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EPISODE 17~ GUEST BLOG: Turo: Rent Your Car as a Side Hustle By Kyle Clark, Turo Fleet Owner

1 – Know your goals 

Do you want to use Turo as a way to supplement your income? How about using the platform to afford your dream car, sharing it occasionally on weekends or when at work? You’ll want to know what kind of owner you’re going to be, because the investments required in time, finances, and effort will vary greatly. 

Will you meet renters at your home, or choose to deliver to the airport? What about requests for delivery to a custom location? Good news, Turo has many settings that allow you to choose what kinds of requests and bookings you offer.

2 – Know your market

Before placing your vehicle on Turo, or considering purchasing a second vehicle to rent full-time, get a feel for your market. Do several searches well out into the future on Turo for the city and airport(s) in your area. See what kinds of cars are available, what they usually rent for, and how busy they are. Next, check out the competition. Look at rates from the big rental agencies for various types of vehicles. Do you already own something that you could rent at a lower cost, while still putting money in the bank? Or, can you provide a unique car no one else has? Find these advantages.

3 – Know your processes

Plot out your car’s listing page before opening it up for business. Make sure you’re documenting any and all procedures for meeting renters, handing off your keys, and returning the car. List any special rules or requests you have, so there are no surprises. Craft a set of clear, thorough messages that you can copy to communicate with customers through each step of the rental.  How will you handle maintenance, and the rare mechanical failure? Problems can and will happen. How prepared you are will greatly affect the renter’s experience, and your reputation. Study Turo’s support articles and policies; you’ll know exactly what to say when a problem arises, and what you or Turo can offer to fix it. Create relationships with mechanics, car washes, detailers: especially those who are mobile and above to handle short-notice requests. 

Guest Name: Kyle Clark

Guest Title: Turo Fleet Owner

Guest Contact: www.rentcarsfromkyle.com

Guest Bio: Kyle Clark enjoys providing customers with the comfort, reliability, and value of quality car brands. He finds the best-kept, sturdy imports that work well in all four Colorado seasons.  Kyle is one of the most experienced owners in the Denver area, and the first to offer a fleet of multiple vehicles. Many other owners have used his methods and service as a model themselves. He’s even had other owners rent from him, just to learn how to operate.

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EPISODE 16~ TOP TIP: Government Jobs: Don’t Get Scammed Into Paying For A List of Government Jobs

Never get scammed into paying for information about government jobs when you can find the same information all online for free. Schemers are always trying to get people to pay for information that the government already provides. Bad guys place ads offering to sell lists of government jobs or practice exams and applications. Pay attention to these tell-tale tip offs to rip-offs :

  1. Often private companies try to seem like government agencies by using official-sounding names, American flags, eagles or seals in their advertisements or literature.
  2. If somebody guarantees you a high test score, guarantees you a job or says no experience is necessary, that’s another red flag.

Here is the link to the REAL list of government jobs.

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EPISODE 16 ~ MAKE MORE: Home Improvement: Certain Paint Colors Can Help Your House Sell for Thousands More

Real estate website zillow.com says you can make thousands more dollars when you sell your house if it’s painted certain popular colors.  Paint is cheap, so it might even be worth it to change the color!

Zillow found that homes with cool, neutral walls sell for more compared to other colors. If you’re getting ready to sell your home, think hard about the color and consider these incredibly detailed stats Zillow came up with:

•Painting your kitchen a blue-gray pastel can help you sell your home for $1,809 more.

•Neutral beiges, oatmeals, and browns in the living room garnered a $1,926 premium.

•Bedrooms with shades of cadet blue sell for $1,856 more than expected.

•And veer away from the typical white walls in your dining room and go with a slate blue or pale gray to sell for an additional $1,926.

• Interestingly, mellow colors were better than no color at all, as white bathrooms can cause homes to sell for $4,035 less than other homes.

•And get this: while we’re in the bathroom, light blues and periwinkles help houses sell for an amazing $5,440 more than expected. 

Tweaking the outside of your home can also help you sell for more than you’d expect:

•Homes with an exterior between beige and gray sold for $3,496 more compared to similar exterior colors such as a soft brown or tan stucco. 

•And the finishing touch to prepare your home for the market could be a touch of color on the front door. Dark navy blue doors helped sell homes for $1,514 more.

