EVERY TIME SYSTEMS BEATS EFFORT!

In business and in life, systems beat effort every time.
Most entrepreneurs confuse effort, activity, and motion with progress.
The key to making money, building a business and
satisfying your customers is NOT frantic motion, but a few
simple things done well.
Many of us have observed that the key to keeping our promises
is to make fewer of them. In business, the same
principle applies.
Well-run businesses rarely scramble or improvise. They
have systems and plans for creating great products and
delivering them at a fair price. Great companies
understand their customers, sometimes even better than the
customers know themselves! World-class companies do a few
things, do them extremely well, and generate profits from
their ability to impress (and keep!) their customers.
New or young entrepreneurs get caught by the lure of the
"next big thing". They are impressed with the innovation and
can't wait to expand or grow, and they forget the basics of
serving customers and developing life-long partnerships.
Take time to get organized. Set up automatic tracking and
record-keeping systems. Stay in touch with your best
customers and ask them for feedback about your company.
Sam Walton used to say that his best ideas came from
talking with stock-boys, check-out clerks and people on the
loading docks. In Tom Peter's phrase, he "managed by
walking around".
We can learn from that. Slow down and achieve more.
Simplify. Focus. Do one thing, do it better than anyone
in the world, and your fortune is assured.

RELEVANCE IN BUSINESS

Here’s a big truth in business.

If you’re not relevant… nobody will give you the time of day.

Here’s why - people care about themselves and they have short attention spans.

That means a few things -

1. You need to know and understand your ideal client really well. Know what’s important to them if you want to catch their attention.
2. Spend time where your clients spend time. And these days social media platforms are a fantastic place to make connections, share resources, and build your authority in your industry.
3. Stay top of mind. People are bombarded with so much stuff on social media - ads, articles, videos, that they may see your post once… but unless they see you repeatedly, they’ll forget about you.

Being relevant doesn’t just happen. It takes effort, planning, and consistency.

STEPS TO LEADING A GREAT TEAM

Studies have shown that almost 40% of employees say that working with a great team is their primary reason for staying. So how can you make sure you're leading a collaborative team? Think back to a high-pressure situation your team went through - did they stick together, or did they focus on themselves? However your team responded, there are four steps you can take to create team collaboration and accountability:

1. Define Your Purpose

In order to have an accountable team, each team member must know their individual purpose and the goal of the team as a whole. Have you defined your purpose for the team? Take action: ask your team to write down what they think the team is accountable for and see how closely the answers match. Depending on their answers, you may have to take additional steps to get everyone on the same page.

2. Track Team Progress

In order to lead a collaborative team, each team member must have a measurable way to track their progress. This will enable them to see how they're progressing towards their goals, allow them to pivot based on project milestone results and give the team a chance to celebrate their successes throughout the project. Take action: Discuss how you’re tracking progress with your team and find a way to make a visible progress tracker (i.e. whiteboard, poster, etc.) that everyone can see and update.

3. Create a Shared Fate

In order to go from an individual to a team mindset, the team must have a shared fate; meaning, whatever happens to the individual happens to everyone. Unless they have a real and meaningful share fate, the team will fracture under pressure – worrying about themselves instead of the group's success. To create this mindset as a leader, you should model the behavior you're hoping to inspire and reward successful collaborative results more than individual performance. Take action: write down a list of behaviors you want to see in your team. Keep track of your own behavior for a week, writing down whether or not you’re emulating those behaviors as well.

4. Work Through Real Issues Together

How important is open and honest communication in the workplace? Research has shown that 99% of employees prefer a workplace where people identify and discuss issues truthfully and effectively. In addition, studies showed that 33% of workers said a lack of open, honest communication has the most negative impact on employee morale.

In order to motivate a team and make it safe for them to process real issues together, there needs to be a strong sense of shared fate and high levels of trust. The first part of this means that the team's level of decision-making authority needs to be clearly defined. The second part requires setting clear performance expectations so that any gaps in performance can be identified. This is crucial because giving honest feedback requires understanding what is expected and identifying what is getting in the way of success. Take action: set-up time each week for open and honest feedback with your team.

