want to look into getting paid to test products and joining online research studies if these side hustles suit you.

How I Used LinkedIn to Win 3 Freelance Clients in Just 1 Month

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Recently, I was shocked to discover the following seminar on EventBrite:

Madison LinkedIn Extravaganza

For whatever reason, the organizer of this event is charging participants almost $200 to learn about LinkedIn and how they can win sales prospects by using this business networking platform. Seriously?! Well, for just the price of a few minutes of your time, I can tell you how LinkedIn can help you find your own sales prospects- and win them. At least, I can tell you how I have used LinkedIn to land clients; recently, after making a concerted effort on LinkedIn, I gained three clients in just one month!

LinkedIn works like a big virtual Rolodex, keeping track of all your business contacts and their information. However, unlike a standard Rolodex, LinkedIn also immediately informs you whom your contacts are connected with. These connections-to-connections are invaluable when you are trying to reach a potential client or hiring manager and need someone to help you out. Remember that, in the world of business, it’s not just what you know; it’s also who knows you. However, that’s just the start of why LinkedIn is so useful for doing business. Here are three additional reasons:

  1. Credibility. On LinkedIn, you can post your resume, website(s), work history/projects and even your personal “mission statement”. You can also solicit and receive recommendations from your coworkers, bosses, employees and clients. Having this information out there improves your credibility and chance of being approached for work. You also save yourself a lot of time and effort when sending out job query “teasers” by referring potential hiring managers/clients to your LinkedIn profile.
  2. Information. LinkedIn is a great sales prospect research tool if you know what you are looking for (more on that later). For example, you can track down and locate the name and information of the company hiring manager to whom you are about to send your resume. This sure beats addressing your cover letter with “Dear Sir/Mam” or the God-awful “To Whom It May Concern”. It also helps you better focus your job inquiry; for instance, if you discover that a hiring manager has posted several discussions about the importance of SEO, you can highlight your own SEO accomplishments in your resume. Finally, you can “spy” on people and find out who has recently viewed your profile; this is useful if you’re sending out a lot of resumes and trying to gauge who might be contacting you soon.
  3. Networks. Many companies have an established presence on LinkedIn and use it to post corporate news including job opportunities. Many of these announcements are fed in from social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. Such announcements give you some really golden opportunities to post comments (that are strategically linked to your work) and make yourself known to these companies. Likewise, by joining LinkedIn groups that are within your area of expertise, you have the opportunity to lead and/or contribute to discussions where hiring managers/potential clients may be hanging out.

My personal experience with LinkedIn

I’ve had a LinkedIn account for years but never really utilized it until I became a full-time freelance writer about a year ago. Since then, I’ve used LinkedIn almost obsessively. Aside from updating my work profile, I now use LinkedIn to find potential clients.

When I was trying to win additional corporate/business clients last October, I used a scouting technique where I’d locate companies that were making at least $5-$10 million in annual revenue and thus could afford to hire me. However, I would steer clear of companies that made over $10 million because these places usually had their own hired team of writers. I would then find one or more of that company’s marketing personnel (writing typically falls into the marketing category) and pitch them directly through LinkedIn’s InMail function (a valuable and limited resource that allows you to email someone on LinkedIn regardless of whether you are connected to that person or not).

To make the pitch meaningful, I would research the company’s objectives and study its website. If something was lacking on the company’s website or amiss in the business, I made sure to mention that problem and suggest a way that I could solve it. Taking this approach with just three companies, I immediately landed one as a client last October.

I also found corporate clients by following companies on LinkedIn. This way, I received notice of any job openings and how much interest they were generating. If a potential job caught my eye, I tried to track down the person who would most likely be receiving my resume. Again, due to my profession, this involved scoping out the marketing department. Although I wasn’t always right on target, I knew I was making a fairly accurate estimate that my selected individual would at least peruse my file during the hiring process.

