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Marc Guberti

E50: Real Artists Don’t Starve With Jeff Goins

September 20, 2017 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Jeff Goins is a blogger, speaker, and the author of multiple bestselling books such as The Art Of Work and his latest book Real Artists Don’t Starve. He believes that great ideas can change the world and creates content that allows us to tap into our inner creativity. He has trained tens of thousands of communicators to tell their stories online.

 

Quotes To Remember:

“Books don’t get written, words get written, sentences get written, paragraphs get written…..it starts small.”

“The Story you tell yourself is the person you become.”

“Do your work in some setting where people are likely to notice it.”

 

What You’ll Learn:
–How to get your work seen by the right people

–Fighting through the adversity that greets every artist

–How to generate revenue from your work

 

Key Links From The Show:

Goinswriter–Jeff’s website

Real Artists Don’t Starve by Jeff Goins

 

Recommended Books:

Make Art, Make Money by Elizabeth Hyde Stevens

The Agony and The Ecstasy by Irving Stone

 

The Godfather  by Mario Puzo

Filed Under: Uncategorized

E50: Real Artists Don’t Starve With Jeff Goins

September 20, 2017 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Jeff Goins is a blogger, speaker, and the author of multiple bestselling books such as The Art Of Work and his latest book Real Artists Don’t Starve. He believes that great ideas can change the world and creates content that allows us to tap into our inner creativity. He has trained tens of thousands of communicators to tell their stories online.

 

Quotes To Remember:

“Books don’t get written, words get written, sentences get written, paragraphs get written…..it starts small.”

“The Story you tell yourself is the person you become.”

“Do your work in some setting where people are likely to notice it.”

 

What You’ll Learn:–How to get your work seen by the right people

–Fighting through the adversity that greets every artist

–How to generate revenue from your work

 

Key Links From The Show:

Goinswriter–Jeff’s website

Real Artists Don’t Starve by Jeff Goins

 

Recommended Books:

Make Art, Make Money by Elizabeth Hyde Stevens

The Agony and The Ecstasy by Irving Stone

 

The Godfather  by Mario Puzo

Filed Under: Breakthrough Success

Case Study: How To Read 30 Books In 30 Days

September 19, 2017 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

 

readAfter my first year of college, I decided to do something different over the summer—read a lot of books.

I used a portion of my Monthly Performance Reports to put my reading lists on full display. While I normally read 5-10 books in a given month, the summer days allowed that reading list to morph into 30 books every month.

I didn’t take time off from my business during this time. In fact, I dramatically increased the amount of books I read while preparing to lead a Content Marketing Success Summit, one of the biggest projects of my life up to that point.

In this blog post, I’ll share my story so you can reap the benefits of reading 30 books every month without feeling overwhelmed by work, your personal life, or anything else.

#1: Have The Books On Hand

Before I began my 30-book per month reading journey, I knew I needed to have all of the books readily accessible. So, to put it bluntly, I went on a bargain buying spree.

I knew that by the time I finished reading any given book it would be filled with notes and underlines, so I didn’t mind buying used books (as long as they didn’t have any underlining or highlighting included).

My adventure began on eBay where some people are desperate to part ways with their books. Because the bulk lots included anywhere from 10-20 books per order, I bought books at a rate from $1 to $4 per book depending on who was selling them.

And all of these books were LEGIT, not aged books that are no longer relevant. In fact, I published several books before social media taught me the marketing tactics that work today (often overlooked in the new age of digital marketing).

If you prefer to read books on a device, you’re all set. You can buy all of your books in a few clicks. I prefer reading paperback editions, which is why I decided to purchase books in bulk on eBay.

Buy in bulk

The only problem with book lots is that you don’t get to choose the books on offer; I have multiple copies of the same books because they were a part of a bulk order.

But eventually I learned about Thrift Books, which help you avoid that problem as well as enjoy a wider range of choices and ridiculous bargains.

