Marc's Blog

How To Get Better Results From Less Work

September 25, 2015 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Do you have a philosophy that goes along the lines of the more work you put in, the better your results will be? It’s a conventional way to view work that is reinforced by wages.

If you make $10 per hour, and you work for 10 extra hours every week, you make an extra $100 every week. That’s an extra $5,200 every year just by working 10 additional hours every week.

An extra $5,200 isn’t something to laugh at. But what if you were making $20 every hour. You would make the same amount of money by putting in half of the work.

Entrepreneurs don’t get paid a wage. In the beginning, most entrepreneurs get paid well below minimum wage. Some of these people make less than $1 per hour. Some of those same people eventually became millionaires.

Entrepreneurship is a journey and true test of patience. However, it’s different from the workplace. You don’t make more money by putting in more hours. You don’t make the extra $5,200 every year by working an extra 10 hours per week. As an entrepreneur, you may actually lose money (and your sanity) by working those extra 10 hours every week.

How then does an entrepreneur make that extra $5,200? How do entrepreneurs like Bill Gates make astronomical incomes (Gates makes over $25 every second)? The answer isn’t in the working hours. The answer is in the working efficiency.

It is possible to live the Tim Ferris lifestyle and only work four hours every week while making a few million dollars every year. It is also possible to work 80 hours every week and end up with no extra money on the table. Two different extremes with very different lifestyles.

The goals most people share are to work less and earn more. We want that balance with our lives so we can spend more time with family and friends. It’s a matter of saving time and getting better results. Here’s how you find time and get better results:

Examine Every Opportunity

Don’t be a yes-man/woman. Saying no more often than you say yes keeps your time and resources more open to the people and opportunities you say yes to. I don’t say yes to every joint venture proposal. But when I do say yes, I can spend more time on my end of the joint venture.

I am not crushing it on every social network because I know that would take too much time. I’d have to acquire a certain amount of knowledge and put in a lot of work for each of those social networks.

If you want to see successful no-men/women in action, then look no further than Shark Tank. Maybe you’ve seen some of the episodes. If you have never seen an episode, watch one of them to understand.

Most of the deals on Shark Tank get turned down. Even when one of the sharks agrees on a deal, there are several sharks who shoot it down first.

They rarely say yes, and that’s what makes them successful. Just because you get an opportunity does not mean it will have a big impact on your success.

In the beginning, take almost any opportunity you can get. However, as more opportunities—and in particular, the time-consuming ones—come your way, you must make choices.

Outsource The Maintenance Work

Ever wonder if everything you do is important? For most people, the answer is no (sorry to disappoint). Some of the work we do on a daily basis is maintenance work. Maintenance work is the (possibly tedious) work that any other person can do for you.

The list is big. These are some of my maintenance activities:

Follow people on Twitter
Unfollow people on Twitter
Send pins
Create pictures for my blog posts

If I stop growing my Twitter audience, it spells disaster for my social media strategy. Something I considered so important was actually maintenance work. So I got that work off my back by outsourcing it to someone else.

Now someone else follows and unfollows people for my Twitter accounts. I also have people who send pins on my account and create pictures for my blog posts. No wonder the pictures for my blog posts have been better lately 🙂

Create Time Efficient Processes For What You Do

One thing I will never outsource to anyone is the content that goes on my blog. However, I am always looking for ways to write the typical 2,000 word blog post in 20 minutes instead of 30 minutes.

In other words, I am always looking for ways to write the same amount of content quicker.

Now I have a time efficient process that lets me write blog posts quicker. Here’s a basic summary:

Write a bunch of blog post titles (I’ll usually write 20-50 at a time depending on how I feel)
Outline those blog posts
Identify which five blog posts I will write first
Repeat

This process allows me to save more time when writing content. Typing faster also allows me to save more time.

To create time efficient processes, you must specifically focus on the work that doesn’t fall under the maintenance category. Then search on the web and think of ideas on your own that can help you save time. Create your time efficient processes so you can allocate your time to other tasks.

Some methods you come across for creating time efficient processes may involve an investment. You may have to upgrade one of your social media tools to get access to certain time saving features.

The only reason I went from HootSuite to HootSuite Pro was so I could get access to the bulk scheduler. The bulk scheduler allows me to schedule over 100 tweets in six clicks. If I manually scheduled that many tweets, it would take me over four hours every day.

Spend More Time Marketing Than Creating

Walk into a library or bookstore, and it won’t take long for you to find a New York Times bestseller. Libraries and bookstores like to put the most successful books and new releases where we can see them.

So what makes a book a New York Times bestseller? The answer isn’t the content. The answer is the marketing. If Freakonomics got zero sales, it wouldn’t have been a New York Times bestseller (even though it is a fascinating book). It ended up getting over four million sales, all because of marketing.

It’s great to create numerous products, but you must spend time marketing them so they thrive. If you create a product but keep it a secret, you won’t get many sales (if any at all). It could be the most valuable product in your niche, but if you don’t market it, people won’t know to buy it.

