New York City is home to Ivan Ramen, one of the most famous ramen shops in the world. I first found out about Ivan from the Netflix series Chef’s Table. We swung by the Slurp Shop to try a bowl of Ivan’s world famous ramen.
A very common question asked by beginners and there are several ways to answer this question. It’s important to always research the answer so you get the right advice from the right people. I’ll admit that I haven’t had as much success as the big names in the business, but have worked with them closely to know what determines profits. With that said, we need to explore a few fundamental things to answer this question. Here’s what I’ll be discussing going forward:
Let’s get started and your feedback will greatly be appreciated.
You have to stand out compared to your competition so it’s important you provide value NOT found online. This is why I always like to start off by researching my competition looking for two things. First, what content resonates with readers within my niche? Secondly, how can I make my content better and include things which are missing like more depth, images and videos. Being able to answer these questions will allow me to create something of more value compared to my competitors. I believe value is what will attract readers to your blog and increase the chances of conversions.
Here are a few more things value can do for you:
Once you have the value within your content you’ll start attracting a solid following. This is where you can use your credibility to promote products close to you. You’ve noticed many top bloggers within the industry will use, reviews and earn commissions on products through their blog. They are able to do this because of the following and reputation they have earned with their readers. Their audience hang on to every word even when an authority blogger will promote a product. However, these bloggers do NOT jeopardize their reputation simply to earn a commission. For example,
They’ll only promote products they use themselves and which are worthy of using. They’ll never force people to buy products because they want to build a level of comfort. The point is through value and loyalty you can increase how fast your blog will start converting into profits.
I’m surprised at the amount of people who wait till last minute to try different things and lose valuable time in the process. For example, some bloggers wait a year to tweak things so they can increase conversions and this is a huge problem. It slows down the rate of success because you delay the actual optimization process. I’ve always stated, you need only 30-60 days to gather the initial data then can make tweaks to increase conversions. The sooner you can test and tweak the better for you because you’ll be able to capitalize on your knowledge. What do I mean? You’ll be able to put what you know into action.
Here’s something important to know:
Testing and tweaking should be done by everyone no matter what your niche or business. You should look for ways to improve your marketing because things will definitely work better than others.
Times have changed and you have so many resources to help create momentum. I’ve read how some blogs are making $10,000+ in 12 months through hard work. Social media is a great way to build momentum quickly which others years back never had access to. I believe you can now start generating serious income in a shorter period of time however here are a few things to keep in mind:
I want to discuss the importance of networking. You have authority bloggers within your niche who are happy to accept guest posts. Even though this might NOT count as a link back as many people claim, it’s still awesome to generate traffic. You can drive enormous relevant traffic to your niche by guest blogging on authority blogs. This is why I recommend everyone to build relationships with authority bloggers. I’ve written extensively on this in my previous posts so do a quick search and you’ll find my content.
Good Luck…
On this episode of the Dot Com Lifestyle vlog, I take a trip from LAX to JFK New York with JetBlue Mint. This is JetBlue’s first class flight experience for travelers who looking for a first class travel experience at at a very affordable price.
When it comes to video sharing platforms, they don’t get any bigger than YouTube. And when it comes to social networks for individuals and businesses, it doesn’t get any bigger than Facebook. And while you shouldn’t rely on rented land to build your business, you’d be foolish not to leverage their tremendous reach and power when it comes to distributing your content and reaching both new and existing audiences.
Of course, the easiest way to share your YouTube video with your fans, followers and friends on Facebook is simply to share your YouTube video on Facebook. You plunk in the URL to your YouTube video in your Facebook status update and click the blue “Post” button. That may be the simplest way to do it, but it may not be the best or most effective way to do it.
Here are some key tips for getting the most out of sharing your YouTube videos on Facebook.
By all accounts, Facebook generally favors content that keeps people on the site. They want people to stay on Facebook; they don’t want them to leave and go to some external site to consume external content. If you want your post to reach more people and be shown on more news feeds, you need more content that is purely on Facebook. What’s more, experts generally agree that Facebook prefers visual content rather than simple text-based status updates.
Following this, some marketers and creators have found some success by uploading an image to Facebook first, then writing out the status update, and including the YouTube URL at the end of the text-based update. When you do this, the clickable thumbnail preview of the YouTube URL won’t automatically populate and users will be shown the uploaded image instead.
This presumably helps with reach and people who see the update can then click on the YouTube link to watch your video.
This tip follows the exact same philosophy and mindset of the previous tip, but it simply takes it up to the next level. You could cross-post your entire video on both Facebook and YouTube if you want, but if your ultimate goal is to get more people to watch your video on YouTube (perhaps to get more views for social currency or to attract more subscribers), this is the next best thing.
Cut together a “teaser” or shortened version of your full video and upload that to Facebook. As with the first tip, you then write out your text-based description, and include the link to your YouTube video. Tell your friends and followers to “watch the full video on YouTube.”
