13 Proven Writing Tips for Blogging Success How to Add Landing Page Videos to Increase Conversion How to Unleash Your Online Business’s Full Potential Can You Have It All?
3 Reasons Blogging Is Essential for Web Traffic MotivationandSuccess.com August 2019 FREE
Developing Your Motivational Voice and Challenging the Law of Attraction with David Essel
Marketing Calendar - 3 Four Steps to Improve Your Market Research in an Attention Economy - 4 Is Procrastination Killing Your Retirement? -8 3 Reasons Blogging Is Essential for Web Traffic - 9 Can You Have It All? - 11 13 Proven Writing Tips for Blogging Success - 13 How Social Media Affects Businesses - 15 Developing Your Motivational Voice and Challenging the Law of Attraction with David Essel - 17 How to Add Landing Page Videos to Increase Conversion - 26 How to Keep Financial and Tax Records Safe to Avoid a Nightmare in Case of Disaster - 29 How to Unleash Your Online Business’s Full Potential - 30 Infographic -Colors as Marketing Tools - 34
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Marketing Calendar Plan your marketing messages around these upcoming holidays and proclamations.
August Children’s Eye Health and Safety Month Foot Health Month Happiness Happens Month Medic Alert Month Motorsports Awareness Month National Golf Month National Immunization Awareness Month Bargain Hunting Week - August 5-11 International Clown Week - August 1-7 International Assistance Dog Week - August 4-10 Elvis Week - August 9-17 Be Kind to Humankind Week - August 25-31 1st - Girlfriend’s Day 1st - Spider-Man Day 2nd - International Beer Day 3rd - Watermelon Day 4th - Chocolate Chip Cookie Day
4th - Friendship Day 6th - National Night Out 8th - International Cat Day 10th - Lazy Day 10th - S’mores Day 10th - Spoil Your Dog Day 10th - Bowling Day 10th - National Garage Sale Day 12th - Vinyl Record Day 13th - International Lefthander’s Day 17th - International Homeless Animals Day 17th - World Honey Bee Day 18th - Serendipity Day 21st - Senior Citizen’s Day 25th - Banana Split Day 26th - Dog Day 26th - Women’s Equality Day 28th - National Bow Tie Day 30th - Frankenstein Day 31st - Eat Outside Day
September National Guide Dog Month Hispanic Heritage Month Baby Safety Month Self Improvement Month Shameless Promotion Month Sep 2 - Labor Day (U.S.) Sep 11 - Patriot Day (U.S.) 4th - Wildlife Day 5th - Cheese Pizza Day 6th - Read A Book Day 7th - Beard Day 8th - Hug Your Hound Day 8th - Grandparent’s Day 9th - Teddy Bear Day 12th - Video Games Day 12th - Chocolate Milkshake Day 13th - Scooby-Doo Day 14th - Eat a Hoagie Day 15th - Citizenship Day 3
16th - Wife Appreciation Day 18th - Cheeseburger Day 19th - Talk Like A Pirate Day 21st - Puppy Mill Awareness Day 21st - Thank a Police Officer Day 21st - Big Whopper Liar Day 21st - World’s Alzheimer’s Day 23rd - Autumnal Equinox 22nd - Ice Cream Cone Day 23rd - Family Day 25th - Comic Book Day 25th - One Hit Wonder Day 26th - Pancake Day 27th - Chocolate Milk Day 27th - Google’s Birthday 28th - Batman Day 28th - Drink Beer Day 28th - Good Neighbor Day 29th - Coffee Day 29th - VFW Day
Four Steps to Improve Your Market Research in an Attention Economy As most local business owners know, creating marketing that resonates with audiences is really difficult. Even good campaigns can go unnoticed because consumers are inundated with information and aren’t sure what brands or products to give their attention to. When faced with too many choices, we often feel stressed out and confused. In that state, we are more likely to pay attention to nothing at all. Here’s more bad news for marketers: It doesn’t matter how good your marketing campaign is if you can’t catch your audience’s attention and keep it long enough for consumers to take action. There’s not much you can do about the sheer number of demands your audience faces. In an attention economy, everyone is fighting for consumers’ attention, yet consumers have finite attention to give. 4
In order to capture consumer attention, effective marketing must be so compelling to a market segment that they can’t help but focus on it. Think of it this way: A flower bed filled with white flowers will render each individual flower rather unremarkable. Anyone viewing the bed will only see a group of flowers. But if you plant one pink flower in the bed, you’ll pull the viewer’s attention toward it. In fact, they’ll find it difficult to focus on anything else. In a world of white flowers, the most effective marketers will be the single pink flower in a sea of white. To do this kind of targeted marketing that will draw and hold consumer attention, you’ll need a strong and effective research process. You won’t stand out in a crowded marketplace unless you know exactly what your target consumer base needs to see and hear in order to fully capture their attention. Here are four steps you can implement right now to improve your 5
market research. Once you have your market research completed, you can create marketing strategies that will stand out in a noisy marketplace where attention is almost impossible to capture. 1. Develop a Research Process It doesn’t matter how much research you do or how good it is if you don’t have a process in place for collecting, recording, and using it. Create a detailed research plan that includes the following information: • What information do you need to know about your target audience? • Where can you find that information? (Focus on low-cost methods first. You may find that much of the information you need is easily available.) • How will you record that information in a way that makes it easily accessible to anyone who needs it? • How will you make
the information you find digestible and usable for marketing strategists, designers, and copywriters? • What kind of primary research will you do? (This might include interviews, focus groups, observations, and/or surveys). • What kind of secondary research will you do? (This might include website analysis, brand analysis, and/or review of scholarly research-academic journals often include helpful studies that are applicable in practice, but largely ignored by companies). • What is your timeline for collecting information? • Who is responsible for conducting the research? 2. Record Information in a Usable Way Before you start collecting information, figure out how you plan to record the information you collect. Research is not
helpful if the person conducting it fails to hear or see key points that are worth noting. Likewise, research isn’t helpful if the researcher records absolutely everything. You’ll end up with so much superfluous information that you won’t know what matters and what doesn’t when it comes to using the information. There are easy things you can do right now that will ensure you are picking up the right information and recording it in a usable format: • Identify key categories of information you want to obtain before you begin your research. For example, you probably want consumer demographic data, psychographics, and competitor analysis (among other things). Create a document with these categories. • Within each major category, create subcategories of types of information. For example, in your psychographic 6
category, you probably want information about consumers’ passions, fears, hopes, and biases. You definitely want to know what your target audience pays attention to and what they ignore. To do so, create sub-pages in your document for each sub-category within your major categories. • As you conduct primary and/or secondary research, record your findings in the appropriate category and subcategory of your document. Include a parenthetical for each entry that indicates where the information came from. Think of it as a modified citation.
