Business

3 Truths About Spending Money On Your Business

February 10, 2016 by Marc Guberti 3 Comments

Money. There will be no other thing in the world that we are so familiar with but don’t know much about. Money provides us with more purchasing power as consumers and business owners.

We use money to make investments, buy products, and all of that stuff.

But when you spend money on your business, money takes an entirely new dimension. The way you spend your money on your business can entirely make or break your business. It’s that important.

As a Daymond John brand ambassador, I was lucky enough to get an early copy of Power Of Broke. It is a book that I highly recommend for all entrepreneurs.

In the book, Daymond discussed money in a way that fascinated me. I learned new things about money, its benefits, and the potential destruction that it can cause.

I combined the knowledge I learned from Power Of Broke with my own knowledge with spending money on my business. Most of the money I spend is for outsourcing.

However, I am also spending money on important tools like HootSuite Pro and Dropbox.

The fascination from Power Of Broke combined with my prior knowledge resulted in these three truths that I present to you in this blog post.

#1: Having Too Much Money Can Be A Bad Thing

Huh? That was my initial reaction when Daymond John introduced this idea in his book. We are raised in a world where the more money you have, the better you do. That’s true for the most part.

The problem with having too much money to spend for your business is that everything about your business may suddenly become complex. The mission changes. There may suddenly be a stronger focus on making money than satisfying the customer.

When businesses have more spending power, the challenge is discovering the best way to spend the money. Sometimes marketing teams get it right. Other times they mess up.

Think New Coke, if you even remember what that is (I only know about New Coke from Daymond’s book).

So don’t live in the mindset that you need to have a lot of money to be successful. Sometimes money complicates the issue and shifts the business plan from a simple success to a complex collapse waiting to happen.

Part of it has something to do with whose hands the money is in 🙂

It is very possible to become successful with a lot of money, but it’s not the only thing you need to become successful.

#2: Gradually Increasing Spending So A Profit Is Always Maintained

The amount of money I spend each month is dependent on the amount of revenue I will receive in that month. That’s because I am focused on making a profit.

And in the end, the profit is all that really matters in the money-making game. Your business could be making $300,000 in sales every year, but if you spend $400,000 every year to keep your business going, then you’re swimming in debt.

I’d rather be the debt-free person who makes $10,000 every year.

When my revenue increases, my spending also increases. With that in mind, my revenue always increases more than my spending.

That’s because I view profit differently from most people.

Most people view making a profit as getting the scraps. These people think of profit like this:

Revenue – Expenses = Profit

With this equation, the profit barely gets any attention. It’s simply the result after revenue and expenses are accounted.

Here is how I view profit.

Revenue – Profit = Expenses

Now expenses are the last thing I focus on. The amount of money I can spend is dependent on revenue and the money that I choose to keep for myself.

In this equation, profit receives more attention and plays a big role in how much money can actually get spent. This added attention discourages a negative profit and encourages the business owner to always maintain a profit.

Gradually increasing spending as your revenue increases boosts the likelihood of you securing a profit.

This tip would be incomplete without a big shout out to Mike Michalowicz for writing the book Profit First where I first came across this new approach to making a profit.

#3: Maintaining A Budget Will Inspire You And Teach You A Lot About Money

A focus on making a profit also comes with a focus on maintaining a budget. With the Profit First equation in play, you can’t spend more money than you make.

That means your budget is a real budget. You can’t go over it.

There will be times when that budget leaves you frustrated. And that’s a good thing because the frustration challenges you to think outside of the box.

Maybe you have a budget of spending $500/month, and you are currently spending $490/month. You want to hire someone who can manage your social media accounts because you read one of my blog posts about outsourcing.

The problem is the person you want to hire will cost you $30/month. That can’t happen since you would be over the budget.

What do you do then?

You look at all of the ways that you are currently spending your money.

How are you wasting your money? How can you spend less to get the same result you are getting anyway? Are certain opportunities you are pursuing not worth the cost (or not as good as the outsourcing)?

In other words, how can you squeak $20/month out of your current spending so you can hire the person to manage your social media accounts?

Let’s say you manage to find $20/month that you were not spending properly and you hire the person to manage your accounts.

Now you are at the $500/month budget. However, you will get exposed to different tools, training courses, and opportunities that cost you money.

Especially outsourcing because once you successful outsource one part of your business, you’ll want to outsource as much of your business as possible. The cost can add up to a lot.

No lie there.

So how do you spend money when your budget is at its max? The answer is that you make more money so you can expand your budget.

If you make $2,000/month and want to save $1,500/month, then that’s how the budget is $500/month.

If you make more money, then you have the option to spend more money.

Imagine how different the budget would look if you were making $20,000/month. Let’s keep everything in proportion and assume you would want to save $15,000/month.

Now the budget is $5,000/month. That’s looking a lot better than the other budget. But the only way to reach that budget is by making more money.

Then think about what that budget would allow you to do. Imagine all of the time you would save and all of the opportunities you could now actively get involved in.

