Mark Adams – Page 3 – Launch Digital Freedom

6 Easy Steps for Maintaining Good Habits

I have recently started running again. Usually, I set myself a goal and I go all out until I hit my target. (My new goal is to run 21.1 km in under 2 hours) But once the running goal is achieved, I tend to fall into lazy habits again. So how do I keep on maintaining good habits?

What is a good habit?

Before we get into how to maintain good habits, we need to understand what a good habit is. The free dictionary defines it as A behaviour that is beneficial to one’s physical or mental health, often linked to a high level of discipline and self-control.

Whereas many of these good habits can be general and common, it’s better you define your own good habits. At least define them in your own way. One person’s good habits will not fit another person’s good habits. It often helps you to define your values first. Knowing your values will allow you to form habits that you will be more likely to keep.

For example, my values include family, time outdoors, and exercise. One habit I have no trouble keeping is taking regular walks in the park with my family (That includes my best friend, Bruno!)

How habits work

The world counts have a great article on Habits. The importance of Good Habits. They explain habits in an interesting way.

There is a habit loop.

A trigger: This can be a place, time, person or even feeling
Routine: Something you do because of the trigger (i.e., watch TV)
Reward: This is a chemical response from your brain.

Because of the reward, the habit loop is reinforced. The loop is a self-reinforcing mechanism that over time becomes automatic. Knowing this means we can create good new habits.

Find out : How To Launch an Online Business

What is the importance of maintaining good habits?

So why is it even important to maintain these good habits?

They can keep you healthy

Eating good foods, exercise and mental health can all be set by creating habits. You need to identify them in your unique frame of reference and set the habit in motion.

They help you to reach your goals

Habits are the building blocks of doing things consistently to produce results. You will need to tweak, change, and reset your habits from time to time when you need to make the step to your next level.

If developed correctly, they keep you focused

By forming the correct habits, it can keep you focused on your goals. For example, I have a daily method of operation which includes a list. My habit is to get this stuff done first. If you want to learn more about DMO, check out this post. Daily Method Of Operation Simple and Fun.

Habits get you through the mundane

And let’s face it, a lot of the things we know we need to do to get where we want to be are not “fun”. Some of them can be rather mundane and easily skipped if not placed into a good habit. One thing I would not do if it were not a habit is to follow up with prospects.

6 ways for maintaining good habits

So now we know what a habit is, how habits work and why habits are important to keep. So here are 5 ways that will help you in maintaining them.

1 Access your goals (Regularly)

It will be very hard to keep a habit that is not in line with your goals. Make sure you have a defined goal, and a plan to get there. If these are in place, it will help you form the habit necessary to get there.

2 Start today

Start immediately. Don’t wait till next Tuesday. Habits are all about momentum. The momentum you have from the thought of what you need to do only lasts for this moment. Next Tuesday there will be an unforeseen problem preventing you from starting.

3 Start small

If you are unfit and decide to run 10 km tomorrow, you might do it once or twice. But when you feel sore and in pain tomorrow and the next day, your body will relate it to a painful experience. What we need for the habit is related to a good feeling. Rather run 1 km a day every second day for a couple of weeks. Build on that once the habit is formed.

4 Schedule it

Related to starting today, and starting small, just make sure it’s in your calendar. To begin with, it may be hard, so get it done first. Get it out the way. You’ll feel better when you get into bed at night. That is the feeling you need. In time the habit will form, and one day you even notice you are doing it. That is the ZEN in forming habits.

5 Get Accountability

If you find it hard to get started on your own, get a friend to hold you accountable. Just let them know what you are doing and why you are doing it. Share your schedule with them. Hopefully, they check in with you regularly. Eventually, hopefully, you will be telling them of your daily success before they ask the question!

6 Create new goals

I started this article with my problem. How will I keep a good habit going once my goal is achieved? Well, I think I may have answered it here above in a way. I need to make sure it aligns with my values (checked) and I will need to create a new goal before I reach this one.

The new goal after this one is: Run a marathon. 42.2 KM

Just a note here: Make sure you enjoy your success in between goals. Otherwise, you might lose the point of why you are doing what you are doing

In Closing

As important as it is to form habits, a habit can go into overdrive. Picking up this overdrive can be tricky, as habits are invisible when in motion. So just remember to regularly access your values, improve your goals, and listen to those around you. You should be able to spot one in overdrive.

So, happy habit forming!

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How Your Smartphone is Affecting Your Productivity and Focus?

Technology has become integrated into our lives and has had a massive impact on our relationships. Today we can be having a conversation with people physically yet be digitally focused on another conversation on our phone. This is the twenty-first century connected world. Our family, friends, and co-workers have devices and often are not totally present when we talk to them, simply because something else has their attention. It is something that has definitely escalated during the pandemic as people found themselves isolated and not able to socialize.

