Red Hot Internet Marketing

… online business for the rest of us

Double Your Income : Double Your Time Off

If you could design your ideal life all over again, would it have more work days or more free time?

Dan Sullivan’s technique for substantially increasing your income is based on increasing your time off and working more intensely when you are at ‘work’. For entrepreneurs and executives the principle is to develop and train others to progressively require your input less and less.

To get more free days or time off, plug it in your diary and make it non-negotiable. Schedule in the days and weeks you want off ahead of time.

Sullivan allocates time according to three types:

  1. Free Days – a period from midnight to to the next midnight when you are not accessible to work and do no work related activity. No ‘checking in’, no checking emails, no reading professional magazines or books, no mobile phone or cell phone. This is time you are literally “off limits”
  2. Focus Day – do work that exhibits your unique talent and abilities for which you get paid. This needs to be at least 85% of your time spent on this direct income-earning activity. The trick is to make sure you get results from the time spent in this area.
  3. Buffer Days – chores, planning, prep work, administrivia and other tasks or activities you don’t get paid for but which need to be done. Days in this category need to be maximised. Work with the efficiency and intensity you apply to the day just before taking off on holidays or vacations!

For workaholics, they take off little time and so doubling it is relatively easy! For others, it’s about being clear on what your day is structured around and dedicating your energy to that.

I have friends who have never heard of Dan Sullivan or this method.  Yet if I analyse their application to their business and life, they apply similar principles. They have established a great reputation in their field so attracting business is not an issue. When they are ‘at work’ they are highly focussed and productive. Their incentive for doing so is that they schedule time out every week and in some cases (especially in summer when the surf is up), daily! They have a very balanced lifestyle.

Keep track of how many days you have now – free, focus and buffer. Then work at increasing Focus Days, Reducing Buffer Days and having more Free Days.

ACTION

  1. Meet with those around you at work to discuss how to create and maximise more Focus Days where you can apply your expertise and talent to get the best results and revenue
  2. Set up a time to meet with family and friends to plan more Free days in your life
  3. Schedule at least 4 vacations over the next 12 months  – long weekends, a weekend drive to the wine district, a week holiday on the Coast, whatever, just book them into your diary

To make the days even more effective:

  1. List the 3 best results days you’ve had. Identify the common elements in those best days. Plan to include more of those elements in your future Focus Days and that will improve your results more
  2. List the 3 best Free Days you’ve ever had and , look for the common elements then schedule more of these elements into your future Free days.
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How To Be More Productive, Part 4

Ok, so my notes from the Helen Raptoplous call have identified:

  1. each day do four things you can complete towards your main current project
  2. then do the regular things you need to do consistently – daily, weekly, monthly activities
  3. then, if scheduled, do your block period of focused attention on a big project
  4. finally, if scheduled, take the day to plan, flesh out ideas or build systems

That’s kind of the priority order of undertaking actions every day to progress.

A key plank in this methodology (in my view in any time management or productive endeavour) is to have accountability.

Robert Plank introduced us to this concept in one of his courses where he encouraged us to set up an accountability membership site. The idea was to buddy up with someone, declare your four things at the beginning of the idea then report back at the end of the day either saying DONE for each item or explaining why it’s not done.

Being held accountable removes excuses that we use for ourselves, it motivates us to do things because someone else now knows and we’re less likely to procrastinate when we’ve publicly declared our intentions.

Helen went beyond the member site idea and suggested whatever works for you – blog about it, tweet about it, update your Facebook status, do a YouTube video. However you do it, let others know what you’re going to work on and by when. Then, update them when it’s done or at the end of the day. The idea is that by checking in with others, you now have skin in the game and your reputation is on the line! It compels you to action.

This idea is one I agree with. Working solo enables one lots of opportunities to rationalise why you’re busy but not achieving what you need to. Having another person you work with in this regard is rewarding and I suspect Raptoplous incorporates this feature heavily within her 30 Day Productivity Challenge.

Overall, the message Raptopoulos conveyed was nothing new and even sounded a bit complicated. I doubt that bothers her. As she says, you need to close the gap between information and action and her program is geared to do just that. I agree with her when she states that you need to commit to implementing what you are learning and what you know ie take action.  

This series has been about being more productive. I do believe the key Robert Plank ideas (4 Things a Day, Accountability) as well as Helen’s ideas about Consistent Actions, Big Plan Blocks and Systems/Ideas/Planning Days will lead you to being more productive.

