Time Managment Help – Are You Overwhelmed?

I recently wrote a series of Time Management Help but I see so many of my friends in Internet Marketing suffering from a sense of being overwhelmed, that I feel compelled to revisit it with some hard, cold advice.  I hope this helps you.

When I was right out of graduate school and in my first corporate management role I was really revved to get ahead.  It seemed that my fast-paced company couldn’t go fast enough to fully benefit from what I thought I had to offer.  I was constantly inserting my ideas and my recommendations and opinions into everything I could.  All I could imagine was how I was being held back by this monstrous bureaucracy.  After 6 months I was actively looking for another company.  To me the grass was definitely greener on the other side of the hill.

Fortunately for me I had a mentor who happened to be my boss and a world class PR and Advertising pro.  He watched as I restlessly struggled and pushed.  It must have been humorous to him, but he saw something worth working with and helped me understand a great truth.

In one of our weekly lunches he told me the story of how he was also young and aggressive early in his career, and he had a mentor as well who saw something worthwhile that should be grown and nurtured.  Certainly in his case it must have worked.  So I asked him what it was that his mentor had told him decades before.

The advice was timeless he said.  And just as great advice always is, you’ve got to let it sink in a bit to fully appreciate it.  The advice his mentor gave him, and he was then passing on to me was simple.  “Bloom where you are planted”.  With all that build up I was expecting something like “don’t invest in derivatives”, or “go raise capital and start your own firm”.  But “bloom where you are planted”?  What was I, some kind of an Orchid?

But over time this advice rang through my racing mind and helped me settle and focus more and more.  My career began moving and I was on my way up the ladder.  By forgetting about the grass on the “other side of the hill” and focusing on my own patch, I was able to grow my own reputation, departments, and responsibilities into something valuable for my company.

If you are a network marketer or an online marketer this advice is absolutely good for you too.  It seems that so many of us fall prey to the “grass is greener” syndrome, just as I did as a young manager.  In the case of home business, this results in joining additional companies, hopping around from training to training, or system to system.  It really doesn’t take long until you have more than you can manage.  In many cases your businesses are all in start-up or stalled because there is not enough energy and attention to move them forward.

So it becomes a matter of focus.  As I have written before, focus is the real key to success.  Well, there are others, but focus is definitely on the key chain.

So “bloom where you are planted”.  If you have multiple businesses and none of them are performing well, decide which one you most want to grow and focus your attention on that one.  Sure people in your other companies are going to be disappointed, and some of your downline in those companies may ask you to reconsider, but focus.  Work one business at a time until it is running smoothly, then add.

If you are distracted by offers for training and tools, focus.  Look at your business and decide what is necessary to grow it.  You may find that you already have all the training and tools you need.  Decide what needs to be done in your business, make a plan, and then do it with focus, energy, and do it with massive action.

Bloom where you are planted my friends.  I hope this helps you as much as it has helped me.  I have to dust it off once in a while and remember myself.  Best of luck!

3 Comments

admin, February 24th 2010 | Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Time Management

Online Marketing Classes Part 2 – DIRECT MARKETING

To begin understanding online marketing, one should first understand its older brother, direct marketing (you may know it as mail-order marketing & advertising).  Direct marketing uses a number of channels, some free and some paid.  There is marketing by mail, by phone, by 800 number, by radio, by TV, and even by personal visit.  More important to our purpose, Direct Marketing can also use the Internet.  For most of us corporate marketers who learned about mass marketing, direct marketing is perceived as a lesser form of marketing.  Well, having immersed myself in direct marketing I am one MBA who can report that it is a serious, reliable, and measurable discipline which produces results which are often far superior to mass marketing.  And it is absolutely necessary if you want to succeed in online marketing.

Direct marketing is marketing focused on the buyer, hence “direct” to buyer marketing.  Trust me, if corporations appreciated the possibilities offered by direct marketing, they would begin to use direct marketing techniques to absolutely skyrocket sales.  So take notes if you are a corporate marketer.  Be on the lookout for ways of identifying and reaching your target audience directly.  The good news is that with the internet and social media, now it is easier than ever before.

