Data entry is actually a broad term that encompasses a number of occupations. People who perform data entry include electronic data processors, typists, word processors, transcribers, coders, and clerks. Regardless of where they're based, data entry jobs don't have a high barrier to entry, and the training process is usually not very stringent. If you have typing skills and a high school diploma, and you can read and write English (if you're in the U.S.), you'll qualify for most data entry jobs. In general, the method that data entry jobs might pay could be an hourly wage (rare for online data work); per piece; keystrokes per hour; or keystrokes per minute, per audio minute, or per word. Most of these methods make your rate of pay highly dependent on your speed at data entry.
Grant writing is one type of fundraising activity. Grant writing is the act of preparing an application to receive funding for a project or organization that does not need to be paid back. Writing a grant proposal is hard work because it requires you to closely analyze your vision and consider critically how your solution will effectively respond to a gap, problem, or deficiency. To create a convincing ask, you’ll need to tailor your proposal, communicate ideas clearly, convey a core compelling idea, and write to persuade. The first step of successful grant writing is to plan the project, but the second step is following the directions of the granting organization (called, the grantmaker). In most cases, grantmakers require a(n): cover letter, executive summary, problem statements/need description, work schedule, budget, qualifications, conclusions, and appendices (or, supporting materials).
A transcriptionist is a professional typist who listens to recorded or live audio files and converts into text format what they hear. Having a great typing speed is an essential skill of a good transcriptionist. The overall consensus is a typing speed of 70 words per minute, though there is not an official typing speed requirement for this profession. In general, transcriptionists are required to have an excellent command of language and grammar, a high degree of attention to detail, and a computer with high-speed internet access. It's just the right career/job for people who like to work from home or remotely.
Technical writing is a type of writing where the writer is writing about a particular subject that requires direction, instruction, or explanation. Some examples include user manuals, employee handbooks and software user documentation. Technical documentation has a clear, direct, and neutral style. The text should present the information in the most professional and accessible way possible. So write in the active voice whenever possible, because the active voice is easier to read and understand than the passive voice. Technical writers can be either independent freelancers or in-house employees. Freelancer writers work for a range of clients to prepare their technical documents. As a freelancer, you can choose your clients and subject areas. On the other hand, in-house employees provide their technical skills to one company either as a full-time technical writer or as a technical staff member with writing responsibilities. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the demand for technical writers is projected to grow ten percent from 2014 to 2024. Employment growth in this field will exceed the national average for other occupations due to the continued increase in scientific and technical products.
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It means the process of improving your site to increase its visibility when people search for products or services related to your business on various search engines. The more visibility a website has on search engines, the more likely it is that a brand captures business. A backlink is a link created when one website links to another. Backlinks are also called "inbound links" or "incoming links." Backlinks are important for SEO because they signal to the search engines that another resource finds your content valuable enough to link to it within their own content. If lots of sites link back to yours, search engines such as Google, are more likely to surface your content in search results, improving your ranking for the topics linked to it.
Unlike blog posting where you post on your own blog, guest blogging is writing an article to be published on someone else's website. Guest posting increases traffic and reach because by publishing content more frequently and on a wider range of topics, you can greatly expand your audience. Your guest writer may also bring followers of their own over to your blog. SEO stands for 'Search Engine Optimization', which refers to techniques that help your website rank higher in search engine results pages like Google.
A ghostwriter is a freelance writer who pens a text that is credited to someone else. Basically, you or your company are paying someone to write your book or a piece of content for you.
Copywriting is the act or occupation of writing text for the purpose of advertising or other forms of marketing. Copywriting is one-directional and is written strategically for a singular call to action, whereas content is more organic and educational. Features and benefits are key factors to consider when copywriting. Features are the factual pieces of information about a product, such as sizing, color, and material. Benefits are the emotions and experiences a customer gains from using a product.
A blog is the combination of two words – “web” and “log.” A blog is a regularly updated website or web page, and can either be used for personal use or to fulfill a business need. Blogs can be used for any or all of the following purposes: personal journals (hobby blogs), creative expression, teaching & coaching others, selling products, and promoting brands.
There are two ways you can publish your book: traditionally or independently. The biggest differences between self-publishing and traditional publishing are the time it takes to publish, creative control, and the royalty rate you’re paid per book. Traditional published authors receive royalties for books sold, typically between 10-15 percent of a book’s list price. Conversely, self-published authors can keep around 65-70% earned from sold books. Though you can earn more profits from self-publishing, it requires a lot more effort and energy to find your own editor, cover designer, formatter and launch team members. While for traditional publishing, the company will assign staff and workers to you, but you get lower royalties in return. Moreover, if you were to take your book to a traditional publisher, it would take forever to publish. But with self-publishing, you can produce your content as quickly as you want.
