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Write a Book the Easy Way – By Blogging It

September 3, 2021/0 Comments/in Building Your Business, Productivity

Whether you’ve always wanted to write a book or it’s a new idea (and you should write a book, by the way), there’s an ever-present problem for would-be-authors. It’s not a lack of writing talent. It’s definitely not a lack of knowledge. And for sure it’s not a lack of desire. If you asked most people why they have not finished their book, the answer is simple: time.

Entrepreneurs are busy people. You have clients to serve, a business to run, a family to care for. Not only that, but you’re spending time creating new training courses, marketing on social media, managing your team…the list is nearly endless (by the way – here’s how you can get it all done without losing your mind!) So, when would you have time to write an entire book?

You’ve Probably Already Written It

It’s true. If you have a blog and you’ve been maintaining it for more than a few months, then you very likely have already written all the content your book needs. All that remains is to organize and give it a light edit.

If you don’t have a blog (why not?), or your blog is young, blogging your book is even easier, since you can plan your content around your book topic, then you can write a book one blog post at a time.

Here’s how it works. Think of your blog categories as sections, and each blog post as a chapter. You can loosely organize your book by sorting all your blog posts by category, then listing them in logical order. Your book may only contain a single category, or it might contain several. The choice is yours.

Remove self-serving, time-sensitive, curated, or other content that doesn’t fit into a book. Remove the calls to action. It won’t make sense to promote your paid programs—or worse, affiliate offers—within a book.

What you’re left with is a rough draft of a book. All that remains is a few passes with your editor engaged:

For flow: Books should follow a logical path from one chapter to the next, so you’ll likely have to add or edit the beginnings and endings of your posts.
For spelling, grammar, and punctuation: Don’t skip this part. In fact, get someone else to do it. It’s too difficult to spot our own mistakes and book readers are less forgiving than blog readers.
For content: Enlist the help of a few friends or colleagues who you trust to share their honest opinion with you. Ask them to read through and note any content that is confusing or that could be explained in greater detail.

That’s it! Revise and you’re ready to publish.

People Will Actually Read It

Think no one will read a book that’s repurposed from your blog? Think again. Bloggers have used this method to write books for years and some of them are spectacularly successful. Darren Rowse of ProBlogger.net fame wrote and published his wildly popular blogging guide based entirely on the content he’d already published on his blog. He found that even though the content was freely available, people bought the book because they wanted the convenience of having it organized for them in one document.

Even fiction writers have discovered the power of blogging a book. Andy Weir, the author of “The Martian,” first published his book one chapter at a time on a blog.

Don’t continue to let excuses hold you back from publishing your book. Use the content you’ve already written, or strategically plan your blog to turn it into a book, but either way, write a book and get publishing!

Online Apps That Hurt Your Productivity

August 20, 2021/0 Comments/in Building Your Business, Productivity, Success Life

Apps are fun and cool, which is why they’re so popular. And while many apps are useful and time time-savers, many others do a lot to lower your productivity.

If you feel like you don’t have enough time in the day already, it doesn’t make sense to spend time on things that have minimal value.

Turn the silly things off. Focus on your work and when you take a short, timed break, you can play for a few minutes.

Here are a few such online apps that probably hurt more than they help:

Twitter. You don’t need to know what your favorite celebrity is up to. Surely, it’s more important to focus on your own life! Is it critical that you be informed (while you’re working) that your friend from high school just left the movies to go shopping for a new pair of shoes? Come on, now. Really?
Any kind of messaging app. Messenger apps just make it easy for people to interrupt what you’re doing. You jump at the chance to take a little break and, before you know it, 30+ minutes have passed. Don’t log into these things unless you’re done working for the day. Even at night, it would be better to just get on the phone and talk like a real person.
Email notifications. Email can be a great tool but it can also be a huge waste of time. Check your email in the morning and at night. The last thing 99% of the population needs is an email notification every 5 minutes because then you just know that you have to check it. It will drive you nuts until you finally cave and see what’s going on.
- Many highly efficient and successful people make it a point to check their email no more than twice a day. Most only check it once a day. Some only check it a couple of times a week. They have better things to do, and you could, too, with such a system.

