http://www.destiny-entrepreneur.com
INTRODUCTION 1. Why I Started 2. My Vision 3. My Online Presence 4. The Tools I Use 5. The Effectiveness Of My Online Presence 6. My Monthly Tasks 7. My Weekly Tasks 8. My Daily Tasks CONCLUSION
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The last 12 months have been in some cases the most challenging and in other cases the most rewarding experiences of my personal and professional life. Looking back, I am grateful for the experiences I had even though at the time, some of the challenges I faced felt like they were breaking me down to levels I had not experienced before. It all started in May 2016 when a colleague whose career I had followed and supported, decided I was not longer of value. My career in the corporate world had provided me with amazing opportunities which included travelling the world. I had not only visited over 30 countries but also had the opportunity to live and work in The Netherlands from 2007 to 2011 after which I returned home to South Africa to continue my career growth. In 2015 I was offered the opportunity to take my career to the next level with a position in the United Kingdom. I once again packed up my belongings and moved to the UK where I had settled in for the next level in my corporate career then, the blow in May 2016 saw my contract being cancelled. I must admit that the first 2 months after that I was in shock as I never expected this from a 26-year long friendship with my colleague. My saving grace was that for the last 10 years I had spent a lot of time and effort in improving my personal development and I soon realized that how this affected me was in my hands and not his. I snapped out of the shock zone and decided that there was a message in this event, there was something to be learnt. The lesson soon became clear‌ my success is in my hands. My future is in my hands. My happiness is in my hands. The time had come for me to take full control of my personal and financial freedom and not allow someone else to influence how successful I was. I was putting in the work and commitment so why should someone else have the power to change that‌ overnight.
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Once that message had become clear, the question now was… what will I do? I looked inward for that answer and by listening to my intuition, it became apparent that the best and most secure way to do this would be through having my own business where I was in full control of my personal and financial freedom. This is where the Internet came in as I started researching business start-ups to identify what would work for me. Over the coming weeks and months, I would come across website after website offering the best “system” for creating wealth online and as I am not one to push things aside without trying, I tried numerous systems, resources and methods. Nothing was working and time was ticking by as my contract terms meant I would have enough finances for 3 months to continue my current lifestyle without an income but, I only had weeks left. I once again dug deep to find the strength and motivation to keep pushing forward, keep asking the tough questions, keep seeking answers. Fortunately, my corporate connections where in the hundreds and I was offered a position by one of the competitors and it happened to also be in the UK. That was a relief as there was no relocation necessary. Despite this challenged being addressed, for some reason, my intuition was telling me that this was not the answer. I once again looked inward for the answer and as it always has, it came to me… the corporate world will not provide me with the personal and financial freedom I long for. It will, as it has for the last 26 years, use me, chew me up and spit me out. Apart from that, the working days were getting longer and my personal time had become a small part of my daily life. This was not what I wanted. This is not what life is about. I wanted time with my sons, my family, my friends and for doing the things I love. The corporate world will not provide that. http://www.destiny-entrepreneur.com
I took the position but I continued my search for what my own business would look like. After trying a few more online opportunities, I came across the most amazing community of successful online entrepreneurs. What they were offering was not completely different to other opportunities I had come across. What sold me was their vision: Most people live the life they think they have to live. They are unfulfilled, overworked, stressed and stuck in a system that exploits them instead of helping them achieve their highest potential. They get the education they think they need to get the job society says they should want. Unfortunately, most lack the life skills required to be self-made and selfreliant. Our vision is to wake up millions of people to realize the tremendous potential that lies within themselves. And further, to show them how to harness and exploit this potential in the new, digital economy. In doing so, they will transition from reliance on their current job or occupation to a life of freedom, self-reliance, and total control. They will do good in the world by creating wealth and abundance not only for themselves, but also for their communities and those around them.
The vision above set off the entrepreneur within me and my mind was racing in all directions. The is exactly what I had been looking for. Right there and then I made one of the toughest decisions I have made in my life‌ I was leaving the corporate world to create my own personal and financial freedom on my terms. Making that decision with commitment, set my entrepreneurial and intuitive mind in motion. I joined the community and over the next 2-3 weeks I would go through the extensive training required to create my own business on my terms. The first task I was given in the training was to identify my “whyâ€?. The focus was on why I wanted to start my own business. What would drive me to commit all I am to this mission?