Journals are appropriate for academic research (targeting specific researchers or specialists), whereas popular magazines provide information for the general public (for entertainment, for the general public). Magazines are written by magazine staff or freelance writers, while journals are written by professionals in the subject field and are peer reviewed by experts or scholars in the field. As of the writing style, magazine writers use non-technical language while journal writers use technical, specialized terminology in their articles. Moreover, unlike magazines where sources are often not cited or are incomplete, journals often come with bibliographies or work-cited pages.
Commodities are raw materials that are used to produce goods and products. Commodities can be divided into two types: soft commodities and hard commodities. Hard commodities are usually classified as those that are mined or extracted from the earth, which include metals, ore, and petroleum (energy) products. Soft commodities, on the other hand, refer to those that are grown, such as agricultural products, which include wheat, cotton, coffee, sugar, and soybeans. Commodities can be bought and sold on specialized exchanges as financial assets. There are also well-developed derivatives markets whereby you can buy contracts on such commodities (e.g., forwards, futures, and options). Like all assets, commodity prices are ultimately determined by supply and demand. For example, a booming economy might lead to increased demand for oil and other energy commodities. Supply and demand for commodities can be impacted in many ways, such as economic shocks and natural disasters.
A market index combines several stocks to create one aggregate value that's used to measure a market's or sector's performance. The S&P 500 (The Standard & Poor's 500 Index) combines 500 large-cap U.S. stocks into one index value. The S&P 500 gives investors a benchmark to compare against their own portfolio's performance.
A Covered Call is a Neutral Strategy/kind of hedged strategy where traders expect a stock or Index to have range bound moves. Covered Call Writing can be applied in two ways: Income Generation while holding stocks/ETF/Futures, and attempting to bottom fish while trading. If one chooses Income Generation, then stick to ETF's and Stocks only. This way, you will enjoy benefits associated with ETF's and stocks while you use options to generate income. If you choose Bottom Fishing, it's an ideal combination would be Futures along with options to minimize losses or hedge short-term risk. Bottom Fishing refers to when prices are falling with momentum and you expect a Bottom to be formed some time soon in order to benefit in the next up cycle. Through Covered Call writing, you can attempt bottom fishing with minimum risk and can sometimes profit both on Written Calls and Futures you have bought.
Theta, Delta and Gamma are known as the "Greeks", and provide a way to measure the sensitivity of an option's price to various factors. Theta measures the rate of decline in Option premium due to passage of time and is popularly referred to as Time decay of an Option. Delta measures the rate of change of Price of Option with the rate of change of Price of underlying asset and is popularly referred to as Measuring Sensitivity of an Option with respect to its underlying asset. For Call Option, the range of Delta is from 0 to 1. Whereas for Put Option, the range of Delta is from -1 to 0. While Delta measures rate of change of Price of Option with rate of change of Price of Asset, Gamma measures rate of change of Delta with rate of change of Price of Asset. When gamma is negative, theta tends to be positive and when gamma is positive, theta tends to be negative. Gamma is also the derivative of Delta, and is known as the second order derivative.
Terms/Vocabs that should keep in mind when reading options tables ->
Volume (VLM): how many contracts of a particular option were traded during the latest session.
The "bid" price: the latest price level at which a market participant wishes to buy a particular option.
The "ask" price: the latest price offered by a market participant to sell a particular option.
Implied Bid Volatility (IMPL BID VOL): the future uncertainty of price direction and speed.
An Open Interest (OPTN OP) number: it indicates the total number of contracts of a particular option that have been opened.
Delta: it can be thought of as a probability.
Gamma: the speed the option for moving in or out of the money. Gamma can also be thought of as the movement of the delta.
Vega: a Greek value that indicates the amount by which the price of the option would be expected to change based on a one-point change in implied volatility.
Theta: the Greek value that indicates how much value an option will lose with the passage of one day's time.
The "strike price": the price at which the buyer of the option can buy or sell the underlying security if they choose to exercise the option.
When you buy one or more stock shares, you purchase part of the company that issued the stock and they also pay dividends to their shareholders. Unlike stocks, there’s no direct ownership of the company at all or the opportunity to earn dividends when it comes to investing in stock options. When you invest in stock options, you only purchase the right to buy or sell shares of an underlying stock. There are two basic types of stock options people can invest in: calls and puts. Call options allow you to purchase stock shares at a specified price before or at a particular time. On the other hand, put options are opposites of calls in that they allow you to sell shares of stock at a specified price before or at a particular time.
