Quote of the Week: "Even the sharpest of knives cannot cut if held the wrong way." -- Rachel Wolchin
Catchphrase of the Week: "Don't hit the baseball, hit through the baseball." Some people on my Little League team even tried "throwing" the bat at the baseball to "save time getting on base." Guess how well that worked out?
Thought of the Week: You need to have enough judgement to know when to be the "drone employee" (follow the steps exactly) and when to be the creative CEO (remove steps or experiment)
Strategy #1: Four Daily Tasks & Accountability Group: four business related measurable tasks you COMPLETE, and not CONTINUE.
Strategy #2: Deadline & Three-Day Window
Strategy #3: Minimum Viable Product: what if you had to stop today? (absolute focus on one goal, milestones, and use early profits as motivation to keep going) -- avoid "fake it till you make it"
Strategy #4: Do It Better Than "That Idiot Who Doesn't Deserve It" (common enemy)
Strategy #5: What's In It For Me (help others with real solutions instead of talking about yourself)
Strategy #6: Teach Your Notes, Criteria, Checklists, and Templates (product, membership site, book, blog, podcast)
Strategy #7: Don't Compare Your Insides to Their Outsides (keep your own side of the street clean when it comes to: haters, competitors, customers) -- mind your own business, you don't know what happens behind closed doors, what and what "they" are going through. People don't care about your mistakes as much as you think. How do I know? Write down today's date, but 5 years ago. Then try to remember someone you know who embarrassed themselves 5 years ago today. You can't think of one. People won't remember your mistakes or embarrassments either.
Bonus: Think about the benefits instead of the difficulties. (i.e. that new car you'll buy instead of your hourly rate)
Whatever money issue, technology issue, or motivational issue you're dealing with, chances are the things that slow you down or hold you back are currently 80% internal (the way you think about things) and 20% external (your actions and the things around you).
Many times, if I'm feeling a bit lost or otherwise unfocused, I'll first identify the SPECIFIC problem I'm having (i.e. frustrated, overwhelmed) and then find a bunch of articles dissecting the problem.
Usually, reading about the cause of things like burnout, guilt, and distractions (for example) -- and the various strategies for dealing with specific problems like journaling, meditation, exercise, find a mastermind, complete smaller tasks -- are far more helpful than any amount of denial or self-reflection...
That's why I'm revealing my "master file" of inner mindset solutions to you...
First, if you're trying to overcome a negative issue (like a bad mood), then find your problem and solution in the first section
If you're looking for a positive change in your life (focus, doing more in less time) then jump to the second section
If you want to get motivated, check out the third section below
And finally, if your goal is daily maintenance or you're looking to think your way out of a problem, jump to the bonus section where there's an interesting list of questions to ask yourself
Have fun. I see this post being a resource you turn to again and again when you need that little boost.
Part 1: Overcome Negativity & Bad Habits (eliminate the bad): 85 Tips
Success threatens because it creates change: increased challenges and responsibilities
Believe in your ability to change: your skils and talents are variable
Flight or fight response is natural: fear of being inadequate and fear of rejection
To overcome fear, make it conscious: failure is not the enemy of success. If you don't succeed, try something new. The real enemies of success: complacency, apathy, over-zealousness
Fear itself as a motivator is only a defensive tool: engage fully with life, and not timidly.
Read a different newspaper. If you read the Wall Street Journal, read the Washington Post.
Make up new words that describe the problem. e.g., "Warm hugs" to describe a motivation problem and "Painted rain" to describe changing customer perceptions.
Which of two objects, a salt shaker or a bottle of ketchup best represents your problem? Why?
Imagine your idea and its opposite existing simultaneously.
If you could have three wishes to help you solve the problem, what would they be?
Write a six word book that describes your progress on the problem. e.g. "At present all thoughts are gray," "I am still not seeing everything."
Maybe you're bored in your internet business right now because there's no real risk, challenge, or excitement in your business? This especially happens if you fall into the trap of "lying" because nothing is real. Let's get you creative so you can think your way out of your current predicament (even if that problem is boredom)...
Creativity doesn't only mean "get a bunch of ideas." Notice how the word "create" is in it? Creativity = to create. Make something new and valuable. Idea or invention.
Why slow down? If you're on a roll, keep going, so during slow times when you're tired, your past self (on a timer) is like an extra employee you don't have to pay.
