Tag Archives: marketing

Your Business is Marketing and Not Sales: What… Impossible?

Your Business is Marketing and Not Sales: What… Impossible?

Sales is the highest paid and World’s Oldest Profession, contrary to popular opinion.  Any challenge is foolhardy because selling is the conclusion of any and all transactions between individuals involving product/services.  However, the conduit is really Marketing.  Now, what kind of IDIOCY is this being presented as Truth?  After all, isn’t all the about the Benjamins Lebowski, Cash is King and it's all about the lettuce; otherwise, why are you in business?  You don't want to be operating a Non-Profit Agency which 95% of marketers are actually operating which isn’t too encouraging.  So, what kind of marketing are you conducting and how effective is it?  It’s a critical question because different methods will yield different results at different times based on your audience’s interests.  Marketers and the industry have become more competitive and sophisticated due to increased demands by consumers.  In fact, to be effective they must function both like an economist and detective addressing what I call the W5s of a campaign (Who, What, When, Where & Why); otherwise, they will not see the pay-window.        

Now, before the core question can be answered let’s briefly examine the issue of Sales and its role in business.  Let’s look at a basic definition before we continue, “sales are sales, it’s converting any inquiry or lead into a contract or shipment”, while “marketing is not advertising.  Marketing is finding out what people want, why they want it and how much they’ll spend.  Don’t confuse marketing with advertising”.  Now, we got all the formalities out of the way, time to get to the real meat of this article.  Safe to say, sales are the final stage of the transaction but, why is the sale considered to be so important?  What was the process that motivated the buyer to complete the transaction?  There exist multiple stages involved between the start and finish and this is the sales process.  Basically, the sales process can be reduced to the following: Prospect, Connect, Research, Present and Close; however, a more in depth definition is best described by Mark Roberge at Hubspot.            

Well, it's hard to believe but, there exists an old term that holds TRUE and more importantly, an accurate measure of your ability to close a sale.  Have you heard the expression, “It’s all in the Presentation” or “you get once chance to make a first impression”?  Think about it, how do you make sales?  The process is SIMPLE (kind of); however, the execution often requires more skill to attain success.  Now, part of selling involves advertising, “promotion of a product, service or company. It features a strong call to action and promotes the benefits of that being advertised”. 

The other component of the sales process involves connecting through various methods of communication featuring your product/service.  Let’s examine some of the methods of connection: e-zine marketing, email marketing, cold-calling, videos, live webcasts, blogs, banners, online ads, search engine marketing, social networking, podcasting, twitter and mobile content, all are established methods of online marketing designed to connect with a desired target market. Again, how do you make SALES with these different methods of connecting with the masses?  Putting your product/service in front of as many eyeballs as possible with the aforementioned methods.  Seems simple but, never forget about quality content.  Sales are made based on perceived value; therefore, the most effective way of converting a prospect into a long-term customer is by educating them, addressing their interests and demonstrating how a particular product/service can render a solution to a particular problem/challenge.  Think about it, no hard-sell nor the usual rubbish by fast-talking snake-oil salesmen.

Now, back to the important question of what kind of marketing are you executing (Freebie Marketing, Word of Mouth Marketing, Close Range Marketing, etc.,) and why? The essence of the question boils down to what is called customer segmentation or segmenting customers into smaller groups to better understand their wants, needs, interests and other factors so as to provide relevant content.   Makes sense and this is why Inbound Marketing increasingly has become the standard form of marketing.

Firstly, what is Inbound Marketing and how does it work?  “Inbound marketing refers to activities (blogs, podcasts, eBooks, SEO, physical products, newsletters, whitepapers, social medial marketing and other forms of content marketing) that bring visitors in, rather than marketers having to go out to get prospects' attention”.  “Inbound marketing earns the attention of customers”.  

One primary goals behind marketing is to develop a business relationship where TRUST is established and maintained for the long-term…. similar to Marriage (lol!!!!).  Like Marriage it's not 50/50 but, 100/100 but, you are responsible for your own actions within that relationship.

When you think about that bloody insane Institution called Marriage, it's a business involving two Individuals who both marketed and sold themselves to each other and the confirmation of the Sale was “Marriage” or as I affectionately say, “Tying the Old Noose…I mean Knot”.  Like any successful relationship TRUST is vital; otherwise, no consummation of the transaction.  All transactions (monetary, personal, etc.,) involve commerce and marketing is the conduit that facilitates the process. Well, allow me now to demonstrate the benefits of Inbound marketing.

  6 Inbound Marketing Techniques Every Business Should Use

Give Away A Free Guide That’s Directly related To Your Business, what better resource can you create than a Guide that provides relevant information about the value and benefits provided by the product/services you make available to the masses.

Pick One or Two Keywords, And Optimise The Heck Out of Them, want leads and traffic then, the solution is to focus on a few keywords that are valuable, and create specific pages on your website that are for those keywords specifically. 

Build Your Personal Brand, your business is a reflection of yourself, Entrepreneurs like Jayson DeMers, Joel Gascoigne, and Hiten Shah are examples of people building businesses by means of building their personal brand. If you start a business, it’s virtually impossible to separate yourself from that business. It only makes sense to use your personal brand to build that business. Many brands such as Tim Ferriss’s and Ramit Sethi’s depend almost exclusively on the power of their personal brand. 

Ask and Answer Questions On Social Media, engage subscribers in social media sites and provide solutions, tips, suggestions to those who would benefit from your knowledge and expertise.  When you increase your presence and value online then, the benefits are soon to be received. 

Create Am Email Pop, use the popups in your business to build the email list for obvious reasons.

Guest Blog, “Guest blogging is, indeed, one of the powerful ways of building strong, high-quality relationships that may help you in multiple ways, including developing business opportunities and professional connections, setting brand value and, of course, acquisition of link juice.”Moosa Hemani, Moz

Vaurn James

Contributor

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The info shared here has not been evaluated by the FDA and is not intended to diagnose, cure or treat any illness or disease.

Creating your marketing strategy

Creating your marketing strategy

Developing a marketing strategy is vital for any business. Without one, your efforts to attract customers are likely to be haphazard and inefficient.

The focus of your strategy should be making sure that your products and services meet customer needs and developing long-term and profitable relationships with those customers. To achieve this, you will need to create a flexible strategy that can respond to changes in customer perceptions and demand. It may also help you identify whole new markets that you can successfully target.

The purpose of your marketing strategy should be to identify and then communicate the benefits of your business offering to your target market.

Once you have created and implemented your strategy, monitor its effectiveness and make any adjustments required to maintain its success.

This guide helps you identify which customers to focus on and your key objectives in reaching them. It explains what to include in your marketing strategy and how it can be used as the basis for effective action.

  • Key elements of a successful marketing strategy
  • Understanding your strengths and weaknesses
  • Developing your marketing strategy
  • Tips and pitfalls

Key elements of a successful marketing strategy

One of the key elements of a successful marketing strategy is the acknowledgement that your existing and potential customers will fall into particular groups or segments, characterised by their "needs". Identifying these groups and their needs through market research, and then addressing them more successfully than your competitors, should be the focus of your strategy.

You can then create a marketing strategy that makes the most of your strengths and matches them to the needs of the customers you want to target. For example, if a particular group of customers is looking for quality first and foremost, then any marketing activity aimed at them should draw attention to the high quality service you can provide.

Once this has been completed, decide on the best marketing activity that will ensure your target market know about the products or services you offer, and why they meet their needs.

This could be achieved through various forms of advertising, exhibitions, public relations initiatives, Internet activity and by creating an effective "point of sale" strategy if you rely on others to actually sell your products. Limit your activities to those methods you think will work best, avoiding spreading your budget too thinly.

A key element often overlooked is that of monitoring and evaluating how effective your strategy has been. This control element not only helps you see how the strategy is performing in practice, it can also help inform your future marketing strategy. A simple device is to ask each new customer how they heard about your business.

