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5 income streams you can add to your website right now

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Start earning from your online presence

Your website can be more than just an online brochure. Whether you’re a content creator, influencer, or small business owner, there are countless ways to turn your digital presence into revenue.

The best part? Many of the best website builders now come with built-in monetization tools that make earning money easier than ever.

We’re talking about everything from advertising revenue to selling products, memberships, and educational content. You don’t need advanced technical skills or a massive audience to get started. With the right approach, you can create multiple income streams that work together to build a sustainable online business.

How can I make money through my website?

Man watching video on his laptop in office(Image credit: Shutterstock / insta_photos)

 

Think of your website as online real estate. Just like physical property, the value comes from how you use it. Influencers, professionals, and business owners all leverage their websites to create revenue channels that work around the clock.

#2 Print-on-demand services

screenshot of Hostinger website builder Printful plugin(Image credit: Hostinger)

 

Want to sell merchandise without holding inventory? Print-on-demand services let you create custom products that are only manufactured after someone orders them. This eliminates upfront costs and storage headaches while giving you access to hundreds of product options.

Hostinger recently partnered with Printful to offer print-on-demand integration, giving users access to over 461 customizable products. The setup is remarkably simple: create your designs using Printful’s free Design Maker, add them to your Hostinger store, and Printful handles everything from printing to shipping when orders come in. You set your own prices and keep the profit margin between the base cost and what you charge customers.

#3 Memberships and subscriptions

Recurring revenue is the holy grail of online business. By offering membership or subscription access to premium content, you create a predictable income that compounds over time. This model works particularly well for content creators, coaches, and industry experts who can provide ongoing value to their audience.

WordPress users can leverage plugins like MemberPress to create membership sites with subscription management, paywalls, and course functionality, with plans starting at $399 per year for the Launch plan. For writers and newsletter creators, Substack offers a free platform that takes a 10% commission on paid subscriptions plus Stripe processing fees (approximately 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction). Medium’s Partner Program provides another option for content-focused creators looking to monetize their writing through reader engagement.

#4 Online commerce

A hand holding a phone with the Shopify logo(Image credit: Shutterstock / Piotr Swat)

 

If you’re ready to sell physical or digital products, dedicated ecommerce platforms offer the most robust feature sets. Shopify leads the pack with powerful tools for inventory management, order processing, and multi-channel selling. It’s the choice for serious online retailers who need scalability and advanced features.

For those seeking a more budget-friendly alternative, Hostinger’s Ecommerce Website Builder offers a complete solution starting at $2.99/month on the Business plan. It supports up to 500-600 products with features like inventory management, secure payments, and shipping tools — great for small stores. The platform includes an AI store builder that can generate your entire site in minutes, plus drag-and-drop customization tools for fine-tuning.

#5 Courses, tutorials, and education programs

Educational content commands premium pricing because it delivers transformation. If you have expertise in your field, creating and selling online courses can become a substantial revenue stream. The e-learning market continues its explosive growth, with more people than ever willing to pay for quality instruction.

Dedicated platforms like Teachable and Podia provide course-hosting tools with features like video lessons, quizzes, student progress tracking, and certificates. Both platforms offer unlimited courses and students on their paid plans, making them scalable as your teaching business grows. For those already using Wix, the platform’s Online Programs tool integrates course creation directly into your existing website, eliminating the need for separate software.

Where should I begin?

Now that you know the options, here’s your action plan for getting started:

  1. Start by picking your revenue stream. Do you want to teach online courses? Sell physical goods? Work with sponsors and display ads? Choose one or two methods that align with your strengths and audience. Don’t try to implement everything at once.
  2. Now pick a website builder. Your chosen monetization strategy should guide this decision. Need robust e-commerce? Consider Shopify or Hostinger’s Business plan. Focused on content and memberships? Look at WordPress with MemberPress or platforms like Substack.
  3. Design your content and landing pages. Create compelling pages that clearly communicate your value proposition. Whether you’re selling products, courses, or premium content, your pages need to convert visitors into customers.
  4. Set up a payment integration. PayPal and Stripe are the most common payment processors, offering secure transactions and support in most countries. Most modern website builders include these integrations by default, making setup straightforward.
  5. Promote your business. Use your existing social media following to drive initial traffic. Join niche communities related to your industry, cross-promote with peers in your space, and invest time in SEO and GEO optimization. Build an email list from day one, it’s your most valuable marketing asset.

Feature image credit: Glenn Carstens-Peters / Unsplash

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Ritoban Mukherjee is a tech and innovations journalist from West Bengal, India. These days, most of his work revolves around B2B software, such as AI website builders, VoIP platforms, and CRMs, among other things. He has also been published on Tom’s Guide, Creative Bloq, IT Pro, Gizmodo, Quartz, and Mental Floss.