Blogs. Good blogs are highly interesting and informative. Give yourself a time limit or limit yourself to a set number of blogs. Life is all about prioritizing, so set some priorities.
Facebook. It can be a great way to keep in touch, but it’s much like Twitter: 99% of the stuff you’re exposed to is fluff. Viewing pictures of someone’s trip to Africa is interesting. Reading that your friend is sitting on the deck drinking margaritas is of questionable value. You have a life to live, do you really have time for this stuff?
- Again, set some limits and strive to stay within them. Also, consider limiting the number of ‘friends’ that you have.

Social bookmarking sites. Websites like Digg, Delicious, Reddit, and other bookmarking sites are great tools for finding blogs, articles, and sites related to your interests. Just be careful how much time you’re spending on them. It’s easy to be fed 1,000 interesting sites every day. It’s also easy to burn a lot of time on them. Be careful.

Online apps can be wonderful if they’re used wisely. Don’t spend a lot of time on what are essentially frivolous things. Life is short! Focus on what you want to get done each day and avoid letting such apps steal away your time that you could be using to increase your productivity and make your dreams come true.

Want more? Here are more strategies to increase your productivity.

Fear-Based Decisions Are Bad for Business (and Life)

August 6, 2021/0 Comments/in Building Your Business, Success Life

At one point, every business owner will find themselves in a troubling situation. Revenue is down. New clients are scarce. Profits are falling, and a peek at the financials is enough to bring on intense fear and even a full-fledged anxiety attack.

Unless you have a million-dollar nest egg or trust fund waiting in the wings, chances are you’ve experienced that sinking feeling of a business that’s trending downward, too. But how you handle it can mean the difference between continued success and business-killing burnout.

Here’s where a lot of business owners get it wrong. They start to worry about money, and that worry leads to poor decisions that ultimately have a negative impact not just on finances, but—maybe more importantly—on morale, too. Maybe you know what I’m talking about. Here are two things you should avoid in this situation and what to do instead.

You Take On The Wrong Client

When business is down, it can be tough to keep your ideal client avatar in mind. Instead, you jump at the chance to work with anyone who comes along. The trouble with this scenario is you can find yourself with a roster full of clients who:

Aren’t willing or able to do the work required
Spend all their time telling you why your ideas and advice won’t work
Drain your energy and make you dread your office

Instead, keep doing what you know how to do – marketing, advertising, networking. Whatever you do to bring in new clients, keep doing that. Don’t stretch yourself so thin by taking on too many clients to try to make up for the loss you’re currently feeling. The abundance will return, you just need to keep going! If you have trouble believing that, check out The Abundance Journal for Wildly Creative Entrepreneurs. It can help get your mind back on track and bring in the prosperity that’s waiting for you!

You Stop Creating

And who can blame you? With profits down, you have to pull back. You can’t afford to spend time and money creating new programs, so you recycle the ones you’ve already produced. Your fearful self is saying, “Just re-release this same product again. It doesn’t matter that I don’t have to have new sales copy written or record new videos.” While this might help bring in a bit of cash short-term, it won’t do anything for your reputation or your self-esteem.

Instead, repurpose with positive intent. For example, you can turn your ebook into a group coaching course. Just be sure you do it the right way with new sales copy and whatever new items you need to make it into a successful coaching course.

A fear-based mindset can cause you to make rash decisions and rush into things. Do your best to take your time and think about your situation calmly and rationally so you can pull yourself out of your current position and get back on track to building a successful business!

The Two Most Effective Ways to Increase Your Productivity

July 9, 2021/0 Comments/in Building Your Business, Productivity, Success Life

For some people – perhaps even for you – increasing productivity is akin to finding the Holy Grail. Why has upping productivity taken on such mythical proportions?

Simply put, increasing productivity means increasing earning potential. If you own a business where you provide any type of service, taking steps to increase your ability to deliver the service in less time will allow you to take on more clients and earn more money.

Likewise, if you sell a product, finding a way to make or deliver that product faster will enable you to serve more customers, once again, making more money.

