Marc's Blog

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.

5 Entrepreneurial Lessons I Learned From Running

October 30, 2015 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

This is my last year in high school. There are moments when I look back at the past three years. Before I went into high school, the only time I ran was on the soccer field. Now I run every day, and in some cases 14 miles on a given day.

My business also looks a lot different now than it looked when I got into high school. This blog didn’t exist. Most of the content I wrote went towards my Yugioh Blog. To think that was a little over three years ago.

So why am I bringing all of this up? I believe that running had (and continues to have) a strong impact on what I have been able to do (few things build commitment more than waking up at 6 am to run 14 miles at 8 am). If you want to become a successful entrepreneur, consider adding a daily run to your schedule. Many successful entrepreneurs such as Jack Dorsey run often.

Running builds a sense of commitment while providing lessons about life along the way. Many of these lessons can be applied to entrepreneurship. As I got faster and did more with my business, I was amazed with how many parallels existed in the runner’s mindset and the entrepreneur’s mindset.

Here is a taste of what I have learned from running for a little over three years:

#1: Have A Team

In business, there are three teams:

Accountability team
Team of helpers
Team of promoters

Running teaches you about all three of them.

Accountability Team

No matter what mile you are on, and no matter how fast you are, it is easier to walk than run. It is tempting to go for the easier option. But when dozens of teammates are running beside you, walking is no longer an option. Having a team increases your accountability and can make a challenging workout a fun one.

Team Of Helpers

Coaches like to have big teams because a big team creates more depth. This depth is important in competitions because the more athletes there are on a team, the more points it is possible for a team to score.

Each athlete has the potential to score a number of points on an individual level. All of the points athletes score as individuals or relays count towards the team’s total number of points. A team with two athletes on it is very likely to get outperformed by the team with over 100 athletes. Even if the two athletes are better than the 100 athletes on the other, the depth of the larger team means more team points than the team with the two athletes.

The reason why teams win championships is because many athletes contributed to the final team score. There are some athletes who stand out, but it’s typically many athletes scoring some points that leads to a win.

As an entrepreneur, it is tempting to handle the workload all by yourself. The solopreneur lifestyle sounds cool and flashy when in reality it holds people back from their true potential.

Being successful as a solopreneur is like trying to win a track meet in which you are the only person on your team and all of the other teams have dozens of athletes. It’s just as unlikely as running across a busy highway with blindfolds on. Possible, but very unlikely.

Team Of Promoters

It’s easy to learn about this type of team in your every day life. Just listen to conversations and see what topics are brought up. Rumors and news are the two things that often spread the most. My teammates and I have conversations during our runs. As we talk about different topics, word-of-mouth marketing is in action.

#2: You Need To Be With People Who Are Better Than You

My biggest improvements as a runner came with other runners were ahead of me for most or all of the race. I kept up with people who I wanted to stay with, and seeing people in front of me gives me a stronger incentive to sprint the final straightaway.

I use this straightaway to get as close to the people ahead of me as possible. Sometimes I pass them and sometimes I don’t. Either way, I get a better time.

When I have a bigger lead and no one is in front of me, I tend to go slower. I look back to see where everyone else is (a big no in the running world). When no one else is in front of me, I often find myself doing the absolute minimum to win the race. I almost never run better times but instead go for placement.

This common approach is sufficient for scoring points, but it is not good enough to running faster times.

The people you surround yourself with will either raise your bar or lower your bar. If you are the most business savvy entrepreneur on your team, then you raise the bar for your entire team. This responsibility results in your bar getting slightly raised.

However, to raise your bar higher, surrounding yourself with people who are better than you is critical. When I run with people who are better than me, I get better times and higher quality workouts. Ever since I started partnering up with other experts to create and market training courses, I got better results. I learned more things about marketing and course creation that I wouldn’t have thought of on my own.

Talent is contagious. When you constantly surround yourself with people who are more talented than you are, some of that talent is going to spill into your life too.

#3: Take Rests To Avoid Burnout

To someone outside of the running world, it seems logical that the person who runs 365 days every year will be faster than the person who only runs for 300 days every year (assuming their typical workouts are the same).

Someone inside of the running world understands the person who ran for all 365 days in the year will actually be slower than the person who only ran for 300 days in the year (which is still very impressive). Runners get faster when they do workouts. However, taking long breaks after a few weeks of hard workouts also leads to faster times.

Contrary to popular belief, Olympic runners never run for all 365 days of the year. After intense workout schedules, some Kenyan runners take more than two months off. And the Kenyans know how to get great times. Their top athletes have broken numerous records. If an athlete wins a marathon or Olympic event, and I don’t know who the athlete is, I will always guess that the athlete is a Kenyan. That’s how good they are.

