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Jason’s Tips
Becoming A More Effective Affiliate Marketer
If you are reading this post, you must already realise that affiliate marketing is one of the quickest and most lucrative ways to start an online business.
But it isn’t always as straightforward as it seems and we’re going to look at a couple of affiliate marketing strategies that you can use to boost your effectiveness as an affiliate marketer and these are based around the concept of SEO (search engine optimisation).
Firstly, we’ll take a look at keyword research to help you rank in Google and then we’ll look at best practices to set up your site so it can be easily found.
This may sound like affiliate marketing for beginners, but I reckon most would benefit from these 2 tips.
Sound good? Let’s dive right in…
Basic Keyword Research For Affiliate Marketers
As an affiliate marketer, you want to learn the best ways to use keywords to help build your business. But if you don’t have any experience working with keywords, it can be a little confusing.
These helpful tips should assist you in being able to learn the best keywords and how to use them. First, you need the right tools to help you gather the best keywords.
These are called keyword tools and their purpose is to show you which keywords people are using to search for things.
If you’re just starting out, there are some great free and paid keyword tools you can use. One of the good free ones is Google AdWords. You can also use tools like Wordtracker, SEMrush, SpyFu, Ubersuggest, Wordze or Keyword Discovery.
Some of these have all free access, some free but limited usage offers and others are paid.
The Google AdWords Keyword Tool is very easy to use. When you pull up the screen, type the word or phrase you’re thinking of using on your website or blog. For example, if you’re selling acne products, you’d type the word acne in the box where you list the word or phrase.
When the words come up, you’ll see: acne, cystic acne treatment, adult acne treatment, best acne treatment, etc. The tool will show you if the competition is high, medium or low and what the volume of global and local monthly searches is.
One helpful tip is that you also want to cover other terms people would use to search for acne. To get other words people might be using, you can pull up an online thesaurus and type in acne.
You’ll get a response of: blemishes, pimple, skin inflammation etc. – and you can put those words in the keyword tool and see how they rank.
You want to make sure that you’re looking for both broad and longtail keywords. A broad keyword has the potential to bring more views to your site if you’re able to rank high for it.
These are words that people use when they’re looking for something but aren’t completely sure what they want. For example, someone might type in the keyword ‘shoes.’
When you’re doing keyword research, you also want to look for exact matches. An exact match is how it sounds. Your keyword or keywords exactly match what someone has typed into the search engine.
For example, if someone types in ‘black lamp’ and you have that as your keyword, it will lead them to your website or blog or ad.
You want to make sure that you use longtail keywords. A longtail keyword is a set of 3-5 words that are better targeted toward someone’s search because they’re more specific.
While ‘play guitar’ is an example of a keyword phrase, an example using longtail keywords would be ‘learn how to play guitar’ or ‘how to play guitar notes’ or ‘how to play guitar for kids’ etc.
Longtail keywords are important because you can get more traffic because you rank well – and you’ll end up with higher conversions.
OK, now let’s look at some ways to optimise your site with some basic SEO settings and we’ll assume that you are using WordPress to build your blog or website.
Basic Search Engine Optimisation For Affiliate Blogs
Some affiliates set up a blog and create lots of content – without ever learning the ins and outs of search engine optimisation. As a site owner, whether you have your own products or promote someone else’s, it’s important that you know SEO.
Make sure the settings allow search engines to index you. Inside the dashboard, you have the option to block access to your site by the search engines. This is under Settings and Privacy, so do a quick check to see if it’s set up correctly.
Give your site a title and tagline. Under the Settings tab again, you want to go into the General section. Here it says Site Title and Tag Line, you want to fill these spots in with relevant, keyword-based content that tells people what your site is all about.
In the Writing category under Settings, go to the bottom where it says Update Services. Find a good up-to-date Ping list and paste those URLs into this area. That helps other sites know when you have new content.
Categorize your blogs and deliver a good navigation system. When a visitor lands on your website, you want it to be sticky. Sticky means they stay around for awhile, not clicking out after they read one blog post.
With good navigation, like a list of categories and recent or popular posts in your sidebar (all done with widgets), you can let the visitors know there’s more good content they might like.