You’ll become a hungry entrepreneur who will put in more work than most people as you charge towards success. Literally charge because no successful entrepreneur ever walks their way to success.

In Conclusion

When you spend money on your business, you are forced to make decisions. The dollars you spend on outsourcing cannot get spent on online advertising or anything else.

Every dollar matters. Whether you are trying to make a bigger profit from advertising or save time with outsourcing, you must consider all of the ways that you are spending your money.

Analyzing how you spend your money will allow you to make better decisions with what you do with your revenue.

And remember, it doesn’t matter how much money you make. What matters is your profit.

Which of these truths about money do you believe is the most important? Do you have any other truths about money to share? Sound off in the comments section below.

How To Craft An Excellent Pitch

November 9, 2015 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Being an entrepreneur doesn’t require a job application. However, it does involve sending numerous pitches to people. Whether you send a pitch to the media or a pitch to a prospective customer, you will send numerous pitches.

Since entrepreneurs send so many pitches, it only makes sense to master them.

What To Know About Pitches

When entrepreneurs send pitches, they usually pitch to the media and high profile entrepreneurs. They pitch a product promotion, a potential interview on a notable television show, or something else.

Most people understand why entrepreneurs send pitches. Few people think about the receiving end of the pitch. All pitches have one thing in common:

Someone is going to read the pitch

And chances are this person reads through dozens of pitches every day. For this person, reading through pitches can quickly become annoying. Just to get an idea, envision yourself reading the college essays of all of the students applying to Harvard within a few months.

If I had to read that many essays (a few thousand assuming the work gets split up with other people), my head would explode.

The people who you are pitching to have been pitched to before. The higher up you go on the food chain, the more likely you are to send a pitch to someone like that person reading through the college essays of Harvard hopefuls.

How does someone read through that many pitches? The answer is that they don’t. If the pitch is long, it gets skipped over. The person reading your pitch doesn’t like your first sentence and then it doesn’t matter what you wrote after that.

Write For The Person Reading The Email

What does someone want from a pitch? The answer is clear and concise information. When I send a pitch, I am very careful about the words I use and how long my sentences are. If a sentence is too difficult to read, the pitch will get skipped—regardless of how good the pitch is overall.

Most of my pitches are just five sentences long. Important information is presented in a bullet point format. I know these people get numerous pitches every day. But I also know these people have lives. They aren’t robots reading emails. These are real people with families of their own who don’t want to spend all of their time reading emails.

Writing a short pitch allows me to get more attention when my email shows up in these people’s inboxes.

Start With Why

I send a pitch to the Huffington Post. I got a response and I’ll be a contributor for them soon enough. A few years ago, I would have sent a long pitch that focused on my credibility and what I have accomplished.

Luckily, I chose a different route. I decided to start with why. In Start With Why, Simon Sinek explains that people care more about why you do something than who you are and how you do it. What is the mission? What is the purpose of your work?

Once you identify why you do what you do, you can then establish your credibility. The entire pitch should be no more than 10 sentences with five sentences being the preferred amount. Writing any more than 10 sentences risks you losing the person reading your email.

Do Some Research

Depending on who you are pitching to and what you are pitching about, it is possible for you to do some research. Doing research allows you to identify what people are looking for. What types of stories does ABC want? Who is the ideal guest for 60 Minutes? What type of content finds its way on ProBlogger?

Conducting research in advance makes it possible to write a better pitch. Many blogs that offer guest blogging opportunities want guest posts that are different from the content already on the blog. If you pitch an article about getting more blog traffic from Twitter, but an article about getting more blog traffic from Twitter was just published yesterday, your pitch probably won’t get much consideration.

Even if you wrote a blog post better than the one ProBlogger just put up, the content is about a very similar topic. Imagine how much of a different reading experience ProBlogger would provide if EVERY article was about getting more blog traffic from Twitter.

If someone doesn’t have a Twitter account, then ProBlogger wouldn’t mean anything to them. That is exactly what ProBlogger wants to avoid.

So instead of pitching the article about getting more blog traffic from Twitter, consider pitching an article about getting more blog traffic from Facebook.

Being informed about what ProBlogger (or the person/media you are after) wants will allow you to construct a better pitch. Constructing a better pitch increases your chances of your pitch receiving attention.

Sending Out The Pitches

It takes time for people to read through all of the pitches they get in a given day. But if you send many pitches, it will also take time for you to send those pitches. After sending out numerous pitches, I discovered the two best ways to save time with sending pitches:

Outsource the work to someone else. That can easily be done with UpWork.
Use the same email. For most of my pitches, I use the same email. The only thing I change is the name of the person receiving the email (I don’t want to send an email to a John saying “Dear Jim” because that’s the easiest way to get your pitch ignored)

Figure out which of the two works best for you. Outsourcing the work would definitely save you more time, but before you outsource, you should get some experience with sending pitches. The more experience you have with sending pitches, the more advice you can give to the freelancer who does the work for you.

