Archives for May 2018

May 31, 2018

4 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

In the modern world of global commerce, youth is often seen as the key to success in business — with the idea that younger generations can bring fresh ideas and impetus to the boardroom table.

But, did you know that Vera Wang didn’t even sell a dress until she was 40? Or that Martha Stewart was 56 before achieving ultimate business success after the consolidation of her media focused business interests?

There is plenty to be said for a more experienced head in the business world — and some of the most successful female entrepreneurs have enjoyed prosperity later in life.

With this in mind, we compiled a list of six globally accomplished businesswomen who achieved global business success much later in life.

Vera Wang

New York fashion designer Vera Wang is known across the globe nowadays, but she didn’t open her high-end label — which now encompasses clothes, shoes and perfumes as well as a number of other side lines — until the age of 40. Wang was inspired to open her first boutique after designing her own wedding dress, and thanks to a long career working for Vogue magazine, she had the contacts needed to make her business a huge success. She is now believed to be worth upwards of $400 million.

Related: How the Rifle Paper Co. Founders Turned a Side Hustle Into a Thriving Lifestyle Brand

Lynn Brooks

Founded in 1992, Lynn Brooks’ “Big Apple Greeters” initiative was set up with one goal in mind: to improve the reputation of New York to outsiders. The foundation sends volunteer “greeters” — initially made up of Brooks’ friends and family — to welcome tourists to the area, offering helpful advice and tips for the best places to visit, while encouraging feedback to ensure the city can continue to better itself. Brooks set up the company from scratch at the age of 56, and it has since developed into a worldwide organization. In fact, the company has continued to grow even after Brooks’ death in 2013, with over 100 locations covered across the globe.

Martha Stewart

Having enjoyed a successful career as a chef and writer of cookbooks and magazines, in 1997 Martha Stewart centralized her various business ventures with the creation of the Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia company — at the age of 56. The media conglomerate has gone from strength to strength ever since, branching out into the worlds of TV, radio and even wine. It survived its chairman and CEO’s conviction on insider trading in 2001. Despite this setback, Stewart remains one of the world’s wealthiest women, with a net worth of $300 million.

Robin Chase

The CEO of car-sharing service Zipcar didn’t make the life-changing decision to set up her own company until 2000, by which time she was 41. After a turbulent early history — Chase was forced to sack co-founder Antje Danielson shortly after forming the business after she found out he was making executive decisions without telling her — the innovative transportation service, which allows customers to rent cars by the hour, was sold in 2013 for a cool $500 million, turning Chase into one of the richest women in the world overnight.

Related: How the Founder of This Luxury Sleepwear Startup Looks to Her Founder Husband For Mentorship

Cath Kidston

Londoner Cath Kidston waited until the age of 45 to found her self-titled company, having spent her early years as a shop owner specializing in second-hand furniture. The creation of Cath Kidston Ltd, which sells vintage clothing and home furnishing, has been the making of Kidston, enjoying huge success during a worldwide recession — and in 2010 she sold the company to investors, netting herself a cool £25 million while retaining a place on the board of directors.

Lynda Weinman

Web designer Lynda Weinman took the slow road to business success. Before opening her web development business in 1995, she worked in the special effects department on hit Hollywood movies including Robocop 2 and Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. At the age of 42, Weinman launched Lynda.com ahead of the internet boom, and has been reaping the rewards ever since; in 2015, the company was bought by employment giant LinkedIn for an astonishing $1.5 billion.

Related: Ayah Bdeir Wants to Ignite the Inner Inventor in Us All

May 30, 2018

8 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

In today’s microwave society—where more data is created in one year than the last 5,000 years—it’s a herculean task to stay focused. Getting distracted may seem innocuous, but the consequences are disastrous over time: lost productivity, falling revenues, and a gnawing ever-present sense of missed opportunities.

These overachievers and members of The Oracles share their strategies to sharpen your focus, prolong your concentration, and beat distractions once and for all.

Lewis Howes

Image Credit: The Oracles

1. Think about urgency and regret.

You never know when your last day will be, so live from a place of urgency to usher your ideas and dreams into reality. Don’t wait for it to be your last day and regret that you didn’t create something meaningful.