Information will be easy to find and easy to use this way. 3. Create Personas If you want your marketing campaign to stand out, you need to make sure you are targeting specific audience segments. If you focus too broadly, you’ll end up speaking to nobody in particular. Your chances of being noticed will be quite small. Personas are an excellent (and low-cost way) of making sure that your strategies are narrowly targeted. Based on the research you collected, create three or four personas that represent a very specific segment of your target audience.
Use an image of an individual (a stock photo • Keep a separate is fine) and create a story master list of about that individual information sources. based on what you know That could include would likely be true about survey results, that person. Be sure to transcribed interviews, give the person a name and/or publications. to make referring to them easy. Once you complete your research, you’ll have a Your previous research will robust document with be invaluable here as you information that’s already make informed decisions organized into categories. about your ideal target
consumer persona. Every choice you make as you create your persona’s story should be based on the research you completed. For example, if your company wants to get the attention of Gen Z’ers, create a profile of the most typical Gen Z consumer. What does that person like? What do they fear? What do they avoid? How much free time do they have? What things compete for their attention? Each of your persona documents should be about a page or two long and organized with clear headings and subheadings.
line of copy, every design decision, every media buy can be “tested” against the personas. Would “Mike” respond to this? Would “Alexis” notice that? 4. Test Your Ideas Personas are an invaluable market tool, but they are only as good as the research you used to create them. Create a small marketing piece based on a persona and then test them on focus groups that share at least five key characteristics with your persona.
Show your focus group your marketing piece along with a competitor marketing piece they Remember: Don’t create likely wouldn’t be familiar more than three or four with. (If no such thing personas. If you can’t exists, create a mock-up narrow your target audience down to three or for a competitor product four specific personas, you or service using similar are marketing too broadly. strategies as existing pieces). That means you need to go back to your research to determine who is your After distracting your focus group for a short niche consumer. time (you can show a short unrelated video or Once your personas are ask them to do a series of complete, refer back to them for every marketing tasks), survey them to find out what they remember decision you make. Every 7
from the marketing pieces you showed earlier. You’ll know based on the survey whether or not your piece captured their attention. If they remember key ideas from your piece, you’ll know that you are correctly aiming your strategies at your personas. If you haven’t captured your focus group’s attention, it’s time to do further research on your target market, revise your personas, and/or tweak your marketing strategy to better meet the personas’ preferences. Good market research is the key to ensuring that you are targeting a narrow audience. Capturing the attention of that audience is the biggest challenge marketers are facing today. A strong research process with a method for using that research is the edge you need to be noticed in a crowded space of marketing that all looks the same to the overwhelmed consumer. Make it impossible for your audience not to notice you.
Is Procrastination Killing Your Retirement? By Dennis M. Postema
If you haven’t started saving for retirement yet, if saving money is still just another task on your todo list, then your future is in trouble. The key to securing any successful retirement is in starting early and saving regularly. If, instead, you think that you’ll simply save more later and catch up, you’re probably in for a big, unhappy surprise. Why Saving Early Matters During your working life, it takes you one full year to earn the money that you live on. Yet, during that year, you are also supposed to be saving enough to draw an income after you retire. Let’s say you make $40,000 a year. Most retirement calculators will tell you that you need 70 percent 8
of that to live on after you retire. That’s a total of $28,000 per year you’ll need to draw out of your retirement savings. If you retire at age 65 and your life expectancy is 85, you would need roughly $560,000 saved in order to draw that annual $28,000. When you start saving early, you can put just a little bit away and allow it to grow for 40 or more years. The interest your savings earns each year compounds, thus building on itself over and over again, which makes these seemingly unattainable goals more realistic.
That takes a big chunk out of the $560,000 you need. If you then stopped making any contributions and the money continued to grow at the same rate, you’d have $512,392.50 by the time you retired.
Let’s look at some hard numbers. If you started saving $400 a month at age 25, then by age 40 you’d have $119,386.75 if the savings was invested and grew at 6 percent.
So next week, why not make a change? Why not set up your regular weekly IRA and 401(k) contributions and finally cross retirement planning off your list?
But what if you wait until you’re 40 to start saving? Putting away over half a million in just 25 years, even with growth of 6 percent, means you must save $800 per month. This is a far more difficult task than simply saving that original $400 per month for 15 years and then letting it sit and grow.