Video content performs very well on Facebook, so while this is decidedly more work than creating a single image, it may be worth the effort.
Part of the problem with sharing YouTube videos on Facebook is, by default, your YouTube video thumbnail gets cropped into a square and it gets shrunken down to a much smaller size. If you have any text in your thumbnail image, it could get cut off and now the image makes no sense at all. And the smaller thumbnail is more easily ignored as people casually scroll their way down the news feed.
At least a couple of websites are trying to overcome this very common challenge. Both Fbvidthis.com and VidRise.com function in fundamentally the same way. You go to the respective website, enter your YouTube link, and it will generate a new link to either Fbvidthis or VidRise. When you paste this URL into your Facebook update, you get a full width video thumbnail instead.
This larger image is more engaging and is harder to miss. It used to be that these larger thumbnails were also clickable such that the video plays within the Facebook feed itself, but Facebook has disabled that function as of this writing. Hopefully VidRise and Fbvidthis are able to overcome this soon.
While this may not necessarily help with improving your reach on Facebook (there’s always boost, right?), it does come with at least a couple of important benefits. Instead of linking to the YouTube video directly, link to a blog post (or other webpage) where the YouTube video is embedded.
The first benefit is that the preview image will be full width, just like when it pulls up the featured image on a regular blog post that you share on Facebook. This makes for a more appealing visual presentation than the shrunken down thumbnail when you link to YouTube directly.
The second benefit is that now your website (blog, etc.) gets a potential page view, which means you get an extra ad impression and extra opportunities to monetize that traffic. It boosts the traffic numbers for your own site and not just for YouTube. The hurdle is that now the visitor needs to click at least twice: once to click through to your blog and one more time to start playing the embedded YouTube video.
And finally, one strategy that I see being used increasingly by a lot of YouTubers is that they will post a standard, plain text status update where they deliver a short preamble about their video. In this status update, they’ll say that the YouTube links is in the comments.
This follows a similar line of thinking as the first two tips above, except it doesn’t include the YouTube URL in the status update itself. The rationale is that Facebook will still “see” that there is an external link in the status update and it could de-prioritize it in the algorithm. The comment potentially circumvents that and it has the added benefit of giving the appearance of added engagement.
Does this work? It’s hard to say, but when it comes to all things social media-related, it’s usually a good idea to try several strategies until you find the one that works best for you.
Everyone wants to know how to make money online. However, in this video, I will show how you NOT to make money online. Why? Because learning what not to do is just as important as learning what to do.
We often hear about the importance of content marketing and are so caught up in implementing it to our marketing. However, it’s important that you plan ahead because content marketing might NOT be right for you. Just like any other type of marketing, you have to make sure you plan ahead and understand how content marketing will help your business. Only then you’ll find out if it is right for you or NOT. I must admit implementing content marketing to your strategy can be very tough because of the following reasons which I’ll be discussing below. With that said,
Let’s look at some reasons why you’ll avoid content marketing.
Some people are NOT built for a systematic approach and rely way too much on automation. Content marketing is a strategy which requires very little automation and a lot of skill. If you are a blogger which can’t handle manual work then your going to have a hard time implementing content marketing. For example, content marketing requires:
With all this said it’s important you are ready to put in hard work and rely very little on automation.
I mentioned research above and it’s true…you have to be able to put a lot of work into research. Almost everything you do will be based around research so it’s important you have the skills to know your audience and what they like. Research in content marketing involves testing the waters and using tools you have NOT used in the past. You have to take the time to learn these tools and dig out important information about trending topics and your audience. For example, here are a few things you have to always know about:
Once you have the patience to research your niche only then will you be able to excel at content marketing.
It’s no secret that networking is a valuable tool in building brand awareness and exposure. However, not everyone is great at building relationships and this will be a definite roadblock in content marketing. Once of the best ways to get your content in front of people is through authority bloggers which you have networked with. They mention your content or even accept a guest post which can drive enormous traffic to your blog. However, if you are NOT good at building relationships then your going to have a serious problem. Here are some things you should keep in mind when reaching out to authority bloggers:
Many bloggers simply don’t have the patience to explore different channels. For example, I’ve notice content marketing has a lot to do with value, but also visibility so you have to use different marketing channels. You have platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Google+ all ready to help promote your content, but you need to know how to use them.
I know many people simply don’t take the time to learn them so often have a problem with the whole concept of content marketing. If you don’t want to explore different marketing channels then content marketing is NOT right for you. It’s that simple!
Content marketing is huge and will continue to grow over the years. I encourage everyone to implement it into their blogging. However, I know many of you simply don’t have the skills or patience to go through what I’ve discussed above. You might think you should avoid content marketing which is an option at this point however you are way better off learning and implementing then not using it at all.
