Mindset

The Mistake That Kills Affiliate Marketing Business

You know, every day I get a bunch of emails from people asking me to look at their websites and tell them where they’re doing wrong. But let’s face it. Most people who start affiliate marketing fail. And you know you what? They usually fail pretty quickly, because as harsh …

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Inspiring quotes for marketers

8 Inspiring Quotes For Marketers & Entrepreneurs

Today’s article is going to be a little different from the ones I usually share here. Most of the blogs here are tutorials, training courses or other helpful tips, but I feel this is an important piece to share with you. So, I’m going to give you eight inspirational quotes that you absolutely must hear, to help you succeed and stay motivated.

“Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on when there seemed to be no hope at all” – Dale Carnegie

How many of us have experienced this feeling? I know that I for one have given up and felt like there was no hope on more than one occasion. But those who succeed continue on and keep going even though they may want to give up. I’ve said this often in my videos and podcasts, and I will say it again; keep going!

“There are no traffic jams along the extra mile.” – Roger Staubach

This quote is very self-explanatory and one I’ve always really enjoyed. This is the road to success, and any extra effort you put in will get you there faster. Those who succeed always go the extra mile.

“I am who I am today because of the choices I made yesterday.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

If you follow my Profit Copilot videos, blog posts and podcasts, you’ll know that I like to repeat the phrase, “do something today that you’re going to be thankful for tomorrow”.

Tomorrow might actually be six months down the road, but this reinforces my belief in that expression, and the results I’ve seen reinforce it as well. When you make a choice and act today, you will see the positive impact of that choice, whether it be tomorrow or weeks or months later. Action always pays off, but if you don’t act, you can never truly achieve anything.

“Success isn’t always about greatness it’s about consistency. Consistent hard work leads to success. Greatness will come.” – Dwayne Johnson

Success isn’t always about greatness, it’s about consistency. I talk about consistency so much in my videos and my podcast because I believe that I am a product of that. Its only through the consistent work that I put into my websites and businesses that I gain the results and success I want. Remember this one when taking on ventures of your own.

“You are your greatest asset. Put your time, effort and money into training, grooming, and encouraging your greatest asset.” – Tom Hopkins

This is an important one because it encourages you to educate yourself. All of us need to continue our education. Think about the last training course that you purchased or enrolled in. Did you complete it fully? Did you implement it all? If not, don’t start another until you have gone through and utilized and gotten the maximum you can out of what you are already learning. I’ve seen the rewards one can gain by doing this. You must keep training yourself, and although that may take time and money, it’s worth it all in the end. You are bettering yourself and your situation when you educate yourself.

“When you do more than you’re paid for, eventually you’ll be paid for more than you do.” – Zig Ziglar

This quote reinforces the fact that, when we put in the hard work during the beginning stages of a project, it will pay off in the end. When it comes to content marketing, putting in a lot of time and effort will lead to greater results and revenue, with less work being done over time.

“People who say it cannot be done, should not interrupt those who are doing it.” – George Bernard Shaw

How many times have you seen these negative Nellie’s on the internet these haters and trolls criticizing people who are busy building their business busy doing it you’ve probably experienced it too I experienced it all the time and what do we do we just gotta laugh at those people say well hey they contribute whatever they can and if all they’ve got is negativity and cynicism fine that’s what they can contribute just mean I have to go down to that level doesn’t mean it affects me or my journey

“Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.” – Tim Notke

I interpret this as saying you can succeed even if you don’t have the world-class skills that some others may have in your field. You can achieve success through hard work and a little bit of strategic thinking. Now, I do know that hard work alone isn’t going to get you as far as you want it to. You’ll also need to plan and to educate yourself as some of the other quotes in this post have discussed.

“If your teacher, coach or mentor believes you can do something, you’re more likely to do it.” – Gwen Morgan

Let’s think about this quote for a second. If someone believes in you -someone who has achieved what you want to achieve or has the ability to show you how to be successful where you want to be successful- then you are more inclined to go ahead and do exactly what you need to do, to get to where you need to be. Believing in yourself is one of the greatest keys to success that you can learn. And having a more successful individual who also believes in you, is a huge help in gaining that ability to believe in and trust your skills and abilities.

I believe everything in life is a cycle.

This cycle starts with how we perceive the world and how we perceive ourselves. This forms our core belief system, and sometimes that belief system is also determined by the results we see, which are often due to the action we take toward our goals.

If you want to change your beliefs, especially in your own abilities (and you must!) then you need to change your actions. Actions then change results, results change beliefs, so on and so forth. If you are experiencing failure frequently, you may start to believe you yourself are a failure, but this is simply not true.

So many of us are often in this state of mind where nothing works, feeling as though everything we do is failing, and as strange as it sounds, that’s completely normal. Failure is a part of the journey to success. Successful people have failed many, many times before they achieved their goals. So, if you ever feel this way, just remember; the more failure you have behind you, the closer you are to reaching your goals!

Always acknowledge the small wins and the small victories. These victories compound over time and you’ll begin to notice that they are leading you to bigger accomplishments, and in time; the success you’ve been working so hard to achieve. Give yourself time to celebrate these victories, no matter the size.

I hope these quotes I’ve shared with you have given you a better perspective of yourself and the road to success. As always, I offer more videos and tutorials on the Profit Copilot YouTube channel as well as blogs and helpful articles on the website.

End Procrastination

5 Simple Hacks To Overcome Procrastination

We all fall victim to procrastination, so how do you overcome it and focus? We need to learn to get rid of distractions and clear our minds.

This can seem like a daunting task at first; a massive mountain we must conquer and climb. It’s off-putting and can make us apprehensive or even hesitant to start, let alone see the project through to the end. So, I’m going to share a few tips to help you refocus your mind, and break tasks down into smaller steps.

This lesson was inspired by a Profit Copilot student and monthly member named Don. He wrote;

I was wondering if you have any tricks for staying focused. I find I have so many ideas and I keep jumping from project to project. It’s a serious problem. I’ve tried shutting everything else off, but I start working on the project and I need something… next thing I know, its hours later and I realize I forgot about my project entirely. Also, do you know of any good project management software that doesn’t take a year to learn to use?

Don submitted a great question.

So here are my tips to help you focus and get projects done.

Proper Task Management

I’ll start first with a very useful tool for project and event planning called Trello.

Trello is a cloud-based program that works across all platforms and devices and is, in my opinion, one of the most efficient and helpful project management tools, if not the absolute best available.

My fiancée and I are currently using Trello to plan our wedding and it has been an invaluable asset to us in so many ways. I also use it for my business projects, so it is versatile and easy to use. I suggest trying this program if you need a tool to help you stay focused and organized.

The first thing you’ll want to do as soon as you start a project, but before you begin any specific task toward its overall completion, is to write down a list of all the major tasks and subtasks.