Bottom line: Whites aren’t good.  And vibrant colors that are overly specific aren’t either.  Cool, neutral colors seem to attract a wide range of buyers and rule the day!  Here is a link to Zillow’s full article.

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EPISODE 16 ~ FIND YOURS: FTC: Could The Federal Trade Commission Have Money For You From A Bad Business?

Find unclaimed money with The Easy Money Show

I’m excited because this is something I had never heard of, even in all my years covering unclaimed money.  The Federal Trade Commission is the nation’s consumer watchdog, and when the FTC sues or settles with a company that has done something wrong, it often obtains refund money for consumers.  LOTS of refund money.  For example, in the first 6 months of 2017, the FTC returned $194-million dollars to well over a million consumers.  BUT, there’s more to be claimed.  It’s hard for the FTC to find everybody owed money. Nicole Vincent Fleming, Program Manager for the FTC’s Office of Claims and Refunds gave us information on how much money is still available, where it comes from, and what it takes to claim it.

Nicole, to get people interested, how much refund money does the Federal Trade Commission have available for consumers right now?  And roughly how many consumers might be eligible to claim that money?

We have active refund programs for over 50 different FTC cases right now. It’s likely at any given time that there are tens of millions of dollars available for tens of thousands of people.  We mail out checks every month. We recently heard from a woman who almost threw her check away, thinking that it was junk mail. It was worth $5000!

And give me the big picture.  In general, how does this money come to be available for consumers?

Generally, when the FTC investigates a company for unfair or deceptive practices, we may try to reach a settlement with the company. As part of the settlement, we often ask that the company pay money to provide refunds to consumers who were injured by their business practices. If we can’t reach a settlement, the FTC might sue the company and ask the court to order them to pay for refunds.  Once the lawsuit or settlement is final, and the defendants have paid the money the court orders, then my office handles distributions. 

You take extensive steps to return the money.  Describe those steps.

•Often we are able to get a list of customers from the company. We use those records to mail people a check and a letter that explains what the check is.  Then, we follow up with address traces to find people who might have moved, and we resend those checks.

• If we don’t have information about who bought the product, we get the word out by advertising and letting the media know that refund money is available. Then, people can come to our website and apply for a refund.

• Sometimes we use our Consumer Sentinel Database to find people. It contains millions of complaints from people who contacted the FTC, the Better Business Bureau, or other federal, state and local law enforcement offices. If people have filed a complaint related to a defendant in one of our refund programs, we might use the information in their complaint to send them a check. (That’s one good reason to report fraud to the FTC!)

•The vast majority of checks usually get cashed.

If there is still money left in the fund after we have done everything we can to reach people, then we might send a second round of checks to people who cashed their first check. For example, people might get a 50% refund with the first check and an additional 10% of their money back with the second check. Our goal is to return as much money as possible to as many people as we can.  

We’ll tell people how to search for open FTC refunds and make a claim in a moment, but first give us an example of a big refund currently available.

One interesting open case is Dolce Worldwide, which did business as My Car Solutions.  According to the FTC’s lawsuit, the defendants called people offering to sell them extended auto warranties. They implied that the company was affiliated with auto dealers and manufacturers. In reality, there was NO affiliation and no one received an actual warranty extension. The FTC sued the company and got sizable refunds for people.  We have mailed 6,000 checks that averaged more than $600 each.  We pro rate people’s share so the more you paid, the more you get back.  In this case, about a 4th of the checks haven’t yet been cashed, so there are maybe 1500 people STILL owed money. We just reissued checks in this case, so people can be on the lookout

Give us an example of a case where the company is refunding people ALL of their lost money.

Amazon had to refund people for in-app purchases made by their kids. The issue was that parents would let their kids play ‘free” games that actually cost money.  The game was free but kids could use real money while playing the game, to buy things like “gold stars” or virtual pet food. Purchases made between November 2011 through May 2016 are eligible. Amazon sent emails to people who made in app purchases during this timeframe.  If a child made these purchases without your permission, you may be eligible for a refund. The court order requires Amazon to provide FULL refunds—up to $70 million in all! 

Tell me about a case, with an even bigger pot of money available.

Herbalife is one that a lot of people will have heard of.  We have distributed 3/4 of the $200 million that was available.   But that means we are still trying to reach a lot of people. Herbalife was a multi-level marketing business.  The FTC says that Herbalife led people to believe they could earn substantial money, but that most people lost money.  And that the company’s payment structure was unfair because it rewarded distributors for recruiting others to join and purchase products, rather than selling the product to end users. To be eligible for a refund, people must have paid Herbalife more than $1000 and meet certain other criteria. The details are at ftc.gov/refunds.  The average checks range from $100-$500 per person. BUT the largest checks exceed $9000!  

