I broke my ankle in two places this past Saturday evening. I was dancing at a wedding and walked over a wet spot on an already shiny, slippery, coated cement floor. There was water (or maybe wine) spilled in a little spot that I didn’t see, and I slipped and landed on it with all my weight.
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The technical term is a “fibular and medial malleolar fracture” and they had to reset (or I guess “reconfigure”) the bones (very painful) and I’ll be hopping around on crutches for a few weeks and keeping it elevated in bed.
What I found interesting is that the orthopedist, emergency room doctor, nurse, etc. kept asking me… what do you do for a living? Is this going to affect your work? Luckily I’ve “worked” from home for 6 1/2 years and I’m glad I don’t have to worry about that kind of thing.
In fact, the last couple of days have been hugely productive in my business. I’ve been making leaps and bounds in productivity, getting my upcoming “Website Remote” wordpress tool ready for our November 11 launch date, even from bed (currently “My Little Pony” sheets):
I’ll give you ten quick reasons why you can run a business, even if you’re bedridden and only have a few hours per day:
Lesson 1: The Best Productivity Tool at Home: Camtasia + GoToWebinar + Google Calendar
Many internet marketers consider themselves in “learning mode” which really means they’re spending all their time studying (and doing a good job of it) but not implementing, but if they are implementing, they’re just dabbling, taking action on the fun or small stuff, and not what’s going to make them money. Or they can self-label as a “procrastinator” which is just a fancy way of feeling sorry for yourself.
The best thing I did in my online business (which I delayed for years) was recording video for products instead of writing them. You can whip up an easy $47 or $97 product in 1 to 3 hours — do it all in one take and don’t worry about the “umm’s.”
Don’t nickel and dime yourself looking for “free” or “cheaper” alternatives. You’ll end up piecing together lots of things that don’t do what you want and wasting money and time on the wrong tools.
Use Camtasia (free trial) and a $30 Logitech ClearChat USB headset. Show whatever you need to show on your screen (PowerPoint, web browser, or software) to teach someone how to do something (edit video, trade in the stock market, soup up your race car).
Then, use GoToWebinar to meet and record each “module” of your course if you want to do it live (using Camtasia to save the video for sale later). Use GoToWebinar for a bonus Q&A session and even to pitch the course later. We give you a free GoToWebinar at WebinarCrusher.com and even if you were a cheapskate, you could knock all this out within 30 days and only have to make one payment.
Also use Google Calendar to show up on whatever webinar Q&A, product creation, pitch sessions, or even meetings. Use them to meet your deadlines, i.e. even just to create one 1-hour module each day for 4 days, whip up a 1-hour sales letter on the 5th day, and so on.
Lesson 2: The Best Productivity Tool Away from Home: iPad + LogMeIn + Evernote
What do you do if you’re not at home? What have I been doing while laying in bed and still building my business?
It’s simple. You don’t need to drag the computer to bed or find a crappy iPad version for the apps you want to use for coding, word processing, and web page editing. Heck, you can get most things accomplished using a web browser…
But for many desktop tasks such as coding and web page editing, I prefer to use LogMeIn, which is a remote desktop program. Install the LogMeIn “control panel” on your desktop, and then you can remotely control it from your iPad. See your screen, click, drag, and type.
I use an iPad Air. You want to get the cellular version so you can connect even if you’re not on Wifi (AT&T only costs me $29.99/month for this). A 64GB iPad Air 2 costs $729 and a 32GB iPad AIr 1 costs $579. Either price is more than worth it for the ability to use the internet anywhere without a bulky laptop or a tiny phone.
An important accessory is the Logitech Ultrathin iPad keyboard which is much better than Apple’s iPad keyboard, although I don’t use it as often as you think. I use it for typing blog posts and reports, but not for coding. The only trick to getting the keyboard is that you have to be very careful to get the right one for your iPad (iPad Pro, iPad Air, etc.) because all iPads are different sizes now.
I prefer remote desktop when I’m using the iPad because I can set something in motion (like processing a video), and then come back to it later. I can start typing a document, or edit a web page, and close the connection, then come back later and all my old windows are still open.
If I don’t have the time or the connection to hop onto a remote desktop just to write a quick note, Evernote is good for jotting down “scraps.”