Sourced from techradar.pro

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For retail brands, TikTok Shop’s rise brings viral success — and disruption

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Executives at NRF highlighted major sales wins while noting the social commerce feature is turning some retail fundamentals on their head.

NEW YORK — TikTok has drawn droves of marketers for its ability to turn products of all stripes, from Stanley tumblers to cranberry juice, into viral sensations. Since the social platform launched its Shop e-commerce marketplace in the U.S. a little over two years ago, brands have gotten better at quantifying just how much video crazes are translating into sales. TikTok Shop’s stature is growing enough to influence how retailers think about product mix, demand forecasting and content strategy, according to speakers at the National Retail Federation’s Big Show.

“It’s a place for us to learn what’s working versus not,” said Richard Cox, chief merchandising officer of the Gen Z-focused retailer Pacsun, during a Monday panel at the trade conference.

At the same time, Shop has gotten more crowded and competitive. It acts as a “bonafide retailer,” one NRF speaker said, hosting its own Prime Day-like deals bonanzas called Super Brand Days. Shop is robust enough at this point that TikTok no longer offers brands some of the incentives it once did to use the feature. A fresh level of maturity comes as the retail industry is beset by challenges related to tariffs and pullbacks in discretionary spending.

“Our main operational challenge is around profitability,” said Jenna Manula Linares, vice president of digital marketing at Tarte Cosmetics, during the panel. “As their platform has scaled, they started pulling back in what they’d been funding for us.

“We also know that the TikTok customer is value-driven,” added Linares. “So now we are at this intersection where we’re trying to find the balance between how much value [we can] offer a customer while still being conscious of our bottom line.”

Sales follow virality

TikTok Shop increasingly seems like one of the first major success stories for social commerce in the U.S. The marketplace accounted for about one-fifth of the social commerce segment in 2025 and is forecast by eMarketer to exceed $20 billion in sales this year.

Pacsun’s first pop on TikTok Shop came as something of a surprise. Around Black Friday in 2023, a smaller influencer posted a video about the retailer’s Casey jeans, a low-rise, baggy cut of denim. The availability of the item on TikTok Shop dovetailing with a key holiday sales window resulted in 11,000 pairs sold on Black Friday alone, along with a long tail of popularity.

“We’ve sold over 100,000 pairs of that jean. In terms of halo effect, it’s helped our entire denim business,” said Cox.

Other brands on the panel shared similar case studies that speak to how Shop can link buzzy content to business results, sometimes in a chaotic fashion. Last year, Tarte — among the early adopters of Shop — noticed that creators were participating in a strange trend: They would draw under their eyes with a permanent black Sharpie and then cover up the markings with the brand’s CC under-eye color corrector, a testament to the concealer’s efficacy. Tarte has sold nearly 600,000 units of the product on TikTok Shop in the U.S., according to Linares, while noticing stronger demand in international markets through direct-to-consumer channels.

That said, Shop requires a different approach than a traditional DTC or e-commerce site. Tarte promotes a smaller assortment on Shop because the brand “can’t control the algorithm,” Linares explained. Speakers noted that TikTok’s unpredictable nature is disrupting some of the fundamentals of retail, increasing a reliance on social listening, media mix modeling and “analytics horsepower.”

“It kind of turns everything we all know about demand planning on its head,” said Feliz Papich, senior vice president of digital technology, experience and insights at Crocs.

Go with the flow

By that same token, marketers are adjusting some of their brand content to feed the Shop pipeline. Tarte, for instance, has introduced a mascot named Shapey, based on its shape-tape concealer, to attract viewers organically to its profile.

“If you come to our page, you’re actually not going to see a ton of tutorials or before and afters,” said Linares. “We’re doing a lot around humour.”

The discussion also touched on co-creation, the idea of enlisting everyday customers to create content on behalf of a brand. Some retailers may not like relinquishing that degree of control but ultra-polished ads don’t perform as well in TikTok environments, according to Cox. Additionally, high-performing organic content is becoming valuable fodder to convert into paid media or material for other social platforms.

A willingness to roll the dice on such marketing experiments is just one piece of the Wild West mindset needed to succeed on TikTok, an app that is still in the process of figuring out its future in the U.S. following a ban threat.

“TikTok wants to partner with brands that are willing to take smart risks and to move fast. They’re not going to read your legal red lines,” said Linares. “Just say yes and go with the flow.”

Feature image credit: Drew Angerer via Getty Images

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Sourced from RETAIL DIVE

First published on MARKETINGDIVE

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1 Simple Tactic Stops Manipulators Cold, According to a Behaviour Expert

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By MINDA ZETLIN

Try it next time a manipulator pushes your buttons.