3 Reasons Blogging Is Essential for Web Traffic Most brands now appreciate the need to have a website to either sell products and services directly or providing more information on their business, however, it only makes sense to have that web presence if you can ensure regular traffic. One of the best ways of getting users onto your website is through a company blog that is updated on a regular basis. The following article looks at the importance of content marketing for your website. 1. Users are looking for useful information 9
Of course, buying
decisions are made online through various sites. However, social media users are looking for information first of all, and that’s the trend your business needs to take advantage of. For example, if you are using a social media site such as Twitter, you will have more luck pointing users to information they are looking for. Take the example of a marketing agency; you may think the best strategy is to push your services in front of a potential client. However, you need to keep in mind that it’s a competitive field with
many companies offering these services. What you can do with content marketing is demonstrate your expertise through a blog post offering tips to business clients. The advantage is that it’s not selling your services directly, adding value that could lead to sales in the future. 2. You need material for other forms of digital marketing As suggested in the first point, blogging plays an essential part in providing content for your digital channels. Promoting your latest blog post on social media can bring users to
your website based on providing information rather than merely trying to make a sale. The same is true with your email and mobile marketing; your latest blog post offers a compelling reason for a user to visit your website. It’s essential to do your homework here as well because potential clients may only be interested in your latest blog post if it’s relevant to them. Therefore, delve into your Google Analytics and social media analytics to determine which topics interest your core audience. Once you have done that, you will have a much better chance of creating content they will love. 3. Content marketing is more effective at selling your services than advertising
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There is still a transition going on between more traditional advertising techniques and online advertising. One of the significant problems is users tend not to like banner ads and, in any case, ad blocking software means they may not appear at all. As mentioned, a well-written blog provides useful
information, but it also serves to get users onto your website. They may purchase your products or services while they are there. In terms of getting users onto your site in the first place, guest blogging on other sites is something that is likely to be more successful in pushing traffic your way than generic ads. Not to mention social media content, which is sometimes known as microblogging. Content marketing is often free to do, and even if you do promote content, it is typically far more cost effective than traditional advertising. Have a look at your website and consider adding a blog if you don’t have one already. If you are already blogging, then think about whether you are active enough and how well you are attuned to your visitors. Remember that users are looking for useful information; you need material for other forms of digital marketing, and content marketing is more effective at selling your services than advertising.
Motivation & Success
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Can You Have It All? By Dennis M. Postema
Everyone wants it all—I know I do! But is it really possible? Can a person be successful, have lots of money, have a happy family, great friends and a loving relationship? It may seem impossible, but it isn’t. Yes, you can have it all!
to believe in yourself and your abilities, and to start allowing your subconscious mind to envision a life beyond the norm. You are better than your conscious mind thinks you are. Now it’s time to believe that and put your subconscious mind to work.
visionaries; they could see something others couldn’t and they worked toward proving their dreams to the world. Most were ridiculed until they proved they were right and gave society the impossible.
Achieving your dreams is possible and I’m going to What Is Your Reality? show you how in the days Steering the Course of to come by teaching you Reality is what you make Consciousness to steer the course of your it. If you want a hot career, conscious mind through family and love, you can Don’t be afraid to dream the subconscious mind get them but it’s going to of the impossible, because via a simple technique take some determination the impossible doesn’t designed decades ago. and old-fashioned hard actually exist. Anything work. You’ll also need to is possible with a little Ready to get started? start thinking in a different ingenuity. Think about Great! Today, think about way. Normal, everyday all the great scientists where you want your life thinking isn’t enough to and inventors of the to go and what you want design the ultimate life past. These were not to accomplish. Next week, you want. extraordinary people. I’ll start teaching you how Some weren’t even to get there. Having it all requires you geniuses. They were
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13 Proven Writing Tips for Blogging Success
Blog writing is an art where you can try to be as creative as possible. Yet, there are some rules that you should follow regardless of your niche. Below are thirteen tips that you can apply to the process of blog writing to achieve continued blog growth. 1. Always work according to a plan. The planning process includes doing the required research, mapping out ideas, categorizing those ideas, and then putting them in good order. 2. A great blog post is anatomically correct. The anatomy of a blog post is comprised of a killer title, subheadings, relevant internal links, images, social sharing buttons, call-to-action (top and/ or bottom), etc. 3. If you’re blogging for money or business, each of your blog posts should have a goal. While you write with specific objectives in mind, you should also focus on the right metrics for measuring the ROI effectively.
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4. Effective blog writing also requires razorsharp focus. Before you start writing blog posts, you should have a clear idea about your target audience, their key interests, and their problems.
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8. It’s not the number of words that count while you’re writing blog posts. It’s the idea or the originality of the content that matters. Sometimes, you can express your idea in just 200 or 300 words. At other times, you may need to write more than 5. A blog writer should 500 words. Don’t focus on never ignore the SEO part. the number of words. Stop A search engine optimized writing as soon as you feel blog post does better with you have said enough. search engines, bringing your blog the maximum 9. Though you may feel number of visitors you can tempted to appeal to a get from keyword visits. much larger audience, Therefore, you need to pay it’s highly recommended good attention to writing that you stick to your the metadata, particularly own niche. You should the meta description understand the difference which search engines use between specialists in SERPs. and generalists. Focus on becoming a niche 6. Use images that convey specialist if you want to feelings, emotions, or make more money. message. The best idea is to evoke curiosity with 10. Experiment with your images among different types of posts. your blog readers while By doing so, you’ll create complementing the variety on your blog as headline or the title of the well as discover what blog post. works best. Try writing how-to posts, news posts, 7. Choose to write on definition posts, list posts, those topics that you case studies, comparison are really passionate posts, research posts, and about. And remember controversial posts, among that passion comes from others. knowledge, so make sure you know about the topics 11. Use bullet points that you write about as wherever required. Bullet well. points work well because they grab the readers’
attention, make data easy to understand, and make referencing the main points at a later date easier. 12. Though it’s important to make your blog writing as informative as possible, it doesn’t mean you should bore readers. You can create the entertainment quotient regardless of the topics you cover. All it needs is a little amount of creativity. Make sure your blog readers have some fun as well. 13. Make it easy for your blog readers to interact. Whether it’s about talking to each other or connecting with you, interaction is the key to early blogging success. So, don’t ignore readers ever. Conclusion Every time you put your fingers on the keyboard of your computer, you should try to write blog posts in a way that quickly attracts the attention of blog readers and keeps them coming back for more. Following these tips will help you sharpen your writing skills and create a closer connection with the audience.