There is nothing wrong with reading a blog, browsing through social media, or even chatting to a friend online. But it does become a problem when we cant balance our digital lives with our physical lives. This is the point where we need to take back control.

Notifications, the Concentration killer.

One of the biggest problems with having mobile devices is the constant notifications that distract our attention. We naturally want to respond to them. As if they calling us to take action. It’s human nature. Who is that? What if it’s urgent? And we feel the need to check every beep and ping that pops up on our phones.

In your work environment, it can be difficult to maintain focus when you have multiple apps screaming for your attention. One way is to go into your app setting and disable notifications for certain apps like social media. It’s one way to help you focus more. And if you have a moment you can simply open your app to see if there are any notifications or messages that you need to attend to.

Find out : How Social Media Can Accelerate the Growth of Your Business?

Set Times for Social Media

Whether you use social media for personal or business purposes, it can be addictive! You constantly feel the need to see what’s going on in the world. Or what are our friends posting? And this can waste a lot of your productive time especially while you at work. One way to gain control of the way you use social media is to set fixed times for checking and responding to messages or posts.

This is far better than constantly being distracted by it throughout the day. It will also help you avoid wasting productive time on social media. In fact, setting time aside for just social media will help you be more productive with your time online. It’s all about focus and more focus means more productivity.

Know When to Put Your Phone Away

Smartphones dominate our lives. Everyone has one and we see people around us on them all day. But there is the point where you need to just put them away and focus on the people around you? Having your phone in your hand all the time, around family or friends can send the signal you are not a hundred percent available. So why not put your phone away in your cupboard and ignore it while you spending quality time with people that matter. It will in the long run add more value to your life and show the people in your life you present and care.

It may seem like a small thing, even silly, but breaking away from your phone can make a huge difference to your productivity both personally and professionally.

Why not give it a try?

Maybe you’ll be surprised at just how much better you feel!

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Why People Burn Out from Climbing the Corporate Ladder?

Many people envy corporate life as the ultimate destination for success. The place where the money is. Where you climb the ladder of success to your dream position. Yes, that’s what many think about the corporate lifestyle, especially those that haven’t worked in such an environment before. Yes, the salary might be great. The perks may be exemplary. Maybe you even own all the things you ever wanted. But eventually, the corporate glitter and glamour may fade to grey as you find yourself trapped in the prison of your own making.

The corporate world offers many opportunities, but it has its disadvantages.

In fact, as I scouted forums and social media, I found some interesting posts from folks worn out, burnt out, and fed up with corporate life. I realized it’s not just me feeling this way. There are many people that feel the same way. And I don’t blame them. Because I’m there. It’s the reason I started Launch Digital Freedom in the first place. As a way to build a bridge forward and out from where I am to where I want to be.

After almost 2 decades of working in the corporate world in software development, I reached a point where I had just had enough. I was tired of the daily stress of wading through hours of peak hour traffic. Tired of sitting in my office working at my desk hours on end being dictated to by my company. And above all the escalating stress.

But what I really find interesting is what I found in my research, and I’m going to share what many people seem to be saying about how they feel about working in the corporate world.

Obviously, I won’t be mentioning people’s names, but rather I will be paraphrasing what they said.

Find out more about : A Blueprint to Start Your Online Business Faster!

Time Spent Traveling

One of the biggest downsides of living in a city is traveling time. Depending on where you work, you may have to take the bus, subway, and travel for long periods of time. Not only can it be exhausting, but also add up to so much time lost. Often you have to leave early in the morning to make it on time to work. And then of course there is the journey back home again in the evening. Many people stated they hated leaving for work when it was dark and then arriving back home after the sun had set. Over months and years, this can take its toll on the most enthusiastic and committed individuals.

The Work Environment

One of the first posts I found was someone complaining that they felt like they couldn’t be themselves. Rather they had to put up a facade that felt unnatural and wore them down over time. People seemed to want to be in an environment that allowed them to feel natural and accepted. Someone who had been in the corporate world finally packed up to move to a smaller town and take a smaller job to live a more simple and easy-going lifestyle. Another said they gave up everything to take a job where they could walk to work. They felt happier to be in a more casual environment and have more time to follow their own interests.

Some people decided to leave their jobs to pursue their own businesses. They said they were prepared to take a salary cut, and even the security of a corporate job to do their own thing. They said they were bored and unfulfilled and felt like they needed a new challenge.

Many people seemed to mention they hated being micro-managed and told what they could and couldn’t do around every corner. Many said they felt they were trapped and were not able to express themselves in fear of reprimand. These are just random examples and may not reflect every corporate environment. I’m not saying the corporate world is all bad. I am saying over time it may feel like it’s not for you, and you may feel like you want a change.

