Tag: take Risk

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Three Ways Online Communities Improve your Products and Services

One major benefit of online communities to the owner and business is that all the members’ information is available when engaging with others in the group or the content you publish. This information will help you re-work and improve your products and services to keep them interested and buying more.

 

When you think about this fact, it means that communities are just as important to you as they are to the members who join. It’s simple, the more you know what your audience wants, the better you can deliver a high-quality and valuable product or service to them in the way they want it to be delivered.

 

Online communities improve your products and services in the following three ways:

 

Through Specific Feedback and Reviews

Day 3 Increasing Traffic, Subscribers & Customers To Boost Your Bottom Line

Generating various ideas and insights by asking for and receiving feedback and reviews from your community is very effective. If you make it easy for them to leave their thoughts and even reward them for doing so, you can encourage them to provide deep insight that can affect future products and services substantially.

 

You can take an especially well-written and delightful review and turn it into a blog post, place it on your website sales page, or even turn it into a case study to help encourage more people to buy that product or service.

 

Through Commonly Asked Questions and Frustrations

 

Being a part of your community gives your audience a chance to ask questions and even express frustrations. You can do this by using simple Google Forms if you want to or using your own website and another form creator. Just provide the link to the group members and tell them how to submit their questions or frustrations to you.

 

When you do get the questions in, or the frustrations are expressed, use that information to help each person directly but also use it to design a current blog post with information that solves these problems or directs them as to where they can find a solution if it’s not through your products or services.

 

Through Education and Member-To-Member Interaction

 

Each time you provide content that educates your members, always participate in discussing the information you provided. Encourage the member-to-member interaction and discussion by calling out particular experts or members who have already been educated in that regard. And remember, all of the discussions and user-generated content on your membership site, community boards, or groups are yours to use as you will as long as you set up permissions when they joined.

 

As you grow your community, please take advantage of these options to see how your members feel about your current products or what they are searching for to help solve their problems. These options provide you with more information that can be used to generate even more content. It also gets them engaged and makes them feel like they are valuable and a part of something important.

 

 

 

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The Three Keys to Optimizing Your Email Content

Maximizing your profits and effectively communicating to your audience is required today to be successful in business. Without quality content, email marketing would be dead. Without content to engage with, there would be no reason to use it as it wouldn’t correctly engage, educate and persuade your audience. Without it, you can’t convert them into paying or loyal customers. Therefore, you need to learn and understand how to optimize your email content to maximize your email marketing success.

 

The following are the three key pieces required to optimize your email marketing funnels fully:

 

Value-Driven

The point of emails is always to find ways to educate and add value to your subscribers’ life. Education is the best way to persuade or direct your audience to make a purchase. You don’t need to and shouldn’t constantly be selling to them. In fact, if the title looks like an obvious sales pitch, they are unlikely to open.

 

Only about one out of every four sales emails is opened. However, if your readers know that they will gain value every single time they open your email, they won’t want to leave. They understand that you need to sell products or services at the end of the day to see a return on investment. If they find value in your content, products, and services, it will come around. In other words, don’t make sales your only point of focus.

 

Engaged and Personable

All content should be engaging and personable. This means your readers feel like they are talking to a human and are forming a deep connection. It inspires or drives them to take action and makes them feel more involved or important while reading your email. The more interactive and humanized the content, the more trust, and credibility you establish that grows your audience and conversions.

 

Personalized

You may feel like you can’t write. But the truth is if you simply write as if you are talking to a friend or loved one, you’ll do better. Write how you speak and edit later. A natural conversation with automated personalized features like adding their name goes a long way. Not making an effort to use personalization will be obvious to your subscribers. When you don’t personalize, you make your readers feel unimportant and that you are only there to get something from them instead of providing value in return. Personalization shows you value them as an individual and strengthens the customer experience and relationship.

 

Be sure to follow these three keys to optimizing your email content if you want to see more conversions. Increasing your click-through rate and return on investment is reliant on valuable, engaging, and personalized content. Commit to always getting to know your audience, tracking your metrics, and asking for feedback to improve your content and increase your email marketing success.

 

 10 Content Marketing Tips for Email Marketing Success

 

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Daily Habit for Success: Manage Your Money

A daily habit that will propel you to success is learning to manage your money. This isn’t really about investing. Although you should definitely set up regular investments and plan for your future, this is more about the idea that you should always know what’s coming in and what’s going out (and from and to whom) any moment of any given day.

 

To manage your money every day, you’ll want to:

 

  • Develop Plans for Your Money – What you do today with your money has everything to do with the plans you’ve created for the money you have. If you are not planning for big expenditures, you may overspend, or you might even miss opportunities that you would have taken otherwise.

 

  • Track Your Spending – Even if you spend a buck on a candy bar at the checkout, you need to track what you spend your money on. If you make it a habit to track every single day, it makes it easier than having to do data entry later after the fact. Use apps to help you automatically track your spending.

