Resources

Virtual assistants are the modern-day equivalent of an executive secretary. They should be the jack of all trades, helping their bosses reach important goals, while fulfilling all 101 small, daily tasks that keep most businesses afloat. The VA industry is a competitive work-at-home niche, particularly since most employers are only looking for a single person to fill in the position.

If you’re a virtual assistant and want to get an edge over your competition, here are 5 ways to make your profile irresistible to employers:

1. Be Different, but Learn Everything

The most common tip to stand out from the hundreds of people offering virtual assistance online is to pick a specific skill set, such as SEO. While this is true and an effective technique even today, it shouldn’t keep you from learning new things.

Generally, virtual assistants usually perform duties within a specific category, such as content writing, SEO, digital marketing, social media, audio/video editing, web development, and general assistant tasks that fall under what bosses 1) hate doing, 2) can’t do, and 3) shouldn’t be doing.

If you’re a content writer VA, it’s easy to jump to other categories like social media, admin tasks, SEO, and marketing. After all, most of these categories include some type of research and writing, such as publishing posts on Facebook, hashtag analysis, and off-page SEO (blog commenting, forum posting, responding to posts).

Web developer VAs are a highly tech-savvy bunch. They would be perfect for on-page SEO tasks, graphic design, video/audio editing, e-mail marketing campaigns using advanced tools like Infusionsoft and more.

The best thing about learning new skills as a virtual assistant? With the number of free courses available online, the areas you can specialize in are endless.

2. Portfolio-Building: Document Your Skills

Every work-from-home employee dreams of a stable, long-term employment. Unfortunately, this isn’t the norm for many virtual assistants. As such, you should be prepared to seek another job if and when your current employer decides to let you go. The upside to working with different bosses is that you’ll learn something new, regardless if you had a good experience or not.

Building your portfolio should always be on your mind. It’s best to create a free website from hosts like WordPress.com and turn it into a professional calling card online. Aside from a snippet of your CV, skills offered, and rates, you should also create a portfolio page where you could show off your skills.

For example:

• Web design – logos, avatars, graphics, etc.
• Web content – sample articles, links to published work
• SEO – case studies on link building campaigns, etc.
• E-mail campaigns – A snippet of the campaign made
• Video creation – Embedded video of your work

Some employers include a clause on employment contracts that they own rights to all projects you’ve participated on. Honor this clause. You can still show off the skills you’ve learned by creating your own project.

3. Work On Your Personality

No one is a perfect VA. The earlier you acknowledge that there could be something about your personality or work ethic that you can improve on, the better.

One of the most common problems of working from home is that you literally work alone. If a job requires you to be a team player and work with other VAs and employees, find a way to push forward and learn to provide value as a team member.

Ask yourself these questions as honestly as you can:

• How do you handle criticisms?
• Do you feel threatened with co-employees that do better than you?
• How do you deal with failure?
• Are you willing to leave your comfort zone?
• Can you spot and solve problems without supervision?
• Do you take pride in your work?
• How self-motivated are you?
• Can you easily communicate with people you’ve just met?

Did you discover something about yourself? Don’t worry much about these weaknesses, but give extra effort to improve them from here on out:

4. Learn How to Market Yourself

Marketing yourself doesn’t just involve showing off relevant work samples and your portfolio. You’ll need a bit of planning if you want to get the attention of the right employers. Here’s what you’d need:

• Target market – Find job boards and forums that would showcase your work to interested employers. For example: web designer virtual assistants can go to the Smashing Magazine job board, writer VAs can lurk at the ProBlogger Job Board, and more.
• Unique Selling Point – Determine your USP and take advantage of it. If you’re offering a very specific skillset, such as creating augmented reality Android app, then focus on this USP when marketing yourself.
• Master the art of copywriting – The best way to show your personality, writing capability and marketing skills in one go is to practice writing copy.
• Be up-to-date with trends – When writing a profile, cover letter, or other methods of marketing yourself to potential employers, drop some bits of knowledge that would show how well you are up-to-date with developments in your industry.