Once you have decided on your marketing strategy, draw up a marketing plan to set out how you plan to execute and evaluate the success of that strategy. The plan should be constantly reviewed so it can respond quickly to changes in customer needs and attitudes in your industry, and in the broader economic climate.

Understanding your strengths and weaknesses

Your strategy must take account of how your business' strengths and weaknesses will affect your marketing.

Begin your marketing strategy document with an honest and rigorous SWOT analysis, looking at your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. It is a good idea to conduct some market research on your existing customers at this point, as it will help you to build a more honest picture of your reputation in the marketplace.

Strengths could include:

  • personal and flexible customer service
  • special features or benefits that your product offers
  • specialist knowledge or skills

Weaknesses could include:

  • limited financial resources
  • lack of an established reputation
  • inefficient accounting systems

Opportunities could include:

  • increased demand from a particular market sector
  • using the Internet to reach new markets
  • new technologies that allow you to improve product quality

Threats could include:

  • the emergence of a new competitor
  • more sophisticated, attractive or cheaper versions of your product or service
  • new legislation increasing your costs
  • a downturn in the economy, reducing overall demand

Having done your analysis, you can then measure the potential effects each element may have on your marketing strategy.

For example, if new regulations will increase the cost of competing in a market where you're already weak, you might want to look for other opportunities. On the other hand, if you have a good reputation and your key competitor is struggling, the regulations might present the opportunity to push aggressively for new customers.

Developing your marketing strategy

With an understanding of your business' internal strengths and weaknesses and the external opportunities and threats, you can develop a strategy that plays to your own strengths and matches them to the emerging opportunities. You can also identify your weaknesses and try to minimise them.

The next step is to draw up a detailed marketing plan that sets out the specific actions to put that strategy into practice.

Questions to ask when developing your strategy

  • What changes are taking place in our business environment? Are these opportunities or threats?
  • What are our strengths and weaknesses?
  • What do I want to achieve? Set clear, realistic objectives.
  • What are customers looking for? What are their needs?
  • Which customers are the most profitable?
  • How will I target the right potential customers? Are there groups that I can target effectively?
  • What's the best way of communicating with them?
  • Could I improve my customer service? This can be a low-cost way of gaining a competitive advantage over rivals, keeping customers, boosting sales and building a good reputation.
  • Could changing my products or services increase sales and profitability? Most products need to be continuously updated to maintain competitiveness.
  • Could extending my product list or service provision meet existing customers' needs more effectively? Remember that selling to existing customers is generally more cost effective than continually trying to find new ones.
  • How will I price my product or service? Although prices need to be competitive, most businesses find that trying to compete on price alone is a poor strategy. What else are my customers interested in? Quality? Reliability? Efficiency? Value for money?
  • What is the best way of distributing and selling my products?
  • How can I best promote my products? Options might include advertising, direct marketing, exhibiting at trade fairs, PR or marketing on the web.
  • How can I tell if my marketing is effective? Check how your customers find out about your business. A small-scale trial can be a good way of testing a marketing strategy without committing to excessive costs.

Tips and pitfalls

Before looking at new markets, think about how you can get the most out of your existing customer base – it's usually more economical and quicker than finding new customers. Consider whether you can sell more to your existing customers or look at ways of improving the retention of key customers. Focus on the market

Your marketing strategy document should:

  • analyse the different needs of different groups of customers
  • focus on a market niche where you can be the best
  • aim to put most of your efforts into the 20% of customers who provide 80% of profits

Don't forget the follow-up

  • Approach the third party for feedback about your strategy – they may be able to spot any gaps or weaknesses that you can't see.
  • Put your marketing strategy into effect with a marketing plan that sets out the aims, actions, dates, costs, resources, and effective selling programmes.
  • Measure the effectiveness of what you do. Be prepared to change things that aren't working.

Pitfalls to avoid

  • Making assumptions about what customers want.
  • Ignoring the competition.
  • Trying to compete on price alone.
  • Relying on too few customers.
  • Trying to grow too quickly.
  • Becoming complacent about what you offer and failing to innovate.

Original document, Create your marketing strategy.
Source: Business Link.
Adapted for Entrepreneurs

This information is provided free of charge and is intended to be helpful to a large range of businesses. Because of its general nature, the information cannot be taken as comprehensive and should never be used as a substitute for legal or professional advice. We cannot guarantee that the information applies to the individual circumstances of your business. Despite our best efforts, it is possible that some information may be out of date.

Chuck Reynolds
Contributor

The info shared here has not been evaluated by the FDA and is not intended to diagnose, cure or treat any illness or disease.

Spirit of the Entrepreneur!

Entrepreneurs posses a driving spirit:

You hear it all the time from famous business owners: They started flexing their entrepreneurial skills by selling lemonade on the corner, building gadgets in their garage or hosting weekly college beer pong tournaments before they were running multimillion-dollar companies. It would appear that behind every mogul that is successful a kid who was raised knowing these people were born for business.

But what is it that sets entrepreneurs apart from the remainder? What is it which makes people certain of themselves sufficient to just take the prospect of failure head-on and have the determination to emerge on the top? It requires a special types of individual to create a notion in motion, riding the highs and lows from humble beginnings to ultimate success.

The spirit that is entrepreneurial is a gift that inspires other people to end up being the best they could be. From passion and positivity to leadership and aspiration, here you will find the entrepreneurs that most usefully define the entrepreneurial character.

Passion:

No body embodies the term "passion" quite like Richard Branson, creator for the Virgin mega-brand. Part of Branson's passion lies in his insatiable appetite for starting businesses. Established in 1970, the Virgin Group has expanded to a lot more than 200 organizations, ranging from music, publishing, mobile phones and space travel. "Businesses are like buses," he when stated. "There's always a different one coming."

Element of Branson's appeal is he not only has passion for business, but an incredible passion for life. Branson is well-known for an adventurous streak and zest for a lifetime, making him the most admired business owners for their power to have a work/life balance that is successful.

Positivity:

Jeff Bezos knows the charged power of good reasoning. Living by the motto that "every challenge is an opportunity," Bezos attempted to create the bookstore that is biggest on earth with just a little internet startup called Amazon.

Amazon.com established in July 1995, was able to sell $20,000 per week within two months. By the  end associated with the '90s, however, the dot-com bust had brought Amazon's stocks from $100 to $6. To incorporate insults to injuries, experts predicted that the launch of Barnes & Nobles' competing website would wipe out Amazon. Rather than hiding for fear of losing, Bezos came out fighting with optimism and self-confidence, pointing down to critics most of the positive things his company had accomplished and would continue to do.

Bezos proceeded to expand Amazon, which now offers anything from publications to clothes to toys and much more. Bezos claims his spouse likes to state, "If Jeff is unhappy, wait 3 minutes." Thanks to Bezos' good thinking, Amazon.com has grown into a $5.7 billion company.

Adaptability:

Having the ability to adjust is one of the greatest skills an entrepreneur can have. Every business that is successful must be willing to enhance, refine and customize their services to constantly give customers whatever they want.

Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page take this idea one step further by not merely reacting to improve, but leading the way. Google constantly leads the internet with revolutionary and new ideas that allow people to see and do things in many ways they couldn't have did before (think Google Earth). Making use of their ability to often be one action ahead, its no wonder Google is one of the many powerful organizations on the net.

Leadership:

A good leader is some body with charisma, a sense of ethics and an aspire to build integrity within an organization–someone who's enthusiastic, group oriented and a teacher that is great. Most of these characteristics had been embodied by the late Mary Kay Ash, founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics, a company that has helped more than half a million ladies fulfill their fantasies of purchasing a company.

Ash's tale began as a mother that is single, working in sales for a home company many different items. Despite being one of many compannies with sales that are top for 25 years, Ash had repeatedly been refused the promotions and pay raises her male co-workers had been getting. Fed up because of the real way she was being addressed, Ash started Mary Kay Inc. in 1963 with $5,000.