Get clear on precisely what you want, then move past any doubts or fears through massive, urgent action. Doing this is a mental game for me: I keep score on how well I’ve done each day. —Lewis Howes, former pro athlete, lifestyle entrepreneur and NYT-bestselling author; subscribe to Lewis’s global top-100 podcast phenomenon, The School of Greatness on iTunes!

Mark Divine

Image Credit: The Oracles

2. Bunker down in a secret location.

As a business leader, the demands on my time in the office are immense. No matter my determination to do deep, focused work, I ultimately get interrupted or find myself eagerly solving the problem.

Organizations tend to defer decisions to the leader who’s in the vicinity and “on the clock.” So, my number one tactic for radical focus is spending one to two days a week out of the office, in a “secret location.” There, I get important thinking, writing, and other creative work done with zero distractions.

To maximize productivity, I mentally prepare for deep work with a focusing ritual that includes deep breathing and visualizing my desired end state. I chunk my work into 45-minute blocks and do some movement and yoga between those deep work sets.

Concentration and focus must be trained. By designating special time and space to do focused work, you’ll train your brain to do it better. —Mark Divine, retired U.S. Navy SEAL commander, NYT/WSJ bestselling author, founder of SEALFIT and Unbeatable Mind; follow SEALFIT on YouTube, Facebook, or Instagram

Chris Harder

Image Credit: The Oracles

3. Ask if it’s a ‘heck-yes’ opportunity.

Here’s the trap: The more successful you become, the more shiny opportunities offer themselves to you. These opportunities may be great, but not great for you right now. A great opportunity at the wrong time is just a distraction.

Always ask yourself, “Is this a heck-yes opportunity—right now?” Otherwise, default it automatically to “no.” This question keeps you out of the “grey area” where good opportunities become stressful commitments.

If you don’t have the willpower to say “no” to shiny distractions, form an “advisory board” consisting of two to three friends who know you well, understand your goals, and have a good business mind. Run every opportunity through them for input. This tactic also makes saying “no” easier—you just blame the decision on your “advisory board.” —Chris Harder, philanthropist, coach, founder, and CEO of For the Love of Money; follow Chris on Instagram

Kenny Rueter

Image Credit: The Oracles

4. Resist ‘doing it all.’

Remove everything from your life that’s unnecessary or simply a diversion. You’ll be left with a bunch of worthwhile things to accomplish. Now, here’s where most entrepreneurs mess up: They attack everything at once. Soon, they’re overwhelmed from juggling too many things and feel guilty for not giving adequate focus to anything.

The simple cure? Have a top-priority item. (I use the Todoist app and keep a running list of my highest priority targets.) Pick only one thing, the most important thing to accomplish—even if it’s difficult or daunting. Stay focused until you check it off. Then move to the next. —Kenny Rueter, co-founder of Kajabi

Nafisé Nina Hodjat

Image Credit: The Oracles

5. Find something to obsess about.

When you find something you love, focus comes naturally. When I started as a civil litigation lawyer, I excelled but hated it. Meanwhile, when friends of friends got into trouble with the law, they insisted I represent them—even though I had no criminal defense experience. I did a great job on each case because I was obsessed with the outcome and cared about my client’s life.

However, my partner at the time didn’t want me to pursue criminal defense, so I begrudgingly stayed in the civil field. Fortunately, I had another obsession: writing. I wrote kids’ yoga books and about my experiences with cars and racing. I simply wrote because I was obsessed with it, which compensated for my professional discontent.

Finally, when I started criminal defense full time in 2014, it became difficult to not focus on my cases. Colleagues and mentors said I cared too much about my clients and their cases. Then I came across the Gerry Spence Trial Lawyers College, which advocates this approach. My career has been a beautiful obsession since. —Nafisé Nina Hodjat, founder and managing attorney of The SLS Firm

Nik Halik

Image Credit: The Oracles

6. Create a five-step customized strategy. 

Every entrepreneur’s methods for staying laser-focused is unique. I’ve incorporated these strategies for optimal performance.

First, make stress your friend. Stress is not your enemy; it’s a valuable tool if you harness its force. Your mental faculties are heightened when you’re pushed against a tough problem or deadline.

Second, develop a morning routine. Make it a habit to get up an hour earlier. Start your day with breathing exercises and meditation. Don’t allow the digital world to control the first hour of your day.

