Jason's Tips

Jason’s Tips

5 Quick Productivity Tips For Online Marketers

If you’re a beginner or even an intermediate online marketer, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the sheer amount of work you need to do. There’s the tendency to become discombobulated and discouraged thinking about all the tasks that need your attention – not to mention the courses you’ve bought but have not started on.

To make matters worse, you’ve heard all the quotes on being productive instead of being busy. You’ve even bought a few books on the topic – which of course, you haven’t had the time to read yet.

You want to be productive, but you don’t know where to start. The good news is that this article will give you 5 tips which will increase your productivity and your sanity too – if applied.

Put It ALL On Paper

The first step to becoming productive is to make a list of ALL the things you need to do/complete. Write it all down. It doesn’t matter how menial the task is or how difficult it appears to be.

Pending tasks, courses to complete, websites that need building, content that needs to be written, etc. It all goes down on paper.

Once you’re done, you now have everything in black and white right in front of you. You no longer have to use up mental energy constantly thinking about these commitments. All you need to do is refer to the paper… which brings us to the next step…

Prioritizing

After studying the list of tasks you have in front of you, it’s time for prioritization. Let’s follow the Eisenhower Matrix..

All ‘important AND urgent tasks’ will need to be done FIRST
All ‘important BUT not urgent tasks’ will be done SECOND
All ‘not-important BUT urgent tasks’ will be DELEGATED
All ‘not-important AND not urgent’ tasks will be ELIMINATED

By categorizing your list of tasks, you’ll know exactly what needs to be completed first and so on. And that means…

Following A Daily Routine

You MUST have a daily routine that is productive and focused. Thousands of beginner marketers try to wing it and decide on a daily basis what they will do. This haphazard approach does not bode well for business success.

You’ll need a to-do list daily, and this list of tasks should come from what you wrote on the paper earlier. You do not need to do it all at once, but your daily work must make a dent in your big list. If not, you’ll always be behind the 8-ball struggling to catch up.

Having a to-do list alone is not enough. You must ‘Eat That Frog’. Wait, what?

In his book, “Eat That Frog”, author Brian Tracy, emphasizes doing the most difficult and unpleasant task of the day FIRST.

This point has been reiterated in another quote by Dale Carnegie, “Do the hard jobs first. The easy jobs will take care of themselves.”

Very often, the tasks you do not want to do and constantly keep thinking of procrastinating are the ones you MUST do. These are the tasks that matter. They may seem distasteful or unpleasant, but you’ll need to summon up the discipline to do them anyway.

This is what separates winners from losers. Being able to step out of your comfort zone will help you reach success in business and in life. The kite always rises against the wind.

Timeboxing

Timeboxing is a term used to describe a technique where a specific slot of time is set aside to complete a specific task/s. This method will help you stay organized while keeping the main thing the main thing.

For example, if you’re a writer and most of your working hours is spent on research and writing, you may timebox 30 minutes at the end of the day to check your emails.

Assuming you timebox (4 – 4.30 PM) to check emails, that is EXACTLY what you’ll do during this time. You’ll not need to check your emails during your deep work sessions where you’re writing your best content.

At the same time, your email inbox will not become a mess because you’re spending 30 minutes daily keeping it in order. This is how timeboxing keeps your daily schedule AND your business organized.

Timebox any tasks that are important in the day to day running of your business, but not so important that they take priority over work that actually BUILDS your business.

Delegation And Automation

Automate whatever you can. This could mean the emails to your list, or using apps like Tailwind to post on your Pinterest board, or scheduling posts to your Facebook group one week ahead.

Batching your tasks and automating them will save you a lot of time. Once you’re making money online, set aside some of your budget to outsource the mind-numbing tasks you’re currently doing.

These could be answering support emails, or posting content on your social media properties, or proofreading, etc.

Delegating the burdensome and repetitive tasks to others is worth every cent you pay. You’ll not only conserve your energy for work that matters, but you’ll get more done and have more free time.

Apply these 5 productivity tips in your business as soon as you can and you’ll discover how fast your life and work gets easier and better.

“It’s not always that we need to do more but rather that we need to focus on less.” – Nathan W. Morris

5 Simple Techniques To Build A List From Blogging

Any online marketer worth his/her salt would have heard the line, “The money is in the list.” It has been repeated ad nauseam and still thousands of beginner marketers are clueless as to how to build a list.

To make matters more burdensome, most autoresponder software companies charge a monthly fee for their services. So, this is a recurring cost that must be recouped quickly to keep the beginner marketer in the green.

When you’re first starting out on your blog, you’ll not need to build a list. You should first track the amount of traffic on your website. The moment you’re getting 50 to 100 unique visitors to your blog daily, it’ll be time to sign up for an autoresponder. This will buy you some time if your budget is tight.