How Social Media Affects Businesses Social media has greatly impacted the relationship between businesses and consumers in many ways. With the rapid increase in users, social media has allowed for companies to be able to connect with consumers in a more personal way. It has also allowed for companies to advertise a wider audience of people. With the recent growth of social media, it has become more important for companies to have social media profiles, especially smaller businesses. Here are five 15
reasons why smaller businesses should involve social media into their marketing strategies in order to compete with larger businesses.
age group that has the least number of users, people over the age of 65, is increasing their user percentage every day. Having this amount of exposure increases Exposure to a Wide the amount of brand Demographic recognition greatly. Consumers are more One of the many benefits likely to choose a service that social media can from a company that bring to a small company they recognize and hear is the opportunity to bring positive feedback about. more brand awareness. By having a social media Although social media platform, businesses are attracts more of a younger able to target a wider demographic, people of audience of people than all ages use it. Even the if they chose to stick to
more traditional ways of marketing.
to a social media profile. Rather than having to email or call the business Main News Source directly, these profiles allow for users to receive Although people still use timely responses. How newspapers and news quickly a customer articles today, many receives a response can people use social media as ultimately affect the their main source for news. reputation of the company People prefer social media as well as its customer as their main news outlet loyalty. because it is convenient and more personal. Social Trustworthiness media platforms are free to all users, so therefore Social media is an people find using social important factor in terms media as a better financial of the reputation and trust option rather than paying it has with its consumers. for more traditional forms Social media is powerful of news. Through social in that it can alter people’s media, people can post opinions as well as about recent news events consumer behavior. frequently, while receiving feedback to be able to Because social media form opinions about a has the ability to spread business. information in a short amount of time, it can Easier to Communicate also change people’s perception of a business. Social media has It allows people to get allowed for people to a sense if the company communicate with keeps its promises in the businesses. These sites real world. These opinions are making it much easier are very important when for people to direct their it comes to the overall customer service concerns success of a company. 16
Easy Access to Competition Social media can be an easy way to see how competitors are doing. Because social media allows people to express their opinions and customer satisfaction, it allows businesses to see peoples’ opinions about other companies. By having access to these opinion’s, companies can use this feedback in ways to improve their own business. Not all people have access to a social media profile, but it is important to consider the impact social media profiles can have on a business. Although it is hard to control what gets shared on social media and negative consumer reviews, social media plays an important role in a business. In order for smaller businesses to compete with larger companies, social media platforms are needed for the overall success of the company.
Developing Your Motivational Voice and Challenging the Law of Attraction With David Essel
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Today we’re talking to David Essel, the number one best-selling author of ten books. David’s also a counselor, master life coach, international speaker, and radio host whose mission is to positively affect over 2 million people each day, with David’s Daily Video Boost on talkdavid.com. Now, I’ve followed David for over a decade, so I jumped at the opportunity to interview him. We ended up talking for so long that we had to cut the interview substantially for print, so look for the rest of the discussion in future issues and books. One of the reasons we enjoyed such a long conversation is that there isn’t a selfimprovement topic he is afraid of, so we covered a lot of ground with the criticism he rails against programs like The Secret.
David is the new leader of the positive thinking movement. He’s verified through Psychology Today as one of the best counselors and life coaches in the USA, and he’s a verified relationship expert with marriage.com. Dennis: I just want to say that I think one of the best things about you is you have the guts to talk about things that most performance coaches and motivational leaders will not talk about. Were you always that way?
David: I started 40 years ago in this industry, and for the first 16 years, I was a parrot. I looked at my gurus and would just regurgitate whatever they said. That’s how a lot of us get our start. But I played it way too safe. So I just stayed behind gurus and promoted the things they said that I thought were great. That’s fine, to a degree, but I carried it too far because I didn’t have my own voice in it. I’m not his only big fan. As entrepreneurs, if we For 38 years, his work don’t have a voice that was highly endorsed by separates us, if we don’t The late Wayne Dyer, have a twist, if we don’t Chicken Soup for the have something unique Soul author Mark Victor and different, we’re Hansen and many never going to reach the others. Celebrity Jenny highest level of success McCarthy says that that we’re looking for. As
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entrepreneurs, business owners, go-getters, we’ve got to do things differently. Dennis: What made you change and develop your voice? In 1996, my mind was blown during an interview with one of the most brilliant individuals to walk this Earth, the founder of Transcendental Meditation, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. During the interview, he exposed what I was doing in this most gentle, beautiful way. We were off the air, and he commented about how much I loved affirmations and positive thinking and even the Law of Attraction back in 1996. He said, “Does it work for you?” The answer was really no. I was just repeating what all these gurus said, but I told him yes. I said, “Yes, it’s working for me.” Maharishi Mahesh Yogi said, “Okay, then go ahead.” Three weeks later, I woke up realizing that I was lying. In that moment, I decided that I had to bring out the real me. The real David Essel is very different than the David Essel that follows people’s words.
It took me a long time to get here, to be able to call out ineffective programs when we have effective solutions because it doesn’t make sense to tear something down if you don’t have anything to put in its place.
you’re going to do fantastic, but you’re going to have to apply 110%.
Dennis: You also talk about the importance of having a coach, because when you get that little bit of momentum going, that’s when the devil Dennis: That’s the one comes in and smacks thing I love about every you. If you don’t have a one of your messages. All coach in your corner to you care about is making walk you through that, sure that listeners take it’s just as easy to go two one of the motivational steps back. programs out there and actually do it because David: That’s something I that’s the key. Take a learned from my mentor, program and stick with it. Joe Cirulli, who has a Regardless of whose it is. fascinating backstory. Last year, Forbes Magazine David: Yes! You’ve got to chose his company go and attack 110%. If as one of the top 25 you hold back a little bit medium-sized companies because you’re afraid you in the United States. His might fail, you’re afraid company was the only you might get critiqued one in the state of Florida by friends or family, recognized in Forbes you’re afraid you might Magazine. get criticized, you’ll never really know the highest But years ago, he was level you can reach with homeless, living in his your money, your body, car. One day he decided relationships, recovery, to go to the library. whatever the goal is. Here he was, smelly and dirty, and he goes to Once you put 110% into the librarian and says, someone’s program and “Hey, I need to get out you don’t alter it to your of this situation. Can you likes, you will find out recommend a book?” She within four to six months if recommended two, The it’s the program for you. If Power of Positive Thinking it isn’t, change trains, find by Norman Vincent Peale, a new teacher, and follow and Think and Grow Rich their program. Eventually, by Napoleon Hill. 19
Joe took those books to heart, and then he started looking for mentors and groups. Today, he’s a multi, multi-millionaire. He owns a jet, homes all over the place, and he made millions and millions of dollars in an industry that, according to the experts, you can’t make money in, and he did it in a tiny town of Florida with 150,000 people. He’s in the fitness industry in Gainesville, Florida. His number one competitor is the University of Florida Athletic Center, and he gets students at school that could go there for $10 a month to the Athletic Center to pay him $40 a month to work out at his club. He’s amazing. When I met Joe in 1986, I asked him to mentor me. He agreed, and one of the first things he said to me was, “Get accountability partners.” One of the biggest things he hammers home to everyone is, if you don’t have accountability coaches, you’re not going to reach your highest level of success. Dennis: What truly sets leaders apart from those who simply aspire to be the best in their field?
