How To Use Goals As A Time Management Tool

By: Bridgette Boudreaux

You've heard the saying, "If you do not know where you are going, how will you know when you get there." Imagine the aggravation of traveling by automobile to another state for a conference, meeting or preferably a vacation, without a map as a guide, the convenience of map quest or have the privilege to have On Star in your automobile to determine the best route to take to get to your destination. You would travel unnecessary routes, waste time and increase your stress level 100 percent. Why would you do this to yourself?

Well, you do it to yourself in your business if you do not have clearly defined goals which pave a way to your desired destination or outcome. Let's explore three simple ways to use goals as a time management tool.

Define Goals

The Webster Dictionary defines goals as a purpose; objective. I define goals as a route, plan or series of steps to get to a desired destination or outcome. You must have clear goals stating what you would like to accomplish in your business. What are your goals? What would you like to accomplish within the next three, six or twelve months? If you do not have a least five concise, clear goals written down you must do it now. Define your short term and long term goals. Without a direction or plan you will spend your days and time aimlessly without being productive. Don't get stuck working in your business, work on your business.

Know The End Before You Began

Upon completion of defining your goals, it is best to know the end before you began. What will be the desired result of your goal? For example, one of my goals was to have a monthly e-zine, the monthly e-zine is the desired result, the end. In order to reach that result, I had to brainstorm on the necessary steps needed to get to the end. I studied other e-zines publications, auto responders, researched topics and wrote articles, created and included an opt-in box on my web page for subscribers. Those steps became my road map, my atlas to get to my desired outcome. It also broke my goal down to smaller reachable tasks that I could include in my daily schedule. How do you eat an elephant? One piece at a time!

Take Daily Action Steps

You must commit to completing daily tasks towards your goals until successful completion. You've defined your goal, mapped out the steps, now get out your planner and block time everyday to work on your tasks. Do not add the tasks to your "to do list", actually put it in your schedule so that you are expected to work on it no matter what else is going on. If I schedule writing articles from 9:00 am - 10:00 am, I will not do anything else during this time, I will not answer the telephone or check email messages. Time blocked on your schedule should be uninterrupted time avoiding all time wasters. Develop a habit to plan your next day's schedule at the end of your current work day, this will keep you organize, monitor your time and increase your productivity.

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Power Selling With Word Choice

By: Kurt Mortensen

The Law of Verbal Packaging states that the more skillful a person is in the use of language, the more persuasive they will be. People are persuaded by us based on the words we use. Words affect our perceptions, our attitudes, our beliefs, and our emotions. The words we use in the persuasion process make all the difference in the world. Language used incorrectly will lose the deal you might otherwise have closed. Word skills are also directly related to earning power. Successful people all share a common ability to use language in ways that evoke vivid thoughts, feelings, and actions in their audiences

Over 60 percent of your day is spent in oral communication, in which you could be persuading, explaining, influencing, motivating, counseling, or instructing. You can create movement, excitement, and vision with the words you use. The right words are captivating; the wrong words are devastating. The right words make things come to life, create energy, and are more persuasive than the wrong words. As Mark Twain said, "The difference between the right word and the wrong word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug." The bottom line is that the words you use attract or repel your prospects.

Understand that proper language varies from setting to setting, and from event to event. One word choice does not work in every circumstance. Word choice can also be critical to defusing situations and in getting people to accept your point of view. Even one word can make the difference in perception and acceptance. In a study by Harold Kelley,1 students were given a list of qualities describing a guest speaker they were about to hear. Each student read from either one of the following two lists:

1. Cold, industrious, critical, practical, and determined 2. Warm, industrious, critical, practical, and determined

Of course, the students who read #1 had less than positive feelings about the speaker. The interesting thing, though, is that the lists are exactly the same except for one word! It seemed that the differing word's placement at the head of the list conditioned how the reader felt in reading through the rest of the list. It didn't matter that none of the following words were negative. Just reading the word "cold" tainted how the students read the rest of the list.