5. Be Loyal

Once you land a job you like, be loyal. The wide range of opportunities available for virtual assistants makes it easy for workers to hop from one company to the next. Even if employers don’t say it, loyalty is a highly-regarded trait. If you go well and beyond what is required of your job as a virtual assistant, your loyalty can be rewarded tenfold.

The Bottom Line

Virtual assistants can provide value to a business without the big investment required in hiring traditional employees. VAs know this. Employers are aware of this. But as a virtual assistant, this shouldn’t stop you from reaching new heights, upgrading your skill set, and improving your weaknesses to be the jack-of-all-trade VA no employer could resist.

Email marketing is another career path for writers looking for a niche in the wide world of home-based employment. It takes a special kind of skill to be able to write newsletter campaigns. Aside from the e-mail campaign’s goal of promoting a service or product in hopes of a conversion, the specialist must also balance the art of copywriting engaging content, manipulating a particular target market, creating buzz, and generating leads for the business.

It’s a tricky job, but an email marketing specialist is one of the most lucrative work-at-home jobs available for writers today.

Here’s why:

• 95% of companies that use a marketing automation program take advantage of the benefits of email marketing. (via Regalix)
• Over 75% of email revenue comes from segmented, targeted emails focused on a particular respondent, instead of one-size-fits-all campaigns. (via DMA)
• 74% of marketers claim that personalized e-mail campaigns increase customer engagement. (via eConsultancy)
• Email is 40x more effective at obtaining new customers than Twitter or Facebook. In fact, about 72% people prefer to receive promos via email, compared to 17% who prefer social media. – (via McKinsey & MarketingSherpa)
• For every $1 spent, email marketing generates $38 in ROI. (via Campaign Monitor)

Companies spend a lot of money in lead generation and use mostly e-mail marketing to acquire targeted leads.

If you’re looking for a career change, or want to explore email marketing as a specialization, continue reading…

Everything You Need to Know about an Email Marketing Job

Email marketing specialists are self-starters. They are exceptionally good at research – from keywords to market research – and back up their email campaigns with solid data. Because email marketing specialists are responsible for solving a particular problem (how to turn leads into buyers, how to add more subscribers, how to encourage people to click an ad, etc.), they must be particularly goal-oriented and juggle several tasks effectively.

As an email marketing specialist, you must have:

• Top-of-the-line copywriting skills
• Proven ability to design, launch and monitory email campaigns
• Ability to interpret email analytics and other relevant data
• Advanced knowledge of various CRM systems, HTML, CSS, etc.
• Proficiency in email marketing programs like SalesForce, InfusionSoft, and more
• Experience with A/B testing

A marketing degree isn’t really a requirement, but can be a plus. If you’re a professional writer switching to this career path, the best way to land this job is to show successful email campaigns as part of your portfolio.

Day-to-Day Tasks of an Email Marketing Specialist

The role of an email marketing specialist involves dozens of small tasks. But they’re all covered under these main categories.

Developing Strategies

• Content strategy (what every email is about)
• Campaign calendar (when to send every email)
• Contact strategy (which target audience receives a particular email or campaign)

2. Creating Campaigns

• Oversee email design
• Write engaging content
• SEO-optimizing links
• Keeping the campaign’s voice aligned with company’s branding, vision, and sales goals
• Ensure email campaign’s functionality on mobile and desktop versions
• Report or fix technical issues related to the campaign

3. Managing Lists

• Editing contact list throughout the campaign
• Monitor performance of targeted audience

4. Analyzing Data

• Analyze campaign performance
• Identify weakness and strength from past campaigns
• Create in-depth reports about the email campaign

The day-to-day tasks of an email marketing specialist can vary, particularly if you’re working as a team or alone. Those working as a team member may focus on a specific element of the campaign – such as copywriting or list generation. However, those working alone may need to juggle all tasks on their own to launch an effective email marketing campaign.