TEN REASONS WHY PEOPLE FAIL

1. Taking Action Without Planning 

When it comes to your goals and future, impulsiveness is the mother of regret. Considerable thought must be given to the ends as well as the means of your strategy. 

 

2. Planning Without Taking Action 

Endless preparation is worse than action without planning. Accept that things will never be perfect. Questions will forever exist. Plan well and launch! 

 

3. Unrealistic Timeframes and Expectations 

Life is a process, not an event. Nothing great was ever built easily.
Exercise wisdom and learn to be patient. Unfortunately, most things in life take longer and cost more than the best-laid plans anticipate. 

 

4. Reasons "Why" Are Unclear 

Why you want to achieve a goal is more important than the goal itself.
Before taking action on anything it is imperative that you ask yourself
this key question: "Why do I want to achieve this goal?" 

 

5. Denial of Reality 

It's far easier to deny reality than it is to accept it. And far too many people
take the easy way. Success is information dependent when we deny reality for whatever reason, we devalue the integrity of our information, thus ensuring failure. 

 

6. Conflicting Values 

When we have not clarified our reasons why or defined what success means to us personally, we operate on someone else's definition. When that occurs values are sure to be in conflict and progress is short-circuited. 

 

7. Diffusion of Energy Attempting to do too much is a recipe for mediocrity
. 

Rather than doing an excellent job at a few chosen goals we spread our energies over a vast terrain and diffuse what matters most; time and energy. 

 

8. Lack of Focus Success demands focus. 

It is the hallmark of all truly great people. Your ability to get and
remain focused or lack there of is perhaps the key determinant of your success. 

 

9. Trying To Do It All Alone.

Nobody goes through life alone, we all need the cooperation and assistance of others. Put your pride aside and learn to ask for help when you need it. Learn to leverage and share knowledge for your own well being as well as for others who are dependent upon your cooperation. 

 

10. Fear Of Failure Fear of failure is The "Grand Daddy" of them all. 

Far too many dreams have suffocated and died because of it. Fear resides where knowledge does not exist; the more you know about anything the less intimidated that you feel. Replace your fears with knowledge and watch your performance leap. 

 - by Gary Blair

3 BILLS TO PAY WHEN MAKING MONEY ONLINE

By now, you’ve probably come to realize that “adulting” comes with a whole world of responsibility. Maybe you were prepared for adult responsibility. Maybe you weren’t. Maybe you used your credit cards responsibly, in a fashion that leverages all the dividends, extended warranties, and purchase protection that living on cash cannot provide. Or perhaps you got buried in consumer debt. I don’t know your situation.

What I can tell you is that getting into the business of making money online is very much akin to the experience of growing up and becoming an adult. There are responsibilities. And as great as that time and location freedom might be, they come at the cost of self-accountability. No one is going to hold you responsible for anything but yourself when you choose to go into business for yourself.
Sure, you might know that you need to pay a certain amount of money for domain registration and web hosting, or for online subscriptions and services. But what about these three other “bills” that you may not have even considered if you’ve still got the “employee” mindset?

1. Emergency Savings Fund

Now, this is hardly unique to dot com professionals, but it is especially important when your online business is subject to ebb and flow. You might have an incredible month of affiliate marketing in March, only to have your primary campaign come crashing into oblivion and putting you deep in the read for April. These sorts of things happen and you need to be prepared for them.

I came across an older PBS NewsHour video the other day, and it said that about half of Americans could not absorb an unexpected expense of $400 without borrowing money or selling something. That’s incredible. And we’re talking about middle-class people who otherwise look like they’re doing just fine. About the same could not come up with $2,000 in 30 days if they had to.

When you run your own online business, you need to have a larger savings “buffer” to weather unexpected storms. What if your online income goes to zero for a few months in a row? In addition to saving for retirement, you need to save for potentially many rainy days to come.