A great way to look at this list a little differently is by drawing a line on one end of the page and a line opposite it, on the other side. You’ll connect these lines by adding the major, complex tasks along the way (or project milestones) from start to finish, until you’ve reached the end of the line.

After you’ve added your milestones, you’ll want to add the smaller, subtasks within each. Think of each milestone as a project on its own, when adding your subtasks.

The Escape & Arrival Framework

This is sometimes referred to as the Escape and Arrival Framework; a type of project mapping that allows you to lay out your project in big and small steps to help you organize and focus on what needs to be done first, and what can be finished last. Now you can see a broken-down view of what you need to achieve to finish the project or reach the established goal.

The next step you’ll want to take is to find the weakest points within these milestones. Weak points are the tasks you are unsure about or hesitant to work on.

This may be because you don’t know how to complete it, or you don’t have the skill, experience or tools to do so. Procrastination often happens when we are unsure of our abilities or feel like we may not be good enough at something to complete it. (i.e Imposter Syndrome). It isn’t the only circumstance where we procrastinate, but it’s a common one.

Overcome Imposter Syndrome

Imposter Syndrome is something I struggled with for a long time when it came to my own business. For almost five years I was hesitant to move forward with Profit Copilot. Although I had 15 years’ worth of experience in digital marketing and had created a successful business, I still felt as though I wasn’t qualified to share that knowledge.

I was able to overcome this, luckily, and I’ll share more about that with you a little later, but just know that it is possible to get past these obstacles. Whatever your reason for procrastination is, you should use this first step to find a solution, whether that’s hiring someone else for a particular task or educating yourself more in that area.

Break your project down as far as you can and find those weak points. Then come up with possible fixes or ways to make them easier for yourself. Make this as detailed as you can, and if you’re feeling stuck, take a break or enlist a colleague and ask for some advice.

But don’t overwhelm or discourage yourself from moving forward and finishing your task. Remember, obstacles are not in place to make you fail. Instead, they act as a lesson to improve your skill and create confidence in your abilities.

The 2 Minute Rule

The next method you can use to help yourself stay focused and motivated is called the “two-minute rule”; committing to just two minutes of a task at a time. Although this may seem counter-productive at first, it’s a great way to begin working or give yourself a mental break when you’re losing momentum. How can you do this? Take trying to publish a book or an ebook as an example.

Let’s say you’re either struggling to begin writing or becoming overwhelmed throughout the process, commit to writing just one sentence at one time, or in one sitting.

Because you aren’t aiming to finish the project, only to complete a very small piece at once, you’re likely to start to build up that lost momentum again, and you will be more apt to want to carry on that task further than just those two minutes.

Before you know it, you’ll have been writing for an hour or two and have a sizeable portion of that project done. You’ve only committed to doing two minutes of work and that’s often all it takes to really get your mind in the right place.

Stop Comparing Yourself

Clearing your head and getting rid of the preconceived, negative thoughts you may have about yourself and/or your abilities is equally as important to your success as are the methods and tools you use to complete your project, if not more so. Earlier I mentioned my own issues with procrastination and self-doubt. Although it took some effort, I was able to remedy that in different ways.

I had to learn to stop comparing myself to others and realize that I often thought in black and white, with no grey area or middle ground, which was not conducive to my success. I came to terms with this habit and started writing down all the negative, comparative and overgeneralised thoughts about myself.

It really helped me uncover the underlying problems to these thoughts and change them, as well as separate the thoughts which were true versus the ones that were just a lack of confidence in my own abilities. I also listed all my successes, no matter how small they seemed at the time, which helped to rebuild that confidence.

So, if you’re having a hard time starting or seeing a project to its end, use these tools and steps to sharpen your focus, motivate yourself, and succeed.

Be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel and follow the Profit Copilot website for updates, new articles, tutorials and more profitable tips. If you have questions you’d like me to answer, go to profitcopilot.com/join and join now.

Ways to Stop Procrastinating Right Now

6 Ways to Stop Procrastinating Right Now

Ways to Stop Procrastinating Right Now

Today you’re going to learn how to stop procrastinating and start working on your business.

This is something that I picked up from Ray Edwards and it resonated with me because I had previously used a simular approach in overcoming procrastination.

But I’m also going to throw in my own stuff and kind of mix it up a bit with my own unique Profit Copilot twist.

We’ve all experienced procrastination, right?

It can have pretty bad consequences and make us feel really lousy and unproductive.

But it can also be a good thing – sometimes.

When Is Procrastination A Good Thing?

Sometimes it’s a good indication that things just aren’t ready yet, and you need to spend a little bit more time in the thought process and the planning stage.

However, more often than not, procrastination is going to cause you problems and delay the growth of your business.

So I’m going to show you how you can fix that and get on with building your business today.

You see I know exactly what its like to feel procrastination.

I felt it for a long time before starting Profit Copilot.

My Battle With Procrastination

Even though I had my other Internet businesses up and running I actually waited for about seven years before I started this site.

And that’s because I kept telling myself that I wanted to make sure I did everything right.

I wanted to make sure that I was doing all the absolute ‘best practice’ stuff that we’re supposed to, and sharing only the stuff that works.

The truth is, there’s just as much to be learned from sharing what doesn’t work, if you can prevent someone from making the same mistake as you.

Another thing that held me back from staring was the fact that I didn’t really have the confidence in myself to share my knowledge.

So while it was always in the back of my mind, I procrastinated on it and didn’t move forward because I didn’t have the confidence in myself.

And I certainly didn’t have the confidence to make videos on a very regular basis.

Even hearing my own voice made me cringe.

And at the time my writing felt forced – and it wasn’t the kind of content that I wanted to create.

But it doesn’t stop with Profit Copilot, I’d found myself procrastinating with other projects too.

Maybe you’ve experienced this stuff too?

Sometimes it was due to fear of failure.

Occasionally my priorities were all wrong, or I was experiencing overwhelm – information overload and felt paralysed, frozen place and unsure what to do next.

Other times I’ve been stood still waiting for things to be perfect.

I’ve also gone through periods of distraction – once I spent about 3 months playing Battlefield on the Xbox, instead of working.

That came down to having no personal discipline at the time.

But if any of this stuff resonates with you then you’re in the right place because you’re gonna fix it today.

How To Stop Procrastinating

So let’s get down to it.

Here are the 6 ways that I’ve managed to overcome procrastination.

  • Create individual steps
  • Add to your calendar
  • Prioritise each step
  • Commit to your goals and values
  • Remove distractions
  • Outsource difficult tasks

Let’s go through these in more detail.

Create Individual Steps

The first thing that you need to do if you are feeling procrastination, is to break the big projects down into smaller tasks.

Then break each task down as small as you can, into individual steps.

Add To Your Calendar

Next put these steps on your calendar – this is really important, add them to a calendar that you can see everyday.