You may think it’s not worth going through the trouble to find book bargains, but if you want to read 30 books per month, that’s 360 books every year.

In a worst case scenario, saving an average of $10 per book (very possible with book lots and Thrift Books) results in a savings of $3,600 every year!

Don’t Read Word-For-Word

Once you have assembled all of your books, it’s time to read them. But don’t read them in the traditional word-for-word style. Sure, you’ll absorb all of the material if you do, but it will take a longer period of time before you move onto the next book.

When I read books, I skim through them for the most pertinent information. If there’s a section that explains how to create a Twitter account, for example, I skip it because I already have a Twitter account. There’s no need to waste time reading things that you already know.

Similarly, when I buy a productivity book I skip through familiar tips like setting deadlines, 3-Year Plans, and how to set SMART goals. Unless the author shares these common tactics with a very different flavor, I skip to the next part of the book.

Skip Entire Chapters

Not only should you skip over things you already know, you should also get into the habit of skipping portions, or even chapters, of books containing information you don’t want to learn. For instance, I don’t want to learn much about Vine because Vine is a dead social network.

And yet, many of these books have entire chapters dedicated to Vine. Some books are dedicated entirely to the social network. Just remember that information that was once relevant may be outdated today.

You can also skip chapters outlining tasks you don’t want to perform. For instance, I’ll skip a chapter in a podcasting book about editing episodes because I already have a trustworthy freelancer who edits my podcast episodes.

Skipping that chapter allows me to move to the next chapter sooner and, ultimately, to a new book.

Write In Your Book

For a long time I resisted writing in my books, especially signed copies. While I rarely write in books, I often underline with a pencil.

Underlining important points in each of your books makes the re-reading process easier. After all, you have a plan to re-read the best books, right?

At the beginning of each month, I go through my favorite books from the previous month. I skim through what I underlined, and brainstorm ideas. I commit a few hours of one day to this task.

Underlining important text makes this process much faster as I can literally skip hundreds of pages of content. I only focus on what I’d underlined previously because my past self regarded only those points as important.

A Technicality On Book Length

One thing to remember when reading 30 books in 30 days is that book length matters. It’s much easier to read 30 books that average 200 pages than to read 30 books that average 600 pages.

When dozens of books are delivered to me in one day, I start by reading the shorter books first. It’s likely a good thing that I read Tools Of Titans before I began taking my reading goal seriously.

I like reading the shorter books first because finishing a shorter book gives me the dopamine rush to start reading (and finishing) another book.

Get a string of small wins, and it won’t be long before you can read the occasional 400-600 page book with ease.

It It’s Not Scheduled, It Won’t Happen

If you want reading to become a habit, you must schedule it into your day. I schedule at least one hour of reading time every day.

You should also choose one day a week to dedicate entirely to reading books, no professional work. I designate Fridays as my reading days. And even though I spend several hours reading books on Fridays, it doesn’t feel rigorous. Why? Because Fridays feel like a day off from work.

It’s important to find what works for you, but don’t forget that if it’s not scheduled, it won’t happen.

Turn Your TV And Surfing Time Into Reading Time

Professional work can take up hours of your day, but so can TV and internet surfing. You need to eliminate digital surfing from your life because you’re simply watching life happen instead of making life happen. Spectators watch, superstars perform.

The average American watches 32 hours of television every week. If we all switched from digital surfing to reading self-development books, the world would truly be a better place.

The next time you want to watch a marathon, the last episode of a series, or reruns, crack open a book instead. Repeat the process with other bad habits, and with greater intensity, and you’ll have no problem reading 30 books in 30 days.

In Conclusion

Reading 30 books every 30 days will dramatically expand your knowledge and open the door to a variety of possibilities. Reading all of these books requires a mindset shift and the elimination of bad habits. And, of course, the 30+ books you’ll need on hand before you get started.

What are your thoughts on reading 30 books every day? Have any good book recommendations for us? Please share how you plan to implement this habit into your own life. Sound off in the comments section below.