Dealing with manipulative people is one of the greatest frustrations in the workplace. Is there a fool proof way to stop manipulative people from getting under your skin? Yes, says Shadé Zahrai, PhD, organizational behaviour expert and author of the new book Big Trust. In an insightful piece at CNBC.com, she lays out her simple method for stopping manipulators cold: Do not engage with them emotionally.

Of course, that’s easy to say, and a lot harder to do. Manipulators excel at twisting your emotions around and making you feel that you need to explain yourself, defend yourself, or get back in their good graces. Your best approach is to keep your mental focus on yourself, and managing your own emotional state, rather than focusing on the manipulator. Here’s how.

1. Know the signs.

If a conversation leaves you feeling defensive, unnerved, or agitated, there’s a good chance you’re dealing with manipulation. Think back over the conversation and ask yourself if some seemingly chance remark or criticism was really a sneaky for a manipulator to get what they wanted.

Of course, not every conversation that leaves you feeling upset is a case of manipulation. But it’s always smart to pause and consider that possibility. Once you recognize manipulative behaviour for what it is, it will lose some of its power to influence you.

2. Never (visibly) lose your cool.

Whatever you’re feeling inside, make sure to appear calm and unfazed on the outside, Zahrai advises. “Research on status dynamics and dominance signalling shows that the least reactive person is often seen as the most powerful,” she writes. It’s a huge advantage if you can stay physically relaxed and neutral in the face of conflict or manipulation. Try to keep a relaxed facial expression as well. Pay attention to the pace and tone of your speech. We often unconsciously speak more quickly or in a higher tone when we’re upset.

Don’t be afraid to take a break and give yourself a breather. Tell the manipulator you need to use the rest room or answer a call. Or tell them that their comment or question deserves some thought and that you will get back to them. Take a quick walk around the block or do some quick calisthenics in your office to vent some of that extra emotional energy. Then, focus on slowing your breathing, especially your exhale. That sends a signal to your body that all is well.

3. Give emotionally neutral responses.

Zahrai recommends giving unemotional responses to manipulators. For example, a simple acknowledgement that you heard what they said, such as “Noted.” Or focus only on facts. Set straightforward but definite boundaries. If the manipulator attempts to draw you into a discussion or argument, give brief, emotionally neutral responses. Refuse to be drawn in. “This is where most people slip,” Zahrai writes. “They explain, defend, justify, and try to be understood. But feeding the emotional layer is exactly what keeps manipulation alive.”

She calls this approach “emotional non-cooperation.” And, she says, it withholds fuel from the manipulator, leaving them no way to feed the emotional fire. From their point of view, this is no fun at all. That’s why, if you practice this approach consistently, you may find that in time, the manipulation stops.

Feature image credit: Photo: Getty Images

By MINDA ZETLIN

AUTHOR OF ‘CAREER SELF-CARE: FIND YOUR HAPPINESS, SUCCESS, AND FULFILLMENT AT WORK’ @MINDAZETLIN

Sourced from Inc.

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I’m an Introvert Who Made 6 Figures Online Without Becoming an Influencer. These 3 Secrets Helped Me Succeed.

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By Megan Spencer,  Edited by Chelsea Brown 

Here are three things you need to make money online as a content creator — without a following.

I did not grow up wanting to be a content creator. I started adulthood in a government job with decent benefits and a deep creative itch I couldn’t scratch. When I became a mom, I wanted to stay home with my kids, but I also needed to contribute financially. That’s when I discovered online side hustles, and eventually, user-generated content, or UGC.

UGC is the kind of short-form video or photo content that everyday people create for brands to use in their ads or marketing. It doesn’t require a following, and it doesn’t live on your personal channels. You’re simply creating content that helps a product make sense to someone else, and brands pay well for that.

At first, I thought I was just reviewing products. It turned out to be the doorway to a new business model — one that helped me pay off over $60,000 in debt and eventually earn six figures a year. And here’s the thing most people don’t understand: I did it without going viral, without building a personal brand and without chasing likes.

The UGC space is flooded with advice that centres on visibility. Grow your platform. Build a niche. Get discovered. But after teaching this model to thousands of others, especially self-labelled introverts, parents and people with no online audience, I can say confidently that followers aren’t what get you paid. Here are three of the top things that do.

1. You need a skill someone will pay for, not necessarily an audience

When people ask me how to start with UGC, their first question is often, “Do I need a following?” I get it. We’ve been conditioned to believe that income comes from visibility. But what brands are actually paying for is content that converts. Can you help them show off a product? Can you tell a story that gets clicks? Can you explain how something works in a way that makes someone want to try it?

