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Jason’s Tips
Using Vision To Guide Your Success
Bill Gates, Nelson Mandela, Steve Jobs, Abraham Lincoln, Mahatma Gandhi, Shakespeare, and Leonardo da Vinci; what do all these people have in common?
The first thought that comes to mind is that they are “greats”. They are great leaders, great inventors, and great artists. They are not greats because they are famous. It is their greatness that has brought them fane.
The list of names that humanity considers great is endless. But what exactly makes a person great? What secrets or special qualities does that person possess that others do not? Is it true that some people are just born to do great things?
The truth is, there is no mysterious code or magic recipe for greatness. Nor does destiny choose some people to become great and overlook others.
Every human being has the potential to become great.
You don’t necessarily have to change the world if you don’t feel that that is your calling. You don’t have to carve your name in history books. However, you can achieve greatness in your own niche by learning from people who have left their unique mark on humanity.
We all want to be great at something. None of us willingly chooses to be mediocre. The longing for greatness is an innate need within each one of us.
The big misconception is that we don’t think we were born for greatness. We think that greatness is a quality that a very few unique people are blessed with. We look at people like Oprah Winfrey or Mark Zuckerberg with awe and envy and wonder, “What’s their secret?”
The secret is a simple set of qualities that you can learn to develop. These qualities interact and fuse together, enabling you to create your own personal greatness in whatever you choose to do.
It doesn’t have to be something world-changing, but it will be life-changing for you. You may want to be a great parent, a great spouse, or great in your career. You may want to become a great advocate for a cause that you are passionate about. And if you want to reach higher and change the world – by all means, go for it!
Whatever measure of greatness you want to achieve, these “secrets” of greatness will help you fulfill your personal calling.
In this post you will learn about one of the most important of these “secrets” and that is your vision. By the way, there are seven “secrets” in total and if you want to learn the rest then you can download them in a free report here.
Vision
Steve Jobs had a vision when he started building computers in his garage. His vision was a computer in every home, making technology easily accessible to all people.
Martin Luther King had a vision when he was still an obscure pastor. His vision was a word of equal opportunity without discrimination or racial barriers.
Both men turned their respective visions into a reality that revolutionized the world.
The first step in your journey to greatness starts with having a vision. What is your life goal? What is it that you are most passionate to achieve? What is the legacy you would like to leave behind you? Have you ever really sat down and thought about it?
Vision Versus Goals
The first thing you need to do is to distinguish between your vision and your goals. Think of your vision as the destination that you want to arrive at. Goals are the “stations” along the way that slowly but surely bring you closer to your vision.
Having a clear vision is your foundation. It allows you to decide on the steps you need to take to achieve it, to plan structure and to gear your life towards reaching the destination.
Once you have identified your vision, you will start to set the short- term and long-term goals that you need to achieve.
For example, if your vision is to become a pediatrician, your first long-term goal would be to finish medical school. Short term goals would be to study and pass exams. The next long-term goal would be an internship, with short term goals being to learn all the practical skills you need.
The culmination of all these goals will fulfill your vision, which is a successful practice where you can help and heal sick children.
Now that you know the difference between a vision and a goal, take some time to sit down and think it through. Write down your vision and the goals you need to make to get you there.
Set a target date for achieving each goal. Goals can be daily, weekly, monthly and yearly or all four.
The Three Elements Of Vision
- Purpose. A compelling vision is one that has a purpose. It’s knowing why you were put in this world and what you need to do to leave it a better place. Without a strong purpose, you will lose your motivation.
- Seeing the bigger picture. This means envisioning –closing your eyes and seeing what your future will look like when you have reached your ultimate life goal. Picture what your life will look like in 10 or 15 years when you are running a successful and reputable business. Visualize the great service or product you are offering your customers that adds so much value to their lives. Bask in the feeling that this picture gives you. Do this as often to keep your purpose string.
- Values. A good vision is one based on good ethics and values rather than greed, self-indulgence or empty fame. Good values should be your guiding principle in daily life as you move towards achieving your vision. Reaching the top unethically is not the quality of great people
Use Your Vision As A Tool
Great people have a unique way of making their visions a reality. They use them as a tool to motivate and propel them. This can be done by regularly picturing the result to always keep it top of mind.