Using A Freemium As An Incentive

A freemium is a gift that you’ll give away for free in exchange for an email address. The freemium could be a short report, or a 3-part video training or a checklist, etc. What you give away has to be of value and congruent to the niche you’re in.

If there’s a disconnect between your freemium and what the reader wants, very few visitors will join your list to get the free gift. Spend time crafting a good lead magnet that attracts subscribers.

You can either outsource the job or create one yourself from scratch. Alternatively, you may use private label rights (PLR) content and rebrand it. This will allow you to create a product with your branding quickly while maintaining quality.

Connecting Your Autoresponder

Once your lead magnet is ready, you’ll need to create a landing page for it. You can do a quick Google search for ‘best landing page examples’ to get an idea to model. You may wish to get a cover image done for your freemium on Fiverr.com.

After your landing page is complete and looks great, you’ll want to sign up with an autoresponder like Active Campaign or Aweber, and embed the sign up form on your landing page. Most of these software have video tutorials to guide you. So, don’t get put off by the ‘tech stuff’.

Once the form is embedded, you’re well on your way to collecting leads and building a list.

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.

All Roads Lead To Rome

In this case, Rome will be your landing page and this is something that you own.

Whether you’re using a YouTube channel or Facebook group or Pinterest board to drive traffic to your blog – you should always be aware that you do NOT own these sites. You’re building your house on rented land, and that’s always risky.

To mitigate the risk, you’ll want links from these social media entities pointing to the landing page on your blog. In this way, you’ll be able to siphon traffic from these high traffic sites and build a list of subscribers who wanted your freemium. Now you have some degree of control and your own asset.

Opt-in Tools

One of the best tools you can use to build a list on your blog is Thrive Leads. The software has options for you to create a non-intrusive scroll mat that allows readers to sign up. Besides the scroll mat, there are also sticky bars and pop up options for you.

You may create a visual image to perk interest and spark a click through action which will trigger a 2-step opt-in. This increases the potential subscriber’s micro-commitment and is more likely to get the lead.

Thrive Leads is designed to help you get as many subscribers as possible from your blog. It’s a worthwhile investment that will reap dividends many times over.

Locking Your Content

This is one of those techniques that’s annoying to some people, but highly effective nonetheless. You’ll need to use a content locking plugin to execute this method. If you have Thrive Leads, you can use it too, with a few tweaks.

Basically, you’ll have an interesting and highly valuable blog post where you share some insider information. Somewhere around the center of the post (preferably the most interesting part), you’ll insert the content blocker.

This will hide the rest of the blog post and insert an opt in form at the chosen spot. The only way the reader can access the rest of the post will be for them to sign up to be on your list. Once they’ve signed up, the full blog post will appear and they can carry on reading.

Some readers may get put off and close the page, while others will sign up. Whatever the case, you’ll know that those who signed up are truly interested in what you have to say and you’ll be building a list of highly targeted subscribers.

By now you’ll realize that building a list on your blog is a piece of cake if you have traffic coming in. All you need to do is insert forms for them to sign up to your list (in a variety of ways). With the versatility of Thrive Leads, a good landing page and a value-driven freemium, and a solid autoresponder, you’ll be able to build a list of targeted and interested subscribers in just a matter of time.

Drops make an ocean. So, get started today and in a few months from now, you’ll have an email list that trusts you and buys the products you recommend. This is where you’ll find the money in the list i.e. the saying should more accurately be “The money is in the customer list.”

Using Challenges To Develop Self-Discipline

Ah, the prickly subject of self-discipline! We all want more of it so we can achieve our goals and dreams but it can sometimes feel so elusive.

Well, let’s look at a couple of ways that you can use to develop more self-discipline and hopefully this will enable you to become more successful than ever. Sound good? OK, let’s get started…

One way you can develop more self-discipline is to use challenges. This makes it more like a game and less like a chore.

Also, there can be the element of competition with others and having others help hold you accountable which improves your odds of success.

Challenges are very popular and you can find them in many places. Or you can make up your own and share it with a group of people. You also can make your own challenge or use one from someone else to just challenge yourself. However, you end up doing it is up to you.

When looking to see if a challenge will be useful to you, there are some factors to look for, so you can best benefit.

Is the challenge realistic? You want to stretch yourself, but not to the point where you have no chance of success.

For example, you could challenge yourself to lose 30 pounds in 30 days, but that is not very realistic. You also want the challenge to not be too easy.

You need to see if you have the time to devote to it. Be sure to include time for learning new things.

For example if you challenge yourself to build a new blogging website in 30 days, remember that if you have never done one before, you will have to learn some things and that will be extra time above just writing the blog posts,

If the challenge is a large one over a longer period of time, are there clear-cut milestones along the way to help you have a sense of accomplishment? If your challenge, for example, is losing 60 pounds in a year, you need to set up smaller weight goals along the way so you can keep up the momentum.