How Much Can You Earn from an Email Marketing Career?

Email marketing specialists who are office-based and employed in the U.S. earn an average of $55,000 per year. Senior email marketing specialists (those with over 10 years of experience) receive up to $65,000 annually.

Home-based, full-time specialists can earn $30 to $50 per hour, depending on skills, experience level, and other factors. Salary of freelance email marketing specialists could be higher (if they’re working alone on the campaigns), or lower (if they’re part of a team). Benefits are nonexistent in home-based positions, but in some rare occasions, companies may extend their benefits to remote workers like you.

The Bottom Line

Email marketing is one of the oldest techniques in the book, but companies continue to use it simply because it works. The job outlook of a specialist in this field is high, particularly since no other marketing strategy can compare to the ROI email marketing achieves. There are also a lot of companies hiring freelancers for this role, so if you have mad copywriting skills and the ability to lead successful email campaigns, you can go far in this field and earn a substantial income from the comforts of your own home.

Many companies know the power of social media and marketing their brands through platforms like Facebook can provide quality traffic, leads and sales. If you’re a pro when it comes to social media, you’ve had successful Google ad campaigns in the past and you’re interested in a career change, becoming a home-based, social media manager can be an interesting position for you.

Should You Consider a Job as a Social Media Manager?

Like most jobs, a social media manager position requires special skills that not just anyone can perform. While millennials were born into the social media world, this doesn’t automatically make them the ideal candidates.

Social Media is an Exciting and New World

If you love the challenge of exploring new things from the ground up, social media is the best space for you since it’s still a young ‘industry’ with plenty of potential for growth.

You’re a Social Creature

Not everyone has a knack for talking to people. If you have that trait and you’re confident that you can speak to anyone no matter the age, gender, or affiliation. The job entails a different kind of customer service, since social media makes communication quicker, so you should have what it takes to handle inquiries, orders, or complaints with grace, even while under the pressure.

Use Your Marketing Background

Digital marketers would be perfect for this role, since they’re already in the know about how the internet works in terms of selling a product or service to a specific type of audience.

What you’d find ironic about this job is that although you’d have to be an exceptionally social being online, you’d be working alone in real-life since home-based positions are usually a one-man’s job. However, if you’re planning to apply to an office-based company, you’ll be leading a team of social media experts.

What Do Social Media Managers Do?

A social media manager designs, implements and monitors social media ad campaigns. He/she is responsible for creating objectives, providing visual content (image posts, ad design, etc.), and ensuring the brand voice is reflected on every content published.

The social media manager also handles long-term content and promotion strategy, which means he/she will be keeping a calendar for all the necessary marketing posts, sale announcement, and more.

Ensuring engagement is also a key role, since those social media accounts are made to build relationships of existing and would-be customers. Beyond engagement, the social media manager must also have a conversion strategy in place, so that Facebook, Instagram or Twitter followers can turn into buying customers.

Day-to-day tasks of a social media manager include:

• Craft content for publishing
• Save to Hootsuite (or similar social media management tools) and schedule posts for future publishing
• Conduct surveys, promos and other engaging gimmicks throughout the company’s social media networks
• Ensure the brand’s online presence is healthy
• Oversee design-related content (for profile pictures, ads, thumbnails, Facebook cover, and more)
• Answer messages and posts from customers across the board
• Plan, implement and monitor ad campaigns
• Monitor trends in social media apps, tools, strategies, etc.
• Analyze ad campaign data and analytics
• Create and review marketing reports
• Track and measure benchmarks of all marketing efforts, such as funnels, ads, social media posts, and more
• Coordinate with other social media team members (video, graphic designer, writers) in crafting content

Are You Qualified?

Ideally, a social media manager should have extensive digital marketing experience, superb written communication skills, excellent time management skills, and analytical skills. You would have to be results-driven and keep up-to-date about current marketing trends, social media and everything about monetizing digital content.