Because my query was always directed at a real live person, I did usually see him/her checking out my profile on LinkedIn. In the month of October, I sent out 6-7 official cover letters with resumes to potential clients. I later noticed that three of the queried companies had been checking out my LinkedIn profile; of those three, I won one as a long-term client.

My last client “win” in October was actually one of my LinkedIn contacts whom I occasionally see at another in-town networking event. I didn’t directly market my services to this person because I didn’t want to create any sales pressure (for this reason alone, I never make cold calls). What I did do, however, was make sure that this person knew what I did for a living and that my LinkedIn account showed several work examples in her niche field. I also checked my LinkedIn account from time to time to see if this individual was perchance looking at my profile. Indeed, she was. One day, this person approached me and asked what I would charge per hour for some website/proofreading work. After some negotiating, I won my third client.

Getting started with LinkedIn

You don’t have to be a tech-savvy geek to know your way around LinkedIn; the platform offers helpful tips on how to get started and will even help you “flesh-out” your profile by prompting you to fill in provided sections. Every time you return to your account, you can add one more detail or job description. Even if you have only 10 minutes, you can do a lot to tailor your profile. Once you’re comfortable with how you appear on “paper”, it’s time to start networking and asking your newfound contacts to recommend you. If you get stumped or want to take the next step, check out some community centers or colleges; many groups offer free tutorials on using this platform. Or just ask me. Good luck!

Get Crafty with Etsy- and Make Money Too

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Do you have a particular hobby or craft that you enjoy like knitting, candle making or painting? Would you like to make some money from that hobby/activity or at least enough to cover your expenses? Then Etsy may be the place for you.

Since 2005, Etsy has offered an e-commerce platform for artists and craftspeople to offer and sell their goods. The only requirement is that those goods must be personally handmade- i.e., no re-selling is allowed. As opposed to bigger sites like Ebay and Amazon, Etsy offers the following advantages to sellers:

Long listing time: Etsy listings last 4 months as opposed to Ebay’s one week time span. This is important because, as an artist or crafter, you need time to build up your fan base. Likewise, many clients buy a small quantity initially and then, if satisfied with the product, come back for more at a later time.

Lower fees: Etsy charges just 20 cents to create a listing and a 3.5% commission for sold items. This is important because many homemade products cost just a few dollars. In contrast, Amazon’s fees can be pretty steep for sellers who are just starting out. A per item fee of 99 cents is applied to any sold item along with a variable closing fee. Amazon also tacks on a referral fee which, for craft items, could run as high as 15%.

Ebay fees can also be cost-prohibitive; the site waives insertion fees for sellers that are just starting out, but at the close of sale a 9% commission is taken for traditional auction-style listings. Fixed-price listings can result in the seller paying a 50 cent insertion fee and as much as a 13% commission at final sale.

Community: On Etsy, each seller offers a personal and unique set of items that other Etsy sellers and buyers can connect with. There is an opportunity to “admire” (akin to Facebook’s “Like”) a particular Etsy item and to engage the seller in a conversation about his/her items. Furthermore, Etsy offers a Community area where fellow “Etsians” can trade ideas, submit blog posts, participate in events in their geographic areas or post/attend a workshop.

As if this were not enough, Etsy teams such as Handmadeology provide useful tips to fellow Etsians on subjects like item photography, social media marketing and keyword selection.

My personal experience with Etsy

Because of the focused nature of Etsy, it is much easier to sell handmade items here than more populated spots like Ebay or Amazon. I should know: For several years now I have tried to sell handmade jewelry and creams through Ebay and Amazon with limited success. Then, in July of this year, I decided to list some of my homemade deodorants on Etsy.

Almost immediately, I had interested customers writing to me about my products. By September I had sold my first deodorant; by October I had sold my fifth deodorant. I also recently had a “batch” sale of three deodorants in town thanks to an Etsy client referral.

Meanwhile, when I posted these same items through Ebay, no one even viewed my offerings, much less bought them. As a result of my small but growing success in making people less stinky, I am now considering posting a few handmade hand creams and seeing how much interest they generate.