This week’s South OC Cars and Coffee featured some really crazy cars, like a Red Riding Hood 911 and a wheelie prone Volkswagen microbus with an engine that took over the entire back end!
Cars and Coffee happens every Saturday from 9am to 11am at the San Clemente Outlets in South Orange County. Everyone, and the dog, is invited. Enjoy the video
So, you’ve decided to go into business for yourself online. That’s great. Maybe you’ve already purchased your domain, set up your web hosting, designed your website, and nabbed all of the important social media handles. Maybe you’ve already converted on your first affiliate offer too. Or maybe you’ve converted on your 50th affiliate offer. That’s all terrific.
Now that your online business is generating some positive cash flow, you may be tempted to go out and treat yourself to something nice. Maybe you want to take your significant other out for a fancy seafood dinner or maybe you want to splurge on that big screen TV you’ve been eyeing. You deserve it, right?
Even if we were to ignore the profound pitfalls of lifestyle inflation for just a moment, we’re already sweeping right past a much more important lesson to learn. The profits that your online business are not yours, at least not entirely. If you want to continue to grow that business and if you want to continue increasing your bottom line year over year, you need to reinvest back into your business.
Would it be at all reasonable if John’s blog continued to operate on the lowest level of shared hosting? Would it be at all reasonable if he used a default WordPress theme and relied only on himself to write all the posts that appear on this site? Of course not. He was able to grow his business, because he was willing to reinvest those profits back into the business.
Don’t get me wrong. It can certainly fill you up with a sense of pride when you see your bank account balance continue to increase month after month. It can feel awfully rewarding and motivating when you see that your online business is “working” and that you’re really start to bring in some real money. That’s good. But simply having the money sit there doesn’t do you much good (you should set aside an emergency fund, but that’s another discussion for another day) and splurging on all sorts of unnecessary purchases won’t move your business forward either.
You need to reinvest.
When you reinvest some of your profits back into your business, you give your business a much better chance at moving up to the next level. It’s all about scale. If you spend $100 in an AdWords campaign and it nets you $1,000 in profit, you can theoretically spend $200 in AdWords next month and net $2,000. It’s never quite so simple, of course, but that’s the fundamental idea.
What’s more, when you reinvest those earnings back into your business, you make it far easier for you to plan for growing expenses moving forward, which can then lead to different income expectations in the future too. It takes money to make money, they say, and you want to make sure your money continues to work for you.
How you choose to reinvest that profit is up to you and it’ll depend on your individual circumstances. Maybe you want to move from shared hosting to a virtual private server. Maybe you want to invest in some software to streamline your workflow. Maybe you want to invest in a service so you can better optimize your campaigns. Maybe you want to hire a freelance to write excellent copy for you or to help you develop a better optimized website theme.
These all cost money, but they all have the potential for tremendous return on investment (ROI). These kinds of growth projects are what will ensure the future success of your business. They may reduce your take-home pay today, but they will help you earn more money over the long term.
Just as having all of your cash sit in a checking account that earns zero interest is probably not the best idea (you should consider all sorts of other investment vehicles for far better returns), you shouldn’t just “cash out” all the profits of your business and reap the immediate rewards of your hard work. Put that money back in and it’ll come back several times over.
I continue my video series on ClickFunnels by giving you a closer look at Actionetics. This is ClickFunnel’s contact list management tool. I show you all the unique features and compare it to Aweber and Constant Contact. How does it stack up? Watch the video to find out.
ClickFunnels is more than just a landing page creation software. It’s actually a complete business automation tool that brings your entire marketing system into a single, and tightly integrated, service. ClickFunnel is one of my foundation business tools and I wouldn’t be able to do what I without it.
If you wish to find out more about ClickFunnels and how it can help your business, then I recommend registering for a free webinar Russell and I are doing for ClickFunnels. If you wish to try out the service, then go sign up for the 14 day free trial.
Both social media and email are perfect to generate leads and some work better than others. Many of my clients have often asked me what’s better at generating leads and I’ll often tell them it depends on your niche. If I had to choose I would say email marketing because of the connection it builds with your audience. Keep in mind that social media can drive enormous relevant traffic to your blog however there is huge competition on some of these networks. Let’s go over some of the benefits of using each and how social or email can work at generating leads. Here’s what I’ll be looking at:
We’ll look at how each applies to both email marketing and social platforms. Let’s jump right in:
In terms of audience and striking it close to them I would say email marketing is the best. Your audience is targeted when they are subscribers and those joining your list are already looking for your content. All that’s left is for you to shoot a quick email and you can drive thousands of people to your page. With social media you have to research #hashtags and platforms where relevant people hang out. Then you have to outperform your competition which I’ll be discussing in the next section.
To resonate with your audience it’s safe to say email marketing is the best because of its direct nature.