The bottom line: Great people can see the future. They can articulate their vision in descriptive and specific terms. They can visualize the result with clarity. This crystal-clear articulation and positive self-talk keep the vision alive. It enables you to set relevant goals and harness your determination and resolve to attain them.
Don’t forget that if you want to read an expanded report that contains 6 other “secrets” you can download that here
And having a strong mindset is critical to any attempt to staying focused and motivated to achieve greatness, so click on the featured resource below to get a free report on how to develop a strong mindset. Download, it read and take action 🙂
How To Make Your Blog More Appealing
Every blogger who earns income from their blog knows that the only way you can make money is by getting and keeping the traffic coming. Without your readers, you wouldn’t be making money at all.
There are lots of ways to get them there, but the question is – how do you keep them returning? If a reader isn’t impressed by your blog at all, then they’ll leave your blog, never to return again.
With them goes their blog’s traffic that you could’ve benefited from if they’d linked to you. Here are some tips to make your blog appealing enough to keep the traffic there to earn you some money.
Design
The most common mistake some bloggers make is in their blog’s design. Blog readers not only look for interesting and informative content – they also want to come to an inviting space to read it.
By the way, if you are serious and want to take your blogging to the next level, check out the Rapid Blogging Blueprint. This is a premium level training that takes you through each and every step of setting up your own highly profitable blog and profiting from it. You can check it out here.
The blog’s design needs to be inviting to them and comforting. It’s crucial not to have anything that would annoy them to the point of leaving because they can’t stand it. Make sure you’re not annoying them with colored font that’s hard to read or a bunch of graphics that are too distracting.
A few animated graphics are fine, but don’t have flashing ads and glittering graphics detracting from your blog’s message – or your strategically-placed advertisements.
It’s fine to use colored font for your posts, but make sure it’s easy to read. A pale yellow font color against a pure white background may be too difficult for the visitors to read. They shouldn’t clash with the background color either. Clashing colors can give visitors headaches, so they’ll leave your site without bookmarking it for a later visit.
Content
The other common mistake bloggers tend to make is with their content. Some bloggers don’t update very often. If you only post once a month, your readers will forget you’re there and won’t return to your site.
Post to your blog at least two to three times a week to keep human visitors and search engine spiders coming back.
Some bloggers also make the mistake of only providing text content to their blogs. Text posts are great, but mix it up a little every once in awhile with multi-media formats. Provide some interesting pictures, audio files and videos. Offer a little variety and your visitors will come back to check and see what else you’ve been up to.
It’s also important to stick to your blog’s niche topic. If you’re blogging about Homeschooling, then stick to that topic. Providing information about a celebrity’s latest excursion will turn off your readers unless it somehow relates to homeschooling.
To make your blog successful in bringing you money, make sure you make the blog appealing to your readers. If your readers keep coming back, your chances of making money from your ads and offers will increase.
Of course, having a good looking blog is only part of the puzzle. You have seen that you need great content to share with your readers but how do you go about finding and creating that content? Let’s take a closer look…
How To Find Great Content For Your Blog
In order to make your blog a successful money making entity, you’ll need to get traffic to it and keep them coming back.
The best way to do this is to provide the best content you can in your niche and make it interesting to your blog readers.
Even the most successful bloggers start to run out of their own original content to post about. Some resort to scraping the bottom of the barrel to find things to discuss, but that ultimately loses them readers, which means less money streaming in.
Ideas
Where do you find great ideas to post about? There are actually many different things to use to get you out of your stuck-in-a-rut mode. These may be simple techniques to use, but they can be effective if used right. Here are some things to try the next time you get stuck for something to write about:
Scour the news sites – Search the news sites like CNN, MSNBC, and FOXNEWS and see if you can find a top story that you can blog about. Instead of just linking to the story, add your own accounting of it.
You can post about your personal feelings toward the story or ask your readers what their thoughts are on it. Just make sure the story somehow relates to your blog’s topic.
Check out your fellow blogger’s sites and see what they’re blogging about – It may seem unethical, but as long as you’re not stealing content, it’s perfectly acceptable to see what the community is interested in.