The Stress Factor

One of the reasons many people stated as a reason they wanted to leave their corporate job was because of the escalating pressure. Many felt they were constantly under pressure to finish work projects and often worked on weekends. Sure we all know you need to work hard to get anywhere in life, but it has to be sustainable. There is just more to life than staring at your computer screen, having endless meetings, and phone calls, and stressing about work.

Not only is it unhealthy, but it’s just not enjoyable or sustainable long-term. Many people just start feeling unfulfilled with dedicating so much of their life to an organization where their very position isn’t even guaranteed. In fact, since the pandemic, many people have found out firsthand that there are no guarantees you won’t lose your job.

Lost Time with Loved Ones

Probably the most important reason many felt they’d rather leave the corporate world for a simpler life was to spend more time with their spouse and children. Many felt that they were frustrated that they had to spend so much time at work. Some said they were prepared to simplify their lives and earn less to be with their loved ones. One person stated that if they were on their death beds, they didn’t want to look back and think they worked themselves to the bone for a company. And failed to spend time with their family doing what mattered.

Why : The Perfect Time to Launch Your Business is Now!

A Way Forward

So what can you do to get out of the corporate world if you’ve had enough of it?

Start looking for opportunities that could help you start a side project you could possibly launch into a full-scale opportunity.

Take the time to start planning your exit, you don’t want to leave your job without at least a plan in place. Best to start creating the momentum now. Once you have enough in place then take the step to your own happiness!

If you are interested in learning more about how to build an online income, feel free to look around or take a look at the Six Figure Mentor program which has helped me start building my own online business.

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Improve Your Productivity in 9 Simple Steps!

Running a side hustle ain’t easy! And presents many challenges! Often you are working after hours to get things started. But in time you might need to pay someone to do tasks for you. Either way you not going to be productive if you aren’t managing your tasks effectively. In this article I’m going to give you some valuable tips to manage your tasks more efficiently and get things done!

So here is a step by step strategy to get you on top of your Side Hustle!

Learn why its : The Perfect Time to Launch Your Business is Now!

How to Manage Tasks Effectively

1. List all your Tasks

If you feeling overwhelmed or just unclear about where to start, begin by listing all your tasks at once. Open a word document, spreadsheet or note app and start listing all the tasks you need to get done. I would suggest a simple spreadsheet as you will want to use the data filter option to sort priorities. As show below you will be able to sort your tasks using various criteria.

2. Categorize your Tasks

Once you have a list of task, you can organize them according to category. For example organize all your marketing tasks together. This will help you get a feel for what areas in your side hustle need more or less attention.

3. Set a Priority for Each Task

Now that you have created a list of tasks, and categorized them you can now set a priority on each task. I would suggest simply using three levels of importance:

HIGH
MEDIUM
LOW

4. Assign Each Task

If you plan to delegate a task to someone else, enter a person responsible for each task. Once you have all the tasks outlined for a specific person, you can generate a list using the data filter function and forward it to that person.

5. Set a Deadline

Every task should have a deadline. This will keep tasks from perpetually being deferred. Set a deadline that is realistic and complete each task with in the required time to maintain momentum.

6. Assign Tasks for Everyday.

Create a prioritized list of tasks that can guide you every day. Preferably complete all high priority tasks first. But be flexible. It might be better to get smaller tasks done first! Then have the rest of the day to focus on high priority tasks. It can also be beneficial to complete similar tasks together. This can prevent you from having to switch gears back and forth between different types of tasks.

Find out more about : A Blueprint to Start Your Online Business Faster

7. Prioritize Uncompleted tasks

Accept that there will be days when you carry over tasks. That’s okay. Simply shift them to the next day. But maybe prioritize that task before the others. Be flexible and simply adapt to the flow of life and business!

8. Set Time to Plan

A good strategy to manage your side hustle is to plan weekly and monthly. Set time aside at the end or beginning of the week to consolidate your tasks for the week or month ahead. This will greatly reduce the stress that goes along with the challenges of building your side hustle!

9. Set Time to Review Performance

Apart from simply getting tasks done, its important to consider how productive you are. You can do this by assessing the time taken to complete tasks, how many tasks you completed per day, etc. This can give you insights to help you improve your productivity and efficiency in the future.

There you have it, a better way to :

Capture Tasks.
Prioritize Them.
Get Thing Done!
And Improve Your Productivity.

Are you ready to kick those tasks?

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How a Customer Avatar can Improve your Marketing Efforts?

One of the most important things to remember in business is WHO we are selling to. We can have the best service, but it’s not enough to focus on its features. When you talk to the right people in the right way with the right content, your sales will increase. The prospect will automatically understand what you are saying and why you are saying it. So, who is your customer avatar?

This is always a tricky question. Deciding on your ideal customer takes time. And it can be hard at first.

You need to know:

Who they are?
Where they are?
What challenges do they face?