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The training, tasks, workshops and support that followed helped me identify my vision through realizing my talents, skills, strengths and driving forces. This was the first time I was being taken down this route by an online community as previous opportunities were only interested in teaching me how to sell their business. Sure, this paid commissions but, ultimately I was building their business and not mine. I was taken on a journey of self-discovery to identify what would drive me to get out of bed every day and put in the time and effort on my own business but, working on something I love which in turn meant, it did not feel like work. “Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life!” – Confucius This exercise made me realize that if there was one thing that made me feel on top of the world it was to help others achieve what they wanted. I have always been one to look at how my actions, my work, my words help others achieve what they want. I get immense pleasure and fulfilment from watching others achieve success in whatever way possible. My vision became… To help as many people as I can to get what they want, provided they want my help, then I will get what I want! The best way to do this was going to be through an online business platform that allowed me to further develop my skill set in ways that would make me an online entrepreneur in:
Personal Development
Business Start-ups
Social Media Management
These were my strengths and I all needed to do was sharpen my tools then put my vision into action.
http://www.destiny-entrepreneur.com
Once I completed the task of identifying my “why”, it was now time to start creating my plan, my roadmap, on what my business looked like. The next few training modules inclusive of live online workshops, took me through the tasks required to achieve this. I watched how day after day, my future was becoming clearer and I was starting to feel the fulfilment this would bring. I was without a doubt on the right track. This is what I am meant to do. This is who I am! Within 4 weeks of joining the most amazing community of online entrepreneurs I had ever come across, my future looked bright, I had an action plan and it was time to set it in motion. What made the journey even more enjoyable was that I was not alone. My mentors where there to support me and… continue to be there to date.
Once I had my vision and action plan in place it was now time to start building my online presence… my brand. The training modules and workshops that followed provided me with new tools and sharpened my existing skill set to enable me to build my online business. In January 2017 Destiny Entrepreneur was born. This was the beginning of my journey to personal and financial freedom on my terms. What at first seemed like a task that would take months, became one that took weeks thanks to the training and support I was given.
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My online presence now includes:
www.destiny-entrepreneur.com – My home online and my blog.
www.facebook.com/destinyentrepreneur - My page on Facebook with 4352 followers and growing (accurate as of the 29th May 2017).
www.internet-laptop-lifestyle.com – The portal I use to introduce others to my mentors.
www.digital-economy-entrepreneur.com – Proving those who are interested with the power of the digital economy to create their own personal and financial freedom.
www.lifestyle-design-academy.com – My own online education portal on personal development, business start-ups and social media marketing.
The extensive, detailed training provided by my mentors also highlighted the importance of creating my brand online through the biggest, most valuable social media platforms and I now have a presence on:
Facebook with 4352 followers
Twitter with 266 followers
LinkedIn with 246 connections
Pinterest with 341 followers
5 Instagram accounts with over 6000 followers combined
Google+ profile
Issuu profile with 8927 impressions to date
Quora profile with over 11000 views
Slideshare profile with over 150 views to date
YouTube channel with 126 videos and 468 views to date
(* statistics above are accurate as of the 29th May 2017)
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Twitter post
LinkedIn post
Some Instagram Accounts
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Google+
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YouTube
Building an online presence was an important task to carry out and with the valuable training, tools, resources and support provided by my mentors my goal was achieved and Destiny Entrepreneur has a presence online in more ways than one. This is something that in January of 2017 I had very little knowledge of but now, I have the skill set to create, build and expand my online brand. All this was achieved between the 11th January 2017 and the 29th May 2017. I would have never thought this possible but, it is now my reality.
I have a collection of tools and resources that enable me to create and manage my online presence in all the forms that it has taken. Majority of these were either recommended by or formed part of the tools provided by my mentors on joining the community.
Business Start-up Bundle – The training I obtained for my online business
Digital Business Lounge – Internet marketing platform
Simple Lead Capture – Lead capture page creation
Graphix Creator – Create stunning graphics without Photoshop
My Lead Bar – Social media linking made easy
List Building – Methods to build profitable and responsive lists http://www.destiny-entrepreneur.com
WordPress – Most popular website building and hosting platform
Draw Plus – Graphics design software
VideoPad Video Editor – Video editing software
Microsoft Word, Excel & PowerPoint
FaceBook – Although this is not seen as a tool by many, it is the most important tool in my daily, weekly and monthly routines.
I measure the effectiveness of my online presence through my Facebook page as this is where most of my activity takes place. The reason being that Facebook is by far the most visited social media platform globally and has become a household name. I decided this would be my main platform for building my brand and providing the services I offer. With 4352 followers, my reach is amazing when compared to a traditional brick and mortar business.