Ash was most commonly known for being a motivator that was a powerful inspirational frontrunner, producing a business with a "You may do it!" mindset. Her sometimes over-the-top incentives included the famous pink Cadillacs she would provide top sales directors. Thanks to her effective leadership abilities, Ash was called one of many in a business that is influential in the last 35 years, and her company was recognized as among the best businesses in America.

Aspiration:

At age 20, Debbi Fields don't have much. She had been a housewife that is young with no business experience, but exactly what she did have was an excellent chocolate chip cookie recipe and a dream to talk about it changing the world.

Fields opened her very first Mrs. Field's store in 1977, despite being told she was crazy to believe a company could endure entirely on attempting to sell cookies. Fields' headstrong dedication and ambition helped her develop her small cookie shop into a $450 million business with 600 locations within the U.S. and 10 foreign nations.

Dennis Roeder
Contributor

  

The info shared here has not been evaluated by the FDA and is not intended to diagnose, cure or treat any illness or disease.

Google Uses Alexa’s Information For Ranking and Indexing!

The Alexa Toolbar: Why You Need this Piece of "%#*&%@#".

Google Uses Alexa’s Information For Ranking and Indexing!

So you’re probably wondering why I have the Alexa Toolbar Installed on my browser and why I tell my fellow marketers, webmasters and SEO gurus to do the same.

It’s simple. The Alexa  toolbar monitors all my surfing and collects information about what domains I visit. They don’t know that it’s “me” – they collect it as anonymous user data and use it to rank your web sites. Not only does Alexa use this information for determining where people surf on the web but so does google. Let me repeat that fact so it sinks in:

Google Uses Alexa’s Information For Ranking and Indexing!

Installing the Alexa toolbar and surfing your own site will absolutely help you get your sites indexed by Google more quickly. I just started this blog today, and the GoogleBot has already come by without any inbound links!

Because the Alexa toolbar is such a pile, no one ever keeps it installed. So just by updating and surfing your own site daily, (assuming NO ONE else does), you can get your Alexa ranking from 5,500,000 or “no data” to around 300,000 in under a month and to 100,000 in 3 months.

Alexa Rankings and Google PR are two of the main factors uninformed people look at when considering link exchanges. (Page Rank is completely useless BTW we have a white hat PR 4 site that gets 20 visitors a day and unranked sites that get several thousand per day).

If you remember the Nielsen Company, famous for the Nielsen Ratings, you understand that what is put on television was once determined by what a minute fraction of TV viewers watched: The people with a Nielsen box on their TV Set – The Nielsen Families. Having the Alexa toolbar installed on your browser is like being a Nielsen Family for the web. Your surfing habits will determine what is most “popular” and what sites should be ranked higher in the SERPs.

Alexa’s Toolbar is a Great POWERFUL SEO tool.

That was reason enough for me to install the Alexa Tool Bar. Download it for yourself, and watch your Alexa Rankings Skyrocket over the next several weeks. We know Google looks at the Information, which means that Yahoo and MSN are probably looking at it too.

Chuck Reynolds
Contributor

The info shared here has not been evaluated by the FDA and is not intended to diagnose, cure or treat any illness or disease.

41 Tips that Get Over 10,000 People to your Email Sub List

Of course, not everyone struggles to reach these different stages.  Some people skyrocket to success in a few weeks, other people do well with traffic levels but not with your mailing list.

This particular blog has well over 10,000 people on the mailing list and gets a few thousand visitors per day.

In this post I’m going to show you a few really cool lessons I’ve learned while building it up to this level – a level that I think it genuinely attainable by any blog.

Let’s do it.

 

How to get to that magic 10,000 email subscribers mark

As always, I’ve probably forgot a lot of really cool things.

1. You need a strategy

Without an overarching strategy you are just blogging blindly. I spend a lot of time working on my blogging strategy because it gives me a laser-focus for what I want to achieve in the short and long term – and I know exactly what outcome I want from every article that I write. If you want more email subscribers you need to make it part of your strategy.

2. Your traffic sources matter

Some niches prefer Google traffic, others prefer referrals. Either way, you need to figure out which one works for you and go after it. Not all traffic is created equal. If you aren’t getting conversions it might be because of the places your visitors are coming from.

3. You need your own host

If your blog is on a free host with a free domain name you are shooting yourself in the foot from the start. It’s time to start a WordPress blog on your own host and make use of all the plugins and extra features that this allows you. Do it early, before it’s too hard to move.

4. A fast blog can make a huge difference

Speed matters not only for Google rankings but also for conversions. This study showed that for every second your blog takes to load you lose a massive amount of conversions. Figure out how to make your blog faster – it might mean a new host, a cache or some tricky coding fun.

5. Making friends will make or break you

The people that you connect with (both blog owners and readers) will make or break your blog. The more genuine connections you can make the more likely you are to grow a blog quickly as they help promote it and give you the right advice.

6. Free eBooks and courses still work well

Offering a free eBook to email subscribers still converts better than offering nothing. People are reading eBooks more than ever thanks to all our new portable devices. If you can give them something good you’ll make an instant impact.

7. You need to use Aweber or similar

Aweber is a service that hosts your email subscribers, lets you send them a free eBook after they subscribe, gives you access to a huge number of stats and also lets you design your own opt-in forms. It’s not hard to use and makes a huge difference to how a professional blog can function.

8. Costs add up

Website hosting, email subscriber hosting, advertising, purchasing images, etc. all adds up. A blog like this one costs around $300+ a month to keep online. Unless you are making a strategic income from it the costs can make it not worth while.

9. Your goals are important but can often change

It’s extremely important to have goals for your blog or website but it’s also important to make sure that they change if they need to. If something isn’t working and you’ve given it a lot of time and effort than it’s sometimes better to be strong and let it go and try something else.

10. You still have to sell the list

Just because you have a mailing list doesn’t mean that people will automatically subscribe. Don’t just stick a form in your sidebar and hope that people will give you their details – sell it. Mention it in posts, develop landing pages, talk about it in your guest posts. You need to let people know what’s going on.

11. Split testing can change your business

Glen wrote a really good post about split testing and how it can literally grow your conversions/income by 1000%+. You can split test your landing pages, your opt-in forms, your mail outs, etc. and see which versions works best. It’s easy to do nowadays so there really isn’t an excuse not to. Just make sure you’re testing things that matter and giving them enough time to show meaningful results.

12. Write on other blogs more than you write on your own

A lot of bloggers just write on their own blog and then wonder why no one is reading it. Well, it’s probably because no one knows it exists! Use guest posts as a starting point to get your name out there. Write more on other blogs than your own until you have a big reader base.

13. Text is great but other media is growing

Writing is, in my opinion, still the most powerful form of content on the net. People read a lot and not everyone can watch videos at work. But things like podcasts, videos, info graphics, etc. can play a huge role in getting you new and improved traffic.

14. SEO is dangerous

Relying on Google for anything is, as I’ve said before, a really stupid idea. They constantly change their algorithm and cause websites to go from fame to misfortune and visa versa. Play around with it and obviously try to do all the right things when it comes to blogging SEO and getting heaps of traffic but don’t ever rely on Google for your main source of income alone.

15. Advertising is a good idea

Dabbling in advertising can produce some really cool results. You don’t have to spend much. Try out Paid Discovery on StumbleUpon to give your posts a bit of a boost. There is nothing wrong with promoting your blog in this way.

16. Colors make a difference to conversions

Things as simple as colours can have a huge impact on how well your product or opt-in form convert. Again, you want to split test this stuff but I’ve noticed big changes in sign ups when switching my sidebar button from green to red and so on.

17. Social proof works in different ways

My friend wrote a really cool post on how different types of social proof can influence people in different ways. He explains it a lot better than I’m going to so have a read of the article and try to test whether social proof statements like subscriber counts are right for your blog.