2. Income Taxes

There are many things you can easily take for granted once you get used to them. One example is the steady paycheck. If you work on salary, or even if you get paid hourly but you get reasonably consistent hours, you can usually expect to get roughly the same amount of money every two weeks. That can lull you into a state of comfort, which might make adjusting to the #1 tip above a little challenging at first.

But you know what else happens when you’re conventionally employed by a more traditional company? All of those deductions happen automatically at the source, so you mostly never even see them. Your employer will automatically deduct your income tax from each paycheck. But when you’re self-employed, you don’t get a paycheck. You earn sales commissions for your affiliate marketing efforts. You get a payout from Amazon for the ebooks you sell.

And, generally speaking, they’re not going to tax you at the source, because you’re not an employee. What this means is that it is up to you to save enough money to cover the bill when the tax man comes knocking. Yes, you can save a lot of money through valid business and home office expenses, but you’ll still on the hook for income tax and other taxes. And you want to make sure you’ve got enough cash on hand to take care of those bills.

3. Reinvest Into Your Business

All too many online entrepreneurs forget about this last point. They might think that they’re being prudent and savvy by avoiding spending any “unnecessary” money on their business. But the truth is that saving money actually costs you more money if you’re not careful. If you want to keep your business moving forward, if you want to keep growing it, you have to be willing to invest in it.

Not all of these investments are going to pay off, and that’s okay. I’ve thrown a few hundred dollars into camera gear because I felt like I wanted to up my YouTube game. I’ve purchased several books to read because I felt like I could apply those lessons to my blogging and online business. When you buy new equipment or take relevant courses, you’re not just spending money; you’re investing in your future.

And you need to set aside a certain amount of your earnings for exactly this purpose, just as you need to save for an emergency fund and for your tax liability. And remember that, as corny as it may sound, you need to pay yourself first.

ACCELERATE YOUR ABILITIES

In today’s fast-paced life, the wins usually go to those with exceptional skills and abilities. The old quote is true, “The race is not always won by the swift and the strong, but that is the way to bet.”
With this in mind, and with your desire to become increasingly successful, here are some ways to accelerate your abilities, thus enabling you to achieve greater and greater things.
Become dissatisfied with your current state.
Growth for growth’s sake is good. Those who will achieve much are those who say to themselves, “I want to grow. I want to be better. And I am willing to do what it takes to get there. This current state is not enough!” This dissatisfaction will create for you an insatiable drive to do what it takes to get your abilities to the next level.
Visualize the benefits of increased abilities.
Put them at the forefront of your mind. This will saturate your mind with the motivation that it will take for you to do what it takes to increase your abilities. What good will come out of my increased ability? How will I be better off as well as the others around me? The answers to these questions act as the carrot before the horse, moving you forward.
Understand your weaknesses.
If you want to improve, one of the best ways is to start with some areas that you aren’t particularly good at. This is the “shoring up method.” Sometimes it is easier to improve something you aren’t good at that something you are. And the gains will still look great for your overall situation! Take some time to consider what areas you are weakest in and focus on them for a while. The results will obviously be much more pronounced than getting better at something you have already somewhat mastered.
Attempt greater levels of what you are already good at.
Another tact to take would be to stretch yourself in an area that you already have some skill and ability. What areas do you excel in? Now understand that when you leave the weaker areas weak and make extraordinary gains in one area, then you will be moving more toward “specialist” rather than “generalist.” That is okay but needs to fit in with your overall goals.
Commit time each day to improve.
Steady improvement is the way to go. In fact, you may not see improvement for days or weeks. You may feel like you are failing each time. But alas, eventually you will get it and your skill will increase to the next level. The key is a day in, day out, spending time working on improving. Even five minutes a day equals a half-hour a week, 2 hours a month. That adds up! Remember, Practice, practice, practice.
Seek out and spend time with someone who has a greater ability than you.
One of the best things to do to increase your ability is to hang out with people who are already more skilled than you. Watching, them, studying them, interacting with them, even competing with them will make you better. As in sports, to improve, you play with people better than you, not worse. They will raise you to a new level. Who around you can you get involved with who will help you with your ability?
Take a class or hire a coach.
Go to school, my friend. Take a course at a local college or vocational institute. Take a class online. Hire one of the many coaches available today. Pick a specific skill you would like to improve upon and find someone who is a specialist in that area. At the very least, pick up some audio or videotapes to help you grow.
Be the tortoise, not the hare.
Slow but sure. Take your time, do it right. Keep going in the right direction. Learn your craft correctly. Don’t give up quality for speed. The whole idea of acceleration is this way: Slow start, work up to high speeds, go the distance. Luckily life isn’t a sprint but a marathon!
I hope these ideas help you as you commit to accelerating your abilities!

