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How To Break Down Any Business Problem

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Struggling with a part of your business? We’ve all been there. I can’t count the number of problems I had with my business. Conquering each of those problems has made me into the entrepreneur I am today.

As I conquered more business problems, I paid more attention to the process.

How are problems solved as quickly as possible so they don’t hinder us too long? I tackle that topic within my latest video.

In less than three minutes, you’ll know all of the steps in the problem solving cycle.

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The 7 Essentials Of A Successful Online Business

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Successful Online Business
You absolutely must have these seven things.

What makes an online business tick? It’s a question I have been asking myself for many years. In fact, it’s a question I continue asking myself today.

I am what people would call an expert, but the playing field is constantly changing. Live streaming is now hot. Buying backlinks stopped working a long time ago.

In the midst of a changing playing field, there are certain essentials that make up all successful online businesses. It took me a while to discover what these qualities are.

Through a lot of stumbling, I finally ended up discovering what these seven essentials are. The playing field will continue changing, but these seven essentials will be around for a very long time.

 

#1: Social Media

Every successful business has some type of social media presence. While few business owners can truly master all of the social networks, most business owners master a few social networks and use that knowledge to expand.

You don’t want to approach social media with the intention of mastering every social network right away. The way to master social media is to master one social network at a time. I only saw social media success when I focused most of my time towards Twitter.

That’s the main reason why Twitter is still my go-to social network. Since I mastered Twitter before I mastered any of the other social networks, my Twitter audience continued growing and I know how to interact with them.

It doesn’t matter which social network you choose to master. What matters is that you choose a social network to master and then grow your social media presence.

Once you master one social network, you’ll have the skillset to expand into other social networks. I first mastered Twitter. Now I have a strong presence on Pinterest, YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook just to name a few.

But it all starts with mastery of a single social network.

 

#2: Email List

The money is in the email list. It is the best method of communication you have with your audience for getting clicks and generating sales. Every successful online business owner has a big, targeted email list.

There are a variety of methods for generating an email list. Facebook ads, AdWords, and organic promotion are some of the key tactics.

However, the email list is the most important platform you have. That is why it is necessary to take your email list growth one step further.

The purpose of EVERY platform you create must be to grow your email list.

That means if you have a YouTube channel, one of your goals for that channel must be growing your email list. The same rule applies if you use live streaming, Twitter, Facebook, any other social network, or any other platform/opportunity.

Always think about growing your email list.

 

#3: Landing Page

The landing page is the page on your blog that you promote in order to get more subscribers.

If you plan on using YouTube to get more subscribers, promote your landing page at the end of your YouTube videos. But don’t stop with YouTube. Use any of your social media audiences you have built up to promote your landing page.

Promoting a landing page with a free offer is how you get more subscribers. The more optimized that landing page is and the more traffic it gets, then the more subscribers you will get.

The main focus of a landing page is to get more subscribers. You don’t want people to go on your landing page and then find a way to read your blog posts. That’s why for all of my landing pages, I don’t have a navigation menu.

The navigation menu would distract visitors with too many options and result in fewer subscribers.

The landing page’s only mission is to get the visitor’s email address. If you don’t have a landing page yet, you can create one with either Optimize Press or LeadPages. Both of these tools are awesome, so no matter which one you choose, you’ll have awesome landing pages at your disposal.

 

#4: Product(s)

Every successful online business features a few products. The training course or book is the most popular route that online marketers pursue. Creating your own book or training course is easy with an outline, and it doesn’t cost much money to create the product.

Depending on how you create the book or training course, it may not cost you a single penny.

That makes it easier for you to achieve an ROI. More importantly, it is these products that you must promote to your email list in order to make money.

You can also leverage affiliate marketing to boost your sales. Affiliate marketing is the act of you promoting someone else’s product. However, you need to create your own product eventually, and offering your product as a free bonus can dramatically boost your affiliate sales.

In a split-test, affiliate marketing legend Matt McWilliams discovered that including a bonus to one of your products for a price similar to the affiliate product could result in a 650% increase in sales.

So even if you rely on affiliate marketing for your income, it wouldn’t hurt to create your own product. You’ll make more money when you promote your own product, and you will get more affiliate sales by offering your product as a free bonus.

 

#5: Mentor(s)

If you are a newbie and don’t do anything I have mentioned in this blog post, then you must start here. Having mentors will make a HUGE difference between success and failure.

The right mentors can arm you with new knowledge and present you with more business opportunities. I have had several mentors who have been critical to my success.

And yes, reading blog posts from experts in your niche helps, but I’m talking about mentors who know you by name and offer advice specifically tailored towards you.

I have a few mentors like that. They know more than me in certain areas, and when the path gets a little fuzzy, I’ll email one of my mentors and ask for advice.

I’d rather get the advice right away then continue for weeks, months, or even years to discover the same knowledge that I could have received just by taking five minutes out of my day to write an email to one of my mentors.

You need to have mentors. Even if you are successful right now and don’t have a mentor, your success will only be amplified with the aid of a mentor.

 

#6: Resources

If you want to become successful, you must analyze successful people and learn from them. When analyzing successful people, one thing you should pay attention to is the resources that they use.