Notice how the pots of money are growing?  There’s an even bigger one involving Western Union, right?

Yes, Western Union agreed to provide $586 million in refunds in this case, which was a combined effort of the FTC and Department of Justice.  The government charged that massive fraud flowed through Western Union for years and that the company could have prevented it. For example, scams where people thought they had won a cash prize, but they were asked to send “taxes” through Western Union.  Or people who thought they were sending money to help a friend or relative in an emergency, but it was a scam. Usually people who send money to a scammer via money transfers find it impossible to get their money back, so this is a remarkable case. The claims process is NOT open yet.  But it will be soon. If you already reported your loss to Western Union, the company should have your information in its database, which will help with the refund process. Western Union’s contact information is available on our site. 

We’ve profiled five different settlements where people can get refunds.  How many more open cases are there and how do people find out about them so they can see if they’re eligible?

We currently have more than 50 open refund cases, and we add new cases every month. Just go to FTC.gov/refunds for a list of open cases where funds are available.  In addition, EACH case has a separate phone number for people to inquire.

What do people have to do to prove they were wronged by the company and are eligible for a refund?

Most of the time we do NOT ask for proof of purchase because we have the company’s records and know who bought the product.   If we don’t have that, we might ask things like how much you paid and where you bought the product, because we know which retailers really did sell it, so that is one way of verifying claims.  When people apply for a refund in one of our programs, they must sign a statement swearing that they are telling the truth.  And we are able to spot shady claims other ways, too.  By the way, the FTC will NEVER ask you for money to claim your refund. Unfortunately, scammers are promising refunds for a fee—or in exchange for your bank account information—to take advantage of people. Don’t pay for the promise of a refund!

I’d like you to describe one final case, because it’s the biggest of all.  This is the Volkswagen case, where the automaker was caught fudging the emissions for its diesel vehicles.  How big was this settlement and what’s different about how the money’s being distributed?  

There are actually two related Volkswagen settlements: one for 2.0 liter cars and one for 3.0 liter cars. Combined, these two settlements are worth over $11 billion dollars!  And it’s a little different because VW is administering the program themselves. They are offering to buyback people’s cars for more than the full value of the vehicle! It’s a complicated settlement—for example, people who leased their car have different options than people who purchased their car. All the details are at FTC.gov/refunds including a chart that can help you determine what your refund will be. If you click on the link to the VW settlement page, you can enter your VIN number and find out how much money you are eligible for. $35,000 is not unusual.  It depends largely on what car you bought and how old it is. The low end of the buyback amount is $12,500 and the high end is $44,000. It’s a massive settlement.

After hearing about all of these cases and all of this money, people are going to want to search your site to see if any apply to them.  Why is it important that they do so right away?  

There are deadlines. We spend time searching for the rightful recipients of this refund money, but eventually, we must close the case and move on. If we have funds left over, we send that money back to the US Treasury’s general fund. Once we close a case and send the money to the Treasury, we can’t get it back.  We work really hard to find all the eligible recipients, but we encourage people to check out the site and see if they might be eligible.  The website, again, is  FTC.gov/refunds.

Nicole Vincent Fleming of the Federal Trade Commission, thank you SO much for telling us about this unique form of unclaimed money.  And a big thank you to the Federal Trade Commission for providing additional information for me to share with you. 

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EPISODE 16~ GUEST BLOG: Questions and Answers About The Federal Trade Commission’s Refund Program For Consumers

FTC.gov

Q:

Will I get all my money back? How long will it take? Can I speak to someone about my claim form or check?

A:

Sometimes the FTC is able to get people all their money back. In other cases, we’re not. If that happens, the FTC gives as much money back to each buyer as possible. The exact amount will depend on how much the defendants are able to pay, how much the court orders for refunds, and how many people bought the product.

We send out checks as soon as we can. There are several steps in the process.

Read more on the FTC Refund page. 