 

  • Track Your Income – It’s also important to track what is coming in on a daily basis. Don’t worry. This is not hard if you’re using a good online bank that offers the ability to categorize your income as it comes in. When you habituate glancing at the results once a day to stay up to date, it becomes easy.

 

  • Know Your Income Streams – Most wealthy people have about seven income streams on average. Knowing how each of your streams is working out, whether investments or something else daily, is imperative. What you track grows.

 

  • Create a Realistic Monthly Budget – If you are having issues sticking to your plans, redo your budget. If it’s not realistic, you won’t stick to it. Make your budget work for you by using real numbers and deciding what to do based on reality. For example, if you work until 9 pm, the idea that you’re going to cook from scratch every day is a pipe dream.

3 step plan

  • Pay Your Bills on Time Every Time – Paying your bills late accounts for billions of dollars in income to corporations that charge these fees. Don’t give them more of your hard-earned money for nothing. Instead, set up automatic payments and then double-check by using text alerts when the money comes out of your account so you don’t ever miss a payment.

 

  • Kept Consumer Dept Reasonable – The fewer payments you need to make, the less work you’ll have to do keeping track. Consumer debt has a place, but it should be used to buy appreciating assets over depreciating assets and kept to a minimum.

 

  • Track and Manage Recurring Payments – Everyone has recurring payments set up these days, but it’s important to be mindful of them and not just ignore the money coming out. Please pay attention to it coming out of your account so you can check whether you really need that item or not based on how you feel about the payment in comparison to the value you receive.

 

  • Save For Emergencies – Having fast cash available in case of an emergency, whether something tragic or an exciting opportunity, is a great way to cut down on decision paralysis. Try to have at least six to nine months of emergency money available in cash at all times.

 

  • Build Your Future Long-Term Savings and Investments – Using many automation methods, start investing in your long-term future using automatic payments or benefits to clubs or cards, or jobs.

 

When you know what you have coming in and going out, it’s a lot easier to make judgment calls when opportunity knocks. Paying close attention every day to your expenditures and keeping track of savings as you plan for your future will ensure your success in the future.

How to Be Realistic About Time

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Exercise For 5 Minutes Each Morning

An important habit to incorporate into your day is to move your body more. Sitting and being sedentary is worse for your health than even being a cigarette smoker, assuming the smoker is physically active.

Walking

Short Term High-Intensity Exercise Benefits Health

 

According to a 2018 study at an Australian University, two minutes of exercise at a high intensity in the morning may be just as good for you as 30 minutes of exercise. Plus, moving boosts your serotonin levels and puts you in a happy mood the rest of the day, not to mention you’ll jump-start your metabolism and thus maintain a healthier weight easier.

 

Morning Exercise Eliminates the Need for Willpower

 

Most of us have good intentions to move more, but we often allow an entire day to go by without ever doing the intentional exercise we planned. This ends up backfiring and causing us to be less healthy and less productive due to increased fatigue and brain fog that happens when you’re sedentary.

 

Make It a Habit

 

From this day forward, right after you get up, as soon as you can move well, do a three-minute warm-up plus two minutes of high-intensity movements until it becomes a habit for you within thirty minutes of rising each day. Since it’s just five minutes, you don’t have to prepare as much as if you were going on a bike ride or a longer run.

 

Mix Up Your Movements or Just Do the Same Thing

 

Some ideas are jumping jacks, jump roping, pushups, jogging in place, jogging down your driveway, squats, running up and down your stairs. Whatever it is that you do, do it at full intensity for just two minutes. You can exercise more later, but this is just something you do upon rising each day before you have your coffee or get ready for the day.

 

The benefits of working out like this each morning are that you’ll feel more energetic all day long, you’ll be more alert, focus better, and due to all that, be a lot more effective in whatever you need to do. Making the workout only five minutes long, including warm-up and the high-intensity two-minute workout, helps eliminate any excuses because you don’t need any equipment, gym, or set up to do this fast workout. But, one thing is clear, it will set you up for a much more successful day.

Avoid Burnout: How to Exercise and Sleep More

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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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Deprioritize Non-Essential Tasks: Know What’s Important

Proper time management skills, high productivity, and achieving your goals all require knowing when and how to deprioritize. Just because you do everything or are extremely busy every day does not mean you are being most productive or will be successful one day.

 

Efficiency and high productivity stem from understanding that the effort you put in should equal the same or more output. Every time you work, if your actions don’t chip away at your tasks helping you reach your goals, you are not the most productive – you’re just busy.

 

The following tips will help you learn to deprioritize the right tasks so you can run a more successful business:

 

Goals First Tasks Later

In other words, when you create your daily to-do list, you should keep in mind your goals first. For example, don’t organize your day to leave easy tasks last unless it makes sense for your business and overall plan for that day. Think about your most important goal, then organize your actions or tasks around it.