Spending more time marketing than creating will allow you to get better results from your overall strategy. The best part is that as you accumulate more revenue, you can put that revenue into other areas of your business such as advertising and outsourcing.

In Conclusion

The amount of time you spend working is irrelevant with getting results. The way you utilize your time ultimately determines the results that you get. Understanding this fact will inspire you to utilize your time more effectively and focus on efficiency over hours worked.

What are your thoughts about working less? Do you think working less can lead to a bigger profit? Do you find yourself working too much? Have any insights for us? Sound off in the comments section now!

3 Simple Tactics To Keep Your Social Media Followers

September 23, 2015 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

When people think about a large social media audience, they think about getting more followers or likes. They will type in phrases like the classic “How To Get More Twitter Followers” and hope to find the secret ingredients to Twitter success.

In the beginning, you must learn how to grow your audience. That way, you can start seeing results. However, there will be a point when your audience is growing at a consistent rate.

What happens then? How does the audience get bigger? Do you search “How To Get More Twitter Followers” so you can discover how to gain 501 Twitter followers every day instead of 500 Twitter followers every day?

The next significant way to grow your audience is to keep the individuals within your current audience. If you gain 500 Twitter followers in one day, but you also get unfollowed by 500 people on the same day, then your Twitter audience didn’t grow at all. If you had 10,000 Twitter followers yesterday, then you’ll have the same number by the end of the day.

On social media, the art of growing your audience consists of two factor:

Getting more followers/likes per day
Getting less unfollows/unlikes per day

Since most people cover the first factor in great detail, I’ll choose to talk about the second factor in greater detail. When it comes to keeping the people in your audience, these three tips come in handy:

#1: Be Active

Being active on social media is critical for building trust, getting more followers, and keeping your followers. Some of my friends who forgot to tweet for a day ended up getting unfollowed by 20 extra people on that day. Harsh, but nevertheless, the reality of a social media audience.

More than a billion people use social media. While it highlights social media’s rapid success as a whole, it also indicates we have options. There are countless social media experts. If the average social media expert stops blogging, then no big deal. There are millions of other social media experts to choose from.

Being active on your social networks lets you gradually build a name for yourself. The people in your audience will begin seeing your social media posts more often. These people will engage with your posts and share your content.

If you put in so much time to building your social media platform, then you must utilize that platform. At one point, I didn’t send anymore pins for my Pinterest account with over 22,000 Pinterest followers (I now hired someone for that).

I got less blog traffic at that time than when I had 500 Pinterest followers and sent a few pins per day. In other words, I got more traffic from 500 Pinterest followers than I got from 22,000 Pinterest followers, and it was my fault.

The moment you find yourself stretching your boundaries, stop. Before expanding into new horizons, discover methods that allow you to save a significant amount of time or outsource some of your social media activities to someone else.

#2: Post Valuable Content

No matter how active you are on social media, you must always post valuable content. Bloggers praise valuable content to their audiences as often as parents praise veggies to their children.

Out of curiosity, I wondered what would happen if someone posted on social media so often but didn’t provide much value. Would someone, say, with over one million tweets have a large audience.

It turns out posting lots of bad content doesn’t help grow a large audience. Three Twitter accounts with over 1 million tweets each prove the assertion very well. Take a look:

@Aviongoo: 1.68 million tweets later, the account has a little over 300 Twitter followers.
@Market_JP: 1.56 million tweets later, the account has under 400 Twitter followers.
@ATNews: 1.19 million tweets later, the account has a little over 200 Twitter followers.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to discover these accounts are posting low value content. Just because you are sending more social media posts than your competitors does not mean you are doing any better.

The value you provide with your social media posts determines the overall impact of your platform…and the number of people who decide to stick around.

#3: Engage With Your Audience

Each time someone tweets one of my blog posts, I make it a point to thank the person or favorite the tweet. Doing this lets the person know I care and appreciate the support.

Your audience helps you become more successful. While building relationships helps you reach new audiences, the people who share/read your content and/or buy your products help make you successful.

When you engage with your audience, you are engaging with the same people who help you become more successful. It’s the least we can do to support our audiences.

There are people in your audience who have been following your journey for a while. These people would feel honored if they got a response from you. Other people in your audience are looking for answers to some of their problems. Answer those questions, and the people in your audience will be grateful.

Engaging with your audience will effectively humanize your social media efforts. The entire point of automating social media posts is to open up more time to engage with your audience. When the term “social media” was coined, it included the word “social” for a reason.

The most meaningful relationships I have had with individuals within my audience started from conversations on social media. You never know where one conversation can take you and your brand.

In Conclusion

Many people focus on growing their social media audiences. Although an admirable approach, it becomes easy to forget the importance of keeping the audience you have already built. If you gain 100 Twitter followers on the day you lose 100 Twitter followers, then your audience size will remain the same.

Once you master growing your social media audience rapidly and keeping most of the people within your audience, you will find it much easier to grow a large social media audience.

What are your thoughts about growing a social media audience VS keeping the one you have? Which of the two do you think is more important? Do you have any other methods for keeping social media followers? Sound off in the comments section below.