Four minute mile: 100 article days, book in an afternoon, class in an afternoon, airport product. $2k product twice a week. Hack a 100k income, how many products to sell to achieve that goal. $1000 per hour income (webinars). 1 hour per week full time income (Amazon). 1 hour per day income (Fiverr). Think your way out of a situation.
Albert Einstein made creative breakthroughs by asking interesting questions, such as: what would it be like to ride a wave of light?
Distill the noise down: do you take 20 pages of notes at a seminar/webinar or 5 bullet points / key takeaways?
Separate the forest from the trees! Getting so bogged down by the details you don't see the big picture, end goal, reason why, do's and dont's. Presentation on 187 types of content? A mile wide and an inch deep. Solve some problems instead. Good for pitching/presenting, bad for a product.
Our Marketer of the week is Ken Evoy from "Make Your Price Sell." He was the first marketer I've seen with a dynamic price. For example, you sell a product where the price increases by 1 penny every minute.
Let's break the stages of you unlocking your creativity and solving any problem into four steps: WHY (reframe), WHAT (mindmap), HOW (insight), and WHAT-IF (creative flow):
Step A: WHY Reframe (change the interpretation)
Hit the problem from multiple angles with probing questions. Questions must be answered! Here's what you need to ask from yourself:
A1: What's the big problem? What happens without this solution? (common enemy) A2: What am I solving? (specific goal) A3: What's the current way to solve it? A4: Why is my solution better?
Who am I solving it for?
Why does this even matter?
What can I learn from this?
What's funny about this?
How do I start this?
What do I do after this?
During this stage, our goal is childlike curiosity (kids ask lots of questions but adults are set in their ways). We want to limit perfectionism and take up exercise such as free-writing. Apply random words to your situation. Think of as many "C" words as possible, for instance. Criticizing in this stage is only good if you ask: how could I have done better? You need to think up good possibilities and ideas to shoot down later.
Step B: WHAT Mindmap (branch out)
Get the structure, outline, manipulation, trimming, and the sequence.
B1: Brain dump sub-problems. B2: Get it dialed in: Diverge (go big, seek out) vs. Converge (decide, connect, guidelines, reduce). Combine, split, add, remove, edit B3: Professor Elliot Eisner: boundary pushing (rules are constraining, let's bend them), inventing (useful combinations), boundary breaking (least common: opposite thinking, gap filling, the rules themselves are the problem), aesthetic organizing (order from chaos: most common)
Boundary pushing: can we shave one second off this plugin? Remove one step from the process
Boundary breaking: we host this software for them.
Aesthetic organizing: for example, in every 10-episode chunk of my podcast, I'll plan on having one episode about WordPress, a case study episode, a product pitch, mindset episode, marketing, writing, and so on.
Inventing: A or B eye doctor test: does it work better as "A" or work better as "B"?
Step C: HOW Insight (Professor Arne Dietrich Creativity Matrix)
This is the step where you think of the solution, but you don't implement yet. The reason why you might feel you've "hit a wall" is because you're only using one type of creativity. There are four:
C1: deliberate vs. spontaneous, cognitive vs. emotional.
Deliberate cognitive: Thomas Edison (I haven't failed, I've just found 10,000 ways it won't work). Build knowledge, pay attention, make connections
Deliberate emotional: ah-ha moment. Flash of insight, emotions/feelings. Bad chain of events leads to a revelation.
Spontaneous cognitive: Isaac Newton and the Apple. Eureka, dopamine, out of the box unconscious thinking.
Spontaneous emotional: Einstein. Epiphanies from artists and musicians. Least controlled.
C2: How to get to these quadrants: Knowledge + time = DC, Quiet time = DE, Escape (incubation) = SC, Random = SE
C3: You need all four.
Einstein's combinatory play: stop working on the problem. Ideas come to you when you're in the shower.
Don't let "that" person's negativity get inside your head.
Magic wand thinking: if there were no limitations, what would I come up with?
Paint yourself into a corner to get out of your comfort zone. Take a risk.
State change: exercise, take a break, Aaron Sorkin shower, Winston Churchill nap
Step D: NOW Creative Flow (it all falls into place)
Implement the solution!