And the advent of the Internet and social marketing has made the Internet marketing form of direct marketing very attractive to entrepreneurs and home based business owners.  Not only is it easier than ever to find and reach the target audience, it is inexpensive.  It is entirely possible to market your products and services for free using online techniques, although it is much faster with paid advertising.

So have you noticed any websites that have huge bold headlines at the top, followed by a whole lot of narrative text and periodic pleas for you to buy?  If so you’ve encountered one of direct marketing’s most recognizable features, the sales letter.  You may have observed how long some of them are, seemingly unending.  This is because measurements have proven that longer sales letters sell more than shorter sales letters.  You may also have noted that the content is not heavily adorned with a lot of imagery.  This is because measurement has proven that editorial-looking sales copy sells better than fancy, decorative, pretty sales copy.  Oh, you may also have noticed that they seem to make some pretty amazing claims.  Well, you guessed it, measurement again.

nobsdirectmktg

Dan Kennedy is considered by many to be the father of modern direct marketing.  He lays out 10 Rules for Direct Marketing, or as he states it, “The No B.S. Rules”.  There are reasons occasionally for violating some of these rules, but for the most part consider them Direct Marketing Law.  These laws apply to Internet Marketing just as they do to mail and other forms of direct marketing:
- There Will Always Be an Offer or Offer(s)
- There Will Be a Reason to Respond Right Now
- There Will Be Clear Instructions (for Customers) on How to Respond
- There Will Be Tracking and Measurement
- Whatever Brand Building Occurs Will Be a Happy By-Product, Not Bought
- There Will Be Follow-Up
- There Will Be Strong Sales Copy, Not Vague Hyperbole
- In General, It Will Look Like “Mail-Order Advertising”
- Results Rule, Period
- You Will Be a Tough-Minded Disciplinarian and Keep Your Business On A Strict DIRECT Marketing Diet…

So here are the 10 “No BS Rules” for Direct Marketing.  Each of these rules deserves a chapter in our study of Internet Marketing.  Direct marketing is a mature form of marketing deserving our respect and attention.  In upcoming posts and videos I intend to indirectly convey more about Direct Marketing through my discussion of Online Marketing.  Until then I highly recommend Dan Kennedy’s benchmark book, No B.S. Direct Marketing:  The Ultimate No Holds Barred Kick Butt Take No Prisoners Direct Marketing For Non-Direct Marketing Businesses.  Yes, it’s a long title and not just a little irreverent.  Welcome to Direct Marketing.

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admin, February 22nd 2010 | Tags: , ,
Posted in Uncategorized

Online Marketing Classes Part 1 – The Big Picture

I want to make it much easier for newcomers to learn online marketing by creating a structured overview, a construct or framework, upon which newcomers can begin developing working mental models of the business.  Unfortunately the current learning curve for online marketers takes most people a year of hard work, lots of expensive training, courses and webinars, and a lot of trial and error.

Most marketing disciplines have the advantage of academicians and theoreticians who devote inordinate amounts of time to structuring and dissecting their disciplines.  While we wait for the academic world to catch up, I intent to create a series of posts and videos I will construct a newcomer’s framework understanding and mastering the new discipline of online marketing.  I hope this can help you.

Some of the topics I will cover include:

  • o Direct Marketing Parentage
  • o Attraction Marketing – Did They Teach This In College?
  • o Internet Marketing Models – Lead-Based Marketing (typical for MLM), Affiliate Marketing, etc.
  • o Managing Your Web Resources
  • o Selecting Products and/or Services (Solutions) For Sale
  • o Communicating Your Solution Effectively (The Art of Converting Leads)
  • o Building Traffic To Your Site
  • o Just What Is A Sales Funnel And How Do You Make Them (And What Is A Funded Proposal And An Autoresponder?)
  • o Personal Branding – Becoming The Recognized Expert
  • o Affiliate Marketing – Creating A Virtual Sales Force
  • o Powering Up – Joint Ventures With Current Leaders
  • o Series on Lead Generation Marketing Strategies (Categorized as Online Strategies, Social Media Strategies, Advertising Strategies, and Networking Strategies)
  • o Series on Selling Skills
  • o Other Stuff I Think About As I Go