7 Things I Would Do If I Could Start All Over Again

September 21, 2015 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

Did you ever look at your life and ask what you would have done differently? I find myself in this scenario once every quarter, and usually during an extreme. Business either did really bad or really good right before the change (fortunately, the more recent scenarios were caused by the latter).

So I recently found myself in this scenario yet again. This time, I was in Cape May. The last time I was in Cape May, I decided to take my email list seriously, so I knew I was in for a serious self-reflection.

Looking back, I came across seven things I wish I did for my business when I started. I wrote this blog post so you could see my mistakes. That way, you don’t make the same ones.

#1: Focus On My Email List

I discovered the importance of an email list just a year ago. No matter how much bloggers like myself make up for it, we’ll still refer to under utilizing our email lists as the biggest mistake we ever made.

I am one of the legions of people who says I wish I focused on my email list earlier. An email list provides you with the most powerful way to build a strong relationship with the people in your audience.

#2: Avoiding The Classic Social Media Trap

There is a common social media trap that plagues most users. It’s the reason why most social media marketers don’t have hundreds of thousands of followers. Here’s how the trap works with Periscope:

“Periscope is totally dominating the social media space. People are saying great things about it. I better get on board. Even though I don’t have large audiences on my other social networks, I believe Periscope will be different. The other social networks are subpar compared to Periscope. Now I’m putting most of my time into Periscope.”

The quick summary is this: Most people focus on mastering all of the social networks so much that they end up mastering none of the social networks.

It’s similar to saying a product created for everyone is really a product for no one.

Sure enough, I found myself in this classic social media trap. I had a Facebook Page, a Twitter account, a Pinterest account in the works, a Google+ account, a YouTube account, and an account for almost every other social network you could think of.

I even had a MySpace account years after its dominance started to fade.

Then I made a life changing decision (literally) that made me take this whole digital marketing thing seriously.

What if I only took Twitter seriously?

And here I am today. With over 250,000 Twitter followers, it’s fair to say I made the right choice. However, I learned one important lesson about social media success.

If you succeed on one social network, it is so much easier to be successful on the rest of them.

Soon enough, I had a Pinterest account with over 25,000 followers. My YouTube channel has over 2,500 subscribers.

For a long time, Pinterest was my second best social network. That is, until my Facebook Page recently started booming. My Facebook Page’s audience size may soon surpass my Twitter audience size.

I get over 400 Twitter followers every day. On Facebook, I get over 600 likes every day.

What happened? Did I get a shout out from Taylor Swift? Did I finally land that 60 Minutes interview? Did I buy fake likes (if you were thinking that, lie to me if we meet)?

Once I mastered Twitter, it got easier for me to master the other social networks. One of those social networks was Facebook. The way my Facebook Page took off inspired the next thing on the list.

#3: Start Facebook Advertising ASAP

I almost regret not utilizing Facebook advertising as much as not growing my email list. I started using Facebook advertising as my vacation came to a close (I promise I was almost never on my computer during the vacation).

I started off at $3 per day. I set up an ad to get likes for my Facebook Page. With a little under 400 likes, my Facebook Page needed the social proof before I started paying for promoted posts.

It turns out I was a natural pro with Facebook advertising (with the help of several training courses, a few books, and hundreds of blog posts). Okay, fine. I did extensive research before I launched my first Facebook ad. I targeted countries that allowed me to get likes for the least amount of money. My friend Jerry Banfield compiled a lengthy list of ideal countries for low CPL (cost per like).

After seeing over 100 likes come in and more than $1 left to spend, I knew I needed to put in more money. In less than a day, I went from paying $3 per day to $7 per day.

At the end of my first day, I got over 415 likes for my page. At least, that’s what the report said. When I looked at the total number of likes for my Facebook Page, the numbers told a different story.

I actually gained over 500 likes that day. On the next day, I gained over 600 likes for just $7 (based on insights data instead of the advertising report. Insights data in my experience is more reliable). That comes down to a minuscule 1.2 cents per like.

At that rate, I just have to spend $1,200 on Facebook advertising to get my first 100,000 likes (real people interested in my niche). Now, I am aiming to get over 100,000 likes by the end of 2015.

More importantly, I am aiming to have over 1 million social media followers before I get my high school diploma. That would be awesome.

#4: Write Fewer Blog Posts Each Week

At my peak, I wrote 21 blog posts every week. I wrote two blog posts for this blog every day and wrote one blog post per day for my Yugioh Philosophy Blog (now inactive). Naivety at its finest.

While writing 21 blog posts in a given week normally gives you the hard-worker badge, it is an overrated badge. I’d rather put in half of the work and get twice the results.

Now, I only write three blog posts per week. Although they got much longer than my past blog posts, the decision gives me extra time. Instead of thinking about 21 blog post ideas (and then outlining and writing them) every week, I only have to think of three.

Writing blog posts allows you to build up your blog. However, if you only spend time building your blog, people won’t come. You have to get out there by writing guest posts, getting on interviews, and growing your social media audience. Writing blog posts is just one small slice of the pie.