D1: Anthony Robbins would say you're looking for a Type 1 experience that: feels good, is good for you, helps others and helps the greater good D2: Repetition is the mother of skill: Unconscious incompetence, conscious incompetence, conscious competence, unconscious competence.
Figure out your routine: write every day, certain hours of the day. What motivates and demotivates you.
Rush to get things done during alone time.
Blue backgrounds = creativity, red backgrounds = attention to detail
Brain tricks. Set a time limit. Get back to a state when you were excited, crazy, unstoppable
What's great about this system we've laid out is that there's a huge "well" of techniques and ideas you can draw from anytime you're stuck thinking of a save to "save" a dead launch, increase your income, revive a dead email list, or even flesh out the chapters of your next book.
Speaking of your next book and eliminating your writer's block, we highly recommend the Make a Product course to get your next book finished and published on Amazon within the next few days.
Are your goals S.M.A.R.T. goals? Specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound. Tune into today's program to uncover the tried and true techniques (16 total) to keep yourself motivated, focused, out of the procrastination zoned and focused on getting it all done and achieving that goal:
Our marketer of the week is Jim Edwards from TheNetReporter. My biggest takeaway from him: just point and shoot PowerPoint for your video. It doesn't need to have quick cuts, fancy edits or be professionally done -- at all.
General Motivation
Four Daily Tasks: Business-Building, Deliverable (no degrees of doneness, no chipping away, no to-do lists)
Seinfeld calendar (do something small every day so the cycle isn't broken) + 5 day sprint
Formula and checklist: for example, 3 part podcasts and "research heavy" blog posts: 100 solutions, group into 4-5 categories and whittle down so it's all meat and no grissle, which leads us to...
Reduce and rearrange the raw materials -- SIMPLE mindmapping with FreeMind helps with this.
Absolute Focus
Dual monitors: left for viewing, right for creating
Remove: distractions, phone, social media, email, TV, news
Clear the clutter: delete temporary EverNote notes and delete after you've made the blog post or product. Clear off desktop items at the end of the month. Quick calendar reminders later in the week to "check on" things and then delete.
Micro-projects: start on Monday, end on Friday or Saturday. You can restart on Monday, but don't leave things open-ended. (Optimistically pessimistic.)
Procrastination
What quick 10 minute activity have you been putting off? Do it now.
Accountability partner. Call every hour if you have a really bad "problem."
Shut down distractions. Close tabs, uninstall Facebook.
Change the pattern. Commit. Don't ask yourself how you "feel" about it. It's a must.
Concentration
What are the top 3 things to focus on? Avoid going an inch deep and a mile wide.
Meditation (meaning silence and reflectiveness).
A state change is as good as rest.
Appointment based business: webinars, meetings, Google calendar, TimeTrade coaching calls.
Wise Words to Live By
Three simple rules in life: 1. If you don't go after what you want, you'll never have it. 2. If you don't ask, the answer will always be no. 3. If you don't step forward, you'll always be in the same place.
What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise. -- Oscar Wilde
You may think the grass is greener on the other side, but if you take the time to water your own grass, it would be just as green.
Philosopher Karl Popper: True ignorance is not the absence of knowledge, but the refusal to acquire it.
They usually aren't S.M.A.R.T. goals (specific, measurable, achievable, results-oriented, and time-bound). SMART goals are pretty self explanatory but let me lay it out so there's no confusion: when you set out to do something, make sure that it's:
simple and clearly defined (specific)
something tangible so it's 100% clear whether or not you accomplished that goal (measurable)
enough of a stretch to move you out of your comfort zone, but not a shot at the moon (achievable)
all about an outcome instead of an activity (results-oriented)
in such a timeframe that it creates a sense of urgency for you (time-bound)
I think when most people set a goal that they're serious about, they intuitively and automatically make it specific, measurable, and achievable. The two biggies here are "results-oriented" and "time-bound."
Issue #1: You're Not Results-Oriented & Time-Bound
People don't know WHY they're doing something, for example, someone tells me their big goal is to write a book for their business. Why? Just because. Someone told them to do it. There's no real plan beyond that, and their heart isn't in it (no emotional reason-why) so it's just not going to get done. (It probably won't get started.)
The average person makes a silly goal like, "I'm going to run 2 miles every morning all this year." That's bad. It's open-ended, and it's not time-bound. A better goal would be that you're going to walk 10 minutes every evening for one week, and that's it! Nothing recurring.