When you find ways to do the same thing in less time, you’re being more efficient. Efficiency and productivity go hand in hand.

Undoubtedly, the more efficient you can make the process of completing any task, the more productive you’ll be.

Use these strategies to increase your efficiency so you can be more productive:

Create a prioritized schedule for your work. Whether using a post-it note, a Microsoft Word file, or an online task management tool (such as Toodledo or Remember the Milk), almost everyone has some type of system for creating and editing the classic “to-do” list. These lists are sometimes a hodgepodge of ideas and tasks that need to be completed in the future and not-so-distant future.
There is nothing wrong with maintaining a to-do list, as it can make the difference between getting stuff done and going crazy trying to keep everything organized in your head. Still, the typical to-do list leaves much to be desired. Unlike a conventional to-do list, having a prioritized schedule takes things a step further, allowing you to increase efficiency and productivity. This is because prioritizing all of the tasks that you have in front of you while keeping track of a longer-term picture of your schedule for weeks to come, will allow you to really figure out what is the most important thing that needs to be done right now.

If you are creating a prioritized schedule and realize that you have a best friend’s wedding in two months, you’ll be able to bump getting a dress or tux way down the list, while still making sure to place it somewhere on your schedule. A prioritized schedule essentially puts things into perspective, allowing you to figure out what truly needs to get done this very moment and focus on that.

Seek out and accept specialized help. Whether you run your own business or are a stay-at-home parent, it will save you lots of time and energy at the start if you’re open to collaborating with others.
Bill Gates may be quite capable of developing all of the new programs needed to advance Microsoft as a company while working with prospective clients in addition to handling customer service and PR. However, Mr. Gates and most other successful individuals would never be caught doing this. No matter how much you can do by yourself, your resources are finitely limited by one single factor that trumps all others… time. So, rather than spend 8 hours a day answering phone calls, working on new products, shopping for groceries, and cutting your own hair, it may be a more productive use of your time to zero in on the one or two things that give you the most results for the amount of energy that you put into them. For example, if developing a new product will eventually double the size of your business by being able to cater to an additional market or consumer demographic, then this is time well spent.

Paying someone else to answer phones, freeing up your time to be devoted towards projects that will give you more returns for your time invested is the sure sign of a future Fortune 500 executive at work. (Check out this article from our parent company on how to find and Combining this strategy with using a prioritized schedule will enable you to focus on what’s most important for you and get it done. Your productivity will soar!

How Well Do You Really Know Your Ideal Client for Coaching?

July 2, 2021/0 Comments/in Building Your Business

We’ve all done the exercise. It’s the first thing you’re taught when you first start your business: Create an ideal client avatar.

This vision of your ideal client guides everything you do, including pricing (you can’t charge that single mom as much as you can the CEO of a Fortune 500 company), pain points (mom probably isn’t worried about shareholders), and even the color of your logo.

So you spend a few hours considering things such as:

Age group
Income
Family status
Education
Lifestyle goals
Location

Maybe you even write up a nice little story about your ideal client. You give her a name, a couple of kids, a husband who just doesn’t get it, and a load of student loans. You know quite a bit about her, you think.

But you would be wrong, and if you stop there, you may be missing a huge piece of the puzzle—and losing out on the best clients because of it.

Personality Mismatch

Here’s something that’s rarely considered in the “ideal client” equation, and it’s arguably the most important part: personality.

If you’re snarky, sarcastic, fun-loving, and loud, then a quiet, middle-aged mom who spends her time volunteering at the church is probably not a good fit for you. Sure, she might need your help, and she might love your products, but for one-on-one coaching, this match-up is a disaster. Either she will be uncomfortable with your style, or you’ll be miserable trying to reign in your natural exuberance.

Better to pass mom on to a coach who is a better fit for her personality-wise.

Drive Determines Success

This one can be difficult to calculate from the start, but once you recognize it (or the lack thereof) it’s worth paying attention to. The client without the drive to succeed will—more often than not—only end up frustrating you both.

