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Case Study: How Keeping Score Increases Productivity

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A very long time ago, I wrote about keeping score, and I wrote about the results of my first score card. I have been using the score card for months, and I do not plan on stopping. Score cards enhanced my time management and productivity, and score cards continue to amaze me today. Before I created a score card, I thought it would have been impossible for me to write 25 blog posts in one week. Not only did I do that, but I also finished reading an entire book and created the blueprint for my upcoming membership site, Total Social Media Domination. The following week, I was able to accomplish 12 different goals which all required a good amount of work. Some of the things I did that week were:

  1. Write 20 blog posts
  2. Finish reading Blue Ocean Strategy from start to finish
  3. Write 5,000 words for an upcoming book, Unlock Your Potential

There were 9 other goals similar to those three, and I got them all done in one short week. What once looked impossible has now become a routine of accomplishment.

The main reason the score card works is because you have to write down what you plan to accomplish for the week. If you think about the things you have to accomplish, it is easy to forget about some things and reduce expectations for other things. If I thought of write 20-25 blog posts every week, I may think at some point in the week that writing that many blog posts is too challenging. Thinking about it could have resulted in me lowering the bar to 16-18 blog posts for the week. Writing everything down forces you to be accountable, and making yourself accountable gives you no one else to blame but yourself for anything that goes wrong on your score card.

It is the desire to get a perfect score that motivates me as I continue creating score cards and getting tasks accomplished. You may not get a perfect score when you create your score card. In fact, I almost never get a perfect score. It’s not because I am not productive. Instead, it is because I raise the bar very high. I could easily get a perfect score on every score card if I only assigned myself 10 blog posts every week, but then I would not be able to publish two blog posts in one day.

If you want to get better time management and increase your productivity, you need to use a score card. Write down the goals you want to accomplish and use tallies to indicate how close you are to accomplishing a goal. Then, draw a big checkmark next to any goal that you accomplish. It’s that easy, but it is going to make a big difference in your time management and productivity.

 

You Can’t Do It All By Yourself

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I am not the person to use pessimistic headlines to get people’s attention, but I knew that I needed to make an exception in order to make my point.

For a very long time, I believed that I would be able to do everything all by myself. I believed that I would be able to publish books without anyone’s help, create training courses without anyone’s help, and optimize my social media presence without buying any tools. The problem was that I was giving myself too many things and not enough time to do those things (this comes from someone who writes 20 blog posts and 5,000 words for his books on a typical day of high school).

I thought I could quickly send out queries and respond to everyone on HARO. I was wrong. In my defense, I was able to quickly send out the queries, but responding to everyone was the difficult part. Then, I got sidetracked from all of the work I put in for HARO and the book I was writing because nothing seemed to be working.

I also thought I could create my own book cover and learn how. However, spending $25 to get a Kindle eBook cover and a CreateSpace book cover is much easier than learning how to create the covers and create the images.

Do you want to know why big companies are successful? It’s because they are big. WalMart is run by the CEO, but there are millions of people who allow the WalMart stores around the world to function properly. The people who founded big companies realized that they couldn’t do everything by themselves. C. Douglas McMillon can’t be in every WalMart store at the same time.

It is okay to ask for help. It is okay to hire virtual assistants to help you with the things you cannot do or simply don’t have the time for. If you have to read this blog post multiple times before you are convinced that you can’t do it all by yourself, then go for it. You don’t want to learn this lesson after you lost time because you thought you could do everything by yourself.

Get a marketing team. Get a support team. Hire assistants. If you don’t have the money to hire assistants yet, look around for assistants anyway and hire them when the money comes in. Whatever you do, don’t do it alone.

 

3 Ways To Avoid Running Out Of Blog Post Ideas

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Blog Post Idea Box

Blogging is an art, and blogging every day is a skill. However, there will be some moments when it will be difficult for you to come up with ideas. These will be the times when you look at other bloggers with envy as they are able to publish 1 blog post every day without running out of ideas. The surprising thing is that although these expert bloggers are able to publish 1 blog post every day, there are some points when they run out of ideas and have to think of new ones. In order to avoid running out of blogging ideas, follow these three steps.