Go to the Settings section again and click on Permalinks. You want this option to be Post Name. This means that after your domain and the word blog, the URL will have the name of the post, like this: yourdomain.com/blog/keyword-relevant-blog-title.
Use both broad and longtail keywords in your posts and pages. Some affiliates make the mistake of trying to rank for the broadest keywords in their niche, like “health” or “diet.” It’s much easier to rank well in search engines when you use longtail keywords.
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.
A longtail keyword phrase would be something like this: “the best diet after pregnancy.” Over time, as your blog becomes an authority figure, you may find that you’re also ranking for the broad terms as well.
Use a Google sitemap plugin. This plugin helps Google have quick access to a sitemap, rather than you having to manually create a sitemap that helps guide their robots or spiders around your domain.
Consider an SEO optimiser plugin to give your blog a boost. There are many plugins that help you maximize your blog posts on autopilot. Do some research and see what works best for your needs.
Take Massive Action And Transform Your Life
You Really Can Become Anything You Want To Be
Do you remember when you were younger, and everyone was telling you that you could be anything you wanted to be? It’s strange because many of those people will have turned out to be hypocrites. Tell them now that you want to be the next Bill Gates and they’ll probably tell you to stop daydreaming and get a job. Nice.
But the fact is that they were right the first time. It actually is possible to be anything you want to be and the amazing thing is that it’s easier today than it ever has been. Let’s take a look at why that is…
How To Be Whatever You Want To Be… Tomorrow
Actually, being whatever you want to be is incredibly easy. Want to be a writer? Then start writing tonight. Congratulations! You are now a writer! Want to be a swimmer? Then start swimming. Congratulations! You are now a swimmer!
Sure, in these cases you aren’t being paid to do what you want to do and you’re not ‘professional’ but that doesn’t change the fact that you are a writer or swimmer. And as soon as you start trying to be paid for it, you become professional. Does the fact that you have no clients yet mean you’re not a freelancer?
Once you realize this, things get better right away. You don’t have to make your day job ‘who you are’ because you can make your hobby ‘who you are’ – or your side project. It doesn’t matter if you hate your work and it’s not satisfying as long as you’re doing something else that gives you hope and purpose.
Making It Big
And if you try hard enough, then eventually you will be able to go professional with what you do. The reason is that if you write enough, you will eventually learn how to get good at it and how to find clients. Ever heard of the ‘10,000 hour rule’?
It means that you can put 10,000 hours into anything and become a master of it that way. Do the thing you love every night then and you will eventually be great at it.
What if the opportunity to make it big never comes? Well in that case you can make the opportunity.
Save enough money in your day job for instance and you can put that money into self-publishing your book or into producing your own music video.
And who cares even if it’s successful? Now you’re a writer or a singer and lots of people have seen your work. So honestly… you really can be anything you want to be!
Here’s How You Do Something Amazing And Change The World
Ever wanted to change the world? Come on, be honest…
Most of us on some level would probably like it if we could make a big impact on the world or do something amazing at least but we’re too afraid too because we don’t think that it’s something we can possible accomplish.
You see most of us know our place. We realize that we work a 9-5 job, put food on the table and then go to bed. We leave the ground breaking stuff to the others…
But what you maybe don’t realize is that ‘the others’ are people who were once in the exact same position as you but who had the nerve to try anyway. Everyday people like you and me change the world all the time and believe it or not, there’s actually a formula for doing it!
Define Your Goal And Shout About It
The first step to changing the world is to define what it is you want to achieve and then own it. Most of us will never change the world because we don’t think that we’re capable of it and so we keep it to ourselves.
Our biggest ambitions are often things that we’re embarrassed of, terrible though that is.
But as soon as you start acknowledging what you really want to achieve and you start going for it, then you will be able to define your plan of action and you will get attention from people who will be moved by your passion, ambition and dedication.
Big ideas will often get attention and a following much quicker than small ones. And that’s how you move on to the next stage.
Find Powerful Allies
This is the part that most people don’t consider. Sure, you might lack the funding or the authority to change the world, but if you have a good enough idea… then you can find someone who does have the power to.