My intention is not to create a detailed training program.  This has already been done quite well by a few sources, and to a lesser degree by many others.  Instead this will serve as an overview, much like a survey course you might see in college.  The point is to provide a framework and a more global perspective on where the parts all fit in order to speed the learning process for newcomers, and help fill in some gaps for others.  Wish me well because your future downlines may be grateful.

Phil Jackson, MBA

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admin, February 17th 2010 | Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized

Time Management Help for Network Marketers: Regaining Your Focus

As I’ve written before, the fact is, you cannot manage time, but you can manage yourself in time.  Time management techniques are intended to help you gain focus so you can provide your attention where it is most needed in order to meet your goals.  It is the dilution of your attention away from these priority activities that ruins your personal productivity and spoils your success.  Before you can apply time management techniques to strengthen your focus, you must first understand the problems which weaken your focus.

Problem of “Overwhelm”. Multi-tasking is probably one of the biggest myths ever in personal productivity.  It was popularized as a way of dealing with numerous stimuli simultaneously, particularly today’s rich multi-media, such as email, Tweeting, blogs, texting, phone interruptions plus others.    If you feel overwhelmed by the volume of communication you are called upon to manage and respond to, if you feel like you are unable to focus on your priorities because you are constantly diverted by multi-media messages, then you need to take decisive action.

So to overcome “overwhelm” you must learn a new skill.  You’ve got to get comfortable with a new situation.  A sense of being overwhelmed precedes growth.  Mike Koenig, the video marketing guru and co-creator of Traffic Geyser, and video marketing coach to Anthony Robbins said that the sense of being overwhelmed is a sign that the neurons in your brain are forming new connections to manage the new stimuli and problems your are encountering.  In other words, the sense of being overwhelmed can be seen as a sign that help is on the way.

Problem of Distractions. Distractions are real vampires.  They siphon off your energy and distract you from your tasks.  It is estimated that after a distraction it takes 15 minutes to get your mind completely refocused onto a task.  That’s a serious dilution of focus.  Most distractions are made by other people.  Someone knocks on your door wanting to talk about the game last night.  If you work at home it might be a spouse or a child or a neighbor.

So how will you deal with it?  Well, first you’ve got to assess it and ask yourself whether it is aligned with your purpose or goals.  If it isn’t, then maybe this interruption has no place in your space and it should be stopped or eliminated.  That can be difficult and touchy, but sometimes necessary.  Depending upon the circumstances, maybe you can simply manage the disruption.  For instance it might be fine for the kids to come into your home office in the afternoon when you’re just responding to calls and emails.  But not when you are writing advertising copy or articles in the morning.  The point is that you should never let distractions disrupt you from your high yield activities.

Problem of Environment. The environment in which you work is perhaps more important than most of my points in this article.  The bottom line on environment is this.  You cannot have a Million Dollar Thought in the middle of the kids screaming, the dog barking, and the TV rattling at the kitchen table.

Achievers actually utilize their time differently in different environments.  For all but just a very few, you can’t do all of your high priority revenue producing tasks in the same environment.  Maybe you can’t write copy or ads or build advertising campaigns in your home office.  Because in your home office there are phone interruptions, email and Social Media distractions, kids and inboxes…just about everything but intense 100 percent peak mental and physical energy performance.  Maybe you need to do your high intensity work at the dining room table early in the morning before the family gets up.  Or perhaps you’d like to take your work to a nice table in an isolated corner of the local library.