There are some downsides with Etsy too. It does take a while to get your shop to see sufficient traffic; my first product sale didn’t happen until after I’d had my shop up and running for over a month. Part of this has to do with the fact that many merchant Etsy stores look alike and even carry the same (and sometimes plagiarized) content; as a result, they suffer Google search rank penalties.

Also, the site offers limited customization for item listings; storefronts consist of a “sheet” of photos with prices, no more. With Ebay listings, you can do much more in terms of organizing your items and how they are shown in your “store”.

Finally, all Etsy shoppers must register with the site, which can be a hassle if someone just wants to quickly browse through the site on his/her lunch break. This registration requirement may be leading to a shopper “bottleneck”, where many of Etsy’s shoppers are also Etsy sellers.

Alternatives to Etsy

Etsy’s merchant revenues for 2011 were rather impressive, crossing the half billion dollar mark and then some. The company has also expanded into other countries such as France, Germany and Australia. However, there are competitors out there, and some of them don’t even charge for item listings or sales.  These competitors include the following:

eCrater This Craigslist-style site allows you to create an online store for free. There are no fees whatsoever associated with selling on this site.

Bonanza This Etsyish site charges no listing fees, with sellers paying only when their items sell. Listings can be posted indefinitely. A live chat function allows sellers and buyers to talk and even haggle over prices in real-time.

With the economy still in a slump, many crafty folks are turning towards sites like Etsy to earn extra money or even make their hobby into a full-time profession. If you are skilled at making some homemade goods, you may want to give this site a try.

Pump-and-Dump Stock Scam Alert: Bollinger Report

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Back in late July, I wrote how I’d been scammed out of $13,000 through a pump-and-dump stock investment scam perpetrated by Bollinger Report. Just when I thought I was done licking my wounds from that particular hit, these scammers decided to start calling me on my cell phone and recommending yet another pump-and-dump stock scam. Their continued onslaught inspired me to research the company in question and its methods. What I found out was quite revealing and has taught me some important lessons about investing in stocks. So, without further ado…

What exactly is a pump-and-dump scam?

When company stocks are offered to the public, they go through an initial public offering or IPO. The stock is typically priced at a reasonable dollar amount; for example, Google went IPO to the tune of $85/share. However, some company stocks go IPO at very low prices (i.e., under $5/share); such stocks are often termed penny stocks. The reasons for such low prices include small company size (e.g., 5 or fewer employees) or miniscule private investment. The company’s business model is also often based on speculation; many penny stock companies are involved in exploratory drilling or mining operations where the payoff could be huge- or absolutely nothing.

Because many penny stocks trade, quite literally, in the pennies, they are also often subject to artificial (and illegal) price manipulation through so-called pump-and-dump scams. In a classic pump-and-dump, a small pool of sham investors will buy a block of penny stock shares in order to raise the stock trading price. These investors will also initiate a marketing campaign to alert outside public investors about this penny stock’s “opportunity” to break out of penny stock territory and become “legit”. The hype continues until a finite number of investors have been duped into buying shares, effectively raising the price of that penny stock. At that point, the sham investors quickly dump their shares and pocket the difference. The outside public investors are now not only left with nearly worthless shares of stock, but that remaining stock is so lightly traded that it’s hard to sell to other investors.

How the Bollinger Report fits into the pump-and-dump scam model

The Bollinger Report (http://www.bollingerreport.com) is actually a series of websites, all operating under the same Denver, Colorado-based ISP of 72.18.133.75, that promotes various penny stock companies through pump-and-dump scam operations. Here is the list of all the websites found to date:

http://www.brightonmarkets.com

http://www.equityleader.com

http://equitymarketsinc.net

http://globalequityalert.com

http://www.marketfoundations.com

http://www.breakoutfinder.net

http://www.risingsunreport.com

The Bollinger Report scam begins when potential investors go to one of the above listed sites, leave their information, including a phone number, and request more information about a stock of their choosing. The person who calls them back will discuss the mentioned stock and then start promoting (i.e., pumping) a particular penny stock. The investors are also emailed reports that tout how that penny stock is about to appreciate anywhere from 100%-500% in the next month. Once enough investors are recruited to a particular penny stock, raising its price, the calls and emails stop. At that point the price of the touted stock suddenly drops (i.e., dumps) by as much as 90%, sometimes in a matter of minutes. Investors are left with a case of vertigo and are in shock over the loss of their investment.