Third, break your work into 90-minute blocks. Forget the standard 9-to-5 mentality. Learn your body’s natural ultradian rhythms, and then schedule your most important and productive work in time blocks. Take 25-minute breaks at the end of each block.

Four, create recharging rituals for your body, emotions, and mind. A body ritual might be a brisk walk. An emotional ritual might be gratitude. A mental ritual might be turning off your phone.

Lastly, optimize your sleep. Sleep isn’t a necessary evil or distraction from work; it’s a vital, natural way to recharge. The standard “eight hours per night” is more of a guideline; I sleep six hours per day with a siesta power nap. This biphasic sleep pattern (six hours plus 25 minutes) is my ideal sweet spot. —Nik Halik, angel investor, entrepreneur, astronaut, extreme adventurer, CEO of 5 Day Weekend; follow Nik on social media

Tom Shieh

Image Credit: The Oracles

7. Don’t chase two rabbits.

“The man who chases two rabbits catches neither.” — Chinese Proverb

Whatever you’re working on, be fully there. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself at home thinking about work, and at work thinking about home. You’ll work on the company’s vision, then feel like you’re neglecting the daily operations. You’ll be entrenched in the operations, then feel like you’re missing out on the newest “flavor of the month” to scale your business.

It’s not that you can’t multitask or that these tasks are mutually exclusive. You can excel in many things—just not simultaneously. The best way I focus is scheduling my areas of focus directly on my calendar. I schedule the time to work out, be with family, think, read, answer emails, and just be free. This may seem rigid. Ironically, this kind of structure actually creates greater freedom. — Tom Shieh, CEO of Crimcheck; connect with Tom on Facebook

Peter Hernandez

Image Credit: The Oracles

8. Create a fierce focus culture.

“You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.” — Mark Twain

In a world that follows the pack, if you want to build something special, fierce focus is not just what you do—it’s how your entire organization must think. This is the only way to avoid the trap of caving into the norm and losing the essence of your core difference.

Fierce focus is only achieved across an organization when each person understands their purpose in the organization and then sets clearly defined, measurable goals to achieve that purpose.

Every new idea or opportunity must be forced through that intense “focus filter.” If the project doesn’t contribute to your purpose, you simply shouldn’t do it. —Peter Hernandez, president of The Western Region at Douglas Elliman; founder and president of Teles Properties

Want to share your insights like those above in a future column? If you’re an experienced entrepreneur, please get in touch here.

Want to suggest a future topic for these entrepreneurs to answer? Email suggestion@theoracles.com, and it’s very possible we’ll make your suggestion the focus of a future article!

Follow The Oracles on Facebook.

May 29, 2018

9 min read

Closing the sale is what separates the average from the extraordinary businessperson. Top dealmakers and members of The Oracles share their proven strategies for closing your next big sale.   

Grant Cardone

Image Credit: The Oracles

1. Make eye contact and make them laugh.

Closing isn’t about luck. Too many people believe that selling is just a numbers game, based on how many people you get in front of. That’s a lie; closing is something you can control.
First, always make eye contact. Most of today’s global population doesn’t make eye contact. Don’t believe me? Walk into a coffee shop and say “hello” to someone. If you want your prospect to trust you, it’s vital you make eye contact.
 
Second, use humor to relieve pressure. Everyone loves a good story. If yours contains humor, people will relax. Any humor that makes people feel good, inspired, or hopeful is always appropriate. People are more likely to make decisions when feeling less serious, rather than very serious.
 
The more a salesperson understands the close, the more they’ll appear professional, be believable to a client, and be rewarded for selling more. —Grant Cardone, sales expert who has built a $750 million real estate empire, and NYT-bestselling author; follow Grant on Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube

Gail Corder Fisher

Image Credit: The Oracles

2. Know your client, never assume, push limits and be prepared.

Selling isn’t just making the deal. It’s creating long-term relationships, providing a service or product that makes your customer feel special and highly valued. My proven strategies to close a sale faster include:

Know everything about the decision maker(s). Understand their likes, dislikes, and background. Learn about the associations they belong to, the charities they care about, and what’s important to them. Be methodical. (Social media will provide key insights.)