Words communicate abstract or vague things. We can use them to explain events, to share feelings, and to help visualize the future. Words shape our thoughts, feelings, and attitudes towards a subject. They help decide if we stay neutral or take action. Just reading words can affect your thoughts, attitudes, and feelings. For example, read these six words slowly and vocally, taking notice of how they make you feel.

Murder -- Hate -- Depressed -- Cancer -- Sad -- Despair

Now read the following six words slowly and vocally, noticing how the words affect you as you do so.

Wealth -- Success -- Happiness -- Health -- Inspiration -- Joy

How did these words make you feel? Successful persuaders know how to use the right words to create the desired response in their audiences. Speakers with greater verbal skills come across as more credible, more competent, and more convincing. Speakers who hesitate, use the wrong words, or lack fluency have less credibility and come across as weak and ineffective.

Sales professionals also use words carefully. They know that one wrong word can send their prospect's mind somewhere else and lose them the sale. Some examples of language that salespeople use to help diffuse a potentially tense situation include the following:

Contract -- Agreement/paperwork Sign here -- OK the paperwork /Autograph Sell/buy -- Get involved Cancellation -- Right of rescission Salesperson -- Business consultant Commission -- Fee for my services Cost -- Investment Credit card -- Form of payment Problem -- Challenge Objections -- Areas of concern Expensive -- Top of the line Cheaper -- More economical Service charge -- Processing fee

The airline industry has mastered the power of words. They know word choice is critical to getting their point across and to reducing panic. When you listen to the flight attendants' instructions before take off, you also hear careful word choice. They tell you that in the event of a water landing, your seat cushion can be used as a "flotation device." Hello! What they're really saying is, "If we crash into water, grab your seat cushion so you don't drown." Notice they don't say "life preserver," but rather they call it a "flotation device." Also note that there is no "barf bag" on board--it's a motion discomfort bag. Or "we are experiencing a mechanical difficulty" instead of "the plane is broken." They don't clean the plane; they refresh it. Planes aren't late; they're merely delayed. And, my personal favorite, they never lose my luggage; they misplace it. Yes, airlines know the power of word choice in affecting their customers' point of view.

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Website Success = Content! Content! Content!

by: Francois du Toit

We have all heard the real estate slogan: “Location! Location! Location!”. Well, if that is the slogan of the real estate industry then “Content! Content! Content!” is certainly the slogan for all webmasters. Maybe I should rather say it SHOULD BE the slogan for all webmasters…Unfortunately many webmasters are only focusing on how they can make more money instead of providing visitors to their website with good content.

I recently heard that more than 40% of all people with an internet business have only been online for no longer than 6 months. I am not sure about the exact percentage but I can believe that 40%+ is not far away from the truth.

One thing is for sure: Many people start an internet business believing they are going to make a fortune online within a very short period of time. The reality is that very few people actually achieve any sort of online success, especially in the first six months. The result is a constant stream of new webmasters and a constant outflow of disillusioned webmasters.

Most newcomers are totally disillusioned with the internet after only a couple of weeks or months. They often fall prey to unscrupulous dealers that sell them expensive programs “guaranteed” to make them succeed on the internet. Most of these programs do not work and they leave with the bitter taste in their mouths of being conned.

Do the statistics prove that one should not attempt to make money online or that the internet is a big hoax? No, they prove that people give us too soon. They prove that people have unrealistic expectations. They prove that people do not acquire enough knowledge before embarking on an online business.

What are the most common mistakes?

1. No clear strategy. Newcomers often have no clear idea of what they want to achieve and how they should go about achieving it. They try to go of in all directions at once or use the shotgun approach of firing away at everything that moves hoping they will eventually hit something.

2. Unrealistic expectations. People often spend $25,000+ pa. on college fees for three years just to earn $40,000 pa. when they graduate. However, when it comes to making money online they refuse to invest the time to learn how to succeed and expect to make $10,000 from the very first month working only a couple of hours per day.

3. People are often chasing money without taking the time to put the necessary structures in place that will enable them to earn money.

Assume you want to open your own restaurant. Do you try to make money without a location or any food to offer your customers? No! You start by drawing up a business plan - What are you planning on doing, how & when are you going to start, who are your competitors, how long will it take before you start making money, how much money do you need to invest, what does your cash flow look like, etc.