Filed Under: Books, growth hacking, Mindset, Motivation, productivity, Time Management, Tips and Tricks, Uncategorized Tagged With: books, good habits, growth hacking, motivation, productivity, self-development

August 2017 Monthly Performance Report

September 8, 2017 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

NOTE: This performance report came out later than usual. My website actually acted weird on me and shut down for a few days. I couldn’t access my dashboard and my audience couldn’t access my content…a lose-lose situation that has now been fixed.

I didn’t get as much done in August due to my two week vacation, but I still got stuff done. We’ll dive straight into one of the differentiators between me and other people in my niche.

Planning For School

I am entering my sophomore year of college and running, so I’ve been working out for several hours each day to become a better athlete. August 30th is my first day of school which means I lose a lot of time I’d normally spend on my business. I also have an expanding workout schedule by choice which means less time for the business.

The strange irony is that when I feel like I’m losing more time to address the business, I end up getting more done.

With that said, if I don’t plan for school, athletics, and business, those pillars will fall. On some days, I’ll home early. On other days, I’ll get home after 6 pm.

There’s more free time for college students than high school students, but abusing this free time is the recipe for disaster.

Here’s how I’m planning for school (a.k.a. making sure the business still gets plenty of attention and thrives in the process)

1. A temporary break from virtual summits. I love organizing virtual summits, but they are a lot of work. I have no problem with interviewing people, but I have to create training videos for 3-5 training courses within a few weeks, make sure all of the funnels work, and respond to a ton of people.

2. Daily podcast episodes. With that said, I still love interviewing people and providing my audience with those interviews. My solution for my temporary summit hiatus after the upcoming Productivity Virtual Summit is to publish one new interview on my Breakthrough Success Podcast every day. I will conduct several interviews on Tuesdays and Wednesdays so I can do other things for the rest of the week.

3. More outsourcing. Every time I have outsourced any part of my brand, my business has grown. Outsourcing allows me to regain countless hours in my day. I will go more into detail about my outsourcing plans towards the end of the Performance Report.

 

My Progress With The Monthly Calendar

I’ve been writing more blog posts ever since I instituted the monthly calendar. Not all of the blog posts are published yet, and I attribute that to going on my two week vacation. As it will be a very long time before my next two week vacation, I’m not making any excuses.

Vacation

It has been a very long time since my last vacation. Physically, I go on vacation 2-3 times per year and all in the summer.

But I went on vacation for the first time in several years…

I did virtually ZERO work. The most I did was respond to emails at the end of the day or when other family members did their work. I want more vacations to be like that last one where I’m not doing any work. It was an amazing recharge and I came back more productive than ever.

The work I do to outsource more of my tasks will make that dream become a more frequent reality.

Productivity Virtual Summit—Finishing Touches

This summit is the 2nd one I’m organizing (50+ speakers) and I plan on taking a short break from summits. With school and athletics taking on a bigger portion of my life, I don’t want to go head first into another virtual summit.

I was able to organize the Productivity Virtual Summit right after wrapping up CMSS because of the summer schedule. If I were to organize a summit after PVS, it would have taken place during my finals, or the bulk of the preparation would have occurred during my final exams.

I’m almost ready to reveal the site, and if you’re subscribed to my email list, you’ll get that info before everyone else.

I’m Turning Breakthrough Success Into A Daily Podcast

I love interviewing people, and since I have no immediate plans on organizing a third virtual summit, I need a new excuse to interview the top experts on the planet.

Enter the beefed up Breakthrough Success Podcast!

At some point between the end of the Productivity Virtual Summit and the end of the year, the transition from weekly to daily podcast will be complete.

I already have almost a dozen extra interviews scheduled for the Breakthrough Success Podcast. Marathons such as interviewing 33 people in two weeks for CMSS will get applied to the podcast for a while.

I intend on having far more episodes than I need so I have the ability to host another virtual summit in the near future if I see something that can work.

