productivity

How To Have A Breakthrough 2016

January 1, 2016 by Marc Guberti 4 Comments

I can’t start this blog post without wishing everyone a big HAPPY NEW YEAR!! The beginning of the year always gets me pumped.

I look back at my achievements from 2015 and look forward into what I can achieve in 2016. I look back at my mistakes to see what I can avoid in the future.

I have been doing a lot of looking back lately. I graduate high school in May.

In a few days, I’ll be celebrating my 18th birthday. I am already in the process of changing all of my bios from “17 Year Old” to “18 Year Old” because I definitely don’t want to do that on my birthday.

That was just me walking down memory lane and looking at what is to come. The main point of this blog post is how you can have a breakthrough 2016. Last year was kind to me. This year is going to be epic.

Maybe I sounded overconfident there. However, to have a breakthrough 2016, you need to have a strong amount of confidence towards yourself. It’s better to be overconfident than it is to lack confidence.

It’s okay to be confident in your ability to achieve your goals.

However, confidence alone won’t get you to the finish line. You can feel confident that you will finish the marathon, but taking action and running the marathon is what actually results in you crossing the finish line.

This is where most people mess up. We gain confidence when we write our New Year’s resolutions on paper. A few weeks later and that same sheet of paper is nowhere to be found.

Intentionally lost in the shuffle.

New Year’s resolutions work when you combine that high level of confidence with taking action the right way. Taking action does not mean forgetting your resolutions and remembering them in November.

Taking action the right way means taking consistent action to achieve a certain goal.

View your New Year’s resolutions as a skyscraper with 365 floors. Every floor on the building has something or someone important for you to achieve your New Year’s resolutions.

Maybe on one of the floors, you do some videos before going back into the elevator. Maybe on another floor, you meet with a partner who can help you move forward. You spend more time on certain floors than others.

You consistently go up one floor at a time. The consistency becomes a habit and soon the work becomes effortless. I used to struggle to write blog posts like these. After writing blog posts for several years, I have gotten better—only because I continued to consistently write content.

Writing content went from a tedious task to an effortless habit.

Showing up every day and putting in the work are two key elements of highly successful people. Not once per month or once per week. Every day.

“But I Don’t Have Time For That Much Work”

Most excuses revolve around a lack of time. The New Year’s resolutions look good on paper, but as some people say, “When life gets in the way,” those resolutions suddenly look impossible.

Life getting in the way and a lack of time are excuses. Nothing more.

Blog posts like these tend to share the general tone of not making excuses and that excuses are lame.

If you make excuses the right way, they can present opportunities for growth.

One of the goals I had in the middle of 2015 was to get back on Udemy and create courses. I had less than 10 courses on Udemy. But I couldn’t go back on Udemy right away.

Why? Because I didn’t have enough time.

I knew Udemy would help my business and that I could do it, but I had an excuse that seemed to make sense.

Then I asked myself the most important question I have ever asked myself as an entrepreneur.

“How do I find more time?”

I took an excuse that was holding me back and asked myself how I could make that same excuse illegitimate.

The answer for me was outsourcing a large percentage of my business. In less than a week, more than half of my business was outsourced.

I repurposed my extra time towards creating and marketing more Udemy courses. By the end of the year, I had a total of 20+ Udemy courses.

Spoiler Alert: I plan on doubling that total in 2016.

It’s not lame to make excuses. It’s only lame if you make an excuse but then don’t do anything about it.

“I can’t run the marathon because I’m not in shape. How can I add more workouts to my schedule?”

“I’m not talented enough to sing. How can I learn more about proper singing right now?”

“I can’t achieve my dreams. How can I push that thought away and start chasing my dreams?”

Recurring excuses create shame. Eliminate any of those excuses and it becomes a habit that surges your confidence.

A Breakthrough Year Require Breakthrough Goals

There’s no way around it. I have goals that to some people may sound crazy. They may sound impossible and too ambitious. They sound like they will never happen.

I like those types of goals. I approach them with full force. I don’t care about what people say I can and cannot do.

In that respect, all that matters is what I say I can and cannot do.

I understand that some people are conscious about what others think about them and their goals. Some of us are fearful of what people will think about our ambitious New Year’s resolutions.

Some of us are afraid of getting dragged down and being told that we can’t do something. Then why do you have to tell anyone your most ambitious New Year’s resolutions.

If you keep them to yourself, those particular goals will boil within your heart. Soon enough, accomplishing those goals will become your top priority.

The other option is to tell people your New Year’s resolutions, even the most ambitious ones. Maybe people will comment about the unlikelihood of those goals happening. You can use other people’s doubts as the fuel to your fire.

You can either choose one of those two approaches. Think about how you would feel if you told people your New Year’s resolutions and then choose the best approach for you.

If you choose to tell people about your resolutions, then make sure you also have a group of people to keep you accountable. The people who keep you accountable will motivate you to stay true to those resolutions.

