Business

Working Smarter and Faster VS Working Harder

August 20, 2014 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Work Smarter

Most people work hard. They put in all of their dedication into something and hope for the best. These people constantly do the same things every day and never bother to explore out of the norm.

Few people work smarter and faster. These people are able to get the same tasks done every day. Working hard is manually scheduling 80 tweets with HootSuite. Working smarter and faster is getting HootSuite Pro and scheduling 80 tweets with just 4 clicks with HootSuite’s bulk scheduler.

It’s great to work hard because there is dedication involved, but how can you get the same result in less time? Working smarter and faster will allow you to find more things to work hard at and ultimately be more productive.

How To Take A Calculated Risk

August 19, 2014 by Marc Guberti 4 Comments

Calculated Risk

The successful entrepreneurs do not take risks just for the sake of risk taking. Instead, these entrepreneurs take calculated risks. These are the kinds of risks that are more likely to pan out in the end. Investing all of your money in one random stock is a risk that rarely pans out. Investing some of your money into one stock that has been picking up (and looks like it will continue to pick up) is a calculated risk.

In order to take a calculated risk, you need to calculate what would happen. Planning is a crucial step towards identifying whether the risk is going to work out or not. You need to set a framework for yourself before you take the risk so you know what to do. The better your plan is, the less likely a risk is going to hurt.

While planning is important, it is also important to weed out the calculated risks that are not worth taking. You need to take account of a calculated risk’s impact. The more impactful a calculated risk, the more important it is for you to plan and then take that risk. The more picky you are with the calculated risks you take, the better you will be at choosing the best calculated risks to take.

Finally, the name of this blog post is How To Take A Calculated Risk. You do need to have a plan, but if you overthink the risk, then you will not be able to propel yourself. Once you have the plan laid out and know it will be very impactful, you need to take the risk. Calculated risks with effective plans and big impacts are the ones made to implement.

Be a calculated risk taker and give your ideas a chance. What are your thoughts on taking calculated risks? Have you already taken a calculated risk for your business or any other area of your life? Please share your thoughts below.

The Three Most Common Pitfalls Entrepreneurs Face

August 17, 2014 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

Entrepreneur Unclear Path

There are many entrepreneurs in the world. Some are super successful while most entrepreneurs are trying to find their way. There are many mistakes that entrepreneurs make, but by closely analyzing the journeys of hundreds of entrepreneurs (any entrepreneur ranging from the billionaires to the startups), I have been able to identify the three most common pitfalls that entrepreneurs face in their journey.

The need to be perfect. Do you have an overwhelming need to be perfect and provide a product for everyone? If so, you will actually be creating a product for no one. In order to be a successful entrepreneur, you need to identify who your target audience is and create products and content that appeal to that audience.
The status quo temptation. Once you become a part of the status quo, getting out is very difficult. Rising entrepreneurs face the constant temptation of joining the status quo where it is possible to make quick cash. At the same time, this quick cash is not nearly enough to live the luxurious lifestyles that some of the most famous entrepreneurs live. I’ll tell you one thing about the status quo. It’s not worth it, and I speak from no experience in the status quo and full experience as a successful entrepreneur.
Overthinking. The only reason people become fearful is because they encounter uncertainty. Overthinking any situation allows that uncertainty to trap yourself into the fear you created. Instead of overthinking something, just get started. Many people fear public speaking at first because they overthink the situation. After the public speaking event actually takes place, these public speakers are not nearly as afraid because they are actually starting.

Do any of those pitfalls apply to you? If so, you have something in common with the entrepreneurs who quit, but you also have something in common with the billionaires before they became that wealthy. What are your thoughts on the list? Do you know of any additional pitfalls that you or other entrepreneurs fall into? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

16 Ways To Build A Big Social Media Audience From A 16 Year Old

August 16, 2014 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

Growing a social media audience and getting the best out of that audience is so easy that a 16 year old can do it (that would be me). In a span of less than 3 years, I have been able to get over 100,000 Twitter followers, over 14,000 Pinterest followers, over 10,000 Vine followers, and I’m working on Instagram and Facebook. My audiences continue to grow as the days go by, but many people wonder how I was able to get to this point. I decided to come up with 16 different methods you can use to build your social media audience (that has nothing to do with my age. That just happened to be the number I pulled out of my head).

