Category: Social Media

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Are You Really Being Accountable?

If you want to achieve your business goals or live a happier life, you must learn how to be more accountable. Accountability means that you take ownership and responsibility for yourself—no matter what challenges and things get in your way.

Are You Really Being Accountable?

It’s excluding excuses from your way of life and harnessing values that increase your productivity. When you better understand how your actions or lack of activities affect everyone around you, you can better control what needs to be done or improved to accomplish your goals.

 

The following are a few ways that can help you become more accountable to achieve more quarterly and daily goals:

 

Honesty Is the Best Policy

Be honest with the mistakes you have made or situations you experience. If you find yourself making excuses or blaming others, then it’s likely you are not accountable for your actions and responses.

 

Understand Expectations Clearly

Take responsibility and learn your expectations inside and out. Don’t wait for others to provide the information for you or use the excuse you didn’t know. Ask as many questions as possible so that you can find resources that build you up.

 

Celebrate Wins and Quickly Forgive Faults

While it is crucial to track your strengths and weaknesses to be more accountable, you should also forgive yourself and quickly move on. You don’t want the process to be about self-doubt and abuse.

 

You want to recognize it for what it is, then figure out what you need to improve and forgive yourself. Owning your mistakes does not mean you should dwell on them. In fact, that only keeps you behind longer. It is okay to make mistakes. You are only human, but not owning up to them or evaluating where you need to improve only harms you in the long run.

 

Value Your Time

When you don’t take accountability, you are using up time no matter if it’s obvious or not. While it can be hard to own up to mistakes, it is even worse to repeat them repeatedly until it’s too late.

 

Have Weekly Check-Ins

Have weekly check-ins with an accountability partner, mentor, or perform self-assessments. Partners and self-assessment tests are valuable as they can ensure and guide you on the right path. They can give you the tough love and recognition you need to take responsibility for yourself and do the work required.

 

As you can see, accountability is a crucial skill needed to increase your productivity and success of your business. It’s about being honest with yourself and what you want from life and evaluating your actions and processes to get there.  If you don’t take accountability, you can be sure you won’t realize your fullest potential.

 

 

 

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Harness the Power of Consistency

Consistency is a skill that is about doing the same habits and routines regularly or repeatedly. It’s about committing to move forward and act no matter what obstacle lies in your way.

 

In other words, consistency is the repetition of the movements that get you closer to your goals. With consistency, you improve your weaknesses, perfect your strengths, empower yourself to accomplish more, and increase your productivity.

If You Don’t Set Hard Deadlines, Plan to Fail

To fully harness the power of consistency, you need to be more accountable, focused, and mindful of your actions. If you don’t, your business will suffer in many different ways.

 

Here are a few ways your lack of consistency is affecting your business and how to improve it:

 

Delays Action and Wastes Valuable Time

Without consistency, you only waste your time and other valuable resources. Your performance suffers, and so does your work.

 

Stalls Momentum

Routines build up the momentum you need to keep going with ease and comfort each day. When you don’t stay consistent, it’s much harder to get your days going as you plan your day unorganized. Consistency gives you a clearer understanding of what you want to do so you can keep going easily.

 

Stalls Personal Growth and Improvement

Consistency allows you to practice, which in turn improves your skills and makes you better. When you don’t take the time to improve or take care of yourself, your business will suffer too as you continue to make poor decisions.

 

Creates Unhealthy Expectations

No success happens overnight. If you don’t think you need consistency to be successful, then you are likely on the wrong path. It takes repeated actions each day over a set amount of time to get there.

 

Unlock Your Resistance

If you want to harness the power of consistency, you must figure out what holds you back. Lack of desire or clearly understanding the direction you want to go in life will create resistance to action. For many, it’s due to fear of success or wanting instant gratification and having an “all or nothing mindset.” Whatever it may be, you need to look deep within yourself and be honest to find the cure and get back on track.

 

Chance Your Perspective and Attitude

Some days, you will not feel the best, and some days, others will get in your way. However, it does not matter what life throws at you. There is always a way to see it more positively and objectively to push forward and get what you want. You only have now, so don’t waste it any longer.