Breaking Out Of The Traditional 366 Mindset

It turns out that this year is a Leap Year. So there are 366 days instead of 365.

Making a breakthrough also requires that you break through the status quo of thinking. Most New Year’s resolutions follow this cycle:

They bring hope on New Year’s Day
They “mysteriously” disappear in the middle of February
They are rediscovered in November
December 31st: “Back to the drawing board”

Why do most New Year’s resolutions go through this cycle? The answer is that since there are 366 days in a leap year, we believe that we can take a few months off. The result is resolutions not getting accomplished, and then on December 31st, back to the drawing board.

The simple solution is to change the deadline. Most people view December 31st as their deadline. You need to view each month as a deadline.

What must you do in January to get closer to your New Year’s resolutions? What must you do in February? The closer the deadline, the more productive you will become.

If you make the deadline much closer than December 31st, then you will be more productive and move towards accomplishing your 2016 resolutions.

In Conclusion

The New Year is always an exciting time filled with possibility and hope. The challenge with any New Year is to maintain the excitement and hope throughout the year.

By changing the way you view a typical year and how you accomplish your goals, you will discover that it is easy to accomplish your resolutions.

I end this blog post with a tidbit I heard last month. Maybe it’s the greatest tidbit for productivity, but many tidbits nowadays hold that title.

I recently read an article about the mindset of a Navy SEAL. The Navy SEAL mindset is this:

When your body says you are done, then you are really just 40% done.

The Navy SEAL who shared this mindset has run several 100+ mile races—and in some, as one of the top finishers.

It’s very hard to not find that impressive.

So the next time you feel like you are done, in reality you are just 40% done. Don’t limit yourself in any way. Strive to tap into the other 60% so you can go from good to great.

What are your thoughts about achieving New Year’s resolutions? Do you have any tips for us? Do you have New Year’s resolutions? Sound off in the comments section below.

5 Blogging Tasks You Must Outsource Now

December 18, 2015 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

The biggest lesson I recently learned is that outsourcing most of your work is essential. The way people increase their productivity when they “hit a peak” is by outsourcing.

For a long time, I was a lone wolf. I managed to make it, but making it wasn’t good enough for me. I wanted to excel.

The way my workload and schedule were set up, I had no extra time to excel. At the time, it seemed like a legitimate excuse.

It’s funny how when we make excuses, the sound legitimate to us at the time. Outsourcing most of my workload eliminated that excuse.

Most of my social media activity is now outsourced. Outsourcing is the only reason I could focus more of my time towards Udemy and still write these blog posts.

It was scary to hand over some of my power to someone else, but it was worth it. You need a team of freelancers who can lighten your workload.

Now with social media outsourcing mastered, my eyes are now set to outsourcing many of the activities that happen on this blog. The end goal is that I only do two things with this blog:

Write content
Engage with readers like you in the comments section
Promote my content (and most of that is outsourced)

Everything else I do with this blog stands in my way. That’s how I choose to see it. I have outsourced many activities that once stood in my way. The result: more time for myself and my business.

So what should every blogger outsource right now? Here are the big five:

#1: Editor

No matter how great you are at writing content, you are bound to make some mistakes. You wouldn’t want a typo ruining the way people perceive your blog—and even worse—how they perceive you.

With so many blogs on the web, we expect a great experience. Any flaw has the potential to depreciate the experience.

Depending on how many blog posts you write, proofreading your blog posts may take up hours of your time every week. The worst part is that you may skip over the mistakes as you rush to read your blog posts.

If you proofread your blog posts too early, you may not even notice the mistakes. Here’s where a proofreader comes in.

Right when you finish writing a blog post, you can submit that blog post to the proofreader. Then, have that proofreader double-check your blog post for any errors. You can even ask this proofreader to add additional value to your content or reword certain paragraphs.

When I proofread my blog posts, I rely on spell check. Sometimes I will proofread my blog posts from start to finish, but that takes too much time.

If you find yourself proofreading your blog posts too much (or typos find their way on your blog), you should hire an editor to make sure your content is sharp.

#2: Picture Creation

For the most part, this blog has had a fair amount of eye-popping pictures but also a fair amount of decent pictures. Just like any blogger, I want more eye-popping pictures in my blog posts.

I heard about a free tool called Canva. It is an AMAZING tool for creating free pictures. However, I didn’t have enough time to create awesome pictures with Canva. Some of the pictures I created for my blog posts were nice. Other pictures were decent.

So I decided to outsource that part of my blog.

I no longer create the pictures you see on the top of my blog posts. I hire a freelancer who knows far more than I do about creating eye-popping pictures.

It would take me 10 minutes just to create a picture and insert it into the blog post. The same process now takes me less than 15 seconds (I just get the provided picture and insert it into the blog post).

In other words, I shaved off 9 minutes and 45 seconds from the blog scheduling process—for each blog post I schedule.