In Conclusion

Sending out the right pitches to the right people/media can result in a massive increase in exposure. Having a powerful story and effectively telling that story in a concise manner results in a successful pitch.
While pitches present great opportunities for gaining exposure, you should not view a successful pitch as your lottery ticket to success. A successful pitch isn’t the make or break point of your business.

They help you get more exposure. Before you start submitting pitches, make sure you are ready for that extra exposure. Would that extra exposure lead to the right message reaching more people? More sales for your product? More blog traffic and subscribers?

In other words, if your pitch was successful, would you achieve the results you desire from that successful pitch?

Right now, I want to hear from you. Have you sent pitches before? Which tips do you think our pitches can’t afford to live without? What do you think makes up a great pitch? Sound off in the comments section below.

What It Means To Be A Teenager Entrepreneur

November 4, 2015 by Marc Guberti 4 Comments

A new wave of entrepreneurs is coming. I want them to know what to expect. This blog post is for teenager entrepreneurs who’ve been at it for a while and for the people starting out.

This blog post is also for parents of those teenager entrepreneurs so they can better understand what it means to be a teenager entrepreneur. This blog post talks about my definition of what it means to be a teenager entrepreneur. After talking with other teenager entrepreneurs, I know this is a definition that many of us share.

The Beginning…

No one knows the beginning until years later. Part of the reason is because it takes a while for the teenager to recognize the entrepreneurial spirit within his/her soul. It starts out as a hobby. After the hobby becomes enjoyable and the word monetization gets thrown around enough, the teenager explores turning the hobby into a business.

My journey began when I created a blog about the Boston Red Sox as an 11-year-old. When I created that blog, I did not view myself as an entrepreneur. I still had no idea what I wanted to be. I wrote blog posts inconsistently because it was a hobby that I did not take seriously.

Then MLBlogs (the site that let me create the blog about the Red Sox) went over to WordPress. It was something that I initially didn’t think much about. The move opened the possibility to me writing blogs about topics other than baseball. I went ahead and created a blog about Yugioh Cards.

That eventually led to this blog.

The Natural Course Of The Beginning

The important thing to note about the beginning is that entrepreneurship was my choice. My parents didn’t force me to create that blog about the Red Sox. They suggested it and helped me create it.

I didn’t know anything about Twitter when my mom told me about it. She showed me how to create my account. I was not forced to get more Twitter followers or to promote my content. In the beginning and ever since, I have always had full control over my choices.

My advice to parents is if they see the entrepreneurial possibility within their teen, then guide the teen. Never take control of the steering wheel, but always offer optimism and support. The moment the steering wheel is lost, entrepreneurship is no longer fun.

The very act of becoming an entrepreneur is to take the steering wheel and to protect that steering wheel with your life.

With that said, as the teenager become a more serious entrepreneur, their work will become more important to them.

Environment Matters More Than Background

A teenager does not need a family of entrepreneurs to become a successful entrepreneur. All a teenager needs is the steering wheel in the right environment. The right environment requires being surrounded by the right things from a physical and mental standpoint.

The main reason for my success is that the people who surrounded me are very supportive. My family supports me in what I do while allowing me to retain the steering wheel.

I am a part of inner circles of people who help me become successful. I co-create training courses with other instructors who have more expertise than I do. I get to learn from them by creating a course with them. I learn from social media experts and actively communicate with them. These social media experts were very inspirational throughout my journey as a blogger.

The thoughts you surround yourself with are just as important as the people and events that surround you. You can either surround yourself with confidence or doubt. You can either surround yourself with all of your accomplishments or all of your disappointments.

The serious teenager entrepreneurs enjoy giving themselves big goals. They like to put themselves to the test every day and get as much accomplished as possible. They give themselves big goals for the year and hope to achieve all of them.

In my experience, not all of the goals would get accomplished. When I first gave myself these goals, not accomplishing a goal I wrote down would frustrate me. I’ve changed since then and have learned to enjoy the journey.

I prefer surrounding myself with my accomplishments than with my disappointments. My accomplishments give me more inspiration and let me acknowledge a record of success. Surrounding myself with my disappointments would mean ignoring all of the accomplishments. When surrounded by disappointments, it is difficult to tap into more success since you surround yourself with the complete opposite of success.

I have disappointments, but they don’t stop me.

Support and Inspiration

A teenager entrepreneur needs a lot of support, especially in the beginning. The support I received was essential for my success. I learned that I can be successful at a young age and be what I want to be.

My family was the first form of support I ever received. I receive that support to this day. The two other types of support I receive are reading inspirational case studies and my inner circles. The case studies of bloggers making six figure incomes got me interested in making money with my blog. My inner circle of Udemy instructors allows me to learn more about course creation and marketing.

Support and inspiration never get old. They are always needed.

Getting Through The Roadblocks

Disappointments do come. The final result only means as much as you make it out to be. 10% of our lives is what happens to us and the other 90% is how we react to what happens.

If your goal was to get 10,000 visitors for the month, but you only get 3,000 visitors for the month, there are two ways to look at the outcome.