Issue #2: Your Goals Are Too Big
Second problem, the goals are the wrong size. Usually too big. They're so big that you've subconsciously set yourself up for failure before you even started. You could have made your goal "write a 1/2 page blog post" but instead you said you'd write a 200-page book, including editing.
Can you please be honest with yourself? If you don't want to do anything different this year to grow your business and change your life, I honestly think that's okay, but ONLY if you're honest with yourself about it. That leads us to...
Issue #3: Belief & Honesty
Third, there's no real belief behind these S.M.A.R.T. goals. Maybe you're going through the motions and setting these goals because you think you "should", and you feel "bad" for not having one. Maybe you feel excited when you plan it out. But that excitement wears out in a few days, doesn't it?
The problem with a New "Year" resolution is that you probably start thinking of a goal around December 1st (Thanksgiving is over and it's holiday time), decide on that goal around December 5th, and then give up on the goal completely by December 15th. A small portion of people make it until January 10th, and even less until February 1st.
The solution to your "belief" crisis is to gain a small victory so you can not only see what's possible, but you've also broken that vicious cycle of:
feel bad -> over-engineer a pie-in-the-sky solution -> give up on it -> feel bad again
The Answer: New Month's Accomplishment
I have a better path for you and it's actually pretty simple:
Don't wait until January 1st to do something different
Don't have a huge year-long or recurring goal (just hit the next milestone)
Do something SMALL and ONE-TIME, like writing one blog post or going on one walk (anything is better than nothing)
Don't tell others you're going to do it (just do it and brag about it later)
Use the new month as an excuse to run a new "experiment", but keep doing more what's making money and less of what's not making money
Let's just call this a "New Month Accomplishment." This way, it's something small and S.M.A.R.T. that you can knock out. The reason why the end-result is so small is because the journey is more important than the destination, you're trying new things (and re-visiting old things that worked but you forgot), and if you get some small successes, you're more likely to be happier and more confident about those small achievements of yours. You're more likely to repeat those things and make them good habits.
What's Your New Month's Accomplishment?
My "New Month's Accomplishment" for January was recording an audiobook. That's something I've wanted to do for a few years, and I have eight books on Amazon at the moment, but no audiobooks. A few days ago, I sat at the computer, and did nothing that day but dictate (read aloud) the first half of my first book (100 Time Savers).
That took almost exactly two hours. The next day, I didn't check my email or Facebook until I recorded the second half (two hours), then adjusted the audio according to ACX's (Amazon and Audible's) specifications, and sent it off. It takes a few weeks for them to approve the audio book, so I'm just waiting on that.
My business partner Lance Tamashiro's New Month's Accomplishment (just from my observation) was sending a handful of thank you cards to some of our customers. This is something we used to do every day, but we stopped and forgot about it. Now we're doing it again. Simple!
Let's say you're sick of that messy garage. Instead of making a "commitment" (yuck) to "try" to "clean up better" this year, take one of item out of that garage, take a picture of it, and list in on Craigslist within the next few minutes. Done! New Months' Accomplishment finished.
If you have trouble writing: Ernest Hemingway only wrote 500 words a day, but he did it every day. Stephen King writes exactly 2,000 words (7 pages) daily. If he hits 2,000 words and he's in mid-sentence, it doesn't matter, he stops!
If he writes 1,500 words and gets to the end of the book he's writing, he types THE END and writes the next 500 words for the next book. Your New Month's Accomplishment could be to only write 500 words tomorrow. Don't worry about the next day or month or the rest of your life, just get 500 words out of the way.
I'm curious to know what your New Month's Accomplishment is, but don't tell me!
In fact, don't tell anyone what you're doing. Finish something simple that you can complete in a day (or two at the most), or preferably just 10 minutes today, and now you've finished more than those schlubs who "planned" their "resolution" for the "New Year" and never even started.
What ways is your marketing talking you OUT of a sale? Some ways are ok: being true to your personality, because you're polarizing -- repelling some and attracting others. You don't have to apologze, and I'll explain why!
But if you repel the "serious buyers" and only attract the "tire-kickers" -- that hurts you long term. What's your goal?
Our marketer of the Week is Robert Cialdini, author of "Influence":
I've used his "six keys to influence" in my speaking, webinars, sales letters and more. The are: reciprocity, scarcity, liking, authority, social proof, and commitment/consistency. Are you missing one or two of them, or are you skewed way over towards one of these six factors?