 

Understand the Value of Your Time

Twenty-four hours a day may seem like a lot when you look at it numerically, but it goes by quite fast in realistic terms. For eight hours, you need to sleep, and then you only get sixteen hours left to share between work, friends, family, fun experience, and your life.

 

You can’t be bogged down constantly by things that don’t matter when you don’t have that much time to spare between everything and everyone. Highlight the essential tasks that get you closer to your dreams. Learn when to say no. Remember, you are missing opportunities when you spend all your time on one thing.

 

Start with The Most Obvious

What brings you pain, discomfort, and anxiety? Are there people in your life that only bring you stress and frustration?

 

Be sure the answers to these questions are not the first thing you are trying to do each day. For example, if a friend only keeps you distracted from your goals, stop going to breakfast with them every morning or being around them in general.

 

They are not worth your time and value. If you know checking emails, first thing in the morning will throw off your whole day, leave them for last or outsource it. Just because you put something at the bottom of your list doesn’t mean you can’t get back to it eventually or let someone else handle it.

The Secrets to Time Management and Why You Need It

In the end, if you want to have more time to focus on the things that truly matter to you, then take a moment to evaluate each area of your life and make sure your focus is on the right priorities. Start with your calendar right now. Are they a good use of your time?

 

 

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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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Tools and Tips to Help You Automate HR Management

From time tracking to expense management, automating your human resource management will save time and money.  Anything that happens on a recurring basis is ripe for automation. Tasks like data collecting, file creation, document sharing, form filling, and more can all be done using the software in a way that eliminates the need for an HR person to do these tasks and frees you up to do more.

 

  • Contractor and Employee Onboarding – When you bring on a team member, they need to have access to information about your company, including branding information, document templates, and more. If it’s important that your people comply with a particular thing, it needs to be in the onboarding process.

 

  • Offboarding – When someone leaves your company and moves on with another, it’s a good idea to survey them about why so that you can improve. Use your HR system to send an automated exist interview via email that they can do on their own before they leave. Plus, once they fill out the exit survey, they can also be automatically sent other information such as COBRA info.

 

  • Vacation Requests – If you have employees, they may want to leave, even contractors, if you rely on them to do regular tasks on a long-term contract, offering a way for them to let you know they’re going away is always going to make everyone’s life easier.

 

  • Expense Claims – If you reimburse your people for expenses related to the work you do, letting them automatically enter a request for expenses is a lot simpler when done via computer technology and reduces the paperwork and time needed to process such requests.

 

  • Payroll – Allowing your employees to enter their own time in a system that creates the paychecks is a great way to cut down on your need to do data entry. All you have to do is approve the time, and the check or direct deposit for their pay happens automatically.

 

  • Training – Whether employees or contractors offering company training is helpful to them and can improve their work. You can offer branding information and train them on using all your systems without having to do it individually for each person you bring on board.

 

  • Time Management – Let your contractors and employees keep track of their own time using the software.

 

  • Benefits Management – Let your contractors or employees take advantage of their benefits on their own. Self-serve, saving lots of time.

 

  • Tax Forms and Filing – Most bookkeeping software and systems automatically offer tax forms and filing options depending on your needs.

 

Even if you don’t have a bunch of employees and only work with contractors having everything together in a centralized place organized according to the laws and regulations where you live is going to free up your time and help avoid issues in the future.

 

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8 TIPS TO BRAVE THE WEATHER WHEN WALKING

 

The thing that often puts roadblocks in people’s way when it comes to establishing a firm walking routine is the weather. These tips will help you navigate and plan for that happening – because it will happen. That way, nothing gets in your way. Remember, if you have a plan you can implement it.

 

It’s Raining

 

When it’s raining and wet outside, it’s tempting to say you’re not going to walk out there. Certainly, you don’t have to – you can walk in a mall, at a gym, and in other indoor areas if you want to. However, walking in the rain isn’t generally unsafe.

 

It’s essential, like any other time, that you dress for the weather. If it’s raining, wear rain gear for walkers so that you can still use your hands to protect yourself from a fall. You might be surprised that walking in a gentle rain when it’s above 60 degrees F outside can be fun.

It’s Snowing

 

One issue with snow is the cold and the potential for ice. Check the weather to ensure it’s not too cold, and there are no warnings about dangerous cold. Even if it’s at freezing doesn’t mean you cannot walk if you have the right clothing and shoes on.

 

Take shorter, smaller steps to avoid slipping, and wear the right gear to protect you – including the correct type of shoes and outerwear to protect against wind and wetness in order to keep your body safe.

 

There’s Ice Out There

 

One of the times you might want to consider skipping walking outside is if there is ice or there is a significant wind chill factor. If you do find yourself walking on ice, it’s important to take smaller steps that are more like marching than walking normally. This will help you avoid slipping.