What is a Customer Avatar?

It helps to create a fictional person who represents who you want to sell to. In marketing, this is called a customer avatar or customer persona. This will allow you to home in on one specific person. All the content you create can be laser-focused on this one person. The avatar will get you back on track if you veer the wrong way. It will even make your decisions on what to write simpler.

How can we create an Avatar?

Luckily marketers have been doing this for decades. There are many questions and worksheets that you can answer and fill in. Once you have done this, you can prepare the types of content you need to help that customer. All business is in the game of service. Service your customer the best you can.

There are 4 main areas:

1) Personal Details

This includes Age, Gender, Occupation etc. Give your customer a name. It tends to make them real. What is James’s age again?

2) Goals and Values

If you know the goal of your customer, you can create content that leads them to their goals. Along with their values, you can write it in such a way that they value what you write. In essence, you have the same values as them.

3) Challenges and Pain points

Everyone has challenges and problems they face. It’s the force against us reaching our goals. Sometimes there are internal values that clash keeping us stuck. You can never resonate with everyone, but if you can single out the challenges and problems you can help them help themselves. By speaking to your customer’s challenges and problems, they will resonate with you. Finding those challenges and pain points can take time. You need to dig into online forums. You can scan social media groups for clues. You can even send out questionnaires to find out more.

4) Sources of Information

Find out what your avatar consumes information. This not only gives you great ideas of content to create but helps you understand where your customer is. What is your customer reading to stay up to date in their job? What are they thinking about doing next? It will help you target your ads and content.

Customer Avatar example

You can download my spreadsheet here and create your own. Customer Avatar

Finally

Once you have clarity on Who you are talking to, the process is easier. You might not get your customers spot on immediately but adjusting them in time will bring you closer.

Get ready to Launch into CyberSpace!

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Why WordPress is the Easiest Way to Build Your Website?

A website is one of the fundamental parts needed to build an online business. It is the digital space you can showcase your business, share information and news, share images and videos to demonstrate what you do. This is the new business premises. So there is no surprises when you realize that there are now almost 2 billion websites on the web. No small number. And its climbing everyday as more and more people and businesses build their digital presence.

What do you Need to Setup a Website?

A domain name. This is the name of your site. Example: launchdigitalfreedom.com
A hosting package. This is where you can place your domain to be accessible worldwide.
A website. This is the actual site you will load on to the server at the hosting provider.

Now you have a few options to create a website:

Code the website yourself from scratch.
Pay someone to code a website from scratch.
Install a Content Management System or CMS ,to create a website.
Get someone to install, setup and customize your CMS site.

Now if you are the adventurous type and have some tech-savvy skills you could take on the challenge of setting up your own website using a CMS like WordPress.

What is WordPress?

WordPress is one of the leading CMS frameworks used to setup blogs and websites.

WordPress was founded back in 2003 and its purpose was to create a user-friendly platform for people to publish their personal content. Since then it has matured into a robust content publishing system that is use on millions of sites throughout the web. According to WordPress themselves “It is also the platform of choice for over 42% of all sites across the web.”

What makes WordPress an attractive platform for building websites is its easy to install platform, available on pretty much all leading internet hosting companies. It is fairly easy to navigate for even beginners and also allows more competent developers to further customize and modify code as necessary.

If you new to website design and are looking for a way to build a blog or website, WordPress can offer you a platform to do so with even limited technical skills. Find out from your service provider if they offer basic configuration support to help you setup the basic site. Once setup you can learn more about how to setup your blog by accessing the website.

Designed Content Creators

What makes WordPress especially appealing is the easy with which you can create content. It take simply selecting a new post or page. In the old days of creating websites you would have to code in HTML to create a page on a site. WordPress takes the headache of coding away and allows you to focus on writing your content.

Adding images, animations and video is also seamless as you can simply choose to add your media and then upload it from your computer with the click of a button. Even embed YouTube videos from your YouTube channel or embed relevant videos.

WordPress Themes

One of the cool things about WordPress is its ability to change the look and feel of your entire website simply through changing the theme. This will change numerous variables including layout, fonts, colours, menu position, and many more.

You have two options for getting themes, use a freely available theme, preferably download from wordpress.org, or buy a paid theme.

Paid vs Free Themes

As with all things, you get what you pay for! For some a free theme may fit their needs. Many free themes offer limited features and require you to pay for the full set of features. If you want there are still many ways to customize a free theme. For example you can have a custom header, or featured images for each page. Often for simple sites a free them may be good enough.

If you require more robust features and would like more freedom then a paid theme will be a better choice. If you interested in finding a solid paid WordPress theme for your site, ThriveThemes offers a large variety of conversion focused WordPress themes.