What social media tools are they using to get better results in a shorter period of time?

HootSuite Pro and ManageFlitter (RAM actions) are the two main tools that I use to continue expanding my social media presence.

These tools do cost me money as do the other resources that I use for my business. However, they save time while providing better results.

I don’t want to go too much into the time concept because that’s the next thing that you must have to build a successful online business.

 

#7: Time

The importance of time is right up there with the importance of having a mentor. Every minute you spend doing one thing is a minute that you can’t spend doing anything else.

So one must prioritize. You look at how you are using your time, focus on what is bringing you the best results, and then focus most of your time and energy there.

However, certain things get in the way. Scheduling social media posts, creating or finding pictures for your blog posts, and email outreach are some of the things that may get in the way of that one opportunity that brings in the most results.

Becoming more productive will allow you to use your time more effectively. However, there is one rule that even the most productive people can’t escape.

There’s only 24 hours in one day. And most of that time is spent eating, drinking, sleeping, and doing other things necessary for survival that have nothing to do with the business.

While this is a rule that affects all of us, there is also a workaround—outsourcing.

You can hire other freelancers to help you pursue your goals. By allocating the right tasks to freelancers, you will take the workload off your shoulders. I used to do several tasks each day that I have now outsourced to my freelancers.

I save a little over two hours each day. Those extra hours add up, and those extra hours are the reason I can get more stuff done.

 

In Conclusion

Building a successful online business is NOT harder than ever. There are different platforms constantly emerging, but the basic storyline remains the same. Have persistence, have mentors, have the desire, and put in the work each day.

Maybe a few years from now, something completely new is superior to live streaming. However, these rules for online success will remain intact and continue to serve as an effective guide.

How do you define online success? Do you have any tips for us? Sound off in the comments section below.

5 Things I Would Do For My Business If I Could Start All Over

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business reflection
Yes, another one of those blog posts…

You can learn a lot by looking back at your business. You can discover your biggest milestones and your worst mistakes. You will discover what gives you the fuel to continue and what bogs you down.

Looking back at your work is a walk down memory lane that lets you know more about yourself. That knowledge can help you make more progress with your business depending on how you harness that knowledge.

As a blogger, I get to teach people what I know. I don’t want people to make the same mistakes that I did which is why I looked back and thought of five things that I would have changed in my business.

This isn’t my first time writing this type of blog post. I wrote another one here, but each time I do more soul digging, I come up with more lessons for myself and my readers.

So if I had to start all over again but with my current knowledge, these are the five things that I would have done differently.

 

#1: Invest In Myself Earlier

For a while, I saved everything that I earned. The decision allowed me to develop a small safety net, but my business was barely growing.

Everything started to turn around when I decided to invest money in myself. I think that one of the attractions to making money online is that you can make money for free and from the comfort of your home. People don’t like investing in themselves in the beginning because they don’t know what will happen.

I urge you to invest in yourself today or tomorrow. I’m not just talking about one of those mental declarations. I am talking about spending some of your own money on something for your business.

I invest in my social media efficiency, audience growth, and team of freelancers. Investing in yourself puts more on the line, and that will motivate you to get more work done.

The funny thing is that the more I invest in myself, the more money I seem to make. Spending money won’t yield more money, but you will be putting your money on the line. Once you start investing in yourself, you have to start to think of ways to break even.

With that said, you don’t want to spend your money foolishly. It is better to spend your money gradually at a rate you know you can support than it is to go from spending nothing to suddenly investing a massive amount of money for your business.

 

#2: Create More Headshot Videos

When I first created videos, I only did headshots. You could always see me no matter what video I was doing.

Then I shifted to ScreenFlow. The decision allowed me to get very comfortable with rapid video creation. However, the personal touch of me in the recording wasn’t there.

The decision to use ScreenFlow was strongly inspired by my desire to create as many Udemy courses as possible. A few months ago, Udemy did extensive research and concluded that students prefer talking head videos (headshot videos) over ScreenFlow videos with PowerPoint/KeyNote presentations.

I recently made the change. It felt good to be seen in the videos again, and it turns out headshot videos are much faster to produce than ScreenFlow videos with the presentations. With the headshot videos, I don’t have to create the presentation slides anymore. All I have to do is come up with a small outline.

ScreenFlow was important, but it was time to move on. I am happy to have returned to headshot videos because headshot videos are better than ScreenFlow videos with presentations for a variety of reasons (conversions, trust, feels good, quicker to produce, etc.)

 

#3: Build My Email List Earlier

You seriously thought you would get through a blog post like this without “Building My Email List Earlier” as one of the topics?

A few years ago at Cape May, the vacation destination, I created an email list. This was several years after I created my first Twitter account, so I lost out on thousands of subscribers.

However, I quickly built my email list and now have thousands of subscribers of my own. Better yet, I discovered a cool free way to grow and maintain a massive email list.

Udemy has been a beneficial opportunity on so many levels. One of the benefits is that I can send emails to all of the students enrolled into my courses.

While Udemy places some restrictions (i.e. you can’t promote any landing pages that ask for an email address), you can tell all of the people on your list about your Udemy courses, your blog posts, and other things as well.