This is terrible. I didn’t accomplish my goal. What is wrong with me?
This is bad, but it is not the end. I will use this as fuel and perform better next month.

One response creates a sense of self-pity. The other response creates action. The two responses create very different outcomes.

The roadblocks teenager entrepreneurs (and entrepreneurs in general) encounter are meant to strengthen the entrepreneurial backbone. I have survived through numerous roadblocks to get to where I am today. Some of those roadblocks temporarily shook my confidence, but they did not knock me down.

School and Teen Life

In “teenager entrepreneur” there are two words. At daytime, teenager entrepreneurs are teenagers. They go to school with a backpack and books just like anyone else. I talk with my friends at school and almost never bring up my entrepreneurial work. The only time I bring it up is when people ask me about it.

I never brag about what I do. I see bragging as a method of gaining superficial confidence that will never be a suitable substitute for real confidence.

One lesson I have learned about being a teenager entrepreneur is if you spend too much time on the entrepreneurial side of the coin, your work becomes your life. I love my work, but my work will never consume every part of my life. Then I’d miss out on what it means to be a teenager and a person.

In school, it is essential to become a part of extracurricular activities and/or sports. If you are not a part of those, you risk getting alienated from the student body. At that point, it is difficult to get the teenager experience combined with the entrepreneurial experience.

I chose to run in cross country and track. Practices are always after school and meets are on the weekends. Sometimes I go with my teammates to upstate New York and places out of New York to run.

To a teenager entrepreneur, time is a very valuable resource. They get their homework done as quickly as possible so they can go back to entrepreneurial work—the work which, to them, matters the most. When I first joined the cross country and track teams, I thought it would be a crisis for my business. I thought I wouldn’t have any time left over.

But I needed to do an extracurricular to get friends and have a fun time in high school. So I gave it a try anyway. It wasn’t just the best decision I ever made in high school. It was one of the best decisions I ever made for my entrepreneurial journey.

My work didn’t consume me as much as it once did. I was able to stay unplugged longer. Once I get replugged into my work, I would approach it with more vigor. I stopped watching TV so I could commit more time towards my entrepreneurial work. I recently gave up video games as well.

When teenager entrepreneurs lose time, they find a way to make the time they have work. They learn time efficiency quickly. They ask themselves what is really important to them and start eliminating the things that don’t matter as much.

Defining “Serious Teenager Entrepreneur”

To be a serious teenager entrepreneur simply means having the fire within your heart. It doesn’t mean making the full-time income. All teenager entrepreneurs are serious entrepreneurs well before they make full-time incomes from their efforts.

My Advice To All Teenager Entrepreneurs

Love the work that you do. It’s the only way any entrepreneur becomes successful.

My Advice To All Parents Of Teenager Entrepreneurs

Always support your teenager entrepreneur. Give them encouragement, and once you see potential, start giving some financial support. Slowly stop lending financial support once the teenager entrepreneur makes money. One of the most rewarding feelings of my entrepreneurial journey has been paying for the services and products that I use.

In Conclusion

The new wave of entrepreneurs will come sooner than later. I wrote this blog post to let readers know how I view what it means to be a teenager entrepreneur. The benefit of becoming an entrepreneur as a teenager is that teenagers have a strong sense of invincibility.

Combine that strong sense of invincibility with entrepreneurial flare, and the results are bound to be incredible.

Have any questions about what it means to be a teenager entrepreneur? Or the parent of one? Do you have any other insights to add about this topic? Sound off in the comments section below.

6 Ways To Strengthen Relationships On The Web

October 9, 2015 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Relationship building is one of the most underrated parts of success. As an entrepreneur, it is tempting to think everything can be done alone. For a long time, I had the solo entrepreneur mentality. I didn’t even think of working with other people let alone outsourcing.

Twitter taught me the importance of relationship building. As you engage with your followers every day, it doesn’t take long for relationships to build. You see the same people engaging with your content, and then it’s only a matter of time before you talk about baseball teams and track PRs.

Many of these relationships developed into friendships. The podcast interviews were some of the bonuses that emerged. So how do you build a relationship with someone on the web? Try these six methods:

#1: Praise The Influencers In Personalized Emails

As you consume more content on the web, you will eventually find yourself on the same blog multiple times. The bloggers who own those blogs will soon find themselves within your version of the sphere of influence—people who inspire you to take action.

Wouldn’t it be cool if you got to chat with these bloggers? They notice you and engage with you often? That would be cool, and that can happen. Just be someone the influencer sees often. I’ll combine some of my experience with OkDork’s Poster Child formula to give you the full picture.

Share their content on social media every day (and mention their @username)
Send them occasional emails letting them know how their content was helpful
Comment on the influencer’s blog posts
Mention the influencer in some of your blog posts
Email the influencer letting them know about your blog posts mentioning the influencer and kindly ask for a share

Every day, I get emailed from people who fit into two categories. The first category looks like this:

“You’ve never really heard of me, but in case you didn’t know I’ve got the best stuff on the web and you should share it.”