When it comes to experience and technical skills, you should have:

• Social media marketing experience
• Content marketing experience
• Experience in leading high-ROI ad campaigns on Google, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, etc.
• Advanced knowledge in sales funnel marketing
• Expert in testing practices (such as A/B, etc.)
• Facebook Ads Manager certification
• Facebook Power Editor mastery
• Advanced knowledge of interpreting data and analytics

A bachelor’s degree isn’t a major requirement with this position, but you’ll have an edge over your competition if you have a degree in marketing.

The Bottom Line

The social media manager position is relatively new, but thanks to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and other social media platforms that continue to affect our daily lives, this job is here to stay.

The demand for a social media expert remains high, but those with proven experience in creating and implementing ad campaigns on these platforms have a better future in this field because that’s where the money is. If you’re results-driven and up for a challenging position, the social media manager is a perfect job with a great job outlook.

Many cartoonists have tried to earn cash online through YouTube in the late 2000s and found the hard way that the platform isn’t too friendly with creators. While YouTube still provides them with a wider reach for new audience, YouTube isn’t the best monetization option for cartoonists. Today, more and more money-making options are becoming available to cartoonists worldwide, and they could earn straight from the comforts of their own studio.

What do Cyanide & Happiness (a group of artists), The Oatmeal (Matthew Inman), Awkward Yeti (Nick Seluk), Planet Prudence (Prudence Geerts), Fowl Language (Brian Gordon) and other successful cartoonists have in common? They treated their artwork as a business and have earned through multiple income streams by doing what they love – create web comics and one-off cartoons.

If you have a talent in comics and are wondering how to monetize your passion, here are several tried-and-tested ways to turn it into a full-blown, money-making online business:

1)  Create a website and earn side hustle with greeting cards and stock or clipart sites – The first thing most of these artists did were create their own websites. Next was to bring in traffic and readers, which can take a bit of time depending on your invested effort. During this time, you’ll need to create as much content as possible for your site.

Unfortunately, building a website doesn’t convert to money instantly. This is especially true since many artists with a newly-built site only rely on ads like AdSense for income.

So if you’re in need of cash at the early stages of your website, you can earn money online with part-time gigs like creating greeting cards for Oatmeal Studios, or direct client work. For something more passive, join online stock art companies like iStockphotos.com or CartoonStock.com where you can display your cartoons, retain copyright, but still earn cash from licensing them.

2) Sell an eBook/book – Making a book or eBook would take time, but it is one of the most effective ways of earning from cartoons, especially for those who don’t have much capital except for their talents. Artists can either find one-off projects and sell copyright of their work for a client’s book, or host the eBook and self-license to earn money from royalty fees. You can also submit your eBook to Amazon and other eBook marketplaces.

eBooks have been widely accepted in recent years and they cost much less than good old traditional books, so selling your artwork through eBooks allow you to connect to a wider audience and gather new followers without having to worry about publishing, and other processes involved in traditional book marketing.

3) Join Print On-Demand (PoD) Sites – The cool thing about today’s internet is that it allows individuals with no brick-and-mortar stores or plenty of cash to create and sell products that they wouldn’t be able to otherwise. Print On-Demand sites are great for cartoonists because they have their artwork frame, sold and delivered without the hassles of finding suppliers, shipping the items or finding buyers.

4) Sell Merchandise – This is where real money is made. For those without capital, print-on-demand sites would allow you to add your artwork and let customers choose which product to have it printed. These can be anything from clothes, caps, mugs, bags, posters, and more. If you reach the point where you have the financial freedom to find manufacturers and suppliers for your planned merchandises, then sell your merchandise directly from your site. This way, you’ll be able to keep 100% of the profit instead of just receiving royalties from PoD sites.

5) Seek Sponsors – If your cartoons are reaching more and more people every day and you’re building up a fan base, one of the easiest ways to sustain your business is to seek sponsorship. Pantreon was created solely for this purpose – to support an artist of your choosing on a monthly basis in exchange for some rewards. The rewards can be anything from early access to cartoons, character recommendations, free wallpaper monthly, exclusive daily cartoons, and other exclusives that the artist decides to offer.