Milestones also help you see if you need to tweak the challenge, either lower or higher. If you lose 10 pounds in about 2 months, you are right on schedule, If you have only lost 5 pounds in that same time period, though, you may need to lower the amount you plan on losing in a year. Now if you lose 15 pounds in 2 months, you may want to raise the amount you plan on losing in a year or cut the time down to say 10 months.

When you do a group challenge, you have some added benefits. There is a sense of camaraderie when working together on a goal that you do not get just competing with yourself.

Other people can give you ideas, too. For example if you are in a group losing weight, people can share healthy recipes and support. Just remember that the primary person you are in competition with is not the others, but yourself and you can really enjoy doing a group challenge.

As you can see, challenges are a great way to build more self-discipline and one of the reasons they work so well, especially with group challenges, is due to accountability so let’s take a look at that next.

How Accountability Can Help You With Self Discipline

Many people think self-discipline means doing it all on your own, but it does not mean that at all. In fact, having a coach, or a group, or an accountability partner can really help you to develop more discipline.

An example would be when someone puts off housework until they know someone is coming over, and they race around to get the house all tidy before their visitor arrives.

It is far easier to give in and be less disciplined when you just have yourself in the picture. When you have a person or people hold you accountable though, you are far more likely to make sure it happens.

An accountability partner is someone you set up a contract with to hold each other accountable for reaching goals. This is a mutual pact and is probably the easiest to set up.

The goals do not have to be the same ones, the point is to connect on a regular basis, often once a week, and share with each other how much you have accomplished. The best way to do this is to break up the task into daily chunks and do each one each day so that you are not trying to finish up the project the night before you meet with your accountability partner.

It is often easier to schedule a meeting with one other person than a group of people. You also usually do not have to pay for this method, and most masterminds and coaches are paid programs.

You also have more flexibility in how you meet with an accountability partner. You can just call them on the phone, or use an instant messaging program, You could meet for lunch once a week at a restaurant, or at your house.

You may prefer joining a group like a mastermind instead of just a one on one accountability partner.

The advantage to having a group is additional pressure on you not to let the whole group down, and the fact when you run across an obstacle, the group can help brainstorm ideas to help you out. Two heads may be better than one, but sometimes multiple heads are much better than just two.

You may find that you want some one on one coaching, or small group coaching instead, to keep you accountable. Maybe you are trying something new and need teaching as well as the connection.

One on one coaching tends to be the most expensive option since you are taking up a lot of the time of your coach.

Group coaching is becoming far more available because it allows the coach to help more people at the same time, plus gives the advantage of having other people that can help you out with specific issues, like a mastermind. They also usually cost a lot less than one on one coaching so may be more in your budget.

Whatever method or methods you use, remember you still have to be disciplined for them to work.

Use Mindful Meditation To Boost Confidence And Self Esteem

Having confidence means that you view yourself favorably. You know that you can do what you need to do, that you have the skills and talents to be able to handle yourself.

You trust that your instincts, thinking and abilities are sufficient. When you don’t have confidence it means that you struggle to accept who you are. You’ll lack confidence to do things because you simply don’t trust that you can.

You go through life feeling as if you’re not educated enough, skilled enough, smart enough, talented enough, pretty enough, or handsome enough. You judge yourself, often thinking of what you could have, should have said or done, and you always fall short.

What mindfulness does to help you change this and build your confidence is replace the feelings that you’re not enough with the trust that you are. Using mindfulness calls for you to not dwell on your past or on any negative experiences where you feel that you failed or fell short.

It helps you to not focus on the future or on what you hope to be and it helps train you to focus on who you are right now and see that who you are is good enough. You learn to accept yourself – and with that, a strong confidence in yourself is built.

Practicing mindfulness can also boost your self-esteem. Mindfulness can lead you to a life settled in the present. With living in the present comes a non-judgmental acceptance of who you are.

So many people have an internal voice that’s extremely ugly. This internal voice has been conditioned to speak this way by us. The disturbing results are that when we allow this internal voice to have a negative say, we can trigger stress, anxiety and even depression.

This self talk has a direct impact on how you feel about yourself. Learn to be aware of this negative self talk. If you call yourself names, that’s a sign that you’ve been engaging in negative self talk that can lower your self esteem.

Some people call themselves stupid or idiot. When they consider doing something, this internal self talk always tells them why they can’t. You’ll tell yourself things like “I’m not smart enough” or “I’m too dumb to do it.”

When you allow these thoughts to run rampant, you can get into the mindset that you can’t do something – that you’re unworthy – and then your feelings follow that internal self talk until it becomes a belief.