Lesson 3: Your Goal is the Minimum Viable Product or “Version 1.0”
There’s no point in having the fanciest tools (like iPads) or the best productivity strategies (like Four Daily Tasks, staying off Facebook and email) if it’s not actually leading somewhere.
You should actually be excited about your business instead of just “going through the motions.” (Imagine that.)
Can you make money from a course where the sales letter has typos and the paid product is 2 hours of video? Will fixing those typos or upping it to 3 hours double or triple your income? Probably not.
What will make you money is sending traffic to that COMPLETE system. Contact joint venture partners, buy some banner ads, mail youir list. You can’t make one sale with something that’s incomplete. You need a sales letter, download area, and payment button, even if it’s “just good enough” to get you by for now.
Lesson 4: Have At Least 20 Buy Buttons or “Things” For Sale
I’m not saying you need to go crazy, but if you don’t have 20 “things” you can buy, then you need to setup those 20 things over the next 12 months. I’m not saying you need 20 $997 courses.
But what if you bought from resale rights and setup a $27 package this coming Friday, including the download page, sales letter, and payment button? What if you setup an upsell for someone to buy coaching from you?
What if you whipped up your own $97 video series next week? Created a sales letter with your affiliate link, listing the exclusive bonuses you’ll provide if someone buys through that link.
And once you find your “big hit” — repeat the process and setup more membership sites, build the list bigger.
That way you can focus on helping your buyers and not just the freebie “tire kickers” who never buy and just complain.
We’re just talking about setting up something that is complete. That could just be that you buy one, or a few private label rights products, and fiddle around until you’re selling a pretty cool “package” that you can call your own.
Lesson 5: Make Consistent Progress Every Day
Have you noticed that I keep listing the same things, those things that actually make money, as opposed to bright shiny objects? List building, product creation, traffic, conversion tweaking, upsell funnels.
You don’t need to reinvent the wheel from scratch or think of a new technique every time you want to make money. You also shouldn’t be desperate for money at any point.
If you’re pressed for time, then even putting in five focused minutes of setting up a web page and writing sales copy is more than most people (who aren’t trying).
Lesson 6: Sell Both High and Low Ticket
I’m also tired of hearing of people thinking they need to pigeon-hole themselves into being “just” an affiliate marketer, just a product launcher, just a $7 buyer, just a $997 buyer. What a bunch of crap…
The only way to really know what’s going to make you money is to put out (and update, and market) your products. See what sells the best, and repeat that. Usually, those things that you “think” will sell, will be your flops, and you’ll be shocked at the products that take off.
For example, our Backup Creator plugin is protecting nearly 100,000 WordPress sites now, and I still don’t know why it’s such a popular product with us, but I don’t need to know why, only that it IS popular, so I’ll put more time and energy into it.
Lesson 7: Email Every Day
This is the worst kept secret in internet marketing, it’s the technique I use when I want to increase my income, and it’s something “timid” marketers are afraid to do.
There’s nothing wrong with contacting your subscribers every day or several times per week. You don’t need to “bombard” them with a new offer every day. It’s actually better to continue a campaign (giving different reasons to click over and check out the same offer throughout the week).
Your subscribers are listening to other marketers, and they’re playing on Facebook every day. So what’s the difference if you dispense some free advice, send them to blog posts and podcasts, or short videos, and there happens to be a button to click or a link to buy at the bottom of the page?
Keep that list alive. If you don’t email that list often enough, it will whittle down to nothing. Either schedule your upcoming email autoresponder messages 5 days at a time or spend 5 minutes every morning knocking it out.
Lesson 8: Have a Content Piggy Bank
Search engines like Google (plus social media neworks too, I guess) reward you for giving away lots and lots of free content. But they’re going to punish you if you flood a bunch of stuff quickly and then neglect your blog for months or years.
Most marketers bite off more than they can chew when it comes to blogging. This means they blog daily for 30 days. Then there’s nothing for a month. Then one post. Then nothing for two months. Then a single post. Then nothing for 6 months. Not good.
This is exactly why, for years, I only blogged (or podcasted) once per month, because I knew that was within my means. I had a pool of reserve content (some people call it a content piggy bank), that way I could schedule it all out, rearrange it later, and have posts and podcasts coming out even if I didn’t know what to talk about that week or I “wasn’t in the mood.”