The best part is that you don’t pay a penny for having all of those students/subscribers. As of this blog post, I have over 15,000 unique students on Udemy. I can email those students each time I come out with a new blog post just like with any other emailing platform.

The only difference is that while for some other service, I would probably have to pay thousands of dollars each year just to have that many people on my list, I get to keep the people on that list for free, and I don’t have to pay additional money as my email list grows.

Regardless of whether you use Udemy, a service like iContact, or both (I would be in the both category), you have to focus more of your time towards growing your email list. That’s where the money is.

 

#4: Stayed True To Having A Podcast

A little less than a year ago, I told myself I would have a podcast up and running by the end of the summer. I told the people on my email list about it.

The truth is that the podcast never went up.

I answered the questions people had as the podcast’s “launch date” approached (I never really had a launch date set and the podcast was supposed to be one of those podcasts where I answered people’s questions).

I didn’t launch the podcast because I was fearful of my schedule making a podcast impossible to maintain, and upon further investigation, I realized I still had a lot to learn about podcasting.

I discovered the importance of interviewing high profile experts too late in the game, and I didn’t fully understand the anatomy of a killer podcast launch. I hesitated, felt overwhelmed, and as a result, didn’t launch the podcast.

Out of all of the things on this list, staying true to having a podcast is the only one that I have not properly responded to yet. While I intend on having my own podcast in 2016, I’ve still got a lot of work to do.

I am still committed to answering my audience’s questions, and I intend on interviewing the most influential entrepreneurs on the podcast. Right now, I’m answering questions via YouTube videos.

But some day, I will have my own podcast.

 

#5: Never Stop Self-Publishing Books

I can only write so much content in a given day. Some of the content has to be directed towards my blog posts, other content goes to my books, and other content goes to my school work.

I gave up on self-publishing earlier than I should have because although I was able to write one book every month, I didn’t know enough about the marketing. I didn’t know how to optimize my books in the way that I know now.

I was also starting to get good results from Udemy, so I wanted to devote more of my time towards that opportunity.

After I felt comfortable with Udemy, I decided to give self-publishing a second try. I knew that time would be an issue, so I had to make changes.

My decision to go back to self-publishing is one of the reasons why I now upload several YouTube videos on this blog every week.

It saves me time since I don’t write as much content and allows me to tap into a larger audience—all while still providing value.

I always enjoyed self-publishing books, and now that I know how to market them, I am able to make revenue from that content.

 

In Conclusion

Each time we look back, we look at two things. We look at what we are proud of and what we wish we did differently. With a business, it is easy to look back and say, “I wish I did that,” and “I wish I didn’t do that.”

However, your journey is not finished. You always have the opportunity to change the script. For me, that meant self-publishing books again. In the future, it will mean having my own podcast.

Looking back at what you wish you did differently will allow you to better understand your business’ current path and the best ways to make it grow.

What do you wish you did for your business? What do you wish you didn’t do? Have any tips for us? Sound off in the comments section below!

Myth Busting: The Art Of Taking Risks

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The art of taking risks is complicated. Some people are afraid of taking any risks in fear of losing it all. Other people who understand risk taking is important may intentionally push themselves into a corner to make an all-or-nothing type of risk.

Risk taking doesn’t have to be so difficult. Calculated risk taking is the only type of risk taking that gives you a high chance of achieving success. In this video, I will bust several myths about taking risks and how you can take risks that allow your business to grow.

I hope you enjoy the video. Please let me know what you thought of the video, and if you like it, then don’t forget to subscribe. You can subscribe to my YouTube channel here.

Myth Busting: Don’t Put Your Eggs In One Basket

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In this video, I explore the myth of not putting all of your eggs in one basket. People are fearful if they put all of their eggs in one basket, and there’s a hole in the basket, then it’s game over.

However, you must put all of your eggs in one basket to become successful. Here’s a quote from Andrew Carnegie who, while he was alive, was one of the richest men in the world.

“The way to become rich is to put all your eggs in one basket and then watch that basket.” –Andrew Carnegie

If you don’t put all of your eggs in one basket (i.e. you have your eggs in five baskets), then imagine trying to carry all of those baskets at the same time in town. Baskets will get dropped and eggs will go flying. If you only carry one basket of eggs, it’s much easier.

Focusing on one thing allows you to tap into incredible results. Once you master the one thing you want to do, then you can expand. Millionaire business investors started off with one successful business. They only begin investing once they master their own business first.

Choose one opportunity for making revenue and go all-in with that opportunity. Only start to expand once you master that opportunity.

This is exactly how I became successful on social media. I gave up on every social network and decided to go all-in with Twitter. 275,000 followers later, I am happy with my decision.

But now that I mastered Twitter, I expanded into other social networks. I am approaching 50,000 Facebook likes and 30,000 Pinterest followers. I now incorporate YouTube into my business far more than I used to.

In the short-term though, you put all of your eggs in one basket until you achieve mastery.

I hope you enjoy the video. Please let me know what you thought of the video, and if you like it, then don’t forget to subscribe. You can subscribe to my YouTube channel here.