#5: Create Training Courses Right From The Start

If I focused on creating training courses and growing my email list in the beginning, I would have made a bigger profit sooner. That’s not what happened, so alas, no crying over spilt milk. I just hope that you don’t make the same mistake.

#6: Build Relationships With The Right People

Have you noticed most successful people have a network of other highly successful people? Two main reasons why that’s the case:

You act like the people you constantly surround yourself with. Choose your friends carefully.
Joint ventures. You both help each other become more successful.

When you build relationships with people in your niche, the relationship gives you both access to a new audience. If you and another expert agree to go on a joint venture, then your products and services would get put in front of each other’s audiences. This is how highly successful influencers are able to become more influential and successful.

#7: Give Up Video Games Much Earlier

For the title, the only reason I didn’t choose to say “never play” video games is because I don’t know what impact they had in my life. Maybe I wouldn’t be an entrepreneur. I’m not saying video games made me an entrepreneur, but maybe they steered me in a different direction.

Somehow, I remembered that when I was six years old, I was great at the piano. I took multiple lessons per week. At that time I could play some songs on the piano without looking at the keys. These songs weren’t like Beethoven’s masterpieces, but they were much more than Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.

Then I gave it all away for video games. The piano sat in the basement accumulating dust. Writing those two sentences makes me feel a fountain of regret. Luckily, I recently gave up video games forever and decided to revive the piano. Talk about a reawakening.

I get that some of my readers never played video games because video games weren’t in their generation. The way to interpret me giving up video games is to think of giving up a bad habit or addiction.

When video games started taking over, most of my elementary school schedule looked like this:

Go to school
Do as much of my homework in class as possible (under my desk, without the teacher knowing. It was either sneaky or brave. Your call).
Getting home
Rushing any remaining homework (15 minutes of time spent on remaining homework, tops)
Play video games until I was told to stop

While I managed to ace my classes, I’m not proud of the schedule above. Better to figure out now than 10 years later.

So for a time, video games for me could have been classified as an addiction. Now I’m done with them.

If you want to get rid of a bad addiction, here’s how I did it:

I went on vacation without bringing any video games with me. For two weeks, I couldn’t play video games whether I wanted to or not. There were many exciting things to do during vacation, so I didn’t mind.
I went home and unplugged everything. I didn’t bother playing video games for “one final time” because I knew it wouldn’t be one final time.
I listened to the right music while I unplugged everything. When trying to break a bad habit or addiction, few songs are better than Bad Blood. I am in a complicated fandom where I like both Taylor Swift and Katy Perry, but Bad Blood proved to be very helpful for eliminating video games from my life.

Giving up video games opened the door to more time that I now use to read books and play the piano. In just two weeks, I made a dramatic change in my life.

In Conclusion

We can’t cry over spilt milk. However, it’s a shame when the milk is constantly spilt, and nothing is done about it. When I reflect upon all that I have done, I look at my achievements and the spilt milk.

Addressing our mistakes when we catch ourselves decreases our chances of making the same mistakes again. Once we catch ourselves, we know what to be on the lookout for.

What are your thoughts about what I wish I knew? Did any stand out for you? What are some things you wish you knew earlier in life? Sound off in the comments section below.

7 Ways To Stand Out In Today’s Marketplace

September 18, 2015 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

Today’s marketplace is constantly expanding. Just a decade ago, it was difficult to publish your own book. Nowadays, anyone can self-publish a book in a matter of minutes with KDP.

Technology has virtually wiped out the barrier of entry for most industries. Business owners can now enter the marketplace and grow a large audience without paying a single penny. For less than $150 per year, I grew my Twitter audience to over 250,000 people.

You don’t need advertising dollars to stand out in today’s marketplace. While they help, they are not needed. However, the ease of entering the marketplace has resulted in an outpour of experts.

How exactly do you stand out when thousands—nay, millions—of people are trying to do what you do? Here’s how:

#1: Write Fantastic Content

Blogging is one of the main reasons why the barrier of entry is so low. You can create a free blog on WordPress in a matter of minutes. It’s easy to get started. The challenge is standing out.

The main reason some blogs stand out more than others is because of fantastic content. With that said, I understand that a larger audience gives a blog more leverage. However, to accumulate a large audience of returning visitors, the content must be fantastic.

We all have a favorite blog. We return to that favorite blog because the content is fantastic. When I become a returning visitor, I’m not returning just so a system can tally me as another visitor. I am returning because the blog posts fascinate me.

I always find myself returning to Seth Godin’s blog. Most of his blog posts are thought provoking and quick reads. In “The interim strategy,” Seth Godin brings one major point home: a great organization must start great and never cut corners in the beginning just for quick success.

Stay on his blog long enough, and you’ll find yourself reading dozens of his blog posts trying to catch up with what you missed.

#2: Create Awesome Videos

I understand this sounds similar to writing fantastic content. It sounds as if the only difference is that I’m talking about videos instead of blog posts.