WordPress Plugins

One of the advantages of WordPress is its impressive library of plugins available to add further enhancements. From analytics to design features, security and forms, you will find a massive array of options to pimp your site. And although you may be carried away to add multiple plugins, I’d suggest to keep the number of plugins to a minimum. As the more plugins that are running the more resources they need which could adversely affect your sites performance.

Google Site Kit Plugin

The Site Kit plugin is an official WordPress plugin from Google which provides insights about your site traffic and how people are finding you online. Site Kit plugs into Google Search Console, Google Analytics and Page Insights. Therefore the data that it provides is both accurate and inline with how Google is seeing your website. Its simple and easy to install and is free for use. Definitely a plugin to get loaded straight from day one.

WooCommerce

If you planning to sell products on your WordPress site then the WooCommerce plugin is without a doubt the plugin of choice. It is the world’s most popular open-source eCommerce solution and is free which means you retain full ownership of your store’s content and data forever.

WooCommerce allows you to build online retail stores which can blend your blog style site with e-Commerce like features. One of its key benefits is the availability of information for users and simplicity to implement. A worthy choice if you planning to start a business on a budget and need the tools to build your store.

Who Should Choose WordPress

If you are a absolute beginner looking to get your own website up WordPress is a great choice. It provides a simplified framework that is user-friendly to use, is opensource, widely used across the world, and is supported by a large community around the world.

What ever your take on WordPress, its a platform here to stay and only set to grow in strength.

Get ready to Launch into CyberSpace!

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8 Components of Digital Marketing (In the Affiliate Space)

My journey into online business has brought me to the conclusion that there are many components of digital marketing that need attention when it comes to online business. Some areas need work at the beginning, some of them need work consistently, and others can come later. Each aspect can require specialised sets of skills. Even if you must do all of them at the beginning, which is a good thing, you will be better placed in outsourcing them one at a time as you start to earn money. (Re-invest into your business)

You don’t need all areas running at once, but you do need to get started. I’ll order them in the way I think is best to get started.

So, let’s get into the areas.

Product, image, brand, and primary message.

If you need to define your vision and values it can help to utilise a professional. A virtual meeting can go a long way. Try Tricia Jones, she helped me really become clear about what I wanted from my business. I’ll touch more on creating your vision and values in a future post.

The following components house your values, vision, and mission.

Sales Funnel

A Sales Funnel is essentially a page on the internet that has some marketing of your products or services. Its primary function is to get the user to perform an action. Normally it’s to get a name and email address.

To get someone to enter a name and email, you often need to entice them to do so. Perhaps offering them access to a free webinar or a free PDF that has extreme value to that person. Getting the name and email is key to your online business. This person might not buy today, but because you have their email, you can provide them with value and offers until such time as the person decides to buy or unsubscribe.

Email Marketing

We have an email address now (Hopefully many!)

The cool thing about online business is you can automate your email. Write once and send it to your subscribers as they join up. Over time, your email sequence can grow. If you write 1 email a week for 1 year, you have a decent sequence. (You can go back and modify when needed)

You can also send them broadcast messages too from time to time. These can be used to push special offers or updates to your subscribers.

A great product I use is Aweber. They make it easy to create, publish and monitor.

Website

If you can push traffic to your funnel, and implement the email marketing aspect, you are essentially in business. You can market and try to make sales.

But supplementing the funnel with context builds trust in your target audience. This is done with a website the houses your Vision, Mission and Values. It provides valuable content to show that there is a real person (or business) behind the scenes.

Another key aspect of the site is a contact page. You need to be contactable and converse with your potential buyers. The more you engage with your audience and show a willingness to assist, the more trust you build. And in the end, all business is done on trust. (Launch Digital Freedom Privacy Policy)

Aspects that drive traffic

What drives an audience to your funnel, website, and email list? There are a few ways you can target your audience. Some of them cost money, the others will cost you time (consistent time)

SEO

In short, it is the skill of structuring your website, content and building authority for your website. It includes both content related techniques and technical aspects that can enhance the content of your website for search engines and help you rank higher.

It includes your keyword research. The words your audience will be looking for in the search engine. For example, if you are selling Canon Cameras online your audience might search:

High-Quality Cameras
Canon camera for a far distance shot
What camera should I use?

Your site and content will need to target these keywords and phrases. With time, consistency and quality content, your site will show up in search engines higher up and more often.

SEO also includes making sure you link to internal and external sites for reference. If you want to know more about search engine optimisation, visit this post, How to get Started with Search Engine Optimization?

Content

On the side of not spending money, you would have to create quality content over time. Consistency is key. The more you produce, the more quality you have, time will bring you internet traffic.

Types of content online include

Blogs
Listicles
Ebooks
Infographics
Videos
Podcasts
Guides
Case studies and many more.

Begin with one and stick with it for 3 – 5 years. Become an expert.