REIT stands for "Real Estate Investment Trust". A real estate investment trust (REIT) is a company that owns, operates, or finances income-producing properties. According to the law, at least 90% of an REIT’s profits must be distributed as dividends to shareholders. Traditional metrics like earnings per share (EPS) and price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio aren’t reliable ways to evaluate REITs. Funds from operations (FFO) and adjusted funds from operations (AFFO) are better metrics. FFO Formula = Net Income + (Depreciation expense + Amortization expense + Losses on sale of assets) – (Gains on sale of assets + Interest income). I also learned that top-down factors include population and job growth, while bottom-up aspects include rental income and funds from operations. Top-down is more like making investment decisions by looking at the bigger economic factors and the bottom-up focuses on specific company fundamentals.
The name, Forex, is a portmanteau of the words foreign and exchange (foreign exchange) and it's often abbreviated as fx. Forex is the global electronic trading of one currency for another. One can swap the U.S. dollar for the Japanese yen on the foreign exchange market (forex market). The forex market opens 24 hours a day and 5 days a week, and unlike the stock market, it also opens on certain holidays. The spot market, however, is where currencies are traded for immediate delivery. In the forex market, currencies trade in lots called micro, mini, and standard lots. A micro lot is 1,000 units of a given currency, a mini lot is 10,000, and a standard lot is 100,000. I agree with articles stating that trading is an art, and the only way to become increasingly proficient is through consistent and disciplined practice. It's only through practice that one's experience increases and expands one's knowledge of the forex.
A blockchain can be defined as a chain of blocks that contains information, it's like a shared ledger. All the data is stored in the blocks. For instance, if it's a bitcoin blockchain, then the information stored inside would be about the Sender, the Receiver and the number of bitcoins to be transferred. Though the blockchain allows digital information to be recorded and distributed, it's very difficult to edit it later on. The first block in the blockchain is called the Genesis block. Every new block added to the chain is linked to the previous block, since all blocks contain hashes of the previous block. Each block consists of data, hash and hash of the previous block. Therefore, changing a single block can quickly make all succeeding blocks after the changed block invalid, since they do not have the correct Hash of the previous block.
I learned some very basic understandings of cryptocurrencies today. It's like a digital currency/asset that is monitored by a network called a blockchain. Cryptocurrency is widely considered to be volatile. There's no cash or coins involved, everything is traded and transitioned electronically. An example of cryptocurrencies would be Bitcoin. You access your bitcoin using a wallet and a key (a public and a private key). It can be exchanged between digital wallets using only a smartphone or computer. A digital wallet is where you can view your balance and transact bitcoin. There are two types of wallets, custodial and noncustodial. A non-custodial wallet is you having sole control of your private keys, which in turn controls your cryptocurrency and proves the funds are yours. A custodial wallet, on the other hand, your private keys are controlled by another party. You receive a number when bitcoin is assigned to you via a transaction on the blockchain and that is your private key (secret/known only to the user). Your wallet has a public address, which is called the public key (available to everyone in the public) and it is used when someone sends you a bitcoin.
I know that investing in stocks means buying shares of ownership in a public company, it means you either earn or lose money. Before getting into stocks and investments, I feel like it's a very easy way to earn money, a lot of money. After learning more about it today, I feel like investing is something that will take me forever to understand. For me, it's quite difficult to read and understand these stock charts. The numbers and lines shown on these charts are very complicated and I'm kind of struggling to get things right. Other than considering investing in stocks, I learned that a dividend is when the company (the board of directors) decides to give a portion of its earnings back to its shareholders. If you own the stock, you get a small chunk of the profit. I also learned that stock charts can help investors decide whether there is “support” for a stock at a certain price level (meaning the price is unlikely to go lower than that in the short term) or “resistance” (implying the price is unlikely to go higher in the short term). Another thing to keep in mind is weekly charts help you see longer-term trends, while intra-day charts help you spot specific buy and sell signals. Investing can be very tricking and always be prepared for a downturn.
You need to know when to shut up or stop talking when you are having a conversation with your client or employer. Need to control oneself and make up all the work immediately after your employer has given you warnings several times. Try not to get on their nerves as they can fire you anytime they want and depend on their mood. Adhere to company guidelines, stay positive and always open up to learning new things. Since I'm not really an extrovert, I feel like being a leader or entrepreneur is not a thing for me, but either way, you got to do what you've got to do.