Never assume how the decision will be made. Will the decision be made by a committee or one person? Is there a chain of command? The decision-making tree can change at any time for unknown reasons. Constantly check the decision-making barometer during the sales process.

Push limits. If you stay in your comfort zone, you’ll inevitably stagnate. Take on new responsibilities or adopt an “owners mentality.” Keep anticipating your boss’s or client’s needs. Be open to trying new avenues and walking roads not yet traveled.

Be prepared for the decision to go either way. Anticipate every hurdle, objection or roadblock. Devise responses to keep you moving forward. I always tell my children—even as adults—no doesn’t necessarily mean no. Interpret the moment someone says “no” as:

“No, not now.”

“No, I’m too busy or focused on other things to consider your request.”

“No, you haven’t asked me enough to understand how much you really want this.”

“No, you haven’t politely bugged me enough to just give it to you to make you stop pushing.” 

Keep politely asking until you get the result you want. A good salesperson learns how to do this with the same kind of gut instinct and finesse. —Gail Corder Fischer, executive vice chairman of Fischer & Company, a leading global corporate real estate firm that provides consulting, brokerage and technology solutions

Simon Grabowsi

Image Credit: The Oracles

3. Showcase your product or service with a webinar.

Before your audience parts with their money, they’ll want to know exactly how they’re going to benefit. So, define your USP (unique selling point)—how your service or product is unique in your industry—and showcase it during a live webinar.

In your webinar, highlight the problem and show how your product is the solution. Demonstrate how your product stands above the competition. Let people ask questions in real time, and answer them. This builds engagement and trust.

Finally, in your webinar, share a specific customer’s story on how your product benefited them. People trust what’s already worked before. —Simon Grabowski, founder and CEO of ClickMeeting

Jason Hall

Image Credit: The Oracles

4. Know that no two people are the same.

No two people are alike. You’ve heard this all your life, but sometimes it’s difficult to fully grasp with sales. You’ve got to customize your pitch to relate to whomever you’re talking to. Remember, you’re not selling to a company; you’re selling to a person representing the company. Why? Individuals often let their emotions and intuitions dictate their decision making.

I’ve started utilizing face-to-face video for my introductions and proposals. I want my customers to see I’m real and relatable, that I have a vested interest in what I can do for their business.

Ultimately, you have to build trust, learn how to relate to the people you’re talking to and care about them and their business. Without those three things, you won’t be able to close, regardless of how good your pitch is. —Jason Hall, founder and CEO of FiveChannels; generated $17M+ in sales revenue for his clients in 2017

Richard Blankenship

Image Credit: The Oracles

5. Make your prospect look like a rock star.

Creating a trusting relationship is the holy grail of all successful selling. Your goal should be to make your prospect look like a rock star.

Learn the client’s KPIs (key performance indicators) and show how your product aligns. This comes from asking questions like, “What would make this purchase a ‘win’ for you and/or your company?” Listen more than you speak.

Managing expectations is also key. Prepare a plan that meets your prospect’s expectations in a “worst case” scenario. If you under-promise and over-deliver, you’ll retain them forever.

Establishing value up front is vital for subsequent deals. Be willing to give at first. Offer a sweetheart deal to get the prospect into your “ecosystem.”

In summary, closers target the right prospects, quickly build trusting relationships, and focus on delivering success for every client. Remember: promises made are promises kept. —Richard Blankenship, co-founder of ESP Gaming and senior vice president of Poker Central’s business development

Sharran Srivatsaa

Image Credit: The Oracles

6. Make a promise, then outline your process.

The burning questions in every client’s minds are: Have you successfully done this before? Could you do it again based on their special circumstances?

After generating over a billion dollars in sales, one framework that always creates traction is an appointment. This is not because it is some kind of sleazy sales technique or Jedi mind trick; rather, it truly reveals how good your product or service is and what kind of transformation it delivers for the client.

Here’s the framework. First, state a proof-oriented track record with an embedded promise. If you’re a nutrition coach, your script may look like: “Ms. Client, 100 percent of my last 47 coaching clients lost at least 19 pounds in the first six months.”