It can be on your computer or it can be on your wall, your phone, it doesn’t matter, just somewhere where you will see it every day.

Prioritise Each Step

Then I want you to prioritise each of those steps every single day.

So open up your calendar have a look at what needs to be done and think about the action that is going to be the most valuable to your business or increase the most revenue.

And then do those tasks in the order of priority that you’ve set.

For me it’s creating content.

That is the most important thing that I have to do, so I do it before anything else.

Commit To Your Success

Another way that I’ve learned to overcome procrastination is to only accept projects that fit with my long-term goals and values.

This makes sure you’re constantly working towards success.

So if it doesn’t feel right to you, if it doesn’t help move your business to where you want it to go, then refuse to get involved with that project.

You can always come back to it later on when the time is right.

Remove Distractions

One of the best ways to overcome procrastination is to remove distractions.

Stop checking your emails and stop checking your stats every hour, and stop hanging out on social media for a while.

All these things will just consume your energy and your time and your focus, so remove them or add them to the end of the day.

Outsource Difficult Tasks

The final tip I’ve got for you is to get help when you need it.

So reach out to someone that you know, a friend that might be able to help you, or even better; start outsourcing the stuff that you have trouble with.

When you start outsourcing tasks your business becomes freer – you become freer.

You free up your time and you free up your thoughts and energy.

Now you can spend that time and energy on the areas where you excel.

Shifting Your Mindset

Ultimately this really comes down to a shift in mindset.

A lot of people convince themselves that motivation is the problem. I used to, too.

But I have real problem with the word motivation.

People wait until they feel motivated before they take action.

How many times have you heard someone day “I just don’t feel motivated today”?

We all feel like that from time to time.

But here’s what I tell myself when I’m feeling like that.

You’ve heard me say this on Profit Copilot before and this is something that’s deeply personal to me.

I tell myself:

Motivation is not your friend.

Motivation gives you an excuse to fail, a reason to not even try.

It tells you “it’s okay, if you don’t feel like doing, don’t do it”.

This mindset, waiting for motivation, allows people to give up.

The answer is discipline.

Discipline doesn’t care about how you feel.

It doesn’t care if you want to do it or not.

Discipline grabs you by the scruff of the neck and it forces you to get up, and it forces you to do the work.

And even if it’s not your absolute best piece of work, it doesn’t matter – because at least you’ve done it.

Done is better than perfect.

So stop waiting to feel motivated, because who knows when that’s going to be?

Discipline will make sure that you get your work done, today.

And that is the kind of action that will build your business.

Final Thoughts

Taking small steps on a consistent basis leads to success.

Sure it’s going to take time and it’s going to take hard work.

But that’s the entire purpose of discipline.

Discipline is accessible to everybody, we’ve all got it within us to knuckle down and focus.

That means it’s accessible to you too.

So have a think about times you’ve overcome procrastination.

What methods have you used in the past? What things have I missed here?

Resources:

Why do Marketers sell their 'Secret Methods'?

Why do Marketers sell their ‘Secret Methods’?

If Internet marketers are really making hundreds of dollars a day from their “secret method” then why on earth are they selling that method for a few bucks?

Okay, this is a really common question and I’m sure you’ve seen it asked hundreds of times before.

So I’m gonna give you the definitive answer.

And it’s usually followed by another question that’s something like “does that mean you can only make money on the online by selling make money products?”

Well, in my experience getting into the Internet marketing niche and establishing yourself in that niche is more difficult than any other niche – apart from possibly the weight loss niche.

But why is it so difficult?

Imagine that you belong to a group of magicians who are all performing tricks in front of each other.

The chances are all the other magicians know how the tricks are done, and its difficult to stand out when you’re in that environment.

Marketing is exactly the same.

For example, if I’m trying to sell to other marketers using persuasion techniques there’s a high probability they already know what those persuasion techniques are, and are immune to them.

And that’s why we have a group of people in our marketing community who target newbies.

Scammers, Everywhere

They prey on people’s ignorance and lack of knowledge.

They prey on people’s desperation and their greed.

And in doing so they make these ludicrous claims that people can make hundreds of dollars a day, or even thousands of dollars a day from the start.

The truth is it doesn’t work like.

Who to Trust?

A lot of credible marketers will stay away from making any kind of income claim and that separates us from the rest.

It’s an easy way for us to signal to each other that we’re on the level.

Most of us, the credible marketers who don’t take advantage of newbies, we actually have businesses outside of the Internet marketing niche.

And we build those businesses, we document what’s working and sometimes what’s not working – and we take those results and then we share them.

Why do we sell Marketing Products?

If I know how to get 10,000 people a day to my website, and I’m documenting those results and it would be silly for me to keep that information to myself when I can sell that information for a premium.

It’s just like in the high-end restaurants where the chefs use every part of an ingredient.

They let nothing go to waste and legitimate internet marketers do exactly the same thing.

We set up campaigns for people, we document everything – we take notes and we have stacks and stacks of information kept privately that we can dip into and share with the public from time to time.

If you want to see that in action just look at Profit Copilot – look at the blog and the Youtube Channel.

Look at all the content that’s come straight from my own personal supply of experiments.

I’m sharing results with you of the thing that have worked and things that haven’t worked.

A major reason for sharing it is because I know how simple this stuff is, and I want you to know its achievable.

Now don’t confuse simple with easy, right?

Be Realistic

This stuff is hard work, it takes time, it takes dedication and most of the people who are buying these new shiny objects – the latest must-have information product that promises thousands dollars a month will never succeed.

They won’t succeed because they keep jumping from one system to the next.

They’re not staying with anything long enough to make it work.

And listen, I know people real world people – people I consider to be my friends, who are buying these kinds of products every couple of weeks.

They end up falling into the trap of trying something for a couple of weeks – or even for a month or two and then moving on to the next thing.

They don’t get the results quick enough so they keep jumping from one thing to the next, constantly looking for that magic button.

And eventually they start to believe that it’s all a big scam and nothing works.

Are you Committed?

I know people who’ve spent two years on the merry-go-round and have tried 15 different methods that don’t work quickly enough.

If they took just one of those methods and stuck with it, they’d probably have some level of success after 2 years.

But a lot of people have a get-rich-quick mentality.

The fact is, if you want to succeed online then you have to commit at least 12 months, 18 months, maybe even 24 months of your life to something and you have to work at it consistently every single day.

You can’t just do one thing a week and then hope for the best.

It doesn’t work like that, you have to be consistent and really hack away at it every single day over a long period of time to get results.

There is no magic button, there is no magic switch that you can just flick and then have all this money rolling into your business.

Hard-work and consistency is what will build your business so you need focused discipline.

And in our little corner of the Internet I’m seeing lots of people lacking discipline.

They get bored easily – and you know what, I’m one of them too.