On one hand you have your email list which is dedicated to you and then you have social media. With email marketing you have NO competition because these are people who have joined your list. You can setup a post or landing page then shoot a follow-up message to your list generating enormous conversions. With social media you run into a completely different problem. How?
Social media can generate thousands of leads only if you can stand out compared to your competition. You have to research your niche and then create headlines or images which are better than your competition. You also have to ensure you have the right #hashtags in place so when people search your content will come up. This still doesn’t guarantee a click compared to others so email marketing is better when referring to beating your competition.
I’ll state quickly that with email marketing you have already build a connection overtime so people will hang on to your words much more. Social media you’ll have to work at building that competition which takes time and effort. ESP’s in email marketing have auto-responders which are awesome at allowing bloggers to automate the entire connection process.
Here’s where things change up because with email marketing you are essentially getting your content in front of the same people. With social marketing, if everything has been done properly, you can attract new or unique visitors to your page. This in turn will generate enormous subscribers and leads. The success of social media platforms has everything to do with visibility and growth. They continue to grow at a rapid pace each year and you find people in every niche available. With the right research and headlines you can attract an enormous audience to your website and build loyalty quickly.
Since you can market directly to your list then the CTR will always be better through email marketing. This doesn’t mean that social media won’t provide conversions, but you’ll have a better chance with email marketing. You have hundreds or thousands of people on your list. You can send them a direct message and most likely they’ll click on the link within the message. This simply increases the entire CTR and is awesome for marketing. With social media it takes a bit more work because you again need to research and attract the right audience. Then fight competition for attention and click through however I’m not saying it’s NOT possible to get a high conversion, but that you’ll have to work harder for it.
As mentioned each niche is different so try what works for you however I have worked with many niches and found email marketing to always be the best option. What do you think?
In yesterday’s blog post, I talked about how I made money with the ClickFunnels affiliate program. That generated a lot of questions, and one of the most asked questions was, “What exactly is ClickFunnels and how can it help my business?” I answer that question in today’s video. You can watch it below.
ClickFunnels is more than just a landing page creation software. It’s actually a complete business automation tool that brings your entire marketing system into a single, and tightly integrated, service. ClickFunnel is one of my foundation business tools and I wouldn’t be able to do what I without it.
If you wish to find out more about ClickFunnels and how it can help your business, then I recommend registering for a free webinar Russell and I are doing for ClickFunnels. If you wish to try out the service, then go sign up for the 14 day free trial.
I’m going to hit you with a pretty hard truth. Are you ready? Brace for it, because here it comes… You aren’t going to achieve the dot com lifestyle overnight. Hopefully, you’re not too surprised by this. Realistically, you really shouldn’t be all that stunned at all. The appeal of the so-called “get rich quick” scheme is understandably alluring, but it’s a myth.
Unless you win the lottery, you’re not going to be rich overnight. And even if you do, it might not last. You’ve likely heard the stories of how some lottery winners end up declaring bankruptcy just a short time afterward. Why? If you’re bad with a dollar, you’re going to be that much worse with a million dollars. You have to realize the “typical” kind of person who would buy lottery tickets in the first place. But I digress.
The long and the short of it is that if you want to achieve any sort of long-term, sustainable success, you need to be prepared to play out the long game. Absolutely, you must adapt and adjust to short-term trends and challenges, but it is paramount that you ultimate vision is much longer term than that. What can you do today to succeed not only today, but also tomorrow and years into the future?
And to this end, you really ought to be setting long-term goals for yourself. It’s up to you what sort of timeline you want to set: one year, five years, ten years down the road. But when you look at these sorts of long-term goals, they can be intimidating, daunting, overwhelming. Where do you even begin?
Remember the concept of SMART goals? SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timely. And the mindset from which you should begin taps into all five of these elements. The strategy that you need to undertake is to understand what your long-term goals mean on a daily basis.
You need to break down that big, lofty, long-term goal into something that you can measure daily, weekly, or monthly. This means the goal has to be specific and measurable (not “I want to make more money”), it needs to be reasonably within reach, the actions you take need to be relevant, and you need to set a deadline because some day never comes.
So, what does this actually mean? Allow me to illustrate with a couple of quick examples.
You’re going to have some days (and weeks and months and years) that are better than others. You’re also going to have some that are much worse. That’s the natural ebb and flow and expected inconsistency that comes with running your own online business. What’s more important is that you keep track of your numbers and work to ensure that the numbers are trending in the right direction.
When you’re making precisely zero dollars today, it can feel completely overwhelming to say you want to make $100,000 this year. But it sure sounds a lot more manageable when you say that you want to figure out how to make $275 a day, don’t you think? One step at a time.
One of the most asked questions I get is what I look for in an affiliate marketing program. While there are whole list of criteria, there are four main features I look for.