Scenarios We're Talking About Today... Are You Guilty of Any Of These
I'm viewing a sales letter for a live chat plugin, but there's no live chat on the page. I'm about to buy a course on copywriting taught by some of the super-old "legends" until the sales letter tells me: by the end of module two, you'll have an idea of how to start your sales letter soon. What?!
I sold a WP sales letter that wasn't actually on WordPress. Better fix it.
Selling an "alternate" webinar service but you're pitching it on GoToWebinar.
Selling an "alternate" landing page plugin but you're selling it on LeadPages.
Blog post saying not to use "admin" as your WordPress login because it's easy to see if it's a valid account. I go to their WP login page, admin is a valid user on that blog.
Selling a podcast course, no podcast. Or just one short episode of a podcast. That tells me you're not a master.
Checklist to "Check For Holes" to Your Own Business
Background: What does someone find when they do their quick "research" on you, or Google search? Selling a book writing course, better have a book in print. Article course, better have some articles. Something impressive.
Testimonials: better check the URLs under each testimonials in your sales letter (don't hyperlink them though) to see if the websites are still there. If not, remove the URL and ask your list for some fresh testimonials.
Bottlenecks: is there an area of your sales letter that "scares" people? Long video, mentioning of too much work (3 weeks)
Negative Social Proof: 100 copies total, only 96 remaining? No one wants it!
Beware of Victim Copywriting: I suffered for 20 years making this so you don't have to. Great, so you'll only get buyers who "delight" in your pain. This is 500 pages, 50 hours, no one cares! Now you're talking me out of a sale.
Gray Areas: fake scarcity, countdown timer, launching/closing/reopening. Unpredictability and urgency to a point. It's a booster, but don't let it become a crutch.
Internet Marketing Lessons
Don't overthink it, but put your best foot forward.
You don't have to be a master with 20-50 years experience, but don't leave yourself vulnerable to research.
Be very careful with "distractions" like live action video, demos, lots of features and case studies to understand it -- less is more!
Because I Can: you're free to say whatever you want, the only consequence is they "vote with their wallets" -- don't condone customer bullying.
Life Lessons from Robert Plank
Any action is better than no action.
It's easier to edit crap than air.
Time sorts out impostors from those who are truthful. Meaning, people aren't going to pay for ads or pay to keep a site going forever if it's not making money.
What to Do Now
Check out Speed Copy to get the best copywriting training out there and close the bottlenecks on your websites
Download and install Paper Template to get your sales letter the best it can be (with a copywriter built into the software)
Setup Your Income Machine (SEO blog, autoresponder sequence, traffic, etc.) to setup a passive income business
Marketer of the week: Stu McLaren from stu.me and Wishlist Member. Rather than share a "breakthrough" I picked up from Stu, I want to tell you that when I present (a webinar or podcast), I imitate his speaking style.
When you speak, speak deliberately! Especially if you're an American and your natural tendency is to slur your words like I do.
Is there anyone in your life who speaks slowly and carefully, without becoming monotone? Then I would suggest you imitate that person's speaking style when you present.
(That's us a few years ago at Inc. Magazine headquarters at 7 World Trade Center in New York City.)
I often "channel" Stu to slow down my speaking, enunciate, and speak more clearly, focus, calm. You can be intense but still make sense. See also: Ray Edwards, Armand Morin.
Fourteen Key Principles: The Common Thread That Runs Through These Successes & Failures
Finishing everything that I start, less notebook doodling
$997, $47 every 2 weeks, 5 payment option, experimenting! Charging high ticket AND low ticket.
Investing in myself: attend conferences instead of stock trading which is gambling and a distraction. Dave Ramsey instead of Jim Cramer.
I don't trust myself: get to the Minimum Viable Product because of the 3 day window.
I'm not smart: I don't know what's going to sell without experimenting and I'm open to new ideas.
Weekly focus: email for the same thing all week. Stick to your guns, don't psych yourself out or let customers bully you
Membership sites: organize both high and low ticket, group multiple sites (but no all-in-one site)
Pitch webinars: do something unexpected, teach a lot and sell hard. Give them a wow moment and not necessarily an aha moment.