The most successful entrepreneurs put in a lot of work, but they also take long rests to avoid burnout. Even Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer who at one point worked for over 130 hours every week understands the importance of taking breaks. She takes a one week vacation from her work every month.

Working 365 days per year doesn’t lead to successful entrepreneurship. It’s a trap that typically results in your business consuming your life. When business consumes too much of your life, it can also consume your happiness.

#4: Always Strive To Do Better Than Before

EVERY passionate runner goes into a race wanting to run a faster time. It’s natural for a runner to want to run a faster time. At some point, this desire gets encoded into our DNA. Just like any runner in his first year, I saw significant improvements in my times. With each improvement, I always wanted to run a better time during the next race.

It is this part of the runner’s mindset that makes settling with current progress an impossibility. No matter how much my mile time improves in the upcoming winter track season, I will want to run a better time during my spring track season.

This runner’s mentality also became a part of my entrepreneurial mindset. Every month, I always strive to get better results (subscribers, revenue, followers, etc) than the previous month. All businesses want to do better this month than last month, but there is a difference between wanting something and striving with a burning passion to do something.

After a few runs, there are few desires that will surpass the desire of running a better time at the next event than you did the last time you ran the same distance.

#5: Know Yourself

Every runner has a different body. Most of them fall into two groups: long distance runner or sprinter. I am a decent sprinter at best, but my real strength is in distance events. Therefore, I would focus on my strength so I could better contribute to the team’s success.

Knowing your body also means knowing when you need a day off or a shorter workout. Runners who don’t know when they need to rest or take it easy risk getting injured.

Entrepreneurs need to know what they are good at so they can focus on those areas. Not focusing enough time on your strengths can result in missed opportunities. Another thing all entrepreneurs need to know is what they want from their own businesses. Identifying what you want is the first step towards getting what you actually want.

If you want to make a certain income from your business or achieve a certain level of influence, then make that clear to yourself. Once that is settled, pursue that goal to its completion.

In Conclusion

Running is a great way to get stronger and stay in shape. The surprising benefit of running is that it can teach you many life lessons and strengthen your mindset along the way. Running is a critical part of my life but also a critical part of my business’ success. The work we do is only part of the equation to success. For me and other entrepreneurs, running is a significant part of that equation.

Do you run? Are you going to start? Do you see other parallels between running outside and running a business? Sound off in the comments section below.

Are Your Blog Posts The Right Length?

October 28, 2015 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

I have written a few blog posts discussing the length of blog posts. It is a very interesting topic with experts taking different sides. Each time I read different blog posts about blog post length, my opinions sometimes change.

The ideal blog post length could very possibly be one of the biggest enigmas the blogging world knows of.

There Are Two Blog Post Lengths

Super long and super short. The super long blog posts are thousands of words long. These blog posts typically outperform the shorter blog posts on search engines. In the eyes of many SEO experts, longer blog posts equate to more traffic.

From a content standpoint, writing longer blog posts makes it possible to use examples to strengthen your claims. If a blogger claims that Facebook advertising is a great way to get more blog traffic, then I’m sure you would want more information. You may also want a case study which shows a brand using Facebook advertising to get more blog traffic at a low price.

Shorter blog posts solve problems that longer blog posts either create or ignore. Shorter blog posts prevent information overload. Imagine reading the 5,000 word blog post versus reading the 250 word blog post. The 250 word blog post can be read much quicker.

Shorter blog posts are designed for a high retention rate. Visitors are more likely to read a 250 word blog post word for word than a 5,000 word blog post. Longer blog posts are designed for more minutes per visitor. Even if a visitor reads 20% of a 5,000 word blog post, that person spends more time on the blog post than the person who read all of the 250 word blog post.

What Should You Do?

You can either choose writing short blog posts or long blog posts. There’s no in between. What you should do depends on four things:

What you are trying to accomplish? Do you want more blog traffic from the search engines? Do you want to construct your blog like a restaurant (when people come, they stay longer) or a fast food restaurant (people come more frequently but don’t stay as long)? There is nothing wrong with constructing your blog like a restaurant or constructing your blog like a fast food restaurant. And unlike the case with traditional restaurants VS McDonald’s, it is possible for both types of blogs to provide value.
What stage of the writing journey are you in? Writing a 250 word blog post is less time consuming than writing a 1,000 word blog post. If you are a new blogger, writing the shorter blog posts every day will allow you to build a strong commitment towards blogging. If you have been blogging for a few years, then you most likely have enough commitment to write 1,000 word blog posts.
What is your writing style? If you find it too tedious to write 1,000 word blog posts, then that’s not your writing style. At the same time, if you believe 250 words isn’t enough to convey your message, then go for the longer blog posts. In the end, blog visitors will only stick around if your blog posts are valuable.
How much time do you have? If you are a blogger who can only find 15 minutes per day to write blog posts, then shorter blog posts would be your cup of tea. If you are a blogger who can commit an hour per day to writing blog posts, then you have enough time to write 1,000+ word blog posts. At that point, it’s a question of whether you would want to write blog posts of that length or not.