 

Start Small

Find one task or activity that you know you can do every day without a second thought. Then add another step until that action becomes second nature. Test and repeat until you have a full and consistent workflow that works for your needs.

 

Remember, the more consistent you are, the happier you and your customers will be. Over time, the work will become easier, saving you time and energy to create more and be the next leading innovator within your industry.

 

 

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Always Plan First and Last

The thing that marks a good business is planning. A business plan for where they hope to bring their business and daily plans to guide their actions to achieve it.

 

You’ve likely heard the famous quote “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail” many times before, and that is because it is so powerful and accurate. There is no other way to put it. Just because you don’t plan doesn’t mean you don’t know the direction it will go. As statistics prove over again, you are more likely to go down than up.

Business Plan Resources You Can Use

Here are a few tips and tricks to apply for better planning your day and business:

 

Plan First and Last

An often-used productivity hack by many businesses and entrepreneurs includes creating a to-do list at the beginning and end of their workday. This strategy improves your business overall by increasing your time management skills, consistency, and accountability.

 

When you start and end with a to-do list, you allow flexibility and ensure you are always working on your top priorities and staying on topic—enabling you to cut out unnecessary or mundane tasks that only keep you away from your main objective.

 

Not only that, but it can also be a great reminder and motivational factor. Lists enable you to be ready to go and can give you the push to get started sooner.

 

Make It Simple and Fun

Planning doesn’t have to be complicated, and business isn’t always dull. Use colorful pens or fun phone applications to write down your goals. Add fun and small rewards when you accomplish each step. Remember to keep it simple, and to the point, so it doesn’t overwhelm you.

 

Think Small, Medium, and Large

Think about three objectives you want to accomplish for that day but organize them into three separate categories:

 

  • One Large – The task you want to do right away as it’s the hardest to do and makes the most significant impact on your main objective for that month.
  • One Medium – This is the bulk of your day that isn’t too hard to do but likely to use more of your time—for example, a group meeting or coffee with a client.
  • One Small – This is the task you can focus on at the end of your day and relax. Ideally, you want this task to be easy and pretty mindless.

 

This method aims to give you a starting point and organize your day where you are not running out of energy and momentum.

 

Don’t let your days get away from you anymore with these planning tips. Remember, a business without a plan is one that will likely fail. Don’t let that be you when you have the power and control to make it happen with the right strategy and commitment to daily action.

 

How to Be Realistic About Time

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Invest in More Training and Education

When you invest in more training and education, you are investing in yourself and ensuring a successful life for you and your business. Through education, creativity and innovation are born. What you achieve and don’t do in life is a symptom of the knowledge and experiences you have gained.

 

As they commonly say, “You can’t know what you don’t know.” Simple to put, yet complex in nature when you really break it down. In other words, when you lack the knowledge, you can’t make the right decisions. This is why it’s essential to take the time to find and invest in the right education to be sure you do what needs to be done to live your idea of success.

 

The following are four important reasons you should never skip on an opportunity to learn and gain more knowledge:

The Importance of Continued Learning in Life and Business

To Increase Your Reputation and Trustworthiness

To make a sale in a business, you need to form trust with your target audience. This requires your ability to build a favorable reputation for your brand. The more you educate yourself within your industry, the better you can understand how to do this.

 

To Bring About New Opportunities and Experiences

Personal growth, innovation, and creativity are developed through the experiences and opportunities you take. You get a chance to see life from many different perspectives as you meet and interact with more people. Giving you more opportunities to network and to better optimize your business.

 Be More Proactive and Less Reactive to Achieve Higher Success

To Have A Competitive Advantage

The one consistency to life is change. While scary to most, it is actually a beautiful thing. Change has afforded you all the wonderful experiences, people, and possessions you get to enjoy today. Change in business can happen fast, and before you know it, you are no longer relevant. Education can keep you relevant and ahead of your competition as you are proactive to keep up and become more creative.