Many people still think they can build a quick one page website or get a free affiliate website and that they will have a constant stream of visitors eager to snap up anything they have to offer. Nothing can be further away from the truth.

Think about it logically. Put yourself in the shoes of a visitor. Most people search the internet looking for information (content). The search engines know this and reward unique content websites by indexing them more favorably than poorly constructed websites, websites with very little content or duplicate websites. There are millions of websites on the net. I am sorry, but if a visitor runs a search for a keyword such as “business opportunity” and your site is number 99,000,000 of 100,000,000 then you are never going to get any visitors. Accept it.

What can you do? The first and most important step you can take is to ensure that your website has good content. Write about something you know and are passionate about. If you struggle to write one page about a certain topic then rather forget about it. You should be able to write many pages of relevant content that other people would like to read. Try to remain original and focus on unique content.

There are many things you can do to improve your website in the future by making it more attractive to your visitors as well as the search engines. However, there is really nothing you can do to improve a website with poor content until you do something to improve the content.

Whatever website you want to establish, remember the golden rule: Content! Content! Content!

To your success!

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5 Internet Marketing Mindsets Required for Online Business Success

by: Donna Gunter

Many independent service professionals nonchalantly enter the Internet marketing game by throwing together a half-baked website without any plan and mistakenly believe that visitors will find them. Initially, my online business grew from word-of-mouth referrals from other clients rather than from any true Internet marketing. My website simply served as an online brochure detailing my services and my rates for several years.

Over time, I became tired of trading time for money. Upon gaining some time and experience in business, the independent service professional has a rude awakening that there are only so many hours in the day and consequently that limits the number of clients that can be served.

Despite all the useful information I'd absorbed over the years about expanding my business reach through the development of products that I could sell on my website, I just didn't want to devote the time necessary to create multiple streams of income for my business. However, as I began to see friends and colleagues do this successfully in their businesses, the light bulb finally went off, and I realized that this was my next step, as well. So, I bit the bullet and began to try some of the strategies and began to get quick results from what I had implemented.

In my own professional development as an Internet marketer, as well as from work with clients over the years, I've come to realize that there are 5 Internet Marketing Mindsets that must be in place for someone to be successful online:

1. Create content that can be re-purposed. The goals here is to create your content once and find multiple ways to use it or multiple ways of delivery. So, for example, if you have an Inspiration Line phone service in which you record an inspiring thought each day for your clients, you can record these calls and have them serve as a publicity tool by distributing them as a podcast. This will help drive traffic to your site and bring people into your marketing funnel. When you've accumulated enough recordings, you then sell a subscription membership so that the buyer receives a new inspiring thought each day via email or a direct-to-desktop service. Over time, you can categorize recordings by topic and then combine the recordings into multiple motivational CDs or .mp3 downloads and make them available for sale online. When you've been doing this for a year, perhaps you then parlay the recordings into a book or an inspirational card deck. Sometimes it helps to start with the end in mind.

2. Record everything that you do. Whether you're doing live events, radio or TV interviews, teleclasses, webinars, etc., it pays to record and have a permanent record of everything that you do. Having a digital video recording of yourself in a one-day live event can be packaged into a "home study" course. Teleclasses with transcripts can be resold individually or packaged together for a bigger product. Radio or TV interviews can be placed on your website to enhance your credibility and convince a meeting planner to pay you big bucks to come and provide a keynote speech. Open your mind to the possibilities for re-purposing your recordings.

3. Get yourself and your customers into a sales mentality. Many of my clients simply like to have their products sit obscurely for sale on their websites and do nothing to make their list members or website visitors aware of what they have for sale for fear of offending their visitors or subscribers. If someone is going to be offended because you're trying to sell to them, then just let them go. You don't need a list of tire-kickers who want to sponge all the free info that they can from you and never buy anything -- you'll never be able to stay in business that way.