Second, show the client you have a specific process for them to follow. You could say something like, “As we implement our four-phase optimization approach, you’ll see results within the first three days. Let me walk you through it.” That secondary personal promise (results in the first three days) combined with a proven process (four-phase approach) is what creates enough confidence for the client to say, “Yes.” —Sharran Srivatsaa, angel investor; grew Teles Properties 10X in five years

Craig Handley

Image Credit: The Oracles

7. Be excited about what you have to sell.

I learned how to sell at an early age as a newspaper carrier. In college, I got a job selling insurance door-to-door, and I dove into sales. To be successful, I studied the lives and methods of W. Clement Stone, Zig Ziglar and Tom Hopkins. I easily exceeded 10,000 hours of face-to-face selling, and then worked in call centers for another 10 years, implementing everything I learned. Here are some of my key takeaways:

Energy is the number one thing you need to sell. Be excited! If you aren’t excited about what you’re selling, find a product you can get excited about.

Honesty and integrity build trust and create rapport. If you don’t know the answer, don’t make one up. Don’t commit to anything you’re unsure that you can execute on. Do what you say on the back-end of your conversation.

If you have follow-up answers to get, deliver them as you promised.

Also, learn how to negotiate and don’t be afraid to walk away from a deal and return later to close. When you talk about your product, make sure you build value around what the product can do for your customer.

Finally, listen. Active listening allows you to hear the customer’s interest level and understand what their hesitation in buying might be so you can address it. —Craig Handley, co-founder and CEO of ListenTrust; read more about Handley: 6 Ways to Build a Billion-Dollar Sales Machine

Want to share your insights like those above in a future column? If you’re an experienced entrepreneur, please get in touch here.

Want to suggest a future topic for these entrepreneurs to answer? Email suggestion@theoracles.com, and it’s very possible we’ll make your suggestion the focus of a future article!

Follow The Oracles on Facebook.

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

May 27, 2018

2 min read

Figuring out if someone is lying is much easier than you think. And with a few quick tips, you’ll be well on your way to spotting a lie.

Related: Use This Secret Military Trick to Tell if Someone Is Lying

For starters, it’s important to understand how people communicate. And it be might a shock to learn that communication is less about the words that come out of a person’s mouth and more about the tone of their voice and their body language. Identifying a liar’s “micro-expressions,” which are a person’s involuntary facial expressions, is the best way to catch a liar. In fact, this is a strategy used by the CIA. How do you notice these micro-expressions? There are seven universal human emotions: sadness, anger, contempt, disgust, surprise, fear and happiness. When a person’s initial facial expressions seem off and forced, that’s a sure sign they’re not telling the truth.

Related: 3 Scientifically-Proven Ways to Spot Liars in Your Emails

Along with facial expressions, reading a person’s body language can help you determine if they’re lying. Typically, liars are pretty fidgety and they’ll do things like touch their nose, adjust their clothes and rub their eyes. You can also find them pursing their lips, focusing their eyes down and to the right and turning their body away from you. And when it comes to speaking, if you hear a person making speech errors, talking fast or trying to use complex words, these could also mean they’re fibbing.

To learn more, check out Truthfinder’s infographic below.

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

May 26, 2018

3 min read

Move over self-driving cars and traffic avoidance tunnels — Elon Musk’s next big venture is focusing on something new: candy. That’s right — in recent news, Musk tweeted his plans for an “amazing” candy company.

I’m starting a candy company & it’s going to be amazing

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 5, 2018

And he’s not joking either. When asked by Engadget his level of seriousness about this new endeavor, he replied, “super super serious.” So, why is Musk creating a candy company? To send candy to Mars? We don’t quite know that answer yet. However, we’ve taken a look at what it would cost for the eccentric billionaire to go full-on Willy Wonka in today’s market.

Related: Someone Trademarked Elon Musk’s Name, and 25 Other Weird Things We’ve Learned About Him

While Roald Dahl’s famous kid’s story Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a milestone from many of our childhoods, what would it look like today? (And we’re not talking about Tim Burton’s 2005 recreation with Johnny Depp.) Bringing the imaginative candy land to life would actually result in $2 million in energy costs annually. However, that doesn’t include solar energy, which we’re sure Musk would install. Going solar would require 3,221 solar panels and cost a whopping $2.37 billion for such a system.