However, videos are huge on the web. The average video gets more engagement than the average blog post. So does that mean give up writing blog posts all together?

NO! It’s understood that videos tend to perform better than blog posts. However, writing blog posts is an essential part of standing out. Here’s why doing both is the best approach:

Blog posts can easily be edited and revised while you type. In a video, you are put on the spot. While you can do a redo, it’s much easier when writing a blog post.
Writing a blog post in my opinion doesn’t require as much energy. Typing is easier than talking and barely stopping. I can type, stop, and think. That luxury is only available for videos by splicing and editing.
Videos get more engagement than blog posts.
Videos and blog posts are two different types of media which gives your audience more options
Writing blog posts about something strengthens your skill in that area. Strengthening your skill makes it easier to do awesome videos. I wrote hundreds of blog posts to strengthen my knowledge before I did my first video.

Creating videos is commonly associated with putting them on YouTube and getting subscribers from there. However, you can also create videos that you put into a training course.

From my experience, creating a training course is quicker than writing a book. With speed on your side, you can create high value products at a higher frequency.

#3: Be “Everywhere” Your Targeted Audience Goes

To be successful in your niche, you must meaningfully put yourself in front of your targeted audience. Whether you put your blog posts, videos, or something else in front of your targeted audience, it must be something that positively grabs your targeted audience’s attention.

To be everywhere your targeted audience goes, you must first know where your targeted audience goes. Are they reading Inc Magazine? Are they on this blog right now? Are they reading celebrity blogs? Are most of them on Twitter?

The places where your audience goes are the places your content and videos must show up. Ask bloggers in your niche if they take guest posts. Submit that application to Inc Magazine again and again until they say yes (preferably get other writing opportunities first. Inc Magazine wants writers with solid experience). Partner up with people in your niche to reach new audiences.

I recently listened to one of Jeff Bullas’ webinars about getting blog traffic. In that webinar, Jeff talked about how he got a speaking opportunity. Jeff asked the event organizer why he got the opportunity, and this was the (paraphrased) response:

“Because I saw you everywhere.”

It turns out Jeff’s content has been featured on many prominent guest blogs. He has also been featured on The Huffington Post, Forbes, and a few others for his social media savvy. When the event organizer said he/she say Jeff everywhere, it wasn’t an exaggeration—to a certain extent.

Jeff didn’t get featured on a celebrity site. He got featured on most of the blogs and top magazines about business and digital marketing. As people see you more often, and they appreciate your content each time, they will remember you.

It’s hard to forget about the blogger you see dozens (or hundreds) of times on the web.

#4: Expert Interviews

Expert interviews—whether you are the interviewer or interviewee—are growing in importance. These interviews positively affect your social proof and the way your audience views your brand and mission. Here’s a quick breakdown:

When you get interviewed by an expert in your niche, that signals two things about you to their listeners:

You had enough expertise and/or a great enough story to land the interview
You probably say something valuable in the interview

Interviewing an expert in your niche signals two things about you to your listeners:

You’re good enough to get that expert on your show
Your podcast (or series of interviews if you don’t run a podcast) must be valuable)

Not only do expert interviews make the host and guest look good, but they also contribute to a larger audience.

The guest usually promotes the interview or podcast episode on the day it gets published. That means more visibility for the host. The host repeats the process a few hundred times and the results multiply. New listeners watch/read the past interviews.

The more of this interviews you are a part of (as the host or the guest), the more interviews you get. Hosts of podcasts see how well you can answer questions, and then they choose you as their next guest. Notable experts ask if they can be guests on your podcast.

It’s this ripple effect that has allowed some podcasters to accumulate six figures every month and attract millions of people to their episodes.

#5: Write A Book That Becomes Successful

Writing a book is challenging the first time. Making a book successful the first time is more challenging. For all successful products, the marketing side is more challenging than the creation side.

Why would a successful book make a big difference? Take a look at the people event organizers choose for public speaking events. Most of the speakers have a successful book. If they don’t have a successful book, then they have a massive amount of social proof. Some speakers have both.

Writing a successful book shouldn’t be on the top of your list of things to do (unless you are a passionate writer). You need to accumulate a large audience so when it comes time to promoting your book, you can rest assured it will get plenty of sales.

#6: Do Cool Things For Your Audience

Making your audience feel special is the difference between any audience and a cult-style audience. Engage with them on Twitter. Build relationships in the most meaningful way you can think of.

Random acts of kindness and random gifts—no matter how big or small—can go a long way. There is one true fact about every successful blogger, singer, baseball player, and President (in a word, every successful person).

All of the individuals within the audience make the success happen. Recognizing this success will let you realize how important the people in your audience are. Random acts of kindness and random gifts aren’t suggestions. They’re mandates for building a cult-style audience.

#7: Have A Powerful Philosophy and Purpose

Your mission affects the way people see your brand. Let’s say two people offer Twitter courses at the same price, and they are virtually the same. One person’s stated mission is to make money. The other person’s stated mission is to give everyone the ability to become successful on Twitter.

Who do you think gets the sale?