Better to end your relationship as soon as you see the signs of this than to waste your time going over the same material and exercises again and again with someone who simply won’t do the work. Check out this article on how to define success for some ideas on how to see your client’s relationship with success. If you find that you just can’t reconcile your client’s relationship with success, an alternative might be to suggest that they take an online course or suggest a book they can read to help them find their “why” and increase their drive to succeed.

If you look at your current and past coaching clients, you’ll begin to see patterns. You can easily look back and see what made some clients a joy to work with, while others were a struggle. Think about what those differences are, and add them to your ideal client profile. Then compare any new potential clients to this ideal profile, and you’ll never again sign on with a less-than-perfect client.

3 Reasons We Love the “Peek Over My Shoulder” Style of Training

June 25, 2021/0 Comments/in Building Your Business, Marketing Your Business

How compelling is it when you see this on a sales page? “Peek over my shoulder while I…”

It doesn’t matter if the seller is demonstrating how to bake a cake or how to build a website, we want to peek over the shoulder and see. There’s just something intriguing about the opportunity to see an expert do what they do best. And that’s just what makes these types of training products best sellers in nearly every niche.

We want our methods justified.

We very likely already perform the tasks this “over the shoulder” product teaches but we question if we’re doing it the best, most efficient way. Is there a newer method that works better? Is there a less expensive or time-consuming technique? Or do we know a better way (that feeling of smugness is its own reward)?

By purchasing the products that show us exactly how others work, we’re finding out how we can work better, while still building up our confidence.

We want the tried-and-true approach.

When we’re just starting out (or even if we’re not) it can be helpful to cut through all the trial and error and get right to what works. After all, if you can skip the months and months of learning—not to mention the expense—why wouldn’t you? If you trust that the seller really does have it all figured out, purchasing the over-the-shoulder training can be a great shortcut and you can always refine the methods as you go.

We want to know the “secrets” of the pros.

Occasionally, we fall into the trap of thinking that there must be a “secret.” If only we had the right template, we’d finally be able to write that novel. If only we had the right interview questions, we’d finally be able to find a VA. If only we had the right dating profile checklist, we’d finally get a date.

Of course, there’s more to success in any niche than a checklist or template, but when we can dig into what is proven to work for others, it gives us that boost of confidence we need to continue moving forward.

So next time you see a product or program that offers to share an expert’s proven system, ask yourself why it seems so compelling to you. What’s triggering your interest? Chances are, it’s one (or more) of these reasons.

This style of training or coaching has proven to be hugely successful. Whether you’re looking to learn a new skill, improve your existing skills, or put together a course of your own to teach others, the “peek over the shoulder” method is definitely worth some consideration! Also, if you are preparing to launch your own course, check out our blog post on how to make it a must-have for your potential clients!

The Power of the Published Author

June 18, 2021/0 Comments/in Building Your Business, Marketing Your Business

Have you been thinking about writing a book but have just never gotten around to it? Or do you already have a book written and you have just been unable to publish it? Read on, dear friend, because I’m about to give you three reasons why that needs to change.

Your presence on social media is a great representation of your brand. Your blog attracts and engages with new audiences. Your email list keeps you connected with fans and followers.

Each tool in your marketing toolkit has a job to do, but the one with the most power by far is your published book.

Your name on the cover of a tangible, hold-it-in-your-hands, printed-on-paper book is the one thing that can take your coaching business from somewhat successful to rock star status.

As an Author, You’re an Instant Expert

Pay attention to the “experts” you see interviewed on morning news shows, talk shows, and on radio and podcasts. Notice anything?

They’re almost always introduced as “The author of…”

There’s a reason for that. Those who have the expertise to dig deep into a subject just so they can break it down in a way that others will understand clearly know their stuff. Books don’t just skim the surface of a subject. They follow the rabbit trails and make new connections and explore unknown corners.

If you’ve written a book, you have almost certainly earned your “expert” status.

Writers Are Committed and Driven

Not only are authors seen as the experts in their field, but they’ve proven themselves to be more committed than most. Think about the time and energy and frustration that comes from writing 150 or 200 or even 300 pages of content about the same subject. Not only that, but those pages must flow together in a logical order, make sense out of difficult to grasp concepts, and be engaging, too.