For me I like to clear my desk and focus on the high intensity things first in the morning.  When I’m making videos I like to get out of the office and into a room away from the phone and computer.  I like to use the office for more administrative tasks like uploading blog posts and articles, making calls and managing Social Media.  And I like to get away when I read for self-improvement.  So I use three separate environments.  You can experiment with this yourself.  The point is that if you try to squeeze all these various levels of activities into one environment, it will dilute your effort and your success.

Time Management Solutions – Getting Your Focus Back. Okay, now it’s time for some practical solutions to improving your productivity.  Here they are:

  • Journaling. Just like a personal trainer logs your daily exercise results for later evaluation of strengths and weaknesses, you should log your activities throughout a week and evaluate them on Friday to see what you’ve really been doing with your time, particularly whether how often and how much time you’ve spent on multi-media and how much on priority tasks.
  • Blocking Time. Set specific blocks of time aside on your schedule to deal with specific issues.  For instance if you are most productive in the mornings, set up one-hour blocks in your morning schedule strictly for your creative and goal-driven tasks.  Schedule blocks during the less productive times of the day for managing multi-media, accepting walk-in questions/disruptions, and handling mundane administrative or operations tasks.
  • Setting Appointments. Just like you set appointments to meet with people to exchange information, set an appointment for you to handle your email, Social Media, texts, and phone messages.
  • Batching. Batching is when you move multiple tasks to a time slot.  Follow the above recommendation to set an appointment to manage your multiple media, but consider carving out two days that you handle only priority tasks.  Trust me, the world isn’t going to end if you don’t respond to multi-media on Tuesdays and Thursdays, rather you batch the inquiries and handle them only on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.  Then on Tuesdays and Thursdays you are free of multi-media altogether.
  • Goal and Cycle. At the start of each task do two things.  First decide what you intend to do before you move to a different task.  Then set a finish time.  So now you have a goal (what you will accomplish) and a cycle (the start time and finish time).  This is very powerful.
  • Drilling. The fact is, if you’re going to use goal and cycle technique above, you may as well drill yourself to work faster and faster.  Studies have shown that people who work fast are sharper thinkers.  And if you’re an entrepreneur, that’s exactly what you need.
  • 50 – 10 Technique. I’ve written about a breakthrough technique called the 50 – 10 Technique, where you schedule one-hour blocks of time, use the goal and cycle technique above to determine what you’re going to accomplish, and use a timer to work 50 minutes, then take 10 minutes to walk, rehydrate, get your mind refreshed before returning.  This technique keeps you fresh and more productive all day long, preventing exhaustion by the end of the day.  If you do nothing else, adopt the 50 – Ten Technique.

There is nothing magical about time management techniques, unless of course by using them you come to realize that the biggest impediment to your ability to focus on your high-yield, goal-driven activities is YOU.  Then you can understand the true nature of being overwhelmed and learn to manage it.  You can learn to spot distractions in your life and remove them or control them, and you can learn to use the right environment for the right task.  If any of the concepts and techniques I have presented in this article help you, then I am honored.  Good luck and go focus!

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admin, February 8th 2010 | Tags: , ,
Posted in Uncategorized

Time Management Help For Network Marketers – Success Factors

Time management help is often a topic of interest for network marketers and entrepreneurs.  I’d like to dispel a commonly held myth about time management; you cannot manage time.  It is simply impossible.  Time is an artificial dimension based on sequence and interval; nobody can manage a dimension.   Ah, but you CAN manage YOURSELF in the dimension of time!  You see, there is a big difference in mindset between someone who thinks they’re going to manage time and someone who realistically expects to manage themselves.  Clearly the end results are going to be different.  I’d also like to make another quick point.  Instead of just calling it managing yourself in time, let’s call it what it really is, ‘managing your focus’.  Because in reality time management techniques are really designed to help you focus your attention where it is needed most so you can accomplish what you need to accomplish to meet your goals.

Focus is implied in my personal formula for success.  You see, I think of success as a proverbial three-legged stool.  As you know a three-legged stool must have all three of its legs or it fall over.  In my formula for success the three allegorical stool legs are:  1) maintaining peak mental & physical energy and knowledge, 2) Working only on priority activities associated with your goals and purpose, and 3) taking massive action on those activities.  A tremendous amount of focus is going to be required to bring 100 percent in each of these categories.