Is there a post that catches your eye? Is there something you can add to that post? A new spin you can put on it? Media outlets always have an eye on the competition to see what others are doing – and you should, too!
Research
Internet research – Do a search on the Internet for your blog’s topic. See what information you can come up with concerning your niche.
You may become inspired by something you’ve read there or you may think of some comments to post about it.
Check the video sites – YouTube has a zillion different videos out there that you can add to your blog. See if you can find one that relates to your blog’s topic. Post the video to your blog and have your readers share their thoughts on it.
And what about podcasts or audio sites? You could try searching sites like Soundcloud to find audio to add to blog posts to enhance them for your readers.
Reviews
Consider doing reviews – Reviews can be a good filler to use while you try to get inspired again. Choose some articles, websites, books or whatever you can think of that’s related to your blog’s topic and post a review of it. If it’s a good review, add your affiliate link and make some money from your opinions!
Daily activities – Think about what happened within your day that you might be able to work into your blog as long as it’s relevant.
If your blog is about flowers and you happened to go for a walk and saw some flowers on the way, use that as your post. Let your readers know what kinds of flowers are seen in your neighborhood and if possible, take come pictures to add since visual stimulation enhances the reader’s experience.
You can easily get back your inspiration for your blog posting if you look to other sources. They can help you come up with ideas of what you can share with your readers or they can give you a nice filler until your personal inspiration comes back. Don’t lose readers just because you’ve lost your blogging muse!
If you really want to know more about the power of blogging, you can take a look at the Rapid Blogging Blueprint training course or if you just want a few pointers for now you can grab the featured resource below for a free blogging report; download, read it and take action 🙂
5 Ways To Stay Motivated
Losing motivation? It happens to the best of us. But there are tricks to staying motivated, many of which involve taking a hard look at your goals.
With a little preparation and solid planning, there’s no reason why you can’t stay motivated all the way through whatever project you’ve set out for yourself.
How? Well, let’s take a look…
1. Start With The Big Picture
What is it you’re trying to accomplish? Having an idea of the eventual goal will help you to stay on track.
The clearer the vision, the more likely you are to keep going, even when times get tough. Ask yourself what it is you’re trying to achieve – and then picture yourself achieving it.
The visualization step is the most important one here. We tend to perform in the way we expect to. So if we expect to fail, we do. By seeing success, you’re more likely to attain success.
2. Make Sure This Is YOUR Goal
Now that you’ve gotten the big picture make sure this is YOUR goal. At first glance that statement seems ridiculous – why would you make a goal that isn’t your own?
This answer can be found most easily in asking WHY you want to accomplish what you are. If the word “should” comes up, then chances are you might want to re-evaluate what you’re doing.
We often set goals because we feel like they’re something we’re supposed to do, and not because they’re something we want to do. You’re less likely to stay motivated when you’re on the path of ‘should.’
3. Break Tasks Down To Make Them Manageable
Next, you’ll want to break those tasks down into something manageable.
Now that you have a goal and are sure it’s something you want to do, you might feel a little overwhelmed about how you’re going to accomplish that goal.
By breaking it up into smaller pieces, you regain the feeling that you’re doing something possible.
Like a pro tip? Celebrate the small successes then as you go. That will help keep the motivation levels high.
4. Get Organized
If you’re still a little overwhelmed, get organized.
It might be that you don’t feel prepared to work on this project because you lack the research or supplies.
Figure out what you need, and then go about making sure you have the proper tools to get the job done.
It’s easier to stay motivated when you have what you need to succeed.
5. Remember Your Why
If all else fails, remember why you set the goal in the first place. It could be you only need a little reminder of your previous motivation to find the fresh motivation to keep going.
Motivation isn’t something you have to lose as you work on a project. You can keep your motivation levels high with a little forethought and planning.
By keeping on track with your goals, you’ll find that motivation will likewise keep on track, guiding you all the way through the job at hand until completion.
And this is why routine is so good for you and helps to keep you motivated so let’s look at the power of routines next…
Why Routine Is Good for You
You’ll hear people refer to routine as being dull or boring. It implies that life is the same from one day to the next.