David: First, leaders are willing to do the uncomfortable. They don’t bitch, whine, and complain. They’re not victims. They’re not martyrs. If things don’t work the way that they want them to, they pick it up and move on. But they’re willing to challenge themselves daily.
you’re either going to stop growing or start dying. So you always need a coach, in one form or another. David: When I interviewed a friend who had grown up with Michael Jordan, I said something about Michael and his team, not his players, but the team around him. Jordan’s friend said, “That’s how he became as successful as he did. He had a nutrition coach way before they were popular. He had a strength training coach way before other people were doing it. He had massage therapists at his beck and call.” Sort of like what LeBron James is doing today.
Before I started doing this work, I was an alcoholic and a cocaine addict. I went into treatment, came out and spent a year getting grounded with addiction experts to make sure that I wouldn’t go back. I’ve never gone back. I’ll never go back.
But that experience tells me right away that we Second, they surround really need to look at the themselves with people inside as well. Are you who are better than they quick to anger? Do you are. When you look at a hold resentments long? list of people that you Are you a negative Nellie? communicate with the Do you doubt other most, 90% of the list is people? Those are traits people who are equal that you’d have to work to or below you, and with someone to radically only 10% are surpassing change, just like you you. Why? Well, we feel a would if you were trying little threatened. We feel to learn how to do a new embarrassed. It’s all about network funnel system. Dennis: Sure. I remember the ego. So surround Look at your weaknesses when Michael Jordan yourself with people who and attack them. got a strength training have what you want, is the coach, it was after he second tip. There was a book was already extremely Third, you’ve got to have several years ago called successful. He’s just like, a professional in your Strengthening Your “Let’s just step it up this corner. Right now, I have Strengths. The whole much more, ” right? a business coach. I have a premise was: don’t worry counselor that I work with. about the things you don’t David: Yes, and for all The counselor is more for do well. Don’t worry about successful business my emotional support and the things that hold you leaders, entrepreneurs, relationship support. My back. Go ahead and hire and managers, the business coach is rocking people to take care of my world, holding my feet question should be: “How those, and you just stay can I bring up my game to the fire. with your strengths. from here? Is it better marketing skills, customer Well, it sounds great, but Dennis: The thing is service skills? What is it? Or it’s a piece of crap. When about coaching is, is there something about I didn’t take care of my realistically you need a me personally?” coach until the day that addictions, it impacted 20
everything about my life. When you don’t take care of your insecurities, your arrogance, your shame, your guilt, whatever it might be, it is going to tear your butt down. So we really want to look at that personal side, too, to make sure you’re taking care of those issues. Go after your greatest fear first, and every other area of life will improve. Dennis: I’ve got to give you so many kudos for that, David, because you’re unlike anyone else in this field, from the aspect of you don’t ignore the fact that if your marriage is bad or if you want to find love, you may not be the best entrepreneur or best person at work. So those are all parts of the factor you can’t ignore. You can’t just be like, “Well, I hate my relationship, but I’m doing really good in sales over here.” That doesn’t work. I think your coaching is probably one of the best out there because you don’t ignore those things. So many coaches that I’ve worked with do. They act like, “Well, that doesn’t matter. If your income is here and you’re doing what you want to here, it’s okay if this is 21
David on the Power of Seeking Rejections Around 2009 when we had the big economic crash in the country, a friend of mine named Ray Higdon contacted me and he said, “Hey, listen, I’m a single dad. I got two kids. I’m losing my house. I invested all this money in the real estate market. I am flat broke, and it’s getting worse every day. Would you meet with me?” I said, “Absolutely.” He goes, “The only problem is I don’t have any money. Could we meet for lunch?” I said, “Sure.” So I bought him lunch, and after an hour, I said, “Ray, I got to be honest with you. You have such great energy. Even in your fear and confusion right now with what you’re going through, your energy is just so awesome. So what I’m going to recommend is this: find something to sell that you are passionate about, and you will be on your feet within six months to a year. But you’re going to have to really work your butt off.” We had a great session, he leaves, and on the way home, somebody contacted him and told him about the book The Secret. He was thinking about what I had said, and he went and got the book. For 30 days, he made vision boards. He said the affirmation, “I am a millionaire,” all the crap they tell you that does not work. He tried it for 30 days, and his situation got 100 times worse. He sat in his house, and he visualized, and he affirmed, and it got worse. Then he went out and looked for something to sell. He found a product and started contacting people. It was a network marketing product. He was getting rejections, and he was about to give up, then one guy in the network marketing business said to him, “If you want to be successful, here’s the formula. Go after 20 nos a day. Don’t stop contacting people until you’ve had 20 rejections.” At first, Ray said, “Now that’s sick. That’s insane. Who the hell wants to get rejected 20 times a day?” But he did it and found it was the most powerful thing in the world because mixed in with the rejections were sales. He went from foreclosure, no money whatsoever, to making $50,000 a month within the first year. By year three or four, he was up to a million dollars a month, which is where he is today. In later years, when I asked Ray if it was difficult to go after rejections, he started laughing. He said, “I don’t even recognize rejections anymore.” He said, “If it happens, I’m just on to the next person. I don’t hang around and look at how I was rejected. I just go, ‘Okay, thanks,’ and I move on.”