You must focus on peak energy and on goals and purpose in order to bring massive focus in the form of action.  Achievers are people who can focus.  Achievers are magnetically attractive people; magically other people are attracted to those who have keen focus on a purpose.  In fact we call them by names like “visionary”, “leaders”, “winners”, and “captains of industry”, just to name a few.  The successes of achievers have been almost always supported by their ability to focus physical and mental energy, purpose-driven priorities, and their follow-through with massive action.  This is what achievers do day-in and day-out.  This is why it is important for you to manage your ability to focus, and this is exactly what good time management techniques can help you accomplish.

Now, what about you?  Are you in peak physical condition?  Do you have apex physical energy to call upon in order to endure long-haul and short-term challenge?  Do you have the mental energy and knowledge to call upon during this effort?  And have you identified your purpose or mission in life and  with your business?  Have you established a vision of where you want to go in achieving that purpose, and have you set clear, achievable goals that challenge you and keep you driven toward action and success?  These are the raw materials that need to be in place before you fine-tune your focus into life-changing and business-changing action toward success.

If you are like most people, you answered “no” to most of these questions.  But don’t be discouraged.  This is your starting point, not your finish line.  These are things you can work to improve.  In fact these can become important self-development goals and business planning goals for you in the near future.  I wish you well in your journey to success.  Good luck!

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admin, February 4th 2010 | Tags: , , , ,
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Beginner Internet Marketing Recommendations

I want to recommend a Beginner Internet Marketing action sequence for people just getting started in the industry. Many come into the field without a clear course of action and here is a good one for you to follow. I’m assuming for this article that you have already selected a niche market. If not, that should be a first priority today, and implementing the following recommendations should be next. I’ll post soon on selecting a niche. I’ll preface this recommendation by stating that if you have a coach or a solid marketing plan from a trusted source, try that first. I do not want to interrupt your training.


Anchor Yourself With A Blog. My first recommendation is to anchor yourself on the Internet with a blog. Let your blog be your online living room where you invite people to come and visit you and find out what you’re all about. If you don’t know how to create a blog, I recommend you cruise on over to and check out a free WordPress.com blog. WordPress makes it easy to create a blog and take up immediate residence on the web. Be sure to put pictures of yourself on the blog and write a good “My Story” or “About Me” page. I’ll post more on blogging soon.


Generate Social Media Friends. Next I recommend that you start making friends in Social Media. If that sounds daunting, don’t worry. It’s a lot easier than you might think. Here’s what I’d like for you to do:


• Set Up A Facebook Account. Go to Facebook.com and set up an account, it’s free. Put a smiling and professional looking picture of yourself in your profile. Also put a link to your blog in your profile too. I’ll write more on Facebook soon. I want you to add 35 friends a day. Here’s how to do that. Join Facebook Groups in your niche market. Don’t go in and start pitching your product, just don’t do that. Instead go in and comment on what others are saying. Your first post should simply be to introduce yourself and tell the group that you’re new to the group and anxious to begin interacting. My biggest tip for you is to always ask a question in every post, so people will engage in conversation. Then add them as a friend. As you see posts that are interesting to you, invite those people to be friends. Try to invite 25 to 30 people a day to be friends.

• Set Up A Twitter Account. Go to Twitter.com and get an account and start Tweeting. There is a ton of information on how to Tweet. Be sure to put the same picture on Twitter that you have in Facebook, and put a link to your blog in your profile. Let me give you the most basic ones. Never blatantly pitch your business. Your first goal on Twitter is to add 50 friends a day. I’ll write a post on doing this soon, but basically find leaders in your company or in the industry. Add followers from their follower list. Just add from the most recent 5 pages. Try to add 50 a day at first. When you get to about 200, you can add 75 a day. As you grow add a few more. Once you’re around 1,000 you can add 200 a day. After 2,000 members you can add 400 to 450 a day. Just like on Facebook, try to engage these people. Retweet messages from people who have something constructive to say. As a guideline, tweet at least 10 times a day.