My personal experience with Bollinger Report

In my particular case, in late August I started receiving calls from Mr. Brad Romero of Bollinger Report. Initially, he discussed another “successful” penny stock that his company had promoted, Independence Energy Corporation (ticker: IDNG). Independence Energy is an oil and natural gas exploration company with no known land assets or revenue. If you look on the stock chart below, you will see how IDNG underwent a classic pump-and-dump “needle” lifecycle including a sharp rise to a point (the pump), followed by a dramatic drop (the dump):

 IDNG pump and dump scam

When I countered Mr. Romero on his view that this was a successful (successful for who?) stock investment, he held how the company had unexpectedly made a 5:1 forward split, thus dropping its share price for certain investors. Because of this issue, Bollinger Report had itself experienced some backlash and was currently reorganizing under a different name and website (surprise!). That information should’ve ended our call right there but no: Mr. Romero now had another “hot investment tip” to share with me. That tip consisted of Punchline Resources Limited (ticker: PUNL). Located below is Punchline’s stock lifecycle- notice any similarities to Independence Energy?

Punchline Resources pump and dump scam

Being that I received my call(s) from Mr. Romero in late August to early September, Punchline had yet to deliver its classic punchline to unwary investors. However, having already looked at IDNG, I noted that PUNL was following the same pump-and-dump pattern as IDNG. I also noted this fact to Mr. Romero, telling him outright that this looked like another pump-and-dump scam. However, neither my mentioning of “pump-and-dump” nor “scam” fazed him. He just kept cheerfully jabbering on about how Punchline was going to deliver some amazing profits for investors who got in on it NOW. I’m sure there were profits to be had, at least by a few “investors”. I then asked Mr. Romero who was paying Bollinger to pump up this stock.

Brad didn’t seem to understand my question so I rephrased it. In essence, I told Brad that Bollinger could not be making any money if all it did was send out free stock alerts to subscribers. So, how did the website make its money?

Brad cheerfully replied that Bollinger Report made its revenue through ads and through third parties that wanted to raise awareness about a particular company. Hmm…now we were getting somewhere. Since I had some time to kill, I asked Brad about these third parties and who they were.

Unfortunately, Brad was not aware of their exact identities at the moment (however, the following website discloses the sham investors in IDNG). He then quickly redirected my attention to Punchline, asking if he could email me additional information about the company. I happily agreed to that offer, figuring it’d provide me with some critical details about Bollinger Report, or whatever the scam had decided to call itself. Unfortunately, that report never showed up in my inbox.

The end result- and a lesson learned

I watched Punchline’s rise until it unexpectedly decided to drop in mid- to late September. And just as unexpectedly, my calls from Mr. Romero stopped too. Who would’ve thought? The hard lesson I learned here, if you go back to my post from July, is that investment scams are out there and scammers have no qualms about cold-calling/emailing prospective investors in order to scam them out of their money. Thus, before you plunk down your hard-earned dollars on an offer that’s just too good to pass up, carefully consider who might be benefiting from that offer.

Scam update (April 14, 2013)

The Bollinger Report URL is no more. However, the IP address that Bollinger operated under (72.18.133.75) is still active and contains two other penny stock/pump-and-dump domain names: gainhunter.com and brightonmarkets.com.

Brighton Markets, along with Bollinger Report, both promoted prior pump-and-dump stock scams Independence Energy (OTC BB:IDNG) and Punchline Resources (OTC BB:PUNL).