That’s the job. And you don’t need an audience to do it; you just need to start creating with intention and learn as you go.

One of the first videos I ever filmed that really took off was a simple product review shot in my kitchen. I didn’t overthink it. No makeup, no special setup, just me talking to the camera. I said, “You don’t have to be an influencer to get paid for videos,” and apparently, a lot of people needed to hear that, because the views took off fast. What mattered wasn’t the editing or aesthetic; it was that the message hit home. You don’t need a following. You need proof you can sell.

A lot of new creators assume they have to start with perfect gear. I get it — there’s pressure to look a certain way or film like a pro. And yes, having decent lighting and clean audio helps. But gear isn’t what gets you paid. What gets you paid is understanding how to communicate something clearly on camera: how to hold someone’s attention, how to make them feel understood, how to guide them to a decision. That’s the actual skill brands are looking for.

2. You need a community

The fastest way to stall out is to do this alone. I see it all the time. People get excited, buy a tripod, try to recreate a trending video and then quit after two posts because no one clapped for them.

You don’t need cheerleaders. You need people in the trenches with you.

When I started my Facebook group for introverts, I wasn’t trying to build a brand or start a funnel. I just wanted to connect with other people like me, creators who were figuring it out one video at a time and didn’t want to feel awkward asking beginner questions in public. I had spent so many late nights Googling things like “best mic for voiceovers under $30” or “how to make a product not look dusty on camera,” and I kept thinking, Why isn’t there a space where people actually talk about this stuff honestly?

That group started with maybe a dozen of us, and now it’s grown to over 19,000 members sharing wins, setbacks, gear links, script templates, screen recordings, side hustle income updates, etc. — everything you’d want to ask a more experienced friend if you weren’t afraid of sounding clueless.

It’s the kind of feedback, support and in-the-moment ideation that you can’t Google. Being around other creators shortens the learning curve and keeps you from spiralling after one awkward experience.

3. You need a process that works on the days you want to quit

Confidence came later. What helped me early on was staying focused on the task at hand. I had projects to finish, clients to deliver for, and content to figure out. The more I showed up for the work, the less time I spent second-guessing myself.

There’s a lot of talk about visibility in this space. But what matters most is whether the content does its job. Can the viewer understand the product? Can they see how it fits into their life? Can the brand use the video in a campaign without needing to change much? That’s the real measure of value. You’re not being paid to be famous; you’re being paid to solve a business problem.

That mindset shift has made this work sustainable for me. I’m not building a personal brand or trying to become a personality. I’m building systems that allow me to earn steadily while keeping most of my life private. That’s what I want other people to see — that it’s possible to do this work on your own terms.

The Anti-Influencer Economy is for anyone who wants more freedom without the pressure to perform. It’s already working for creators who never thought of themselves as creators.

By Megan Spencer

CEO of Meg the Creator
Entrepreneur Leadership Network® Contributor
Meg The Creator teaches introverts and everyday people how to earn online without being influencers. Her Anti-Influencer Method™ helps students make sustainable income with Amazon onsite reviews, UGC, freelancing, and TikTok Shop. No followers, fame, or burnout needed.

Edited by Chelsea Brown

Sourced from Entrepreneur

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Exactly What To Automate With AI In 2026 For Faster Business Growth

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By Jodie Cook,

You bring on new clients and spend the next day buried in admin. You run experiments and forget to close them. You deliver excellent results and never collect the testimonial. Every task you do manually is a tax on your growth, and you pay it over and over without realizing the compound effect.

Running a social media agency for a decade taught me that the best operators remove themselves from the equation wherever possible. They know their energy is finite and their attention is valuable.

Most founders automate the wrong things. They start with the flashy stuff, the complicated tools and fancy dashboards, while ignoring the repetitive tasks quietly draining their hours. But you need faster, cleaner growth by removing friction from the activities that actually grow your business.

5 Simple Automations That Accelerate Your Business In 2026

Automate your analysis

Running experiments and leaving them open-ended is costing you. You need to know what success looks like before you start, and you need the measurement to happen without your involvement. When you automate the tracking and analysis of your metrics, you remove emotional attachment from the equation. You stop clinging to experiments that should have been killed weeks ago.

Do this with your social media posts, email campaigns, and product offerings. Set the success criteria upfront. Build dashboards that find bottlenecks and flag wins automatically. Or create a CustomGPT that automatically processes data. Human judgment gets clouded by hope. Let the data tell you when to quit and when to double down.

Automate your client onboarding

You shouldn’t embark on a day’s worth of admin tasks every time a new client says yes. It will only slow you down. Make it easy for them to pay, get a receipt, complete an onboarding form, and submit the required information. On your end, have the Google Drive folders, follow-up emails, and team briefings set up without you lifting a finger.