I get bored easily, I get sick of working on projects and I will go do something else but in the background I always have my consistent websites that I work on every single day knowing that in five years time I can look back and see more growth and more success.

So you know and if you need some kind of inspiration then look at Profit Copilot.

Okay it’s a low traffic website at the moment and that’s okay.

This is all part of the process.

Watch what I do, not do as I say

It would be easy for me to invest a few thousand and get all the traffic that I need and get it up to a level that I feel deems it mega-successful but I’m not going to do that.

I am going to do it the hard way – the same way that most of the people who come to Profit Copilot will be doing it.

So I am meeting you on your terms in your own way and meeting you on your playing field to show you that it can be done.

It just takes hard work, consistency, dedication and time.

Profit Copilot is an experiment. It’s a way for me to document building a business from scratch – because you are seeing the process for yourself, you can see the exact process that I am going through, and maybe that will give you inspiration and motivation.

overcome fear of failure

How to Overcome your Fear of Failure

If you feel like you’re frozen in place because of your fear of failure, I’m going to show you how to overcome it and  the take action you need to, to get results you want.

Even if you’re scared, have low self-esteem, if you suffer from self-sabotage, or even if you’e just waiting for everything to be perfect,  don’t worry because by the end of my video you will finally be able to move forward.

7 New Habits for Success

In 1988 Stephen R. Covey published a book called ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’.

I’ve never read it.

Until then, here are my own 7 habits for success.

1. Have a Purpose

This is single most important habit for success.

If you have a reason that’s bigger than yourself, or your own needs, you look stop looking for short term gains. Instead, you’ll see how you fit into a much bigger picture, and how your purpose can impact others.

This is especially true for info-marketers; bloggers, email list builders, content creations, etc.

2. Think Backwards

Successful people always start at the end result, and work backwards from there. This not only gives you clear direction on where you’re going, but you’ll truly understand how all the pieces fit together.

If you’re building a sales funnel, start with the end product and build your system out from that point.

3. Embrace Disciplined

I’ve ranted spoken about this multiple times in the past.

People talk about motivation, but motivation is not your friend. It gives you an excuse, a reason to fail.

Discipline is the key.

Discipline forces you to get up and do the work, regardless of how you feel. Discipline builds businesses and discipline will create your success.

4. Use Failure

Successful people see opportunity in failure. It shows us the areas we need to improve.

So if people are unsubscribing from your email list, find out why, and then fix it. By recognising patterns like this, we have the opportunity to make our businesses stronger.

Imagine success is like a radio signal that you’re trying to find. You turn the dial one way, and nothing, turn it the other way and you might hit on something.

Then you have to continue to fine tune and tweak over time. Failure lets you know what to focus on, or what to avoid.

5. Become Selective

Successful people won’t endorse any old product, and they won’t work with just anybody.

They have standards, and value to uphold. They understand that only by working with people who share the same values, amazing things can happen.

Not only does the opportunity for cross-promotion arise, but because you share the same values, you may well share the same purpose.

And we already know how essential having a purpose can be.

6. Meditate

Meditation is an essential part in success. Having the ability to clearly visualise what you want, and how you can achieve it can put you in the right mindset.

Although there are many different types of mediation, visualisation has persistently been the best one for me.

This also helps me to experience gratitude for my blessings.

So often we’re focused on achieving, growing, obtaining more, it’s easy to forget about how much we have already achieved in the journey.

7. Give more

Giving more than you take is just good advice, in general. It’s something my father said to me when I was growing up and it’s always stuck with me.

Because its second nature for me to give of myself freely, it’s paid off in business. Info marketers and content marketers rely on the ability to produce and share information without any exceptions in return.

Having that instilled in me at an early age has allowed me to do exactly that, as you can (hopefully) tell by this website.

But I’l let you be the judge of that. And if this has helped you or inspired you, please pass it forward and share this post with people who might benefit from it too. They might be thankful that you did.

How to succeed when you feel like quitting

Last night I was surfing Youtube and stumbled across something from Tim Schmoyer that resinated with me. It was a video about how to push through those hard times when you feel like giving up on a project.

It’s an idea that comes from a book called The Dip, by Seth Godin.

Now, I’ve haven’t read the book, but Tim presented the concept in a really cool way. I’ll try to explain it as good as he did, complete with diagram.

What is the dip?

The idea is this; when you start a new project that requires dedication and hard work, we feel a range of emotions.

It doesn’t matter what the project is, it might be a new business, a sales funnel, a new blog, learning a new language, or learning to play an instrument.

The pattern is always the same:

Things move from excitement, to depression, and finally to confidence and mastery.

If you’ve tried to get a website off the ground, maybe you’ve experienced this too?

You launch your website but nobody cares. You don’t get any traffic, there are no leads, no customers, and it feels like you’re out there on your own.

Its cold and it’s lonely.

Every person who starts a website has felt like that, so you’re not along.

Yup, they are normal emotions that everyone feels, regardless of how successful they become.

The dip explained

Things start off really good, you feel excited and there’s a honeymoon period where you’re happy.

Then uncertainty starts to creep in, and you begin to lose confidence.

Ultimately, you feel confused, depressed and you feel like quitting.

This is the bottom of the dip, and it’s where most people give up.

But some people push through those feelings.

They accept that things are difficult and it’s going to take hard work.

They start exploring new ideas and experimenting with them.

Finally, they start testing things, with that comes renewed confidence, and the mastery they’ve been seeking.

How do you push through the dip?

Most of the time, failure happens because people quit before they see success.

And they usually quit because they either:

Run out of time, run out of money, or they lose interest.

So what’s the solution? The Next Web has a list, and here’s my interpretation of it.

Here are the 6 things you can do to prevent failure:

Find your purpose. You know why I’m forever saying you need to focus on your passions? Because when things get tough (and they will) you’re gonna need a reason that’s bigger than your own needs.

Know its possible. Having the belief that what you’re doing is achievable, is vital. So surround yourself with people who’ve already done it, and learn from them

Drop the ego. When you stop caring what other people think, you embrace a ‘growth mindset’ that allows you to truly focus on improving your skills.

Schedule. Forget about using ‘to do’ lists, and create schedules instead. Get your priorities straight, and do the tasks that produce the highest longterm rewards first.

Share. When you start teaching people what you’ve learned, you begin to retain the information – and contribute something positive to other people, as a result.

Set limits. Know what you’re prepared to pay for the success, and what your limits are.

Decide how much time you’re prepared to give a project, how much money you’re prepared to invest, and how what lengths you’re willing to do to in order to succeed.

And that’s because not all dips lead to success. Some lead to a dead end, while others lead to a cliff. Both result in failure.

When to quit?

I don’t know if it’s mentioned in the book itself, but from my research into this I’m getting the impression that 2 years could be a good length of time to determine if a project is going to be a winner or not.