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EPISODE 15 ~ TOP TIP: Car Payment: Save Thousands By Keeping Your Car As Long As You Can Stand It

You can save BIG money by keeping your car as long as you can stand it.  Most people turn their cars over every five years, according to auto website Edmunds.com. If we assume you get your first car when you’re 18 and stop driving at age 78, you would own about 12 vehicles during your lifetime. If you keep each vehicle just one year more, you’ll only need 10 vehicles. Keep it 10 years – twice as long as the national average – and you’ll only need 6 vehicles, which will cut your car-buying costs in half.  How much can you save?  Let’s be modest and say you keep your cars long enough that you’ll only need 8 in your lifetime.  And let’s say each car costs $20-thousand dollars.  You will spend just $160-thousand on cars over your lifetime, instead of the $240,000 you would spend if you owned the average of  12 cars.  That’s a savings of $80,000 …plus a lot fewer painful trips to the car lot to do battle with used car salesmen…

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EPISODE 15 ~ MAKE MORE: Instagram Famous: How To Make A Good Living As a Social Media Influencer

Find out what it takes —and what you can make— as a social media influencer.  Yes, if you have thousands of followers —especially Instagram followers— companies will pay you to reach that audience and advertise their brands.  Alicia Chew, a style and food influencer who runs the lifestyle blog Alicia Tenise and has 15,000 followers on Instagram and is giving us her success story. 

Alicia, this is an accidental career for you, right?  How did you get started?

I randomly started a blog in my dorm room. I had interned in NY at Michael Kors the previous summer. I transferred to Virginia Commonwealth University and started a fashion blog to keep connected to the fashion industry. I just started for fun. I never realized I could make money doing it or that I could make it my career.  But now I am celebrating my 6th anniversary of blogging.

In fact, when you graduated, you took a full-time job in marketing, but kept blogging on the side, right?

Yes, I was still blogging and working a full time job for a few years before it was too time consuming to do both. Over time I invested in good photography, telling a story and connecting to the audience. Brands started approaching me and it blew up. I got laid off from my full time job in December 2016. I looked at my finances and realized I was making more off of the blog than the full time job!  So I decided to make it a full time job.

What did your friends and family think of this leap of faith you were making?

I talked to all of my family and friends and especially my mom.  I told my mom if I didn’t make it in 3 months I would get a full time job. My mom totally supported me. She knew I had a talent and passion for it. She did ask me legitimate business questions. Are you going to make this an LLC?   And what will you do for taxes and insurance?  She asked me grown-up adult questions and helped me through those things and all of the accounting and business aspects.

Was there a tense time when you wondered if it was going to work, or did it click right away?

It worked!  Since I was able to start doing this full time, I tripled my income in the first 3 months because I was able to really focus on it without the distraction of a 40 hour work week elsewhere. I really ramped up what I was making and I don’t have plans to go back to a conventional job.

It is working as a full time job. Since I was able to start doing this full time I tripled my income in the first 3 months because I was able to really focus on it without the distraction of a 40 hour work. I really ramped up what I was making.

You’re 27-years-old and you work for yourself.  Will you ever go back to a regular job?

I don’t have plans to go back to a conventional job.  I never would have thought at my age that I would be my own boss and create my own schedule and dictate my day and decide what clients I want to take on or not. It’s the best job I could have ever asked for and it’s the dream job I never knew I could have.

So let’s get specific about what you do as a social media influencer.  First, what are your venues where you reach out to people?

I consider myself a content creator. I am doing whatever I need to do to create content on a multitude of channels. My blog. Social media is a big part of that. I’m creating content and solutions for brands. My blog and Instagram are more curated as a first impression.

I also use Instagram Stories and Snapchat. That is how I show them that I am a real person. I chat with no makeup on and in yoga pants. I want to show that I don’t always have perfect hair and a perfect outfit and perfect makeup. I can be more candid.  I have marble contact paper instead of actual marble. I show people that and they think it is so funny. People get a kick out of the behind the scenes stuff.

So those are your social media “properties.”  Now, describe the 4 ways you make a living through them.

  1. Companies pay a flat fee for a sponsored blog post or Instagram post.  I create visuals and concepts to advertise their product. That brings in the most money.
  2. Affiliate networks. If you see something I wear, I have affiliate links to it and if people click through my post and purchase it, then I get a commission. 
  3. More occasionally I host events – every 2 months or so. I will host and promote an event like a boutique trunk show.
  4. And finally, companies gift me products, which is another form of value.  Although now I only accept gifts if there is no pressure to post anything because that can be a difficult situation.

Give us some examples of companies that have hired you to do sponsored posts and WHAT you did for them.