An example of a program that meets those four requirements is ClickFunnels. They give you 40% of the customers bill for life. Not only do you get paid over and over again, but the customers you referred are yours for life. Anything they buy in the future, you will make money on.
The affiliate program is also free to join. However, I do recommend you to be a customer or at least sign up for the 14 day free trial so you can get to know the product better.
To help their affiliates, ClickFunnels has a 100 Day Super Affiliate Challenge. If you accept the challenge, they will guide to step by step on how to become a ClickFunnels super affiliate and retire in the next 100 days. I am in the challenge and in the video below, I share with you how I’m doing with it.
Go Here To Sign Up for The Challenge
The challenge is free to join and all the training is free as well. I recommend signing up even if you don’t plan to be a ClickFunnels affiliate because the training can be applied to any affiliate marketing program.
I’ve been blogging for several years and have learned a lot, thanks to my extended network and available resources online. Blogging has been many things to me, like a profit machine, networking tool, conversion hub, etc. Recently after content marketing started to build momentum, it became more like an art form because you’re using your content to promote products, etc. The funny thing is, once I introduced content marketing as a form of “ART”, many bloggers didn’t understand what I meant and I’d like to use this time to go over some of the fundamentals. I’m writing this content to start a debate and get your opinion on the topic. Let’s get started.
The main reason I consider blogging an art form is simply because of the research involved. For example, from the second you start researching your topic, you’re essentially trying to find ways to put an idea together. In your mind, you’re going over the following:
Writing – You’re looking for creative ways to structure your content and how you’ll present it to your audience.
Images – You’re thinking about the images you’ll use to help illustrate your point and where you’ll place them. You’re also thinking about ways to improve your images to make them stand out and be more attractive.
Videos – You’re finding videos to add to your content, which, again, will help get your point across to your readers.
Everything above falls under research because nothing is written, but you’ve developed an idea and thinking about how to add it to paper.
This applies to your writing, which I personally think is an ART form, too. For example, we often hear about H1, H2, bold, and meta tags. Understanding all of these and applying them is an “ART” form as well because you have to present all of them in a way your audience will find attractive. When you have structured your content the right way, your audience will be able to comprehend it, leading to conversions going forward.
Over the years, I’ve noticed the following matters and you should think about when applying it to your content.
Publishing at the right time is very important simply because you don’t want to overwhelm your audience. Posting too early means you’ll give them way too much to read and some of them might NOT even read it, devaluing your content. You also want to make sure you post your content during times of high engagement. This means posts on the days that, when shared, it’ll create a higher than normal buzz in social media. I believe marketing, especially on social media, is a great way to quickly build momentum to your content. Social media has been proven to drive high relevant traffic to your blog quickly, which is amazing for your bottom line. However, you have to ensure you think of the following:
I think what you do after your content is published is very important, too. For example, you’re going to have people who respond to your content and will need help. I think the way you approach getting back to your audience is a true “ART” form and here’s what I mean. Depending on the amount of questions and replies you receive, you might want to consider having alternative methods available to post updates. For example,
Maybe it makes sense to write follow-up content to answer all the questions people have. Next, it might even make sense to start a forum on your website so you can interact with your audience in real-time. In the end, the approach you choose needs to be well-thought out so you keep engagement high on your blog.
We all know that video is a great marketing tool. However, creating a great video, especially one to promote your brand, can be an expensive and time consuming process. This is where my friend and videographer, Tasha Cooney, comes in.
Besides helping me with my videos, Tasha helps entrepreneurs with their video production needs. From developing scripts to location scouting, Tasha does it all. Corporate brands pay her as much as $10K per day for her work because they know they’re made far more than that back. Plus her work is amazing.
The reason I’m telling you this is because Tasha is going on a tour all over the world to help create a video and branding package for YOU!
If you or your business is looking for a top notch videographer to tell your story, give Tasha a shout. She may be coming to your area!
During her tour, Tasha will be offering a special package call Brand You Live. For three full days, you’ll be working one on one with Tasha to develop a complete branding strategy for your business.
Normally Tasha charges $10,000 per day, plus travel, to do this level of work. However, during the Brand You Live tour, you can get everything listed here for only $3,500. Anyone who has ever made a corporate branding video knows that this is an absolute steal.
This is a limited time offer. There are only 30 slots available and they will go fast. Watch the video below to see how Tasha can help you kick your business promotions to the next level.
Wherever you find an algorithm at play on the Internet, there’s a good chance that some people (read: a lot of people) will try to game the system. On some level, this is nothing more than strategy. This is where we find all sorts of perfectly permissible search engine optimization techniques. And then you’ve got the “black hat SEO” people who try to exploit the system for their own benefit.
Google inevitably catches on their antics, adjusting its search algorithm accordingly, and lays the smack down with a new update. That’s how so many people came to despise penguins and pandas so much. That’s just the name of the game and the cycle just keeps renewing itself. The exact same thing happens with social media.