up at night or giving them anxiety in the morning. What is that one thing?
what runs the show is the subconscious. The subconscious is based on patterns. Whatever you feed it regularly, it accepts David: Yeah, that is perfect. as real. It doesn’t matter if David: No, you can’t. In The thing that you avoid, it’s real or not. If you say, 1996 when I had the big the thing that you don’t “Gosh, I’m really nervous wake-up call that I was a about this year financially. parrot, I was following the want to talk about, the thing that gnaws at you. I don’t know if I’m going to gurus and I didn’t have my make enough money,” or, own David Essel program, Dennis: You mention “I’m not a morning person, we changed all of our I’m not an evening person, coaching and counseling that it’s important for and goal-setting programs entrepreneurs to change I’m not creative, I’m not a the way they think salesperson,” that becomes to the One Thing Theory. regularly. Why is that? a pattern. Before we know it, we’re repeating that Basically, it says this: at any David: It’s the pattern of pattern in our actions. So given time in life there’s the subconscious mind. we need to get out of our only one goal to go after. The conscious mind is the own way and be exposed It’s the one you’ve denied, mind of intent. “I’m going to books and teachers and delayed, procrastinated to read SHOTCALLERS thoughts that challenge attacking. It’s the one you don’t want to do. The today.” That’s the conscious us because once that mind. “I’m going to subconscious gets a one that’s going to take get up tomorrow and pattern set, you’ve got to a lot of effort and time. go to the gym. ” That’s shatter it, but you’re not That’s the one to go after. all consciousness. But going to be able to shatter It might be something in your business, or it might be something in your personal life, but something is holding you back. When you apply full force to lift that up, every other area of your life improves as well. If you’re in a crappy relationship and you don’t think that’s going to affect your work, then you’re living in a different planet, okay? Because it is going to affect your work. happening over here.” But as much as you want to, you can’t separate those things.
Dennis: So maybe people should think about the thing that’s keeping them 22
it alone. You need outside support.
Why do we only have 2% of the US population earning a million dollars a year? 98% wants to earn that.
Dennis: Can you explain the myth behind positive thinking that most people don’t understand? If the mind were so powerful that you could think yourself thin, 70% David: If all it took was a of people would not be thought process to heal, overweight, and 100% if it was just about your of people would earn thinking, we would not $1 million a year. Their have financial struggles. desire should have already We would not have 70% brought them weight loss of the US population overweight or obese. Think and money. about all the people that But it hasn’t and it won’t. are doing vision boards When I realized that I had and saying affirmations like, “I earn a million dollars a problem with alcohol and drugs, I went right a year.” A million dollars a to affirmations, because year is $82,000 a month. I work in the world of About 2% of the US population earns a million personal growth. I woke up every day with this dollars a year, or $82,000 affirmation, “I am David a month. It is one of the greatest challenges in this Essel, a child of God, happy, healthy, and sober world to earn a million today.” I said that for over dollars a year. You have 20 years, every day of my to have an outrageous life, and I believed it. Yet amount of drive, desire, every night at 8:00 p.m., talent, gifts. You’ve got I started with my first to have it all, man. It just bottle of wine. All of that doesn’t come easy. positive thinking, it didn’t do a thing to change my But these books say it finances, my addictions, does. So ask yourself, if The Secret and the law of relationships. It never did a attraction say all you need thing. to do is put it out into the universe and it must return Positive thinking is important. It will count in kind, why do we have 70% of the US population for about 20% of your success. If you have a great overweight? They don’t attitude every day and want to be overweight. 23
you do things with a great attitude, even those things you don’t want to do, it’ll account for about only 20% of your success. 80% of your success will come from doing the stuff you’d rather not do. I have a client that’s one of the top trauma surgeons in the United States of America. I know that he went through 18 years of schooling, okay? So if I go, “Hey, doc, are you rated as one of the top trauma surgeons because of the vision board you created 25 years ago? Is that what puts you over the top?” Of course he would laugh his butt off. He’d say, “No, I spent 18 years in school, for God’s sake.” In our book Focus: Slay Your Goals, I tell this amazing story about a friend of mine who lost 240 in her 40s and then in her 50s, she became a bodybuilder. She didn’t do that via affirmations and vision boards. Dennis: So you’re not saying be negative and get rid of positive thinking. You’re saying you have to understand it’s not enough to get to where you want to be. David: Absolutely. When you have a positive
emotion, a positive thought, a positive affirmation, there is a cascade of chemicals, dopamine, serotonin, GABA. All these neurotransmitters are released and we feel great in the moment, but once the moment goes, so does the endorphin rush. So we’re not saying don’t do it. Like in the book, we say the first hour of every day, I commit to meditation, journaling, prayer, positive thinking, affirmations.
your coach will hold you accountable to actually doing it. After a weekend seminar, the motivational passion, energy, endorphin rush lasts only about 72 hours. So people come back on Monday, and they’re in the gym at 6:00 a.m., and by Friday, they’re not back in the gym again. It’s that kind of thing. The way we get around it is by having accountability partners.