Question everything you currently do manually. There is no reason it couldn’t be an AI agent handling the sequence. All the tools you pay for already have integrations with each other; You’re just not using them. The goal is that you could sign client after client because onboarding takes minutes, not hours. Maybe you’re the founder who has a love-hate relationship with new sales because of what comes next. Build the system once and let it run.

Automate your testimonial collection

Social proof will grow your business fast. Robert Cialdini identified it as one of the six principles of influence, and every successful founder I know has weaponized it. People want to do what people like them have already done. They want to see that you have created success for people in their exact position with their exact challenge.

Identify the marker that shows someone is happy with your service. Then have an email automatically go to them requesting a testimonial. Task someone on your team with screenshotting positive comments and saving them to a dedicated folder. The more automatic you make this, the bigger your bank of social proof becomes. Deploy a tool like Senja to crank it up a level. Use the proof you collect on LinkedIn, your website, and even in your email signature. Make new client acquisition easier.

Automate great content creation

AI-generated content is awful when you use it wrong. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t involve AI in your content production process. Content still matters in marketing, whether long-form articles, videos, or social media visuals. You need to be part of the conversation, but only with relevant, authentic material.

You cannot outproduce everyone manually, so use automations and retain your human genius for the finishing touches. Create projects in your chosen LLM that contain detailed information about your ideal customer, your business, and your tone of voice. Feed it examples of your best work. Build your content creation machine without sacrificing your voice or your standards.

Automate your personal life

The more your life admin runs on autopilot, the more you free up time and energy for your business. Book your next hair appointment before you leave the salon. Automate paying suppliers and contractors. Hire a cleaner so you stop doing work below your hourly rate. Set up recurring subscriptions for gifts and cards for family members. Get your meal prep and groceries delivered on a schedule.

Whatever you can put on a subscription, do it. You shouldn’t be deciding mundane aspects of your life on a day-to-day basis. Those decisions zap energy away from where it’s needed. Every founder who achieves predictable revenue protects their focus by eliminating trivial choices from their days.

Cleaner, Faster Growth Through Smart Automation

Your most expensive resource is your time. Treat it that way. Automate your analysis, onboarding, testimonials, content, and personal life, then pour your reclaimed hours into running experiments that change everything. Shed everything that has been holding you back and make this the best year of your life.

Feature image credit: Getty

By Jodie Cook

Find Jodie Cook on LinkedIn. Visit Jodie’s website.

Sourced from Forbes

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I Thought Business Success Meant Sacrifice — Until I Was Miserable and Alone on Christmas Eve

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By Scott Snider | Edited by Micah Zimmerman 

Here’s how millennials can take their first steps towards a personal plan, and why it matters.

Key Takeaways

  • Personal plans are often the last type of plan a business owner considers, if at all.
  • Millennials value work-life balance, and starting with a personal plan can help you achieve it.
  • Personal planning can contribute to your company’s value by identifying the source of your professional fulfilment.

 

Here’s what I know now: my personal purpose is to create unique opportunities for the people in my life. Whether it’s my colleagues, my friends or especially my family, I get the most fulfilment from watching them experience something new — something that will become a core memory in their lives or careers.

And yet, there I was, a young business owner in a snowy parking lot on Christmas Eve.

As a Millennial, I was doing what I thought I should be doing. Like most in my generation, I earn to spend. That’s part of what resulted in me finding myself ploughing snow in a commercial parking lot on Christmas Eve. With my name on the side of the truck, I didn’t have much of a picture of how much would ever be enough — mostly because my plans were dreams and bigger than I ever thought possible.

And, along with being a Millennial comes following in the footsteps of Baby Boomer parents — parents who preached hard work in your first act would result in personal fulfilment in your last act.

But, as I shifted the truck out of the parking lot, down the lonely streets to a quiet home — a home that just hours earlier held the core memories I longed to create for those I loved — I was not fulfilled.

I was miserable.

Personal planning must come first

People are drawn to entrepreneurship for all sorts of reasons. The only right reasons, however, are the ones that connect with your personal purpose.

That’s why personal planning — not financial, not business — must come first.

And yet, like the drive I selected over and over again as I cleaned off that powdery parking lot, most people are doing it all in reverse.

If you’re reading Entrepreneur, I probably don’t have to tell you that it’s easy to get knee deep in your business operations. In the early stages of a business, you have your hand in everything, and it’s easy to become like the Walking Dead, just slogging along until another problem comes along that only you can solve.

But if you view your business like that, I have a warning: weeks become months, and months become years. Pretty soon you’ll look around and wonder why — even if your business is booming — you’re driven to do this work at all.