The person with the better mission. Of course, we know why the person who wants to simply make money won’t get the sale. However, we’ve become smart at crafting great mission statements.

The most powerful mission statements have the biggest impact on sales. Take a look at the people in your niche who experience the most success. Then look for their mission statements. Some will state their mission statements right from the start. For others, it takes some digging in the About Me page to find someone’s mission statement.

The mission statement is a starting point, not a final end. The mission statement implants a thought into a visitor’s mind. If that person sees your mission statement driving your journey and content, then the mission statement is valuable.

Creating a mission statement that doesn’t support what you do is the quickest way to disaster.

In Conclusion

Standing out in an ever expanding playing field isn’t easy. There will be great struggles but also great triumphs along the way. Providing value in what you do, getting a large amount of people to respond that value (visiting, subscribing, purchasing, etc.), and having an authentic mission statement is how you dominate your industry.

What tips do you have for standing out in today’s marketplace? Which of these tips was your favorite? Do you believe it’s better to fight against competitors or work with competitors? Sound off in the comments section now!

4 Ways To Turn Social Media From ROI Nightmare To ROI Sensation

September 16, 2015 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Social Media ROI — The one thing every business on social media wants.

One of my pet peeves is when people say social media doesn’t generate ROI. There is a comic on the web that encapsulates my pet peeve very well. It’s a hit on social media “gurus”—only few people are actually experts.

Just because most people don’t get an ROI from social media doesn’t mean social media can’t generate an ROI. Without social media, I would not have an audience. Take a look at one of most recent days of blog traffic:

Most of my blog’s visitors are coming from Twitter. As these people continue visiting my blog, the relationship between me and those people will continue to grow. Some of these people will decide to subscribe to your blog while others will decide to buy products.

In other words, social media alone can’t give you an ROI. I’m not going to act as if social media is the magical, stand-alone medicine that makes you go from zero to millionaire. I know what it means to be on both sides of the coin.

Now I have over 250,000 social media followers, and I am very happy with my ROI. When I had my first 100,000 Twitter followers, my income stayed the same. I wondered if I could ever make money from my social media strategy. It was a BIG wake up call.

In less than a year, I turned my social media strategy from an ROI nightmare to an ROI sensation. It was helpful to have over 100,000 Twitter followers and a lot of engagement. But the large audience isn’t necessary to turn your social media activity into an ROI sensation.

To start turning your social media activity into an ROI sensation, follow these methods:

#1: Promote Your Landing Page More Often

Your landing page is the most valuable page on your blog for growing your email list. Landing pages are dedicated to getting more subscribers because they only let a visitor perform one action: enter the email address.

I have created several landing pages like this one.

The landing page does not have any tabs or navigation. While you can just click the “x” in a pop-up, there is no “x” button for a landing page. However, just because you create a landing page doesn’t mean you are going to get more subscribers.

You get more subscribers from your landing page by promoting that landing page. I promote my landing page in my guest posts and on social media. All of this promotion leads to dozens of daily subscribers.

So where does the money come in? You use social media to get more people to your landing page. That results in more subscribers. Then, you communicate to your subscribers with an autoresponder and email blasts.

At the end of all of my autoresponders is a promotional email of one of my products or a consultation session. For some services, I charge well over $100 in the autoresponder, and I make sales. I can tell that social media is responsible because most of my customers tell me that they found me on Twitter (or another social network).

#2: Engage With Your Audience

If you are not engaging with your audience on social media, then you are not using social media properly. It’s the equivalent of wanting to be a faster runner but not running. The reason few interactions occur is because most people focus more on the media part than on the social part of social media.

Engaging with your audience lets you know the individuals within your audience. Knowing individuals in your audience better will allow you to know what your entire audience wants. Knowing what your audience wants will help you create better products.

When I say engaging with your audience, I am referring to having actual conversations with several people in your audience. Scheduling tweets and pins isn’t engaging. That’s providing value. Say hi, thank your followers for sharing your content, and ask them questions. That’s how real engagement works.

#3: Reach Out To The Right People On Social Media

Did you know that some people with less than 5,000 Twitter followers get more opportunities than people with over 100,000 Twitter followers? That’s the same for the other social networks. Some people with 5,000 Pinterest followers get more opportunities than the people with 100,000 Pinterest followers.

There are two components that determine how many opportunities from social media

Your audience (size and engagement)
How you use social media (posting and interacting with the right people)

The “right people” consists of the people in your audience and people who can present you with an opportunity. Contact the people who have podcasts, can get you into the big media outlets, or can help you reach out to a new audience.

You can use social media to tap into these types of opportunities and get involved with several joint ventures. Tapping into other people’s audiences with the help of social media is great for you to expand your own audience while providing someone else’s audience with additional value.

Don’t immediately go for the people with hundreds of thousands of social media followers. Practice with people who have smaller audiences and are more likely to notice you.

Ideally, you want to be the big fish in the small pond. That way, you will get noticed. If you have a few thousand social media followers, you may not be the big fish in the small pond for Pat Flynn’s podcast. He’s getting people like Tim Ferris on his podcast. However, you may appear as the big fish in the small pond on a new podcaster’s show.

