Would you rather make money by working the rest of your life or make money investing the dollars you have accumulated? As they say, you can either work for it, or you can make your money work for you. There is only one problem with the obvious answer here: most folks are somewhat clueless, and to make money without going to work you first need to learn to invest. Let’s get started.

In order to make money investing over the long term your goal should be to make your money grow at a rate that at least outpaces inflation and taxes. Otherwise, you’re not getting ahead; you’re treading water at best. You must first understand that growth is the objective, and then you need to learn to invest money so you can put it to work. There is no secret formula to make money investing, but there is a shortcut if you really want to learn to invest, especially if you sometimes feel clueless.

Here’s why people feel clueless: they don’t know what their choices are or what to look for when investing money. These are the basics, and until you understand them your odds are poor if you want to make money investing over the long term. Plus, you will likely never feel comfortable, especially if you’ve lost money in the past. It is very difficult to learn to invest piecemeal… picking up one nugget of information at a time. The pieces of the puzzle just won’t ever seem to fit together.

So, here we start at the beginning, the ground floor. This is your shortcut if you want to learn to invest money with a firm foundation so that the pieces of the puzzle start to fit together and make sense. There are only four basic choices that any of us have, and if you want to make money investing over the long term you should get a handle on all four of them. Here they are in order of least risk (with lower profit potential) to higher risk (with greater profit potential): cash & savings, bonds, stocks, and alternative investments. That’s it.

The first choice simply pays interest and features safety. Think of checking accounts, savings accounts, CDs, T-bills and money market funds. The second choice offers higher interest income with moderate risk. Here we have Treasury bonds, municipal, corporate, investment grade, junk and a multitude of other bonds as well as bond funds. If you want to make money investing without too much risk you should include both of these safer choices in your portfolio.

Your third choice is stocks, your primary growth engine, and it obviously involves risk. You make money in stocks through price appreciation (rising stock prices) and from dividends. Here you find terms like blue-chips, high quality, low-priced, growth, growth and income, industrials, financial, high-tech and so on to describe them. You don’t really need to learn to invest in individual stocks; you can go with stock funds and let them do the stock picking for you. But if you are going to achieve growth, stocks can not be avoided.

The fourth category of choices is growth oriented and risk can be significant as well. Some professionals in the financial services business ignore it or consider these alternative investments unnecessary. The list is long, but think: real estate, natural resources, gold, silver, oil, and other commodities like aluminum and copper. I feel that if you ignore these choices, you’re missing out on the opportunity to make money investing when the likes of stocks and bonds are out of favor. The good news: you don’t need to learn to invest in real estate, gold, oil and so on. Mutual funds are available that do the heavy work for you in all of these areas.

Now you know your basic choices. The next step is to ask a few basic questions, and here are some questions you need to ask anytime you consider making a specific investment in any of the four basic areas. Ask about: liquidity, safety, income, growth potential, income taxes, and the costs involved. Ask yourself and then find the answers, or ask the person (like a financial planner) who is making a recommendation to you. Never ignore the costs involved. You are trying to make money investing. High costs only work against you.

You can’t learn to invest money by reading one article, but you can get pointed in the right direction. That’s what I have tried to do here by starting at the beginning. Once you have a handle on the basics, it’s a whole lot easier to learn the rest. Don’t give up, and stay focused on your objective: to make money investing so you don’t need to work for the rest of your life.

The niche you have chosen should allow creation of more than one product or service. With the technological advancements in the hosting industry, from automated control panels and scripts that simplify creation of accounts, to complete turnkey solutions; there is no need to worry about spending time on the real products sold to the customer. The main ones are keyword selection, sales copy principles, graphics, affiliate programs, product creation, online payment processing, auto responders, and search engine optimization.

Once you’ve earned money from this type of information product business, you can invest in the creation of your own products if you want, or start offering more informational products that allow you to sell your knowledge. But the creation and production costs of a similar big ticket in sequence product, although higher, are still pretty low. A key by-product of this process will be the creation of 3-D, Computer Assisted Design art.

The Association for Financial Professionals permits the following activities for repatriating funds: Research and Development activities, advertising and marketing programs, hiring and training new recruits, acquiring patent and other rights to intangible property, improving transportation, funding capital investments with the purpose of job creation and job retention & funding product responsibility or environmental claims.

It prohibits certain activities like: Tax payments, Payment of executive recompense, Payment of dividends, Redemption of stocks, Debt investments and Portfolio investments. Therefore, before repatriating the money, you must consider whether it is worth or not.