What Millennial Entrepreneurs value

We have big plans for our lives. We should honour that, but also keep a close eye on that last word: lives.

That’s because we also value meaningful work, and that meaning will change throughout our lifetime. For W-2 employees, that’s led to a reputation of having many jobs over a lifetime, with 21% of Millennials changing jobs in 2024, according to Gallup.

We’re also ambitious. I’ve seen that in the data my organization—the Exit Planning Institute—collected in the National State of Owner Readiness Report. Our generation led all others in terms of annual revenue over $100M, measuring and tracking business value, and seeking counsel for business operations.

Our generation of entrepreneurs is also less likely to stay with one business for as long as our predecessors. 48% of Millennials plan to transition in the next five years. Part of why, I think, is we’re less likely to want the 60-80 hour work week that our Baby Boomer parents sold us. We want work-life balance—we’ve seen the regret of past generations who didn’t prioritize it.

Your first STEPs to a personal plan

A personal plan shouldn’t get in the way of your current business. In fact, the best personal plans help you evolve your relationship with your business: finding harmony, creating value, and leading to a happier life.

But you cannot start a personal plan without knowing your personal purpose.

Here’s how to take your first steps: the STEP Exercise. Take a weekend and complete it. It covers:

  • Spiritual: What drives your relationship with a higher power or your spirituality?
  • Things: What things in your life help you achieve your personal purpose? What things do you desire?
  • Experiences: What experiences “ring your joy bell?”
  • People: Who are the people most meaningful in your life?

The exercise asks you to think about these four facets of your personal life and helps set out to achieve them, while building a plan to continue working towards the life you want.

Personal plans are still plans

Note that I’m not calling personal plans dreams. Dreams are something for later, something you might never achieve.

It’s time to start living out your personal plan now. Your business will be better for it—you’ll identify areas of your work that aren’t bringing you joy and build infrastructure to deliver those tasks to someone who might be more fulfilled by them than you are.

Once you discover your personal purpose, it’s time to action it like any other business plan. Work on:

  • A 10-year vision: In 10 years, how will your life have moved you closer to your personal purpose, both at work and home?
  • A three-year strategy: What is the first major step towards realizing that vision?
  • A one-year goal: What does measurable progress towards your strategy look like?
  • 90-day sprints: What action items are necessary in the next 90 days to help you reach your one-year goal?

Empowerment is empowerment

There are few leaders more empowered at work than those who feel progress toward their personal goals and get to live out their personal purpose in all facets of their lives.

Personal plans aren’t about activities. Golf gets boring. There are only so many fish to catch. Personal plans are about fulfilment — noticing when you are most happy and asking yourself why the scenario makes you happy. And then: how that fulfilment is scalable to all areas of your life.

These are hard questions, no doubt. And, they’ll take more than a little introspection and a lot of activation, both at home and at work.

Luckily, you don’t have to do this alone. If you’re not sure where to start or need guidance creating a personal plan that fits neatly with your business plans, finding a Certified Exit Planning Advisor can help.

A thriving business starts with a clear sense of personal purpose. This fosters joy and meaningful connections in both your personal and professional journey.

By Scott Snider 

Entrepreneur Leadership Network® Contributor
Scott Snider is the President of the Exit Planning Institute (EPI). Scott is responsible for the strategic direction of EPI. Scott has expanded EPI by providing a transformational educational experience to advisors from all specialties globally.

Edited by Micah Zimmerman 

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Temu Parent Turns Cautious, Flags Slow Growth And Rising Uncertainty

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By Anusuya Lahiri

Temu parent PDD Holdings (NASDAQ:PDD) stock slid on Tuesday after the company reported fiscal third-quarter 2025 results.

Revenue grew 9% year-on-year (Y/Y) to $15.21 billion (108.28 billion Chinese yuan), in line with the analyst consensus estimate.

Revenues from online marketing services and others rose 8% Y/Y to $7.49 billion, and revenues from transaction services grew 10% Y/Y to $7.72 billion.

Total costs of revenues rose 18% Y/Y to $6.58 billion, mainly due to higher fulfilment fees, bandwidth and server costs, and payment processing fees. Total operating expenses rose 3% Y/Y to $5.11 billion.

Adjusted operating profit rose 1.2% Y/Y to $3.80 billion. The adjusted operating margin declined from 26.9% to 25.0% Y/Y.

The Chinese online retailer’s adjusted earnings per ADS of $2.96 (21.08 Chinese yuan) decreased from 18.59 Chinese yuan Y/Y, topping the analyst consensus estimate of $1.99.

PDD Holdings held $59.5 billion in cash and equivalents as of September 30, 2025. The company generated $6.41 billion in operating cash flow during the quarter.