6) Crowd-fund Your Work – Kickstarter isn’t just about the quirky product you won’t find anywhere else. With Kickstarter, cartoonists can crowd-fund their entire project, whether it’s for a new book, a plush toy of your famous characters, a board game based on your comics, or more.

You’d be surprised at the amount of support you can gather from Kickstarter. Like Pantreon, Kickstarter supporters choose a pledge amount based on the rewards they want. Artists have the freedom to dictate pledge amounts and rewards for every Kickstarter campaign they host.

The Bottom Line

If you’re serious about cashing in with your cartoons, make sure to hire an agent once you’ve made enough money. This is important if you’re planning to spread your income both online and offline.

Those new in the business could learn a thing or two by reading interviews of successful cartoonists. It’s never too late to shift careers and go back to your passion of creating funny, inspirational, controversial, or even heart-warming cartoons. Just look at The Oatmeal’s Matthew Inman, who was one of the co-founders of now-legendary SEOMoz and quit the SEO biz completely in 2009 to build his website. Look at where he is now.

As I mentioned earlier, the key to succeeding as a cartoonist online is to consider your art as a business. Of course, don’t let money-making be your priority – your art should still come first at all times. But having a business plan and goals won’t hurt either.

Globalization has made communication a priority in more languages beyond English, Spanish, Mandarin, Portuguese, Russian, Arabic, German, French, and other major languages used in business. Today, even the most obscure languages are used in social media, business, and other industries in hopes of becoming more inclusive and reach more people as possible.

This provides unique opportunities for bilingual people (or even people native to a particular language) who are looking for a way to earn extra money online. Translating text from one language to another is becoming a fast-growing online profession. And the requirements are pretty easy too, so virtually anyone can become a translator part-time, or even full-time.

Translator Requirements

As a translator, you should have advanced reading, writing and comprehension skills. It doesn’t matter if you know only your native language or more than one language, but it’s important that you are well-versed with your expert language, which includes spelling, grammar, punctuation and other language rules. When you join online translation agencies like gengo.com and verbalizeit.com, you’ll have to follow style and formatting rules as well.

Spanish is the most in-demand language, followed by French, Chinese, Korean and Japanese. Aside from these major languages, you’ll discover that the more obscure the language, the higher the demand and fees.

Most translation jobs require text-based translation. In some cases wherein you’d be translating live, you’ll need Skype to join conference calls or conduct one-on-one translations with a client.

How Much Can You Earn?

Full-time translation jobs and extensive one-off projects are paid on an hourly basis. You can expect to earn around $12 an hour, but technical, legal or scientific content often pay up to $40/hour. Those with translation certification are given higher-paying jobs.

For smaller projects, such as brochures, lyrics, one-page document, slogans and the like, translation fees come on a per-word basis (around $.10 to $.20/word).

The language being translated to is also a huge factor when it comes to fees. If you check Gengo’s translator income “calculator,” you’ll see that different languages bag different fees. Chinese, German and Japanese translators can earn up to $500/month, while Greek, Russian and Bulgarian translators may earn up to $250 monthly.

Where to Find Translation Jobs

If you’re interested in this profession, check out the following translation agencies, job boards, directories and other resources:

1. Gengo – You’ll be e-mailed or notified on your dashboard when a job fits your expertise. You can then check out the deadlines, reward amount and other details of the jobs, and simply choose the one you want to work on.
2. Unbabel – This website provides a platform for translators and companies looking for professionals to meet. Payment for translators is $8/hour, paid via PayPal.
3. Translatorscafe.com – This is a free online directory of translators, where you can post your resume and apply directly to jobs posted by hiring companies.
4. TranslatorsTown.com– The translation jobs available in this website accommodates over 100 languages, which makes it a great resource for translators.
5. Translate.com – Tasks on this site range from translating short social media posts to more technical support tickets. You have to be quick to check through the jobs, since they are on a first come, first served basis. Payments can be requested via PayPal anytime.
6. OneHourTranslation.com – While you’ll need to undergo an application and exam to join the platform, OneHourTranslation has one of the widest options for payout. The company even has its own MasterCard, alongside wire transfer and PayPal.
7. Tethras – Ideal for the tech-savvy translators, this platform hosts a number of translation jobs focused on mobile apps. Payments are sent via PayPal.
8. Rev – This website pays 0.05 – $0.07 per word to translators who work on captions and other documents.
9. Translation Directory– This portal may look outdated, but it hosts plenty of translation jobs from across the world. There’s an annual membership fee amounting to almost $100 for both companies and translators.
10. TextMaster – This web content company hires two kinds of translators – semi-professionals (those native to a particular language) and professionals (those who hold translation certifications). You can earn up to €15¢ per word and paid via PayPal or Payoneer.
11. Translationdirectory.com– This massive online community (of over 300k language professionals) doesn’t just provide a job board for those looking for translation gigs, but also tons of tools and resources for anyone who want to take up this profession.
12. Lionbridge – Lionbridge has been helping brands from around the world with translation tasks for over 40 years. Today, the company accepts applications from both freelancers and translation agencies to become Lionbridge partners. It has its own software, the Unify Technology platform, where more than 2500 linguists use to fulfill translation jobs.
13. TRADUguide – This job board is translator-friendly, since linguists dictate pricing of posted jobs via a price quote.
14. Acclaro – Acclaro is a translation company aimed at helping businesses with over 60 languages. They always have available jobs for in-house translators and freelancers. You’ll need expertise in memoQ and other similar TM tools.
15. Languages Unlimited – This company recruits certified translators and interpreters from all over the world. It is home to over 13,000 freelance linguists. There’s an application process and you dictate your own rates for various tasks, such as document translation, on-site translation and video remote translation, among others.
16. WordExpress – If you’re in California, WordExpress continuously hires in-house language professionals (translators, interpreters, voice-over talent, etc.). There are also remote positions available for translation services of over 100 languages.
17. Linguistic Systems Inc. – Specializing in legal, IT, manufacturing, pharmaceutical and publishing industries, LSI is always looking for talented translators to join their 7000-strong team. You’ll need a Bachelor’s Degree, a minimum of 2 years translation experience, and pass a short test.
18. Aberdeen Languages Services – Canada-based Aberdeen provides round-the-clock translation services to businesses, which means jobs are available 24 hours a day. Application is a bit tough, since they require over 5 years of translator experience and a University-level degree.
19. American High-Tech Transcription and Reporting – This Florida-based company provides translation and transcription services to the government and law enforcement agencies, so expect to undergo background checks when you apply. There’s an opening for English to Spanish, but most jobs require English translation to other languages. Certified translators are preferred.
20. GlobaLink Translations Limited – GlobaLink is focused on medical and pharmaceutical research. The company is always looking for new translators and translation reviewers.

The Bottom Line

Translation jobs are also available on freelance websites like Guru.com, Fiverr.com, PeoplePerHour.com, Freelancer.com, UpWork.com, and more. Deadlines for these jobs are mostly tight, but since majority of translation jobs come from various parts of the world, you can work any time of the day or just skip a job when you feel you can’t make the deadline.

You can turn translation into a full-time career. However, like many freelance jobs, it depends largely on the time and effort you invest on this profession.

Forex, or the foreign exchange market, used to be exclusive to banks, hedge funds, financial institutions, investment management firms and wealthy people who can afford to hire a private broker. Because of the internet, the forex market has become accessible to anyone from most countries. As long as they’re armed with forex knowledge and an online brokerage account, individuals can buy and sell currencies quickly with the click of a mouse under your own roof.

What is Forex?

FOREX is the largest financial market in the world, where people can exchange a specific currency for another in hopes of a profit in the future. And because the Forex market operates 24/7 (it doesn’t have a physical location), anyone can participate in forex trading any time of the day, no matter where you’re from.