Related: The Unglamorous First Jobs of Successful People Such as Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos (Infographic)

Of course, that’s not even the most expensive part of the project. While a candy river would be around $32.7 million (and $47.1 million for organic chocolate), and salaries for Oompa loompas would be around $73.4 million a year, one of the more expensive installations and overhead costs would be the flying glass elevator. If Musk were to recreate the elevator from Wonka’s factory, this would cost him around $109 million. Of course, knowing Musk, he’d likely take things a step further — if Musk strapped SpaceX’s BFR (a reusable spacecraft) to the elevator instead, he’d wind up with a $10 billion bill.

Related: Why Elon Musk Hates Meetings

While becoming the next Willy Wonka of the world might be next of Musk’s to-do list, check out the Advanced Technology Services, Inc.’s infographic for a breakdown of how much it would actually cost the eccentric tech-preneur.

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

May 25, 2018

10 min read

If you’re thinking about starting a blog or website, but you don’t have an online store, you might wonder how you can actually make money online. Entrepreneur.com has a shop where readers can buy merchandise like hats and hoodies, but this article isn’t about moving merchandise. It’s about what how you can make money online through content — like Entrepreneur.com does — whether you’re a social media influencer, subject or industry expert or blogger.

The first step, of course, is to build an audience. Your brand should attract readers that other businesses want as customers. That’s why TV networks spend so much time focused on attracting the 18-to-49 demographic — that age range are more likely to buy products based on advertisements. For you or your online content, you might be more concerned with attracting an audience based on industry than age range.

For instance, Entrepreneur.com wants to reach people trying to start their own business, so a 60-year-old who has decided to stop working for others and try something new is a valuable member of the Entrepreneur community, even if that person might not be between the ages of 18 and 49.

Or, you might target your audience by geographic location, interests or another niche. Whatever you decide, it’s important to carve out a corner and develop meaningful content to cultivate a loyal audience.

One of the most common ways to make money through your online content is to partner with businesses who value your audience. Just like you might turn on filters when targeting a Facebook audience through paid marketing, businesses want to know who they can expect to reach through your platform.

You won’t need millions of monthly pageviews like Entrepreneur.com to make money through partnerships, but if you want to make money online, you can do it through three different types of business partnerships.

Related: 7 Realistic Ways to Make Money Online

1. Advertisements

This is the most common way to make money online through your digital content. You’ve definitely seen ads on all your favorite websites, and Entrepreneur.com is no different from the rest. If you come to the homepage, you might see an ad for Sprint. On this story page, you have probably already seen one for Dell — if you haven’t, and you don’t have an ad blocker on, you probably will. You might also see the ads that play before some of our videos. Here’s an example:

Now, no one loves having ads as part of their digital experience, but ads can provide value for your business partner in reaching a desired audience, as well as help you make money.

If you want to make money through online advertisements, you need to decide what the right balance is for you, your business and your audience. What combination of ads can provide the most financial reward for your partner while maintaining a positive user experience?

Make it a point to learn about different types of advertisements you can use on your website. For example, video ads tend to convert at a higher rate than many advertisements placed on the side of a story, where readers can just ignore them. That’s why video ads also tend to cost businesses more — and why so many publishing companies are pivoting to video of late. They want the conversions and increased profits that come with video ads.

But, making video ads also means that you need to have video content, and it has to be good enough and long enough to make it worth your audience’s while. If you make viewers watch a 30-second ad, and you give them 15 seconds of bad content, you won’t have many repeat viewers.

By contrast, banner ads or ad boxes within online content usually convert at lower rates, because readers can just scroll past them, but you can put several of them on a page without affecting your audience’s experience too much.

In fact, if you’re clever, you can actually improve the user experience while serving ads. IMDB is a good example of this: If you go to the movie reviewing website’s page for new movies, you can see a nice background image for Solo: A Star Wars Story.

Source: IMDB

 

The image looks great and complements the content, which lists Solo as the top movie coming out this week. However, that background image also serves as an ad for Fandango. Clicking on the image activates an affiliate link, which sends readers to the Fandango page to buy tickets for the film while giving IMDB credit for directing them there.

This helps Fandango, because one of the biggest websites in the world is sending targeted members to its page to buy tickets. It helps IMDB, because Fandango pays for that partnership. And it also helps the readers easily find a theater where they can watch a movie they want to see.

It’s a win-win-win.