Vice President of Finance Jun Liu said, “In the third quarter, revenues growth continued to moderate, reflecting the ongoing evolution of the competitive landscape and external uncertainties.”

Liu added that increased merchant support and ecosystem investments may result in financial fluctuations from quarter to quarter.

Price Action: PDD stock was trading lower by 3.93% to $123.97 premarket at last check.

By Anusuya Lahiri

Sourced from Benzinga

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How to disable ACR on your TV (and stop the data tracking once and for all)

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By Chris Bayer

Your Samsung, LG, and even Sony TV comes with notable privacy risks. Here’s how to avoid one of the biggest with only a few steps.

ZDNET’s key takeaways

  • Smart TVs track viewing habits with ACR tech.
  • Collected data fuels billions in targeted ads.
  • Turning off ACR protects privacy but takes effort.

Did you know that whenever you turn on your smart TV, you invite an unseen guest to watch it with you?

These days, most mainstream TVs use automatic content recognition (ACR), a type of ad-tracking technology that collects data on everything you watch and sends it to a central database. Manufacturers then use this information to understand your viewing habits and deliver highly targeted ads.

What’s the incentive behind this invasive technology? According to market research firm eMarketer, in 2022, advertisers spent an estimated $18.6 billion on smart TV ads, and these numbers are expected to continue rising.

To understand how ACR works, imagine a constant, real-time Shazam-like service running in the background while your TV is on. It identifies content displayed on your screen, including programs from cable TV boxes, streaming services, or gaming consoles. ACR does this by capturing continuous screenshots and cross-referencing them with a vast database of media content and advertisements.

According to The Markup, ACR can capture and identify up to 7,200 images per hour, or approximately two images every second. This extensive tracking provides valuable insights for marketers and content distributors, as it reveals connections between viewers’ personal information and their preferred content. By “personal information,” I mean email addresses, IP addresses — and even your physical street address.

By understanding what viewers watch and engage with, marketers can make decisions on content recommendations to create bespoke advertising placements. They can also track advertisements that lead to purchases.

But the most disturbing part is the potential for exploitation. In the wrong hands, sensitive information gathered through ACR could be exploited or misused, potentially resulting in security risks or, in extreme cases, identity theft.

Because ACR operates clandestinely in the background, many of us aren’t even aware of its active presence each time we’re enjoying our favourite shows. Opting out of using ACR is complex and sometimes challenging. Navigating through your TV settings might take several dozen clicks to protect your privacy better.

If you, like me, perceive this feature as intrusive or unsettling, there’s a way to disable this data collection feature on your smart TV. It may take some patience, but below is a How-To list for five major brands that demonstrates how to turn off ACR.

  1. Press the Home button on your remote control.
  2. Navigate to the left to access the sidebar menu.
  3. In the sidebar menu, choose the Privacy Choices option.
  4. Select the Terms & Conditions, Privacy Policy option.
  5. Ensure that the checkbox for Viewing Information Services is unchecked. This will turn off ACR and any associated ad targeting.
  6. Select the OK option at the bottom of the screen to confirm your changes.
  1. Press the Home button on your remote control to access the home screen.
  2. Press the Settings button on your remote.
  3. In the settings side menu, select the Settings option.
  4. Navigate to and select the General option.
  5. In the General menu, choose System.
  6. Select Additional Settings.
  7. In Additional Settings, locate and toggle off the Live Plus option.

LG further allows you to limit ad tracking, which can be found in Additional Settings.

  1. In the Additional Settings menu, select Advertisement.
  2. Toggle on the Limit AD Tracking option.

You can also turn off home promotions and content recommendations:

  1. In the Additional Settings menu, select Home Settings.
  2. Uncheck the Home Promotion option.
  3. Uncheck the Content Recommendation option.

 

Feature image credit: Kerry Wan/ZDNET

By Chris Bayer

Sourced from ZDNet

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Your phone is sharing data without your knowledge – how to stop it ASAP

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 By Lance Whitney

Even when it’s idle, your smartphone is transmitting certain information to the device manufacturer, says NordVPN. Here’s why you might want to limit some of this data.

ZDNET’s key takeaways

  • Your phone may be sharing data without your awareness.
  • Certain data sharing is necessary, but some can affect your privacy.
  • Review and block any unnecessary app permissions and data access.

You may think that your smartphone falls asleep and remains inactive during the night when you’re in bed and not using it for hours. But that’s not the case. Your phone takes advantage of this downtime to share bits of data with the device’s manufacturer and other parties. And that could be both good and bad, according to NordVPN.