Until late February, Gain Hunter was still touting shell companies such as Green Innovations Ltd. (GNIN:OB) to investors through email. With the rise, and the inevitable fall of GNIN, both Gain Hunter and Brighton are still online but their websites have been completely stripped down. Another online incarnation of the Bollinger Report is likely in the making and the group is probably biding its time until things cool down.

While perusing the skeleton site of Brighton Markets, I was intrigued by its disclaimer. Here is an excerpt from the site:

“We are engaged in the business of marketing and advertising companies for monetary compensation.”

Perhaps most enlightening was the following passage:

“Please be advised that BrightonMarkets.com has been paid in the past by third-parties, and expects to continue to be paid by other third parties, to perform promotional and advertising services. These services include the issuance of this release and the other opinions that we release concerning a profiled company. BrightonMarkets.com has not investigated the background of the hiring companies. Anyone viewing this newsletter should assume the hiring parties or affiliates of the hiring parties own shares of the profiled company of which they plan to liquidate, further understanding that the liquidation of those shares may or may not negatively impact the share price.”

In other words, groups like Brighton Markets are hired by inside traders of companies whose stock they then promote to naïve outside investors. Those inside traders, meanwhile, are simply trying to raise the stock price of the company that is about to be shut down. When enough outside investors have bought the company’s shares and raised its stock price, these insiders quickly start selling. Such a sell-out not only lowers the company’s stock price, and oftentimes in the space of a single day, but the glut of sell orders makes it virtually impossible for later orders by panicked outside investors to be executed. Those hapless outside investors are now stuck with their worthless shares.

It’s too bad that Brighton Markets didn’t provide their disclaimer as follows: “Before you invest with us, please watch the movie “Boiler Room”.

Should You Form an LLC?

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Let’s say you’re running a small business from your home or in-town office. Maybe you’re a freelance worker, self-employed or just making money in your spare time. Many small business owners and other individuals eventually form LLCs (limited liability corporations); however, is such a move right for you?  Sure, having the LLC distinction on your business may look snazzy, but is it worth the trouble? To answer this question, let’s first consider what an LLC actually is (and isn’t).

A really brief history of the LLC

Way back in ancient 1977, Wyoming businesses petitioned the state to create a commercial enterprise system similar to the German Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung (GmbH or, in essence, a company with limited liability), which itself had been around since 1892. In response, Wyoming passed the LLC Act, which was modeled on the GmbH. What did the German GmbH and the American LLC have in common? Both enterprises allowed businesses to be taxed and run like partnerships while being protected from personal liability like corporations. This new corporate model quickly spread and was enacted across all states. In 1997, the IRS allowed the LLC distinction to be applied not only to partnerships but also sole proprietorships, further validating this business model.

How does the LLC fit into the corporate world?

There are four main types of business entities: sole proprietorship/partnership, LLC, S-corporation and corporation. Here are their distinguishing features:

Sole proprietorship/partnership: You and your partners are the business and are personally responsible for all of its debts and liabilities. Business profits are “passed-through” to you and taxed as your personal income.

LLC: You have limited personal liability for your business’s financial and legal liabilities. Business profits are still “passed-through” to you and taxed as personal income.

S-corporation: This more formal business entity can include you and your partners (also known as shareholders) as well as investors (e.g., venture capitalists). As with an LLC, you are not held personally responsible for business debts and liabilities. Also as with an LLC, profits are subject to Medicare and Social Security taxes unless they are paid out in the form of salaries.

Corporation: This entity is akin to the S-corporation except that profits are taxed twice: once under the corporation, then again when paid out in the form of a salary to you and other corporate shareholders.

Why is the LLC so popular with businesses?