Focus most of your time on one social network. If you master one of the social networks and sort of know the other ones, you are going to do very well with the social network that you successfully mastered. I decided to master Twitter because it is a social network of simplicity, and now that I know Twitter Domination by heart, I have been able to continue dominating Twitter while growing my presence on other social networks.
Use the big player social networks. Even if you have no plans on using a Facebook or YouTube account, create them. When you master one of the social networks, you need to learn how to master a second social network. It’s the whole idea of being bilingual is better than only knowing one language while being trilingual is way better than being bilingual. Creating the accounts now and tinkering around with them will allow you to be prepared to master them later.
Post on them all often. It is important to post on all of your social networks at least once every week. That indicates to all of your audiences that you are active, and being active is one of the crucial steps towards allowing your content to spread on those social networks.
Interact with your audience. Interacting with your audience will allow you to build stronger connections with the people in your audience. You want to be well acquainted with as many people in your social media audiences as possible. My recommendation is to look at your notifications three times each day to see if you can interact with any of your followers.
Post motivational quotes. No matter what niche you are in, motivational quotes hands down never fail at increasing engagement. Motivational tweets are more likely to get retweeted and motivational pins are more likely to get repinned.
Post articles on your social networks. Posting articles is a great way to provide informative content that your followers would enjoy.
Post valuable content. Valuable content is the kind of content that your targeted followers would like. You can’t satisfy everyone with your social media strategy (you can’t even do that in life. Shocker!) so it is more important for you to focus on satisfying your targeted audience.
Post pictures. Social media posts with pictures get more engagement than social media posts without pictures. We are a visual generation that needs to see everything in pictures. That’s why movies are more popular than books.
Grow your presence on all of your social networks. On the social network you are trying to master, you need to build a powerful presence. However, you should also be growing a bigger presence on your other social networks. Even if you are only gaining five followers every week on a social network you are not focusing on, that is still growing.
Find patterns. Some rules for one social network will apply to another social network. That means if you become successful at one social network, it becomes easier to be successful at other social networks. Here are some of the universal laws of all social networks that I was able to find.
Be an expert in your niche. People follow the experts, not the people who have no idea what they are talking about. Telling people that you are an expert in your bio is a great start, but you need to prove to people that you are an expert with valuable social media posts and a professional picture.
Be humorous. Whenever you can, mix in some humor with your other social media posts. There are numerous examples of content going viral because it was humorous.
Be creative. If your content is creative, then it will gather attention. Creative content is the type of content that the average person could not think of. There is a difference between valuable content and creative content, but if you mix the two together into one social media post, your content is going to spread faster.
Host a giveaway. Giveaways allow you to easily bring in more followers. Some people will follow you just for the giveaway. The only problem associated with the giveaway is that once the giveaway ends, many people unfollow the host of the giveaway. Esurance is a brilliant example of this. If you want people to continue following you after the giveaway, tell everyone that you will be hosting another giveaway three months later.
Interconnect your social networks together. That does not mean connecting your Twitter and Facebook accounts together so all of your tweets end up on Facebook. Linking those two accounts together is not even a good idea to begin with. I am talking about promoting each of your social networks and their posts on your other social networks. If you have a YouTube video, promote it on Facebook. In your YouTube video’s description, have a link to your Facebook Page. Here’s a more in depth analysis of how this strategy works.
Be patient. Don’t you wish certain things could happen faster? Unfortunately, when it comes to growing a social media audience, fast is not a part of the vocabulary. You are not going to get 100,000 followers in one day. You will most likely reach that milestone years after you create the social media account. However, by sticking with it and learning new techniques along the way, you will be able to dramatically grow your following.

Those are the 16 ways to grow your social media audience. What are your thoughts on the list? Do you have any additional methods on growing a social media audience? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

The 7 Wrong Reasons To Become An Entrepreneur

August 14, 2014 by Marc Guberti 8 Comments

Wrong Answer

Entrepreneurship has been the source of every billionaires’ success as well as most millionaires’ success as well. It has allowed these people to live more flexible schedules and truly fulfill their lives. Some of these entrepreneurs have changed the world in the process. However, many people are driven to entrepreneurship for the wrong reasons and motives. If you are an entrepreneur for one of these seven reasons, you need to change your mindset.