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My posts reach 3555 people every day on average and I receive between 250 and 300 page likes per week. This provides me with continued growth in prospects and what is more important is that these prospects are from all over the world. That is the beauty of running an online business in the digital economy. I currently have followers from:
South Africa
Botswana
India
Portugal
Unites States of America
United kingdom
Namibia
Spain
Canada
…And the list grows weekly. This may be hard to believe but all this is now achieved with 1-2 hours work a day, Monday to Friday. Granted that is not what it was like in the beginning when I started off and was in the process of setting myself up. Initially with all the training, workshops, webinars and designing I did, I was working 4-6 hours a day and even at night but, it was well worth it as only 5 months down the line I have personal freedom to do what I like as I literally only work 1-2 hours a day, 5 days a week. That is why I started and with commitment and initial hard work, I have achieved what was and is not possible in the corporate world. In the corporate world to achieve freedom you must work longer hours which in fact, gives you no freedom to enjoy the fruits of your labour. I am an early riser and have always been. I am up at 6am and by 6:30am I am on my second cup of coffee and carrying out my daily tasks. By 9am the latest I am done for the day and can do as I wish while my business continues to run online on autopilot. That is Freedom!
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My monthly tasks consist of maintaining my online business as well as creating new content for my blog and Facebook page. I also spend some time on innovation and analysis of the data I get from my many online platforms. My tasks consist of the following:
New articles for my blog
Motivational quotes for my Facebook page
Videos for my Facebook page
Free reports on valuable information for online entrepreneurs
Sharing success stories from other sources online
Providing tools and resources to start-ups
Sourcing, testing and creating new products for my Lifestyle Design Academy online education portal
Research into online entrepreneurial methods currently in use
Analysis of statistics from my websites and Facebook page to determine what is working and what requires attention
Placing of adverts on Facebook
In total these tasks would take me on average 4-5 days per month working 4-5 hours per day.
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My weekly tasks are dependent on which part of the month I am in. I tend to split the different tasks to maintain focus on what I am working on. I will use one week for content creation, one week for statistics analysis and research, one week for advertisement creation and market analysis and one week for scheduling of my content. For each week, I will work 2-3 hours per day for 5 days. This makes the monthly tasks manageable while at the same time ensuring I have the freedom to live life rather than spend majority of my time making a living.
My daily tasks are much the same each day from Monday to Friday. The first task is to publish the article for the day on my blog. This will already be in draft format as it was created during my week of content creation ahead of time. With the submission of the blog post, it is also submitted to LinkedIn, Twitter and Google+ at the same time automatically. I then head over to my Facebook page where I post the article. This could also be carried out automatically however, I prefer to personalise the message on the post. I then convert the article to PDF format for submission to Issuu. Once that is complete, I visit Quora to determine if there are any questions/queries that I can contribute towards. http://www.destiny-entrepreneur.com
That is basically my daily tasks complete and all within 20-30 minutes. I then browse through my Facebook page to answer any comments or queries there may be as well as see how the previous day’s posts have performed. Apart from my articles, all other posts to my Facebook page are scheduled ahead of time which means my page has fresh content 3-5 times a day without me having to be online. I will then browse through my personal Facebook timeline to see if there are any posts worth sharing on my page. My work for the day is complete. Now that is what I call freedom!
The digital economy has without a doubt provided me with the freedom I was looking for. I would never have thought that I could run an online business by working just a few hours a day. The beauty is that my online business is live 24/7 for 365 days of the year without having to be present. The amount of automation that can be created for an online business provides me with the time freedom to do what I want, when I want, with whom I want. The corporate world never offered and never could offer the same fulfilment I now feel.
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Every day more and more people wonder about what they would sell on the Internet but, we tend to forget that we all have a product to sell…. The products is YOU! You have talents, knowledge and skills that you can use as products. We live in the information age and you will have information others want and need. Find a way to share it and if you do it online, you have a business!
You will find 100’s if not 1000’s of websites offering you the “best” online opportunity to make money “fast” but, I found one that offers you an education, tools, resources and the support for you to build your own personal and financial freedom on your terms. I do not and will not recommend anything I have either not tried or do not use myself because I am not willing to sell my integrity or brand for money. I have invested heavily on my brand and it is my passion. I can live a life of freedom working a maximum of 10-15 hours a week and my mission is to show as many people as possible what I have learnt and use in the hope that they too can create the lifestyle of their dreams. All it takes is… THE DECISION TO DO IT!
Yours in Online Success Carlos Batista – DESTINY ENTREPRENEUR
http://www.destiny-entrepreneur.com