I was sitting in on the Women Entrepreneur Success Panel at Infusioncon today and one of the panelist said something that totally resonated with me. “Success has footprints.” What an interesting statement. And one that’s so true. Who says we have to go to step 1, then step 2, then step 3 and so forth? If we can find someone who’s already been successful in our quest, why not use ideas, tools or implementation steps that have worked for them to propel us from step 1 to perhaps step 7, skipping all the time in between?
If you know me at all, you know I’m a serial entrepreneur with a million ideas a minute. I bolted straight up in bed with another beauty at about 4 am this morning and I’m going to look to one of my mentors who’s been down this path before to see if I can’t take that leap forward and get on my way to implementation that much sooner. I’ll let you know what that idea is in pre-launch phase.
There are many reasons why your computer could be running slow…
I’m myself pretty much a hard core computer user, couple of friends have mentioned that if a new computer needs to be tested in just a couple of hours, it should be given to me. Simply because my normal computer workload is pretty much at maximum at all times. I have Mozilla FireFox open with 20-50 different tabs, couple of Adobe Acrobat windows, couple of Word files, Excel, Dreamweaver, plus of course Adobe Photoshop, Outlook, MSN and these are just the main things.
So if a PC has a reason to strike for some reason, it should definitely be my computer. However, luckily I haven’t really had any big problems except for speed issues due to my hardcore memory and CPU consumption.
Most of the ‘computer speed up’ software out there focuses only on ONE problem area, but with a user like me, its far from enough. Products like “PC Doctor” and “Registry Fixer” are decent products but they leave a lot of your computer’s speed potential unused (I know that after I have tested the product PC Secret Formula).
PC Secret Formula system covers all important areas so your computer is literally forced to perform at maximum speed and that’s why I would definitely recommend the PC Secret Formula to everyone who feels their computer is running slower than it could be should be.
While I use my laptop around 16 hours a day, I haven’t really done much to keep it running fast and safe. I run a firewall and anti-virus software, as well as external and online backups. In the past I have tried some spyware software pieces, registry cleaners and so on, but overall they haven’t done much good, some of them have actually screwed up my computer.
And this makes me happy to see a tested product, which teaches me how to do it all safely. At least for me it worked like a treat, really made my PC faster again and at the same time didn’t cause it to blow up or anything like that.
Did you know that some anti-virus software might make your computer virus-free but at the same time take up so much of your PC resources that it makes your computer really slow?
Using PC Secret Formula
PC Secret Formula has been designed so that you run through the entire program step-by-step. First you get your machine cleaned up and to get familiar with software (btw, all the software names there are freeware, so no extra costs). It takes some time the first go around but it’s very clearly explained. You’ll learn exactly what to do and most importantly, what NOT to do.
How to use the software and a number of built-in Windows utilities to fix your slow computer. After that there’s a regular maintenance plan outlined that will take much less time but will keep your machine in great shape.
Usually people charge a lot for just a registry cleaner, but in this package, its included! With this program you really get your money’s worth plus more.
What I didn’t like about PC Secret Formula?
After going through the system I’d say there are one things that I don’t like about it. Firstly, being a hardcore computer user, I know enough about computers as well as different tasks. What I don’t know much about is how to speed up my computer, I know a few things but I haven’t really had any time to work on obtaining knowledge in that area. And here I’d like to see special chapters that would be combined of the section of the book. There could be like 3 different combinations, one for hardcore users like me, another for intermediate PC user and finally one for hardcore amateur. Right now the sections of PC Secret Formula all together last just a bit less than an hour’s read, but for me it would be enough to have a 10-15 to get straight to the point.
Overall impression
PC Secret Formula has easy-to-follow, professionally produced and well put together ebook, but in addition to that, every single chapter also has notes attached which provide additional notes that will further enhance your PC’s performance. So i f your computer is running slow and you want to speed it up today, PC Secret Formula is the system you should use.
Something big happened in the Digital Marketing landscape last week.
In case you missed it, on Wednesday, February 17th, 2010, Compete announced that Facebook surged passed Yahoo! as the number two most popular website in the U.S. That’s big news, and most people focused on the numbers (nearly 134 Million Unique Visitors in January 2010, amazing engagement and thoughts about whether or not Facebook can eventually trump Google‘s position at #1), which is an important part.
The Olympics have always been one of my favorite events to watch. This year is proving to be no exception. The guts, sweat, tears and pure heart of these athletes once again has me moved and cheering loudly from my sofa. Although Canada’s got my biggest support (I am Canadian, eh?), I’m so proud of all the athletes, no matter their nationality and am enjoying the spectacular events they are particpating in and that we all get to be a part of.
Do you have all your revenue eggs in one basket? It’s the classic situation many entrepreneurs find themselves in – and it’s a precarious place to operate your business from.
If you have one big client, one main offering or one key industry that provides you most of your revenue, then you have left yourself vulnerable to many forces you can’t control.
Knowing this, many entrepreneurs strive to diversify their income with information products, the “funnel of offerings” or spread themselves to thin into many different industries.
Right idea… but if you swing too far into diversification, you’ll find yourself in the land of Bright Shiny Objects.