It sounds something like that. Some people will word it nicer than that, but the translation is all the same.

The second category is must smaller, but I pay attention to them. The people in the second category follow most or all of those five main points I highlighted earlier in this blog post.

Daniel Cleveland is one of those people. He’s been engaging with my tweets and sharing my content for a long period of time. He has let me know how my content helped him. Then he sent me an email asking me to share his latest blog post.

And the blog post included me and a link to one of my blog posts (sweet). If you really want an influencer to share your blog post, mentioning that influencer and providing a backlink is the icing on the cake.

You better believe I tweeted that blog post. I even retweeted some of his tweets about that blog post. I’ll even link to it here.

Okay, I totally understand that was five methods wrapped into one. The other ones will be shorter but just as effective.

#2: Respond Quickly

When an influencer responds to you through a comment, social media post, or email, you want to respond as quickly as possible. As soon as you get a response, nothing else is more important for your business right now than replying.

And that’s because of expectations.

The web has created an expectation for super speed. I talking about speed that rivals The Flash. If this blog loads within a second, great. If this blog takes 10 seconds to load, then we’ve got a catastrophe on our hands (well, mostly my hands since most visitors wouldn’t wait that long).

Some of us get frustrated when it takes someone longer than 24 hours to reply to an email. The only difference with an influencer is that unless you were mentioned in the media or a part of the media, most influencers won’t hunt you down for a follow-up.

They get many emails of people trying to build relationships. They get more emails of people saying something along the lines of “My content is the best in the world. Share it.”

Influencers have enough emails to respond to and enough work to do. It’s like college (I am a high school student enrolled into a full-fledged university course so I get to say that). It’s your responsibility to follow-up. Don’t bank on the influencer reminding you to follow-up.

Follow-up quickly and become friends with the influencer, and that’s like acing the final. If you don’t follow-up quick enough and the influencer forgets who you are, you miss out—but it’s not the end.

The quicker you respond, the more appreciative the influencer will be. Not all influencers will respond to you within 24 hours, but they will remember you if you respond quickly and follow-up.

If I see an email that I should respond to, I often flag the email before I respond to it. Flagging an email prevents me from losing it in my inbox. Even if I respond in a week, a response is virtually guaranteed.

#3: Become A Contributor

Some influencers open their blogs to guest contributors (I opt against that for this blog). One of the benefits is that an influencer gets valuable content for free and for no work. Content is literally given to them, put on their blogs, and then SEO kicks in.

This is a great strategy to saving yourself from a lot of work in your blogging strategy. And since influencers have credibility, many of the top bloggers would love to have themselves and their content featured on their blogs.

So if you want to get noticed by these bloggers, become an active contributor. I have read Jeff Bullas’s work for years and enjoy reading it to this day. I thought it would be cool to talk with Jeff Bullas and get some of his insights about blogging.

So I decided to become a contributor.

I submitted my idea and my credentials. Then I waited…and got a response.

Jeff liked the idea and I got to work writing the blog post. It was one of the more challenging blog posts to write because it forced me out of my comfort zone. Jeff gave me several tips such as writing shorter paragraphs/sentences and including tons of pictures that were different to my prior writing style.

The final product was 5 Ways To Flood Your Blog With Traffic Using Pinterest. It took me over four hours to write, but it was well worth it. I got to learn more about blogging, talk with Jeff, and get more traffic to my own blog.

When you contribute on a blog the first time, and you want the influencer to notice you, contribute multiple times. As you contribute more often, the influencer may feel obligated to return the favor in some way (email blast promoting one of your products, social media share, etc).

Any effort from a contributor to return the favor turns out to be awesome in one way or the other.

#4: Grow Your Audience

Growing your audience serves two benefits to relationship building:

More people are in your audience. That means more people to build relationships with (no kidding).
More credibility when approaching influencers. I appreciate everyone who tweets my content, but if I get tweeted by a celebrity with millions of followers, I can’t help but stare at that tweet for a while. You don’t need millions of Twitter followers to create a strong impression. However, the larger your audience is, the more it supports what you do.

Start by growing your audience on social media. Then, let some of the people within that audience trickle to your blog. Then, some of your blog visitors trickle to your email list. Some of the people on your email list become customers. By the way, that’s social media ROI in a nutshell.

#5: Write Concise Emails

Successful self-published author Steve Scott lives by the five sentence rule. If the email is longer than five sentences, he won’t read it. I’m sure he makes some exceptions, but the five sentence rule lets him read and reply to emails quicker.

I wrote a five sentence email to Steve Scott asking him some questions about Kindle publishing. He got back to me with a concise email of his own. It saved us both time (he wrote a short email which means it didn’t take long for me to read it).

Since then, I have been using the five sentence rule for all of the emails I send. I understand that some people get slammed with hundreds of emails every day. If my email was a few paragraphs long, many people wouldn’t read it.