Much of this information needs to be sent to the manufacturer to keep your device up to date and functioning properly. With that goal in mind, your phone might share any of the following tidbits:

  • Device identifiers such as IMEI numbers, hardware serial numbers, and SIM details
  • Telemetry data about the device’s system status or health
  • Service checks for push notifications and operating system updates
  • Crash logs or diagnostic analytics
  • The connectivity state, such as Wi-Fi vs. mobile
  • Content updates, including news, social feeds, and synced emails

“The above are legitimate reasons for idle data transmissions,” NordVPN CTO Marijus Briedis said in a news release. “It’s needed for system health reporting, operating system update availability checks, network and connectivity management, and content synchronization for email and messages.”

But then there’s other shared data not considered essential that could infringe on your privacy. These can include any of the following:

  • Persistent identifiers. Device IDs and advertising IDs for mobile apps can be transmitted even though they aren’t needed to keep your phone operating. Instead, such IDs allow companies and advertisers to track and link your activity across their apps and services. Armed with this information, these parties can build behavioural profiles and track you even when you’re not using an app.
  • Location-related signals. Even if precise GPS is disabled, your phone could still share general location data, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth identifiers, and local network data. These signals can enable device makers and others to detect your overall movements and locations.
  • Background analytics and diagnostics. Your phone could be sharing analytics and telemetry data even when you’re not using it. With these analytics, a third party can learn how and when you use an app, determine when specific system events occur, and even find certain behavioural patterns.

Whether sent to your device maker or to advertisers and other third parties, certain data is being shared without your knowledge or permission. The ultimate goal is to build a profile based on your actions and activities, allowing companies to target you with more relevant, but often intrusive, advertising.

“From a cybersecurity standpoint, unnecessary background data sharing is not just a privacy issue — it’s a risk multiplier,” Briedis added. “Each identifier or telemetry signal adds another piece to a much larger puzzle. When combined, these data points can reveal sensitive behavioural patterns and expose users to tracking, profiling, or interception, often without their knowledge.”

Tips for protecting your privacy

Though you can’t block all types of data from being shared, nor should you, you can limit the exposure of certain information that threatens your privacy. Toward that end, Briedis offers the following tips:

  1. Review any unnecessary permissions granted to your apps. Pay attention to any apps that track your location, scoop up background data, have access to the microphone or camera, or can view your photo library.
  2. Review background app refreshes. Most apps don’t need background refreshes, so you’ll want to manage this setting. To do that on an iPhone, go to Settings, select General, and then tap Background App Refresh. On an Android device, head to Settings, select Apps, and then open each app. Select the setting for Permission to view any existing ones. Tap a specific permission to disable it.
  3. Restrict cloud backups. Turn off auto-sync for any data you don’t need backed up from your device. Alternatively, make sure your cloud-based backups are secured with a password.
  4. Disable personalized ads. To limit tracking for advertising purposes, turn off the option for personalized ads on your device. On an iPhone, go to Settings, select Privacy & Security, tap Apple Advertising, and then turn off the switch for Personalized Ads. On Android, go to Settings, select Security & Privacy, tap Privacy Control, and then select Ads. From there, you can customize the ad topics you see and reset or delete your advertising ID.
  5. Use a VPN. Consider using a VPN on your mobile device. Beyond protecting you from websites that aim to track you, such a tool can also reduce the amount of profiling performed by advertisers.

Feature image credit: Elyse Betters Picaro / ZDNET

By Lance Whitney

Sourced from ZD Net

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Google’s update for Veo 3.1 lets users create vertical videos through reference images

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By Ivan Mehta

Google updated its Veo 3.1 AI video-generation model with the ability to create native vertical videos for social platforms using reference images. The changes will also make the videos generated from reference images more expressive and dynamic.

When producing AI-generated videos for YouTube Shorts or other platforms like Instagram or TikTok, Veo users can now natively choose the 9:16 vertical format to avoid any cropping. Google is also adding the feature directly to the YouTube Shorts and the YouTube Create app.

Google first released Veo 3.1 in October 2025 with improved audio output and more granular editing controls compared to previous versions.

When you provide reference images, Veo 3.1 now generates videos with better character expressions and movements, even if your prompts are shorter. Google said the update also improves character, object, and background consistency. What’s more, users can blend various characters, backgrounds, objects, and textures to create a cohesive output.

Users can access these features directly in the Gemini app. Professional users can access them through Google’s video editor Flow, the Gemini API, Vertex AI, and Google Vids.

The new update also brings an improved upscaling feature to 1080p and 4K resolutions, which is available on Flow, Gemini API, and Vertex AI in Google Cloud.

Apps, Gemini app, Google,In Brief,Veo,YouTube

Feature image credit: Google

By Ivan Mehta

Sourced from TechCrunch

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