 

To Improve Strengths and Weaknesses

Finally, but certainly not least, education provides you the ability to improve your weakness and perfect your strengths. Even more so, it can unlock abilities and skills you never know you had. Further increasing your creativity and giving your business a unique and personal advantage.

 

To Improve Empathy and Compassion

Education provides you information and different perspectives about the world. Empathy and compassion help you develop a deep understanding of the world, its challenges, and how people interact. With empathy and compassion, you can create better products, ideas and get through obstacles more efficiently and successfully.

 

Investing in education will always be a gain, even if you can’t see it directly. It can improve the quality of work, increase your revenue, improve your communication and understanding of the world to better plan and be more effective with your time. Increasing your success and happiness in the long run, making it one of, if not, the best investment you can make in business.

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Monetizing Your Email Messages

You have created an extraordinary and compelling lead magnet that is persuasive and solves one problem in a hurry for your ideal customer, depending on who you’re targeting in their buying journey, but just getting people on the list is not the end. You have to find ways to make money too. You only make money by making paid offers.

Lead Magnet Ideas You Can Use

  • Promote a Product You Use – If you’re part of your own audience, the products and services you use to solve those problems are of utmost interest to your audience. Tell them what you think about each resource you use and invite them to use it, too, with your affiliate link.

 

  • Promote Your Own Products and Services – Every three to four emails, send information about the products and services you have created for them. Anytime you bring up one of these problems, you can promote the solution.

 

  • Promote a Service You Love – Did you use a service you like recently that will be useful for your audience too? Let them know about it. Just like you’d tell your best friend about the yummy restaurant you went to last night, you should tell your audience about the services you get results from.

 

  • Tell Your Audience About a Product They Need – Even if you don’t use the products because you’re not part of your own audience, you should tell your audience about the products you need. Just like a doctor tells their patients what they need.

 

  • Create a New Product or Service – As you learn more about your customers, create products that fit into your niche that solve their problems.

 

  • Promote Memberships and Subscriptions – Continuity programs are awesome to promote whether you own them or not. Subscriptions and memberships usually require a monthly payment, which can really add up over time.

 

  • Sell Another Product on Your Download Pages – Anytime you create a thank you or download page, add the next product or service based on what they’re getting now, whether a freebie or not, as a suggestion.

 

  • Maximize Error Pages – Edit your error pages to take advantage of the space by recommending products, freebies, or whatever your current promotion is at the time.

 

  • Host Flash Sales – Keep your audience open and ready for more email messages by surprising them with list member-only sales periodically that thanks them for being VIPs.

 

  • Segment Your Audience Based on Their Behavior – Remember that you can keep segmenting your audience even after getting on your list by telling them about your newest offers, freebies, and so forth and using the automation inside the autoresponder to segment and tag them based on their actions.

 

  • Set Up Low-Cost Tripwires – A tripwire is a low-cost product that tests your audience’s interest. Usually, the cost is less than $27 dollars and is also a great way to build your list with your ideal audience.

Value Ladder

  • Up-Sell, Cross-Sell, and Down-Sell as Needed – Send the right offers to the right people. Based on their behavior, you may need to send information for up-sells, cross-sells, or even a down-sell if needed to keep their interest.

 

  • Remarket to Your List Members Via Paid Ads – One effective way to keep your list active is to use technology such as remarketing ads via social media. You simply upload your email list, and only those who are on that list will get your ads. You can use this to remind them to check their email.

 

  • Email Regarding Abandoned Carts – If you have a shopping cart, set up automation that automatically sends reminds to them if they abandon their shopping cart. You can do this via email, but you can also use remarketing ads to bring them back too.

 

  • Offer Coaching and Consulting Services – Personal one-on-one services and consulting is a very lucrative way to earn more money. Make these offers to those who have purchased most of your products and services.

 

The more ways you can offer opportunities for your audience to buy something you recommend, the more money you’re going to make. That’s just math. Make more offers, make more money.

 

 

 

 

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How to Find Your Most Productive Hours

The news is out. The standard 9 to 5 is dwindling, and many studies show that it’s bad for business. Even worse, you only have about two to three actual productive hours. To get the most done, you should take advantage of them and figure out what time and day you perform the best.

