Marc's Blog

July 2016 Monthly Performance Report

July 31, 2016 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

Each month feels like another month of rapid progress. July is no exception. In fact, it’s crazy to think July has already ended.

July 2016 Summary

I interviewed more people for my podcast. I plan on launching it in August. I promise you’ll love the episodes.

My family went up to Boston twice to watch the Red Sox play ball. We saw the team win two games and lose two games.

My brother and I hosted our Teenager Entrepreneur bootcamp which is always a blast. For those of you who don’t know, my brother and I empower teens with the knowledge they need to build successful businesses based on their passions.

That’s the Teenager Entrepreneur bootcamp in a nutshell.

I won the People’s Choice Rule Breaker Award back in 2014, and now I’m ready to win another Rule Breaker Award in 2016. I am a rule breaker because I started my business in middle school.

If you want me to win the award, please vote for me here.

Here’s what else happened this month:

Content Creation Calendar

I have read several books this month (more on that later) and structuring a content creation calendar got mentioned in several of those books. So I decided to structure my own content creation calendar.

It’s one of the better decisions I have made regarding my content. If I have all of my content creation calendars in front of me, and you wanted to know what I’ll do on December 13, 2016, I could tell you.

I considered taking a picture of one of my content creation calendars but it’s got several of my future content ideas on it. I would rather write out the content first. If I remember, I’ll include the August 2016 Content Creation Calendar within that Performance Report.

The Content Creation Calendar made it possible for me to identify themes I need to focus on and how I can manage to produce a new piece of content every day. I was great at that in the past. But that became more difficult as I wrote longer blog posts.

My Battle With Amazon

email marketing

About 1-2 weeks ago, I sent an email to my list detailing my struggle with Amazon. The struggle many Kindle authors face is that Amazon doesn’t allow you to sell your Kindle books for free. $0.99 is the minimum price you must charge for your Kindle book.

So why are some Kindle books free?

The answer is that there’s a workaround. If you publish your book on Smashwords for free and get the premium status in Smashwords, Amazon is more likely to listen. Publishing your book on Smashwords isn’t good enough without the premium status.

I plan on getting the premium status on Smashwords soon. I haven’t gotten to it due to a lack of time. Then I am sure Amazon will change the price.

The interesting thing about this Kindle book is that it actually made four sales. The only time I promoted it to my audience, I told them to not buy the book because the entire book is me copying and pasting one of my blog posts.

But four sales got my attention. While I didn’t want this particular Kindle book to make sales (it’s one of my blog posts and I only make $0.35 per sale), I see potential.

The next time I turn one of my blog posts into a book, I’ll add additional content so I feel better charging $0.99 for that Kindle book. It’s just unnecessarily hard to make a Kindle book free on Amazon. For now, having one Permafree Kindle book is fine with me.

Problems With Udemy

One of my goals from the June 2016 Monthly Performance Report was to create more Udemy courses. The entire thinking was that since Udemy is changing and fewer people want to create courses, now is the perfect time to jump in.

Since then my opinion has changed. I’m not as focused as I once was to create more training courses. Udemy’s pricing policy and rule to hide certain courses with an insufficient average rating from their search engine didn’t go well with me.

For instance, my free course Guest Blogging Your Way To Ultimate Visibility and Traffic was removed from Udemy’s search engine.

Udemy said that if a course averages below 4.10 stars in its recent reviews, it gets yanked from the search engine. The last 10 reviewers averaged 3.85 stars which means I was .25 stars away from not having any problems.

udemy rating system

Combine that with the fact that the course’s all-time star average is exactly 4.10 stars, I’m not pleased. Udemy is continuing to change, and most of the changes aren’t looking good so far.

All of the income I make from Udemy is now passive. I haven’t updated a course there for a while. But I’m not giving up on training course creation. Enter TSMD.

Total Social Media Domination — TSMD

TSMD is one of the most ambitious projects I am currently pursuing. TSMD will be a membership site that consistently gets updated with new videos on how to dominate social media.

I don’t know all of the details yet, but I know I’ll include a FB group for members to chat and ask me their questions.

The plan is to commit at least three hours of my time to building TSMD every single day until its completion. That way, I can finish the whole membership site before the end of summer. Adding monthly updates will be much easier in comparison.

For those of you interested, I plan on having an affiliate program for the membership site with a recurring commission for each member you refer.

Unlock Your Potential

Speaking of projects, I’m also working on a new book. The book will be called Unlock Your Potential. Right now the manuscript is over 10,000 words long. I aim to get the manuscript to 30,000 to 60,000 words by the end of August.

This book will be a manifesto. I’ll reveal what has driven me so far and how you can achieve significant results in your life. This isn’t just going to be any personal development book. It’s going to be one of the best if not the best personal development book out there.

I’m pursuing a publisher for this book so my book can reach the hands of more readers. I dream of being able to find this book in Barnes & Noble.

I’m Intensifying My YouTube Efforts

marc guberti youtube

I can’t show a picture of my content creation calendar, but I can give you an idea of the work involved. Every week, I am uploading a minimum of four new videos to YouTube.

#1: Videos For Teenage Entrepreneur Series on Mondays — These videos are specifically aimed towards providing teens with the knowledge they need to crush it in business and life.

#2: Misc videos on Tuesdays — Anything from social media marketing to productivity, but I keep these videos within my niche.

#3: Podcast videos on Wednesday — I will redistribute all of my MP3 files into YouTube videos with my podcast’s channel art. Why not?

#4: Q&A videos on Saturdays — I am answering one question every week. Have a question for me? I’ll answer it in a video and promote you at the same time!

My goal is to eventually publish one new YouTube video every day. The focus in August is to get comfortable with publishing four videos every week. I want to feel comfortable taking that type of action so it’s an easy transition during college.

Books I Read

I read a lot of books this month largely due to traveling back and forth from New York to Boston…twice.

1. The 10X Rule

2. Podcastnomics

3. Will The Real You Please Stand Up

4. The Content Code

5. Content Rules

6. Podcast Launch

As you can see, I am reading books in three specific areas. Content marketing, podcasting, and personal development.

After my interview with Aaron Walker, I learned that reading personal development books won’t just help you become a better person. Personal development books help you become successful in all areas of your life…including your business.

If you could only read one of these books, I’d recommend The 10X Rule hands down. It’s a personal development book that is all about achieving success. These rules apply regardless of what niche you are in.

One cool stat from The 10X Rule is that most workers read one book every year while most CEOs read 60 books every year. That stat reveals how important it is to read books.

One of my goals is to listen to at least five audiobooks each month. This goal has been easy for me in the summer due to traveling. In school, that goal will get more challenging, but I am determined to pull it off.

Blog Posts I Wrote

If you missed the blog posts I wrote in July and want to read them, I have included them here as a reference. I published a bunch of YouTube videos too which can be found on my channel.

5 Ways To Use SnapChat For Business: The new social network is growing as the days go by. Now is the perfect time to start using the revolutionary social network for your business. In this blog post, I’ll reveal how I use SnapChat for my business and how you can do the same.

3 Ways To Fit Something Into Your Budget: When businesses find themselves at their maximum budget, these are the methods they can use to find more room within their budgets.

10 Tactics To Get High Quality Backlinks: Backlinks are very important for SEO. In this article, you’ll learn some of the best tactics you can use to build a quality backlink empire.

How To Write A Ridiculously Long Blog Post: Some of my blog posts are over 5,000 words which is great for SEO. You’ll learn the mindset I approach these blog psots with so I can go from an idea to 5,000+ words.

5 Power Tips To Get More Done: Want to accomplish more in your lifetime? This blog post reveals how you can do just that.

Looking Back At June

I already went in-depth about Udemy, so I won’t mention that here.

I still haven’t created a new landing page yet. TSMD will force me to create several landing pages so I’m happy about that. I won’t consider creating another landing page until I complete TSMD.

I technically published a new Kindle book although making it permafree will be the next goal. What interests me is that the book has already resulted in two new subscribers. Making the book free would put it in front of more people, and as a result, grow my email list.

I am still not averaging 1,000 daily visitors for my blog yet, but I did make significant progress. I finally have a solid plan of attack for producing content. By the end of August, I’ll be in the groove of publishing one new piece of content for this blog every day.

Part of that plan is having contributors, so if you would like to contribute a blog post to my blog, you can go here for the details. I have two people working for me to get more contributors.

I honestly thought I would have interviewed more people for my podcast. I only interviewed five people this month but I largely attribute that to travel and the Teenager Entrepreneur bootcamp.

I had an absolute blast during those five interviews and am sure you’ll enjoy them too.

August Goals

I normally called this section the “Highlights” section, but “Goals” seems more appropriate. These are some of my goals for August:

#1: Launch The Podcast

For the past two months, I’ve told my audience about all of the awesome people who I have interviewed. The podcast is finally going to see the light of day. On my content calendar, I have already designated August 24th as the day the first podcast episode goes live.

There’s still much to do but the heavy lifting is over with. The most challenging part was committing to having guests and then interviewing the first few guests. It’s been a breeze since then.

#2: Complete TSMD

I will work on this membership site for at least three hours every day until its completion. I am excited about this membership site and all that I will offer on it.

I’m so excited about it that I am even working on merchandise. I am finalizing some of the shirts on Zazzle now.

social media shirts zazzle

Below the social media logo are the words “Total Social Media Domination” and “@MarcGuberti.”

All of those shirts will be available to the public soon enough, and you better believe I’m wearing those shirts during my future YouTube videos.

#3: Get 1,000 Daily Visitors For My Blog

This will remain one of my goals until I accomplish it. July was the planning phase and August is the month in which I execute that plan. I am more focused on the podcast and TSMD, but any extra time I have will get allocated towards this goal.

#4: Increase My Affiliate Marketing Revenue

I have made several changes to my blog with affiliate marketing in mind. A while ago, I added a resources page to my blog with some of the online tools that I recommend.

All of the links are affiliate links, and I have no problem with making money promoting a tool that I would have recommend anyway.

I have gone through all of my blog posts and included affiliate links at any reference of HootSuite, Optimize Press, ManageFlitter, or any of the other tools that I use.

The moment I publish my podcast, I’m pursuing Audible’s podcasting affiliate program. That will be a lot of fun since I read all of my books on Audible and can therefore promote it very well.

I’ll never promote a product as an affiliate unless I like the product and am proud to stand behind it.

In Conclusion

In all of the years I’ve been a blogger, I have always explored new opportunities and achieved the best results during the summer. Summer is coming to an end.

But I’m not walking out quietly. In a span of the next 30 days, I’ll launch a membership site and a podcast. I’ll be increasing the number of emails I send each month which means I’ll be switching over to ConvertKit very soon (there’s no limit in monthly emails).

Thank you for reading my month in review. I hope you enjoyed it.

And please don’t forget to vote for me to receive the Rule Breaker Award.

5 Ways To Use SnapChat For Your Business

July 29, 2016 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Thinking about using SnapChat for business?

With more than 100 million daily active users and 400 million snaps per day, Snapchat has come a long way. What began as a messaging app quickly became the most popular social network among teens and it’s now a powerful force for global companies trying to connect directly with customers on the platform.

More and more influencers are using Snapchat as well. John Lee Dumas shares daily tips and inspiration on Snapchat. Author Daymond John used Snapchat to invite fans to follow him on a recent book tour.

And brands are using Snapchat in creative ways, from teaser campaigns to product launches. Cosmetic company Nars used Snapchat to release a preview of its new collection – individuals had to add NARSissist as a friend on Snapchat to access the preview.

World Wildlife Fund’s Snapchat campaign #LastSelfie raised awareness about endangered species. Audi collaborated with The Onion to Snapchat the Super Bowl live. And GrubHub found a summer intern via Snapchat.

Here are five ways to use Snapchat for your business:

#1: Give Users a Behind-the-Scenes Look Into Your Company

The more people get to know the people behind your business, the more they will trust it. That’s one reason why people include personal information in their bios.

In my Twitter bio, for example, I let people know I’m a Red Sox fan, runner and dog lover. That way I make immediate connections with people who share my passion for the Red Sox, running and dogs.

Snapchat lets you take this information to the next level by providing more context. For example, I can share snaps of my dog or scenes from a Red Sox game.

I know this will sound crazy, but even the clothing you wear gives users a better idea of who you are as an individual. You may wear a suit or collared shirt in your YouTube video, for example, but when you’re using Snapchat throughout the day you will likely capture those moments when you’re still in your sweats or a t-shirt.

You can provide your audience with snaps of your company culture by sharing moments of a team-building exercise, people working on a product, funny moments at the coffee or Xerox machine, practical jokes, staff spotlights, your founder’s work habits, etc.

The result? You’ll connect with people on a personal level.

#2: Provide Daily Tips

I really like what John Lee Dumas is doing on SnapChat. He shares what he refers to as “JLD rants” in which he provides his followers with interesting insights.

The great thing about Snapchat is that its bite-sized format is easily digestible. Each snap can expand upon one tip or offer a new one. Or you can combine multiple snaps into stories throughout the day resulting in an ongoing video message.

It’s easier for you, and more useful to your audience, if each snap provides quick insights that can be understood in 10 seconds or less.

These short insights facilitate sharing, keep your audience interested and provide a new level of interaction. Users can also send you 10-second videos, text messages, and pictures via Snapchat.

#3: Host a Q&A

To encourage people to engage with your snaps, host the occasional Q&A. Simply post a story inviting your audience to pose questions. You’ll receive notifications containing pictures, texts, and 10-second videos of people asking questions.

You can choose answer questions directly (i.e. to the person who asked a particular question) or share several 10-second stories with all of your followers to introduce the person who asked the question, and provide your answer.

You can also use the platform to offer access to live events and for crowdsourcing ideas. Your fans will appreciate having a say in your business decisions and will be more motivated to participate. Ask users to come up with a new product name, for example, or provide feedback on a new campaign or promotional idea.

#4: Inspire Your Followers

No matter what your niche, users are always looking for inspiration, so make a point of doing something every day to inspire your followers.

It can be something as small as reading one of your favorite motivational quotes. Or it can be as big as creating an ongoing story about your brand, a new product or service, or asking people to share their own experiences with your brand.

You can also offer promo codes or discounts to the fans who watch your entire Snapchat story, or ask them to take a snap while holding your product.

People crave inspiration and something to believe in, and there is always a way to deliver. Tune-in to the daily lives of your followers and try to be there when they need a dose of inspiration.

#5: Communicate With Other Snappers In Your Niche

Right now, top people and brands in your niche are engaging with their followers on Snapchat, even though they may have millions of fans spread across multiple social networks.

It’s actually easier to engage with your followers on Snapchat than Twitter. Why? It’s easier to connect with your followers on Snapchat because they are likely interested in your brand and will respond to your messages.

Many individuals and brands with millions of Twitter followers are trying to grow their Snapchat following to the first few thousand. Interactions on Snapchat help you target your most valuable ambassadors and build stronger relationships.

The 10-second or fewer formats make people more likely to engage with your snap while already on the platform; people are willing to spend a few seconds engaging with your content. And it is also more likely that you will catch the attention of an influencer.

There is a marketing rule that says it takes between 7-13 touch points to make a sale. A qualified lead is more likely to convert if he or she is exposed to your content 7-13 times.

Here’s how that applies to SnapChat: if you engage with influencers 7-13 times on Snapchat, you’ll build key relationships as they get to know you.

Continue interacting with influencers after the 13th touch point, but never make direct requests to share your content, Indeed, take the focus off how you can convince influencers to share your content and focus instead on how you can make yourself or your company interesting enough to get to know on a personal level.

If you view relationship building as a way to make new friends instead of simply trying to gain exposure to bigger audiences, you’ll master relationship marketing. And you might even find yourself in front of bigger audiences in the long run.

To build relationships on Snapchat for business, think of connecting with influencers as ways to build partnerships. Partnering with influencers will let you spread awareness and reach a demographic that is hard to access via traditional media.

Tip: only recommend one piece of your own content, and only if you truly believe it will benefit the influencer.

In Conclusion

As Snapchat continues to gain momentum, it will become just as saturated with advertisers as Facebook and Twitter. Now is the time to get on board.

It’s exciting to think about what Snapchat will look like a year from now. The rule with any social network is that the best time to strike is when the network is new and growing. So don’t waste time!

So if you’re focused only on sending out tweets and optimizing your Facebook ads, you may be missing out on an even bigger opportunity.

Also check out: 10 of the Best Brands on Snapchat Right Now (And Why They’re So Great).

What are your thoughts about using Snapchat for business? Have any tips for growing Snapchat followers? How do you engage with your fans and influencers? Sound off in the comments section below.

How Grammarly Helped Me Write Better Content

July 27, 2016 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

Are you on Grammarly?

My mom was the first person to tell me about Grammarly. At that first instance, this tool was pitched as a way to get better grades on my school essays. Before I could blink, I was suddenly a Grammarly customer.

My mom created an account, and Grammarly went to work revealing all of the mistakes in my school essays. As I aced more of my school essays, I stopped using Grammarly because I no longer needed it for that purpose.

That experience with Grammarly helped me get better grades, but that experience limited my view of the online tool. I viewed Grammarly as an academic tool. Nothing more and nothing less. I never thought of using it to strengthen my blog posts.

It wasn’t until I started listening to the EOFire podcast more often that I considered Grammarly as a force to be reckoned with. After hearing several advertisement of the tool on the EOFire podcast I knew I had to give it some consideration.

I was suddenly off to the races. I created my account and put in my blog posts. Here’s what happened…

I Got My Grade

My blog post got a B+ on Grammarly. While that’s not a bad grade, I need the A for the blog posts I write on this blog. I take this blog far more seriously now than I did a few years ago.

I take my content so seriously that I recently decided to hire an editor. Now I’m using Grammarly to make my content even better. My mistakes on Grammarly weren’t the obvious mistakes that everyone finds. Going in, I knew I wouldn’t spell any of the words wrong because I always spell check my content in advance.

Spelling errors don’t exist in my blog posts. Word repetition, the incorrect words, and other errors do exist in my content. Grammarly allows me to identify and find these errors before I publish my blog posts (and then my readers find the errors. Ouch).

In a paragraph that seemed solid, Grammarly identified five mistakes within the content. While the on Facebook correction doesn’t seem accurate, the others are spot on. Within the dashboard, I can see when I end sentences with a preposition.

grammarly tutorial

While it’s necessary to end certain sentences with prepositions, I always wonder how I can improve these sentences to evade the preposition as the final word in a sentence. The dashboard also pointed out certain mistakes I didn’t even know about such as six-second requiring the hyphen in the middle.

What’s The Big Deal About Getting The A?

Blog posts are written more loosely than school essays. Sometimes when I write school essays, I have to remind themselves that they aren’t blog posts.

Or else I’ll write a short paragraph like the one above. Or else I’ll actually start two sentences with conjunctions in succession.

When Grammarly puts that grade for my content, I take it very seriously. I do what it takes to get that grade up to an A. Why does an A matter to me so much?

Because that’s what Neil Patel gets for his blog posts.

Upon one of my recent visits to the QuickSprout blog, I decided to copy and paste Neil’s five most recent blog posts into Grammarly. The plagiarism percentage was in the high 90s, so I promptly turned it off.

Only one of those five blog posts was under 90%. That particular blog post scored an 86%. All of his other blog posts I checked were in the 90-91% threshold. If I could automatically write content like a single blogger, I would choose Neil.

With that said, I don’t compare myself to Neil every single day because comparing yourself to others is a great way to bring yourself down. I wouldn’t go from an 80% to a 95% because I want to email Neil and let him know Grammarly likes my content a little better than his.

I want to make that change in my content because I know I’ll come out with better content.

Polish Up Your Writing

Grammarly is NOT just a way for you to spot careless mistakes. Grammarly can help you write better content. One cool feature about Grammarly is that by highlighting a word, you get synonym options.

In one of my blog posts, I was overusing the word “writing.” Here’s an example of how someone can overuse the word:

Writing guest posts helps you improve your writing. If you begin writing every day, your guest posts will get better and people will notice your better writing.

I use the same word four times in two sentences. It’s very hard to read, but Grammarly comes to the rescue. If you highlight the word as I did in this instance, you will see some synonyms.

grammarly tip

Not all of those words could replace “writing” based on the context it’s used. But composing sounds sweet. Now you’re not just writing, but you are composing a piece in which many elements must come together in a symphony.

I would have never considered thinking of myself composing blog posts if I didn’t see that synonym.

Do I Still Need An Editor?

Grammarly does what the name suggests. It helps you find all of the grammatical mistakes within your content. So with that said, can it replace my editor?

Nope. My editor doesn’t just find mistakes Grammarly finds, but she also strengthens my content by conducting research and rewording certain parts to make the content more appealing.

With that said, Grammarly and an editor go hand-in-hand. You don’t want an editor correcting your spelling mistakes and your misuse of the English language. Grammarly does that for you, and your editor will have a much easier time correcting those mistakes if he/she uses Grammarly.

That way, your editor can focus on content research and content development instead of searching for mistakes that Grammarly can find in a few seconds.

In Conclusion

For a long time, I viewed Grammarly as an academic tool and never gave much thought about using it for my blog posts. When I first used the online tool, it helped me go from a low 70 to a high 90 (based on its grading system).

Now I use it for my blog posts because I’m not satisfied with a B+. I want all of my future blog posts in the 90-95% threshold. The only reason I don’t want my blog posts to be in the 100% threshold is because there are some mistakes that I disagree with.

Writing better content isn’t just a matter of practicing each day and finishing your blog posts. Great content starts off good and becomes great with proofreading and editing.

If you are interested in using Grammarly to improve your content, I urge you to give it a try.

4 Ways To Get FREE Blog Traffic

July 26, 2016 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Blog traffic and website traffic are a top priority for many marketers. Getting more traffic means more subscribers which means more product sales.

When looking at Facebook ads, AdWords, and other advertising options, getting more blog or website traffic can seem like an intimidating endeavor. However, it doesn’t have to be that way.

Last year, I got over 275,000 people to visit my blog. All of that traffic came from the free sources that I will share with you in this video. I did not pay a single penny to get those visitors, and for the most part, I continue to get most of my traffic without paying a single penny.

If you enjoy the video, please don’t forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel.

[Tweet “4 Ways To Get FREE #Blog Traffic.”]

3 Ways To Fit Something Into Your Budget

July 22, 2016 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

budget management

Let me know if this has happened to you:

You discover a tool that can help you grow your business. You do some research and decide it’s an awesome tool that can increase your productivity. You’re all in.

But when you go to purchase the tool and see the price, your jaw drops. It will cost you at least $200/month.

You REALLY want this tool, but you simply don’t have room in your budget. Your only hope is to create a void in your budget so you can afford the $200 expenditure.

But how? Here are three ways to make it happen:

#1: Side Hustle

When your income increases, so does your budget. Once way to increase your budget on your own is to side hustle.

Continue to do what you’re already doing: working at your current job or building your online business. But start side hustling for the extra money to buy that $200 tool.

Side hustling lets you make quick revenue from part-time work. Some side hustlers soon find their hustles can even offer a full-time income.

If you discover your side hustle is earning you more revenue than your current job, by all means, consider switching over. But for our purposes, we only need to make enough cash to buy that $200/mo tool.

Freelance work, affiliate marketing, and consultation sessions are three side hustling ventures you can easily pursue. And here are 99 more ways your can side hustle for extra cash.

UPDATE: Are those 99 side hustle ideas not enough. Here are 25 additional side hustle ideas.

Choose an activity that won’t require too much of your time and lets you turn over a quick revenue. The best part of side hustling is the fact that it’s all done on the side.

Many people think they don’t have enough time to side hustle. But that’s a limiting belief. The reality is that we all have far more time than we realize. The way we utilize our time determines how much we actually get done and how we view our capabilities.

#2: Reduce Your Business Costs

If your budget is maxed but you still want to squeeze in an extra $200/mo, start reducing your business expenses.

The more business tools you invest in, the less often each gets used. Make a list of all of the add-ons you’ve bought for your business and analyze the utility of each. You may have completely forgotten about some of the things you’re spending on each month.

I hire several freelancers to help me out with my business. Even with all of their help (which does add up to a lot), I still find myself busy. So busy, in fact, that I often keep paying my freelancers without stopping to determine whether their projects are still in line with my current goals.

As my goals change, so too does the freelance activity I need to meet them. I had made the mistake of paying for work that was no longer relevant, and it took me some time to figure out what, and who, I should cut.

Money down the drain. Just because a freelancer is doing a great job does not mean he/she is helping you meet your objectives.

Pausing contracts with freelancers whose services no longer align with your current activity cuts recurring fees and lowers your expenses.

To optimize the use of your available resources, set performance parameters that reflect your efficiency goals and offer incentives when those goals are met.

Track the ways you’re spending your money and ask yourself if every dollar in your budget is actually moving your business forward in relation to your current goals. More ways to reduce business costs include:

Renting unused physical space in your office.
Consolidating your bank accounts.
Comparing insurance providers for the most competitive rate and asking your current provider to match it.
Don’t take on unnecessary debt.
Cut marketing costs by doing more in-house.
Increase social media use and reduce traditional marketing.
Use efficient time strategies with free productivity apps and software.
Focus on quality (the best way to please customers and increase your bottom line).
Maximize your current employees’ skills.

#3: Get Better Results With What You Already Have

Let’s assume your blog gets 50 visitors a day and earns about $300 per month. You make the money because out of those 50 monthly visitors, six of them will buy your $50 training course (and you make 100% of the profit).

But if you need room in your budget for extra $200/mo, you’ll need to increase your conversions rates. Your blog in this example gets a total of 1,500 monthly visitors, and with six customers, your conversion rate is 0.4%.

But if you optimize your blog to increase your conversion rate to 2%, your monthly customers will also increase — you now have 30 people paying for your training course.

Suddenly you’re making an additional $1200/mo, more than enough to start investing in that $200/mo tool!

You can also add another $50 course to diversify your products. People who wouldn’t have bought your first training course may find the second course is more in line with their needs.

People often focus so much on growth that they forget to monetize their current offerings.

In Conclusion

Always keep track of how much you are spending. Putting money into your business can lead to numerous results. But it’s easy to get so caught up in day-to-day operations that you don’t even realize you are no longer making a return on certain investments.

When you do make the realization, it can create miscommunications and misunderstandings. Set goals and expectations for each expenditure. And frequently check back to see if they are being met.

Many times you’ll get exactly what you wanted and more. But your expenditures should always reflect your goals. And as your goals change, so will the areas in which you spend.

The lag time between changing a goal and acknowledging how that change affects your spending is one of the main reasons why people continue to make unnecessary expenditures. My own lag time has decreased over the years, but it still exists.

The greater that lag, the more money you lose.

Recurring fees are the most damaging. They may be paid automatically and are easy to forget about, especially when each is fairly low. But those minimal fees add up, and your budget will soon be screaming for mercy.

So if you want to buy that awesome $200/mo tool, make room for it by eliminating unnecessary spending. Even better? Review your spending patterns frequently, even before you want to invest in something new and find yourself scrambling to make room for it in your budget.

How do you maintain your budget? Have any tips for us? Sound off in the comments section below.