You see, another video I watched about this gave an awesome analogy.

If you’re running a marathon you know you’re gonna feel pain, your legs are gonna hurt, you’re gonna get dehydrated and it’s gonna be tough.

That’s all part of the deal.

Building an email list, driving traffic to your blog, it’s all the same. It all requires work and persistence to truly succeed.

Anything worth having is difficult.

The dip is good for us

But this process, although difficult, has a very positive impact on us, and our environment.

In a video by Graham Brown, the dip is actually a good thing for us. Without it, we’d just exist in a race to the bottom in price.

Persevering through the dip is what allows to command more attention in our market, allows us to charge more, and face less competition.

So that’s pretty cool, if you’re willing to put in the work and push through.

The ugly truth about going pro online

I’ve noticed an interesting pattern recently.

Obviously there’s no shortage of people who want to make a living online, but it’s no secret that the number who actually achieve it is small, in comparison.

I’ve seen patterns emerge in both groups, and I think I’ve found a few common threads.

So what gives?

What’s stopping the majority of people from succeeding online?

This is something I’ve been thinking about for a while, because if I can figure it out, my students will achieve more. And that’s enough motivation for me to dive into things.

It’s kinda difficult to sum-up because there isn’t a single answer. Instead it’s a series of small thoughts and actions that hold people back – often without them realising it.

But because they’re small, it means they can be easily changed.

So first, I’m going to list the attributes that prevent digital marketers from going pro.

Then I’m going to list the attributes that can turn an amateur into a pro digital marketer.

And this applies to bloggers, affiliate marketers, copywriters, product creators, it doesn’t matter. The mindset is always the same.

Listen some of what I’m going to tell you might be painful, but we’ve all been there.

Don’t feel dejected. If any of this stuff is difficult to hear, maybe that’s an indication that something needs to change.

And you know me, Profit Copilot isn’t going to sugarcoat anything or be one of those guys that only tells you what you wanna hear, while trying to sell you the latest shiny magic button. Not on my watch, compadre.

So use this info to your benefit, and see this as an opportunity to improve your situation, to grow your business or even to just make sure you’re giving yourself the right foundations to make a decent start.

We’ve all gone through this, and everyone who’s eventually made it to the pro-level, has experienced some or all of these things.

So you’re not alone, and if other people can overcome this stuff, then so can you.

Amateur Traps

It’s easy to fall into these traps.

You’ve probably seen dozens of products that make all kind of insane claims – so don’t  worry if you’ve fallen victim to the hype and promises of instant wealth. A lot of people have.

When people learn the ugly truth about this, they usually go either 1 of 2 ways.

  1. They think it’s all a big scam, give up and carry on working for somebody else.
  2. Or they get serious, knuckle down and commit to building their business.

Yes, there are scams out there. Plenty of them, and some even have a smiling ‘guru’, with one hand on the whiteboard and the other in your pocket.

As a general rule, if something makes an income claim or income guarantees, it’s bad news.

Ask yourself; why is somebody promoting this, instead of using it for themselves?

The world is full of people who are willing to rip you off. But it’s also full of people who really do want to help you and see you succeed. It takes time to recognise who is who.

 

So, the common traps that amateurs fall into:

Amateurs consume more than they produce

They invest more time into acquiring products than utilising the ones they already have, or creating new ones from scratch.

If you notice yourself buying lots of products and not using them, or not getting much value from them, it’s something to keep an eye on because it’s easy to start blaming external things for your failure.

For example if you find yourself repeatedly blaming a training course, software, or other people for your lack of progress, it’s a bad sign.

Amateurs look for hacks, shortcuts and magic buttons

They look for that one solution that will do all the work for them. No matter how many times they’ve been it just doesn’t exist, they keep buying hyped-up nonsense.

Ben Mack once asked me why people buy lottery tickets, when there’s almost zero chance they’ll win.

I thought the answer was obvious – because they want the millionaire lifestyle?

He told me that people buy lottery tickets ritualistically because it gives them permission to fantasise about living the millionaire lifestyle.

People do the same thing with weight loss products, with make money products, with dating products… you name it.

Are you buying products, but then only fantasising instead of actually using them?

Do you spend more time reading about successful people or business, instead of building one?

Amateurs think software matters

Sometimes a piece of software comes along that makes me wonder how I ever managed without it.

Building a website before WordPress came along would take hours, maybe even days.

We don’t need WordPress, we’re not dependant on it but it is convenient.

Amateur marketers that become dependant on the software they use are restricting themselves and their full potential.

Sales funnel makers, social media managers, article spinners; these are all tools that make life convenient – but some marketers rely on them to the extent that it’s damaging to their business.

Do you spin every article before you post it? What’s wrong with using your brain, instead?

Yes, it takes time. Yes, it’s hard work.

But it delivers a crap-ton more value to your audience than publishing a piece of garbled broken English that only exists to trick Google.

If I could ban just 3 pieces of software from the digital marketing community it would be: spam bots, scrapers and spinners. That’s a rant for another day.

Amateurs are afraid of making mistakes

‘Someone who never made a mistake never made anything’, is the old saying.

Listen, you’re going to make mistakes and that’s ok.

Success isn’t possible without failure. Its part of the process, so roll with it.

If you watched the video at the top of this post you’ll get a behind the scenes view of my Youtube channel. Its FULL of mistakes. They outweigh the successes.

I keep them to remind me that it’s ok to screw-up. Over time, fewer and fewer mistakes are made.

So fail fast.

Amateurs focus on what they can get

They persistently complain about not having enough money. They worry about their lack of success, instead of focusing on their small victories and building on what they’ve already got.

Amateurs are concerned about their needs, only. They can’t see beyond their own problems and panic as a result of fear-based decisions.

If something isn’t working after a few days, or weeks, they move onto something else. And then something else, and on and on the cycle goes.

Attributes of a Professional

On the flip side of that, we’ve got a whole bunch of attributes that professional digital marketers embrace.

Learn, Do, Teach

Professional digital marketers usually follow a 3-step process called ‘Learn, Do, Teach’.

We figure out how to do something (Learn), then we try it out and get results – or fail (Do), and then we show it to our students (Teach).

This simple process is incredibly powerful. In all the top restaurants the best chefs use every single part of their ingredients – nothing goes to waste.

It’s the same online.

We make sure that even the act of learning something new – that will benefit ourselves, is also beneficial to our students.

Show up everyday

Professionals show up every day and do the work. Ok, you might not see them every day, you might not hear from them every day, but they are always working in the background and slowly moving their business forward.

You don’t have to spend hours every day creating new content or promoting what you’ve got. But do something that increases your reach a little further.

If you don’t have the time, outsource it.

Hit a moving target

Digital marketing professionals know that achieving massive success online can take years.