Dennis: You’ve helped Dennis: It’s one of those thousands of people things, like going to a create successful great seminar. You feel businesses, and great, you leave. But if thousands of other you don’t follow the steps people resurrect that you’ve been given, companies that were on then you’re not going the brink of failure. What to succeed. It doesn’t can you say to those who end when you walk out are struggling with their the door. That’s just the businesses right now? beginning. You have to What advice can you give follow through with the them? program. David: The very first thing David: Amen. In the I’d say is to write down book Positive Thinking everything you’re doing to Will Never Change Your push the business ahead. Life, we go a step further Write it down in detail, and we say go to your “This is what I’m doing in weekend seminar. Go to marketing. This is what your seven-day intensives. I’m doing in promotions. Do all that kind of stuff, This is what I’m doing in but only if you have the advertising. This is what money to hire a coach for I’m doing in networking.” 52 straight weeks after the Break down the business event because then you’ll into every area, and write take what you learn and down the steps that 24
you’re doing to help that business grow. If you’re honest with yourself, you should see holes in your program. You could see where you said you were going to network from 9:00 to 10:00 every morning, and you haven’t been doing that. Or maybe you’ve said that you’re going to start doing some social media work, posting more or advertising, and you haven’t really done much. Maybe you said that you were going to start contacting 10 prospects a day, but you’re only approaching 1 or 2. Just do a real honest evaluation. Step two is to start filling those holes. This is where an accountability partner is going to be crucial. Share with them honestly, “Hey, I’m doing these three things great. I’m really not doing these two things at all. I need help with these two things.” The things that you’re not doing well are the secrets to your success. Find someone who will help you hold your feet to the fire and do the task you don’t want to do. That’s where your success lies.
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How to Add Landing Page Videos to Increase Conversion Adding videos to website homepages or landing pages can immediately increase the rate of conversion. Videos help marketers build credibility because they add a human side, as compared to the copy on your landing page. To increase the rate of conversion, site homepages, or landing pages should build trust among the target audience. And that’s exactly what adding a video does to your 26
homepage page or squeeze/ landing pages. Today, you can easily notice software providers, financial companies, healthcare professionals, and gaming operators using videos to increase the conversion rate. Adding a video to your homepage or landing page helps you • Connect with the audience on a personal level • Build trust among the audience
• Lead the audience towards the conversion goal So, the ultimate goal of adding a video is to maximize landing page conversions and give a solid reason to the user for completing an action, however, adding a video ‘just for the sake of adding it’ is never going to bring you results. To create high converting videos, the most important step is to optimize them for better ROI.
Content of the Video
advertiser or the marketer or the company to convey the message in a short timeframe.
It is vital to carefully identify the kind of content you are going to put in the video. What kind Location of the Video of message is your landing page or homepage video Where would the video going to contain? sit on the design of the landing page or website’s • Does the video homepage? The most contain a message recommended location from the CEO of the for positioning the video is company? the top left section on the • Does it include the page. This helps because important features of most of the video sharing a product? channels on the internet • Is it going to be a (including YouTube, Vimeo, how-to guide for the and Metacafe) have videos audience? playing in the top left. • Does the video feature Users are accustomed to testimonials from watching videos in this clients? position. In order to convert more and more users, you should present content that immediately builds credibility and compels them to complete an action on your site or squeeze/ landing page.
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However, this is also recommended to test your video element for different locations on the designed page to find out what brings best results. Audience Segmentation
Equipped with this vital data, you can optimize the video, its content, and presentation for maximum reach of traffic. Testing the Video The key is to split-test the multiple elements of the video and its positioning to discover what creates the most impact. The sad part is that testing videos for conversion optimization is the most neglected part of the entire process. Here are a couple of things that can be tested: • Location of the video • Length of the video • Automatic play or press to play • Call to action • Quality of voiceover • Use of animation Conclusion
Adding quality videos with Length of the Video One of the most crucial well thought out content and critical parts of the can not only improve the Another important video optimization process rate of conversion, but parameter in the process is segmenting your also the quality of leads. of video optimization is audience. By segmenting If you want to add videos the duration of the video. the users on your website to your squeeze page How long is your video or landing page, you’ll or homepage, following going to be? Though users be able to distinguish the above-mentioned love clicking and watching between those who are tips will keep on the right videos, they prefer highly responsive to the track. And your videos will spending 2-3 minutes on a video and those who convert too! video. And they expect the are under-performing.
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How to Keep Financial and Tax Records Safe to Avoid a Nightmare in Case of Disaster By Kathy Shrader
With the recent severe weather across a major portion of the United States, you need to be prepared for the unexpected. Whether you live in an area prone to natural disasters such as hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods or an area not normally subject to these occurrences you need to be prepared as disaster can strike at any time, natural or not. If you are the victim of a disaster, you will need access to your insurance information as well as your other financial and tax records. Therefore, to be prepared, you should have another means to access your important documents before disaster strikes and you lose access to the original physical documents.
all your records in a small easily transportable device. You can then duplicate the backups as necessary and store them in a safe location such as a lockbox or safety deposit box. Additionally, once you have scanned the documents into your preferred technology you can email the files to yourself for future retrieval or store them online in another manner so you may access them any time you desire. Any of these methods will enable you to retrieve the information but make sure you have strong passwords so it would be difficult for a hacker to get to your information.
Valuable antiques, jewelry, paintings or other physical assets should One of the best methods be photographed and to protect your records to the images stored along ensure you have access is with any documentation to back up any important verifying the item’s value, documents electronically. proof of ownership, or if There are numerous applicable certificates of methods to scan documents authenticity. onto an external hard drive, a CD, store online, in the Additionally, recording all cloud or even easier, a flash account numbers, company drive. USB flash drives are names and addresses relatively inexpensive and along with the telephone have the capacity to store numbers is invaluable if you 29
need this information in an emergency and do not have access to the physical documents for whatever reason. There are other means to acquire these documents such as contacting the various companies or even the IRS for copies of your tax returns but not only is this time consuming but most companies will not release information if you do not have account numbers or at least some of the basic information concerning your accounts. Besides, how can you call the various companies if you have not recorded nor have easy access to the telephone numbers or other numbers associated with your various accounts?! The perfect scenario would be never having to worry about a disaster striking and damaging any invaluable documentation but for peace of mind please take the time to backup up all your insurance, financial as well as tax records. The minimal time it takes now will save valuable time if a disaster actually occurs.