SECRETS TO MANAGING DISTRACTION FOREVER

In a world that is saturated with social media and lots of interruptions, we struggle to focus on what’s in front of us. With so many voices vying for attention, it’s difficult to know what is worthy of our time and we end up tuning it all out. In a study, it is found out that, office distractions consume over two hours on average every day, but being distracted isn’t the worst part and we’re not too good to going back to work after being distracted for a long time. After an interruption, it takes almost 25 minutes to get back on track with our work.

 

Our ability to stay focused is more than just a worthwhile thing to be cultivated, it's a critical factor in our success or failure which is in turn crucial for our personal development. Getting things done is imperative, and that’s why the focus is the key to getting things done.

Here are 7 tips to help you stay focused by managing distraction, drawing healthy boundaries, and eliminating procrastination:

 

1. Clear Physical and Mental Clutter:

 

Maintaining a clean organized desk can reduce stress levels and make you surfing through the day engaged and motivated to do your tasks. Apart from physical clutter, running yourself with mental clutter, especially those thoughts that affect your focus, can significantly elevate your performance. A cluttered environment reduces the ability to focus and process the information in a proper way. Spend a little time each day to clean and maintain your desk and create a neat environment needed for focused work

 

2. Create a To-Do List:

 

When you break your works into parts, you can tackle each task one by one easily and motivate yourself to finish everything on time, as the feeling of accomplishment comes with success in doing your tasks. Always try to avoid multitasking. It not only slowing down your thought process, but it also makes you away from being fully engaged in one task at a time, which makes you more prone to commit mistakes.

 

This leads to leaving out stressful but important assignments in exchange for mini-tasks that are relatively easy to finish, but not important.

 

3. Have Regular-Timed Breaks:

 

Breaks can be refreshing and help you stay focused during a hectic day. Taking a break from work like taking a walk, talking to a co-worker, or reading a book or novel, improve productivity and help achieve more focus. Set a timer to go off after every hour or two of work, which signals that you should take a break. Knowing the best times to work is the most important thing to check distraction

 

4. Become an early bird:

 

This is a simple thing, but rewarding and helps in your personal development. Start your day an hour before everyone else. Use that time to organize the day and start your workday before there are any distractions.

 

5. Music:

 

When everything around you is disturbing, put on your headphones and listen to soothing music to stay focused.

 

6. Go offline:

Some of the biggest sources of distraction are email, social media, and cell phones. If you want to be focused, take yourself offline until you've finished work.

 

7. Limit Your Caffeine Intake:

When we’re feeling sleepy or sluggish, we often have a cup of coffee, but too much caffeine can be unhealthy. If you need an extra boost to work on a sleepy afternoon, try other alternatives like a protein bar, a healthy piece of fruit, nuts or tea.

 

The distractions that surround you aren't going anywhere, so learning to overcome them is one of the best things to avoid them.

- by Niti Sharma

 

GROW YOUR AUDIENCE PRE-LAUNCH

Marketing plans for businesses usually start with the assumption that the owner has a healthy lead list and a thriving website. What happens if you don’t meet these commonly assumed standards? Chances are, you’re going to end up reading through a list of tips that don’t apply to your brand.

We want to shift the perspective for new business owners just like you. Today we are going to look at five tips you can start using today to grow your audience pre-launch. The topics include:
1.Creating customer personas
2.Developing a “Coming Soon” page
3.Writing guest posts and working with influencers
4.Engaging with consumers on social media

Let’s dive in!Before you can build your audience, you have to understand who you’re targeting. You have to deliver marketing material and products to consumers that understand the problem you hope to solve, and are currently looking for a solution to the problem, as mentioned earlier. 