Re-marketing: phase out what's not selling and go back in future weeks to promote what's selling (Backup Creator)
Don't delete old sites or content
Your most popular content, marketing and products are the "beginner" stuff
It's ok to repeat your most "powerful" ideas and phrases. How many times have I mentioned Income Machine in podcasts and blog posts? A lot!
Don't be a timid marketer. Welcome pitch emails, upsells, ads. Don't have a buyers only email list or a monthly digest email list. Be on the lookout for what you can absorb/apply, for example, an affiliate bonus package.
Three Biggest Failures
ClickSensor: should have made it an online service
WPLetter (now Paper Template): should have built it out more and controlled the market faster (16k overnight from a 12 minute video)
Action PopUp: should have got the entire marketplace using it, added tons of templates
Bonus: all the PHP products, which made money, but not enough. Lesson: keep publishing things to get to "the good stuff."
Three Biggest Successes
Bulk content creation: books, Daily Seminar, Webinar Crusher monthly, blog, podcast. Just make 12 pieces of content to last you an entire year.
Must-have tool for everyone's business such as Backup Creator: pitch is all about what you can do with it, 100k sites, tie in with our other stuff (Membership Cube) -- yearly renewals, developer license
Pain of disconnect in Membership Cube: selling high ticket, playing with the payment plans, pitching on webinars! (35k in a couple hours)
Bonus: platinum coaching program. Lesson: the first step is getting the button online!
Wise Words to Live By
When you can't change the direction of the wind, adjust your sails.
If you don't change the direction you're going, then you're likely end up where you're heading.
Albert Einstein: "Try not to become a person of success, but rather try to become a person of value."
Napoleon Hill: "Keep your eyes and ears wide open--and your mouth CLOSED, if you wish to acquire the habit of prompt DECISION. Those who talk too much do little else. If you talk more than you listen, you not only deprive yourself of many opportunities to accumulate useful knowledge, but you also disclose your PLANS and PURPOSES to people who will take great delight in defeating you, because they envy you."
Internet marketer of the week: Big Jason Henderson from BetterPostureGuaranteed.comBigMarketingOnline.com.
My big breakthrough from him: a membership site doesn't have to be a recurring forever monthly payment. You can create a single payment, or even better, a fixed term site, instead of that old and tired download page, using Member Genius.
Black Friday deals, discounts. It's a drug for your business. Get that quick "hit" that you pay for later.
What you're trying to obtain from the discount is to get non-buyers to buy something low ticket. Get the juices flowing.
I buy from you and you say, check your email for the download link. What? Send me to a membership signup so I get an email and have a lost password link for later. Member Genius takes care of all that.
No support link from your sales letter or your membership site? Time to change that.
Five Things to Identify So You Can Get the Magic Feeling Back
Signal #1: Fear-driven thoughts. Have you been told to "manage your expectations?" Then you're always expecting to be let down. That's not a solution. That's settling!
Serve the needs of those who deserve it (customers), and cut out those dragging you down. Avoid lists of your failures, enemies. What's the point? We become what we focus on AND we become what we repeatedly do. There will be up's and down's in your business.
Signal #2: What's the pattern? Buy that course, find one thing you don't like with it? Refund or just don't implement? Off to more of the same stuff?
What if you implemented exactly as they showed you? Don't be smarter than the person. Who cares if you don't "like" the person. The real test: does it do what you said it would?
Signal #3: Can I just get one thing out of it? Go through it all. Do it all. Russians who copied WW2 planes. They left the dents in.
Signal #4: What can and can't you control? Don't depend on anything external for happiness. Only you can be happy, satisfied, and fulfilled.
Are you setting yourself up for disappointment, because you know you can't control it? My old reliable thought is: "what's good about this, or what could be good about this?"
Signal #5: Have a good support system. As in, a helpful mastermind, mentor, and role model. Kick out those toxic people and instead, get some positive perspective.
What's your goal, anyway? To pick up one extra thing? To master Facebook ads? To figure out how this person got 800 webinar attendees?
"You cannot change others but you can change yourself"
"The highest form of ignorance is when you reject something you don't know anything about." -- Wayne Dyer
If someone is able to show me that what I think or do is not right, I will happily change, for I seek the truth, by which no one was ever truly harmed. It is the person who continues in his self-deception and ignorance who is harmed. -- Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor
It helps to know what goal you're after, and then you can monitor those who have what you want.