18. Less is not always more

The idea that less is more is rarely true for a blog. You want more traffic, more subscribers, more sales. Of course, if the traffic isn’t any good it won’t make a difference, but try to to use ideas like “a small number of loyal subscribers” to stop you from growing a mailing list with a HUGE number of loyal subscribers.

19. Research is important

I spend a moderate amount of time researching keywords and competition before I write a blog post. It makes a huge difference about where I rank and how well the post is received. I show you my methods for this in Subscriber Special Ops – but until that opens up you might want to figure out your own ways to research before you write.

20. Pop ups work

I don’t care what anyone says.

😛

21. HelloBar is a great way to divert traffic

The bar at the top of this site is called HelloBar – a website/tool owned by Neil Patel that lets you put a message and a button up top and then split test two different versions. It’s a really cool way to divert traffic to a landing page or a mailing list sign up area. And it works really well.

22. Trying new things can inject a bit of magic

As I wrote in a recent post, sometimes you just need to do and try new things to see huge changes take place on your blog. You might not always know why it’s working but trying new things and failing is better than being stuck at a plateau for months on end.

23. Tracking and stats give you real insights in to what’s working

The statistics that you get in Aweber, Google Analytics and so on give you valuable insights into what is working. You can even use services like Crazy Egg to see where people are looking and clicking on your website. This stuff takes out a lot of guess work and lets you focus on real metrics.

24. You need to be different

Being different is the most important thing you can do online. Find a way to make your brand stand out from the crowd and then push that difference as often as possible.

25. What works on their blog might not work on yours

Sometimes I have “borrowed” ideas from my blogging icons after hearing how well it works for them only to find that it completely tanks for me. It’s a good lesson – what works for one blog doesn’t always work for another. And, yet again, this is why you need to split test different ideas and make sure what you think it the source of a success is actually the true source.

26. Find different reasons to mention your list

At the top of this post I mentioned that SSO was closed but that it would be open again soon and be announced to the mailing list. Moments like that are a very powerful way to get new email subscribers. Find different methods like that to work your mailing list in to your content and you’ll see new and curious subscribers on your mailing list.

27. Explain it in a really simple way

A lot of people who visit your blog will have absolutely no idea what a mailing list is or why they might want to give you, a total stranger, their personal email address. Spell it out for them very clearly, whenever you can.

28. The successful strategies change regularly

Something that I’m really only just learning is that successful strategies change regularly. I used to try to be really conservative with my online stuff because I was worried about compromising a “long term” blog for short term gain. But, what I’m seeing now, is that most of the successful people go after lots of little short term things and push them hard while they are working.

29. Don’t sell too early

Once you get to a certain level of subscribers it can be tempting to sell your blog/website and make a quick dollar (or 20,000). But what I sometimes regret is that I didn’t stick with that blog because I reckon it would probably be pulling in at least $100,000 a year by now. Just because you’ve reached one of those milestones, don’t sell up.

30. The homepage header works

You know those blogs that have the first half of their homepage devoted to an opt-in form? Those things work. I’ve heard of people who have them converting at 10% of all homepage traffic. You can get one of these added to your blog by a good designer and coder probably for a couple of hundred dollars.

31. Don’t forget mobile death windows

Not everyone can afford a beautiful responsive theme and some of us are too lazy to launch their beautiful responsive theme (guilty). But at least make sure your opt-in forms and pop ups work for mobile users. For example, if you use the lightbox version of the pop up you might find that people on iPhones have trouble closing the pop up and thus might exit your site without reading your content.

32. Target your offer in different segments

One thing you can do in AWeber is create different segments. So, you might have one landing page that lets people subscribe to your updates, another landing page that let’s people subscribe to updates only about “watermelons” and so on. By doing this you can target your offers and go after selective sources of traffic to ensure you’re really honing in on what people want.

33. Be consistent in your mail outs

One thing that I have learned the hard way is that inconsistency really gives subscribers the shits. If you tell them that they are going to get updates once a week don’t send them updates three times a week. You’ll lose them very quickly.

34. Email subscribers often hit “spam” first

Related to the last point, often you’ll find that an email subscriber will mark an aggressive or inconsistent email campaign as “spam” as opposed to just unsubscribing or deleting that particular email. Perhaps it makes them feel better but more likely it’s just easier to send it all into the spam folder dungeons.

35. Don’t be afraid to lose lots of subscribers

And now to throw a spanner in the works from the last three points – don’t worry about losing lots of subscribers. Every time we send out an email to the list we lose between 30 and 60 subscribers. That’s good. It means you’re getting rid of people who aren’t interested/aligned to your content.

36. What gets people to open an email might not get them to click through and buy

I ran an email campaign recently where I split test two different subject lines. The first email had an open rate of 41% and the second email had a dismal 26%. The funny thing was that the second email converted better than the first. I think this shows us two things: noise (attention grabbing tactics) doesn’t always lead to conversions, and that split testing is vital.

37. WWSGD?

There is a really cool plugin called WWSGD which stands for What Would Seth Godin Do that puts a little dialogue box at the top of your post and welcomes people based on cookies – new visitors get a message that old users don’t. But you can take this further. For example, if you came from Twitter you might get a message like “Hey there Twitter user! Check out our posts on getting the most out of Twitter”. These types of WordPress plugins are an amazing and easy way to attract more email subscribers by getting people deeper in to your content.

38. Tell me why I don’t like Mondays (but Sunday is okay…)

I’ve also found out that Monday is terrible for new posts, even though some people say it’s the best day. For me the best days are Tuesday and Wednesday but test for yourself.

39. Always be tired

Generally I find that the best traffic is around 9am East Coast time which tends to be around midnight in Australia – unless it’s daylight savings. Sure, I could set an automatic scheduler but I find that readers really love chatting to me in the comments section and if I’m in bed I get a lot less interaction. So – always be tired.

40. Redirect those comments

One of the coolest things I ever did on this blog (and one of the most popular and widely copied posts on my site) was redirecting comments to a “thank you” page using a simple plugin. As soon as someone leaves a comment for the first time they’ll get redirected to a little page that thanks them for their interaction and shows them the mailing list and some other cool content. It converts at around 7%.

41. Be genuine

Unless you can make all of this come together in a genuine way you’ll find that your readers will know. People are looking for a place/person to connect with – offer them genuine friendship through quality content and you’ll grow in leaps and bounds.

What has worked for you?

Growing an email list is one of the most important aspects of a successful blog. It is your mailing list that allows you to promote your content, sell products and launch new projects. So, what has worked for you? Leave a comment and let me know if I’ve missed anything obvious.

Chuck Reynolds
Contributor

The info shared here has not been evaluated by the FDA and is not intended to diagnose, cure or treat any illness or disease.

Why You Must Become An Entrepreneur

Why You Must Become An Entrepreneur

If anyone has lately been searching for a job lately it soon becomes clear that it’s not just startups that do not want traditional employees, Google does not want them, small businesses don’t want them, agencies don’t want them.

Becoming an Entrepreneur

Who do they want then? Entrepreneurs

And companies are using lots of resources to get them.

For example 30% of large tech companies have already set up a seed fund to provide capital for startup entrepreneurs. In the administration of traditional companies, entrepreneurship is more sought after than ever before in history. The use of the term “intrapreneur” dates back to 1992, but it is historically at the present era that intrapreneurship has become a global phenomenon with companies hiring entrepreneurs-in-residence, holding “hackathons”, which are company-wide startup competitions, and encouraging employees to work on creative projects by allowing them a percentage of their regular hours to learn entrepreneurship.

The entrepreneurial worker has become a popular person. However, the question is then, Where does that leave employees who were molded in the tradidional way, the ones that you could tell what to do and they would do it. Does that literally mean that everyone needs to become an entrepreneur?

The robot model wherein employees just do what they are told is quickly becoming outdated.