Identify Your Target Audience

Let’s say you plan on starting an eCommerce storefront that sells computer parts. Do you think you would target consumers who generally don’t use computers, and instead rely solely on their smart device? The answer is no. You want to find people that have an interest in building computers and are looking for an affordable, high-quality parts vendor.

There are multiple ways you can create customer personas that represent your target audience. In essence, a customer persona sheet is a chart that identifies the goals, pain points, and personality traits of your target audience. Below is an example of a customer sheet for a technology-themed business. 

You can find information out about your audience by searching social media groups within your niche. Read the posts and comments from the general audience, and you’ll learn more about what they expect from products or services in your industry.

Additionally, you can add Google Analytics to WordPress and view the traffic of your “coming soon” page and learn more about your target audience using on-site figures. We are going to dive into coming soon pages and how they can help grow your audience

Create a Coming Soon Page

A coming soon page is a great way to grow your audience before your site officially launches. Business owners and bloggers using these types of early access pages to inform curious customers, grow their lead list and improve their SEO ranking pre-launch.

The sooner your site is online and indexed, even if it’s just a coming soon page, the better chance you have of getting recognized and rising in rank.

Additionally, you can use this opportunity to ask consumers that land on your page to sign up for your email list for future updates. When you use this tactic to grow your business, you’ll see that most industries have a built-in audience, you have to create products that appeal to the correct audience.

Luckily, creating a coming soon page is simple when you use a WordPress plugin like SeedProd. SeedProd is known as one of the best tools for small business owners who want to grow their audience pre-launch.

You can create customized pages with information your target audience would find relevant, such as launch day and initial products. Here’s a sample coming soon page that is bound to draw in a broad audience before launch day.

Engage with Users on Social Media

If you want to build a large following, you have to show the community that you’re willing to talk. One of the best ways to personally reach out to users pre-launch is with your social media channels. At this time, you probably don’t have a large following.

However, the more you are willing to post thoughtful discussion topics, polls, and respond to consumers that ask questions, the more likely people will engage with your brand once you go live.

You should consider hosting a giveaway or caption contest if you want to get people involved early in the development cycle. There’s nothing like a prize to get people engaged with your business.

There are plenty of good prizes to give away, but think carefully about your decision before you launch your first contest. Prizes like Amazon gift cards are likely to cause a surge in your traffic and followers, which is excellent, but this will not result in long-term engagement. People will likely enter your contest because they are interested in free Amazon cash, not your product or service.

If you want to build your audience early with a contest, offer something that will help your target audience. Let’s revisit the example we used earlier. The owner of a computer parts website would likely create a contest where the winner gets a new graphics card. The number of participants will drop, but the leads who entered are genuinely interested in what you’re offering.

Work with Influencers

Influencers are internet personalities that are wildly popular on channels like YouTube or Instagram, as well as private blogs. Working with these individuals is a great way to expose your brand to a broad audience before your site goes live.

There are two ways to work with influencers this early in development. First, you could offer to write guest posts for blogs within your niche. In your author bio, you can include a link to your coming soon page and potential home page.

Finding partners willing to accept your guest posts is no easy feat. Most publications and online influencers have strict rules and regulations to follow, especially as it pertains to the type of content you’re submitting. Make sure that you’re always offering content that provides valuable information to readers, and establishes you as an authority in your industry.

You could also work with YouTube or Instagram influencers by sponsoring one of their videos. Allow the internet personalities to mention your business, what you hope to solve, and your website. Consumers viewing this content will see your site, and end up on your home page.

Conclusion

There are plenty of ways to grow your audience before you launch your website. The most important lesson you should take away from this piece is your target audience is responsible for the success of your business. You have to work hard to change their lives positively and solve a problem that no one else has adequately addressed.

As your business grows, you’ll likely create new products or features. As long as you are keeping an eye on your target audience through engagement and analytic examination, you’ll have no problems growing your business well beyond the day your site goes live.