One of my ambitions is to be a frequent contributor for some of the websites I enjoy reading content from. Contributing to Jeff Bullas’s blog allowed me to realize this ambition. However, there are other websites that I enjoy reading.

So I decided to send Arianna Huffington an email.

I briefly told her my story, credentials, and my desire to contribute to the Huffington Post. I got a response. Seeing the response land in my inbox felt almost as good as my first sub five mile. In short, I was overjoyed.

This wasn’t a very long email. I believe that a mistake many people make is over-pitching themselves. Many people mention all of their credentials and awards instead of only mentioning the 1-3 that matter the most.

When you want to build relationships with people in the media, write concise emails. They get hundreds of emails per day, so they’re not interested in reading emails that are paragraphs long.

#6: Become A Part Of An Inner Circle (Or Create Your Own)

The strongest relationships happen within an inner circle. While a sphere of influence consists of all of the people who influence you and your work, an inner circle is more valuable.

An inner circle consists of people who are more successful than you and willing to help you throughout your journey. In other words, an inner circle is a group of awesome mentors guiding you in your journey.

The great thing about mentors is that they have been on a similar journey. They can help you achieve success faster since they know the pitfalls and golden roads. The best part is that they keep you accountable. Co-creating courses with people like Jerry Banfield and Joe Parys is one of the best ways I stay accountable because the course creation is now a team effort.

If you want to build your own inner circle, you have two options:

Pay for consultation sessions with successful experts (they’ll force you to be accountable)
Partner up with successful experts so both of you are held accountable (only partner up with people who you know can raise your standard of excellence)

If I slack off on my side or find myself working past the deadline, then I don’t feel like a team player. The pressure is on to deliver. That’s the power of an inner circle.

In Conclusion

Building relationships is important. Some relationships lead to opportunities while other relationships create accountability. Regardless of what type of relationships you build, they bring additional value to what you do.

Right now, I want to hear from you. What are your thoughts about building relationships with other experts in your niche? Which of these tips resonated with you the most? Do you have any other tips for us? Sound off in the comments section below!

7 Ingredients To Online Success

October 7, 2015 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

If you are reading this blog post, you want to know how to make a full-time income by working online. Many people want to earn a full-time income from the web. The thought of working from home is a dream that many hold. Working at home eliminates the commute and makes a life balance easier to maintain.

It is possible to make a full-time income on the web. Many people post their income reports. And some of those income reports reach eight figures. It’s amazing what kind of opportunities the web has created. To get the best of those opportunities, we must utilize them.

So how does one go about building a large audience and making a full-time income? Here are the seven ingredients to success on the web:

#1: Large Audience

Building a large audience that constantly grows makes it possible for you to scale up with your business. Having 100,000 people in your audience creates a larger platform for your products than having 1,000 people in your audience.

However, it does not take long to realize that growing an audience is easier said than done.

I stumbled across this problem in the beginning of my journey. I had no idea how to grow an audience, but I knew social media was the next big thing.

So I gave it a try and decided to focus on Twitter.

My best advice for growing a social media audience is to focus on one social network in the beginning. Once you master a social network, it becomes easier for you to master all of the other social networks on the web. Social media is the best free tool for growing your audience. However, a social media audience is only part of the story.

You also need a large email list. I primarily use social media to engage, provide value, and build my email list. Having a large audience matters for social proof and success.

Now that you know a large social media audience and a massive email list are the two most critical types of audiences, it’s time to explore the other six ingredients to online success.

#2: A Product

If you want to establish yourself as an expert in your niche, then you must have a product. You can write Kindle books, create Udemy courses, or put up any type of product. But you need a product, and that product needs to be exceptional.

Most people with the six figure income reports make their money by creating and promoting their products. While affiliate marketing is a possibility, affiliate marketing is not as powerful as having your own product and promoting it to your audience.

The best part about creating your own product is that it is an asset. You can literally start making money in your sleep once you create your own product. Even if you only make $2 when you wake up, making any type of money in your sleep is an incredible feeling.

Products make that possible, and if you continue growing your audience and creating products, that $2 per night will scale up very quickly.

#3: Provide FREE Value

Many people are okay with providing value in their products. The customer pays money for the product, so it makes sense to give them a great experience. For some reason, the same logic does not apply to free value.

The free value you provide allows a relationship to build between you and the people within your audience. More importantly, the people in your audience begin to trust your value and expertise. That trust eventually leads to sales because of a common belief (this belief actually turns out to be true most of the time)

Paid value is better than the free value

If you over deliver in your free content, then imagine what impression that gives prospect customers. Providing free value also allows you to grow your audience. People who like your content will share it to their audiences. Your content will get more exposure, and as a result, your audience will grow.

#4: Relationship Building

When you grow an audience and take the time to engage with that audience, relationship building is one of the outcomes. Knowing the individuals within your audience allows you to serve them better.

That means you can write better content and create better products based on what your audience wants. Building enough relationships will potentially expose you to more opportunities such as podcast interviews, guest blogging opportunities, and speaking engagements.