Consider an appliance building factory. You can either hire two people at $50,000 per year or buy a robot for $100,000 that will serve you for 15 years, with no coffee breaks, 365 days a year 24 hours a day and no absences due to Illness and the like.

No wonder robots are catching on. The current world robot population is around 10 Million. In South Korea, where the highest number of industrial robots exist there are 347 robots per 10,000. How valuable are these robots? By 2030 it is estimated that robots will perform as well as humans at most manual jobs. That means that it would be good to look into the future and consider our job prospects, whether our jobs will still exist in 10 years.

The good news is that there is one quality that robots don’t have – a human factor- which distinguishes robots from entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs have the capacity to understand humans, to know the problems humans are faced with and to be able to create value out of nothing.

Suppose You Don’t Want To Become an Entrepreneur

What if entrepreneurship just rubs you the wrong way? You are a very good at what you do and you just want to keep things the same? Ok, then let’s suppose in your lifetime there will not be any robots able to do what you do. Well, there is another problem you have to deal with: other people. There are people living in other countries who are willing and able to carry out the same work you do for less, being the same level of a specialist as you may be. In many areas of work roles does not matter if other people live elsewhere. And here is a compelling statistic; wherever you live, there are probably other nations where the type of work you do is cheaper. For example, IT coders from Russia code for 3 times less money than American coders. If we consider India, the rates would be even cheaper. But what about the newly emerging labor sources?

If there might be any safe haven from this entrepreneurialization of labor, it might be that your creativity would prevail to preserve your merit. If it falls to you to be creative perhaps this would preserve your particular niche of employment. However you must consider that an entrepreneurial creative type person would probably try to leverage his creativity outside his main job, so that he would receive more recognition as being someone who is considered to be creative. This creative aspect could be manifested in blog posts, an interesting ebook or an exceptional profile on LinkedIn.

So everything resolves to this: you need to be someone who can create their own opportunities and market the result. That’s entrepreneurship. If you happen to be a mid-level manager, you’ll never rise to the top unless you are able to create substantial value for the company, measured by profit. That’s what it means to sell. And if you don’t want to rise in the ranks, then sit tight, your replacement will probably be someone more dynamically entrepreneurial.

For those who are not happy about this turn of events, this state of affairs is actually a betterment of the workplace. The world is becoming better, but in order to stay competitive you only have to do one thing; you have to change with it – and the best way is by learning to become an entrepreneur.

The info shared here has not been evaluated by the FDA and is not intended to diagnose, cure or treat any illness or disease.

Rise of the Entrepreneur — Get Started Now!

Rise of the Entrepreneur — Get Started Now!

While being your own boss can be scary and a little risky, it’s not as difficult as people think. You do have to be someone who loves his freedom, likes to be able to set his own schedule and likes to work on things he’s excited about.

Is that all there is to it? No, it takes a ton of hard work, and an ability to learn from your mistakes, and an ability to get up and go again.

Let’s briefly look at some of the things that will help you on your journey to freedom.

First: Can Anyone Be Self-Employed?
Not everyone should, because some people just love working where they’re working, they love the people they’re working with, and they absolutely love what they do. They couldn’t be happier working on their own. And, that is probably great if you want to be in the same situation year after year.

But … there’s a fallacy that those who start their own businesses or work on their own are somehow born with an “entrepreneurial spirit” that the regular workaday employees just don’t have. They aren’t “risk-takers”, they aren’t self-motivated, and they just can’t manage themselves.

That is just a load of excuses.
Sure, some people like the security of a regular paycheck, but if recent events have taught us anything, it’s that this kind of security is an illusion because they usually spend everything they earn and are no farther ahead at the end of the year as when they started.

Sure, some people are afraid of starting their own business, because it means they have to figure out things they know nothing about … but don’t we all do this, anyway?

No-one really likes being told what to do, or work on what someone else wants to do. We all like freedom, but we allow our freedoms to be sacrificed out of fear.

It’s this fear that stops us. And so the question really becomes: can anyone overcome this fear?

It is possible. Whether you’ll be successful at overcoming the fear, and at starting your own business, is another question — it takes work, and time, and an ability to accept failure and learn from it.

How to Overcome the Fear
Ask yourself: what’s the worst that can happen?

For some, it’s that you’ll lose your mortgage and become bankrupt. But that’s happened to millions of people recently, and they’re OK. They just can’t get another loan soon, but they’re still living. For others, it’s a fear that you’ll be out on the street or hungry. Ask yourself, though, if you have a safety net: family and friends who will take you in if it ever comes to that.

That’s the worst case scenario. Now ask yourself: is that likely to happen? Probably not. If things get bad, you can take a job with someone else, or try a new tactic, or figure something out so that things don’t get that bad.

Stay Lean and Small
Lean and small and hungry and nimble and flexible are good things. It means you don’t need to pay a lot of bills, you don’t need a huge amount of revenues, and you can change as you need to. Big corporations need to make huge revenues, need to sell millions, and have a hard time changing because of a massive corporate structure and thousands of meetings and lots of invested time and lots of people who are resistant to change. Small and lean has none of those problems.

Don’t start with a lot of expenses — start small, with zero or almost zero expenses.

Sure, not everyone can start for free, but you can start small.

Want to run a ballet studio or fitness studio? Start by going to your clients, or start in your home, or do it at schools and use their space. Want to start in retail? Start online, with a cheap host and free web software. Want to be a marketer? Do it out of your home, with a cell phone, a computer and a car. Want to be a landscaper? All you need is a lawn mower to start out. Want to start a health clinic? Operate out of your home, or make house calls, in the beginning.

There are lots of ways to start out cheap — if your business requires lots of money, think about scaling it back or finding a different way of doing it, for free.

Starting out cheap means it’s hard to fail and easy to succeed.

Start Right Away
Don’t wait for perfection. Figure out the simplest way to start, and just start. Don’t worry about taking a bunch of expensive courses — just do it, and learn as you go. You might even start for free if possible, so that you can gain experience and as you get better, you’ll get good word of mouth.

Start out without an office, a website, business cards, employees, and a lot of equipment and software. Sure, you’ll need some of those fairly soon, but you don’t need them to start. Well, unless your business is a website — then you’ll need a site, but those are cheap.

You can get a business card later. You can set up your accounting structure later. You can figure things out as you go. The important part is just starting.

Does that mean you don’t need to plan? Well, you should, but don’t overdo it. You should give a lot of thought to what you’re good at, what you can offer, who your target customers are, how you’ll make money, how much you should charge, how you can add value beyond what is already offered out there. But don’t let it stop you — if you can’t decide on something, just start and adjust your targets as you learn.

On Quitting Your Day Job
For most people, it’s best to keep your day job at first, just so you have some income while you get the business started. Work in the morning, on your lunch break, after work, even during work if you’re not super busy — just don’t get fired. This is a good way to fund your start up — have a steady income and get the business going until you’re ready to quit the day job.

For some, quitting the day job is best right away, because it gives them the kick in the butt they need to get moving. It’s scarier this way, of course, but there’s no better motivator. This is best for people who don’t have a big family to support — singles or couples without kids — or if you do have a family, perhaps you have some savings you can live on for at least 2-3 months while you get the business off the ground.

Even if you quit your day job, you might be able to do some freelancing or consulting business to get some regular income right away, as you also get the business going.

What to Do
First, you should choose something that you love and know a lot about. If you love gardening, do something related to that. If you love writing, do that. You should ideally have some experience, or be willing to put in a lot of hours learning at first. If you’re already good at something, and you love doing it, you’re off to a great start.

Next, you should figure out what you have to offer, and how it will be different than what’s already out there. How will you meet people’s needs in a new way? Who needs your service or product? How will you reach them? Where do they go now, either in the real world or online?

And what’s the simplest way you can reach them and offer your product or service? Simplest means the least work, the least amount of steps and complications, the easiest for the customer, the least expensive, the least amount to start up.