Checklist on what artist and product development necessitate includes: Exceptional vocals, musicianship and/or songwriting skills, Continued education and enhancement of musical skills, Quality equipment, Performance ability, Image creation and maintenance, Plan of action, goal setting, excellent promotion materials including photographs, press releases and artwork, Business management skills, Marketing, Publicity and Promotion knowledge, Online and Offline Professional management, Basic knowledge of recording, producing, engineering, and mastering, Basic knowledge of manufacturing, distribution, and sales online, brick and mortar and air-play, Good choices in members, staff and advisors, Physical and mental preparedness, Basic knowledge of finances, accounting Law and legal issues etc.

The goals for doing so are for the product owner to: Communicate the whole, Determine and communicate when releases are needed, Determine what functionality is sufficient for each release & focus on business value derived from the releases. The delivery team on the other hand will see the whole, learn about the steps to realize the vision, learn the business priorities, provide technical input to the roadmap and provide estimates for the projected features. The salesperson must lead the prospect through the various decision criteria needed in order to secure a sale. Whether your idea is the development of a product, launch of a service business, or even the creation of an event or program for a non-profit, creativity is the root of all entrepreneurial efforts starting with the vision itself.

People quickly learn to spend their time on marketing and product creation, rather than repetitive tasks. Apart from empowering companies and individuals, there should be a particular focus on identifying labor intensive businesses that have the potential to make a significant and positive impact on employment creation as well as those businesses that have a product or service offering for export markets with the final objective of booming local economies.

#1 Choose a company that knows the local market.
Knowledge of the local market means that your property manager knows what renters are looking for. If your property management company is a good one, they will think of the property as if they were a renter. Making smart and cost conscious recommendations to the owner that will increase overall return while improving the property so that it becomes more desirable, will help increase rental rates, lower turnover and decrease vacancy. Your property management company should make sure that your property always stays competitive in the leasing market. This knowledge will help maximize your rents while minimizing your time-on-market.

#2 Set up a meeting with the property manager and make a plan.
If the property management company you are choosing is a good one, they will set up a meeting with all new property owners and make a game plan. Getting to know your property manager will help improve the interaction and can give both the owner and the property manager a good idea of how they will work to improve the return for that property. Each property plan is different and is based on the goals, plans, and budgets of the owners. Designing a property plan that is right for each owner’s needs is the key to successful property management.

#3 Don’t take our word for it… ask our clients!
Nobody can give a better picture of the company’s service than a current customer. Ask your property management company to give you the names of three clients with similar properties. Get in contact with those people and ask them questions that you feel are important to the success of your property. They can tell you best and can usually give a good picture of the strengths and weaknesses and their contentment with the service.

#4 Make sure you’re getting premium customer service.
Probably the most common complaint about management companies, both from tenants and owners, is that their customer service is terrible. Wouldn’t it be great if you could reach your manager whenever you needed? Choosing a property management company that strives to offer great customer service and actually delivers will mean the difference between headaches and satisfaction. Good customer service is something you should expect and a company with good customer service has to make sure the other aspects of their business are on point because they are always telling you about it. Keeping owners informed with frequent communication about the market and how their property is being managed is necessary in any management relationship.

#5 Show me the money!
Property management companies typically collect rents between the 1st and 5th of each month. It should take no longer than eight days to collect rents and prepare all monthly statements for each property. That money is the property owner’s and should be in their bank accounts as quickly as possible. Earning interest on the rental revenue can really add up in the long haul. Some management companies will try and keep the revenue in their account as long as possible so that all interest earned is earned in their accounts, not the owners. We don’t do that. Our job is to collect your money, not hold onto it.

#6 Make sure your management company knows accounting.
Accounting for revenues and expenses with investment property can be a difficult task. Organization and great accounting skills will ensure your property management company is accounting for your property correctly. At the end of the year when tax season comes up, all of your income and cash flows should be easily accessible and in the correct order to make your tax paying easy.

#7 Your management company should maintain good relationships with tenants.
Your management company should keep up good relationships with their tenants. Tenants are a customer of the property and should be treated as such. Keeping happy tenants results in lower turnover, which means lower re-leasing fees for homeowners. Happy tenants will also make releasing much easier because they tend to keep homes cleaner and are easier to work with when it comes time to show homes to new prospective tenants. A reputable property management company with a good name in the eyes of the tenant is not easy to come by. Choose a company that cares, it will increase your property’s return.