Use this formula. Tweet 2 uplifting quotes. Tweet 3 informational tweets about the business, a technique, or offering a link to an interesting video, blog, or article you’ve read about the business. Tweet 2 or 3 times about daily life or what you’re interested in…just be yourself and NEVER use profanity or sexually suggestive language because a lot of people you can attract as customers will be turned off by it. And finally, be really careful, but you can tweet 1 fun and INDIRECT advertisement for your business per 10 Tweets. That’s the 90:10 Rule of Promotion. Check out my tweets and you’ll see what I mean. Here’s one as an example: “3 Things I couldn’t live without, my Family, Basketball, and this: h ttp://[yourlandingpage].com. You’ll get the hang of it. Just remember to regularly invite people to your blog and to join you in Facebook.

• After Two Weeks Add One More Technique. After you’ve become accustomed to blogging, making friends on Facebook and Twitter, you need to add a technique to your daily practice. You can select from any number of free techniques like article writing, video, Forum marketing. I personally recommend making a video that summarizes each blog post. My favorite two are:


o Video. Post that video on YouTube.com and put it in your blog (just copy the embed code from YouTube and insert into your blog post). In the description of the video on YouTube, put your blog address on the first line, starting with the http//: part. Nothing else on the first line of the description.
o Articles. If you’re uncomfortable with video, you can easily do article posting. Just take your blog and post to some of the leading article directories, like EzineArticles.com, Amazines.com, and GoArticles.com.

Add In Pay Per Click. You should add Pay Per Click when you can afford it. Don’t start until you can spend at least $500 per month in PPC advertising. As soon as your business is generating profit, begin investing that profit into PPC. This is the fastest way to generate leads, but special training and practice is required or it will be ineffective.


If you follow the Beginner Internet Marketing guidelines above, your business will start picking up steam and leads. If you have any problems feel free to contact me and I’ll get you going. Good luck!

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admin, January 28th 2010 | Tags: , , ,
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Why Get A Mentor?

Why get a mentor?  Because if you don’t want to be prey to the industry, you’ll need to become king of your jungle, and if you read on you’ll see why you need a mentor to make the transition.  Let me explain; there is a significant likelihood that if you join a Network Marketing company you’re going to fail.   Of course your results may vary, but the average is 95% to 97%.  That goes for online or face-to-face marketing, it doesn’t matter.  This is a bare-boned and frank discussion of the reality of starting any business.  It’s DANGEROUS out there and if you are average you’ll be eaten alive.  Are you willing to be average, just fresh meat for an industry full of predators?  If the answer is an emphatic ‘No’, then you’ll need a mentor to become a “Leadership Lion”, a “Business Tiger”, and a “Marketing Bear”.

A mentor can help you get through two very steep learning curves.  One is marketing and sales, and the other is Business and Leadership.  A mentor knows the path, has been through this jungle before.  A mentor will help you become what you’ll need to be to succeed.

Become a Marketing Tiger.  Many people jump into a business opportunity thinking that they’ll invite a few friends to a meeting or put up a website and a sales funnel and the money will just come rollin in.  Not so…they’re already in the ‘Exit Lane’ from the industry and haven’t been involved 5 minutes.  Marketing and sales are at the heart of Network Marketing.  Don’t believe anyone who says “you don’t have to sell, you just share”, Horse Apples (Col. Potter, MASH).

Marketing is figuring out what to sell, whom to sell it to, how to find them, and what to tell them so they are attracted into communication with you so you can sell something to them.  And Sales is what you do with them once they show up at your door so they end up buying just exactly what they need and want, going away happy that they ran into you and telling their friends to go see you too.  This is a bit of a Swiss Cheese (full of holes) interpretation, but I think you get the point.  Marketing and sales are at the CORE of running a business.  Here are a couple of gold-letter definitions from the American Marketing Association for those of you who are sticklers for precision:

  • Marketing.  Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.
  • Sales.  Any of a number of activities designed to promote customer purchase of a product or service. Sales can be done in person or over the phone, through e-mail or other communication media. The process generally includes stages such as assessing customer needs, presenting product features and benefits to address those needs and negotiation on price, delivery and other elements.