And if you convince then, then they can trumpet your idea or give you the platform and funding you need to accomplish the things you need to accomplish.
This is what Palmer Luckey did when he decided he wanted to make virtual reality a reality (ironic though that sounds). First he admitted to himself that that’s what he wanted.
Then he shouted about it on Kickstarter and got a huge backing and then he took the idea to powerful people like John Carmack and Mark Zuckerberg. They gave him the funding, the resources and the knowhow and now the Oculus Rift is poised to genuinely change the world.
He started in his basement and he got to where he is in just a few years… and you can do the exact same thing!
The 80/20 Principle – Knowing Where To Put Your Effort In
Going big is often the best way to ensure your success – create enough output, take enough chances and eventually you’ll be sure to have a hit or ten under your belt which for many of us will be more than enough.
But while working hard enough is often the secret to almost guaranteed success, you mustn’t also Underestimate The Power Of Working Smart.
What It Means To Work Smart
What it means to work smart is basically to be strategic in the way that you approach any problem or any ambition. In turn, this means approaching your aims in such a way that you will be able to cut corners and accomplish the most with the minimal effort.
In theory, this will then allow you to combine your smart strategy with huge output in order to accomplish the best possible results.
Putting in 10,000 hours is a great way to become an expert – but the quality of those 10,000 hours also makes a big difference.
The 80/20 Rule
The 80/20 rule, also sometimes know as the ‘Pareto Principle’, basically states that whatever it is that you do, 20% of your effort will yield 80% of your success.
So if you sell 100 products, chances are that 20 of them (or even fewer) will make up the vast majority of your cash.
The moral of this story is that if you ‘throw enough paint at the wall’ some is bound to stick.
We often won’t know what is going to be the most important aspect of our strategy but once we do, it’s then a good idea to focus on that smaller percentage that yields results.
In the case of a business providing a service, it will often be that the company makes the vast majority of its money from just a few clients while the others serve as nothing but a distraction really. In other cases, it might be that a small number of clients cause the vast majority of the problems.
In such a case, it would be wise for that business to lose the 20% causing the 80% of the problem and even to get rid of some of those clients that aren’t bringing much to the table.
Instead, focus purely on the ones that are generating the most income and actually life will be easier and you’ll earn much more. Then you can put in huge effort and see huge rewards for both them and you!
The Art Of Failing Fast
If you want to achieve a lot in life, sometimes the secret is to stop trying so hard and to put out lower quality work.
Wait… what?
That’s not what they told you at school right? And it probably goes against pretty much everything you’ve been brought up to believe as well. But in fact it is very often the case when it comes to really being successful so let’s take a look at why.
What It Means To Fail Fast
What I’m talking about here is ‘failing fast’. In business, this means creating your ‘minimal viable product’ or your ‘MVP’ and releasing that as quickly as possible. So a company will create a product that is really sub-par in many ways and that certainly could be better and then they’ll release ten more.
In the same time another company that doesn’t take the fail fast approach might only release a single product that’s much better quality.
Why is it better in some cases to release things that you don’t really think are the best they could possibly be?
Well it comes down to the fact that these ‘minimal viable products’ require smaller investment and allow you to get something out the door faster. That means that you can beat the competition to market and it means that you don’t lose out on such a big investment as you otherwise might do. More importantly, it means you can quickly release something else again next week as well.
As a result you’ll be able to rapidly test the market and get an idea for whether or not people want to buy your product. If you get lots of interest and lots of sales then you know that it’s worth your while to invest even more time and even more effort into that particular version because there’s a market there to buy it. If you don’t get any interest? You move on, having taking the minimal financial hit.
Meanwhile, the company that invested all their time, effort and money on creating one fantastic product might risk that product failing and costing them huge amounts, possibly ending the business.
Applying It To Life
The ‘fail fast’ technique can also be applied to other areas of your life. Basically this means releasing a ‘beta’ version into the public and you can do this in all kinds of situations.
For instance, if you’re in a bar and you want to get someone to go home with someone attractive, then instead of spending all night staring at one person, instead try smiling at as many people as possible.