The One Thing All Bloggers Need To Do

Regardless of which writing style you choose, there is one thing that you must do. You must make your blog posts easy for your readers to properly digest. That means smaller walls of text, shorter sentences, and tiny paragraphs.

Imagine how different this blog post would be if it were one massive paragraph. If it were, I bet you wouldn’t have reached this point.

When I write my blog posts, I make sure no paragraph is more than five lines long. Most of my paragraphs stop at the 2-3 lines range. If I make them longer, it becomes more difficult for people to read them on their computer screens.

That’s one of the reasons I create small breaks of text like this.

But the way you organize the text of the blog post is just one part of making a blog post more easily digestible.

The second method is just as valuable, and it is something I often forget to do. You must include relevant pictures throughout your blog posts that strengthen the meaning of your content. I don’t always do that on my blog. Some bloggers go as far as adding 10 different pictures per blog post. You can see how I used pictures to strengthen my content in a blog post that got published on Jeff Bullas’ Blog.

The pictures provide value and illustrate my points more effectively. My brother refers to these types of pictures as food for the eyes.

Not only are pictures food for the eyes, but they are also food for the brain. Pictures (especially infographics) have received more attention over the years because of staggering facts such as the human mind being able to comprehend an image 60,000 times faster than text. We like to see pictures, so give us food for the eyes (and brain) whenever you can.

In Conclusion

The length of your blog posts depends on your writing style and ability to provide value. The ultimate goal of every blog post is to provide value. Some bloggers achieve this goal with 250 words while other bloggers achieve this goal with 5,000 words.

Some blog posts provide more value than others, but word count isn’t the only factor that determines the amount of value that gets provided.

This topic on the ideal blog post length will rage on for many decades to come. Some data will suggest writing 2,000 word blog posts while other data may suggest shortening your blog posts.

In the end, if you can enjoy blogging while providing value, you’ve hit the right blog post length. What is your ideal blog post length? What are your thoughts on this topic? Do you have any tips for writing better blog posts? Sound off in the comments section below.

How To Get More Traffic From Your Email List

October 26, 2015 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

When most people think about the success of their email lists, they think about the growth of those email lists. These people ask questions like “How do I gain twice as many subscribers?” and “How do all of these top marketers get thousands of subscribers every day?”

Yes, it is important to grow your email list. I ask myself questions related to email list growth all of the time.

However, the growth of your email list is not enough. The value of your email list is more vital. As an extreme example, if you want 100,000 subscribers tomorrow, I could more than easily give you those 100,000 subscribers. I simply hire someone to create 100,000 unique email addresses and then those email addresses get added to your list.

They are fake, and an email list with 1,000 targeted subscribers would perform better than the email list with the 100,000 fake subscribers.

This example is primarily designed to establish the difference between growth and value of an email list. The results you get from your email list (i.e. clicks, sales, relationships) determine the value of that email list.

Now for a more realistic example:

Marketer #1 has an email list of 10,000 people. Of those 10,000 people, 100 of them click on the link to the blog post. Marketer #2 has an email list of 3,000 people. Of those 3,000 people, 300 of them click on the link to the blog post.

In this scenario, I would rather be Marketer #2 than Marketer #1. Size is only part of the equation. The masters of email marketing are able to get results like Marketer #2 while growing an email list like Marketer #1. How is it possible to combine the two together? This blog post shows you how.

Note for the reader: Growing your email list is important, but this blog post will be more geared towards what you do once you have the email list. If you want a blog post more focused on growing your email list, go here.

#1: Send More Emails To The People On Your List

Sending an email blast lets your subscribers see you in their inboxes. If you consistently send awesome email blasts, two things happen:

Trust is built
People know when to check their inboxes for your content

I know exactly when to check my inbox for Seth Godin’s content because he always publishes his blog posts at the same time of day. I figured out when he publishes his blog posts after receiving numerous emails filled with value that always landed in my inbox at the same time of day.

Sending more emails to your subscribers also means more results. Let’s say your average email gets 50 clicks from your subscribers. If you send one email blast to your list per month, then you get 600 clicks from your email list per year. However, if you send one email blast per week, then you get 2,600 clicks per year. That’s a difference of 2,000 clicks.