It’s Hot as Heck

When it’s hot outside, you can still walk. However, it is important to understand that there are times that it’s best to stay out of the heat. The main thing about heat is to ensure you wear the right clothing as protection, are drinking enough water to stay hydrated, and that you protect your skin and head from the heat.

It’s So Humid

 

Walking when it’s humid will make it feel much hotter and less comfortable, but you can still do it. You may need to walk slower, drink more water, and take more breaks. Wear thin cotton clothing so that it helps wick away the moisture from your body so that you can avoid chafing and blisters on your feet. Consider taking a change or two of socks for a longer walk.

 

There Is No Humidity

 

While it’s always more comfortable outside even in hot weather when there is low or little humidity (as in the desert), drinking enough water is even more important. You should wear clothing to cover your entire body and your head to keep cool, plus plan on taking at least a gallon of water with you for each hour you plan to walk. You need way more than the eight glasses a day in this type of climate; in fact, you may need up to 30 cups of water.

 

It’s Cold Outside

If it’s cold but not snowing or raining, walking is a good thing to do. If it’s not too cold to be outside safely (look at your local weather information), you can walk like you usually do even if it’s down as low as freezing if it’s not too windy or bad weather. Dress appropriately and you’ll be fine.

It’s Just Not Safe Outside 

 

If you have determined it’s just not safe for you to walk outside, or you simply don’t want to due to the bad weather, you don’t have to. You can go to a gym with an indoor track, the local indoor mall, and other indoor areas to walk, including a treadmill in your home when needed.

 

Walking in inclement weather is not hard to do. You simply need to dress accordingly and take enough water with you to keep yourself hydrated and healthy. If it’s too uncomfortable, you can do just as much walking inside if you prefer.

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Reasons to Study Your Competition Carefully

It might seem strange if you’re new to the business to spend time studying your competitors. In fact, some small business owners get afraid that the competition’s existence makes it impossible for them to succeed.

Planning

Develop a Deeper Understanding Regarding What Your Customers Expect

 

When you study your competition and see how they interact with and serve your like audience, you’re going to learn more about what the customers expect. Remember that you want to observe the customer to find out how they feel about the competition based on the way the competitors do business.

 

Learn More About Your Business Shortcomings and Flaws

 

When you get a handle on what the competition is offering and how they are offering it, you’ll be able to figure out where you are falling short. These are all areas of improvement by bringing in the right resources, either human or technical, to help you become more proficient.

 

Note How Your Offers are Better for Your Customers

 

As you study the work that your competitors do and the offers that they make, buy them. This is going to help you learn what makes a fair offer and also ways you can make the offer even better. Note the points that your offers stand out in comparison so that you can capitalize on that difference.

 

Identify and Improve Your Unique Selling Proposition

 

Your USP is your “unique selling proposition” is what makes your offers stand out from the competition’s. It’s all about what’s unique about you, your products, and your services in the eyes of your audience. You may be the low-cost option, the high-quality option, or maybe you differentiate yourself by offering top-notch customer care that is different from any other offerings.

 

Identify the Gaps in Client Services

 

When you study the competition, you can get an idea about how they serve their customers, which can teach you what to do and what not to do. Join their lists and read the messages. Try their freebies, buy their products, and ask for customer service to find out how it works for them. You can identify the gaps they have, fill them for your business, and stand out in that way.

 

Capitalize on Your Competitor’s Mistakes

 

Everyone, including you, makes mistakes. When you’re studying the competition, learn from their mistakes, and you can even capitalize on them if you’re paying attention. For example, if you note that they send 30 emails a day that feel SPAMMY, you don’t want to do that too.

 

Learn from Your Competitors Success

 

Likewise, you can learn from what your competitors are doing right. There is no reason to reinvent the wheel when it comes to marketing. Yes, you want to be unique, but the truth is every business needs to use all sorts of content marketing to get the word out, including email marketing and list building. There is no reason to try to run your business without doing this. It’s not out of style, and it still offers an astounding 38 to 1 return on investment.

 

Really Get to Know Your Audience Through Their Communities

 

An excellent use of your competition is to join their communities. By doing so, you can learn about your audience. Since they’re your competitors, that means their customers are in the same demographics as your customers. You can capitalize on that by participating in their communities so you can get to know what they want.

 

You can use a lot of methods to study your competition. You can do a simple Google search about the industry to find out who are the movers and shakers that you need to follow. Plus, once you identify the competition, you can spy on them using software like iSpionage.com, a TapClicks Company, by joining their lists and becoming part of their communities. Know who they are and find out how they please the audience so you can fill the gaps and succeed.

How To Build A Wildly Profitable Income Stream From Home Without Lies, Hype, Manipulation or Pressure…

 

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