Some people will look the other way, but when someone finally smiles back, then you can go over and invest the time.
See what other areas you can apply the fail fast approach to!
How Playing The Numbers Game Can Help You To Succeed At Everything
Want to increase your likelihood at success? Then simply try more often.
In gambling this isn’t a good idea because it means you’ll lose a hundred times before you win and go broke. But in life things are different. In life, you can ‘fail’ thousands of times and bounce back stronger than you were before… But you only need one win. If you ‘play the numbers’ then, you can effectively rig yourself to succeed no matter what you do.
In Dating
I have a friend who applies this logic to dating. He’s a funny guy and every time we go on a night out, he will set off to approach lots of women.
In a typical scenario he might chat up 10-20 girls on a night out and 9/10 times he will get rejected. We all laugh at him and tease him for it but here’s the thing… really the joke’s on us.
If you’ve done the math, then 9/10 fails means that on a typical number he’ll succeed with one or two women… which means he’s basically getting more action than all of us put together. Now that’s success!
In Making Money
You can also apply this to making money, as I once did.
When Kindle first came out, there was something of a ‘gold rush’ as people clamored to upload e-books to Amazon. I started out by uploading a book or two and it got a couple of downloads a month – I was happy, if underwhelmed.
But then I realized that every book I uploaded would get me two more sales a month. And once the book was there, I wouldn’t have to do anything to promote sales. Seeing as I’m capable of writing 10,000 words or more a day, that meant I could write pretty much an e-book a day.
Can you guess what I did? For one year I uploaded an e-book or two every single day and by the end I had hundreds of e-books in the store. All of them got at least two downloads a day and two of them went massive… the result? A huge ‘passive income’ that would pay my wages travelling for the whole subsequent year.
The moral of the story? You make your own luck. Play the game enough and you will win and make it big!
Using Personalisation To Get Higher Conversions
It’s amazing what a little personalisation can do.
Quick example: You go into a store looking to buy something. A salesperson helps you, but you leave without making a purchase. You go back a week later, and the salesperson greets you by calling you by name.
How do you feel? Maybe respected, appreciated and memorable? And do you want to do business with someone who cares enough to remember your name? Of course you do; it makes you feel special doesn’t it?
When Coca-cola introduced Coke bottles personalised with people’s names, sales jumped 2%. Now I know 2% might not sound like much, but to a company as big as Coke, it’s huge.
Personalisation – when used properly – can double your conversions.
Here are 10 ideas on how to personalise not just words, but actual images – and how you might use these ideas in your own business…
1: Inactive Customers Or Subscribers
Re-engage with customers and even subscribers who are no longer active.
For example, for customers who haven’t made a purchase in 90 days, or subscribers who haven’t clinked a link in a month, send them a photo of you in front of a whiteboard looking sad.
The whiteboard has a simple mathematical equation with your business name, minus their name and a frowny face, like this:
Your Business Name – Your customer’s name = ☹
2: New Customers And Subscribers
Create life-long customers and communities by taking the time to welcome someone when they join you. For example, you might send them a picture of you holding a sign that says, “Welcome Paul!”
Many people know that emails (even with their first names) are hardly personal so by going out of your way to send them a picture like this will make you stand out.
Is it a little cheesy? Perhaps, but it does work so why not give it a go?
3: Product Sales
When your customers buy a product that you are shipping out, keep them engaged by sending them an email with a picture of their package.
This keeps them excited and tells them it’s on the way.
Bonus: Get a clear shot of the address label, and it will help them to confirm their shipping address before it’s too late.
You could even do this with a digital product such as a course. Most courses will have a generic welcome video but you could easily personalise this and welcome them to the course by name. How cool is that?
4: Webinar Attendance
Get people to show up for your webinars by sending them a personalised reminder email in the form of a photo of a handwritten note, or of you standing next to a whiteboard with the written words, “Are you coming to the webinar, Joan?”
This will capture their attention, be far more memorable and do more to get them on the webinar than the standard email that webinar services send out as reminders.
Once again, this takes a little effort (but not much) and it really does make a difference.