And how fast can you get started? What’s the bare minimum you need to get started? For many, this is signing up for a free web account and putting up some content. For others, this is calling the right people and meeting with them with an offer to provide services. And that’s all — get the basics started, and add the rest later.

Again, you can get the business card later. You can figure out accounting and corporate structure and all that later. You can refine your marketing and product later — just start, and keep improving.

Never Stop Learning, and Never Stop Failing
Failure is not the end of your business. It’s just the beginning.

You have to take the attitude that failure won’t stop you from making it on your own. If your business doesn’t get off the ground, learn from that. And try again, but do it better this time. You might need to get a job temporarily to fund your life as you make another attempt, but that’s OK. You do what you gotta do.

Failure isn’t a reason to get depressed, to quit. It’s a learning opportunity. Failure is a stepping stone to your success.

And if you make it, don’t take that as a reason to get complacent. You should always be learning, always improving — not because you’re not satisfied with what you’ve done, but because if you stop learning, you’ll stop having fun. There should always be new challenges, new things to explore, new skills to learn, new ways to grow.

One more thing: do not be afraid of hard work. You’ll work harder than you ever have. Becoming an entrepreneur is not about laying around in a hammock and drinking Margaritas. Although you can do that, when you want to. It’s about loving what you do, about working hard to build something you’re proud of, about pouring your heart and soul into something rather than giving it to someone else. Make no mistake about it: you’ll work hard, or you won’t succeed. But you’ll love every minute of it.

Should you Start in a Bad Economy?
Yes.

This is the best time to start. This is a time when job security is low, so risks are actually lower. This is a time to be lean, which is the best idea for starting a business. This is the time when others are quitting — so you’ll have more room to succeed.

And with social media and networking taking off, this is the easiest time to start a business, the easiest time to spread the word, the easiest time to distribute information and products and services.

And while the big corporations may struggle in a bad economy, you’re small and lean, which means you don’t have the fat that the big guys have, you are able to adjust to the market much better, and you’re less subject to the problems of financial markets, real estate markets, and other external realities.

But What If Everyone Were Self-Employed?
What if everyone were in business for themselves? Would this be a horrible thing? I can imagine a world of tiny businesses and free agents. I think people would collaborate — with many people — but they’d do so as free agents, not as employees. And that’s a huge difference. A world of difference. Because then they’d come in as equals, and they’d be collaborating because they want to, because they’re excited about a project. Then the world of trying to motivate employees disappears, because people are motivated already — they’re excited, they have freedom, they choose to do the work.

Origional article by Leo Babauta

Dennis Roeder Contributor

 

The info shared here has not been evaluated by the FDA and is not intended to diagnose, cure or treat any illness or disease.

The 23 Suggestions to Improve Your Writing Skills

The 23 Suggestions to Improve Your Writing Skills

Words are hard.

Whether you're a published author or just getting started with blogging, it's not always easy to string words together in a way that makes sense, sounds good and makes the reader feel something.

But every marketer should be able to write — and, more importantly, every marketer can write. It's just a matter of finding the writing environment that works best for you, expanding your vocabulary, asking for feedback (and listening to it), and practicing.

Luckily, there are a slew of great tools you can use to help improve your writing. Check out the list below, and feel free to add the most helpful ones you use in the comment section.

1) ContentIdeator

The Content Ideator is an easy-to-use topic generator tool that's similar to Portent’s Content Idea Generator. Input your noun of choice, and it will show you all the results related to your keyword. You can view up to 90 pages worth of topics according to your search.

For example, if you enter the keyword "writer’s block," the Content Ideator will generate more than a hundred potential topics such as:

    Writer's Block — How To Overcome A Writer's Greatest Curse
    Writing Prompts To Overcome Writer's Block Considered — Case Study
    How to Write an Outline: I've Got Writer's Block and No Time Until My Deadline!

Check out other tools first unless you’re up for digging to find the topic that speaks to you.

2) Portent’s Content Idea Generator

This tool is a piece of cake to use, and its chalkboard background makes it fun to play with. Simply add the keyword, and hit the "enter" button. You get one title and content suggestion each time you click.

This generator has some personality, adding witty comments and jokes in bubbles alongside the topic suggestions. If the title isn't what you expected or seems silly, you can refresh it as many times as you wish to find a gem. (The only difference between a content idea generator and a blog topic generator is that the former lets you fill in only one keyword per search while the latter allows you to enter three.)

3) 750 Words

Another way to practice your writing is to do a "brain dump" exercise using a tool like 750 Words. "Brain dumping" means getting all that stuff in your head down on paper — without having to worry about incomplete ideas, tangents, and private stuff.

It's not blogging or status updating — it's just you, writing whatever you want on a totally private account, without ever having to title your content or tag topics or share with your friends.

What it does do is track your word count so you're sure to write 750 words (about three pages of writing). Plus, it's gamified, which makes it kind of fun: You get a point for writing anything at all, two points for writing 750 words or more, and more points if you write consistently. And every time you write, it'll give you some cool statistics on how much time you spent writing, the feelings and themes of your words, and so on.

4) Twords

Publishing content on a consistent basis is crucial in the blogging world. Our own research concludes that companies that commit to regularly publishing quality content to their blogs tend to get the most website traffic and leads — and those results continue to pay out over time. Tools like Twords can help bloggers commit to writing consistently.

Twords calls itself "the app that nudges you to write." It notifies you when you haven't written in a while so you can keep yourself accountable — and even gives you the option to connect with others who will help keep you accountable. It also tracks your writing so you can start to see patterns for the days you're blogging more versus less, and so on. Finally, it includes some cool resources like a prompt library and articles about habit formation, writing resources, and so on.

5) Swipe File

If you had asked you what a swipe file is, You would probably reply with something like this:

"Umm…does it have something to do with stealing?"

Swipe files aren't stealing. In fact, they're not even borrowing.

Basically, a swipe file is just a folder where you can curate cool stuff you come across, like advertisements, copy, emails, etc. "Save things that make you click, sign up, laugh, or go 'whoa!'" says the post. The purpose? To flip through it for inspiration.

Christopher Penn defines a swipe file as being "a collection of stuff that has worked, arranged in such a way to inspire you and give you future ideas." Sounds simple enough, right? Actually, we put together swipe files all the time without knowing it.

Brides put together binders full of pictures and wedding planning articles. Interior designers create mood boards. If you've ever used Polyvore or a similar site, you've (in a way) made a swipe file. By putting together resources that spark new ideas, you're doing yourself a favor in the long run. No marketer, copywriter, or creative professional can go through his or her career without getting stuck. It just happens. We're human and when the idea well runs dry, we have a tendency to give up.

The importance of a swipe file isn't its size or its diversity of material. It's the swipe file's ability to help you through creative roadblocks.

As SEO copywriters and marketers, we can keep a swipe file filled with headlines, social media campaigns, blog posts, landing pages, lead generation techniques, calls to action…if it helps you write great copy, include it there. It's that simple.

In terms of putting together your own swipe file, there are many tools that you can use. Personally, here's what I use or have used to put together my own collection of inspiration:

I have three techniques I use for my Swipe Files

1. I copy the article, ad, blog, whatever and paste it into a MS Word document then save it to my dungeon of articles and it is huge. But remember text based files can be searched. I use UltraFileSearch

2. I also keep track of reference and interesting sources, blogs, news feeds to curate content with my online bookmarking service @ Delicious as well as my browser's bookmarks.

3.I use Pinterest as another alternative swipe depository and it also gives me brand credibility and SEO juice.

6) Help me Write

If you can’t decide what you want to write, let the community make that decision for you. Simply, add your ideas, share them, ask your friends what they’d like to read about, and write and publish! By knowing what your audience wants to read before you even start writing, ensures you’ll have readers as soon as you hit publish and will save you time.
 
7) Trello

Writing efficiently and organizing well is a part of writing well. Use a tool like Trello to collect content ideas, assign them to different members of your team, attach due dates, collaborate with other team members, track their progress, and move them from conception to completion.