My recommendation is start with:

  1. Four Things a Day – complete one then the next
  2. Consistent Actions – daily, weekly, monthly activities
  3. Accountability – commit daily then report back

Implement those three habits and I guarantee you’ll be doing way more than you are now.

Oh, and use RTM to make it all happen!

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How To Really Get Your IM Business Rocking

A lot of the time, people at the starting or bottom end of the internet marketing online business chain are not doing much but learning. Some of us become professional learners.

We’re stuck in a state of mad desire to get a business happening and complete inertia – the more you learn the more confused you become and the more you realise there is to learn. We flick from forum to website to article in search of the Holy Grail that will lead us to internet riches.

Well, here’s the news folks.

The riches are right in front of you. What you need to do (and I’m talking to myself here as well!) is to buckle down, have a plan and stick to it until you get results. Then continue working it.

Doesn’t matter whether it’s Article Marketing, Video Marketing, Information Product Creation, Freelancing, Google Adwords or whatever. Every system works. There are people who exist in cyber space who have made money with every conceivable method that exists.

What made them successful?

Having a plan.

Sticking to the plan.

Taking action.

So, let’s get you moving.

Here are my notes from watching a webinar by Robert Plank today. This is a PLAN, it’s a METHOD and each action is DOABLE. You’re going to need to find some time and headspace first.

  1. Free up some time by not watching tv – catch up on Netflix or iTunes or record it and watch it later so you can flick through ads and save time
  2. Be aware of what your weak points are eg not planning your time or procrastinating. Work out a game plan to minimise their effect
  3. Improve your attitude
  4. Talk to yourself better  stop wallowing and feeling sorry for yourself
  5. Focus on what makes you the most money right now or has the potential to and milk it for all it’s worth
  6. Make a schedule to get things done. Have stuff transcribed, have autoresponders written and scheduled, etc

The Plan

ONE – Set yourself up financially

Step 1 – make sure you have at least one months income in the bank to reduce the stress. Get yourelf some freelancing gigs, whatever you can save, work at it

Step 2 – if you have enough in the bank, reduce your debs, especially credit cards.

Step 3 – save on a regular basis for taxes and super – put as much as you can into your retirement fund

The idea is to put a solid cushion behind you to fall back on and reduce finanical issues going forward.

TWO – Start – Make a product

  • Get good at something – be a transcriptionist, writing articles, losing weight, playing golf, whatever
  • Read a book a week to educate your self where you’re lacking knowledge
  • Compile a report showing what you do eg a word document with some photos of your renovations before selling
  • put together a 20-60 minute audio lesson explaining how to do it – real estate, hypnosis – there’s already lots out there but you can do it better

THREE – Get your funnel going

  1. get an autoresponder, set up an optin page
  2. what is it converting at?  make more forum posts to get more traffic
  3. do you have a 10 day follow up sequence? do your new subscribers see your blog posts, your report, your webpage, your sales letter
  4. if you don’t have anything or can’t put anything together, buy PLR, get the rights to sell it and set up a sales page with an active buy button
  5. what’s the sales letter convert at? how do you know? do you know? Make sure you let people know where to find the sales letter
  6. Set up an affiliate program so people can recommend people to your products and promote it for you
  7. if at this point you’re making say $100 from freelancing, $500 from your day job and selling $300 products, then focus on the products. (Build a bigger list, put out more products, get more traffic etc)

FOUR – Set up a coaching program

  1. find someone you can work with to help them for free eg
  2. once you have them as a case study, this becomes version 2

FIVE – Extend

  1. who is in your niche at your level and size to buddy up with?
  2. ask to interview them and tell your subscribers about them – builds the friendship with them
  3. contact one new person a day and figure out how you can talk to them for 20 min – becomes a bonus, a free offer for an opt-in

SIX – Repeat

  1. At this point you should be making more money each month
  2. Don’t need to get into new niche – you already have a passion and are getting paid to do something. Maximise it rather than let it die on the vine and move onto something untested and unproven

MINDSET

  • Your marketing has to be meaningful- just sending out what everyone else is sending won’t cut it
  • Info products will always make money
  • Pick your topics eg embroidery, scrapbooking, guitar lessons, self help, golf, weight loss,
  • Find out what people are buying and check what competitors are doing
  • Build the list, build the relationship, get more traffic, improve your sales letter – you can continue tweaking once it’s all in place.
  • Avoid the scarcity, blaming mentality. Have the idea of abundance – it’s way more empowering.