5: Cart Abandonment
If someone goes to buy one of your products or services but doesn’t check out, you should be following up with them as soon as possible to try to save the sale.
Send out a photo of an empty box with their name on it, such as, “Order for Bob Smith.”
This emphasizes the sense of loss in not ordering and will get some of your customers to come back and finalize their purchase.
Remember that you don’t know why they abandoned the cart; it could be that their internet connection dropped, doorbell rang, any number of reasons that had nothing to do with your product or service so you lose nothing by following up.
6: Text Messages
If you use text messages for following up with customers, how about adding an image of a newspaper that features their name and the reason for the follow up?
Guaranteed you’ll have their attention.
This may not be as easy to do as some of the other methods but that is why it can be so effective.
Also, text messages and instant messaging services just feel more personal than email so if you aren’t using them in your business, perhaps it’s time you looked into adding them to your arsenal.
7: Customer Anniversaries
Send out a personalised image that contains congratulations on their anniversary – perhaps the anniversary of purchasing a product, subscribing to your list, joining your membership site, etc.
You’ll make them feel special and important.
8: Upsells
This is a brilliant idea that can put serious money in your pocket almost immediately – send out an image letting your customer know they forgot something.
It might be a picture of the upsell they didn’t take, along with words such as, “You forgot something John! (It’s our best offer).
Remember it’s much easier to convince someone who has already bought from you once than it is to convince someone who hasn’t bought from you yet so it makes sense to try to increase the average order value as soon as possible.
9: Certificates
Do you offer any kind of courses or online training?
Send out personalised and official looking certificates of completion with their name, the training level achieved, the date, signatures and seal.
You could also use gamification in your courses too.
These may appear gimmicky, but they do work to encourage buyers to actually log in and consume your content.
If they do that, they are more likely to get results, and if they get results, they are much more likely to buy from you again!
10: Online Order Confirmation
When someone places an order, send them a photo of you and your team (if you have one) with a sign that welcomes them by name. It might say something like, “Welcome to the family, Aaron.” Make sure everyone in the photo looks especially happy.
Now then, you might be saying: “Sure, this is all well and good and I can see how it will help me to retain customers and make more sales, but who has time to do all this?”
Good question. The answer is, you do – if you get PicSnippets.
PicSnippets creates personalised images for marketing, sales and customer follow-up. You can create your PicSnippet and use it on nearly any platform such as ClickFunnels, ManyChat, Convertri and more.
Just go to PicSnippets.com and register today.
OK, so there are 10 ways you can use personalisation to boost conversions and if you want some other strategies to boost your conversion then grab a free Conversion Boost report by clicking on the “Featured Resource” below.
Target Marketing – A Quick Case Study
We talk about targeting the right people for your product, but just how valuable is it to know your audience?
Well, it is of critical importance to the life of your business and can have a substantial effect on your profits and whether you even get off the ground in the first place!
If you are not crystal clear about who your target market is, you could be wasting time driving the wrong kinds of people to your opt-in offers via social media etc.
And, even worse, if you are using paid media such as FB or Google ads you will be wasting some serious money by not targeting the right audience.
So, as you can see, doing the research on your niche needs to be done before you even think about creating and selling a product or service.
And once you have decided on a profitable niche, you need to dial in and really find out what makes these people tick so you can target those specific people who will be most attracted to your offers.
It may not be sexy, but it can have a huge impact on your business, and in an area where so many people give up before they have really started, wrong niche selection and poor target marketing is one of the primary causes for people giving up.
This is because they aren’t seeing any return on their investment (whether that be time or money) and quickly become disheartened and it’s easy to see why.
Now we have established that being able to target your market successfully is of vital importance, let’s look at a company that did this right.
Target Marketing Done Right!
Here’s a quick case study of a deodorant that became a top seller through nothing more than pinpoint targeting of its customers:
In Brandwashed: Tricks Companies use to Manipulate Our Minds and Persuade Us to Buy, we learn how Axe Deodorant took over their market through laser-focused targeting.