Imagine that, in your spare time, you make rechargeable hand warmer mittens (a personal invention idea of mine). These mittens sell like hot cakes (no pun intended) during the football and hunting seasons, when lots of people are out in the cold for long periods of time. You’re making a handsome profit on these mittens when one of your customers reports that your product shorted his house circuits and set the place on fire. Now that customer is going to sue you over the loss of his house plus hospitalization costs. You end up losing the lawsuit and have to pay damages totaling half a million dollars. Suddenly, your business has cost you everything, including your personal savings and possessions.

How could this situation have been avoided? Had you created an LLC for your hand warmer business, the LLC would’ve been sued, not you. After losing the court case, the cash and assets of only your LLC would’ve been used to pay off the court’s award to your customer. Your own savings and possessions would’ve remained untouched.

Because many businesses have a high risk of being sued, the LLC has become rather popular in recent years. Likewise, businesses that have multiple partners also form LLCs because this insulates members from the possible bad business decisions of the other members. Other LLC advantages include the following:

Credibility: People and businesses are more likely to treat you as a real business when you carry the LLC designation than when you are only a sole proprietor/partnership. It’s also easier to obtain business loans from banks, credit unions and associations.

Less formality: With corporations, there is an excessive amount of legal and accounting paperwork and record-keeping. The LLC, meanwhile, is more of a “safe haven”, simply protecting you from personal liability.

Separate entity: The LLC is regarded as a separate entity and can be sold, transferred or inherited. When you die, the business does not die with you but lives on.

Different profit/loss structure: You and/or your partners can receive different portions of the company’s profits or losses regardless of how much actual company you or they own. This option is not available to shareholders of an S corporation, for example.

Lower tax liability: Business losses can be deducted from your personal income taxes, lowering your tax liability.

Some disadvantages of the LLC include:

Costs: A yearly state fee must be paid in order to maintain the LLC status. Forming the LLC can cost up to $1,000, especially in states like California which charge $800 to submit the business’s Articles of Organization.

Taxes: If you have employees, you must pay unemployment compensation on all those employees, including yourself. Business profits that are retained in the LLC (as opposed to being paid out as salaries) are subject to Social Security and Medicare taxes. You must also file a tax return for the LLC itself.

IRS scrutiny: Because the IRS may wish to audit your business, separate bank and credit card accounts for the LLC are a must. Creating monthly/yearly fiscal statements for your LLC is also a good idea.

The LLC: To form or not to form?

If your business carries a lot of debt because of capital expenditures and investments, you can best protect yourself by forming an LLC. Likewise, if your business has many partners, an LLC distinction shields you from legal repercussions on account of bad business decisions or even fraud by your partners.

You should also consider how much “dollar-cost-averaged” tax you will pay for the LLC. Since this type of business is treated as a “pass-through” tax entity, business earnings are taxed as your personal earned income. Social Security tax on the first $90,000 is subject to a 15.3% tax. A Medicare tax of 2.9% kicks in for all income above $90,000. This means that, if your LLC is earning under $100,000/year, you’re paying a higher tax rate. However, if the LLC is earning over $100,000/year, your “dollar-cost averaged” tax rate is lower.

Don’t Get Hosed: 7 Ways You Can Evaluate A Stock Before Buying It

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In last week’s post on investing in stocks, I outlined how you could go through a company’s SEC statements such as the income statement and balance sheet to gain a better feel of its financial health- and also whether you should invest in its stock. I’ve also discussed how dividend stocks can help you attain a passive income.

However, there are many other quick and useful measures of a company’s financial health that you can take advantage of. These measures, also commonly called fundamentals, come in handy especially when you are comparing companies in the same industry or wondering if it’s time to sell a given stock. So, without further ado, here are some fundamentals to examine when you are evaluating a company stock:

EPS

EPS (earnings per share) was briefly mentioned last week as the net income a company generates divided by its number of shares. If the company also pays a dividend, that sum is subtracted from net income before that income is divided by share number. This is something to keep in mind when investing in companies that appear to have low reported EPS, such as the REIT stocks Armour Residential (ticker: ARR) or Resource Capital Corp. (ticker: RSO); many companies have a low EPS because they pay out a significant portion of their earnings as dividends.