Folks this takes time to learn marketing and sales, are you willing to spend time?  Don’t expect money to come rolling in up-front without these skills.  To get up this learning curve fast, you’re going to need help.  You’re going to need a solid and tested training process, and you’re going to need a mentor who can guide you through.

Become a Business Bear and a Leadership Lion.  The second learning curve is the Business Owner Mindset.  This is my favorite because it doesn’t sound very hard.  When I first started in this business I thought it would be a cinch, after all I figured that I had an MBA, 20 years in Corporate world, and I was leaving my role as VP of Marketing.  WRONG; I was not prepared to instantly succeed as a business owner and it took a lot of energy to get there.  I didn’t realize how ingrained the employer-employee mentality was in my personality.  Bottom line, even if you have the marketing and sales skills, financial management skills, if you don’t have the mindset of a Business Owner, you’re going to bounce all over the profits board, and you’ll end up a casualty of the industry.

The reason is simple enough.  Employees know that if they go to work, they’ll receive money in exchange.  Business Owners know that they don’t make money unless they make it happen.  Successful business owners don’t quit because they have stalwart self-determination.  Successful business owners are driven from within, from desire and a dream and from passion.  They love what they’re doing, or at lease something core to what they’re doing.

This is the mindset that’s going to get you past the tough times.  It’s the mindset that’s going to see zero sales and just keep pushing forward.  It’s the mindset that asks “how am I going to make this happen” when you get Google-Slapped (lose your AdWords account).   It’s the mindset that gets you up in the morning with a smile on your face when you’re losing money, knowing that you’re ultimately going to make money because of what you do each and every day to improve your business.  And it’s the mindset that forces you to change your entire personality and become an ‘Alpha’ leader so you can literally attract people into your business like a magnet.

Take it from me, you’re going to need a mentor who can help you make this transition into a business owner’s mindset.  It’s a steep learning curve, and I didn’t make it to the top until I had a mentor.

Get a Mentor.  Three percent to five percent make it in the industry, that’s all.  Eighty percent of those work with a mentor.  In fact over time they have a series of mentors as the ramp up their success year-after-year.  Are you going to be a statistic of this industry, or are you going to become a Business Lion, a Leadership Lion, a Marketing Tiger, and a Business Bear?  Get a mentor.  You’ll thank me for it.

4 Comments

admin, January 27th 2010 | Tags: , , ,
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Three Business Partners You Need


Remember the Butcher, the Baker, and the Candlestick Maker?  Before you start your home-based business, you need three very important supporting partners.  You need an Attorney, a Banker and an Accountant in your corner from the very start.  Starting a home-based business is an exciting time and the rewards can be tremendous!  But too many times people get caught up in the whirlwind of marketing their business and forget that it’s a business.  Frequently these people are the ones with headaches and frustration at tax time, and they are often the ones with unexpected surprises and disappointments along the way.   By setting up a relationship and meeting with your Attorney, Banker and Accountant in advance, your business will be off to a smooth start.

Start with an Attorney.  You need to set up your business so you and your family have limited risk exposure from liability suits.  That’s right, somebody could sue you for whatever reason, and you need to make absolutely sure that your home, the vacation money and the kids’ college education funds are protected.  Your attorney can help you decide which organizational format you should choose, an LLC (Limited Liability Corporation), a corporation or other structure.  One decision I discussed with my attorney was whether or not to include my wife in the LLC.  Your attorney can help you avoid headaches by advising you of good choices up front, then you’ll have a relationship that you can call on when you need assistance with contracts and other legal matters later.