Affiliate Marketing

I am in love with affiliate marketing. The opportunity for me to impact people with other people’s training while generating some revenue is amazing. For instance, I’m promoting Matt McWilliams’ No Product No Problem course which teaches people how to become successful affiliate marketers.

Matt has been teaching me this stuff for years, and I am so happy to be promoting his training to my audience.

I also have plans on sharing some training from Jeff Walker (THE founding father of online product launches) and Michael Hyatt (a master in productivity) just before I start promoting my Productivity Virtual Summit.

I’ll sprinkle in several blog posts and episodes in between 🙂

I have plans on doing some internal launches soon, but I won’t reveal the details until I have a more clear picture of products and time tables.

Books I Read

Humanize Your Brand by Jessica Ann

Getting Things Done by David Allen

Weekend Millionaire Mindset by Mike Summey and Roger Dawson

Code Of The Extraordinary Mind by Vishen Lakhiani

Top Of Mind by John Hall

Conversion Code by Chris Smith

Rich20 Something by Daniel DiPiazza

The Magic Of Thinking Big by David J. Schwartz

Schedule Your Dreams by Liane R. Grant

Daily Inbox Zero by S.J. Scott

7 Habits Of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey

Work The System by Sam Carpenter

The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson

Quantum Success by Sandra Anne Taylor

10 Messages Your Angels Want You To Know by Doreen Virtue

Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans

Mind Hacking by John Hargrave

No Limits by John C. Maxwell

Do Less Be More by Susan Pearse

Jeffrey Gitomer’s Little Platinum Book Of Cha-Ching by Jeffrey Gitomer

 

August’s Blog Posts

How To Choose The Best Blog Post Topics

How To Play More Offense For Your Business

6 Indispensable Factors For Attractive And Strong Content Marketing In 2017

7 Jackpot Principles For Improving Your Email Outreach

 

August’s Podcast Episodes

I did several interviews but didn’t realize I didn’t publish them. I’ll make up for it with the summit, but I plan on outsourcing more steps in turning an interview into an episode so I have less tasks to address.

 

Review Of August 2017 Goals

#1: Set Up A Strong Set-And-Forget Revenue Stream—While I haven’t launched this system into the public yet (I’m finalizing a few things), I made great progress in this area. I am taking all of the training courses I created while organizing the Content Marketing Success Summit and putting them all into one funnel.

#2: Contact 1,000 Affiliates—I have close to 100 affiliates confirmed for the launch. While I wasn’t able to contact 1,000 affiliates in all, I still believe I did a great in this area…especially since I truly went on vacation and wasn’t just physically at a vacation destination.

#3: Finalize The Street Team For My Upcoming Book—I joined a mastermind that specializes in this area and is filled with people who support upcoming book launches. I consider that a strong start, but I have to actually take action to get people on my launch team.

#4: Finish Writing My Book Draft—When I was writing this Performance Report, I thought, “Well, I didn’t really finish the book draft.” However, there are still six days in August, so I’m visualizing that I did finish writing the book draft over the final days of August. I chose some days to write over 5,000 words and got the job done. Now I can start building up early praise.

#5: Finish The PVS Portal—I finished the CMSS portal a few days before the summit went live. With the exception of a small number of remaining interviews (I’m done by the first week of September), the PVS Portal is finished. Since I don’t have to worry as much about making the portal, I can focus more of my time, attention, and energy on creating the training courses I’ll offer during the summit.

September 2017 Goals

#1: Crush It With PVS—I’ve put three months of preparation into making the virtual summit special. I didn’t need as much time as compared to CMSS due to the summer season and the fact that PVS is my second go. I want to make this summit a legendary experience for all of the attendees similarly to how I did with CMSS.

#2: Build My Book Team—I don’t see this being too hard considering the Facebook Group I’m in. It’s just the process of posting book covers and more info in the group which I’ll do by the first week of September. I need to act quickly with this one.