In essence, EPS is a measure of a company’s profitability. Furthermore, EPS is not always a positive number; companies can post considerable earnings losses or no earnings whatsoever. More than anything else, a company’s reported EPS is a big event in the investment world; investors and analysts eagerly await the day that companies post their quarter or annual earnings in EPS. A reported EPS that beats estimates can cause a company stock to skyrocket; conversely, an EPS report that misses analysts’ estimates can result in a huge stock price drop.

P/E ratio

The P/E (price over earnings) ratio is a measure of a company’s stock price over its annual earnings per share. The P/E is used to judge the value of a stock in terms of how much investors are paying for it; for example, the current P/E of Amazon (ticker: AMZN) is a whopping 316, indicating that its valuation has gone sky-high and the stock currently trades at 316 times its annual earnings. Such high investor expectations for Amazon could easily be dashed, however, causing the stock price to plummet (i.e., undergo a correction).

On the other hand, Altria Group (ticker: MO) has a P/E of just over 15, meaning that it trades at 15 times its annual earnings. This stock is still valuable and is probably not overhyped by investors to the point of being prone to a correction. Incidentally, when a stock is touted as being undervalued or overvalued, the term is being applied to its low or high P/E, respectively.

The P/E is both an emotional and logical measure of a stock’s perceived worth and will vary by industry. Investors love sexy tech stocks like Amazon, which is one reason why its P/E is so high. On a more rational level, though, Amazon is also investing heavily into its business to become and stay #1 in the online marketplace. Investors who follow the company’s financial reports know that Amazon’s retained earnings are a big part of shareholder’s equity, a point I touched on in last week’s investment article. However, Amazon’s high P/E could easily fall if investors suddenly become spooked about the company or its management.

Alternately, because smoking has fallen out of favor with many people, Altria Group’s P/E is just over 15. However, the company makes solid earnings every year and even pays a sizeable dividend. Altria investors are thus less likely to become scared that the stock is overvalued and sell their holdings. This is also reflected in Altria’s low beta, the next stock parameter we will be studying.

Beta

The beta is a measure of a stock’s volatility relative to an index such as the S&P 500 over a period of time. It is a useful parameter to study if you are considering investing in a stock simply to gain its dividend (something I like to call dividend poaching) or are looking to invest in a stock for less than a year. Beta is also useful if you are wondering when you should invest in a particular stock in order to minimize risk and maximize return.

The beta is actually a slope of the stock’s trendline (Remember your high school algebra and y = mx +b? The beta is the m) and can range from negative to positive. If a stock’s beta is 1.0, that means that its price rises and falls in sync with the market’s. A stock beta of 1.4 indicates that this stock is 40% more volatile than the market while a beta of 0.5 indicates that the stock is 50% less volatile than the market. For example, if the stock of a company like Widgets-R-Us (ticker: WRU) has a beta of 1.2, that means that should the market gain 10% in a year, WRU will be up by 12% (or an additional 20% of that 10%). Should the market fall 20% in a year, WRU will fall 24% (or an additional 20% of that 20%).

Conversely, if the company has a beta of 0.5, its stock will fall only 50% compared to that of the market. Thus, should the market fall 20% in a year, WRU will fall by only 10% (or only 50% of 20%). There is a useful online tutorial if you really want to explore the concept and even calculate your own stock’s beta.

Beta is useful because it allows you to predict how a company stock will behave relative to the overall market. Predictability is good if you are risk-averse or need to time your trades in order to gain company dividends and then quickly sell to buy the next dividend-bearing stock (i.e., dividend poach). Likewise, let’s say you have some money to invest in the market but will need it in a year or less to buy a car or house (not recommended, by the way, but I’ve certainly done it). In such a case, you could invest your cash in a company stock that has a low beta, helping to ensure that you don’t lose your original sum- unless, of course, the entire market starts heading down. The criticism to this approach is that you probably shouldn’t invest money that you will need in a year or less.