Building relationships with the people within your audience is paramount to understanding your audience. But the people in your audience aren’t the only people you need to build relationships with.

You also want to build relationships with successful people within your niche.

Each time I began thriving in a particular area within my niche (i.e. Twitter and blogging), it was because I built relationships with people more successful than I was. I read the influencers’ blog posts, applied their methods, and actively engaged with them.

Right now, I have my eyes set on Udemy. I have created several courses on my own, but I also co-created some of my courses with other Udemy instructors. The Udemy instructors I create my courses with are more successful than me on that platform. And that’s by design.

There is a difference between running with people you see in the trail and running with an Olympian. There is a difference between having a consultation session with any business expert and having a consultation session with Bill Gates. There is a difference between hanging out with the ordinary and hanging out with the extraordinary.

If you associate with people who have a higher status than you, then you will have more motivation to thrive. You are surrounded by successful people cheering you on—whether through their content, through their videos, or via a 1-to-1 conversation—and that will motivate you to reach the next level of your success.

#5: Effectively Communicating Your Message

Clarity is what results in people coming back. If you are a returning visitor, you came back to this blog because you understood and appreciated the message and tidbits within the content. Then you wanted more. That’s why blogs get returning visitors.

Effectively communicating your message results in more people sticking around longer. It is important to practice with your blog posts.

Once it becomes second nature for you to effectively communicate your message, it will become easier for you to explain your products. Prospective customers don’t know what your product is until you explain it to them.

The better you do at explaining your product, the more people will buy it.

The way you effectively communicate your message depends on your niche and the message itself. However, copywriting will help you in this leg of the journey. There aren’t many blog posts on this blog that deal with copywriting, so I’ll end this portion of the blog post with two notes:

When it comes to copywriting, Ray Edwards is the man.
This blog post on CopyBlogger has awesome insights about copywriting.

#6: Seize The Game Changing Opportunities

When you see an opportunity that you believe has the potential to lead to rapid growth, jump on that opportunity. I first heard about Periscope on the day it came out. I saw the potential in the social network and decided to create an account.

I did some scopes and then largely went dormant on the social network. Now I’m back on it. The lesson from this story?

I did some scopes on the first day the social network came out. Three days after Periscope’s launch, I was already past 2,000 followers. I was only following 16 people. I stopped because at the time, I wasn’t fully aware of Periscope’s business potential.

In my defense, Periscope at the time was a social network where people broadcasted their puppies and there was always a “What’s in your refrigerator?” comment during the live stream.

Seizing the game changing opportunities when they are still new allows you to reap more of the rewards sooner. Then, once you master the new opportunity, you can move onto the next big opportunity when it comes up (or work on two big opportunities at the same time. It’s entirely up to you).

#7: Look At The Results To See What Works

Once you are utilizing the first six ingredients to success, you are bound to get results—good or bad. The only way you get better results is by analyzing your current results. Analyzing your current results lets you know where and how you can improve.

If that Facebook ad does well because you included/excluded certain countries, and you can see the difference in your results, then you know how to get better results from that Facebook ad. My blog gets a lot of traffic from Twitter. That’s why I spend so much time on Twitter.

My blog traffic from Facebook started picking up ever since I started advertising and posting more often. As a result, I am continuing those activities.

In Conclusion

Online success consists of many ingredients. Making all of these ingredients a part of your business creates the possibility of making a full-time income from your house. The biggest challenge is actually implementing all of these ingredients and making them a part of your business. However, it is a challenge that is worthwhile.

Right now, I want to hear from you. Which of these ingredients to online success do you think is the most important? Do you believe there are other important ingredients in the recipe? What are your thoughts about online success as a whole? Sound off in the comments section below.

My 10 Favorite Small Business Tools

August 24, 2015 by Marc Guberti 6 Comments

My Favorite Small Business Tools — You’ll want these tools in your toolbox.

I created my first blog when I was 11 years old. Since then, I have come across hundreds of small business tools. I ignored some of them and couldn’t resist others.

When we discover new tools, it is easy to fall prey to the shiny syndrome—buying a tool and/or investing a lot of time in a tool because it is new and/or shiny. I don’t like long lists of tools because long lists of tools almost guarantees that the shiny syndrome will take over.

As a result, I created a list of my 10 favorite small business tools. Here’s the complete list.

#1: HootSuite
If I could only use one tool for my social media growth, I would use HootSuite. HootSuite integrates many of the top social networks with one another. This capability allows me to schedule tweets for multiple Twitter accounts and Facebook posts from one platform.

With its tabs and streams, HootSuite also makes it easier for people to use social media more productively. HootSuite eliminates the temptation to look at trending topics, and it has all of the social media activity on one platform.

The free version of HootSuite alone is game changing. HootSuite Pro can transform your entire business. I schedule over 150 tweets per day across my accounts, and it would take more than four hours per day to manually schedule that many tweets.

HootSuite Pro comes with the bulk scheduler which makes it possible for me to schedule the same number of tweets in a few clicks. HootSuite Pro allows me to schedule over 150 tweets in just five minutes instead of four hours.