However, routines are a great way to get your work done. It’s also a great means for teams to work together towards a common goal.
When everyone has an understanding of what needs to get done, i.e., what routines each team member needs to perform, projects tend to run smoother.
We also have routines in our society. In some ways, laws can be considered routines. You know that you aren’t supposed to run a red light and that can be thought of as a routine.
When you come to a red light, you stop as best as you can. There may be instances when you accidentally go through one here or there. But, most people will stop for red lights. And this is good to reduce accidents.
You set up routines for your kids in the form of chores. You know that certain tasks need to get done each week. Many parents tie kids’ allowances on these chores.
When the kids finish their chores, they receive their allowances. It teaches the kids a work ethic. They need to perform tasks, and when they complete those tasks, they receive money for them.
When you pay bills, you tend to have a routine for this. Some people like to get everything sorted on one day and pay all the bills on that day. Others will pay them whenever they receive them. Others, still, will set up their payments to be paid automatically by their bank or brokerage.
There isn’t a right answer for how to do this. Whatever works for you is the right answer. However, the method you choose will be routine.
Contrast this to people who don’t have routines to manage their lives. They tend to handle tasks when the mood strikes them. These people are usually late with their bills and have messy environments.
Some of these people will say that this way of life works for them. However, for most people this is chaos. It’s something that can easily be avoided by setting up routines for the tasks you need to complete.
Of course, people are not robots. Hence, they do break up their routines on occasion. You may use weekends to do activities that you don’t get to do during the work week. Also, many families use vacations to help break up their routines.
So, use these tips to stay motivated and use the power of routines to keep you on track too. Hopefully you will be surprised by the results.
Having a strong mindset is critical to any attempt to staying focused and motivated, so click on the featured resource below to get a free report on how to develop a strong mindset. Download, it read and take action 🙂
5 Effective Affiliate Marketing Strategies
There are a plethora of affiliate marketing strategies and tactics employed by many successful affiliate marketers to ramp up their sales and commissions.
While some strategies may seem advanced, they are all usually based on the fundamentals of affiliate marketing.
You need content. You need traffic… and you need to position the right offer in front of the right audience. The goal is to help and also gently guide the reader towards a purchase.
As an affiliate marketer your job is to be a ‘conduit’ that takes an interested visitor to the sales page which will go on to sell the product.
That’s really all there is to it. All other intricacies can be boiled down to this goal. Let’s look at a few highly effective strategies employed by thousands of affiliate marketers all over the world.
Niche Sites
This is without a doubt the most popular strategy. To promote a variety of products you need a niche site. The content that’s interspersed with your affiliate links will make you sales if you do it right.
You’ll need to learn the basics of setting up a site, optimizing it, creating content that converts and a few other things. Once you get a grasp of the fundamentals, the sky is the limit.
As long as you grow your site, your earnings will increase exponentially. Some of the large authority sites make 5 to 6 figures a month in affiliate commissions. That’s how powerful this method is.
Facebook Groups/Pinterest Boards
Everyone is on social media these days. Having Facebook groups and Pinterest boards dedicated to your niche, will allow you to tap into existing hotbeds of traffic while targeting and audience that is interested in your niche.
Through the links in your posts and pictures, traffic will trickle to your site and you’ll get sales. Some affiliates prefer to direct link the pictures in Pinterest to the affiliate products.
That’s fine too. What matters is that you hang out where your audience hangs out.
YouTube Channels
If you’re shy to be on camera, you can still do unboxing videos or PowerPoint presentations with a voiceover. YouTube is an excellent source of free traffic.
You just need to invest your time in creating interesting videos that are optimized to rank well.
Links in your video descriptions can either go to a landing page or your website. While some affiliates prefer to directly link to the product, it’s wiser to try and capture the lead.
BTW, for an excellent course on video marketing, I highly recommend Video Marketing Insider
Email Lists
As mentioned earlier, always strive to build your list. Have a pop up on your site with a freebie that encourages the visitor to opt in.
Have your links in your social media sites pointing to your landing pages. Do whatever you can to build your list.
Once you have a list and you build a relationship with them, you can promote products that will be well-received. A list will be your greatest asset.