What if…

  • You could produce a report to sell @ $27 – sell one – that’s one hour of work for $27; sell more than one and your hourly rate automatically increases for the same level of work
  • You set up a Member site @ $97 per month per person  – sell one a day – a much better ROI
  • Get 30 members paying $97 per month – you just replaced your day job. You can then support your family or others, travel, pay more of your debt off, pay out your mortgage, retire earlier, have longer holidays. It all starts with a plan, commitment and action.

What you can achieve

  • 1.1 million words transcribed by others to produce
  • write an article in 7 minutes or less
  • turn one idea into 52 articles
  • produce 50 x 5 minute videos in a  day
  • record 100 articles in a day
  • produce a sales letter in one hour
  • do a blog post in 15 minutes

By doing these things faster you can produce more, build a list faster, get indexed faster, become an authority site.

If what you are doing now is not working, then get yourself more productive. If you’re not now – and I guess you’re not, then grab this. It is a foolproof easy to apply system to get stuff done.

Here’s 5 areas where you might be having issues

  • marketing your products
  • managing your time
  • writing articles
  • creating content
  • producing videos, products and traffic

So, if you want to start getting results, start DOING.

  1. Set a schedule for working on your Online Business DAILY – make it early in the morning for an hour or last thing at night – whatever works best for you but keep it as a commitment and try to keep the same time scheduled so you set up a routine
  2. Write out a plan of what you will PRODUCE over the week and each day eg This week I want to write a year’s worth of blog posts and 20 Articles for Submitting to directories. eg Tuesday I will write 12 blog posts on niche X.
  3. At the appointed time and date, clear your desk, clear your head and do the ONE THING you said you would do. Do it in one batch and get it done. DO NOT check email or forums or social media pages. Just get it done. then go play.

What’s the very next thing you are going to do as a result of reading this post?

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Productivity: Remember The Milk!

I am loving RTM.

I will admit it now. I am a list-maker. I am a BIG list-maker. I make mega lists and they get so big I get overwhelmed and get lost in the volume of what has to be done when.

Robert Plank has tried to get me to stick to the FOUR THINGS philosophy.

I’ve tried lots of to-do list systems, the egg-timer method, the pomadoro technique, Getting Things Done and all types of productivity systems like Franklin Covey, Priority Management and more.

Here’s what I know: ALL the systems work. It’s just that we (I) do not work the system! And hence we get out of control quickly, forget things, procrastinate, end up in a time crunch and don’t get enough done. You know the story.

Well, I rediscovered Remember The Milk after flirting with it years ago. And I think I am about to be a convert. Each time I use it I find a new little way it works and that makes it work so much better. Here’s what I love so far:

  • I can have different lists for different things. (I’m trying to keep these minimal so I don;t get crazy with 101 different lists)
  • I can move things between lists if I get it in the wrong one (select the task, select ‘more actions’ and select ‘move’, or get the Firefox add-in)
  • I can easily set times and dates things are due to be done
  • it automatically sorts my tasks into ‘today’ ‘tomorrow’ etc and I can sort it by a whole lot of other criteria such as priority
  • I can set up Firefox to automatically load my page on start by using LastPass to automatically log me in – that way I start the day with all my tasks for the day as the first thing I see.
  • I can view my tasks in offline mode so I don’t need to be online. I can also print them off if necessary
  • One of the best things is I loaded the iPhone app for RTM and now I have my tasks with me wherever I go and if I get an idea I can jot it into RTM and it will sync with my online task list
  • RTM emails me when a task is due so I won’t forget.

It’s like having a PA, really. So long as I set up the tasks and plug in the info I need I’m good to go! There are a whole lot of other cool things RTM can do as well. I’ve only scratched the surface. The trick is in making the system work for you without becoming a slave to the system. So far so good!

What I also like is that from memory, RTM was the brainchild of some savvy Aussie girl but don’t hold me to that memory chip – it goes back a while.

My Top 7 Productivity Tips

  1. If you want to be more productive, you HAVE to find a system that makes sense to you and that you can work with.
  2. Don’t quit on the system too soon.
  3. Find a system that doesn’t rely on you to make it work (Once I enter the data, RTM takes over!)
  4. When your system tells you to do something, do it, reschedule it, delegate it or delete it
  5. When you schedule, don’t overfill your day or you’ll be forever deferring items
  6. When setting up your tasks make them ‘complete-able’ tasks, ie things you can finish in one sitting – that may just be a chunk of a bigger task.  Tip – thinking, planning and researching are not complete-able tasks! Draft outline of strategic plan is. Identify 5 topics for future blog posts is. Decide and purchase 2 new domain names is. Get the picture?
  7. Schedule some time every day to review your tasks, add new ones and tick off the ‘done’ ones.
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