The content shows search engines that you are committed to producing value, and your reward will be traffic. This together with your keyword strategy is key to your online success without spending money.

Learn how to Promote Affiliate Links On Your Blog

Social Media

With your Sales Funnel, Email marketing, and content in place, we can find other ways to bring traffic to your products. Once again, there are a whole lot of options available. Don’t try and market on all of these at once. Rather, find out where your audience hangs out and target them.

In my SFM business, my audience is full-time employees that know there is a better way to make a living. And so, LinkedIn provides the best opportunity for me to find my audience. Do a little research on how to use your social media platform effectively and be consistent.

Find out which platforms you might be able to find your customers. 8 Social Media Platforms to Promote Your Business

Find out more about: The Best Ways to Learn Digital Marketing Online?

Online Ads

If you have the cash flow to run ads, it’s the perfect way to bring a targeted audience to your sales funnel. Most of these platforms allow you to pick specific details of your audience. Age, job title, interests and much more.

It helps to be very specific in your audience and speak directly to that person (Your avatar). If your Ad images and content appeal to your target, it will interest them, and they will click your ad. It will take them to your sales funnel, and you can get their email.

Once you have a list of emails, you can nurture that list over time and generate commissions.

Monitoring

An overriding aspect of digital marketing is measuring what you are doing. If you can measure it, you can adjust what’s not working. Most of the components mentioned above have metrics that you can measure over time.

For example, your email marketing lets you know how many emails were opened, how many people clicked your link and even if emails were not delivered. When you run ads on LinkedIn and Facebook, it measures the success of your ad. In fact, the more successful your ad the cheaper the cost to you! They allow you to measure impressions, clicks and even the position of ads on platforms that were successful.

To Finish

As you can see, there is lots to consider in an online business, but you don’t have to have to all running in 1 day! Take your time to learn and implement each aspect one at a time. There is plenty of support on the internet on how to do everything, but don’t fall into the habit of overlearning. It’s something I still catch myself doing from time to time. The best way to learn is to do.

Get ready to Launch into CyberSpace!

With a Step-By-Step Blueprint to Guide You to Success.

Your Business. Your Terms. Online. Anywhere.

Get Started

Why You Shouldn’t Wait to Launch Your Business?

Starting a new venture is scary. Many people procrastinate for months or even years before they take action. And its really not necessary to waste so much time fretting about it. Starting and building a new business is a challenging undertaking, but starting is the first challenge. Here is some perspective to help you get motivated to launch your business today!

Stop Procrastinating!

So you are caught in a cycle of procrastination that has you holding back. To cut to the root of the problem, understand that procrastination is actually just a response to fear. Yes, fear is at the root of it and you can kick through one simple strategy.

Take action!

Action is the remedy to all procrastination. Stop being stuck and avoiding action, by taking action. And that action can be anything small, like opening a social media page for your business. Or creating a website for your business. Or simply telling people you are starting a new venture. Tell someone who can hold you accountable, like a spouse or partner, can help push you to take action!

Launch before you ready

If you planning to start a business understand one simple thing. You will never be ready! There will always be something that you need clarity on. There will always be something you haven’t yet figured out. Make a decision, and start building your venture today. You will learn through the process and your confidence will grow as you see more and more results.

No one starts a business with answers. Often there are things you can only learn as you go. Time will unveil the answers you need. Step forward with confidence and be open to learn as you go. The time will never be perfect. And it doesn’t need to be. Because the time is now!

Find out more about how to use : A Blueprint to Start Your Online Business Faster

Build As You Go

A business is a not a static entity. It takes time to build a business. It doesn’t happen overnight. A business needs to start in order to grow. You will probably change direction many times. Just be flexible and open to change as you discover new ways to improve it.

Very few businesses start with all the resources they require. Entrepreneurs often don’t have all the skills, knowledge and experience they need when they start. Rather they learn and hone their skills and knowledge as they go.

Connect with Role Models

Social media is an amazing platform for any entrepreneur looking to start a new venture. It offers an amazing platform to connect with fellow entrepreneurs. Search for people that are doing what you want to do and learn from them.

So many entrepreneurs share pearls of wisdom on social media which can be both inspirational and educational. Take the time to connect and follow people that inspire you! This is a great way to get perspective and build certainty.

Start Today…

There you have it. Four great reasons to stop procrastinating about the launch of your business and get motivated to take action! Everything takes time, so why delay and wait any longer, start today and in a month you will be a month ahead, and then two, three, six!

Launch your business today!

Get ready to Launch into CyberSpace!

With a Step-By-Step Blueprint to Guide You to Success.

Your Business. Your Terms. Online. Anywhere.

Get Started

My Successful Affiliate Marketing Journey So Far

It’s been 8 months since purchasing the monthly Six Figure Mentors All-In-One package. Is it all it’s cracked up to be? And is it worth the money? What do I get for my $100 per month?