#2: Canva

Canva is the best tool on the web for creating pictures. You get to add text and a background to pictures that you upload to Canva. You can also use thousands of pictures provided by Canva to create your ideal picture.

Want to see Canva in action. Take a look at this blog post’s picture. It was made with Canva, and I use Canva nowadays to create most of my blog’s pictures.

Canva gives you plenty of options and allows you to create a picture perfect for social media and Kindle book dimensions. If you don’t like their suggested pixel dimensions, you can always create your own custom pixel dimensions.

The best part about Canva is that it is absolutely free.

#3: Fiverr

It doesn’t take long for a first-time visitor to discover that Fiverr is not free to use. However, it does take some time to discover how to properly utilize the tool.

Fiverr

Fiverr is a website that lists other people’s services for $5. These services are called gigs. While some of the gigs are downright strange, other gigs can be very useful for businesses.

I recently started hiring virtual assistants on Fiverr to manage some of my workload. Making this decision took some weight off my shoulders and made it possible for me to focus more on writing content while exploring new ideas I never thought of before.

#4: TwitterCounter

TwitterCounter is a Twitter tool that allows me to track how my number of followers changes every day. I can identify the days I gained over 1,000 Twitter followers and the days I gained under 100 followers.

Knowing the good days and the bad days is important because I can look back and think about what I did on those days. What did I do to gain over 1,000 Twitter followers in one day? What went wrong and prevented me from gaining over 100 Twitter followers in a given day?

I get an idea of which tactics work based on knowing which days led to the greatest growth.

#5: Optimize Press

If I could only have one WordPress plugin for my blog, I’d choose Optimize Press. Optimize Press provides numerous features that really makes it 10 powerful plugins all wrapped into one. All of the landing pages on my blog were created with Optimize Press. If it weren’t for the landing pages on my blog, I’d still be stuck with 300 subscribers.

Not only does Optimize Press make landing page creation a breeze, but Optimize Press also allows you to create your own membership sites and training courses. The cool thing about Optimize Press is that you get 100% of the commission. While I do enjoy using sites like Udemy for my training courses, it’s nice to get that 100% commission for a $997 training course.

#6: Sticky Notes

I don’t know a world before social media. But that doesn’t stop me from doing things that would give me the “old-school” label. Even with websites designed to boost your productivity, sticky notes are still the most powerful tool to boosting your productivity. Sticky notes are the reason I get my goals accomplished.

Sticky notes don’t cost much, and chances are you have a pile of them lying around somewhere in your house.

#7: Notebook

I promise this is the last old-school tool I will mention. Notebooks allow you to write down your thoughts so they don’t get cluttered in your mind. Consider this. Each of your goals is a thought. The human mind has tens of thousands of thoughts every day. It’s easy for the human mind to forget most of its thoughts—like goals.

Writing goals in your notebook solves that problem. Not only does a notebook allow you to remember goals, but you can also use a notebook to plan out your entire weeks and months to follow. Establish how you will accomplish a big goal that will take up a significant amount of time and set up a calendar for yourself. All of this can be done with one notebook.

#8: iContact

If you want to become a successful blogger, you must take your email list seriously. I made the critical mistake of neglecting my email list for a long time. The result was that even when I got my 100,000th Twitter follower, my income per month barely changed.

When I started taking my email list seriously, my income significantly changed for the better. I use iContact to send emails to my subscribers and to have new subscribers go through an autoresponder (a series of emails automatically sent to new people).

#9: PlugMatter

PlugMatter is a new plugin I recently purchased. It allows me to display an optin at the top of my home page and other places throughout my blog. This optin box gets subscribers for my blog. I can’t tell the impact PlugMatter has had on my business yet, but some people swear by it.

PlugMatter

A word of advice for if you choose to buy the PlugMatter plugin. Go on Google and search “PlugMatter coupon.” I found a coupon in less than five minutes, and the coupon allowed me to save $19.40 on my purchase. All of the coupons I have found were 20% off discounts.

#10: WordPress

If you are looking to create your first blog, use WordPress. If you don’t use WordPress for your blog, you should look for a way to put your blog on WordPress. WordPress makes it simple for me to publish blog posts, schedule blog posts, publish pages, and make sure my blog has great navigation.

This simplicity makes it easier for me to focus on more important tasks such as writing the blog content. If you use WordPress.org, you also get access to plugins that people heard about in the legends. Certain WordPress plugins give your blog superpowers and a complementary cape.

In Conclusion

I will come out with another list of 10 small business tools that you need to use. Until then, choose from this list of tools and utilize the tools that you believe will have a big impact on your business.

Chances are you have stumbled across many blog posts like this one. However, it doesn’t matter what tools you learn about if you don’t utilize any of them. By utilizing the best tools for your business, you can discover new opportunities of expansion and efficiency.

Which of these small business tools is your favorite? Do you have any recommendations? Sound off in the comments section now!