Forex trading focuses on major currencies, like USD or Euro, which allows you to analyze the market more precisely instead of calculating risks for currencies from every country. This is the major difference between forex and stocks, which will confuse the hell out of a newbie trader when faced with thousands of stocks available for trading.

Currencies are traded and priced in pairs. For example, a quote for a EUR/USD pair of 1.2345 means the euro is the base currency (worth 1 unit) while the U.S. dollar is the quote currency (1.2345 in this example). The quote means that every 1 euro you have buys you 1.2345 U.S. dollars. If you invest €100,000 against USD with this rate, and the value of EUR goes up against the USD in the future to 1.5432, you collect a profit of $30,870 when you sell.

€100,000 x 1.5432 = 154,320

€100,000 x 1.2345 = 123,450

154,320 (future rate) – 123,450 (rate bought) = 30,870

In the same vein, if the EUR’s value depreciates and you decide to sell at that particular time, you’re going to lose money you’ve invested.

Seems easy, right? Yes, but not quite. Forex trading has its pros and cons, and it would be wise to learn about them before you invest your hard-earned cash.

Pros of Forex Trading

• Hiring Brokers are Optional – In the past, you had to hire a personal broker to trade foreign exchange currencies. But with online access to trading platforms readily available, you’ll be able to waive very high broker fees completely. You still can hire a broker to do the job for you, but it’s no longer a requirement.
• Trade Forex 24/7 – You’re also no longer tied to the trading floor and broker operating hours, since the forex market now operates round-the-clock.
• Free training – Online trading platforms encourage beginners to trade forex, which is why many of them provide educational materials and access to a demo account, allowing anyone to “practice” trading and get used to how forex works.
• Lower cost and entry amount – Back in the day, brokers require a “minimum” amount to be able to trade forex. These days, you can invest for as little or as much you want without constraints. There are still transaction fees involved though, which can be easily monitored and reduced by timing your investments properly.

Cons of Forex Trading

• Risky and Volatile – Like all markets, the forex market can be volatile at times. If you don’t have experience in forex trading, the risk levels increase tenfold. And since you don’t have a personal broker to ask help from, there’s a chance that your trading strategies become unprofitable or even lead to huge losses.
• Minimal regulation – Should anything go wrong with your transactions done from the trading platform of your choice, there is very minimal regulation or recourse you can take. This is because trading in the forex market isn’t carried out on a centralized exchange.
• Go against Big Traders – Although the forex market has become accessible thanks to the internet, banks, financial institutions, hedge funds, and other organizations continue to be major players in this market. With over $5 trillion traded every day, these major players can influence price movements. As such, those with smaller amounts to trade may face some disadvantages if you don’t stay up-to-date with these price changes.

Can You Turn Forex Trading into a Full-Time, Work-from-Home Job?

Forex trading can be a lucrative source of investment, but only for the right people. While it has become accessible, it isn’t for everyone. Learning the ins and outs of the forex market is important, so you’ll be able to create an effective system that allows you to pinpoint risky pricing changes, sustain losses and maintain or profit from your investment despite market fluctuations.

Note that because of the volatility of the forex market, you shouldn’t rely on the potential profits of your forex trading as your income. This is particularly true if you’re just starting out. Many online trading platforms will encourage you to quit your job and trade full-time, but you shouldn’t give up your main source of income just yet.

Realistically, you should have enough capital to be able to maintain your lifestyle even if you quit your job in hopes of trading forex full time. If you really want to end your 8-to-5 job, make sure you’ve spent plenty of time trading forex live and have conducted trial-and-errors multiple times when creating your own trading system.

However, you should also know that you can always trade forex on the side and still become consistently profitable, even if you have a full-time job. You just have to be emotionally prepared, armed with trading knowledge, and are passionate at trading forex. Your success in the forex market will boil down to how much capital and effort you’re willing to invest with forex.