And the cool thing is, what you consider ‘success’ today, won’t be the same in a years time.

Success is a moving target.

And that’s great, because it means you’re constantly progressing.

Think about this. Imagine the first time you wrote a blog post, hit publish, and waited for traffic to show up. Nothing happened, right?

It feels terrible when you pour your heart into something, and nobody even knows it’s there.

At that time, you might consider ‘success’ as someone sharing your post, or commenting on it.

After your 10th post, you might have a few shares and a comment or two appearing on some.

So your perception of ‘success’ shifts a little. And you do a little bit more, and then a bit more, building on the success you’ve achieved.

Studying and testing

Instead of listening to what people are saying, pro digital marketers watch what people are doing.

They constantly test, tweak and experiment – knowing that some of their ideas won’t work as expected.

Give more than they take

There’s one unifying thing that almost every professional digital marketer has in common, it’s their devotion to delivering outstanding value to their audience.

Their focus is on how they can improve people’s lives. They aim to become a positive influence that leaves a marketplace in better shape than they found it.

The Golden Rule

Going pro online is just like anything else in life. You have to start at zero and go from there.

You gain mastery from doing. It takes time and repetition.

In the video at the top of this post I talk about Jimi Hendrix. Even he started learning how to play guitar with a single note on a single string. His persistence paid off and inspired a generation of new guitar players.

If you want to see success, understand that it’s all around you, in the small victories. Build on those and in time, when you look back you’ll see how far you’ve come.

And if you’ve found this useful, please pay it forward and share it with people who might also benefit.

Secrets to Success: Steve Jobs, Oprah Winfrey & Warren Buffett

What can you learn about creating a strong and profitable online business, from three of the greatest entrepreneurs in history, whose combined personal wealth, is well over 100 billion dollars? Well, we’re going to find out and you’ll get some fresh ideas, motivation, and inspiration that you can use to move your business forward, especially if you’re thinking about creating and selling digital information products. This will show you how to find your passion, so you can build a business that you love and a brand that you can be proud of.

Listen to Podcast

Rush Transcript

Today we’re going to look at advice from three of the most successful and most recognised names in the business world, and draw a common parallel between each of them, so you can see what their number one secret to success is, and how you can use that knowledge for yourself to produce the biggest long-term rewards.

Then, I’m going to show you how to actually implement that advice, because it’s ok learning this stuff but if you don’t use it, if you don’t do anything with it, then it becomes useless, right? So I’m going to give you an exercise that will help you to take the action you need to get the results you want and build a strong business you can be proud of.  

 

So today we’re going to start off by checking out a few short clips and we’re going to learn a single ‘lesson for success’, from three entrepreneurs, and see how it fits into the bigger picture of your online business. Let’s start with the legendary Warren Buffett, who is one of the most profitable investors of all time and one of the richest men on the planet.

We’re also going to see if that lesson resonated as true with the late, iconic Steve Jobs, whose lasting influence has changed the way we use technology forever, and turned Apple into the biggest company on earth as a result.  

And finally, we’re also going to see if the multi-billionaire, Oprah… Winfrey who’s been labeled the ‘Queen of ALL media’, and is frequently listed as the most influential woman in the world, shares the same perspective as Warren Buffett and Steve Jobs. Here’s a hint, when it comes to success, they all say the same thing.

And because their approach to business obviously works, I’m going to give you a hands-on exercise you can do, to pull it all together.

But listen, as usual, this stuff isn’t for everybody, this isn’t for the people who want something for nothing. Just like anything else worth having, it’s going to take time, and it’s going to take hard work.

So with that disclaimer out of the way, I’ve selected three of the most successful entrepreneurs that I believe we can all learn from. So you’re going to learn what they all have in common and how that enabled them to grow their businesses, and how you can use that knowledge to make your business more successful too.

You see, when we study the masters, in any practice or discipline, we look to those who’ve blazed a trail before us, in the hope of finding golden nuggets of valuable information that might help us to achieve similar results. The truth is, the titans of industry all have one thing in common. They all focused on delivering value to their markets, first and foremost, above their own needs.  

And as a reflection of that, the great thing about the global business community that we are in right now, is the majority of successful people understand that ‘success breeds success’, that means when we share and exchange knowledge and ideas, it’s actually good for everybody.

So the great thing about entrepreneurship is, successful people actively encourage other people to become successful. They focus on serving other people first, they focus on delivering absolute value to their market. And that’s why people like Steve Jobs, Oprah Winfrey and Warren Buffet share their knowledge. Each one delivers absolute value to their industries. So let’s see what we can learn from them.

Let’s start with Warren Buffett and find out what he has to say. Just check out this short clip and see what he says.

Ok, Warren Buffett believes that finding your passion is key. So let’s see what Oprah Winfrey has to say.

Right, as we can see Oprah believes that success starts with finding your true calling, which is very similar to what we’ve learned from Warren Buffett, right?

So now let’s find out what the late Steve Jobs had to say.

Ok, so Steve Jobs also said that we need to have a passion for what we do. Now we’ve got three of the wealthiest and most influential entrepreneurs, of all time, all saying the same thing.

It’s pretty clear that, in order to become successful, we have to start doing what we love. Finding something we believe in and building a business around it, that seems to be the starting point. 

That’s actually how I started Profit Copilot, you see, years before I started this website, I built another site that I believed in. Some of you probably know it, that site exposed corruption and injustice, things like modern day slavery and that kinda stuff. And that website made me feel good because I was contributing something positive back into the world.

Anyway, over the next 15 years or so, I noticed that I also felt passionate about the marketing side of things, that, my interest had shifted into the technical and psychological stuff, so things like getting traffic, copywriting, figuring out how to sell without being weird, creating products, shooting videos, and all that stuff. I’d noticed that those activities turned out to be a lot of fun, I’d become equally as passionate about the marketing side of thing and because I’d already grown a website from nothing to millions of hits, I felt qualified to share what I’d learnt over the years, and the end result of that, is Profit Copilot.

I’d noticed that those activities turned out to be a lot of fun, I’d become equally as passionate about the marketing side of thing and because I’d already grown a website from nothing to millions of hits, I felt qualified to share what I’d learnt over the years, and the end result of that, is Profit Copilot.

But what if you don’t know what your passion is, what if you’re stuck for ideas? Well, I’ve got a quick exercise you can do right now that will help you to unlock your passion so you can start to move forward.

I’m going to ask you to answer a few questions, and when you answer them, you’ll have the building blocks you need to discover what kind of information product to make, or what kind website to make, or what kind of videos to shoot, or the type of podcast to start.

And then once you know that, we’re going to drill down and find out EXACTLY who should be targeted, we’re going to find out exactly who wants to buy the product YOU WANT to make.