First off, there were two options I had right at the beginning. Utilise paid ads to generate traffic and build an email list, or SEO and Content Strategy for organic growth to build an email list. Having no space in my finances to do paid ads, I chose the slower SEO and Content Strategy. This one is long term and allows Search Engines to recognise your site as an authority over time. Eventually, the web will be recommending your site and services more often on search engines.

1. What have I learned in my spare time over the last 8 months?

How to Build a WordPress Site

After following the step-by-step tutorials, I selected my domain name, published the default site, and customised it. I did what was suggested and got it up and running. When I needed help, the six-figure mentor’s community was there to assist. With a desire to learn it, anyone can do it.

How to create a Sales Funnel

Choosing to market the SFM system, I was able to leverage a done for you sales funnel. You can see the Sales Funnel here. All I had to do was link it to my WordPress site. Then make sure it was connected to my Email marketing account (Get Your AWeber account). If you want to market your own products, there is a section on how to build sales funnels from scratch. Stuart from the SFM says just do it! It doesn’t need to be perfect. It just needs to work.

How to plan your marketing

Then be consistent. So, I quickly moved onto marketing. The part I probably did and still do need to most help with. Learning from the tutorials, I was able to build up my customer avatar. Now I knew exactly who I was talking to. After some research into my customer avatar, I could identify with him and knew exactly where to find him. Turns out LinkedIn! Knowing what they want, I was able to start producing targeted content for my customer. It’s what I am doing each week so far this year. The more quality content you produce, the more search engines love you!

Find out more about: The Best Ways to Learn Digital Marketing Online?

Cost-value graph made with white chalk on a blackboard.

2. What does it cost me each month?

I did not have spare cash after my initial $100 investment each month. So, I had to do all the work myself. Some of my early blogs were about lessons I would need to learn along the way to free up time and money. Blogging was hard at first, and all over the place. But going through the process allowed me to learn blogging skills as well as time and money management skills to get this business going. Not to mention SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) needed to make sure my content is noticed by web crawlers.

Through applying the money management skills I had learned, I was able to free up cash and start to outsource. I have brought in an online SEO and content specialist to do my blogging and SEO now, but my budget doesn’t feel the impact! And my blogging is much better and more consistent because of it. It frees me up to focus on the social media and email marketing part of my business. Eventually, I will outsource that too.

I have also made extra income by building websites for friends and family businesses.

My Investment So far

Although I have invested $1145 for the first half of 2021, I have cleaned up my personal expenses and it now costs me less than $100 per month.

I have not made a sale yet, but the traffic in building to my site! My 11 subscribers make me confident it’s working. And I am proud of that.

The program so far has been amazing, and I keep learning each day. There are moments where I feel completely overwhelmed, but I just remember why I am doing it. To find my own path in life.

What I get for my $100?

Site Hosting
Free Tool to build Sales Funnels
Getting Started Modules
Weekly Training (Mindset, business etc)
LinkedIn Learning Free
A community of like-minded people happy to answer my questions
Access to Content Writers
And much, much more!

I will publish another blog at the end of the year to show my progress updates again, but for the time being, I need to…

Stop Doing

Overtraining, and underdoing. The more time I spend on consuming, the less time I work on producing. The name of this game is to produce content often, and of good quality. 80% of your time needs to be spent on the things that build your business. Only 20% needs to be spent on learning.

Keep Doing

Keep outsourcing. There are so many people who are better than me at each digital marketing discipline. Just leverage them. Keep doing the things that you are good at in the business and outsource the rest.

Start Doing

Focus on Email Marketing and Social Media consistency. Once you have some followers you need to keep giving them value and offering worthwhile products and services. They want to know you are there. I am also going to utilise Social Media more effectively in the next half of the year.

Also, write more content. I will start to produce more content to complement what we already produce.

So was it, and is it all worth it?

You can probably find all this information to start an online business free on the web.

But, the bottom line is it helps to learn from the ones who have succeeded. And to be a part of a great community of people to share your successes and to help you through the tougher time. Definitely, the best investment I have made in years.

Find out more about: The Best Ways to Learn Digital Marketing Online?

Get ready to Launch into CyberSpace!

With a Step-By-Step Blueprint to Guide You to Success.

Your Business. Your Terms. Online. Anywhere.

Get Started

Online Business Ideas for Stay at Home Moms

Being a mom is a twenty-four-seven, three sixty-five kinda job. The problem is you might need extra income. While you are at home you have the opportunity to pursue a part-time gig. The question is what would be the right fit for you. In this article, I will look at a few business opportunities for stay at home moms that you might want to consider that will give time to take care of your little ones.