  1. Schedule more blog posts. On some days, I schedule two blog posts while I am able to schedule 10 blog posts on other days. Before implementing the other two methods, I would run out of ideas for topics to write blog posts about. The only topics I could think of were the ones that I covered in recent blog post. However, since I always schedule blog posts in advance, I would have a few days to think of more ideas for blog posts.
  2. Read one book every week. That may sound like a lot to read, but some books are longer than others. While some books are 500 pages, other books are only 150 pages. When you read these books, you need to be sure that they are either related to your niche or fiction books (90% of books you read should be related to your niche). Each time you see a topic you can write about, write that topic in a notebook. Soon enough, you will have a big list of blog post ideas.
  3. Create knock-offs of your past blog posts. A while ago, I wrote a blog post called 5 Pinterest Mistakes To Avoid. That evolved into a Part 2 and then a Part 3. Some of the ideas for your future blog posts can be provoked by the blog posts that you have already published.

By implementing these three tactics, you will find it easier to come up with blog post ideas. What are your thoughts on the list? Do you have any additional tips on thinking of more blog post ideas? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

 

7 Ways To Get More Followers On Vine Fast

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vine followers

Although Vine is not as big as Twitter or Facebook, it has millions of members that generate a lot of engagement. When Instagram came out with its 15 second video loop, many people thought that Vine was dead. Remember when people tweeted out things like, “Vine (2013-2013)?” Those days are over, and people are now searching for ways to get more followers on Vine. Speaking of getting more followers on Vine, here are seven ways that you can do that.

  1. Follow other people. I follow the people who are following those “I Follow Back” accounts. Vine is the only social network that I do this for, but it works. On a typical day, when I follow enough people, I am able to gain 300 followers every day. This even happened when I didn’t send a Vine for an entire month. I just continued to follow these people’s followers to grow my audience.
  2. Post 1 Vine every day. Although the first method grows your following without requiring you to post on Vine, you will be able to spread faster on Vine by posting often. The people with millions of followers on Vine are the ones who post new vines consistently. Their audience shares their content and ultimately results in the vines spreading. If people who happen to see your vines think they are good, then those people will decide to follow you.
  3. Tweet out your vines. Tweets with vines get more engagement than the tweets without vines. In addition, you get to tap into the audience that you already built on Twitter. If you continue tweeting your vines, your Vine audience will grow as your Twitter audience grows.
  4. Tell your friends about your Vine account. Your friends may be the first ones to like and revine your vines (which allows your vines to spread). The likes and revines may not come right away, but if you tell enough of your friends about your vines, some of those friends will help your vines spread.
  5. Get a group of friends together and do vines together. It seems as if there multiple groups of famous viners who happen to know each other and appear in each other’s vines. If you get a group of friends together to do the same thing, you will all have each other’s audiences. If you get five of your friends who have 1,000 followers each, that’s an audience of 5,000. As you tag each other in various vines, members of the audience will learn to enjoy your vines and your friends’ vines.
  6. Use Instagram. Vine allows you to create 6 second videos that repeat in a loop, but they do not allow you to take pictures. Instagram is the solution. When you need to take a picture, take one with Instagram. Then, be sure to tell people on Vine to follow you on Instagram. The more social networks people follow you on, the less likely they will be to forget about you.
  7. Comment on other people’s vines. Leaving comments on other people’s vines is an easy way to get noticed. When you comment on other people’s vines, don’t just ask for a shoutout or a follow back. Instead, leave a relevant comment. Leaving a relevant comment will also boost your chances of getting another follower.

Growing your audience on Vine does not have to be impossible. Most of the people on Vine with over 1 million followers are teenagers. Anyone has the ability to thrive on Vine if they know how. Implementing these methods will allow you to build a big audience on Vine fast.

 

The Claw Machine And The Free Prize

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Claw Machine

To children, the claw machine is the thrill of a lifetime. To adults, the claw machine is another money draining vortex. It’s quite obvious why claw machines lose their popularity as an individual becomes older. While some people happen to be really good with claw machines, most people never get a prize from the claw machine. You only have an 8.33% chance of winning something with a claw machine. In addition, as we get older, the stuffed animals in the claw machine that used to be attractive lose their appeal.

The problem with a claw machine is that it is very difficult to win, and most of the prizes in the claw machine are not even worth the trouble. The only prizes that are worth it tend to be all the way at the very back and bottom of the prizes. It seems as if the only way to get a prize is by smashing the glass (not recommended).

The reason why a claw machine works like this is because the people who offer the claw machines want to make a profit. These people make a profit at the cost of losing customers. In the end, people say that the claw machines are just a scam and then give up on it. For these people, it’s no longer worth continuing.