And get a Banker.  If you’re moving fast, you can set up the LLC or corporation first, then go to the banker.  You’re going to need an EIN (Employer Identification Number) from the IRS before you set up your business account.  Your banker will be a great friend if you need to arrange money transfers, wiring funds, business credit cards, and any number of transactions.  Some banks even offer Merchant Accounts so you can accept credit cards in your business.  By building a solid relationship with your banker up-front, you’ll be in a stronger position later when you need fast action or even a line of credit to support your business.

Finally you need an Accountant up front as well.  Accountants aren’t just for tax time.  Your accountant can advise you on which financial management system to use.  Mine recommended Quick Books PRO.  Here’s the kicker, she even offered to help set it up.  Now I don’t know about you, but that’s a real help for me, a custom-installed accounting system for my business.  Depending on your transaction volume, you may want to outsource your bookkeeping (data entry) to your accountant or a bookkeeper.  Also your accountant may have some advice about how you pay taxes.  For instance, having your LLC taxed as an S-Corp.  By building a relationship up front, your accountant can help you make sure you have the right accounting system, set up the right way, and that you are processing transactions correctly.  This will dramatically streamline things at tax time, and that’s when your accountant will be your new best friend.

So get your home-based business started right by building relationships with an Attorney, a Banker, and an Accountant.  A little bit of effort up front will pay off strong dividends in the long run, and you’ll have a stronger, smoother running business from the outset.

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admin, January 17th 2010 | Tags: , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized

Online Marketer Information Overload: Stick With One Course At A Time

If you’re going to be an online marketer of MLM or Network Marketing products and opportunities, you’re going to want to get some training courses and information as you get started.  Knowledge is one of the keys to success as an online entrepreneur and you need to be spending no less than 2 hours each day literally soaking in as much as you can possibly hold!  But don’t make the mistake I’ve learned the hard way.  Don’t buy more than you can use at one time.  There are a lot of really enticing training opportunities on the Internet and if you are attracted to too many, you might quickly find yourself deep into information overload and budget overload.  My hard-earned advice to you is to select a training course or training material, stick with it until you have completed it, and then implement what you learned before moving to the next training.

Guys, what I’m telling you here is golden.  You can take it to the bank.  Just this week I’ve been pounded with emails from some of my favorite Internet marketing gurus enticing me with elaborate landing page videos and offering the “most comprehensive” training available on the Internet, or the “only training available online at this level of intensity”.  And of course there is always a limited timeframe associated with every offer, which carries a really affordable price; you know it’s affordable because they tell you just how much the competitors would charge for similar training…if it were even available.

So I know “from whence I come” my friends.  With all these attractive offers sometimes it’s easy to believe you’re getting yourself ahead just by purchasing it.  In the heat of the game, when you’re behind on your marketing and pushing to get everything done, it’s somehow reassuring to latch onto some new training product.  In some strange way it can make you feel like you’ve made progress for the day.  Don’t be a sucker!

Don’t be tricked by every single beautiful training course or information product that comes your way.  If you are, two things will happen.  You’ll go broke learning to be an online marketer, and you’ll feel guilty because you’ll never get through all the training that you’ve got stacked in the corner next to the file cabinet.  Take it from me.  I’ve got thousands of dollars of worth of incredible training just waiting for me to start digging through.

Remember, it’s not the training material or even the process of learning the new information that will make you a success.  It’s the act of IMPLEMENTING what you’ve learned and then testing and adjusting it to maximize your ROI that will makes you a success!  So just stick with the training you’ve selected, implement it in your marketing and fine tune it.  Then, and ONLY then, move on to the next great training.

Buy, study, implement and adjust.  That’s the sequence you want.  You and your business will go further and faster if you follow this sage advice.  I know that mine has.  Good luck!

Abstract:  There are a lot of really enticing training opportunities on the Internet and if you are attracted to too many, you might quickly find yourself deep into information overload and budget overload.  My hard-earned advice to you is to select a training course or training material, stick with it until you have completed it, and then implement what you learned before moving to the next training.

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admin, January 16th 2010 | Tags: , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized