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What To Do On The Day You Create A Social Media Account

November 13, 2015 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Just a few years ago, this blog post would have been unnecessary. I am talking about the time when MySpace fell to Facebook. Social media wasn’t a buzzword yet. In those days, it was just Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. Those were the three top social networks.

Less than a decade ago, comparing those top three social networks with any other social network was like comparing a boulder to a pebble.

Now we’ve got Pinterest, Instagram, Blab, and Periscope, just to name a few. Each of these social networks is #1 at something. In one blog post, you can discover how much better Pinterest is than Facebook. In another blog post, you can discover how much better Facebook is than Pinterest. They have different qualities and millions of users.

For us, this means three things:

Brace yourselves. More social networks are on the way!
New opportunities
You have to create accounts for those social networks

The third thing is what this blog post is about. How many times have you heard that you need to start using Instagram? How many times have you heard that you need to start using Pinterest? If you haven’t heard it yet, how many times do you think you will get told to start using Periscope?

Whether you use these social networks or not is up to you. What isn’t up to you is that if you want to use a social network, you must create an account for that social network. After you verify your email address and have your account set up, here’s what you need to do:

Make Your Account Look Nice Right From The Start

There are few Twitter avatars worse than the egg. There are few Pinterest avatars worse than the white pin in the red background. There are few Facebook avatars worse than the faceless person in the blue-gray background. These are all default pictures that make your account look bad.

The avatar is the first thing you must change when you create a social media account. But what you choose for your avatar is just as important as changing the default.

The best avatar to use is the avatar that you have been using for your other social networks. All of my social media profiles have the same avatar picture, and that is by design. People remember a face easier than they remember a name.

Since I use the same avatar on all of my social networks, it is easier for my Twitter followers to make the connection when they see my YouTube channel. If my Twitter avatar pictures was of a rainforest and my YouTube avatar was of a volcano, it would be difficult for people to identify the two accounts with the same person.

That’s why I use the same avatar for my social networks. However, I don’t just use any avatar. I use an avatar that shows me. I don’t get a cool picture of nature from Google and make that my picture. I want people to see a face behind the content. When people see a face and associate that face with your content, those people will have an easier time remembering you and your content.

Some social networks also allow you to provide a background picture. Your background picture should let people know more about you from a personal or professional standpoint. In my background pictures, I lean towards the professional side.

While it is possible for you to use Google and get a picture, virtually none of those pictures will be the one that perfectly defines you. There are two ways to get a picture that perfectly defines you (okay fine. Close to perfect):

Create the picture yourself using Canva (a free tool on the internet that I’d recommend to anyone)
Hire a freelancer to create the picture for you (you can get a freelancer to do the job for $5 on Fiverr)

Before you create the picture or hire a freelancer, make sure you know the dimensions of a background picture. The social networks are not uniform. The dimensions for a background picture on Facebook are completely different from the dimensions for a background picture on Twitter.

Not all social networks utilize a background picture. However, if the social network you create an account for includes a background picture on your profile, make sure the background picture is nice. Since you just created the social media account, you would be fine if it took you 1-7 days to come up with an awesome background picture. Even beyond the seven days, it isn’t the end of the world if you don’t have an awesome background picture.

But the avatar is paramount. Changing the avatar must be one of the first steps you take after you create a new social media account.

Writing The Bio

An effective social media bio lists all of your accomplishments and workload that you fit into that bio. The best social media bios are typically sentence fragments—a bunch of words separated by commas. No conjugations (and, or, but) and definitely no period at the end of your bio.

This blog post explores more methods to crafting an effective social media bio.

Send Out A Massive Amount Of Posts

When you have no audience, you won’t annoy anyone if you post five times per minute. For some social networks like Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest, you can easily send valuable posts. All you do is post a relevant, valuable article, and then you’re done. Publishing 20 of those types of posts in one day would give your new followers content to look at when they go to your profile.

Think about it this way. Would a Twitter account be more attractive if it had 0 tweets or if it had 1,000 tweets?

Create A Strategy

Once you get more comfortable with the social network you are on, the next step is to create a strategy. How will you achieve growth? What type of growth are you looking for? What type of experience will you provide for your audience? How will you build relationships on that social network?

Those four questions form a strategy. Getting better answers to those questions requires that you learn more about the social network you are using. Social media experts like to write blog posts about the newer social networks since they’re hot.

I wrote a few about Periscope right when it came out. I wasn’t alone. I have read numerous blog posts about Periscope (FYI: if you want to learn about Periscope, then Kim Garst is your gal).

To learn more about the social network you are using, you must read numerous blog posts about it. The more knowledge you absorb, the stronger your strategy will be.

In Conclusion

Creating an account on a social network can be an exciting experience. The powers of socializing and opportunities increase with every social network that gets created. Periscope defied the rules by giving anyone the power to live stream. I like to think of a Periscope account as your own TV channel.

It’s exciting to think about the opportunities, but to fully utilize those opportunities, you must learn from the experts and experiment on your own. The experts become experts by experimenting and then discovering what works.

Remember when it was just Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube? The party’s gotten a lot bigger since then.

What do you advise we do when we create new social media accounts? Did one of these tips resonate with you the most? Which social network did you most recently create an account on? Sound off in the comments section below.

How To Easily Profit From Affiliate Marketing

November 11, 2015 by Marc Guberti 1 Comment

Affiliate marketing alone presents its set of advantages and disadvantages. The main advantage is you get to earn a commission by promoting products that other people created. Sometimes, the product creators will even provide you with copy that converts well.

The main disadvantage is that relying too much on affiliate marketing makes you dependent on other people creating products and putting you in their affiliate networks.

For most of my journey, I haven’t given affiliate marketing much thought. I started off as an Amazon Associate, and after making only 4-6% commissions for each product sale, I thought affiliate marketing would never be my cup of hot chocolate (I not a big fan of tea).

Then, I randomly got an email from an affiliate marketer. This affiliate marketer gave me the opportunity to promote a copywriting training course and get 40% of the commission for every sale. Since the course was high-end, each sale I got as an affiliate brought in over $100.

I was immediately sold and decided to give affiliate marketing a second try. Now, it’s slowly growing into a big part of my business. As I started to explore affiliate marketing, I paid more attention to other affiliate marketing promotions. I noticed that many of the people who created successful products of their own were also affiliate marketers. How does that happen?

The answer is that it can take a very long time to create a product. For some people, it takes them several months just to create a new product that is bound to perform well. Mega training courses for instance can have over 10 hours of video with complementary PDFs, quizzes, and other interactive activities.

And for many successful products, the time spent towards marketing usually exceeds the time spent towards creating the actual product. Call it crazy, but that’s how it works.

While these people are creating their products, how do they make money? The revenue they generate usually comes from their old products but also through affiliate marketing.

I am an ambitious teenager but schedule conflicts are part of the norm. I anticipate on creating one mini training course on Udemy every week. Sometimes I accomplish that goal. At other times, the amount of homework and upcoming tests prevents me from reaching that goal.

When it comes to product creation, time will not always be on your side. As an affiliate marketer, time is always on your side. Even if you don’t get many sales from one of your affiliate offers, you can always search out the next affiliate offer.

Now that you know why affiliate marketing can potentially bring in revenue, I am going to share with you how you can generate revenue from a powerful affiliate marketing strategy.

#1: Get The Right Affiliate Offers

Most people are introduced to affiliate marketing for the first time when they become Amazon Associates. It’s one of the largest affiliate network known to mankind, and you have millions of products to choose from. The only problem is that most people only get a 4% commission rate for their efforts.

The reason I went back to affiliate marketing was because I started to make real money. I’m not talking about the 4% rate that Amazon provides. I am talking about making over $100 just for making one sale. Sell 10 of those products every month and you make over $1,000 every month. The math is as simple as that.

When you have a lower commission per sale, you need more sales to reach the same milestones. If you get a $5 commission for each product you sell, you would have to sell 200 products to make $1,000. For the product with the $100 commission, you only need to sell 10 of those products. In most cases, it is easier to get 10 sales of the same product than it is to get 200 sales of the same product, regardless of price.

The best part about some affiliate networks is that you may be provided with email blasts, social media posts, and sales pages that convert well above the average sales page. I was an affiliate for Ray Edwards’ Copywriting Academy course. As a part of his affiliate network, I was provided with email blasts that were designed to convert far beyond the average.

Basically, he knows more than me about getting sales. I promoted his videos and webinars that led up to the course. Then I promoted the course itself. His sales pages are some of the most optimized sales pages out there. Getting some of my visitors to that sales page resulted in more revenue for Ray and me. The best part is that the people who bought the course are going to learn a lot about copywriting and making more sales.

And I did no work. I just copied and pasted a few messages and sent them out accordingly. Ray put together the entire product, the entire sales page, and everything else along with it. In the end, Ray made far more revenue than me from his product launch, but I got my fair share too.

#2: Promoting Your Affiliate Links

The way you promote your affiliate links depends on where those affiliate links lead your visitors. When promoting Copywriting Academy, I had links to videos and webinars that required an email address in order for the visitor to gain access to the video/webinar.

I tweeted these links but never tweeted the link to the sales page (Twitter isn’t the place to promote the sales page of a product, especially high-end products. People rarely go on Twitter thinking “What will I buy next?”).

Most of the clicks I got from my affiliate links were directly from Twitter. In the end, over 5,000 people clicked on the link and over 100 people opted in. The final result was one sale and I made over $100 from that one sale.

Two takeaways:

That commission for one product sale is way better than any Amazon affiliate link.
Not bad for my first try

Some people make six figures from affiliate marketing alone. While you shouldn’t rely on affiliate marketing for your income, it can still be quite profitable.

#3: Repurposing The Commissions

I believe in making a profit and having a high net income. I also believe in efficiently spending money. I don’t buy many things for myself with my own money. When I spend money, I spend it on my business.

I spend it on online advertising. AdWords and Facebook ads in particular. My goal is to grow my audience exponentially. Spending money on online advertising helps with that.

YouTube is the next social network I am taking seriously. I want to leverage that platform and create videos more often. Eventually, I want to have more videos on my YouTube channel than blog posts on this blog. Oh, and I want this awesome YouTube trophy.

When I identified YouTube as the next social network to work on, I knew that my current approach wasn’t working. At just 2,500 subscribers, I knew I needed to make massive changes to get to 100,000 subscribers. It’s still a goal of mine, but I am taking action—by investing in online advertising.

I decided to run an ad with AdWords and see what that would do to my channel views. I started off at a budget of $3/day. Not much, but I just wanted to see what types of results I would get.

The results were awesome

YouTube Views From AdWords

I was getting targeted views, and I was paying $0.01 for one view. My video promoting my writing course suddenly went from getting zero views to getting over 300 views every day.

I only repurposed $3/day from my revenue, and I am growing my platform.

But if you frequently visit this blog, then you know the most important platform of all. The email list. Entrepreneurs are spending more time and money trying to master online advertising because it can be highly profitable.

Consider this: Every email list has a certain number of subscribers on it. When you make money from your email list, each subscriber, when averaged with the others, results in a certain amount of revenue. If you have 100 subscribers and make $200 from a promotion, each subscriber (on average) results in $2 for you.

Let’s say that rate of making $2 per subscriber remains constant, and you discover a method where you can spend $1 to get one new subscriber. No matter how much money you spend, you are going to make a profit. This dream of exponential profits inspires people to invest their time and money into online advertising.

POWER TIP: Have Your Own Affiliate Program

Ever notice an opportunity that was right there the entire time? That’s what recently happened to me. Udemy has become the main focus in my business strategy, and it’s paying off. Since I made that decision, my revenue from Udemy has significantly increased.

It didn’t take much of an investigation to determine most of the revenue I made came from my own promotion. What I didn’t initially realize is that affiliate promotions also contributed to my revenue increase.

The great thing about Udemy is that they have an affiliate program set up for you. All you have to do is give people the affiliate links to your courses and then they can start promoting them. Your affiliates get paid without your involvement, and you get a slice of the pie too.

So I decided to let people know about Udemy’s affiliate program. In all of my courses, I included a document with affiliate links to my courses. My students now have the option to promote my courses, make money for themselves, and then some of that money comes back to me.

Don’t think you have to make all of the sales by yourself. It’s okay to have a team of people who help you. Even if that means sharing some of the money.

In Conclusion

Affiliate marketing is huge. It’s not the holy grail, but it is valuable nevertheless. If you find yourself struggling to create products at a rapid pace, affiliate marketing gives you a product to promote.

I didn’t put together the Copywriting Academy course. But I made money by promoting the course as an affiliate. That’s affiliate marketing in a nutshell.

What are your thoughts on affiliate marketing? Are you a part of an affiliate program? Do you have any affiliate marketing tips for us? Want to promote one of my courses? Sound off in the comments section below.

How To Craft An Excellent Pitch

November 9, 2015 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

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

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

What To Know About Pitches

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

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

Someone is going to read the pitch

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

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

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

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

Write For The Person Reading The Email

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

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

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

Start With Why

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

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

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

Do Some Research

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sending Out The Pitches

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

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

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

In Conclusion

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

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

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

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

7 Characteristics That All Leaders Share

November 6, 2015 by Marc Guberti 3 Comments

When we see leaders in action, it is hard to not admire them. We all have role models in our lives who impact us. Throughout my entrepreneurial journey, Seth Godin has been my role model. He’s a leader.

As we see the leaders in action, we can’t help but ask ourselves, “What makes a great leader?” Leaders possess many characteristics that lead to the role model status. These are seven of those characteristics.

#1: Always Learning

No matter how successful a leader becomes, that leader will always continue learning. Seth Godin spends a large percentage of his time reading through business books. The top professional athletes are learning more ways to play the game differently. Even though it’s against my team, this Mike Trout slide proves my point. He’s one of the best in the game, but he is still learning more about the game.

The leaders are often students to this day. It’s hard to teach or do something without learning it first. If you want to teach or do something very well, you need to spend more time learning. Some leaders commit their lives to learning a particular skill. Even when they are considered the best in the world at a particular skill, leaders continue learning.

#2: Implement

Ah yes, the “I” word. You can learn everything there is to know about your niche. However, if you don’t implement, then the knowledge does not mean anything to do. Implemented knowledge is power. Knowledge that doesn’t get implemented doesn’t mean much.

When you implement what you learn, implement in small steps. Rome wasn’t build in one day, and all of the leaders failed their way to success. Look up these leaders biographies and see what they went through. When I say Bill Gates, most people think of Microsoft. Few people who hear “Bill Gates” think of Traf-O-Data (and you thought MySpace was ancient).

#3: Understanding Opportunities

We understand the part about looking for opportunities. We search and explore because the common perception is that opportunity doesn’t come to you, but rather, you go to it. Social media experts tend look at every social network as the next opportunity. We have many opportunities that we can chase after, and that’s a good thing.

But sometimes we are in such pursuit for opportunities that we don’t acknowledge the opportunities at the door. Some of them knock on the door but then leave because no one opened the door.

When opportunity comes knocking, open the door. Naturally, not all opportunities will come to you, but some of them do. Some of them seem plain obvious. Maybe you discovered the opportunity and forgot about it. Then the opportunity comes knocking. If the opportunity is worthy, then open the door.

Not all opportunities are created equal. Leaders end up saying no more times than they say yes. However, at some point, all leaders pick a few opportunities that they will focus most of their time on. If you explore but don’t do anything, then you aren’t utilizing any of the opportunities.

#4: Confidence

Leaders are confident in themselves and their abilities. No matter what the world says about them, leaders don’t care. When you are confident in yourself and what you do, you approach your work differently. Instead of wondering if your work means anything, you ask yourself how you can produce better work for the world.

Confidence in oneself removes the barrier of self-doubt. It is a barrier that holds back too many people. When you are confident, that barrier goes away, and then you can show the world what you’re made of.

#5: Productive

Every leader is an expert on productivity. When I think of productive leaders, it doesn’t take me long to think of Jack Dorsey. He is the CEO of Square and the interim CEO of Twitter. While he’s the CEO of both companies, Dorsey works for Twitter for eight hours every day. Then he works at Square for eight hours every day. That’s as productive as productivity gets.

You don’t have to make that kind of commitment to be a leader. But there are small things you can do each day that will move you closer to becoming a leader:

Plan out your day the night before. Leaders don’t leave any day to chance. Every night just before bed, they plan out what they will do the next day. Write what you want to do for the day on a sticky note. Then leave that sticky note by your computer and go to bed.
Be happy. Listen to the right music, reconnect with yourself, and do things that you enjoy. If you are not happy, you will be miserable. People don’t become leaders by being miserable.
Do a little each day. Rome wasn’t built in one day. But if you do something every day, it becomes a habit. I started playing the piano again last August. It felt awkward. Now it’s November and I play the piano every day by habit. I can’t imagine a day without it.

#6: Not Drunk In Their Success

Leaders are proud of their work. They admire what they do. At the same time, they don’t brag on their success. Not all leaders look like leaders to the naked eye. They don’t like taking credit but love what they do.

During his postseason run, Daniel Murphy quickly became one of the most admirable players on the Mets. If you needed a Mets player to hit a home run in the 2015 postseason, you eagerly waited for Daniel Murphy to step up to the plate.

He was in a great position. Many people in the same position would have bragged without end about hitting that many home runs in the postseason. Murphy doesn’t brag at all. He will talk about all of his other teammates and the opposing players. He won’t get to talk about himself and that is by choice. He thanked Jesus for those home runs. You don’t have to be a Christian to recognize Murphy’s strong character.

If you want to watch any baseball player’s postgame interviews, watch Murphy’s interviews.

Leaders are successful, but they don’t get drunk in the success. They don’t boast. Some leaders may state their credentials to boost their credibility. Leaders do it in a way that isn’t boastful. People who aren’t leaders turn it into a self-absorbed conversation.

#7: Willing To Take The Blame

Leaders may be role models, but they mess up. While we like to envision leaders as people at the top of a metaphorical Olympus, leaders are people too. They make mistakes. What separates a leader from the typical person is the ability to own up to a mistake.

Most people prefer to play the blame game. “Who can I reasonably blame so I get this responsibility off my back?” The blame game, in reality, merely produces a superficial sense of security.

Even if you get away with the blame game, the problem doesn’t really go away. You can make the same mistake again. It’s only a matter of time before the blame game catches up to each player. The blame game is just like a fight to the death video game. At some point, you lose.

Leaders take responsibility for their mistakes. This decision makes the leader a role model for employees and other people as well. People are so sick of the blame game that they love it when someone takes responsibility. However being too politically correct and over exaggerating the apology diminishes the effectiveness of that apology. Just a simple sorry will do.

In Conclusion

Leaders possess characteristics that set them apart from the crowd. They love what they do with a passion. They are role models who inspire other people to take action. Leaders are the inspiration for next generation’s leaders. They lead by example and aren’t afraid to take action.

Which characteristics do you think make up all leaders? Which of these characteristics do you see most often in leaders? How do you define a leader? Sound off in the comments section below.

What It Means To Be A Teenager Entrepreneur

November 4, 2015 by Marc Guberti 4 Comments

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

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

The Beginning…

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

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

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

That eventually led to this blog.

The Natural Course Of The Beginning

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

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

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

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

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

Environment Matters More Than Background

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Support and Inspiration

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

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

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

Getting Through The Roadblocks

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

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

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

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

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

School and Teen Life

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Defining “Serious Teenager Entrepreneur”

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

My Advice To All Teenager Entrepreneurs

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

My Advice To All Parents Of Teenager Entrepreneurs

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

In Conclusion

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

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

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

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.