#3: Land More Podcast Interviews—I’m getting on as many podcasts as possible in preparation for my upcoming book. I will consider hiring someone to help me with this process but will do most of the legwork on my own.

#4: Plan Out Book Promotion In Greater Detail—I need to paint a more complete picture of what the book promotion will look like so I can crush it when it’s time.

#5: Outsource More Parts Of My Business—The more you outsource, the more you realize you need to outsource more tasks. Right now I’m more focused on finding a super VA than hiring several people. Once I have a VA who can perform many tasks for me, I’ll then return to looking for help in specific areas from multiple people. Hiring a VA is currently the biggest step I can take with outsourcing more parts of my business.

 

In Conclusion

I had a strong summer but this was not my brightest month from a business standpoint. I did get to capitalize on my two week vacation and not think of work. That was a plus.

With that said, I needed a month like this. August got me hungrier for September and I can already tell you I’ve made sweeping changes in my habits to prevent the same mistakes and continue to grow in the process.

What are your thoughts on my performance reports? Do you have any questions for me? Sound off in the comments section below.

Filed Under: Performance Reports

How To Stay Organized On Your Computer

September 7, 2017 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

organized computer

Computers have transformed the way we work and have allowed us to reach new levels of productivity.

However, extreme usage (and in some cases reliance) on computers can actually HURT our productivity.

In fact, we cause most of the technical headaches. Saving numerous documents and photos eventually slows down a computer, a problem that can only be solved with a massive clean up or a new computer.

Another problem is the actual creation of documents, making it a struggle to find information in a timely manner.

Part of the reason we buy a computer in the first place is to create documents and save photos. So if we try to care for our computers by not creating documents or saving pictures, its primary purpose is essentially lost.

But we must also consider the ways in which many of us organize our work and documents — all stuffed into one folder.  When, if fact, organization has been proven to boost productivity.

It’s easy to think that organization is limited to your desk space and the room you work in. But it goes much further than that, beginning with your computer.

Here’s how you keep all of your emails and other important stuff organized on your computer.

#1: Reduce Clutter

The more cluttered your computer, the more difficult it is to find the document you are looking for, which shouldn’t take more than a few seconds.

Our attention spans resemble that of a goldfish, and when the internet (and Facebook) is just a click away, a day meant for work can quickly turn into meaningless hours of surfing the web.

I use the size of the icons on my computer’s dashboard to determine if I have too much clutter. If I must squint or move closer to see what certain documents are, I have too much clutter.

If my desktop is filled with too many pictures, documents, etc., I have too much clutter. Reducing the clutter reduces distractions.

A picture is worth 1,000 words, and a thousand more distractions.

#2: Use Folders To Group Documents

This is probably the best tip. I can’t emphasize this one enough.

When you save things to your desktop, you will see them each time you log onto your computer. This is when it’s easy to get distracted by screenshots and similar items saved to your desktop.

To avoid this, I group all of my screenshots into folders.

If I didn’t use these folders, my entire desktop screen would be filled with screenshots galore.

This isn’t just a way to keep your desktop clean, you can also group together important documents according to theme, client, work type, etc., to stay organized.

One of my folders, for example, is titled “Podcast.” Within that folder are the seven documents I use to keep my podcast organized.

Instead of keeping all of them on my dock (and having super tiny app sizes), I put them all in one folder on my desktop.

That not only saves me space, it also makes it easier to find all of the other documents I need.

And when I need those podcast documents, they are all in one place and super easy to find.

#3: Flag Important Emails

When you get emails that you can’t respond to immediately, or need to refer to again later, flag them. That way, you can find them more easily later on.

The only problem with flagging emails is that if it becomes too much of a habit, you’ll have an inbox overload. Try to relegate them to emails you need to respond to, and be sure you do it within a reasonable amount of time.

I recommend spending 30-60 minutes in your inbox at the time of day when you usually feel least productive.