That’s a tall order and for those who pull it off, the kudos are well deserved. When your book is published, you deserve to walk a bit taller and hold your head a bit straighter. But even if you don’t, others will see you through new eyes, simply because you’ve written a book.

Books Offer a “Foot in the Door” When Nothing Else Will

When it comes to publicity—be it in the form of interviews, speaking engagements, JV invitations, or just more traffic to your website—you really can’t do better than a book. Books open doors that no other content marketing tool can.

Books get you noticed by top-tier influencers in your niche.

Books make you a more memorable speaker.

And believe it or not, self-published books even turn into traditional publishing contracts and all the benefits that go along with it.

With all the advantages that come with having written a book, what’s holding you back? No matter what your niche or who your market is, there’s room on the shelf for your unique insights. You owe it to your audience, and to your business, to get that book published. If you need some help with getting started, check out this article on how to turn your publishing dreams into a workable plan.

Build a Business, Not Another Job

June 4, 2021/0 Comments/in Building Your Business, Productivity

Many people dream of working for themselves, being their own boss, and having the freedom to only take on clients and projects they love.
What they don’t realize, though, is that there is a huge difference between building a business and being self-employed. People who build a business are far more likely to succeed than those who are simply self-employed. So what’s the difference?

Business owners scale their income. Self-employed people trade dollars for hours
Business owners leverage the skills and talents of others. Self-employed people rely only on their own skills.

Discouraged yet? Don’t be. Every business owner started out self-employed. Just don’t stay there. These tips will help you build a business that’s sustainable instead of just another job.

Don’t Try to Do It All Yourself

Building a sustainable business requires that you leverage the talents and time of others. While it might seem cost-effective to simply do everything yourself—especially in the start-up phase when you likely have more time than money—it’s a path to burnout and stress.
Instead, separate your tasks into those that you love and are especially suited for (such as marketing) and those you dislike and aren’t good at. Then make a solid plan to get those that you aren’t good at off your list of things to do. If you feel like you can’t afford to outsource it all right now, start with what you tend to procrastinate the most on, even if it’s just a few hours each month.

Don’t Allow Yourself to Work All the Time

The trouble with working at home is that you live at work. And that means that there’s no clear line in the sand between your workday and your home life.
Since there’s always work to do, it’s easy to find yourself working every available moment—often to the detriment of your family relationships.
You can help avoid this by:

Setting—and maintaining—clear work hours
Having an office with a door you can close when you’re done
Scheduling time for family and other activities
Taking time for yourself

Vacations and Downtime Are Important

Don’t build a business that requires you to be “in the office” every day. At the start, you may need to be available more, but you should definitely be planning for the day when you can be “off the grid” for extended periods of time.

Have trusted contractors who can handle things when you’re not available
Leverage automation tools such as autoresponders and autowebinar systems
Create repeatable systems so you’re not always re-inventing the wheel

While you might not be able to hit the road with no internet access for weeks at a time, at the very least you should be able to reduce your workload to a daily check-in.

Sound impossible? It’s not. With some forethought and planning, you can create a team—and the systems they need—to successfully build a business and run it without becoming overwhelmed and overworked.

How to Turn a Dream Into a Workable Plan

May 28, 2021/0 Comments/in Building Your Business, Productivity

As an entrepreneur, it can be difficult to watch the lack of progress of so many promising business owners and coaches. They’ve dreamed for so long about creating a solid, sustainable business, and yet, all they do is dream.
You know the people I’m talking about. They attend conferences, sign up for free webinars, buy paid training, and sometimes even work with a coach or two. And yet week after week, month after month, year after year, they fail to make any progress toward their dreams.
Are they just lazy? No. It’s something worse. They don’t know how to move from a dream to a plan and they’re stuck. How do you prevent the same fate for yourself? Keep reading.