And no conversation about social media would be complete without at least some mention of Facebook. Way back in the before times, Facebook’s news feed was simply arranged in reverse chronological order. It was utterly a level playing field that you couldn’t really game, because the newest updates would always display at the top. And then the algorithm kicked in.
Brands and businesses had to adapt their strategy accordingly. Then, Facebook decided to severely limit the reach of business pages, totally screwing you over and almost turning the platform into a pay-to-play kind of scenario. But they said that if your posts get good engagement, then they’d naturally filter back into the news feed for the people who “like” or “follow” your page.
That’s good, right?
Well, it didn’t take long before marketers (and bloggers and everyone else) started to game the system to up their engagement numbers. That’s why at the end of 2017, Facebook announced that they’re fighting back against what they call “engagement bait.”
Just as they cracked down on clickbait titles — you won’t believe what happens next! — they are doing the same thing with posts that try to “bait” Facebook users into engaging with a post that they otherwise wouldn’t have.
This “engagement bait” takes on five different forms.
Basically, Facebook is saying that you shouldn’t try to trick users into using the platform in ways that it wasn’t intended. There’s no real reason why a “sushi” could be represented by a “sad” face, while “fried chicken” could be represented by a “wow” face. On the other hand, if users provide an authentic reaction to your post, that is perfectly valid engagement. You might share some news about your company, for example, and ask what people think. If they’re impressed, they might use the “wow” face. If they dislike what you’re doing, they might use the “angry” face.
Facebook says that pages that “use engagement bait tactics in their posts should expect their reach on these posts to decrease.” Instead, you’re encouraged to “focus on posting relevant and meaningful stories that do not use engagement bait tactics.”
If you want to take advantage of Facebook’s benefits, you have to be willing to play by their rules. This may ultimately be better for users in the long run, but if nothing else, it once again demonstrates that you shouldn’t build your business on rented land if you want to have full control over how your content is distributed and consumed.
I wasn’t going to write “3” parts to this series, but I came across a few more elements I’d like to add. In Part 1 & 2, I discussed the importance of networking, staying positive, and having clear cut goals. However, today, I’d like to discuss more factors that have been proven to contribute to success. I have compiled these factors from the biographies of successful people and what they have done in the past to get where they are now. Many of you might NOT agree and some of you will have a hard time implementing these into your daily lifestyle. However, I can honestly tell you from the amount of people who have made these changes, it’s amazing to see the results they’ve had.
Let’s jump into Part 3 and look at some additional things successful people do differently.
Those who are successful are NOT afraid of failing and embrace it. Why? Simply because they use this opportunity to learn from their mistakes and they know it’s hard to be completely perfect. Those who can’t handle failure will often give up, but those who can will learn from it, especially when you fail in what you are trying to achieve because it opens up doors for you going forward and this is where the magic happens. For example, each time you fail during your journey to success, you’ll be able to learn from it and make the adjustments to achieve it going forward.
It’s an awesome mind frame and one proven to produce strong results going forward.
One of the great things successful people do is create perfect moments for themselves. It’s hard when you are chasing one moment because that might never come but by creating your own, you’ve increased your chances. I know many people expect “1” moment to always outshine the other but it’s always good to have your own moments so you have the boost of confidence along the way. With that said,
It’s important to create your own moments and be in control because if you’re NOT then you’re going to have a hard time staying positive and happy.
One of the greatest things about successful people is they know education and learning is a continual process. This means they’re always striving to learn new things and build momentum through a higher process. If you don’t learn and educate yourself, you’re limiting your knowledge and staying behind the trends. I encourage everyone who wants to be successful to know the importance of education and how keeping your mind fresh with knowledge is a great way to achieve success. Education also changes the way you think about certain things and your perspective on life.
The great thing is you have so many resources available to you to learn. We are in a time where the availability of resources cannot be questioned. For example, you have:
Karma is a major thing and successful business people definitely believe in it. Why is this so important to them? Simple…it’s because they received a lot of help along the way and believed in helping others to maintain their success. Everyone who is successful will tell you that they have had help from someone along the way so are more sensitive to helping others getting started. I would like to tell you guys something about when I started blogging.
First, it was very hard for me to get in an industry that was so competitive. Secondly, many people rejected me when I asked for help and it became harder for me to get a jump start. Third, the ones who did help me out were some of the MOST successful people in my niche. It’s unbelievable that the ones starting out never decided to work with me but the ones who have much more to lose by having competition enter their niche greeted me with open arms. It then hit me that they are the same people who needed help and got it so they wanted to give back to the community any way they can
People are always asking me what’s the best products to promote online? My answer has always been the same. When looking for an affiliate program to promote, you should always…
Promote Products That Pays You Over and Over Again
One of the best affiliate program that pay recurring commissions is ClickFunnels. They give you 40% of the customers bill for life. Not only do you get paid over and over again, but the customers you referred are yours for life. Anything they buy in the future, you will make money on.