8) Draft

Putting the edits you made to the forefront of its interface, Draft shows you where and what you’ve changed, giving you the option of accepting it or reverting it back to what it was originally. What’s even more useful is the Mark Draft feature that saves that version of your work as you go.

With many other options that make iCloud and Google Docs seem dated, this tool can help you write and share your writing for other presentations not limited to blogging.

9) Quora

Quora is a great place to go for crowdsourced answers if you want to reach outside your network. Simply search for a keyword, follow topics related to the topics you're interested in, and/or post your own questions.

10) oTranscribe

If you're writing something that includes an interview with someone else, oTranscribe is a great tool that'll make the transcription process much less painful — allowing more time for your own writing and analysis.

It's a web app for transcribing interviews created by Elliott Bentley, a graphics writer at Wall Street Journal. The audio player is integrated with the editor meaning you won't have to click back and forth. You can pause, play, rewind, and fast-forward using keyboard shortcuts. Every second, it automatically saves the transcription to your browser's storage. You can export it to plain text or Google Docs.

11) Coffitivity

Ready to start writing? Here's a tool that'll boost your productivity. A study out of the University of Chicago found that a moderate level of ambient noise, or "white noise," helps people be more creative. While there are a lot of white noise generators out there, Cofftivity is my favorite. It offers non-stop café background sounds at varying intensities, from "Morning Murmur" and "University Undertones" to "Lunchtime Lounge" and "Brazil Bistro."

12) Tomato Timer

If you like to write with a little pressure (or you're just on deadline), then Tomato Timer is useful (and free). This tool offers a "Pomodoro" option, which refers to the Pomodoro technique: a time management technique created by Francesco Cirillo based on periods of distraction-free work followed by short breaks — which is supposed to be optimal for productivity.

13) ZenPen

A clean and minimalist approach to where you write. Blocking out visual distractions, with features to stylize the text, add hyperlinks, and block quotes.
 
14) Power Thesaurus

Power Thesaurus isn't just any thesaurus: It's a crowdsourced thesaurus that provides alternative word choices from a community of writers. The word suggestions are totally original, and are based on the editorial work of a team of writers and years' worth of reviews visitors' suggestions.

15) Twinword Writer

Here's another help that'll help you if you get stuck on a word and don't want to leave your browser or skim through synonyms. If you type using Twinword Writer, it'll automatically sense if you pause because you're stuck on a word. Then, it'll analyze the context of your writing and open a box suggesting alternate words you can use. You can also click any word to get suggestions. A better writing environment for delivering your ideas and thoughts in the most suitable vocabulary. Everyone from journalists, bloggers, marketers, to amateur cooks, students, and daily writers improve their writing.

16) Squirt

Letting you read an article one word at a time, Squirt enhances your reading speed. You can also use this tool to improve your grammar and spelling errors, and improve your brain’s transition between flow of thought and writing output.
 

17) Factbrowser

While you're writing, you may find you need to support your ideas with research. Tools like Factbrowser search facts, stats, reports, studies, and surveys. Their research covers a wide range of topics, including social networks, gaming, specific industries, holidays, coupons, marketing, and so many more.

18) BrainyQuote

You may also find you want to include a quote from a famous author, politician, celebrity, or any  public figure to strengthen your writing or inspire your readers. BrainyQuote is a library filled with millions of interesting quips that you can search by a speaker (from Aristotle to Dr. Seuss to Audrey Hepburn) or by topic (like peace, success, leadership, and more).

19) Grammarly

Once the actual writing part is done, it's time to edit. While human editors will be able to catch most grammatical errors, editing tools like Grammarly are great tools for triple-checking before you press "publish" or "send."

Writing for many is a challenge, even for me. It takes focus, determination, and some confidence. But it is the foundation of the Internet, you know information.

I put this list together to help make it a little less stressful. It should remain a challenge because we should embrace challenges. That is what makes us, especially as an alpha Entrepreneur, right?

Chuck Reynolds
Contributer

The info shared here has not been evaluated by the FDA and is not intended to diagnose, cure or treat any illness or disease.

Markethive, The rise of the Entrepreneur

Basic Orientation and the Legacy Alpha Founder special.

How are these two related? Well, they are and they are not.  In the orientation as I take you through a new Markethive account, we cannot avoid the Alpha default promotion and subsequent video and disruptions. So let me digress:

As we discover how the system works, how we set up our picture, our profile page, videos, blogging etc and how all that is centralized via our profile page, it becomes important to understand the current Alpha program and how that effects a major benefit the profile page has.

The Alpha program makes the profile page into a powerful advertising platform that connects all subscription registrants into your field of children.

The children: We are using the term “Children” and “Parent” to illustrate the relationships you will build advanced towards becoming an Alpha Voyager up to Alpha Founder.

You the “parent” sponsor a new subscriber “child” via your Alpha-powered profile page. This relationship never breaks. The “child” can de-friend you, go their own way, join different groups than you, basically become lost to ever connecting with you again, or they can remain your friend, become a strategic partner in your agendas, campaigns and strategies and belong to the same groups you do, join your coop programs. Either way, as your “child” and as long as you are an active Alpha Leader, every purchase they make in Markethive (ads, boosts, calendar displays, Blog promotions, Alpha upgrades) pays you up to 50% of their purchase as a direct commission.

Markethive is built upon the foundation of a free social network empowered by the culture adhesiveness of entrepreneurs and a powerful platform of inbound marketing technology and an advanced broadcasting platform not found anywhere else. The platform itself is priceless and would cost over $3000 per month to acquire anything like it.

The orientation part of this video is produced so you understand the basic nature of Markethive, it’s platforms of incredible marketing power, the culture, your engagement within that culture and how your Profile page becomes a serious tool to build a powerful  sphere of influence, a lifelong network and a source of a long term sustainable living income.

And this is at the core of the building of Markethive. Building a social network of entrepreneurs, in a social network system easy to navigate, with a clear to follow program to engage and indoctrinate entrepreneurs into becoming Alpha Entrepreneurs, alpha like the lead Dog in a pack.

Alpha Entrepreneur:
a) ability to protect oneself (rarely senselessly endangering oneself)
b) leading others
c) being a successful speaker that can persuade people with logic
d) not being afraid of confrontations such as arguments
e) high social intelligence
f) very high work ethic and drive to succeed; a strong desire to produce, earn, and excel 
g) a strong desire to shape one's environment rather than be shaped by it.
h) being the exact opposite of a loser (one who justifies quitting and rejects personal responsibility)
 i) promoting survival and inspiring others with good ethics.

Legacy Alpha Founder (Alpha Legacy)

Originally launched as the first version of the affiliate program, the “Legacy” Alpha Founders was designed to raise money to fund the “pending” marketing campaign as 2015 came into play. However, events being as they were, the system was not ready to promote or capable of broadcasting and as of July 2015, new engineering was required and major changes have occurred.  I am pleased to announce Markethive has a brand new Chief Engineer, Stephen Hodgkiss. We have also moved to Amazon servers, have rebuilt 90% of the previous code, have all brand new mail servers which are 100% approved through Amazon which means email delivers over 90% of the recipients.

Which leads us to a whole new level of an affiliate plan called the BeTheAlpha affiliate program. This program has replaced and added a whole new level of titles, rewards and achievements, through single level multi rank; step by step process with a progressive path to achieve top ranks. Those titles and ranks are as follows:

  1. “Free Member” (this is the new signup that has just discovered MarketHive) and will be consistently navigated to the Alpha presentation page until action to join a level occurs
     
  2. Trail Blazer” is the first step of a series of growing your “business”, getting orientated with “Markethive” and customizing and configuring your “profile” page.  It is this step that prepares you to become a “parent” as well as understand the concept.
     