*A minimum viable product, or MVP, is a product with enough features to attract early-adopter customers and validate a product idea early in the product development cycle.*
Consider key factors like price, location and lease terms when renting a commercial property. Also, pay attention to the written agreements (ex: rent increases, length of the lease, lease termination and more) and plan an exiting strategy beforehand just in case anything happens to the rent lease. It's also important to have an estimate of the startup money you'll need for your business and avoid red flags that will get your pitch rejected by the investors. Though it's not always easy to find investors, it is very important to create a business pitch that balances both the business and the emotional needs. Another thing to keep in mind is you can reduce the break-even point by decreasing the amount of fixed expenses and slightly increasing the selling price.
To start a business, it's critical that you identify and plan out how you will run your business to earn revenue and make a profit, at the same time, and identify any risks or obstacles that you may come across along the way. You first need to have a plan in mind: for instance, without a concrete profit model, the business will be operating blindly and will be much less likely to become profitable. In order to make a profit, you need to know the point where your business earns more money than it spends, and begins to become profitable (break even point). One of the crucial factors of starting a new business is to consider your target customers and market. Another thing to keep in mind is finding the right partner for your business. You need to set terms and agreements before establishing a partnership with someone you don't know.
*A long-tail profit model is a business strategy that enables companies to make significant profits. They do this by selling small quantities of difficult-to-find items to many customers, rather than simply selling large amounts of a small number of everyday objects.*
It’s rather easy to think about and start a business, but it’s hard to keep it running and maintain a positive financial status. Entrepreneurs need to think of business ideas that either solve people’s problems or make them feel happy after purchasing their products. I feel like only perseverance and enthusiastic entrepreneurs can really succeed in their business running. DO NOT SHARE YOUR BUSINESS IDEA WITH ANYONE!
Being productive does not mean working nonstop. It means working smartly and efficiently. It's more like how you manage your time wisely and maintain a healthy lifestyle. People who have planned a well-balanced schedule beforehand are more likely to accomplish their goals or tasks in a set amount of time. I feel like I should start optimizing my time and setting my priorities when I plan out my daily schedules. Since I'm a very quick-tempered person, I will try to think of things on the bright side instead of looking at things negatively. Never use violence or let bullies get on my nerves, just ignore them and be myself. Instead of feeling empty/lonely, try to set goals to achieve and advance myself.
Budgeting helps people achieve their short, medium and long term financial goals. It helps them manage and monitor their financial savings and spending conveniently. Though it does take time and energy to plan everything beforehand, it's always better to do all the decision-making before starting the budgeting process. I never really understood what liquidity is till today, after I watched the video in that content. That youtuber said, "liquidity means how easily you can get your money out of it". That simple sentence is short but on point. Some examples, like cash is liquid (the most liquid of assets) and real estate, on the other hand, is illiquid.
For Scam, I learned that ads that say things like “Unlimited earning potential,” “Investment opportunities and seminars” or “Quick money” are another type of scam and we should be aware of. Sometimes I think ads like “Quick money" are actually a way to earn money. I thought companies like Audible and DoorDash were an example of so-called "Quick money" but I guess I was wrong. As for entrepreneurship, I thought it was just a person coming up with a new business idea and hiring employees to start their business. I never thought being an entrepreneur might be this tiring. Having to take on much greater financial risks than other chain stores or well-known companies/industries. Though they can be inspiring, no one really knows the challenges and obstacles they face along the way to their success. I really do respect the entrepreneurs out there, they are initiative and very creative. They are also good at problem solving. I don't think I would ever take the risk of being an entrepreneur, because I can never handle things well on my own.
I'm always nervous when it comes to interviews. It makes me want to vomit when it comes to something as serious as a job interview. Some helpful interview tips I learned today are definitely preparing three or more relevant questions to ask the interviewer when they give you the chance to do so. Make an interview planner for every interview and remember to do some background research on the company and the recruiter. Don't be FRIENDS with the interviewer, instead be friendly. Be sure to write a follow-up email after the job interview to thank the interviewer for the time and energy they spend on this. AND NEVER use "I" in job interviews, instead use "you"!
I've written cover letters before but it's always too long and my overuse of big words is just making my cover letter so vague and so not me. I tried to use fancy words to impress the reader (hirer) but it didn't work out as I expected. From watching the videos and reading the articles today, I learned that I need to keep my cover letter and resume short but to the point. I need to avoid cliches, try to capture the reader's (hirer) attention and address their needs. For my resume, I need to try to keep it within one page and include only the skills and experience that could benefit me in the job I'm applying for. If I don't have any hard skills or work experience to include, then focus on the soft skills that I've learned in other experiences such as extracurricular activities or volunteering. I also registered for my first LinkedIn account today, which is very exciting.