To help their affiliates, ClickFunnels has a 100 Day Super Affiliate Challenge. If you accept the challenge, they will guide to step by step on how to become a ClickFunnels super affiliate and retire in the next 100 days.
Go Here To Sign Up for The Challenge
The challenge is free to join and all the training is free as well. I recommend signing up even if you don’t plan to be a ClickFunnels affiliate because the training can be applied to any affiliate marketing program.
I’m sad to report that I decided to return my top of the line 2018 MacBook Pro. The performance gain over last year’s model should have been much higher but it was only modest because of thermal throttling problems. On the bright side, I have $7K to spend on something else now.
Let me start by saying this. At a fundamental level, it doesn’t really matter if you want to be a professional blogger, web developer, affiliate marketer, freelance writer or anything else. If you want to grow your online business to the point where it can fully replace the income you’re receiving from your day job, then you need to quit your day job. It is only when your online business becomes your sole professional focus that you can grow it to its full potential.
And yes, it’s true that not everyone is going to succeed. Sometimes through no direct fault of their own, nothing works out. Or maybe they give up too easily. Or maybe they didn’t have the right business strategy for the current market. It could be any number of things. But you also can’t wait for all your ducks to get in a row before you decide to take the plunge. You just have to decide to take that leap of faith and absorb those failures in stride.
Maybe you’re not ready to abandon your day job altogether and that’s okay too. It’s a personal decision. Maybe you don’t actually want to quit your day job at all and you want to pursue your online business as a side hustle. While it won’t ever really reach its full potential that way, this might be the right decision for your circumstances. Maybe. That’s up to you.
Here’s the thing. So many people never get started at all, because they assume that if they can’t dedicate themselves full time to their online business that they shouldn’t even try. And that’s hardly true.
I argued a few years ago that making money online is actually more stable than a regular job. I encourage you to go back and read that post if you haven’t already done so. Even if you hold on to your day job, you can think of making money online as your security cushion. Through circumstances beyond your control (or even within your control), you could lose your job tomorrow. You could get fired or laid off.
Then what?
If you decide to start your online business from scratch after you’ve already lost your day job, there’s a good chance that you might not make any money at all for the first several months. Are you prepared for that? By contrast, if you’ve already gotten started and your business is already generating some modest revenue, you can at least rely on some positive cash flow as you now dedicate yourself to growing your business even further (or looking for another day job if you must).
How much do you think the typical 40-something in America has stashed away in retirement savings? They would’ve been working for about 20 years at this point, so they should have a decent amount set aside, right? According to MSN Money, the average (mean) retirement savings at that age is about $81,000.
That’s not bad, but it could be a lot better. Experts recommend that you should have about four times your annual salary saved at that point in your life, which for the average 40-something American would be closer to $200,000. But do you know what’s even scarier? The median retirement savings for a typical 40-something American is just $6,200.
What this means is that half of the people in this demographic have more than $6,200 saved and half have less than $6,200. That’s not a very bright picture indeed and there’s no way that you’re going to retire with just $6,200 set aside.
How does this tie into an online business? Even when it’s just a side hustle, your online business can grow into another source of income. And the income you earn from that can be invested and saved, getting the money to work for you and to make more money on its own. The earlier you can start this process, the better.
And the earlier you can start this process, the sooner you can retire (and with more money in your savings too)… assuming you want to retire at all.
The super cool Polaris Slingshot has taken over Cars and Coffee! If you want to attract attention and don’t want to spend supercar prices to do so, the Slingshot is your ticket to ride!
Welcome to Part 2 of my series and I’ll be continuing to look at the extreme characteristics of highly successful people. These people are NOT from another planet, nor do I consider them smarter, however, they do work much harder at what they want to achieve. Anyway, with that said, I’d like to go over a few more things you can implement into your work habits to make you more successful going forward. This, again, is Part 2 and I encourage all of you to read Part 1 before going any further.
Let’s get started.
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Successful people know that a combination of improvements is the recipe to achieve your desired results. They also know this takes time and are willing to work at it every day until they achieve their desired results. Others simply don’t want to put the day-to-day effort into making small improvements, leading to ultimate success later down the line. This is what differentiates the unsuccessful from those who achieve the greatest. In the end, successful entrepreneurs know how small daily improvements full of growth can help achieve your bottom line going forward.
One of the greatest assets successful people have is their ability to stay positive at all times. Their ability to remain at the top of their game by staying positive will contribute to them achieving the end goal at the end of the day. It’s widely believed if you can stay positive, then you don’t go into panic mode, which, in normal circumstances, will leave you making poor decision. Some of the MOST successful have publicly stated that they always stay positive even when faced with adversity because this helps them NOT make any drastic decisions that would hurt them.