What the claw machine makers don’t want is a loss in profit. Many businesses will strive to make a profit at the cost of the customer’s satisfaction. If everyone had a 50% chance of winning the claw machine, they’d be in trouble. Customers would actually be getting what they want at the cost of a profit.

The claw machine is an example of a win-lose situation. If customers can’t get the prize, they lose, but the people with the claw machines win. If customers get the prize, they win, but the claw machine people lose. So many people live in a win-lose world in so many different ways of either winning or losing that they forget that a win-win world still exists.

What does a win-win look like? Distributing a free prize at no cost to you (PDF or video) and then sending a series of follow up emails that promote a paid product. You give away valuable information (your customers win), and some of your customers will tell others about you and also buy your paid product (you win). There are plenty of ways to turn a win-lose situation into a win-win solution.

The claw machine is a win-lose situation that gets left behind and becomes a dust collector, just like the prizes inside. The win-win solution shines bright and results in everyone being happy.

 

10 Pinterest Mistakes That You Need To Avoid

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Pinterest is the fastest growing website on the web, and there are over 70 million users on the social network. As Pinterest continues to grow, it becomes more important to avoid making mistakes on Pinterest. Sure, no one is perfect, but there are common mistakes people are making on Pinterest that you need to avoid. These are the 10 Pinterest mistakes that you need to avoid.

  1. Pinning on one board. The difference between Pinterest and other social networks is that Pinterest allows you to categories your content and organize that content on various boards. If you pin on one board, you are losing out on what makes Pinterest unique.
  2. Only pinning about your business. There are a plethora of topics that you can pin about. Do not limit yourself to your business. Pin about some arts and crafts, food, clothing, shoes, or anything you want to pin about.
  3. Not commenting on other pins. Only 1% of the average pinner’s time is actually spent commenting on other people’s pins. That means even if a pin goes viral, few people will comment on that pin. If you are one of the first people to comment on those pins, you will get extra spotlight, and possibly, more followers.
  4. Not repinning or liking other people’s pins. When you like and repin other people’s pins, those people will be grateful that you helped to spread their content. Some of these people will decide to follow you and engage with your pins in return. Since you have the power to repin other people’s pins onto your boards, you can also create more boards and have all of your repinned pins from a certain category go on that board.
  5. Not interacting with the followers you have. Comments are rare, but when they come, you need to interact with those followers. Leaving a comment below someone else’s comment will encourage a conversation to develop. The longer the conversation goes, the more likely that person is to visit your blog, subscribe to your blog, and eventually buy one of your products.
  6. Not following your followers on their other social networks. There are many Pinterest users who also display their Twitter and Facebook accounts in their bio (in the form of tiny icons). Clicking on those icons will allow you to get to those social networks where you can follow your Pinterest followers on their other social networks. If people are following you on Pinterest, and you follow those people on their other social networks, those people will be more than likely to follow you back.
  7. Not pinning videos. Videos are a great way to increase engagement, but few people pin videos on Pinterest. People can watch videos without leaving Pinterest, so if you have a board with all of your videos on it, your followers can watch all of those videos without leaving Pinterest. When all of the videos are done, you get extra views, and your followers may decide to take a look at your other boards.
  8. Not having group boards. If you decide to take the week off from Pinterest, your boards will be left inactive, and engagement will slowly go away. However, if you have group boards, you can rely on individuals to update your group boards. As your group board gets more contributors, it may eventually be able to get updated once every hour without you logging in.
  9. Worrying about how many times you pin. People do not mind that you pin too many times as long as what you pin is valuable. If you read 7 books written by the same author in two weeks, and you were given an 8th book by the same author to read again in two days, chances are you would read that book. You like the author enough since the books provide value and decide to read the 8th book.
  10. Getting trapped on Pinterest. Pinterest is a great tool to get more traffic and exposure because it is a very addictive social network. Although Pinterest is an addictive social network, there are other things that you need to do as well. You need to grow your presence on your other social networks and focus on the methods you use to bring in your income. Don’t let 10 minutes on Pinterest turn into a few hours.

There are many mistakes that can be made on Pinterest, but these are the 10 biggest ones. By avoiding these mistakes, you will have a better experience on Pinterest and be able to optimize it effectively.

What are your thoughts on these Pinterest mistakes? Do you have any additional tips? Please share your thoughts and advice below.