Unilever executive David Cousino tells us that Unilever first analyzed the potential male deodorant user by breaking men down into six profiles:
The Predator – He takes advantage of drunk girls, and lies about his job and where he lives
Natural Talent – Athletic, smart, and confident. He doesn’t need to lie to score
Marriage Material – Humble and respectful, he’s the sort of guy you want to bring home to Mom and Dad
Always the Friend – He always hits that glass ceiling
The Insecure Novice – He has absolutely no clue what he’s doing, and things get awkward fast – the geeks and nerds
The Enthusiastic Novice – He has absolutely no clue what he’s doing, but he’s outgoing and tries valiantly anyway
Based on these six profiles, they chose to target the ‘Insecure Novice,’ since these are the guys who need the most help in getting women.
And frankly, this is the target market that could most easily be persuaded into buying a product – ANY product – that could potentially help them get over their nerdiness and get the woman. Or women. Lots of women.
The next step was to create the ads. Research showed that the ultimate male fantasy isn’t to have just one woman at a time – it’s to be irresistible to several sexy women at once. (Seriously, did they really need research to determine this?)
That’s why the TV ads proclaim that if you use Axe Deodorant, you will get the chicks. ALL the chicks.
The result? Axe came out of nowhere to be the #1 male antiperspirant / deodorant brand.
Is this a bit cheesy? Yes. But did it work? Absolutely!
Notice they weren’t targeting EVERY man. They didn’t target married men, old men, men who could already get women on their own and so forth. They targeted ONE demographic – men in their 20’s and 30’s who were nerdy and had trouble getting women.
But in the process, they had a great deal of crossover into the other groups as well.
This is an added benefit of targeting that most marketers don’t realize. They think in order to get the biggest share of the market, they must target everyone.
But when you target everyone, you tend to get almost no one. Paradoxically, when you target one specific group, you tend to get customers from all the other groups as well.
One side note: In this case, Axe’s marketing worked almost TOO well. High school kids were completely dousing themselves in Axe, thinking they would get every girl in class to fall all over them.
Instead, school districts complained of kids reeking of the cologne-like smell.
How could Axe have fixed this? Perhaps by cautioning its users that because of the power of Axe, a normal amount was actually more effective than going full coverage.
Instead, Axe backpedalled a bit from their original campaign, and sales declined.
Which is another lesson – when you find a target market that works for your product – or better still, you target your product to the right market – don’t change what’s working.
Here’s what you can do:
- Make a list of potential target markets for your next product.
- From that list, choose the market – or demographic – you want to target.
- Create a profile of ONE person in that market – this is your ideal customer.
- Tailor your product and your message to that one person.
- Dance around your office as you see the sales come flooding into your in box.
Stop targeting everyone and start targeting your ideal customer. Once you do, it will become clear how you should market, where you’ll find your customers, and how to get them on board.
So, if you haven’t done so already, think about your ideal customer and create a customer avatar and really get to know them and what flicks their switches.
And yes, your sales will almost certainly increase because you not only know what they need, you also know wat they want and you can tailor your products and services just for them and they will gladly pay you for them which is win-win for both buyer and seller 🙂
3 Powerful And Surprising Goal Setting Tips You Missed
I once heard a famous motivational and sales speaker tell the story of someone who set some goals.
It seems he wrote down all of his great big goals like getting a super high paying job, traveling the world, starting a non-profit foundation and so forth, folded up the paper and put it in a drawer.
Then he forgot all about those goals and went about his life.
Fast forward three years, and he’s moving into his new house. Packing up that drawer, he finds the goal list he wrote out, and realizes he has accomplished every single goal on that list, including buying a mansion.
Yeah. Right.
And then a leprechaun jumped out of the drawer and handed him a magic genie lamp, and he made three wishes and married the fairy princess.
As you might have guessed, I’m not buying that story. Are you?
You can’t simply write down your goals, forget about them and then have them magically happen. If only you could.
But there are things you can do to help you achieve your goals and New Year’s resolutions – things I’ll bet NO ONE has told you about.
Things that can give you the life you want, if you embrace them.
Things that… well… might just set your goal getting abilities on fire.
Let’s get started:
Goal Setting Tip 1: What Kind Of PAIN Do You Want To Have?