I have to chuckle when I do a promotion and get an email from someone on the list who chastises me for "daring" to sell to them and notes that they much prefer to "decide" when they want to buy something from me and then they threaten to leave the list. I just respond that I'm sorry that they feel that way, but unfortunately I'm not a trust-fund baby, and that my hard-earned information has the same value as any info that they might get from their car mechanic, doctor, attorney, or accountant, and I've never seen any of those professionals give away what they know.

Creating a sales mentality means that you need to acknowledge that you're in business to make money through selling and that your customers need to become accustomed to having you sell and seeing things for sale all over your websites. This is no different than the trait needed for success if you were to own a brick-and-mortar retail establishment. You can still provide free and valuable information to your visitors, but reserve the right to take that info, create a unique packaging and title for pieces of info on the same topic, and put it up for sale.

4. Acknowledge that people will pay more for convenience and instant delivery online. Many times, as I'm trying to help a client determine the price for a product, they' object to the price I suggest because they compare it to a physical product that can be purchased in the local bookstore or online bookstore for less. The "buy it now and give it to me instantly" mentality that is prevalent among online shoppers dictates that you can charge a higher price for an electronic product than a physical product because the shopper can fulfill his/her need for instant gratification and receive the electronic product in mere seconds. Wouldn't you rather do that instead of having to get in the car to make a trip across town to buy the product or waiting a few days for the delivery of a physical product from an online store?

And, people will pay for convenience. I recently spoke with a client about selling her content that was ready available in various locations all over the Internet. She was concerned that no one would pay for the product since it was currently available online at no cost if someone were to look hard enough. I told her that many of her customers didn't know it was available online, and even if they did, they would have to invest a great deal of their free time to gather all the info in one place. Few of us have that luxury of time today. For most of us, if it's easy and convenient and will save us some time, we'll buy it.

5. Plan your business growth around your marketing funnel. Independent service professionals shouldn't live on the sale of their services alone. Trust me, at some point in your business, you won't want to do that any longer. You need to create a marketing funnel of your products and services that range in price from free to very expensive and base your marketing strategy around that funnel. Your online business success will depend upon people being able to "sample" your expertise before deciding to purchase your service.

Remember that it takes 7-10 "touches" before a prospect will turn into a customer. Give them several ways to experience your expertise, all the way from free to expensive, with any number of price points and options in between. Keep your marketing funnel in mind in all that you do and strategize how every new activity, whether that's creating a new product, writing another article, offering a new service, or being a guest on a radio show fits into your marketing funnel.

By adopting these 5 Internet Marketing Mindsets into your daily marketing mantra, you'll be well on your way to positioning your online business for many years of success!

Copyright (c) 2006 Donna Gunter
http://www.GetMoreClientsOnline.com.

READ MORE....

5 Internet Marketing Mindsets Required for Online Business Success

Many independent service professionals nonchalantly enter the Internet marketing game by throwing together a half-baked website without any plan and mistakenly believe that visitors will find them. Initially, my online business grew from word-of-mouth referrals from other clients rather than from any true Internet marketing. My website simply served as an online brochure detailing my services and my rates for several years.

Over time, I became tired of trading time for money. Upon gaining some time and experience in business, the independent service professional has a rude awakening that there are only so many hours in the day and consequently that limits the number of clients that can be served.

Despite all the useful information I'd absorbed over the years about expanding my business reach through the development of products that I could sell on my website, I just didn't want to devote the time necessary to create multiple streams of income for my business. However, as I began to see friends and colleagues do this successfully in their businesses, the light bulb finally went off, and I realized that this was my next step, as well. So, I bit the bullet and began to try some of the strategies and began to get quick results from what I had implemented.

In my own professional development as an Internet marketer, as well as from work with clients over the years, I've come to realize that there are 5 Internet Marketing Mindsets that must be in place for someone to be successful online:

1. Create content that can be re-purposed. The goals here is to create your content once and find multiple ways to use it or multiple ways of delivery. So, for example, if you have an Inspiration Line phone service in which you record an inspiring thought each day for your clients, you can record these calls and have them serve as a publicity tool by distributing them as a podcast. This will help drive traffic to your site and bring people into your marketing funnel. When you've accumulated enough recordings, you then sell a subscription membership so that the buyer receives a new inspiring thought each day via email or a direct-to-desktop service. Over time, you can categorize recordings by topic and then combine the recordings into multiple motivational CDs or .mp3 downloads and make them available for sale online. When you've been doing this for a year, perhaps you then parlay the recordings into a book or an inspirational card deck. Sometimes it helps to start with the end in mind.