This habit can be so ingrained within you that the negative self talk plays constantly in your mind, so much so that it becomes like white noise. What mindfulness does is bring your attention to the inner dialogue that’s eroding your self esteem.

You learn what this internal conversation is doing to you and how it’s impacting your emotions. Mindfulness helps you learn to accept who you are without expectations or blaming. You’ll gain skills that you can use to learn how to raise your confidence and acceptance of yourself.

Copywriting For Beginners: How To Write Good Sales Copy

Learning to write good sales copy isn’t something you can learn by reading a quick tutorial – it takes practice. Although you probably won’t turn into a world-famous copywriter overnight, there are a few tips you can use to increase the response from your sales letters.

The first thing you should learn is that the headline is incredibly important. If your headline is terrible – or worse – boring, most people won’t even read the rest of your sales letter. A headline needs to be exciting, enticing, and intriguing.

It needs to grab the attention of your visitor quickly. Your headline might have shock value, ask a compelling question, or be the beginning of an extremely interesting story. “Six months ago, I was living on the streets of L.A., homeless after my Adjustable Rate Mortgage soared so high I couldn’t make the mortgage payments, but now I’m living in a sky-rise apartment twenty stories up that I paid seven figures for…”

This makes the reader want to know more – how did this person go from being destitute to being wealthy? Good sales copy usually tells a story that the audience can connect with. Copy ideally shouldn’t tell a fictional story, though.

You certainly don’t want to run into any trouble with the FTC or an attorney general with something to prove. Good copy gives people a reason to keep reading. If you tell an interesting, compelling story that’s somehow related to the product and how it will affect them, it will naturally appeal to your visitor.

Every single paragraph should lead into the next paragraph, drawing the reader further and further into the pitch.

Consumers usually buy based on emotion, and then they justify their purchase with logic. They rarely buy based on logic alone.

They don’t buy a product because of the features – they buy because of the benefits it will provide to them, the WIIFM (What’s In It For Me) factor. If you’re selling a car, you can’t tell the buyer that it has Corinthian leather seats, ABS brakes, and a superior sound system.

You have to sell them on the fact that their neighbors and coworkers will be envious, girls will flock to them, and they’ll feel like the king of the world whenever they drive it. Then they’ll buy based on the fantasy you’ve just given them, and they’ll use logic to justify their purchase later.

Within each online sales letter, you’ll want to have a main headline, numerous sub-headlines sprinkled throughout, and aside form the written storyline, you’ll want to add sections of benefit-driven bullet points that break up the monotonous text.

So. the headline is incredibly important. But it isn’t the most important part of your sales copy!!

Any idea what that is?

The most important part of your sales letter is the ultimate claim you’re making throughout the sales letter.

This is the big idea – the main premise around which you’re going to build your sales letter.

I’m talking about the primary purpose and promise of your product. This is the desired outcome your prospects have been hoping for.

Without a big idea, your sales copy will be pretty much the same as anyone else’s which will make converting your prospects much harder.

But with a powerful big idea, you will be able to stand out and this gives your prospects hope that your product or service may be the one that actually delivers on its promises.

Combine the big idea with a unique mechanism and now you are really compelling. The unique mechanism is the way in which your product works to produce the desired effect.

This can make all the difference in marketplaces that are saturated and sophisticated i.e. they have been exposed to the same type of offer for years.

If you are in a niche that has a high level of marketplace sophistication, it is imperative that you are able to stand out and having a big idea and a unique mechanism helps you to do just that.

And you should be incorporating the big idea and/or unique mechanism into your main headline(s) to grab attention and arouse curiosity, so take some time to develop these to draw your readers in.

Don’t forget the call to action at the end and a Post Script (PS) or two that sums up the order in case they’re bona fide skimmers who hate to read.

In all honesty, most people will not read the entire sales letter, but skim to the things that grab attention such as headlines, bullet points and the PS which is why it is important to really work on these to either increase the pain points or clearly explain the benefits.

Go to some of your favorite sales pitch sites and emulate their style and approach. Bookmark it for your “swipe file,” where you borrow ideas (not content) from the original author and use it on your own target audience.

The best sales copy is a complex mix of marketing and sales messages. The marketing is about the prospect; their desires, pains etc. and the selling is about the product; features etc. so the best sales letters focus heavily on marketing.

The reason for this is that a good marketing message can create a lot of desire for the product before you even mention it and this makes selling much easier.

So, in future, think more about your prospect, what they feel and what they want and how your product can give that to them and you will find that your conversions and sales will be much higher.

And be reassured; writing good, persuasive copy is a skill that can definitely be developed by anybody. Like anything, it just takes time and effort to get good at it and hone your skills.

But if any skill is worth developing, especially online, it is being able to write persuasive sales copy, so I urge anyone reading this to seriously consider learning it as soon as they possibly can; it will pay dividends in the future, believe me.