You’re in it for the money. Just stop now. Effective entrepreneurs are people who change the world, not people who are just in it for the money. That’s what people in the status quo do. In addition, it takes many years before entrepreneurs are able to turn in a big profit for their businesses, products, and services. It is great to have certain goals like make $100,000 every year, but if that is your sole aim in life, to bring in the green, your entrepreneurial journey will not go very far.
You hate work. Entrepreneurship requires more work than any job you could get in the status quo. Entrepreneurs avoid working for 40 hours every week in the status quo so they can work for 80 hours every week. All of this time and effort in the long term can possibly lead to making a difference in the world.
You want to make quick cash. The status quo is a great place for making quick cash. Entrepreneurship is a bad place to make quick cash, but it is a great way to make long term revenue that crushes the type of revenue you would get from the status quo. Understand that it will take a few years before turning in a big profit.
You want life to be easier. When you start your entrepreneurial journey, life gets a lot harder. There are many entrepreneurs who say they had to work for 25 hours a day and for 8 days a week in the beginning just to keep their heads above water. The journey is not pretty, but sticking with it for years will allow you to emerge as a beautiful butterfly.
You got an A in your Entrepreneurship course in college. BIG. DEAL. There is a difference between simulated experiments and you going through the actual journey with all to gain but also all to lose. Doing and knowing how to do something are also two completely different things.
You want to be in charge and have power. No one is going to know about you for a few years. I was by no means successful when I started, but now my blog and social media accounts have become very popular. There was a time when I had no followers and no blog visitors.
You want a better schedule for yourself. In the beginning, entrepreneurship creates a giant dent in your dream schedule. This is one of the reasons I started as a teenager. This giant dent just prevents me from going out with friends as much. By the time I do more important things like raise a family, I won’t have to worry about that giant dent. However, if you are like most people reading this blog post, you may have to worry about that giant dent in your schedule in the beginning. Your willingness to adapt to the giant dent will determine how successful you become throughout your journey.

Believe it or not, I started off as an entrepreneur for the wrong reason. I saw the potential for making money on the web, and that’s what lured me over to entrepreneurship. That’s also why it took me longer than it should have to reach this point. Realizing that teens do not know what I do gave me a stronger purpose. I decided that my purpose was to change the world by teaching entrepreneurship to other teens. This vision eventually turned into the Teenager Entrepreneur Bootcamp where my brother and I successfully taught our peers how to be entrepreneurs. Now the students have their own blogs, and some of them are writing new blog posts and doing other things for their businesses every day. The best part is that we still keep in touch with these students and are friends with them That’s not going in for the money. That’s changing the world, and that’s exactly what entrepreneurship is all about. What are your thoughts on this list and entrepreneurship in general?

7 Ways To Turn Your Facebook Fans Into Email Subscribers

August 12, 2014 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Did you know that two-thirds of Facebook marketers are either uncertain about whether their methods are working or don’t even believe in their methods? That’s a big portion of marketers, and that’s because most of them are making the same mistake. Chances are you are making the same mistake with your Facebook page that a majority of other Facebook marketers are making. Advertising is a great way to promote your Facebook Page, but then what? Getting a bunch of likes is not the answer, and only 1 out of every 6 people will see your Facebook Page posts. The answer is turning those fans into email subscribers. Here are seven things you need to know so you can make that happen.

Host a giveaway on Facebook. When you host this giveaway on Facebook, you need to make sure that the only way for a person to win the prize is by subscribing to your blog.
Promote a free product. This free product needs to be enticing. In addition, it must only be available to the people who enter their name and email address in a form.
Post valuable content. Posting valuable content will allow you to spread on Facebook. By spreading on Facebook, more people will learn about you. Then, by implementing the other tactics, you will be able to get more subscribers.
Engage with your fans. Engaging with your Facebook fans is the key to your success. Engaging with these fans will allow you to have longer conversations and build stronger connections. This engagement will encourage new fans to have conversations with you, and if you have good conversations with your fans, those fans will become your subscribers.
Offer discounts. Discounts encourage people to buy products. Some people only buy a discounted product because they save money. Some products that people buy for a discount never get used, but buying a product at a discount makes a customer feel smart at the moment. People must be required to subscribe to your blog in order to take advantage of the discount.
Give subscribers access to a private FB group page. A private Facebook group page allows you to connect with more people, and it is a free prize worth winning. Only give your subscribers access to a private Facebook group page.
Share customer testimonials. Some people subscribe to bloggers who provide valuable content. Providing customer testimonials will prove to your Facebook fans that you provide valuable content. Posting testimonials will encourage more people to subscribe to your blog.

Your email list is the most powerful list you have. You can promote your products and blog posts to the people on that email list. If you have 100,000 people on your email list, and a tenth of one percent of those people buy your $2,000 product, that’s 100 sales (and $200,000 extra in your pocket). What do you do to grow your email list?