Are you scared? What if you became more aware of what made you anxious, scared, or nervous? Could you dissect those into smaller pieces? If you did, you'd be able to change and improve those small, manageable pieces...
What if I asked you to write down a page of words to describe a "bad mood" such as: flustered, dejected, beat-down? What if I asked you to then write a list of words describing a "good mood" such as: happy, energized, bubbly?
My guess is, that list of "bad mood" words would be longer than the "good mood" list. Let's change that for you.
To become more successful in both our personal lives and our businesses, we need to become more detailed about the positive things and less detailed about the negative. Whatever you apply more detail to is where your mind will focus.
What's the "trick" for overcoming that fear and thinking more positively and effectively?
Answer on a 1 to 10 Scale
When you go to the store, the clerk asks, "How are you?" Both of you are expecting your response to be a mono-syllabic "good" or maybe a "great."
Instead of doing that, ask yourself how you are on the 1-10 scale. Maybe you're having a "better than average" day, so you say 8.1.
Not only do you cause a "pattern interrupt" for the clerk, which might get you a nice laugh, but it will help you out by causing you to actually think about how you feel, instead of just replying generically with a word that has no real meaning.
Use the 1 to 10 Scale in Your Own Business
Okay, so we can see how evaluating yourself on a 1-10 scale can put you more ‘in touch' personally, but how does it help in your business? Here are a few examples:
Writing and Revising: The majority of people are not the greatest writers but if you are in internet marketing, you have to put out content. You need to be able to put out on okay first draft and for the most part a first draft is good enough. This isn't school and you're not going to triple your income by making some small edits to an email.
If you're writing a book, you might need to spend more time than on a blog post, but the principle is the same. We don't want to spend an hour writing 1 chapter of a book and then spend 5 hours doing edits.
How do you edit quickly so you don't consume all of your time? Again, the answer is scale from 1 to 10. Once the book is written (and it's been typed/spell-checked), you could just skim paragraphs and rate each one on a scale from 1 to 10 for substance.
Then, you quickly average those to get an "overall" rating. If you come up with an 8 or 9, great. But, if you come up with a 7.0 book, and you wanted an 8.0, your strategy would be to just go through and focus on fine-tuning the lower-rated paragraphs.
Overall Business Strategy: What if you're not making enough money from your online business? What if someone asked you, "How are you doing with Facebook ad campaigns?" If you answered with "good" or "okay", that's not going to help. "Good" is not measurable and it's an "automatic" response, instead of one that forces you to look for clarity.
Use that 1 to 10 scale to pinpoint issues. Rating gives you better accuracy about what/where the problem is and where you'll improve it.
Here are 10 areas that you could focus on and maximize to improve your business overall and make more money.
Time management and Mindset
Building the List
Email Follow-up and Auto-responder sequences
Membership Retention
New Customers
Joint Ventures
Free Traffic
Paid Traffic
Info Products and Recurring Income
Big-Ticket Sales and Coaching
Write a number next to each of those above items. Look at these factors individually and "score" them. This draws attention to areas where you'll capitalize to improve the overall picture.
For example, if a real problem that you have is not emailing, rate that lower. If you need more traffic, then you'd rate those lower.
Doing these one by one will help you think of solutions to improve that specific aspect of your business. Then, look at that average number. You'll see where you are and where you're headed.
Today's Winning Quotes
"Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, but small minds discuss people." (Eleanor Roosevelt)
"I found that luck is quite predictable. If you want more luck, take more chances, be more active and show up more often." (Brian Tracy)
"1 in 160 are Millionaires in the U.S. 1 in 1460 are millionaires in the world." -- Dan Kennedy
Check out Robert's proven method for writing a winning e-book at Make a Product, his A-Z strategy for developing your own "free traffic-generating" podcast at Podcast Crusher, or his fun and easy course on creating your own graphics at Graphic Dashboard.
You can also get more personal guidance in his monthly mastermind at Double Agent Marketing.
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About Robert & The Podcast
The Marketer of the Day Podcast interviews entrepreneurs who have been through “the struggle.”
They’ve experienced the headaches of repeat failure, trial-and-error, scaling, delegating, course-correcting, and getting their online businesses to succeed beyond their wildest dreams… and want to help you get to where you need to go.