 

Experiment with Your Sleep Schedule

Figure out what your body likes the best. Are you a “night owl” or a “morning lark?” Even if you think you might know, give each type of schedule a try. Don’t just stick to the traditional 9 to 5 unless you have to. Research shows these are not the most productive hours. They were only designed to help offset manufacturing workload requirements and prevent child labor.

 

Keep Track with A Journal

Keep track of the information above in your journal. Take notes of both periods of inactivity and activity. Write down the times, the project you worked on, your mood, and other important details like obstacles that happened that normally don’t or if you got something done even faster than usual.

 

Also, keep in mind the environment you are working in, how much sleep you got the night before, or other stress factors – the more information you can provide, the better. After a week of building and experimenting with this data, you will determine your best hours to work.

 

Use Applications or Technology

If keeping track of this information on your own seems tiresome, then take advantage of technology or applications instead. RescueTime is an automated time tracker that pools all this data to track where you spend your time the most. They also generate reports and provide other tools that allow you to block distractions and improve your productivity.

 

Peak, Trough, Recovery

These are the stages you go through as you work. When you first get going, this is the peak where you have most of your energy and motivation. Then as your energy starts to go down, you are in your trough period.

Never Quit: Go After Your Breakthrough

Recovery is at the end of your shift, and best left for mindless or easy tasks. This means that when you get to work, no matter the time of day, always do the most important or most challenging work first. You will have the best energy and mental focus to get through it faster and more efficiently.

 

Overall, it’s important to remember that you don’t need to work a total of eight hours to be productive. You need to find the time that is best for you.

 

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Free and Low-Cost Automation Tools You Can Implement Today

Now that you’ve read a lot about automation, you may want to give some a try. The good news is you can test out a few options for free. This list is not comprehensive. There are free trials for most software these days, mostly cloud-based, so do try out the free options for the solutions you want to try before investing your money.

 

  • Google Docs – Even if you are using the free Gmail and Google and not the paid business version, you can use Google Docs to keep your documents organized and easily accessible and shareable via the cloud.

 

  • Trello.com – You can use Trello.com for free to organize your business and manage your employees or contractors. Set it up so that your clients can assign work for you and set up projects.

 

  • Join. me – If you want to host online meetings, this solution might work for you. It will work great for discovery calls and onboarding new customers, and it’s free.

 

  • Zapier.com – This works on the “if this, then that” process just like the next offering. Combine them both so that you can take advantage of using the free zaps to get more done each day.

 

  • IFTTT.com – You can use this solution to set up applets or little programs to perform repetitive tasks for you. For each account, you’ll get a few free options, but you may have to pay to get more. It’s not expensive, though, and it’s more than worth it to automate those tedious tasks.

 

  • PayPal and PayPal Invoicing – Most online business owners must get a Paypal.com business account anyway these days. It’s the number one payment method, and it’s free for anyone to set up. They have impressive invoicing capabilities, too, including recurring invoicing.

 

  • Invoicely.com – It’s free and allows you to manage more than one business using this amazing platform. You can see all your finances in one place, making it a lot easier to keep track. Not only that, you can track time, expenses, and so forth while also accepting online payments from anywhere.

 

  • Apptivo.com – This all-in-one solution offers CRM, project management, invoicing, and more for your small business. They offer a free starter account for up to 3 users, with a more advanced lite version opening up to more members soon.

 

  • Mybrightbook.com – This 100 percent free accounting software is made for non-accountants, so it’s easy to set up. You don’t have to know what you’re doing, and you can automate your entries and more. Free.

 

  • Salesautopilot.com – While not free, you can use this system for less than 100 dollars a month, and it has a lot of amazing features such as dynamic landing pages, scheduled campaigns, behavior-oriented triggers, and so much more.

 

  • Recurpost.com – This app will automatically share any post that you want on a recurring basis. You already know that if you want people to read your content, you must promote it multiple times. This system can be set up to share on a schedule you choose automatically.

 

  • Hubspot.com (CRM) – You can use HubSpot CRM free with an easy-to-understand view of your entire sales pipeline. It even has unlimited users, and there is no time limit. You can use this system for free if you’re alone or have a large team.