Focusing on what you want usually isn’t going to work unless you also consider what kind of pain you want to have.
Everyone wants a rock hard body and a few million dollars in the bank. But are you willing to go through the pain it costs to get those things?
THAT is the question.
An art fan tells a great artist that she should would do ANYTHING to paint like he does.
To which the artist replies, “If that were so, then you would already be painting like me. I’ve painted every single day since I was seven years old. I painted when my friends were outside playing. In high school I painted when my friends were going to dances and playing sports. In college I painted instead of dating. I’ve taken art courses and studied art until I know more than most of my professors. I’ve traveled the world to sit at the feet of great painters and observe their process. I’ve given everything I have to be a great painter. And if you really wanted to be like me, you would have done the same.”
Ouch.
That artist paid a very big price for achieving his goal.
Goal setting and goal getting isn’t just about choosing the rewards you want like you’re a kid in the candy shop with mom’s credit card. It’s also about deciding on what cost you are willing to pay to achieve those rewards.
What pain are you willing to go through to achieve your goals?
What you willing to do?
What will you sacrifice?
What regiment, training, practice schedule and so forth will you commit to doing every day until you succeed?
When you decide this in advance, you multiply the odds of achieving your goal by ten-fold.
Goal Getting Tip 2: The Secret Ingredient
“I want to be a medical doctor.”
Okay, that’s your goal. But what do you do to achieve that goal? Writing it down and stuffing it into a drawer won’t make it happen.
You need systems in place to get you from where you are to where you want to be.
For the would-be doctor, she needs systems to apply to and get accepted at medical schools. She needs a system in place to pay for the school. She needs another system to make sure she studies, and so forth.
For a pianist, his goal is to give concerts to millions of people. But his system is to practice each day of his life.
For a coach, her goal is to win the championship. But the system is the practices she puts her players through each day.
For an entrepreneur, the goal is to build a profitable business and sell it. But the system is the sales and marketing process that brings in the customers, as well as the system for delivering the products or services.
Without systems in place to reach your goals, you won’t get there.
That’s because it’s the system and not the goal itself that achieves the results you want.
First, you choose your goal based on both what you want and what pain you are willing to endure to get that goal.
Then you choose the system you’re going to use to achieve that goal.
Goal Getting Tip 3: Goal Assassination
You’ve made your goals and now you’ve got a list – the kind of list a kid might send to Santa Clause – so what’s the delay? Why aren’t you achieving your goals?
Maybe you’re got too many of them. The more goals you have, the less likely it is that you will achieve any one of them. That’s because they’re all competing for your time and attention, and you simply don’t have enough of either one to simultaneously achieve every goal on your list.
Imagine you’re growing roses. On one rose bush, there are a hundred rosebuds. But on the other rose bush, you snip off every single bud except for one.
Which rose flower will be the biggest? The one by itself, of course. And that’s because it gets all of the energy and food the plant can provide, instead of having to share it with a hundred other flowers.
Your goals are all competing for your time and energy.
That’s why you’ve got to ruthlessly eliminate your lesser goals, at least until you achieve your biggest goal.
The more time and energy you can put into your #1 goal, the faster you can achieve it. And once you do, then you can focus on the next goal, and then the next, and so forth.
The exception: If a secondary goal directly supports your primary goal, then it can be best to pursue both at once.
For example, you want to build a business. It’s going to be a lot easier to make good decisions and work hard if you get enough exercise and eat right.
Exercise and proper eating support your goal of building a business, so don’t wait until the business is built to get in shape. Start exercising and eating healthy right away, so you have what it takes to build that business and live the good life.
I know the motivational gurus want you to think getting your goals is easy, but usually it’s not. It takes work. Sacrifice. Pain. Focus. Perseverance. And tenacity. But knowing this from the start means you’re forewarned and forearmed to get the job done.
And once you achieve your first big goal, you just might find you’re addicted to the process.
Guaranteed, the second goal will be easier than the first, because now you’ll know what it takes.
The New Year is upon us. 12 months from now, you can either look back and wish you had achieved that big goal, or look back and be thrilled that you did.
The choice is yours.