Related: How to Make Money as a Stay-at-Home Mom

2. Native advertisements

Native advertisements are less intrusive than banner or video ads. In fact, if not for the fact that all native or sponsored ads legally must be labeled as such, your audience should barely be able to tell the difference between native ad content and editorial content.

For example, here is a native ad on our site. It has a headline and a hero image, like a typical story does. It can even live beside other stories on the homepage. Plus, the ad is formatted to tell a story or relate information about investing in an interesting way. When audience members read the native ad, they, at least, should come away more educated on an important topic.

However, it’s also clear that this story was not written by an Entrepreneur.com staff member or contributor, because the story is marked as “Sponsored Content” at the top of the page. Also, the author is just the name of the company that paid for the advertisement –in this case, Morgan Stanley.

One key to successful native advertising is to make sure the sponsored content actually fits your site. Finding partners who actually complement your site and what you want to do can provide value to your readers and partners at the same time.

You can often see these sorts of native advertisement labels on Instagram posts or tweets from social media influencers. You might see a hashtag “#sponsored” or some other label to show the source of the native advertisement.

For example, here’s a recent post by NBA star Giannis Antetokounmpo:

Great day giving back to the kids from @bgcmilwaukee. Huge thanks to the City of Milwaukee for all the support you’ve shown me since day 1 and for my Top 10 ranking on @DICKS #JerseyReport #sponsored pic.twitter.com/2OuMIXPFUh

— Giannis Antetokounmpo (@Giannis_An34) May 22, 2018

It might not seem out of the ordinary for an NBA player to take a picture with kids wearing his jersey, but Antetokounmpo also seems to be inside a Dick’s Sporting Goods store while wearing Dick’s merchandise in the image.

Even though the post maintains the Greek basketball star’s voice and brand, it’s clear Dick’s paid Antetokoumnpo to appear in the tweet so it could sell more jerseys, raise brand awareness and tap into his fan base.

Or, here’s an example of a native ad on Instagram:

This post appears on Chrissy Teigen’s Instagram account, and it taps into her 17 million-plus followers, but labeled just below her name reads, “Paid partnership with Vitacoco.” Teigen is a model who often talks about lifestyle and food, so it might seem normal for her to post something like this. However, she makes it clear that this post is also financially incentivized.

If you are going to do sponsored content, make sure you do the same. It’s illegal to fail to disclose that you are being paid to endorse a product or idea.

Related: 5 Full-Time Jobs You Can Do to Make Money Online or From Home

3. Content partnerships

A typical advertisement is where a business partner pays for space on your site. A native advertisement is similar, but you have more agency on the content — sometimes, brands even want you to write the native ad yourself, to make sure it fits with your platform.

In either case, these advertisements involve a business paying you to display content they want to see. Sometimes, though, you can create content partnerships who will fund the sort of content you want to put on your site.

A great example of this is Entrepreneur.com’s Elevator Pitch series. Entrepreneur.com is all about telling the stories of budding business people and entrepreneurs, so creating a show for those people to pitch investors and make their dreams reality is an engaging and awesome way to do that.

Sprint Business understood that vision and partnered with Entrepreneur.com to create the show. As a result, Elevator Pitch had enough funding to make a first season — and then a second and a third — so Entrepreneur.com could create the valuable content its audience wanted, and its content partner, Sprint, earned prominent placement within the show. The Sprint logo appears prominently within each episode, as well as, in the beginning credits.

The ideal content partnership is one where the business partner is able to be part of the content without disrupting or directing the editorial vision. Again, it’s all about finding a balance so everyone wins.

Related: 13 Real Ways I Make Money Online

Recapping how Entrepreneur.com makes money online

Entrepreneur.com makes money through a variety of sources, but three ways it earns cash through its content include:

1. Advertisements. Businesses pay the site in exchange for space on a web page or time before a video.
2. Sponsored content. Businesses pay to create ads that emulate the site. These are labeled as advertisements, but the point is to create something the audience genuinely enjoys.
3. Content partnerships. Businesses pay to create editorial content that the site might not want to fund entirely on its own, in exchange for branding purposes.

You can use these three strategies to make money online yourself, but remember: No brand is going to be interested in you unless you have an audience. So, with whatever you choose to do, make sure you don’t alienate the people who love you. They might not be writing the checks, but they’re the ones who make you valuable.

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.