For some marketers, sending one email blast per month versus sending one email blast per week can be the difference between hundreds of thousands of clicks. While you shouldn’t be excessive with your email blasts, sending at least one email blast per week builds recognition between you and your subscribers.

Once the recognition is built and you continue providing value, the trust comes naturally.

#2: Resend The Same Email To The People Who Didn’t Open Your Email The First Time

Some services such as iContact make it possible for you to segment the people in your list. You can segment the people within your list to provide them with content more specific to their needs.

You can also create a segment containing a list of people who did not open your email blasts. For my most recent email blast, I will create a segment of all of the people who did not open the email. Then, I change the subject line of the email and send the identical email to those people one day later.

On the surface, this strategy resembles excessive email marketing. Sending two emails in two days may sound like a lot. However, the only people who get the email are the people who did not read your first email blast.

This is an important distinction. It is possible that some people lost your email blast within their inbox. Maybe it went into spam mail. There are many different ways that even the most loyal subscribers can skip over one of your email blasts.

If they see your email the next day, the loyal subscribers will open the email and read your message. You can also get the attention of some of your other subscribers who have not been opening as many of your email blasts.

For some marketers, this one decision has led to a 10% increase in open rate for their email blasts. In the email marketing world, a 10% increase in open rate is very significant. The best part is that you don’t have to put in any additional work to make it happen.

All you do is change the email’s subject line and resend it to the people who didn’t open the email blast the first time.

#3: Promote Your Blog Posts Within Your Autoresponders

An autoresponder is the most important part of email marketing. When people subscribe to an email list, they get a series of emails delivered to their inboxes within a few days. These autoresponder messages are designed to strengthen the relationship between you and your subscriber. After you write the messages, they run on autopilot.

Within your autoresponder messages, you can promote (almost) anything. In my autoresponder messages, I decide to promote my blog posts. The reason for my choice is that most of my email blasts promote my blog posts. The autoresponder is a way of making my subscribers more comfortable with my email blasts—high value blog posts.

If I only sent videos in my email blasts, then my autoresponder messages would only consist of videos. The autoresponder sets the tone for what type of content subscribers should expect and how the relationship will build.

For my blog, this also means consistent traffic to specific blog posts. Sometimes, I will choose to promote one of my blog posts that I know is good, but for some reason it isn’t getting as much traffic as expected. I sometimes put these blog posts within an autoresponder so they get consistent traffic.

That consistent traffic combined with social media traffic allows those blog posts to perform better on the search engines.

Your autoresponder messages are the most important messages for building a relationship between you and your subscribers. If you build the relationship right, sales will follow. Choose your autoresponder messages and the blog posts you promote within those autoresponders carefully.

#4: Write Irresistible Subject Lines

The subject line of your email blasts are just as important as the content within the email blasts themselves. The reality of email marketing is that there are only two reasons why people would open up an email:

The subscriber automatically recognizes your name and has admired your content for a long time
Irresistible subject line

For almost all of your new subscribers, #2 applies more often than #1. Your new subscribers learn who you are as they read more of your email blasts. Writing irresistible subject lines is an art that requires constant experimentation.

Some of the rules differ by niche but other rules are the same. The best way to discover what works is by observing what works for other people and seeing if that will work for you too. I noticed that the email marketers who used more lowercase letters got my attention.

The traditional email subject line looks like this: 5 Ways To Get More Followers

The format that gets more attention looks like this: 5 ways to get more followers

While it’s just a small difference, I gave it a try anyway. Sure enough, more people opened my email blast.

There are plenty of pull-words and other tips that you can use to write irresistible subject lines. Some of the best methods involve outside of the box thinking with this question, “How do I get their attention.”

Nowadays, including “Donald Trump” in the subject line gets massive attention. Imagine the whirlwind of attention someone would get if the subject line misspelled Trump’s name. If you want to go viral, that would work. Whether you’d want to go viral for that though is entirely up to you.

The moral of the story is that there are plenty of tips on the web for writing irresistible subject lines. However, don’t be afraid to experiment on your own and try to discover your own methods. Maybe the email blast with the subject line “Please don’t open this email” gets more opens and clickthroughs than any of your other email blasts.

Learn the tips and then expand upon them through trial and error.

In Conclusion

Growing your email list is important. The results you get from your current email list are more important. It is easy to get 100,000 fake people on your email list. It is far more difficult to get 1,000 targeted people on your email list.

How you engage with the people on your email list determines the results that you get. In the beginning, you may not get many results, but that is true with all entrepreneurial endeavors. While results don’t come often in the beginning, patient persistence brings forth the results beyond our wildest dreams.

How do you engage with your email list? Which of these tips was your favorite? What results do you want to see from your email list? Do you have any email marketing tips for us? Sound off in the comments section below.