2. Record everything that you do. Whether you're doing live events, radio or TV interviews, teleclasses, webinars, etc., it pays to record and have a permanent record of everything that you do. Having a digital video recording of yourself in a one-day live event can be packaged into a "home study" course. Teleclasses with transcripts can be resold individually or packaged together for a bigger product. Radio or TV interviews can be placed on your website to enhance your credibility and convince a meeting planner to pay you big bucks to come and provide a keynote speech. Open your mind to the possibilities for re-purposing your recordings.

3. Get yourself and your customers into a sales mentality. Many of my clients simply like to have their products sit obscurely for sale on their websites and do nothing to make their list members or website visitors aware of what they have for sale for fear of offending their visitors or subscribers. If someone is going to be offended because you're trying to sell to them, then just let them go. You don't need a list of tire-kickers who want to sponge all the free info that they can from you and never buy anything -- you'll never be able to stay in business that way.

I have to chuckle when I do a promotion and get an email from someone on the list who chastises me for "daring" to sell to them and notes that they much prefer to "decide" when they want to buy something from me and then they threaten to leave the list. I just respond that I'm sorry that they feel that way, but unfortunately I'm not a trust-fund baby, and that my hard-earned information has the same value as any info that they might get from their car mechanic, doctor, attorney, or accountant, and I've never seen any of those professionals give away what they know.

Creating a sales mentality means that you need to acknowledge that you're in business to make money through selling and that your customers need to become accustomed to having you sell and seeing things for sale all over your websites. This is no different than the trait needed for success if you were to own a brick-and-mortar retail establishment. You can still provide free and valuable information to your visitors, but reserve the right to take that info, create a unique packaging and title for pieces of info on the same topic, and put it up for sale.

4. Acknowledge that people will pay more for convenience and instant delivery online. Many times, as I'm trying to help a client determine the price for a product, they' object to the price I suggest because they compare it to a physical product that can be purchased in the local bookstore or online bookstore for less. The "buy it now and give it to me instantly" mentality that is prevalent among online shoppers dictates that you can charge a higher price for an electronic product than a physical product because the shopper can fulfill his/her need for instant gratification and receive the electronic product in mere seconds. Wouldn't you rather do that instead of having to get in the car to make a trip across town to buy the product or waiting a few days for the delivery of a physical product from an online store?

And, people will pay for convenience. I recently spoke with a client about selling her content that was ready available in various locations all over the Internet. She was concerned that no one would pay for the product since it was currently available online at no cost if someone were to look hard enough. I told her that many of her customers didn't know it was available online, and even if they did, they would have to invest a great deal of their free time to gather all the info in one place. Few of us have that luxury of time today. For most of us, if it's easy and convenient and will save us some time, we'll buy it.

5. Plan your business growth around your marketing funnel. Independent service professionals shouldn't live on the sale of their services alone. Trust me, at some point in your business, you won't want to do that any longer. You need to create a marketing funnel of your products and services that range in price from free to very expensive and base your marketing strategy around that funnel. Your online business success will depend upon people being able to "sample" your expertise before deciding to purchase your service.

Remember that it takes 7-10 "touches" before a prospect will turn into a customer. Give them several ways to experience your expertise, all the way from free to expensive, with any number of price points and options in between. Keep your marketing funnel in mind in all that you do and strategize how every new activity, whether that's creating a new product, writing another article, offering a new service, or being a guest on a radio show fits into your marketing funnel.

By adopting these 5 Internet Marketing Mindsets into your daily marketing mantra, you'll be well on your way to positioning your online business for many years of success!

Author by: Donna Gunter
http://www.GetMoreClientsOnline.com

READ MORE....