If you want to be successful in business, then I encourage you to stay positive, knowing everything will be alright no matter what. Staying positive will also:
This is awesome and you can learn a lot from this simple factor. Successful people are NOT afraid of failures because they consider them vital learning tools. They know with failure comes a time for growth and their ability to find new ways to do things, which improves them going forward. Other will be devastated by failure because they let it get to them psychologically, but successful people embrace it, knowing it will get them hustling, allowing them to make improvements in the long run.
You’ve probably noticed that successful people have a huge network of people, all who are successful themselves. The reason is very simple and some of the reasons include the following:
First, they all have the same mind frame and this means having things in common. It means being able to stay positive and talk about the same things especially those that matter to maintaining their success in the long run. Secondly, it makes sure they have a wide network of resources when they need them. Reading the bio’s of many of these people will let you understand how they invest in each other’s business and self-improvement. For them, this is important because in the future, it means extending their wealth and opportunities going forward. However, here are some things you need to keep in mind about how they build networks:
You can learn a lot from what successful people do differently and you should apply these into your daily lifestyle. I want to encourage all of you to pick one factor and start implementing it into your creative process. I know it’s going to be tough in the beginning, but over time, you’ll start to see improvements, etc. Then you can shift to implement other things until you find you have the right combination. However, it’s important to start doing this right away because success does have a time limit, especially when life is NOT infinite.
It’s good to have goals. It’s even better to have the drive and ambition (and perseverance) to follow through on pursuing those goals. Goals can empower you with a sense of purpose, a sense of direction. You know where you want to go and it’s just the “simple” matter of figuring out how to get there.
“I want to move to California,” you might tell yourself. “I want to own a million dollar mansion,” you might say. (For context, a million dollars won’t get you very far in many parts of California.) “I want to quit my job and live the dot com lifestyle,” you might exclaim. These are all valid and they are perfectly reasonable goals that you can set for yourself… but they’re ultimately empty until you can answer the question of why.
Why do you want to move to California? Why do you want to own a mansion? Why do you want to quit your job and live the dot com lifestyle?
What is critically important here is that you need to dig a lot deeper than just a superficial response. What is it about the $2 million mansion in California that appeals to you? Is it the perceived lavish lifestyle that this would presumably entail? Why do you want to have that instead of a centrally-located penthouse in the heart of Manhattan? Why do you want that instead of a quaint cottage in the country? And why do you want to quit your job? If that’s the case, why are you working this job in the first place at all?
It is perfectly understandable that a lot of people, myself included, dream of the day that we can enjoy untold riches beyond our wildest dreams. But why? It may or may not surprise you to hear that the greatest power that money can wield is that, at some level, it can free you from worry about money at all. This is almost ironic, because it is the people who meticulously track their money — both income and expenses — who have the best shot at making more money.
If you want to make it in the world of business, online or offline, you need to have a firm grasp of your numbers. I think we can all agree on that. Passion alone is not enough.
Now, everyone’s situation and preferences are going to be different. Of course they are. That being said, when we drill all the way down the question of why, a few common themes typically emerge.
1. I don’t want to worry about money.
This is a nice hope to have, but the truth is that unless you become someone like Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos overnight, there will always be someone who is wealthier than you are. Until you can get past the point of envy and be happy with what you have, you will always worry about money, at least a little bit, because there is always something better, something more than you desire.
At the same time, it’s awfully freeing when you can sit down at a restaurant and actually order what you want without going through the mental math of how much the check is going to be at the end of the night. It’s awfully freeing when you can walk into the Apple store and walk out with the computer you actually want and not the one you can simply afford by maxing out your credit card. That’s freedom.
2. I want to be in control of my own career.
Even if you love your current supervisor or manager at your day job, you are still at the mercy of someone else. You are not the true captain of your ship. When you strike it out on your own, there are risks involved, but it means that you control your own destiny.
You choose what projects and opportunities you want to explore. You choose who you want to work with. You choose when and where you want to work. You’re the captain now. One of the single greatest components of happiness is the sense of perceived autonomy. That’s the ability to do what you want, when you want. That’s freedom.
3. I want to be free from obligation.
Perhaps this is the biggest and most profound answer to the question of why. The reason why most people work from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday to Friday, is because that is what is expected of them. What if you wake up Wednesday morning and you don’t want to go to work? What if you would rather work on Saturday? You can’t. Because business hours are what they are.
And you want to have that paycheck at the end of the week.
This is where our discussion comes full circle. When you get to the point where you are no longer doing something because you have to, but only because you want to, you are truly free. Anything that is done out of obligation, no matter how pleasurable at first, eventually becomes a chore when it’s something you have to do.
So why choose the dot com lifestyle? Because it’s a choice that is wholly your own and you can shift and pivot and adjust to keep things fresh and interesting (and profitable) for years to come.