You’re going to find ways to deliver value to your marketplace and deliver reliable information that works, that genuinely helps people to improve their situation and genuinely helps people to solve a problem. I’m going to ask you just four questions, and when you answer them, you’ll have found your passion.

So this exercise will help you to find out HOW you can do all of those awesome things. Ok, so think about all the things you love doing, maybe you love cooking, or writing, or teaching, or maybe you love talking, maybe you love creating things, maybe you enjoy surfing, or playing guitar, maybe it’s sewing and stitching, maybe it’s running, or working out, maybe you enjoy maintaining a fish tank, or playing golf. Think about how you spend your time, what you’ve invested your time into, think about the activities that make you feel happy, the things that you love talking about.

So make a big long list of all the activities that matter to you, and now ask yourself this question:

Of all of these awesome things, which topics do you feel like you can help other people to learn more about? And you don’t have to know a lot. You don’t have to be an expert, you don’t have to know everything about it, you just have to know enough to help someone get started, to just help someone understand the basics.

Ok, once you know what you’d like to help people with, ask yourself who are they? Who are the people you want to help? They might be people just like you. They might be people who are now, where you once had been. Think about the circumstances they’re in, what questions they have, they problem they need to overcome.

Then ask yourself, WHAT do they need that will help them to overcome that problem? What’s the solution, how would you solve the problem?

Ok, now ask yourself, once you’ve given them the solution, HOW do they change? What happens afterward? What’s the end result they’ll get once they apply your advice?

Now write down the answers and have a look at what you’ve got. You now know what you feel passionate about, you know who needs your help, you know how to help them, and you know how it changes their lives.

So you’ve got the outline, the formula, the template you can use to build a business that you’ll enjoy, that makes you feel complete, and that gives you a purpose. And that’s amazing, but what makes this so powerful? Well, out of these four questions, only one is about you. The other three questions are about other people.

Most of the questions are about the people you can help. They are: who are the people you can help? What do they need? And how they change? These questions force you to look beyond yourself and your own needs, and they force you to look for ways to deliver value to your market. Just like we learned at the beginning, the most successful people, all put their own needs aside and deliver value to their market first.

Now before I go, I’ve got an extra bonus for you here. I’ll show you how to find your ideal customers. So, let’s drill down and find out specifically who’s going to buy your stuff.

Here, we’re going to narrow down the number of people in your niche, we’re going to reduce the number of people in your marketplace. And I know this might sound counter-productive, I mean, why would you want to limit the number of customers, right? Well, there’s a very good reason for that, you see, the Internet is so big we only need to target the people who are most likely to buy. Online, we do better by selling to a specific group of people.

I’ve got three more questions you need to answer to help you do that. So for this exercise I want you to decide, inside your niche, of all the people that exist in it, and there’s probably millions, – ask yourself; are there a lot of people who are motivated to buy a solution? Are they spending money?

Then ask yourself, are they actively looking for the solution? Are they motivated enough to start searching for help?

And finally, ask yourself, are they having trouble finding a good solution?

So what’s happening here, at each stage, we’re narrowing down, we’re only targeting the people who are more likely to buy from us.

And when we do this, it means we don’t have to use any marketing hype or high-pressure sales tactics because you’re only dealing with people who already want a solution. And we also cut out a large portion of the competition when we do it like this too. And we save money on advertising because we’re only targeting a small group of highly motivated buyers.

Ok, so today you’ve learned a lot from this. And now you should have a roadmap on how to deliver value to your market because when you do, you instantly become more attractive to the people in your niche. When you demonstrate that you can help them, by actually helping them, you create trust, which in turn creates profit, and happy, loyal customers who become repeat buyers year after year.

You’ve also seen what three of the world’s most iconic business minds all have in common. You’ve learned that the strongest businesses all start with a passion and you’ve answered the four vital questions every responsible entrepreneur needs to ask themselves.

So you know which area to focus on, which area will produce the highest reward for you because it’s something you believe in and something you feel passionate about.

You know who your customers are, you know who needs your help, you know how to help them and you know what kind of result you can give them.

Then, as a bonus, we figured out how to narrow down the marketplace and find out who’s most likely to buy your stuff – and as a result, you don’t have to worry about competing in crowded markets or having to use weird sales tricks.

Ok, so that’s a lot of stuff and I think I’ll leave it there for today guys, I hope you’ve found this to be immensely valuable and I hope you’re filled with fresh ideas, motivation, and inspiration.

Get Focused, Get Results

Here’s something you can do right now to help you take a step forward and de-cluttering your mind. This is a common technique that lots of coaches use to help their clients to get more of the results they want, and I picked this up a few years ago from Eben Pagan, in fact this is the precise system that he teaches but with my own twist.

Rush Transcript

Before we begin, you might want to grab a pen and piece of paper for this, because I’m going to show you how you can become way more productive, even by the end of this video.

So let me explain the best way for you to use this video, and get fantastic results. You see, part way through this, I’m going to ask you to pause the video and do a little exercise – but don’t worry it doesn’t involve doing anything crazy like lifting weights, …. or walking, but it does mean pushing the ‘pause’ and ‘start’ buttons on the video player, which is enough of a workout for me.

So you’re going to stop the video, use the pen and paper to do the exercise, then you’re going to turn the video back on and we’ll go through it and refine your work together.

OK great, you might be familiar with a video I released a few weeks ago that explained the importance of using your willpower to its full potential, and structuring your time so you focus on high value activities. The things that produce the biggest long term gains.

Well, in the last couple of weeks I’ve received feedback from you guys about this and it seems that a lot of the things some of you spend your time on, or the things that occupy your mind actually have nothing to with running your business, and just getting your head in the right place so you can focus on what you need to do is an issue for some of you, so I thought I’d shoot this to help you out.

It turns out that for a lot of you, the problem is with your internal thoughts, and nothing to do with the outside world.

So you need help with getting your head in the game because you’re thoughts are dominated by things like self-doubt, lack of motivation, relationship problems and that kind of stuff.

So this is where you’re going to change things up and maximise your ability to focus on high value activities. So this will free up your attention and direct it to the areas of your life that can produce the highest rewards.

Here’s something you can do right now to help you take a step forward and de-cluttering your mind. This is a common technique that lots of coaches use to help their clients to get more of the results they want, and I picked this up a few years ago from Eben Pagan, in fact this is the precise system that he teaches but with my own twist.

You see, your mind is a lot like a computer, and if you have multiple programs running, all using its resources, then it doesn’t work as efficiently as it could. We all know what it’s like when a computer is struggling to complete its tasks, we get nothing done, it’s frustrating and we have to reboot it.

And your mind works in the same way, so if you have lots of thoughts running around it’s hard to focus on the import things and get the tasks done that produce the biggest gains. So this is kind of like rebooting your brain, so we stop focusing on the things that slow us down, we stop giving it energy.