 

  • Metigy.oglecom – This platform will help you plan and collaborate on your marketing calendar, content and assets, account management, and more. It has lots of learning resources to help you learn more about online marketing too. They have a limited free plan that you can use for up to 3 social profiles. You can stay free forever, but for about $25 a month, you can upgrade to the professional version.

 

If you use any of these solutions or another one, please comment below on what you use and why you like it. Sharing solutions that work for you is good for the entire community because there is so much out there to try that no one person can really find it all.

 

 

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10 Ways Small Business Benefits from Smart Automation

All businesses benefit from smart automation. Automation today is not expensive. You can implement much different productivity-improving automation free and inexpensively that will not just save time but will save money and increase your revenue exponentially.

 

  1. Increased Scalability – When you automate, even if you’re just one person, if you choose what to automate wisely, you’ll be able to scale your business in ways you may not have thought possible.

 

  1. Reduced Errors – There is no way around it, but machines, once set up properly, make fewer errors than humans. If you can set up an automaton that works, you’re going to reduce the errors you’re used to making and letting by. It’s not about perfection, though. It’s just about being able to do something simple without having to worry about the errors once it’s set up.

 

  1. Better Customer Satisfaction – When customers get service fast like they want, and it’s accurate and timely, they are always happier with you—today’s customers like using self-service automation and don’t mind using chatbots at all.

 

  1. Reduced Labor Costs – When you can automate instead of outsourcing, this is always a good thing because technology is cheaper than a human being. Your time is also worth way more than your chatbot’s time.

 

  1. Better Work-Life Balance – Automating things even that take you five minutes a day can add up and save you so much time that you start experiencing that elusive work-life balance people love to talk about.

 

  1. Use Resources More Efficiently – When you set up automation, it is always more efficient than human resources. Not only does it work more accurately, but it also costs less to start with than hiring a person.

 

  1. Decreased Operating Costs – When you use technology to increase productivity, you can keep your operating costs lower because you’re not using extra human resources or your time, which is always more expensive than tech.

 

  1. Improved Decision Making – If you have an accurate picture of the research involved, which using automation can help you with, you’re going to make better business decisions. Imagine if you set up a Zap to send reports generated in Google Analytics to a Dropbox for you to view every Friday – so much more straightforward than having to get the reports yourself.

 

  1. Boost Productivity – When you have to do fewer steps to get to the deliverable, you will become super productive. Remember that there is a lot more to being productive than movement or being busy. Finishing projects and tasks makes you productive.

 

  1. Increased Competitiveness – When you can get more done in less time and done accurately, you’re going to please customers more, and that’s going to make you more competitive.

 

When you decide to implement automation in your small business, choose from the things you do right now, already, that are repetitive in nature, and you can’t go wrong—no need to invent new things to do until you automate what you already do every single day.

 

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Tools to Help You Automate Competitor Research

As you start and run your business, one of the most important ways you can improve your offers is to study your competition. But competitor research can be time-consuming. That might not be as big a deal for a giant corporation, but for a mom-and-pop business or a sole proprietor, it’s a lot. You still need to do it because learning about your competition will help you differentiate yourself.

 

  • Google Alerts – This is a free and simple way to start your competitor research. Simply set up your Google Alerts to search for product names, content type, search terms, and type of update. Set up separate alerts for each. You can also use Zapier.com to automatically pull the information from email and put your results in a document for you to review when you’re ready.

 

  • IFTTT.com – This stands for “if this, then that,” which defines the parameters of a task process. First, you do this. Then you do that, and so forth. You can make these as straightforward or as complicated as you desire.

 

  • Zapier.com – This is really just another “if this, then that” option that creates little programs they call zaps to automate a process. For example, you can set up an appellate or a Zap to automatically create documents for you to review later.

 

  • Ubotstudio.com – You can set up UBot Studio to do a lot of tasks for you that will amaze you. For example, you can use Ubot to create and manage blogs, open accounts on social networks, post status updates and blog posts, and more. You can even make it upload videos to every single video site on the web with a touch of a button.