How to Unleash Your Online Business’s Full Potential
Did you know that you can grow your online business without spending thousands of dollars on marketing? All you need is a little bit of effort, consistency, and determination. For example, content matters a lot when you want to improve your rankings and visibility. Following are other strategies that you can implement: 30
1. Make Your Website More Flexible Nowadays, most people use their smartphones and tablets to access the internet. Your site has to be mobile-friendly if you want to attract such a market. The site should properly fit the size of any portable device. The text should also be easy to read, and the site should be easy to navigate.
for the market. The best way to grow this business is to stick with the target audience. Tailor your content and advertising campaigns to the target audience. Study your target audience carefully, and find out what they want. What kind of websites do they like to visit? What kind of lifestyles do they live? What do they think about your products? And many more questions.
a technical industry where you use a lot of hard words with your colleagues, but you should keep it simple if you want to make sales. Your readers want content that they can understand and easily relate to.
Your content should also add value to the consumer. Make sure that you do adequate research, and write about topics that matter to the consumer. Apart from If your site isn’t interactive, gaining the readers’ you can do some minor interest, quality content adjustments yourself. When you know the type can also help you get These include changing of sites that your audience higher rankings on search the size of images and engines. loves to visit, you can having fewer items on create targeted ads to get the web pages. You have 4. Use Social media their attention. The more to make your images you know about your smaller so that your site target audience, the more Another way to grow your can load faster on portable effective your online ads online sales is to create a devices. You should also will be, and the more sales social media account. You minimize the number of can just focus on three you are likely to make. items on your web pages sites with the most traffic so that they can easily fit 3. Come Up with Quality instead of creating profiles the screens of portable for every social media Content devices without making platform out there. them feel too crowded. In the opening paragraph, After you’ve created your we had mentioned the Having a mobile-friendly business profile, you have importance of content site grows your online to post content telling in growing your online business by increasing the business. You have to other social media users number of people that can create high-quality what you do. Make the access your website. introduction or description content if you want brief because most users people to be interested 2. Pay Attention to Your have a short attention in what you have to offer Target Audience span. them. You started your online Use simple language business because you when writing blogs for wanted to solve a problem your site. You might be in 31
The mistake that some businesses make is keeping their social media
accounts dormant. You have to be lively and post every day or week so that your followers can gain an interest in your business and what you have to offer. 5. Make Your Customers Remember You Do you want to know how to increase sales for your online business? Go the extra mile for your clients. Instead of just selling products, give the customer an experience that they will never forget.
conditions. You can never know how long an economic downturn will last; therefore, you should think about diversifying your operations to shield yourself from such unexpected events. If your website has been online for a while and has good traffic, you should consider using it as a platform to post ads from various organizations. That way, you can get additional revenue from advertisements.
If you want to know how to grow your retail business, you have to ask those that are already in the industry. You can do that through networking with businesses that share the same interests as you; such firms can help you reach a market that you didn’t know existed. 8. Choose Few Products Many online business owners want to know how to increase sales. Here is a simple straight forward solution: Focus on the goods that sell. Your system usually records all customer transactions. Therefore, you know which goods are selling and which ones aren’t.
Alternatively, you can start Think about what you can an online video channel. offer the client to make Using the same principle, them return to you. You the more subscribers and could provide 24-hour live views that you get, the support for your clients. more likely you are to be That way, they can make paid for promotions. These inquiries about a particular income streams can help Instead of wasting product at any time. shield your online business money advertising all the products that you sell, from the unexpected. Very few online businesses why not promote the few invest in improving that can actually bring you 7. Network customer service. This money? In fact, it makes strategy can give you a more sense to take this In the previous point, we competitive advantage approach. talked about diversifying and drive more people your operations and to your site. You should When you do this, you selling advertisement also make sure that you know that your advertising space. stock quality products to budget is being put to prevent any returns or Did you know that you can good use. Furthermore, negative reviews. form partnerships with the focusing on best sellers helps build your brand businesses that advertise 6. Diversify name. People will often on your site? If they want associate your brand with to advertise on your site, Sometimes your online such products. there’s a high probability sales can dwindle because that you can help each of unforeseen economic other. 32
9. Consider Affiliate Networks
10. Use Free Marketing Tools
The more marketing tools you have at your disposal, the more exposure your Another useful strategy online business gets, and Remember, you don’t on how to grow your have to spend a fortune to the more likely you are to retail business is to pay grow your online business. make more sales. others to promote your There are a number of free business. This technique online marketing tools on Final Thoughts is also referred to as using various social media sites You can use the above affiliate networks. and search engines. strategies to effectively The good thing about grow your e-commerce You should take the time affiliate networks is that business. As you to learn how some of you only pay the affiliate implement most of these these tools work. You tips, you should know a commission after they will find out that most that change takes time. have brought you a sale. of them are quite simple Therefore, be patient and to use. Then, try to see You can use software tools how you can fit them into relentless in your pursuit to find the best affiliate of growth. your online marketing networks for your online strategy. They have to be business. compatible if you want them to be effective.
August was named in honor of Augustus Caesar. It has 31 days because Augustus wanted as many days as Julius Caesar’s month of July had. They took that extra day from February. Fans of Elvis Presley mourn each Aug. 16th, the day the famed singer died in 1977 August Milestones: • August 1st, 1981 - MTV network debuted on cable television, actually playing music videos 24 hours a day. The Buggles’“Video Killed the Radio Star” was the first video shown • August 5th, 1957 - American Bandstand debuted on the ABC television network, with host Dick Clark. • August 12th, 1981 - The IBM Personal Computer was released. • August 16, 1954 - The first issue of Sports Illustrated was published • August 21st, 1911 - The Mona Lisa was stolen by a Louvre employee, Vincenzo Peruggia. It was returned in 1913 • August 25th, 1609 - Galileo Galilei demonstrated his first telescope to Venetian lawmakers. 33
Overcome Your Negativity There is a secret behind living a happy, successful, fufilling life. What is it?
POSITIVITY. The Positive Edge isn't about becoming someone else - it's about loving who you are, understanding your strengths and retraining your brain to see the good in life.
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