So grab that pen and paper because I want you to write down everything that you think about, all the good stuff, and all the bad stuff, write down everything that bothers you, everything you’re worried about, everything that keeps you awake at night, write it all down, everything you think about, both the positive and the negative.

And I want you to spend around 5 or 10 minutes on this, really give it some thought and take the time to do this because it’s going to change the way you work. And if you work more productively then you’ll experience better results.

So pause the video now, go ahead and write a big list of everything you think about, and you’ll know when you’re done when you start laughing. Ok pause the video now.

 

Hey welcome back, so you should have a fairly long list of stuff to work with for the next portion of the video.

Now I want you to go through the list, and if you’re working on paper then you can draw a circle around all the things that are beyond your control – all the stuff that you CAN’T change or do anything about.

If you’re working on the computer, just put a dash, or minus, next to it.

So look through the list and decide on all the things that you cannot control. These are probably negative things and they don’t contribute much to your long term success.

Then go through the list again, but this time put a star or a plus sign next to all the things that you CAN control. These are the important things in your life.

We waste so much time and energy worrying about things that we can’t control, and it eats up our thoughts, productivity, momentum and motivation. And we need to make a conscious decision to stop that, so we can move forward and get more of what we want.

Ok, so now take all the items on your list that have a plus sign next to them and transfer them to a second list, so you take all the things that you CAN control, and make a second list with them, and as you do this, prioritize each one in order of importance because these are your opportunities for growth.

Now for the items that have a circle, or a dash next to them. These are the ones you can’t control. Take a good look through the list and stop at each one, and as you do, ask yourself if you can let it go. Ask yourself if you REALLY need to carry it anymore, and make a conscious decision to say goodbye to it and the negative influence it has on your life.

Then notice how it makes you feel when you let it go. Notice that you feel a little bit freer, less heavy, less burdened. It feels good right, you’re making a conscious decision to remove those worries from your life and you’re freeing up room for the stuff that really matters.

Now, you want to really focus on the first 5 or 10 items on your new list, the stuff you can control, these are the areas that deserve your attention the most and will give you the highest rewards. So you now have a personalized list that you can use to guide your actions each day.

 

Ok great, when you stick to focusing on what’s in front of you, the items on your list that you CAN control, you’ll become more productive, you’ll experience better results, you’ll feel better about yourself and the world around you, and you’ll achieve more.

Right, I think I’ll leave things there for today guys, and if you want to join the Profit Copilot email list and get more videos like this, there should be a link somewhere on this page that will let you subscribe. Thank you for watching guys and I’ll see you real soon.

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Rock Your Way To Increased Productivity

A few years ago I watched a demonstration by author Stephen Covey where he makes a convincing argument about the need to decide and focus on our priorities.

It inspired me back then to figure out what was important in my business.. and it might inspire you too, now.

And reaffirming what Stephen Covey demonstrated – which lead me to writing this blog post, I recently discovered that we only have a limited amount of willpower each day, so we have to use it wisely. I’ll tell you more about that in a second.

But for now let’s get back to the demonstration.

Rock On

In the video Stephen asks a volunteer to fill a jar with sand, rocks and stones. All must fit inside the jar.

The sand, rocks and stones are good metaphors for our daily business tasks.. and all the important things we need to do in order to build a successful one.

I perceive each one of these in a way that means something to me. You will find your own meaning.

The volunteer puts the sand in first (actually Stephen does this for her, probably to rig the outcome –  but it’s forgivable).

The sand represents all the small stuff in our business – checking email, Facebook and reading forums, you know all the stuff that doesn’t really matter or add much value.

Then the stones are added, these represent the more important things like writing blog posts, answering pre-sales emails, and personal education.

Finally, when the biggest rocks are added, the most important stuff that gives the highest returns, like creating new products, providing customer support, and email marketing, the volunteer finds that there’s not enough room in the jar to fit everything in.

This shows that if we focus on the small tasks that don’t give us much return on our investment – and time is the most valuable investment we can make, then we don’t leave much room for the stuff that really matters.

Here’s the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9qWSlABino

What do you think of this?

The way I see it is; everyday we have dozens of things that demand our time and attention, every time we check your email inbox, or social media, or visit forums, someone is asking us to hand over our time and attention.

That’s mostly cool, right? We’re happy to help people when they need it and it makes us feel good when we do.

But think about how many emails you receive. Most of them won’t provide any real value. So why waste time checking every 30 minutes?

You see, when you know what the important things are and give those tasks the time and attention they deserve first, you make room for everything. And if you somehow don’t get everything done, then who cares if you miss out on the occasional news headline or funny email.

Quick Exercise

So here’s an exercise for you to do right now.

Grab a notepad and list down all your daily tasks from when you wake up in the morning to when you stop in the evening, or however long your typical working day is.

Then give each of your tasks a score from 1 – 3.

Number 3 being the least important (that produce the lowest amount of profit), and number 1 being the most important (that produce the highest amount of profit).

Your working day should begin with the highest priority tasks first.

Here’s what my list looks like:

Existing customer support:#1
Product creation: #1
Email marketing: #1

Answering pre-sales questions: #2
Creating blog posts: #2
Business education time: #2

Emails: #3
Social media: #3
Non sales meetings: #3

Here’s why I put things in this order.

#1 – High priority tasks:
Product creation and direct marketing are things that will benefit my business for years to come… long term sales. It’s all about people who are ready to buy RIGHT NOW, or who have already.

#2 – Medium priority task:
Creating posts and answering pre-sales questions will still produce revenue, but a smaller amount. It helps get people warmed up for future sales.

#3 – Low priority tasks:
These typically include other people ….And when it comes to giving other people your time and attention you gotta be extra vigilant. People will suck your time if you let them.

The ones who support your business (customers) are high priority, the people who MIGHT are second in line… while the people who don’t buy your stuff, or help your business grow (and probably never will) go to the bottom of ladder.

So the next time you’re presented with a choice, think about which one of these categories it falls into, before committing.

Remember I mentioned at the start of this post that we only have a limited amount of willpower each day? Well, I was sceptical when I first heard about it.

But there’s an actual term for it, it’s called Ego Depletion.

So, brace yourself here comes the science bit.

The Science Bit

In 1998 scientists Roy Baumeister, Ellen Bratslavsky, Dianne Tice and Mark Muraven did an experiment in which they discovered that willpower is like a muscle – and will eventually get tired.

They separated subjects into two groups; one could eat as many cookies as they liked, while the other had to resist.

Science found that the ‘resist’ group didn’t perform too well on the second task, proving that willpower is finite.

They also found that willpower isn’t decreasing over time, so it’s not a generational thing – 20 years ago people had the same level of willpower as they do today, but we’re being bombarded with more temptations and more demands on our time than ever before.

So choose how you spend your time wisely, and if it’s not helping you to grow your business then you might want to send it to the bottom of your priority list.