The Digital Business Model

You want a business that you can run while taking care of your children. It needs to be flexible enough to take care of your daily responsibilities and still offer you an opportunity to work. Digital businesses offer you the platform to build services that can be run from home or anywhere. It also offers protection from the dangers of contact with the outside world. So let’s assess what would make a good business.

Flexible Work Hours

You want the flexibility to work when you have time, or once you have a gap in the day. This means you need a business that allows you to have a flexible schedule.

Minimize Contact with People

You also want a business you can minimize contact with new people. You have children and want to keep them safe from exposure to people during the pandemic.

Leverage your Passion

Passion drives us not only through good times, but through tough times. You want to be driven to succeed. And being passionate about your business is key to long-term success. Choose something that gets you up and keeps you motivated. Maintaining enthusiasm is key.

Be Purpose Driven

Having a strong purpose for your business is key to keeping you motivated and focused. Knowing what you do is important, and has purpose, will help you maintain perspective. It will help guide all your decision-making.

Find out more about: A Blueprint to Start Your Online Business Faster

Business Ideas for Stay At Home Moms

You might have experience in a specific field, like administration, sales, or technology. You could consider looking into opportunities in the field you already have experience in. Use your experience or passion to build a virtual service.

1. Administrative Business

If you have a background in Administration, you could build a business offering relevant services to businesses. You could consider offering Administrative services for clients either locally or elsewhere. Research what specific services are in demand. Once you know more about which services to promote, structure your business around these services. Focus on the high demand and lucrative ones, and offer the others as secondary.

You will be able to meet with clients through video calls and be able to submit your work to clients electronically via email or sharing of documents. A great business if this is what you enjoy.

2. Consulting Business

If you have experience in a field that could require consulting services, you could offer clients applicable services. If you have experience in managing software development teams you could offer team managers, consulting services around your expertise. If you have experience in sales you could offer organizations solutions to improve the performance of their sales teams.

Whatever your experience maybe you could offer it as a service to help customers that are struggling with problems that arise from a particular function. Assess your skills and experience and look for what problems you could help businesses solve.

This business could also be run remotely and could be a flexible option for those moms with a depth of experience in a specific field.

3. Online Teaching Business

Since the pandemic, video calls and conferencing have exploded. And its application is far and wide from private group meetings, online workshops to business meetings. This trend has also created a great opportunity for anyone wanting to start offering remote learning. If you have a teaching background or have skills you could teach, this could be a great way to put your knowledge to work.

In fact, the list of online classes is really diverse. As long as you can find students to teach, you can turn this into a business.

Here are some examples of online teaching:

Language Classes – know a language, teach other to speak it.
Fitness Classes – have a passion for fitness, help motivate and train others.
Computer Classes – have a specific technology skill, teach others how to get started.
Baby Classes – are you a passionate and experienced mom, help other moms who are struggling.
Online Tutor – Help other parents with tutoring their children.
Art Classes – Passionate about art, why not teach others how to get creative.
Music Classes – Know how to play a musical instrument, show others how to play music as a hobby.

The sky is the limit and all it takes is a skill, passion, and the right setup to start making money!

4. Sales Agent

If you have a knack for selling and have a background in sales, why not offer your services to companies struggling to get sales leads. Offer your services to businesses that can’t yet afford full-time staff, and help them expand their operation. Today more than ever with the pandemic, businesses are hesitant to employ staff unless they are certain they can afford them.

Your services would help companies grow but at a lower cost. You could work remotely and still be available for your family while earning income on the side. You could work a flexible schedule and set meetings at optimal times when everyone in the house is busy or sleeping. Draft a plan and approach businesses you think will benefit from your services. If you don’t try you’ll never know!

Learn more about : Affiliate Marketing as a Passive Income Source.

5. Promote Affiliate Products

Building a business that sells and delivers products can be a challenge. It generally requires plenty of capital and logistics. But there is an easier way! Promoting affiliate products and earning a commission.

Affiliate programs are free to join and can be set up quite quickly. Where the work lies is in marketing these products online. This could be through a blog or on social media. You could also use email to send information to potential customers. In fact, you can get quite creative in how you promote these products as long as you follow the guidelines provided by each affiliate.

Why Affiliate Marketing can be a great model:

You can work in your own time.
You don’t have to deal with customers.
You focus on educating and promoting products online.
If anyone follows a link and makes a purchase, you earn a commission.
It is highly scalable as there is no limit to how much you can sell.

Find out more about

You can do it!

If there is a will there is a way. And starting a home based business isn’t going to be a walk in the park. Find out where you can add the most value, that’s where to start! Make a list of skills and talents you have, and find at least two you could offer as a service. Do your research and find out if there is a demand for it.

Then, go for it!

Good luck!

Get ready to Launch into CyberSpace!

With a Step-By-Step Blueprint to Guide You to Success.

Your Business. Your Terms. Online. Anywhere.

Get Started