That’s when you chase too many ideas and opportunities only to find yourself overwhelmed, stressed and with lackluster results in all areas. Plus, there is that tendency to try to be everything to every body just to make sure you always have enough business – then you just blend in like plain vanilla.
So where is that happy medium where you find the optimum approach to diversification without losing focus? I call it the “Sand Pail Approach.” You’ve probably heard this analogy used for time management. I like to use it for ideas on how to stabilize income.
If you think of your core, high-paying clients as big rocks that fill a pail, you’ll probably notice there is still a lot of empty space around them. I like to think of the different levels of programs and services as different size rocks:
- Big Rocks –
Big rocks are your big anchor clients/projects that pay a lot of money. It could also be a joint venture or partnership that is a big supplier of business. An example of this in my business these are my Private Clients. You probably only have just a few of these kinds of clients as they take up most of your time.
Of course if even one of your big rocks goes away you are in trouble. This actually happened to me a few years back when I over-relied on two very large marketing partners. I got 75% of my referrals from them until they added a similar program – and my referrals dried up immediately!
- Small Rocks -
Think big-ticket product sales, large events or a vendor who makes large purchases from you. The small rocks fit nicely around the bigger rocks filling in big gaps.
- Sand -
The sand fills in the space around the rocks as it’s quite small. These are clients that have a shorter time requirement and pay you less. They could be short turn around projects, highly leveraged group programs or retainers with very little one on one time. My Fast Track to Six Figure Coaching program fits this model for me.
A key to your sand is setting up opportunities to generate consistent income without having to sell every day. Think recurring payments.
- Water -
Even though your pail seems full, it’s not. The water seeps through the sand, filling your pail to the top. Small fee products or low-cost monthly continuity programs would be your water. I have multiple “water” programs like my Power of the Virtual Team ebook and the Extraordinary Results Academy.
The idea here is to understand how to use this analogy in building your business model. As you explore ways to stabilize your income, and not be overly dependent on one type of revenue stream, make a list of the types of smaller rocks, sand and water that you could either offer to the current industry your serve or to other industry’s with similar needs.
Melanie Benson Strick, CEO, Success Connections, Inc., teaches entrepreneurs how to stop feeling overwhelmed so they can create more money, more freedom and more prestige. Get a Jumpstart on your success now with this free evaluation of your business.
The best decision you can make as an online business owner is to decide to get out of your own way and begin to delegate those tasks which really don’t require your time and attention. A simple way to do that is by hiring a virtual assistant.
A virtual assistant is a business owner who specializes in handling the administrative details of your business from the comfort of her home office. Now that virtual assistance has been around for awhile, you’ll find virtual assistants who specialize in different types of administrative services: real estate, Internet marketing, and event management, to name a few. You may actually discover that you could use several virtual assistants in your business, each with a different specialization.
I can hear you now. You’re thinking, “There’s no way anyone can do this as well as I can.”
Are you guilty of “I’ll-do-it-myself-itis? If so, you’ve got much in common with most other online business owners in the world. We never think that anyone else will give something the time, attention, and dedication that we will. And, you’re right, to some degree. No one cares as much about your business as you do. However, if you don’t choose to delegate those things that prevent you from engaging in business development, marketing, and sales activities, you won’t be in business very long.
Whether you’re just starting out or have been in business for awhile, the thought of bringing on a support team member can be daunting, and you wonder, “How can I bring in someone else when it’s just going to increase my expenses?”
You need to make the shift to seeing this cost as an investment in your business, rather than as an expense, and let go of the need to be in control.
To help you evaluate what you might delegate to an assistant, take out a piece of paper and on the left side write, “What I Love to Do” and on the right side write. “What I Don’t Like to Do”.
Then, think about all of the functions you manage and roles you perform in your business, like planning and setting strategy, marketing, providing the service or product in which you specialize, dealing with financial issues, speaking, writing, networking, customer service, order fulfillment, etc. Most of my clients have three or four items on the “What I Love to Do” side — speaking, coaching/consulting, training, and writing. The remainder of the other functions and roles fall on the other side. The items on the right hand side, the “What I Don’t Like to Do” list, will serve as a great indicator of the types of things you need to be delegating in your business.
Based on my past experience as a virtual assistant and online business manager for a number of clients, here are 5 tasks should delegate to your Virtual Assistant right away to help you begin to generate additional income in your business:
Ezine. An email newsletter will help you get prospective clients into your marketing funnel. Your VA can format the plain text and HTML versions of your email newsletter. All you need to do is write your primary and filler articles each week and forward those to your VA to format and send the finished product out to your newsletter list.
Media. Have your VA research an industry-specific media list . This value of this list is in developing relationships with these media contacts so that you’re the expert they immediately think of when they’re doing a story on your area of expertise.
Article Marketing. Write once and have that article work for you again and again. Have your VA submit articles you’ve written to online article databases to increase the number of links back to your website and to send more visitors to your website.
Strategic Alliances. Once of the quickest ways to grow your business is by creating strategic alliance or joint venture relationships. Have your VA research potential strategic alliance or joint venture partners who provide a service to a similar audience or whose client base could benefit from your product or service.