Start With the Long-Term

If you’ve ever been on a job interview and were asked, “Where do you want to be five years from now,” you might have thought it an odd question. But as a business owner, that might just be the most important consideration you can have.
Without knowing where you’re headed in the long term, it’s impossible to create a map to get there. You need to know what your destination is, so that every day, week, month, and year you can check your progress to be sure you’re still headed in the right direction.

Create Milestones

Once you know your ultimate destination, you can draft a plan for getting there, and create the interim goals that will help you stay on track.
For example, if in five years you want to be free to travel for 8 weeks every year, then you need to have a few pieces in place before that can happen:

Enough income to cover travel costs
Passive income to sustain your business while you’re not working
A staff who can manage the business while you’re away

With this list, you can then work backward from your five-year goal, and create milestones along the way. If you know you’ll need to earn $150,000 annually in order to fund your travel plans, and right now you’re earning $60,000, then reasonable milestones might look like this:

Year 1: $70,000
Year 2: $85,000
Year 3: $105,000
Year 4: $125,000
Year 5: $150,000

With these milestones in place, it’s much easier to figure out exactly what you need to do to achieve them, by setting monthly, weekly, and daily goals.

Create Small Goals

If you say to someone, you need to move from $60,000 to $150,000 in five years, that’s a pretty overwhelming task. After all, it’s a $90,000 increase and most people will look at that and immediately dismiss it as impossible.
But when you break it down as we have above, and then again into smaller steps, it suddenly doesn’t look so daunting.
In the first year of the plan we have outlined here, your income needs to increase only by $10,000. That’s less than $1000 per month! Surely that’s easy enough to accomplish!
You can further break that down by week: $1000 per month is just $250 per week. If you sell just one more group coaching package or five more of a $50 training program, you’ve already reached your milestone.
That might mean sending one more email to your list, or investing an additional $20 per month in Facebook ads, or perhaps reaching out to one more affiliate partner. The point is, reaching this much smaller goal is far easier than thinking about that five-year plan.

So what’s your big dream? How can you deconstruct it into achievable milestones, workable goals, and finally, daily and weekly tasks? If you can do this (and you definitely can) then you can achieve anything in business and in life.

Mindset Tricks of Successful Entrepreneurs

May 24, 2021/0 Comments/in Building Your Business, Productivity

Want to know what sets the uber-successful apart from the wannabe entrepreneurs?
It’s not money, or brilliant ideas, or even powerful friends.
All of those things (and more) are nice to have, but they’re not a requirement of success. What is a must-have, though, is a good attitude. Without the proper mindset, you’ll constantly be battling your own brain, and that’s exhausting.

You’ll allow yourself to believe your ideas are no good
You’ll remain convinced that you aren’t smart enough
You’ll be certain that someone else did it (whatever “it” is) better

And before you know it, you’ll have talked yourself right out of launching your new program, asking for an affiliate partnership, or writing your book. In no time at all, you’ll be back at your day job, working away on someone else’s business because you don’t have the confidence to create your own.
But a simple mindset change can make all the difference.

Dress for Success

Ladies, this one is for you. When we work at home, it’s easy to fall into a habit of wearing sweatpants and T-shirts to the office. After all, why dress up just for the dog?
But if you’re looking for a quick and easy way to instantly shift your mindset in the right direction, ditch the yoga pants and break out the lipstick. You’ll suddenly find you feel more professional, more confident, and sexier, too. (That last one won’t help your business, but it might just help your love life, and that can’t hurt, can it?)

Never Let Fear Drive Your Decisions

Too many would-be entrepreneurs operate with a scarcity mindset rather than approaching business from a place of abundance. Rather than telling yourself that you can’t afford to hire a virtual assistant or work with a coach, try reframing your thoughts.
Rather than thinking, “I can’t afford to attend that event,” ask yourself, “How can I earn the money to invest in this trip?”
Rather than saying, “I have to do everything myself because I can’t afford to hire a VA,” remind yourself that your hourly rate potential is much more than you’d pay a virtual assistant. Then fill those hours you’re saving by outsourcing with money-making tasks of your own.

By reformatting your thoughts, you’ll turn that negative money talk into positive solutions that help you grow.