For example, I never go through my inbox in the morning because that’s when I am at my peak level of productivity. When I do happen to see an important email in the morning, I flag it.

I always make a point of checking my email in the afternoon, just before I take a break. I respond to all of the flagged messages before checking my inbox for new messages.

#4: Make Each Flag Mean Something

When I decided to start a podcast, I needed guests.

Barely knowing what I was doing, I sent a bunch of emails to people who would be a great fit for my podcast. Naturally as more people agreed to participate, I became more excited about podcasting.

But I quickly lost control of my inbox.

Which guests were awaiting confirmation of time and dates? Which guests needed the initial questionnaire? Who did I need to follow-up with?

My mind was dreaming of the possibilities but running in circles trying to keep everything organized. Then I figured out what to do:

I started assigning a meaning to each flag.

  • When I receive a guest confirmation, I assign that email an orange flag.
  • Once time and date are determined, I change the flag to blue.
  • After the questions are submitted, I make the flag purple.

Once the podcast episode ends, I remove the flag and add the guest’s email address to a custom spreadsheet.

I also share a link to the episode with the guest and make a mental note to stay in touch (the relationship doesn’t end when the episode is over or even weeks after it’s published. It never ends).

#5: Put Everything Else In A Miscellaneous Document

You may have noticed the Misc folder on my desktop screenshot.

If there’s a screenshot, document or download that doesn’t belong anywhere else, that’s the folder it goes into.

That folder has hundreds of screenshots and pictures that would otherwise take up my computer’s entire dashboard, leaving it an unorganized mess!

In Conclusion

The traditional definition of getting organized involves having a neat workspace and working in a clean room.

But if your computer is unorganized, you might as well be working in a room filled with clutter with piles of paperwork covering your entire desk.

The worst part about an unorganized computer is that it’s extremely easy to get distracted – our computers provide us with virtually infinite options.

Any website is a click away. Pictures on our dashboards can distract us at a moment’s notice. And important emails can easily get lost in the shuffle.

But all of that is more likely to happen if your computer remains unorganized.

How do you organize your computer? Have any tips or stories for us? Sound off in the comments section below.

Filed Under: growth hacking, Organization, productivity, Time Management, Tips and Tricks, Uncategorized Tagged With: computers, email, organization, productivity, tips and tricks

E49: Building A 7-Figure Amazon FBA Empire With Ryan Grant

September 6, 2017 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Ryan Grant worked in the accounting field for a little over a year and a half before he decided to quit so he could create his own future. Ryan walked away from a $50K/yr job and now crushes it with Amazon FBA and other platforms. Ryan trains other people how to do the same, and everyone who has been in Ryan’s program for more than one year made at least $100,000 in sales in 2016 with the top client eclipsing $1 million in sales in 2016 for the first time.

 

Quotes To Remember

“The biggest thing is knowing your numbers.”

“As long as you’re doing the math ahead of time, it should be profitable.”

“If you truly want it to be a business, I suggest you figure out how to systematize things as you go along, and be prepared to bring out additional team members.”

 

What You’ll Learn

—Hacks for growing and investing in your Amazon FBA business

—How to get your products out of Amazon’s warehouses

—The mentality of an Amazon FBA side hustle versus committing to it full-time

 

Key Links from the Show:

Ryan’s Site

Scoutify—App used for aiding online arbitrage.

Keepa—Amazon price tracker

Camel Camel Camel—Amazon price tracker

Oaxray—Scouting reports for Online Arbitrage

Tactical Arbitrage—Scouting reports for Online Arbitrage

 

Recommended books:

The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson

4 Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris

Millionaire Fastlane by MJ DeMarco

Filed Under: Uncategorized

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I am a content marketer and personal finance writer who produces content for individuals, small businesses, and corporations. My content will help drive engagement and sales to your business. I have produced content for several publications, including…

  • US News & World Report
  • Business Insider
  • Benzinga
  • Newsweek
  • Bankrate

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