Guest blogging is a different animal. To some guest bloggers, all that matters is valuable content. To other guest bloggers, highly regarded bloggers are the only ones with entry.

Before you contact someone on social media to ask for an opportunity, do some quick research on the person. You want to see whether this person is likely to give you an opportunity or not.

After you get the opportunity, continue to build upon the relationship. Continuing the relationship may open the door to more opportunities, but it’s more important for character. You don’t want to be someone who takes an opportunity and then disappears from the person who gave you the opportunity.

#4: Leverage Your Credentials Whenever You Can

As you continue growing on social media, you will eventually reach a point where you can use your social media audience as a credential.

If I tell people who don’t know me that I want to become successful on social media, they may look at me funny. I am a 17 year old who can be mistaken as naive. When I mention the size of my social media audience, the conversation takes an entirely new direction.

The way you articulate your social media audience’s impact and your expertise will determine how seriously people take you.

Not only does a large social media audience help at networking events, but it has a significant impact on how people view your online presence. We tend to gravitate towards the people with large social media audiences because of social proof.

Social proof is the reason why we skip the restaurant with the empty parking lot and head over to the restaurant with the crowded parking lot. Since so many people are a part of something, it must be phenomenal.

In the same way, if you have so many social media followers, what you are doing must be phenomenal. Of course, that isn’t always the case. Some people with large social media audiences don’t do phenomenal things. However, if you do phenomenal things, the social media audience will help a first-time visitor understand that and appreciate what you do.

Every time I promote one of my products about social media, I always mention that I have over 250,000 social media followers. It is a valuable credential that lets people know they are learning from someone with a large social media audience.

You don’t get a dollar each time you mention the credential. But you can get someone to buy one of your books or training course if you properly include the social proof. You get that social proof by growing your social media audience and interacting.

In Conclusion

Social media won’t help you make direct money. However, social media is the best platform for generating indirect sales. If you are not leveraging social media now, then it’s time to get started.

Just think of social media as a platform to build the relationship with your audience. The relationship is what results in sales.

How do you use social media to generate ROI? Does your business use or dodge social media? Do you need help with social media? Sound off in the comments section below.

6 Ways To Grow Your Audience Without Paying A Penny

September 14, 2015 by Marc Guberti 6 Comments

Grow Audience On Shoestring Budget — These resources aren’t just for people on shoestring budgets.

We all want to grow our audiences. Before the web, growing an audience was a big concern for startups because of all of the money it would cost. Those startups had to promote their products and services without social media.

The only two possible options were putting in an enormous amount of time to reach some people or spending an enormous amount of money on advertising.

The online web has changed all of that. Now we can grow our audiences without paying a single penny. However, those changes don’t mean anything for you if you are not utilizing them. The only tools and strategies that currently provide you with results are the ones that you use.

There are several ways to grow your audience for free. While each method involves a time commitment on your part, these methods are all great for startups and entrepreneurs with audiences of all sizes.

Even the most successful entrepreneurs continue utilizing these five methods. Even though they are free, the methods are that good. Here they are:

#1: Use Social Media

Social media is the most powerful tool on the web. It allows you to grow your audience in a way like never before.

Why? Since so many people use social media, millions of people are bound to be people who would fit well into your targeted audience.

Not only do so many people use social media, but they use it daily. Millions of people log into their social networks every day.

All you have to do is post valuable content every day. Tweet, pin, schedule on Facebook, and constantly post on your other social media platforms. If you can’t do it, hire someone to schedule your social media posts for you. I’m actually doing that with Pinterest.

The way you use social media for your business depends on what your business is and which social network you use. Each social network presents a different ideal posting frequency.

On Facebook, many experts like myself believe that you shouldn’t send more than four Facebook posts on your page every day. On Twitter, you gotta tweet over 100 times per day (get this automated with HootSuite’s bulk scheduler. Don’t manually schedule that many tweets every day because then it’s not worth it).

To find an ideal posting frequency on a social network, you must constantly experiment with the content you send out. Some of the ways you can experiment are by sending out different content, using different pictures, using different hashtags, and changing your content frequency.

Social media allowed me to get over 60,000 people in my audience free of charge. At that point, I started paying because once you reach 60,000 Twitter followers, you must start paying tools like Tweepi to continue using them (this is because of the way Twitter’s API works).

At that point, I was more than breaking even so a small cost was easily manageable. By paying the same amount of money every year (under $100), I saw my social media audience grow from 60,000 people to over 275,000 people.

All of that for less than $100 per year.

Social media is the best place for getting more people to know about you. It gives you a platform where you can promote stuff. But what are you actually promoting on social media? Your free content!

#2: Start Your Own Blog

While I would recommend that every serious blogger gets his/her own domain and hosting—two very small fees—you can create a free blog using WordPress. Getting your own domain and hosting looks more professional, but all blogs have a special quality about them.