D/E

The debt to equity ratio is another good measure of a company’s ability to successfully handle its finances. If you think of the company as a person you’re about to lend money to, would you want to lend money to a person who works a minimum wage job yet has massive credit card bills, two car payments, a  mortgage and is paying child support? Even if this individual has big plans for the future, would you trust that your loan will be repaid? A company should be similarly scrutinized.

The debt to equity ratio is calculated using the following formula:

D/E = Total Liabilities/Shareholder Equity

Total liabilities include business loans, mortgages and supplies- in essence, the total leverage potential of the company. This is divided by what the shareholders (as well as the company) have invested into the company. A company with a high D/E ratio may be rewarded by bigger earnings the following quarter or year; however, it may also stagnate under high interest payments and growing pains. A higher D/E ratio tends to raise the company’s beta too. Over time, you generally want to see this ratio decrease.

Incidentally, if you’ve ever obtained a loan, your personal D/E ratio was likely calculated by the lending institution or bank.

P/B ratio

The price to book ratio or P/B is, just like the P/E, another measure of a stock’s perceived worth. The formula for this ratio is the following:

P/B = Stock price/Book Equity (BE = Assets – Intangible Assets + Liabilities)

Assets are defined as cash, inventory, accounts receivable and equipment while liabilities are items such as loans, mortgages and accounts payable. Intangible assets are assets that are certainly valuable to the company but are harder to liquidate; examples include intellectual property, copyrights and trademarks. Thus, book equity is what would be left over if the company went bankrupt and had to liquidate.

A stock with a P/B ratio less than or equal to 3 might be a great bargain or it might have some fundamental issues. Because of this ambiguity, the P/B ratio should never be used as the only measure of a stock’s true value. Some reasons include the following:

1. The P/B ratio favors “old school” companies with a lot of assets.

2. Intangible assets are not accounted for or they are viewed as liabilities. This ignores many research, technology and service-based companies.

3. Events like acquisitions and share repurchases artificially deflate or inflate the P/B ratio, respectively.

Because P/B does not provide a complete picture of corporate health in and of itself, it should be paired with another parameter: the ROE.

ROE

Return on equity is defined as a company’s net income divided by its shareholders’ equity:

ROE = Net Income/Shareholders’ Equity

The ROE restates the EPS but on a hard, dollar-to-dollar basis instead of just dividing the company’s earnings by its number of shares (which can be increased or repurchased anyway). A company’s ROE and P/B should rise and fall with respect to each other- if they don’t, something is intrinsically wrong with the company. After all, a company with a high ROE should attract investors who bid a higher price on the stock. In some cases, though, a company might have a high P/B yet a low ROE. This indicates that company growth in terms of its stock price has not translated to improved company profitability. Without increased profits, shareholder value will stagnate. As such, this company would be a company to steer clear of.

ROI

The whole point of investing is for you to achieve an ROI or return on investment. The most basic ROI can be calculated using the following formula:

ROI = (Gain – Cost)/Cost

While the formula itself seems self-explanatory, remember that stock gains can include dividends, price appreciation or both. Alternately, you may have stock depreciation mixed in with dividends. Then there are the costs to consider, some of which include trading fees and taxes as well as your original investment sum. It’s important to track these numbers because you certainly want to see a return on your investment.

Also, the IRS taxes you at different levels on dividends as well as short and long-term capital gains. Rumors abound that dividends will soon be taxed as regular income. Capital gains taxes could increase from their current 15% maximum to 20% maximum for long-term investments. Meanwhile, short-term capital gains are being taxed at regular income tax levels.

Taxation of your hard-won stock trading profits is the biggest reason why holding onto stocks for at least one year (or longer) is recommended. Other recommendations for maximizing your ROI will be discussed >next week in my ongoing article series on how to successfully invest in stocks and make a passive income.

Photo credit provided by Florian Richter.