Posted by Admin on November 26, 2008 under Productivity | 
Quick, what do you think of when you hear about improving your productivity?
If you’re like most folks, the first things that spring to mind likely include productivity-boosting activities like prioritizing your tasks, making to-do lists, careful planning and so on.
These are all important, yes. But here’s one that some people overlook: Creating an environment that’s conducive to high productivity. Here’s how to create your own productive workspace:
* Create a cone of silence. If you’re having to stop continuously to answer the phone, answer the door, answer email and answer your child’s questions, you won’t get anything done. That’s why you need to clear out the distractions and create a “cone of silence” in your workspace.
If you’re working from home and you others living in the house, it’s probably next to impossible to have an entirely distraction-free day. Instead, set up specific hours where family members and friends can’t interrupt you. Tell them it’s no different than if you worked away from home at an office.
* Clear the clutter. One person’s idea of clean is another person’s idea of chaotic clutter. And that’s ok. The idea here isn’t to create a workspace that meets someone else’s idea of clutter-free. Instead, you should strive to create a workspace that’s organized in such a way that you can find things fast.
If that means you use shoe boxes stacked five feet high in lieu of a file cabinet, so be it. As long as you can quickly get to the papers you need when you need them – and as long as you’re comfortable with the LOOK of your workspace – then that’s all that matters.
>>> Bottom line: Create your workspace for you, not to impress someone else. <<<
* Own your workspace. Another thing you can do to make it easier to get things done in your workspace is to “own” it. That means you put up pictures, knick-knacks, and whatever else makes you feel like this is YOUR workspace.
If there are other people living in your house, ask that this space be truly yours. That way other people’s papers, books and other items don’t take over your area, nor do your resources and other items get pushed aside.
If you don’t feel good about your workspace (and if your workspace doesn’t make you feel good, creative and energetic), then you need to make changes. Sometimes it’s as simple as making sure your room is the right color and that you’re getting the right amount of lighting (including natural light).
Make these small changes, and I guarantee your productivity will soar!
Posted by Admin on November 17, 2008 under Marketing |
Now before you even start, please consider the following factor carefully, or you’ll have tons of headaches further down the road (from my personal experiences).
The most significant decision that you’ll have to make in setting up your email marketing business is about list management.
You can decide to do this on your own by using an autoresponder script that you can purchase or go with a web-based company on a subscription basis.
An autoresponder can be regarded as an email robot.
It automatically sends an email response to an email request. If you send an email to an autoresponder address you automatically receive a prewritten emailed response. In the early days only one response could be provided. If a person sent an email request, they received just one message back.
Auto responders provided by most ISPs still work this way by providing an automatic response such as a message saying that you are away on vacation and will return the email later.
A full-fledged autoresponder will be able to provide an unlimited number of follow up emails to a request for more information triggered by the prospect filling a form or sending an email to the auto responder’s address.
Now let us look at some of the advantages of doing this with your own installed autoresponder script:
All your emails will have your website URL in the links and so you’ll be branding your own website.
You are in full control of your email list and so don’t have to worry about another company losing their database and in the process lose your list.
You will only have to pay for the script once, which will be cheaper than paying for an ongoing subscription service.
Depending on the license agreement you can set up autoresponders on as many domains that you own and so further target your lists.
You don’t have to share domain with other list owners whose spamming practices may jeopardize other members of the same service.
You are allowed more flexibility than a company would provide. In other words companies normally have rules to safeguard the company and not the customers. For example you may be limited to a certain number of email imports per month.
In essence you have full control and can make rapid adjustment as you see fit and are independent of another company’s rules. If you choose to use a company to host your lists there are important advantages as well.
Let us look at them now:
A company that specializes in email marketing will have more technical expertise that will save you having to learn to install and maintain a script.
One of the major advantages today of using a company is that they know how to fight all the over zealous SPAM measures that sometimes filters out legitimate emails. In other words, a company will get a listening ear quicker from AOL than just an individual business owner. This is becoming a major factor as email response has dropped considerably because of filtering software and so called black-listing.
If you are just starting out you are not required the upfront investment as when you buy a script. A good autoresponder script may cost $200, whereas an autoresponder subscription service may just run you $20 per month. By the time you are in profit the autoresponder service will be able to pay for itself.
Most companies have an affiliate program that you can join and so recruit other users, turning a needed service into an income opportunity.
Those are the major advantages and you must choose what is more important to you. If you are not a ‘techie’ you should definitely go with the company service since the learning curve is less steep.
Some people like to know that they have full control and so will prefer to use a script that they can install the fully control.
In my case, I’m definitely not a ‘techie’ and thus have opted for an external service. The main one I’m using is from Aweber and it has proved extremely reliable thus far.
The real challenge today with the SPAM filters and the low response rate of email marketing as a result is email deliverability.
More and more marketers are finding that using a company service increases the chances of their email getting through.
Besides Aweber, I also offer an autoresponder through my membership site at PersonalTrainerToolbox.com.
Now, whatever route you take you’ll have to learn how to integrate an email capture form within your website.
The HTML code is normally generated by the autoresponder service.
You simply have to cut and paste this into your web page where you want the form to appear. You will also have to choose an email address that will trigger the auto-response email. But this is as technical as it will get.
Here is a chart of how your basic cash windfall system
should look like:
CONTACT POINTS > OPT-IN Forms > AUTORESPONDER > LIST Manager > FOLLOW UP Messages > CUSTOMER LIST > Make cash in back-end sales!
The contact points are all the places from which you may get new leads. We’ll look at those in the following chapter.
The opt-in forms are the signup forms integrated into your website where someone can register to receive more information from you. You can place these at as many web pages as is feasible.
This should be a primary function of any website that you own – collect email addresses.
Your autoresponder will then send out a series of messages from which you can now generate a customer list. So you start by generating a prospect list from which you’ll farm your customer list.
Your customer list will of necessity always be smaller than your prospect list. Your prospect list is all the interest that your ad has generated and your customer list will be those who had trusted you enough to purchase from you.
Again, remember that your customer list is now where the money lies buried and from which you can mine the gold. All marketing test have shown that when an individual is interested in a particular subject they’ll buy several products based on the same subject.
For example just think about how many products there are on personal money management. And new books keep coming out all the time. The point here is that if your customer bought a workout ebook from you then you could even sell them a DVD on workout programs!
Just think about the books you may have in your library. I’m sure that you have more than one book on your favorite subject.
The point here is that when your customer makes a purchase you can then promote another business’ product that is related to yours and make a commission or affiliate sale.
This is where the windfalls normally happen – in the back-end!