You get to provide free content which allows you to deepen the relationship with you and your audience. As people come to your blog more often—and they appreciate what they see—these people will come to respect you and your content more.

This respect is what results in people following you on social media and sharing your content with others. Some people who visit your blog enough times may decide to buy one of your products.

A blog has two main functions. Strengthen the relationship between you and the people in your audience and grow your email list. Out of all of the resources you can utilize, the email list is by far the most important resource for online success.

Your social networks, blog, and everything else you do should all point back to your email list. Having 100,000 email subscribers is very different and more significant than having 100,000 Twitter followers. However, having the 100,000 Twitter followers does help out with growing an email list.

And having a blog to build the relationship with your audience helps too.

#3: Build An Email List

I mentioned it when I discussed starting your own blog. It would be unfair if I didn’t discuss it in its own section.

The money is in the email list. While having a large social media audience helps you get more subscribers, don’t think that the money is in social media. Social media is a means of indirectly generating revenue by building relationships and getting people to subscribe.

While using WordPress.org opens you up to plugins that help get more subscribers, any blog can get more subscribers with a sidebar opt-in. They don’t convert very well, but it’s a start.

When you build your email list, you must commit to using a paid service like iContact or Aweber. However, many businesses are running on a shoestring budget. They don’t have much money to spend and aren’t sure about paying for an emailing service every month.

If you find yourself on a shoestring budget or are just beginning, use MailChimp. You get to gain up to 2,000 subscribers and send 12,000 emails per month—free of charge. To communicate with more than 2,000 people, it costs $30 per month.

However, once you have 2,000 people on your list, you can easily break even. While you can utilize these tools for free, why not pay for them if you know you can break even and grow your audience at the same time?

If you send out an email blast of a $400/hr consultation session, and one person of your 2,000 pays the $300, then you just made enough money to pay $30/month for more than a year. You can easily make more money from your email list and grow it in a year.

#4: Write Guest Posts

Guest posts present an opportunity to put your content in front of someone else’s audience. Even though some have declared that guest blogging is dead, it is alive and well.

When your content is put in front of someone else’s audience, and that audience is a targeted one, more people will read your content and visit your blog. After I started reposting my past blog posts on Business2Community, this blog got dozens of daily visitors from my reposts alone.

If you have the money to get a landing page, then promote that landing page in your short bio. As you can see for Business2Community, I make it a point to promote my landing page within the short bio. It appears at the bottom of every blog posts.

Business2Community Bio

Writing guest posts also presents an opportunity to strengthen your relationships with other experts in your niche. You get to learn from them because they will share their best practices. They want you to write a superb guest post so their audiences get wowed.

When I wrote a guest post for Jeff Bullas, he gave me several tips that I use to this day. Write short sentences. Include more pictures in your blog posts. I applied those tips to the guest post and now apply those tips to my own blog.

#5: Interview Other Experts

Interviewing other experts lets you build relationships with those experts, boost your credibility, and grow your audience. If you interview a highly regarded expert in your niche, this will be the translation to your audience:

You are good and valuable enough to get this expert to take an interview with you.

There is a difference between interviewing the average person and interviewing Bill Gates. You may not have the power to interview Bill Gates, but you can interview the people who the people in your targeted audience admire.

Some people live by this tip. They interview other experts on podcasts and have become millionaires from their work. Pat Flynn and John Lee Dumas are two examples of people who interview successful experts and make a living out of it.

They make six figures. Every month.

#6: Get Interviewed By Other Experts

The other methods help you gain credibility and an audience. You can leverage your credibility and expertise so other experts start interviewing you. Each time you get an expert to interview you, your credibility grows.

One of the most important lessons for getting interviewed by other experts is to start small. Don’t start by asking the person who has 100,000 email subscribers.

Start by asking the people with smaller audiences. These people are more likely to say yes to you, and you get experience. If I had to redo my first interview and choose where I did that interview, I would never choose a blogger with over 100,000 email subscribers.

Getting interviewed by a blogger with over 100,000 email subscribers ensures that a lot of people will see the interview. Getting this much exposure for your first interview is a curse in disguise because chances are your first interview will show some inexperience.

When I got interviewed the first few times, I was nervous and not sure. I’d rather be nervous and not sure to an audience of 10 people than an audience of 100,000 people.

When I get on the podcast with the person who has over 100,000 email subscribers, I want to sound confident and feel comfortable with the process. After doing interview after interview, I now feel comfortable and confident with the process.

I am ready for the person with 100,000 email subscribers, but it takes time to reach that level of confidence and comfort in the process.

In Conclusion

The web has provided us with many tools to grow our audiences. While some of these tools have pay to play systems set up, other tools are free and very helpful. You can easily grow your audience to consist of tens of thousands of people without paying a penny.

You can also use temporarily free services like MailChimp and then promote products and services to those audiences so you can break even when you must pay for these tools.

You can’t grow a meaningful audience by going free forever, but starting off by not paying a single cent is a great way to start and build momentum.

How do you view growing an audience for free? Which methods do you use to grow your audience without paying a penny? Sound off in the comments section now!