Paid Ads
Many marketers stay away from paid advertising because it’s almost inevitable that you lose money during the testing phase. However, you should give it a try when your budget allows for it. You’re not losing money – you’re buying data.
Once you make this mindset shift, you’ll be encouraged to keep trying till you find a few winning ad campaigns. A winning campaign can restore your losses within days and yield you an attractive profit. Such is the power of paid advertising.
Give these 5 strategies a try and watch your affiliate commissions soar. They will take you some time to do, but if you’re consistent and stick to the plan, your future self will thank you for it. These strategies will work wonders for your affiliate marketing.
Of course, a major part of affiliate marketing is knowing which products to promote, so how do you decide which to promote and which to leave aside?
What Should You Look For When Choosing Products To Promote?
As an affiliate marketer, when you choose a niche to market in, ideally it should have a wide variety of products to promote. There should be a mix of tangible and digital products to cater to a wide variety of customers within the same niche.
There are several pointers you should bear in mind when choosing products to promote to your niche. Sometimes, things can get tricky and what may be snapped up quickly by some people within the niche may be ignored by others.
So, it’s important to put right product in front of the right person at the right time to get maximum sales. Below you will find a few tips to guide you.
Does It Fit Your Niche?
This is a very important point. You need to know what your audience is looking for. If you’re in the golf niche, promoting bodybuilding supplements such as mass gainers might be a flop. However, an eBook about improving one’s shoulder strength may be a hit for people hoping to improve their golf swing.
You must be aware of the needs and problems your audience is facing. A busy mom looking to lose weight will quickly buy a guide that shows how one can shed the fat with 15-minute interval workouts.
However, that same guide will not be as eagerly bought by women looking to lose weight with an easier program like yoga.
As you can see, even though the problem is the same, the products that’ll interest your audience will be different. So, you must really understand your niche and expect a period of testing.
Vendor
Another factor that you should look at is the vendor. If you’re promoting products on Amazon, you don’t have to worry too much.
Everybody trusts Amazon and they do a great job at selling.
However, if you’re promoting a weight loss guide from another site, the credentials of the author will be important. An overweight person selling a weight loss eBook, or a bald guy selling a hair restoration formula will not inspire confidence in anyone.
Always check the vendor’s credibility.
Sales Page
Is the sales copy for the product convincing?
This is applicable to both tangible and intangible items. Does the gadget on Amazon come in different colors?
Is the description accurate and convincing? Read the sales copy and ask yourself if you’d buy the item. If you would, your site visitor or subscriber might probably buy it too.
Does It Solve A Problem?
Products that solve problems will always sell better than those that are just for satisfying wants.
Nobody thinks twice about buying aspirin when they have a splitting headache… but the cool pair of sunglasses that cost $180 may require much more persuasion on your part.
You need to supply people with what they want, not necessarily what they need. This is just the way of business and marketing; hopefully they will eventually find what they need through you.
Reviews
Look at the testimonials and customer reviews on the site. Amazon makes this easy by providing ratings and reviews from verified customers. Promote products with a high rating and many positive reviews.
The same applies to digital products. You may even wish to ask the vendor to email you a review copy.
Send them a link to your site and mention that you’d like to promote their product, but you wish to review it first.
Many vendors will gladly accede to your request. If they don’t, just move on and find another product.
Trends
Last but not least, check on Google Trends to see if the product is in demand. Sometimes, products are very popular because of a craze, but then it all suddenly dies down.
Think fidget spinners and Pokemon Go… now you get an idea of how fast crazes can start and end. Stick to promoting evergreen products which are popular but have stable trends.
These are the pointers to look out for when choosing products to promote. Exercise due diligence in your research and only recommend proven and profitable products to your audience. This will ensure that they trust you and your reputation remains intact.
If you want to know more about affiliate marketing then check out the featured resource below for a free report; download it read it and take action 🙂
A Proven Way To Boost Creativity And Focus
You might be a creative who wants to find more ways to up your productivity and your focus. But if you’re like most creatives, focus might not be your strength. You’re not alone in thinking that way.