  3. Voyager” activates the “profile” page to start gathering the “children” It is at this option another tool appears (Invite Contacts) allowing the member to invite everyone from their Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL, and Lycos accounts to the profile page. The system also begins orientation into advanced functions like the Blog Widgets, Plugins and Leads capture page widgets and broadcasting.
     
  4. Navigator” orientates and motivates to take leadership in organizing teams with Groups, Skype screen sharing and Web conference rooms. Also continues with tips and techniques using Markethive. This is the first level that also pays commissions from all the “children” the “parent” has gathered to date.
     
  5. Commander” almost doubles commissions and comes with greater advertising benefits. Also includes weekly seminars with CEO and other company “Founders” regarding the power of and vision of Markethive.
     
  6. Odyssey” like Commander gives a greater leverage in advertising advantages and greater commissions.
     
  7. Founder” is the top of the chain of command, advertising credits and commissions plus a profit pool.

Thus being the coming Alpha Affiliate Program in 2016

The new Alpha Founder position @ $5000.00 in the new affiliate program will offer the following:

  1. One time deposit of $10,000 in ad credits
  2. $200 per month ad credits for life
  3. 50% commissions on all financial transactions by your children
  4. 1 share of 5% of the company’s revenue pool shared with unlimited Founder members.

The current 2015 Alpha Founder, now referred as Alpha Legacy @ $1200.00 offers the following:

  1. One time deposit of $3000 in ad credits
  2. $200 per month ad credits for life
  3. 50% commissions on all financial transactions by your children
  4. 1 share of 5% of the company’s pool (limited to 250 shares; members)
  5. Share of new children (customers) from corporate marketing and advertising campaigns
     

Alpha Legacy Year End 50% off sale. There are a limited number left and we are selling the contracts for $600 each. You can use these contracts to apply the terms to any number of Markethive Accounts, yours or someone you transfer the contract to or sell it to.

Our goal is to raise $100,000 to further fund engineering, and empower you to become serious entrepreneurs.  We all own this thing together.

See you at the meetings

Chuck Reynolds
C
ontributor

 

The info shared here has not been evaluated by the FDA and is not intended to diagnose, cure or treat any illness or disease.

Get at least 10,000 Pageviews and High PR dofollow backlink from Reddit

Get at least 10,000 Pageviews and High PR dofollow backlink from Reddit

 

Do you know Reddit is one of the largest and most diverse online community. Reddit is filled with millions of people who have separated themselves into various subreddits based on their interest. As I know there is a subreddit that applies to apply to every kind of business. Now a days most social media marketing is a grind. With Facebook, you always have to spend some bucks to get likes, and this likes are of no value as Facebook is killing organic reach of business pages.

It’s very tough for a small business, blog, marketer to Log on to Facebook, Twitter and drive 10,000+ page views a month from beginning until you have huge cash to spend.

What is Reddit, and Why should you use it ?

Reddit is very different among all other social media, it is quite simple. Reddit is a platform where people share interesting things they find on internet. When something is submitted it will get  “Upvoted” or “Downvoted” As any submission get some upvotes, it will be over the “Hot” Page.

It depends on number of upvotes you get, whether your submission will go to the Hot page of subreddit or across the Hot page of whole site.

NB : In short more upvotes your submission get, more visibility it gets.

Difference between Reddit and other social platforms, is with very few submissions you get insane traffic, immediate access to users. Suppose you have a post and you think it will go viral, when you shared that post on Facebook only few people your friends, fans will have access at first or You can buy ads on Facebook and still a fraction amount of people will have access to it for whom you will pay.

No one else is going to have access to it until, your post get likes, comments and shares. Sames goes with twitter, when you tweet something it will be visible to your followers and out of them only few will see it.

Reddit is different anyone can submit anything from anywhere. There are some rules and regulations which are there but are not applicable until you post something stupid. Every post have to be submitted in subreddits (Sub-Communities), and the front page of reddit gathers the best post among the whole submission from the most popular subreddits. So it means, whenever you post something, you have immediate access to all the users of subreddits, although you need upvotes to have more visibility. This is the reason I say “Reddit is the Best Viral Engine in existence”.

Chuck Reynolds
Contributor

Get at least 10,000 Pageviews and High PR dofollow backlink from Reddit

 

Do you know Reddit is one of the largest and most diverse online community. Reddit is filled with millions of people who have separated themselves into various subreddits based on their interest. As I know there is a subreddit that applies to apply to every kind of business. Now a days most social media marketing is a grind. With Facebook, you always have to spend some bucks to get likes, and this likes are of no value as Facebook is killing organic reach of business pages.

It’s very tough for a small business, blog, marketer to Log on to Facebook, Twitter and drive 10,000+ page views a month from beginning until you have huge cash to spend.

What is Reddit, and Why should you use it ?

Reddit is very different among all other social media, it is quite simple. Reddit is a platform where people share interesting things they find on internet. When something is submitted it will get  “Upvoted” or “Downvoted” As any submission get some upvotes, it will be over the “Hot” Page.

It depends on number of upvotes you get, whether your submission will go to the Hot page of subreddit or across the Hot page of whole site.

NB : In short more upvotes your submission get, more visibility it gets.

Difference between Reddit and other social platforms, is with very few submissions you get insane traffic, immediate access to users. Suppose you have a post and you think it will go viral, when you shared that post on Facebook only few people your friends, fans will have access at first or You can buy ads on Facebook and still a fraction amount of people will have access to it for whom you will pay.

No one else is going to have access to it until, your post get likes, comments and shares. Sames goes with twitter, when you tweet something it will be visible to your followers and out of them only few will see it.

Reddit is different anyone can submit anything from anywhere. There are some rules and regulations which are there but are not applicable until you post something stupid. Every post have to be submitted in subreddits (Sub-Communities), and the front page of reddit gathers the best post among the whole submission from the most popular subreddits. So it means, whenever you post something, you have immediate access to all the users of subreddits, although you need upvotes to have more visibility. This is the reason I say “Reddit is the Best Viral Engine in existence”.

Chuck Reynolds
Contributor

Get at least 10,000 Pageviews and High PR dofollow backlink from Reddit

 

Do you know Reddit is one of the largest and most diverse online community. Reddit is filled with millions of people who have separated themselves into various subreddits based on their interest. As I know there is a subreddit that applies to apply to every kind of business. Now a days most social media marketing is a grind. With Facebook, you always have to spend some bucks to get likes, and this likes are of no value as Facebook is killing organic reach of business pages.

It’s very tough for a small business, blog, marketer to Log on to Facebook, Twitter and drive 10,000+ page views a month from beginning until you have huge cash to spend.

What is Reddit, and Why should you use it ?

Reddit is very different among all other social media, it is quite simple. Reddit is a platform where people share interesting things they find on internet. When something is submitted it will get  “Upvoted” or “Downvoted” As any submission get some upvotes, it will be over the “Hot” Page.

It depends on number of upvotes you get, whether your submission will go to the Hot page of subreddit or across the Hot page of whole site.

NB : In short more upvotes your submission get, more visibility it gets.

Difference between Reddit and other social platforms, is with very few submissions you get insane traffic, immediate access to users. Suppose you have a post and you think it will go viral, when you shared that post on Facebook only few people your friends, fans will have access at first or You can buy ads on Facebook and still a fraction amount of people will have access to it for whom you will pay.

No one else is going to have access to it until, your post get likes, comments and shares. Sames goes with twitter, when you tweet something it will be visible to your followers and out of them only few will see it.

Reddit is different anyone can submit anything from anywhere. There are some rules and regulations which are there but are not applicable until you post something stupid. Every post have to be submitted in subreddits (Sub-Communities), and the front page of reddit gathers the best post among the whole submission from the most popular subreddits. So it means, whenever you post something, you have immediate access to all the users of subreddits, although you need upvotes to have more visibility. This is the reason I say “Reddit is the Best Viral Engine in existence”.

Chuck Reynolds
Contributor

The info shared here has not been evaluated by the FDA and is not intended to diagnose, cure or treat any illness or disease.