Banana Republic, Rent the Runway, Pepsi, Brita and Enterprise CarShare, The Ritz Carlton and Visit New Orleans for a sponsored trip to New Orleans.  What I do is curate a photo shoot around the product and show how I incorporate the product in my real life.  I partner with a photographer and do the shoot and that usually inspires the text I write.

Do you try to keep a balance of your own personal posts and the sponsored posts so that your followers don’t get worn out? 

I try not to  have a overwhelming amount of sponsored content.  My goal is to have about 25% sponsored content.

Do you go after brands you like?   Or do they always approach you? 

In the beginning I got my work through media groups.  You enter a bio and social media channels and they match you up with brands that are doing collaborations.   Some other media networks have projects already ready to apply to and you have to make a pitch.  I had to pitch a lot at first, but that has evolved.  If I have a dream brand I will send a thoughtful, curated pitch to them.  But lately I haven’t had as much time to pitch.  I’ve gotten contacted by a lot of different companies.

What happens when it’s not a good fit?  Awkward!

I have had some interesting requests and if I can’t think of an authentic post to go with it, I have to decline it. I have had some weird requests from agriculture departments and oil companies. Why would I talk about that when I do fashion, food and travel?  My readers are female between 25 and 34. They don’t care about agriculture or oil, so I have to stay focused on what my reader wants to read.

Authenticity is crucial, right?

You have to be very careful about sponsored campaigns. Your audience might not respond. You cant appear like you are money hungry. I have to make sure whoever I partner with is true to my brand and won’t throw my readers off.

What is the most fun part of your job?

There’s a lot of travel I have been exposed to because of this career path. I do some travel blogging.  I work with tourism boards and have been able to do domestic travel. I just went to Phoenix, New Orleans and Memphis and NC. I’m excited to explore these places in America.  I am an only child. My mom is a single parent. There was only so much we could do when I was a kid.

What is the hardest part of the job?

Most of my day isn’t glamorous. I have to look at brands, communicate professionally, convince brands they should pay me, read contracts.  When people look at what I do it all looks glamorous but I do my own accounting and book keeping a lot of business stuff. I am self employed and pay taxes on everything I earn so I have to keep track of my expenses and income. You have to be able to do that too.

How do you decide how much to charge?

I have a figure in my head I want to make a month. I can’t lowball myself and I have to go for the highest payment that I possible can. Some companies will say no, but some will say yes. With what I do it’s better to take less sponsors at a higher rate than taking lots at lower rates and creating all that work for myself without as much money.  I can negotiate a lot better deals.

I know you don’t like to say how much you make —because you’re classy that way —but tell us, in general, how much successful social media influencers can make.

There are influencers who make six and seven figures a year. I make significantly more than I did in my job in marketing. What I do makes me pretty comfortable. But I get paid on a project by project basis. Sometimes five times a week or every two weeks.

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People listening are going to be intrigued, so I want to share some of your best advice for being a successful social media influencer.  First, you say figure out what makes you different.  Explain.

When I show my personality I knew that was what differentiated me. People see me as a person rather than someone always in perfect clothes. I am personable. My readers will email and feel they can talk with me. It’s like I’m their friend. They feel they can shoot me an email or message. Making yourself seem like a person and not a persona takes your brand to the next level.

Second, you say, you need to be a good written and visual communicator.

I am a writer and went to school for communication. Need strong writing skills and to tell a story.  I am also a photographer and use a professional grade camera. If it is a shot of me I hire a photographer but I take other pictures myself.

Third: know how to read contracts.

You have to know how to read contracts. Brands will try to slip things in, so you have to really understand what you are agreeing to. A lawyer helped me write a contract that works for me and she helped me know what to look out for in a blog contract to see if something is there that wouldn’t be in my favor.

Fourth tip: learn to save money.

Have to learn to save because it’s an inconsistent pay schedule. There are times when I can splurge and other times when I have to budget because it’s an inconsistent pay schedule.  Not having a paycheck every 2 weeks has made me way more savvy financially than in the past.

And finally, you say, do it for love not money.

My biggest piece of advice is do if because you love it. Don’t do it thinking you will make a lot of money overnight. I didn’t make a dime the first year and a half I blogged but I loved what I did and loved working on my craft.

Alicia Tenise Chew, thank you so much for the great content. And, lucky us, Alicia has written a guest blog post with advice for you on how to turn your social media brand into a full time job.

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