Most creatives don’t think in concrete, specific terms when it comes to business things. That’s because the business side feels removed from the creative side. So what you need to do is tap into the creative side to boost the business side.
There is a proven way that you can boost your creativity to get more accomplished and be able to reach your goals. You have to get specific with your thoughts. Sort of having an idea of what you want, or need isn’t going to work.
It’s only when something is specific that you can identify it and work on accomplishing it.
Once you’ve narrowed down what it is you’re after, add a time constraint. For example, if money is what you need, you wouldn’t spend time saying, “Think about where or how I can get more money.”
Instead, you’d say, “What are 5 business models I can put into effect within 10 minutes?” This helps you to develop concrete ways to help take your creativity to the next level.
By having a specific goal with your thoughts, you’ll come up with ideas to improve whatever it is that you need.
This step of coming up with ideas within a certain time limit keeps you from wasting time, but it also works for creatives because they don’t have to spend a lot of time thinking of the business side, which can drain creativity.
The ideas that you come up with by adding time constraints can also be put into play faster than if you were vague and spent hours or days trying to come up with a solution.
With your business, you’ll need to learn the best way to market it.
You might have gone back and forth trying to come up with ways that you could do this, but you weren’t able to pin anything down.
Rather than spending a lot of effort thinking about this step, you could say that you were going to make a list of the pros and cons of a certain kind of advertising within 15 minutes.
By giving yourself that time limit, you turn it into a game and this can produce quicker results and give you ideas for solutions.
Plus, when you’re specific about what you want and you introduce that time limit, it boosts your creativity because your focus is intentional rather than running in different directions. It does this because it’s easier for the mind to focus for shorter periods of time versus thinking that you have several hours or days to come up with something.
OK so you can see how specificity can help you to become laser focused and thus boost your creativity.
So, let’s flip it and look at the reverse and take a look at something that can be detrimental to your creativity and focus and it seems so simple and innocuous that you may feel that it won’t make a difference.
However, just bear with me and give it a go and see what difference it makes for you.
The simple idea to try is to only use your workspace for work and nothing else. Make sense? Well, let’s dive a little deeper…
Don’t Use Your Work Space For Other Things
There’s a reason that the IRS says if you have a home office it should be used solely for that purpose and nothing else. It’s because using a home office for multiple purposes can lead to a crossover between professional and personal use.
If you have a workspace, you should be working. Mixing up the space can happen anywhere that you’ve set aside to work. It happens when you let boundaries slide.
But it really is best just to use it for the intended purpose and not for any other reason that people commonly choose to do.
For example, some people choose to eat at their desk or whatever their workspace is. This is a bad idea – not just for health reasons, but it’s also bad for productive purposes. You get less done physically and mentally.
When you mix work with eating or any other habit, it blurs the lines between what’s work and what isn’t. You can easily make the mistake of setting yourself up to think that it’s okay to work and it’s okay to not work when you’re in your space.
At your desk, your purpose should be to focus and to be productive to work on whatever task or project is before you. But when you choose to eat or to do something else instead, it steals that focus and productivity.
This happens because the brain is straddling two functions when you do that. You need to have boundaries between personal tasks and professional ones. Otherwise, your brain remains in the work mode and doesn’t relax and get a break from the work.
This can lead to overwhelm, which in turn can lead to brain fog. On the other hand, if you’re constantly using the space for other things in addition to work, the brain won’t want to get into work mode.
It’s important to establish what your workspace is for and what it’s not for. Your space isn’t supposed to be a spot to hang out and watch TV. It’s not meant to be the area where you play with your pets or your kids.
It’s not supposed to be the place where you play games or wonder what you’re going to have to eat for dinner. When you treat your workspace like any other space, you lose the benefit of conditioning the mind to fall into the habit of work recognition.
You can establish the work habit to create a routine in the mind. As soon as you sit down in your chair, your brain automatically kicks into thinking, “It’s time to work now,” but if you use the space for other purposes, it won’t do that for you. Save the relaxing activities and tasks not related to work for other spaces. You’ll get more done.
Having a strong mindset is critical to any attempt to nurturing creativity and staying focused, so click on the featured resource below to get a free report on how to develop a strong mindset. Download, it read and take action 🙂