Product Development. Got recorded interviews sitting around gathering dust on your hard drive? How about information you’ve created for presentations that you’ve never done anything with? Have your VA coordinate the transcript and audio editing of any recorded files you might have and help you polish those into saleable products. Your VA can also help your format printed material into an ebook, ecourse, special report, etc. and before you know you, you’ll become an information marketer!
What operational aspects of your business could you delegate to someone else? If you had extra time, how could you increase the revenues of your business? Give these questions strong consideration–and use your Virtual Assistant to help you make more profit with less of your time today!
Online Business Resource Queen (TM) and Online Business Coach Donna Gunter helps independent service professionals learn how to automate their businesses, leverage their expertise on the Internet, and get more clients online. To claim your FR*EE gift, TurboCharge Your Online Marketing Toolkit, visit her site at OnlineBizU.com. Ask Donna an Internet Marketing question at AskDonnaGunter.com.
NOTE: The following is a guest post from one of my favorite internet marketing mentors.
Why I Love Affiliate Marketing – Part 5
By Jimmy D. Brown of “Affiliatenaire”
The word “overhead” is not a favorite among those who run businesses of any kind. Nobody likes the expenses of operating a business. And nobody really talks about them much when it comes to promoting all of the “money-making” products and services online.
But, don’t kid yourself, there’s a lot of overhead.
That brings me to the fifth reason why I love affiliate marketing…
** You don’t need a big budget to make it work **
Do you have any idea how much money is spent running an internet business? There are monthly fees for…
* Autoresponders
* Hosting
* Management
* Advertising
* Scripts
* Much more
There are regular fees for…
* Licensing
* Outsourcing
* Support
* Customer Service
* Maintenance
* Development
* Recruting
* Much more
It’s not uncommon to spend tens of thousands (even hundreds of thousands) of dollars in operational costs — which is fine if you’ve been in business a while and are making the bucks. However, if you’re a newcomer, it can be taxing on your budget!
SIDEBAR: I paid one girl over $30,000 last year just to oversee one small part of my business.
No one talks much about it, but there ARE a lot of expenses involved before you get to the ”bottom line” of profit.
BUT, with affiliate marketing, you don’t need a big budget to make it work! You can simply use a variety of free and low-cost marketing methods to generate clicks to your affiliate link.
That’s why I love affiliate marketing.
You don’t need a big budget to make it work.
…………………….
Jimmy D. Brown is the author of “Affiliatenaire”, teaching you how to create big-time affiliate commission checks in only 1-3 hours each week. Discover how you can get cash in the bank without a website, experience or even an idea! Visit http://bit.ly/affnaire
NOTE: The following is a guest post from one of my favorite internet marketing mentors.
Why I Love Affiliate Marketing – Part 4
By Jimmy D. Brown of “Affiliatenaire”
I’m sure by now you are well aware that there are those who have reported HUGE amounts of money being made with their online businesses. What you may not be aware of is the amount of work involved in generating those “sales” (not always net profit, mind you … this isn’t “spendable” income in a lot of cases.)
That brings me to the fourth reason why I love affiliate marketing…
** You don’t need to manage an entire business **
While it can be quite lucrative, running an entire business with employees, inventory, partners, vendors, and other associates can be a time-sucking, frustrating ordeal.
Imagine…
* Processing refunds
* Putting out fires when partners SPAM
* Managing day-to-day operations
* Overseeing projects you’ve outsourced
* Recruting new affiliates
* Training everyone to help you
* Paying taxes
* Taking care of the paper trail
* Doing all of the “stuff” that business owners do.
Didn’t you want to start an internet business to make more time for important things in life?
Why not make a lot of money WITHOUT making a lot of extra work for yourself?!
It can be a lot of extra work and stress. BUT, with affiliate marketing, you don’t need to manage an entire business! You are simply responsible for promoting your
affiliate link… someone else handles all the rest.
That’s why I love affiliate marketing.
You don’t need to manage an entire business.
…………………….
Jimmy D. Brown is the author of “Affiliatenaire”, teaching you how to create big-time affiliate commission checks in only 1-3 hours each week. Discover how you can get cash in the bank without a website, experience or even an idea! Visit http://bit.ly/affnaire
Swipe File: Content Marketing Results : Contentrix – Content Marketing from @aliceseba http://t.co/0GLFkp7 via @AddThis1 day ago via Tweet Button
@FrankKern latest released video FREAKIN' ROCKS. I love that man. Always learn kewl things...Check it out at http://ow.ly/2AKDl3 days ago via HootSuite
I was sitting in on the Women Entrepreneur Success Panel at Infusioncon today and one of the panelist said something that totally resonated with me. “Success has footprints.” What an interesting statement. And one that’s so true. Who says we have to go to step 1, then step 2, then step 3 and so forth? If we can find someone who’s already been successful in our quest, why not use ideas, tools or implementation steps that have worked for them to propel us from step 1 to perhaps step 7, skipping all the time in between?
Do you have all your revenue eggs in one basket? It’s the classic situation many entrepreneurs find themselves in – and it’s a precarious place to operate your business from. 