Have at least two podcast episodes or blog posts in-the-can. You don’t want to be living paycheck-to-paycheck with your content.
Lesson 9: Focus On What Makes Money Sooner, Not Just What’s Fastest, Easiest, or the Most “Fun”
It’s fun to start and end projects. The first problem with that is that no project of ours is ever really “finished.” So all you’re left with is coming up with new ideas, registering new domain names, creating new graphics, writing “chapter 1” or making “video 1” of your new course.
You need absolute focus. You know what’s the most fun? Making money. You don’t need an office or business cards. You don’t need to agonize over the perfect logo or color scheme for that next app of yours. Especially if thinking too much will delay you making money even for a few days.
You need better marketing which usually means better strategy, more traffic, making a better use out of your list, talking about the things your subscribers worry about (NOTE: worry about and not necessarily think about).
There’s no reason for lazy marketing. Discounts are a “drug” that you’ll hit for a big boost of income, but do it too much and you’ll notice that without that discount, your sales will drop because you’ve now trained your customer to wait for the discount and punished them for paying full price. The solution: only use price discounts (even early bird pricing is a price discount) sparingly and use decent marketing (like mailing more often) instead.
Scarcity is a lesser “drug” that hurts your business just the same if you use it too much. You know what I’m talking about. Only 100 copies will be sold. This offer closes this coming Friday for two months. It’s okay to use as one of the tricks to pull out of your marketing hat but it shouldn’t be your entire business model.
Lesson 10: Beware of the $10,000 Per Month Comfort Zone
You need to treat your business like a real business. That means havng real deadlines. Would you be fired if you couldn’t bring the good stuff in your business? Think about it.
Let’s say you were hired as an internet company’s copywriter. If your copy didn’t bring in sales, maybe you’d split test, tweak the copy, or poll your list to figure out what to improve. If you were hired as a company’s email marketer, and you went 2-3 weeks without sending a simple email to that list, wouldn’t you be fired?
Years ago, I was told to write down my goals and I wrote down that I want a specific house (got it a year later), a specific car (bought it in cash a year later), and that I also wanted a $10,000 per month income, thinking that was all I ever needed.
There are a couple of problems with that. I’m not even going to get into how your expenses match your income unless you have a budget, you get slammed with taxes (even if you structure everything the way you should, you can only minimize them, not avoid them). =
The real problem with ramping your business up to $10k per month (which is really just 3 sales at $97 per day, or 2 coaching clients and 2 sales at $97 per day, or 1 coaching client plus one $97 per day plus your spouse’s income, etc) and then stopping, is that you’ll get comfortable.
Imagine if you stopped attending events, stopped with the joint ventures, shut off your traffic, didn’t create any new products, stopped running webinars, didn’t take any new risks…
You might be comfortable for 6, 12, maybe even 18 months. Your income might even “maintain” even if you didn’t do anything new or build your list. The problem is when it starts to shrink. It might shrink slowly, you might play mindgames with yourself and try to say this is just a “phase” in your business, or that you’re just having a couple of bad months…
But if your income is flat, you should be just as frightened as if it’s taking a dip.
It’s a slippery slope for your income to dip, then you lose interest in your business, then your income dips more, and you lose more interest… and the next thing you know, you’re not interested in re-treading that old trail you went through a decade ago to get “back up to” $10,000 per month or higher.
Instead of going through all that, I would rather do the small things NOW to avoid a huge headache in the future, and that should be too. Like I said, that doesn’t mean throwing out your websites for new ones, or becoming a workaholic, or anything like that. It means your #1 goal in your business is to make money, and then you can get excited about making more money, which in turn makes you even more money, so money becomes the “drug” or “high” that continues to move your online business forward.
Don’t get comfortable with your income level, even if it’s at some level about $10,000 a month. You should always want more, and you can get more just by doing something as simple as staying focused and making daily progress, even if it’s just 5 minutes a day.
I’m still having lots of fun with my online business, even with a broken ankle, because it’s still making me lots of money every day, and I hope yours does too. I also hope that our “Website Remote” plugin on November 11th (remote WordPress management tool) helps you make a lot of money, which equals lots of fun, which equals even more money in your online business.
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