All of that extra time adds up.

#3: Content Research

Providing data to support your content will give you more authority in your niche. There is a difference between saying, “Twitter is great for business” and providing credible statistics and facts that explain why Twitter is great for business.

That data comes from content research. It is simply the process of using Google or Bing to find articles and information that would strengthen your content.

Some blogs rely more heavily on content research than others. If you find yourself Googling and Binging too often for the sake of your content, a content researcher is the next person you should hire.

Even if you know how to find the right information to strengthen your content, outsource the work.

Successful entrepreneurs don’t exclusively outsource that tasks they don’t know how to do. They also outsource the time consuming tasks, even if the task is relatively simple. Time is money, and entrepreneurs always need more time.

#4: SEO

Let’s be honest. SEO is a bear. Technically, it’s a panda or penguin depending on what Google chooses to call it. Of course, the updates are named after the innocent animals that we aren’t scared of.

But for many people, SEO is this giant maze that seems to double in size when you think the finish line is near.

And if you are one of the people who knows a lot about keyword research and SEO, then you know it takes a large amount of time.

Which keywords to choose? What description would work the best? So many questions and so much work once you know the answers.

Outsourcing your blog’s SEO solves that problem.

However, you want to be very careful when you outsource your blog’s SEO. There is a lot of contradictory advice and not all SEO experts are actually experts.

If you choose to hire a freelancer, ask that freelancer who he/she has already worked for and how much the freelancer knows. If you know a lot about SEO, simply tell the freelancer what you would do and then have the freelancer do it.

#5: Someone To Add The Finishing Touches

Consistent bloggers almost never hit the “Publish” button. We click the “Schedule” button. We must designate the time and date in which all of our blog posts must be published.

Then we add categories and tags to our blog posts to make it easier for readers to navigate through our blogs.

Depending on your blog, you may have numerous finishing touches to make once you write the content and have all of the picture ready.

I have to play around with the HTML to make the big text a specific size. Here is the HTML I manually type in to make the big text the way it is:

<span style=“font-size: x-large;”>#5 Someone To Add The Finishing Touches</span>

Manually making that change takes up time too, and I am sure you have to make similar finishing touches.

Imagine if those finishing touches were all done for you. Outsourcing those finishing touches to other freelancers makes that possible.

In Conclusion

As first glance, outsourcing is scary. Outsourcing requires trust and a willingness to hand over some of your workload to someone else.

Once you become comfortable with outsourcing, you will quickly find extra time in your day. Imagine half of your workload suddenly getting taken off of your shoulders.

The amount of time you would save. The goals you would accomplish. Just imagine it.

Outsourcing makes it possible. Out of all of the tasks associated with a successful blog, those five tasks are the ones you need to look into outsourcing now.

Even if you can’t outsource all five of those tasks now, outsource at least one of those tasks.

Which of these tasks do you think is the most important to outsource? Do you know any other tasks in the blogging process that you believe should be outsourced? Sound off in the comments section below.

The Secret Sauce To Getting More Done

December 16, 2015 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

If you do something every day for about 66 days, it becomes a habit. Something that you couldn’t imagine doing at all suddenly becomes common in your life a little over two months later. When 2015 began, one of my family’s goals for the year was to sell the piano in our garage.

In mid-August we made a sale, but by a stroke of luck, it was that moment when I wanted to play the piano every day. I hadn’t even touched it for a few years. Now I wanted to play it every day. Sale canceled.

My decision shocked us all. I knew at that point I was automatically committed to playing the piano every day. However, I had to build the commitment. A few months later and now I’m playing the piano every day.

On some days, I am playing the piano for more time than I spend on my business. How did that happen? The first reason is because I quickly fell in love with it. The second reason is that I set forth a plan to get me from Day 0 to Day 66. I knew that once I was playing the piano on the 66th day, it would be effortless for me to play the piano every day.

As a productivity expert, I knew many tricks of the trade. The best way to perform a task every day is to give yourself a productivity spreadsheet. For the piano, I would identify what songs I had to play and what exercises I had to perform to allow my fingers to cover a greater range of the keyboard.

Before I turn this blog into a musical blog, I’ll shift back to business. You don’t have to play the piano to utilize this method. In fact, I use productivity spreadsheets do create videos for my training courses every day. Productivity spreadsheets are the main reason why I can create numerous videos every day but still have time for the piano.

Productivity spreadsheets work like this:

#1: Have A Physical Calendar

Yes, a physical one. I am what some people would call a digital native. Just as people describe this current generation as Generation Z, many people refer to the people in this generation as the digital natives.

However, this is something that you can’t do on a device. There is something about writing down your dreams and goals on a piece of paper that you don’t get by typing them on the screen.

I tend to take a piece of paper and fill in the boxes and form my calendar. All of the boxes and numbers are drawn on the paper with a marker. That’s how seriously I take the idea of having a physical, non-digital calendar. And I’m a digital native. Let that sink in.

#2: Apply The Seinfeld Method

The Seinfeld Method is one of the best ways known to mankind to stay accountable. You simply put an “X” on all of the days that you complete the task. Then, keep the streak of “X’s” going. I used to have a calendar of “X’s” for playing the piano every day. Each time I could write another “X” on the calendar, I felt more accomplished.

I no longer have a calendar for “X’s” for playing the piano because it’s habitual. I don’t even think about it. I just do it.

That’s all a productivity spreadsheet is (fine, you can call them calendars but I personally think spreadsheet sounds cooler). However, how do we fully utilize those productivity spreadsheets so they allow us to be more productive? These are two power tips:

#1: Identify What You Will Do The Night Before

The best time to plan your day is the night before. At nighttime, we aren’t in the rigorous workflow state of the mind. At night, we tend to be more creative since there are fewer boundaries. Think about what your schedule looks like at 1 pm. You could be doing so many different things at 1 pm.

So, as an extreme example, what are you doing at 1 am. Chances are you aren’t working. You are either sleeping or are absolutely fried.

The longer we stay up, the less productive we become. It is at this time, just before going to bed, when we need to identify what we will do on the following day. That way, we can wake up knowing what we must accomplish.

You don’t want to think about what your day will comprise of in the morning because at that point, you are losing too much valuable time. Your first hour dictates how the rest of your day goes. Have a productive first hour, and you will probably have a more productive day.

#2: Take The Path Of Least Resistance

Let’s say you want to create video every day and turn that into a habit. You have done some videos here and there but are still not super comfortable with the whole process. I give you two options:

You must complete at least one five-minute video per day
You must complete at least 10 five-minute videos per day

It would be more incredible to do the 10 videos. However, that’s not how we become productive. We are creatures of habit who hate dramatic changes. We can achieve dramatic changes by taking one step at a time.

Most people like to view dramatic change as a colossal leap. That colossal leap is simply the combined total of a series of smaller leaps taken in advance.

To turn a task into a habit, you must perform that task every day for 66 days. It is easier in the beginning to turn one video per day into a habit than it is to turn 10 videos per day into a habit. Focusing on completing a minimum of one video per day allows you to build a strong foundation. That strong foundation results in habit formation.

Finally, once you have the strong foundation, and you choose to strengthen it, you can eventually get to the point of completing at least 10 five-minute videos per day.

In the beginning, you aren’t going for workload. You are going for consecutive days of completion. Only pay attention to the workload after the 66th day.

In Conclusion

If you want to turn your newest tasks into effortless habits, then you need to create productivity spreadsheets for those tasks. The key to becoming productive is to do a little bit each day. Once you have a solid foundation, you can begin to expand upon that foundation.

What are your thoughts about the productivity spreadsheet method? Which of these methods did you like the most? What are your tips for boosting productivity? Sound off in the comments section below.

10 Overlooked Factors Of Productivity

December 2, 2015 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

I’m going to take a wild guess and say that this is not the first productivity related blog post that you are reading. I have probably read through thousands of them in my lifetime and wouldn’t be surprised if you do the same.

Most of these blog posts talk about the same things: write down goals, make sure you wake up early, and not procrastinating. That’s the tone of most productivity related blog posts.

So I decided to write a productivity blog post that has NOTHING to do with writing down goals, making sure you wake up earlier, and not procrastinating.

Stripping out those parts of the blog post originally made it more challenging to write a blog post like this. However, in this challenge, I was able to come across certain factors of productivity that almost no one talks about.

I have a feeling that there will be at least one tip on this list that you haven’t heard before.

#1: The Music That You Listen To

Music is a big part of our culture. Songs have the ability to change the way we feel and enforce different mindsets upon us. One song can leave you angry while another song can raise your spirits.

Certain songs can increase your productivity by giving you more motivation. As a New Yorker, Empire State Of Mind is my go-to song for boosting my productivity. I listen to it when I feel my productivity is dipping.

After listening to the song, I can go back to work more productive than ever.

When you are doing your work, don’t turn on the radio. You never know what song will come on the radio and most of them will distract you in some way or the other. Instead of listening to songs on the radio as you work, listen to focus noises.

I’m talking about forest noises, rushing water, and other focus noises of that nature. There are many focus noise videos on YouTube designed to boost your productivity.

YouTube Focus Noise Videos

Some of these videos are over 10 hours long. The purpose isn’t for you to watch the entire video. It’s for you to stay productive while the focus noises are playing.

#2: How You Handle Stress

We all get some level of stress. For some of us, stress is rare and doesn’t ruin our day. For other people, stress is frequent and day-destroying. As the workload gets more challenging, the way you respond determines how productive you are.

Life is 10% of what happens to you and 90% of how you respond. The reason you have probably heard that statement many times is because it’s true.

The way to handle stress from your workload is to simply attack the workload. The more time you spend thinking about what stresses you out, the more the stress will build.

If something is stressing you out, just get it done. NOW.

#3: How Often You Exercise

Exercising is one of the most important parts of life. I could have said productivity instead of life, but exercising helps you in so many ways other than productivity.

When I went from middle school to high school, I thought my business would collapse because of the added workload. That was before I even joined the cross country team and got home at 6 pm every day instead of 3 pm.

So at that point, I thought I’d just wait until the summer before doing anything big for my business. What happened?

My business soared contrary to my logic.

As the school work got more challenging, my business soared even more. No, it wasn’t because I got more homework that my school did better. Just making that clear in case one of my teachers reads this particular blog post.

It’s challenging to pinpoint one reason for any business’ success since it’s usually a combination of so many factors. I like to think running every day has a significant part in the equation.

The reason is that exercising every day strengthens two things:

Your muscles (yeah, no surprise there)
Your SUCCESS muscles (repeat please)

After analyzing successful people, watching my business grow, and running every day, I came to a conclusion. The mindset of a consistent runner is the same mindset as a successful person.

Always striving to achieve better results/times. Always looking for a way to do the same job better. Always showing up and putting in the work. Having a team around you.

In that last paragraph, you don’t know whether I’m talking about how to run faster or how to become more successful. That’s because they are both so connected.

Not specifically running, but exercising in general. Running in competitions adds that extra flair though because you get your time, and have something to gauge yourself against.

Even if you exercise with some simply stretches for 10 minutes each day, you are doing yourself (and your productivity) a lot of good.

#4: Your Health

You are what you eat. Food affects your thinking and the way you view the world. We have a different view of our work when we stuff ourselves with French Fries and when we eat a tasty, healthy steak.

Some food makes us want to tackle any work in front of us while other food makes us lazy. Becoming more aware of how you react to certain foods will help you make better food decisions for your health and your productivity.

In addition to becoming more aware of what you eat, adding certain foods to your daily eating habits will boost your productivity.

Certain foods like salmon have been proven to increase productivity (but salmon is one of the best super foods out there. It also makes you happier). Here are some other foods that make us more productive.

#5: The Technology You Use

Ever think of the computer, tablet, or smartphone you are using to read this very blog post? Ever think that your device is aging?

It’s something we don’t often think about. The only time we pay attention to it is when our devices get very slow. Once your device gets very slow, and that same device is a few years old, it’s a sign. You need a new device.

After four years, my Mac Book Pro started getting problems. Safari wouldn’t work at all every other day. Before that, I noticed my computer was getting slower.

A slower device nowadays can be detrimental to productivity. Don’t settle with a slow device. Get a new device so you can accomplish your work in lightning fast speeds.

Slow technology doesn’t only result in a decline in productivity. It also results in an increase in frustration. I made the choice to get a new Mac Book. Now I can get my tasks done faster.

#6: The Breaks You Take And Their Frequency

You must take breaks throughout the day to be productive. If you send too much time working, your productivity will naturally dip over time.

Taking a quick 10-20 minute break every 90 minutes is the ideal way to get as many productive minutes in as possible.

If you are pressed for time, just listen to a 3-10 minute song that motivates you to get stuff done. This isn’t procrastinating. Taking breaks allows you to be more productive in the long-run and avoid being the stickler at work. No one likes those.

#7: The Amount Of Stuff On Your Desk

Your desk gives you an idea of what your mind looks like. If you have a cluttered desk, chances are you have a cluttered mind. You forget to accomplish tasks within their deadlines, and all of the workload stresses you out.

A clean desk indicates a clean state of mind. It’s easier for you to accomplish tasks within their deadlines and do more than the minimum. The way you organize your physical presence affects how your mind is organized.

If you discover that notebooks and papers are accumulating on your desk, then get rid of them. Even if you designate one room and fill it with clutter, as long as you don’t see the clutter as you work, that clutter doesn’t matter.

It won’t impact your productivity in the same way a cluttered desk will.

#8: The Chair You Sit In

This is the one tip that I confidently believe you’ve never seen anywhere else. If you have seen it before, I want a link to the article.

I have worked while sitting in a variety of chairs throughout my life. But that doesn’t make me stand out at all. We have all worked while sitting in a variety of chairs.

When I took SATs, I would sit on multiple chairs in the room until I found the perfect chair for myself. Most of the time, it wouldn’t take more than two tries for me to find the perfect chair before the testing began.

If I moved, and the chair moved with me, I simply got up and went to another chair. Rocking back and forth wasn’t on my To-Do List for taking the SAT.

Broken Chair — Here is an extreme example of a bad chair. What would happen to your productivity if you sat on this?

I look for the chairs with the cushioned seats. These chairs feel more comfortable, and it’s easier for me to focus. Sitting on a wooden or un-cushioned chair doesn’t work for me as well.

At the same time, a chair that is too comfortable will decrease your productivity. At one point, I chose to do my work on a chair with wheels. There were two problems with that choice.

The first problem is that if I slightly moved the chair, my entire body would slightly move. I had to keep the chair still so I could write blog posts. The chairs without wheels don’t give me that problem.

The second problem is that I am a teenager. When I got stuck on an idea, I would spin around and around to pass the time. In the end, I would only think of a good idea when I stopped spinning on the chair and came back to reality.

#9: Your Working Pattern

The way you work determines how much you get done. Establishing a consistent work flow for yourself will make it effortless for you to get work done.

What is a work flow? It’s simply a series of daily rituals you follow that let you know you are on the right track. Once you follow these daily rituals, it will be easier for you to tunnel-vision and focus on getting ONE thing done effectively.

Focusing on getting the daily rituals right eventually turns those daily rituals into a habit. In other words, you are turning productivity and achievement into habits. That’s powerful.

#10: The People Who You Surround Yourself With

The people you surround yourself with impact who you become. If these people are below your level of excellence, you will find yourself stagnant or on the decline.

On the other hand, if you surround yourself with people who are better than you, then you challenge yourself to become better.

When I run, I always run with the people who are better than me. That way, I get more out of each practice and run better at the meets.

I started becoming successful on Udemy when I teamed up with instructors who are better than me. And if you’ve been following a lot of marketers, you’ll notice that they all promote each other and are friends with one another.

Surrounding yourself with people who challenge you to become better will result in you becoming better. You will become more productive and accomplish your goals faster than ever before.

In Conclusion

Productivity is important for anyone—the employee, employer, entrepreneur, parent, and everyone else. While there are the usual methods of boosting productivity, there are also overlooked factors that can also increase your productivity.

Now that you are aware of these overlooked factors of boosting productivity, the next step is to become more aware of how these overlooked factors play out in your life.

Be more observant of the people you hang out with, the music you listen to, what you eat, and how often you exercise. That way, you will know to make small changes that can have a dramatic impact on your productivity.

Which of these tips was your favorite? Do you know of any other overlooked methods of boosting productivity? Sound off in the comments section below.

The Right Way To Explore A New Opportunity

November 2, 2015 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

Business opportunities are interesting, and exploring them is not nearly as easy as it sounds. Not all of them are created equal and business opportunities don’t produce the same results for everyone. Entrepreneurs get exposed to numerous opportunities through their own research, word-of-mouth, or any other method imaginable.

I recently got exposed to three opportunities which have greatly paid off for my business:

Outsourcing
Facebook Ads
AdWords

I’ve heard about other opportunities for my business which I will explore eventually. Instagram, Periscope, and affiliate marketing are the next three opportunities I am going to devote more time towards in the near future.

There is a reason why I am waiting before I start exploring Instagram, Periscope, and affiliate marketing in-depth. This reason is related to what causes most people to lose out on opportunities.

The truth about opportunities is that there are so many of them around us. There are numerous ways to make money. It is possible to create training courses on Udemy, but it is just as possible to take online surveys and get the quick $1 after the survey if you get lucky.

For a long time, I did not know how to explore opportunities the right way. For some of the time I spent online, I did anything from clicking on advertisements to completing surveys just to make a few dollars. It was nothing impressive.

Just a few years later, I am an entrepreneur making more revenue in my sleep than I would have ever made taking annoying surveys. The change is a result of a series of factors that I don’t fully know yet. But one of them stands out the most.

I discovered how to properly approach opportunities.

Most people approach an opportunities by giving those opportunities all of the time in that one day. One day these people spend hours of their time on Twitter and on the next day, these people are trying to master Facebook ads. When immediate results don’t come, these people look for the next big thing.

That’s why, for a while, surveys were attractive to me. After completing a survey, I would immediately get my money. No waiting. Most of the greatest opportunities require patience and constant experimentation.

So far, outsourcing has transformed my business, but I’m not done experimenting with that. I often ask myself how many of my tasks I can possibly outsource. I want to make it as easy as possible for me to focus on the work that matters the most.

I won’t keep you in suspense any longer. The way to approach opportunities is to focus on ONE opportunity and do a little work each day. This one approach is the reason I have over 250,000 Twitter followers. I exclusively focused on Twitter. After I mastered Twitter, I started building my audience on other social networks. That’s why my Pinterest account and Facebook Page are behind but gradually catching up.

Choose the one opportunity that you believe will produce the most significant results. Then forget about all of the other potential opportunities for now. The quicker you get comfortable with one opportunity, the quicker you can move onto the next opportunity.

I started outsourcing parts of my business in August 2015. By the middle of the month, I was comfortable enough with outsourcing to begin Facebook advertising. I got comfortable with Facebook ads and began to pay attention to AdWords in September 2015. Now I am focusing on AdWords. Once I get comfortable there, I will continue utilizing it while exploring more opportunities.

Basically, I didn’t try to learn all of them at the same time. I learned them one at a time. I only looked at other opportunities once I became comfortable with the opportunity I strived to master.

Once you choose the ONE opportunity that you want to pursue, here’s how you pursue it.

#1: Do SOME Research

Conducting research is an art form (not a joke). How you conduct your research is important. The best way to conduct research about a new opportunity is to get as many small nuggets of information as possible.

I read a few short articles and watched a few short videos about AdWords before I created my first campaign. I took notes on what I believed was important. All of this research took me less than an hour. That’s all of the knowledge I needed to create my first successful campaign.

Some people conduct days of research towards AdWords before their create their first campaign. I only needed an hour. So does that make me super smart or super lazy?

The answer is neither. The people who conducted days of research probably know more than what I knew before I created my first campaign. However, there is a problem with conducting too much research. That problem is analysis paralysis.

The knowledge people obtain from extensive research tells them to do 10 different things that may produce better results. Which of the 10 different things should be done first? Which one produces the best results? Which one can be done in the most efficient manner? All of these questions result in more pondering and less action.

My research tells me the 1-3 different things that may produce better results. There are hundreds of ways to get better results from AdWords. Right now, I only know a small handful of tactics, and I am not embarrassed to say that. I am still learning but also taking action.

#2: Implement In Small Steps

When you have a decent amount of knowledge about an opportunity, it is time to take action. Analysis paralysis makes it more difficult to take action which is why too much research can actually be a bad thing.

But does that also mean too much knowledge about an opportunity is bad? What about “Knowledge is power”?

Here’s my take. Implemented knowledge is power. Knowledge that does not get implemented is worthless. Once you conduct enough research, you have to implement in small steps.

You are not trying to build Rome in a day. You are building one skyscraper at a time. That’s how you get your empire.

When I started outsourcing, I didn’t hire all of my freelancers in one day. I hired a freelancer every other day until I felt I had a strong team behind me. For any type of online advertising, I always start off with a $2/day budget. Even if I got zero results, losing $2 per day wouldn’t threaten my way of life. Keeping the budget low lets me see what works. Once I know what works, I slowly begin raising the budget and experimenting with other options.

#3: Analyze The Results

When you start implementing something new, expect mishaps. This admittedly pessimistic view makes all of the great results feel even better. It also prepares you for the challenges. When I first started hiring freelancers, almost all of my new freelancers and I were not on the same page until a few days after I hired them.

These freelancers were not bad freelancers. In fact, they all still work for me. It was a new skill I had to learn by doing, so my expectations were not 100% clear. I also didn’t spend as much time communicating to the freelancers before I hired them as I do now.

Mistakes are a part of the process. The only way you can catch your mistakes is by analyzing the results. I knew certain freelancers and I weren’t on the same page when I didn’t like the results I was seeing. I learned the hard way why it’s a bad idea to create a Facebook ad in the middle of the night (if you create an ad at 11:30 pm, Facebook will do everything in its power to go through your budget within the next 30 minutes. This typically results in a lot of impressions but little to no likes to show for it. If you decide to create a Facebook ad, create it in the morning).

Luckily, I set the budget to $2 per day so I didn’t lose much on that first day.

Don’t give up on an opportunity if the results look bad on the first day. That’s part of the learning process. You aren’t supposed to feel comfortable in the beginning because utilizing a game-changing opportunity isn’t supposed to be easy.

#4: Adjust Based On The Results

Once you start getting results—good or bad—it’s time to make adjustments. Making adjustments to your strategy will allow you to learn more about an opportunity and see which actions yield the best results. You could be getting good results now, but you may just be one small change away from massive results.

At this point, you should be comfortable with the opportunity and ready to explore new ones. However, no matter how much exploration you do, it is always important to experiment with the opportunities you currently utilize.

In Conclusion

We have many opportunities in front of us. The results we get isn’t a matter of how many opportunities we explore. It’s a matter of how we explore the opportunities that we explore. When entrepreneurs explore opportunities the right way, big results are bound to occur.

How do you explore opportunities? Which opportunities have you explored recently? What opportunity do you believe more entrepreneurs should focus on? Sound off in the comments section below.

My Outsourcing Case Study

October 14, 2015 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

A common theme on my blog lately has been outsourcing. The reason I have mentioned outsourcing in many of my blog posts is because of the following

I recently started outsourcing most of my work
Writing about outsourcing inspires me to outsource more of my work
Time is valuable, and we all need more of it

Some entrepreneurs go as far as saying that if you aren’t outsourcing any part of your business, then you are not a real entrepreneur. Ouch!

When I first discovered people said that, I thought to myself, “I’m an entrepreneur if I don’t outsource.”

If you don’t outsource, then you are still an entrepreneur. However, you aren’t as good as you could be. If Tim Cook had to worry about responding to all customer emails and pitching iPhones in the Apple Store every day, he wouldn’t have any time to lead the company to success.

You can’t do it all by yourself. I only discovered this when I decided to outsource some of my workload. Since then, I have outsourced various areas of my business. Here are three notable things I outsourced in August 2015:

All Pinterest activity (except comments)
All Twitter activity (except interaction)
All intro pictures for my blog posts

When you put the three together, it takes an hour of my time every day. Now I’ve got that hour back. I feel like a more productive entrepreneur, as I should. That hour now goes into creating additional videos for my training courses.

I don’t even edit the videos anymore. I hired someone for that too 🙂

Right now, I am saving close to 10 hours of my time every week because of outsourcing. Put those hours together and I save 520 hours every year. Outsourcing those four parts of my business allowed me to get 21 days back.

We feel great when we get an hour back, so getting 21 days back put me on cloud nine. My goal is to get 60 days back by the end of the year.

The Beginning

Once I realized I needed to start outsourcing my work, my first step was figuring out how to actually outsource the work. I tried using Fiverr to get assistants but I didn’t have a good experience.

Some research led me to UpWork (formerly Odesk). I decided to post my job and see what would happen. The first job I posted got seven applicants. The second job I posted got 27 applicants. The great thing about UpWork is that you don’t have to worry about people seeing the job you posted. You’ll get applicants if your job description is good.

After getting the applicants, I narrowed my list down based on price and value. It’s easy to find someone on UpWork who is willing to work for less than $5/hr. It’s a great option for entrepreneurs who feel tied to a shoestring budget.

The First Struggle And Lessons Learned

The first time I experienced difficulty with outsourcing was in the very beginning. There was some miscommunication between me and the virtual assistant I hired. Since this was the first assistant I hired, I thought outsourcing wasn’t worth it.

Luckily I stuck with it.

The key to success on UpWork is to outsource the people with a mix of price and value, and then create detailed videos showing them what you do.

I didn’t take any chances with my Twitter activity. I created a video showing my assistant exactly how to follow and unfollow people so I could continue growing my Twitter audience without putting in any of the work. All I do on Twitter nowadays is interact with my audience.

Still Not Convinced?

I heard about two things for many years before I actually implemented. I wish I started them earlier. The first thing I wish I did earlier was build an email list.

The second one was outsourcing my work. Yes, outsourcing my work is right up there with building an email list late in the game.

For a long time, I shunned outsourcing and thought it was a solution for people who didn’t like to work. Seeing books like The 4-Hour Workweek didn’t please me because I saw it as people trying to escape their work all together. Why not work 40 hours every week if you love what you do?

I wasn’t a workaholic, but I was close.

Then it hit me. People are outsourcing most of their work so they can work on the most important parts of the business. No one can write my blog posts or do my videos. With the proper guidance, anyone can follow and unfollow people on Twitter.

But this was the main reason it took me so long.

Why would I pay someone to do something I already know how to do?

I knew how to unfollow and follow people on Twitter. I knew how to edit my videos. I knew how to do everything that I outsourced. Why hand it to someone else and pay them when I could do it myself?

The answer is outsourcing opens up more time. New time makes it possible to develop new skills and explore new opportunities. On a typical school day, I used to go home and do the following (for the sake of this list, homework isn’t included)

Grow my Twitter audiences (20-30 minutes)
Create a picture for one of my blog posts (10 minutes)
Create videos (30 minutes if I was lucky. This activity was skipped on most days)

Here’s what my after school (and post-practice) schedule looks like now (again, excluding the homework):

Create videos (30-60 minutes)
Play the piano (30-60 minutes)
Explore other opportunities

Fewer tasks stand between me and creating videos. That makes it possible for me to create more training courses, YouTube videos, and Periscope broadcasts. I save 30-40 minutes per day. I could have done those two tasks on my own, but now I have a lot of extra time to play with.

In Conclusion

Entrepreneurs love to self-assess themselves. They like to see how they have grown or stayed the same. Most entrepreneurs stay the same and don’t do much growing. This is where the frustration sets in.

Remember that the frustration is part of the journey. However, the frustration and stagnation may be a result of an inefficient amount of time. Outsourcing your time will open up more time which can potentially skyrocket your entrepreneurial success.

Think about the business person you admire. If you’ve been an entrepreneur long enough, you admire some of the top entrepreneurs around. For me, Seth Godin quickly comes to mind.

Here’s the interesting thing. All of these entrepreneurs are outsourcing some of the work. Seth Godin (and most of the top authors) has an editor. When Squidoo was around, he hired people to respond to bug reports and interact with the community.

As productive as people like Seth Godin are, they can’t do it by themselves. Neither can you, and it’s okay to admit that. Outsourcing parts of your business will open the door to hours upon hours of extra time.

Do you outsource parts of your business? If not, are you willing to give it a try? Sound off in the comments section below!