 

  • Rivaliq.com – Use this platform to audit competitive communications, identify trending topics and content, and even study your competition’s data. Compare your competition’s top content against yours so you can find a way to stand out. You can set up automation that causes your account to follow specific hashtags and even create a report about it.

 

  • Sproutsocial.com – Use this platform to perform a social media competitive analysis. They even provide a free template for your use. Truly understanding your numbers is an important part, and Sprout Social helps you do that.

 

  • Semrush.com – This is a fully-featured marketing system more than a platform. You’ll get training and tools to use in all aspects of your marketing, including competition research. Determine what your competition is doing so that you can find gaps in their coverage, which will give you a door to stand out from the competition.

 

  • Screaming Frog SEO Spider – This platform can allow you to observe what competitors are doing, who their customers are, and what resources they are investing in. You can find out a lot of information from this bot crawling a competitor’s site, but you can also use it to crawl yours and get advice.

 

  • Similarweb.com – This is a great platform to use to search your competitor’s website so that you can learn about trends, gain insight into their traffic so you can learn where to distribute content and information. It gives you a 360-degree view of any company you want to study.

 

  • Kompyte.com – This competitor analysis software will capture the changes your competition makes to their website so that you can find out what they’re doing in real-time to attract and please customers. Knowing this gives you insight into what you need to be doing too.

 

  • RPA (Robotic Process Automation) – Much of what we’ve mentioned really is already RPA. All RPA involves is training bots to perform the tasks that you used to do manually, such as saving files, wait for and alert you when a specific email comes in, processes orders within a certain monetary perimeter. If you do it on a computer, the bot can do it when programmed.

 

To choose the right tools to help you research your competitors, figure out what you want to know, and the process involved in determining it. Then you can find the right software to help you make light of the job.

 

 

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How to Use Automation for Boosting Efficiency

One of the main reasons people like to use automation in their business is because it boosts efficiency. If you can automate any task that is repeatable such as invoicing, creating files, saving files, and so forth, you can save many hours of time in your workday and work year. Those are hours you can use to create even more awesome products and solutions for your ideal audience.

 

  • Sort and Respond to Emails – Your email software has many features that you may not be implementing fully. Apps like Boomerang for Gmail or Sales Handy for Outlook will help you sort and respond to emails using automation features.

 

  • Manage Projects – This is especially important if you are working with a team. Set up a project management software that allows you to know when each part of your team is done because they check it off, make a note, or otherwise use the system to ensure smoother collaboration and avoid bottlenecks.

 

  • Improve Your Sales Funnel – Using software to automate your sales funnels is a no-brainer today. There are numerous options for you to implement, such as Leadpages.net and Instapage.com, but also many email marketing solutions come with sales funnel automation options.

 

  • Enhance Your Workflows – Software like Monday.com, Kissflow.com, and others can help you automate your workflows whether you work alone or with a team. Improving and enhancing your workflows will ensure that when you do automate something, it’s done most efficiently.

 

  • Optimize Your Online Presence – Use an all-in-one platform that enables you to use all your social media in one spot, such as Hootsuite.com or sproutsocial.com. When you use one of these social tools to automate sharing, engagement, and relationship building, you’ll really realize the power of social media marketing.

 

  • Drop the Dead Weight – You don’t need to keep doing tasks that are not working. For that reason, you want to always check your metrics to ensure that when you act, the result is what you’re looking for. If it’s not, stop doing it and move on to something else.

 

  • Automate Every Possible Task – Make a list of any tasks you do each day that are repeated. For example, perhaps each morning, you walk into your office, turn on your computer, and check email. What can you automate? You can automate turning on the light in your office as well as turning on the computer. You can even automate organizing emails using tags and other features so that it’s faster to get to the emails you need to respond to.

 

The best way to determine what you want to automate is to track what you do each day, week, month, and year. Anything that repeats, do a little research about how other people automate that task. You may be shocked to learn how simple automating your business really is. Automation is not nearly as expensive or complicated as you may think before actually finding the right solutions.