Drew – Page 2 – Alphadog Success

9 Steps To Building A Successful Business

9 Simple Steps To Build A Successful Business

Follow these nine simple steps to build a business more effectively, efficiently, and with less wasted time and money. Step #1 Get super clear on your BIG “Why” The most important secret to having a successful business is to be very clear about why you’re doing it. If you have a thorough understanding of what this business means to you on a personal level, it will motivate you and see you past the stressful times. Step #2 Have a solid, yet flexible plan You wouldn’t drive across country without a map. It’s even more important to chart your course when you’re starting your business. Of course, you need the traditional elements of a business plan like your company’s description products and services, strategy, market analysis, financial projections, etc. You also need to think about some other things like It’s critical to set very clear goals so that you know what you’re working toward in your business. Otherwise, it’s too easy to get distracted and lose sight of your goals. Step #3: Understand your numbers. Treat your business like a business and not an expensive hobby. You’re in business to make money. You started your business to do what you love, but you have to remember that you can’t accomplish any of it unless you’re bringing in cash. Your numbers don’t lie. Either you’re bringing in cash which means you’re making more than you’re spending, or you need to make some changes. You might need to change your prices, increase your marketing, cut some expenses, or rethink your products and services. Know how much money you want to be making each year. Divide that by 12 and you have your monthly goal. Be smart about where your expenses are going. Will you get a clear benefit from the money you spend? Step #4: Don’t reinvent the wheel. Drew says that he’s always been a big believer in shortcuts. If someone else has already done something that he wants to do, he will model what they’ve done for himself. He doesn’t have to start from scratch – research others in your field, study their companies and model that behavior. Research successful people in general – success is success. Here are some timeless principles of success: For Drew, working with a coach or self and being part of a mastermind group has helped him build a business. This might or might not be the best strategy for you. Decide what is best for you based on your own personal needs, what motivates you, and what conditions will set you up for success. Step #5: Focus, focus, and more focus. A successful business requires intensive labor and focus. You will need to cut out of your life anything that is not moving you in the direction of your vision. Exactly what that is you decide in your own personal life, but anything non-essential has to go. In a corporate job you’re basically paid for putting in hours. As an entrepreneur, it’s all about results. Excellent time management is critical. You may need to build a support system with your spouse or your parents or housecleaner or babysitter or personal assistant. You might want to shop online or use a grocery delivery service. Look at all your current activities to see where you can find some extra time to devote to your business. A lack of time is really a lack of priorities. Revisit your ‘why’ statement, then take another look at your priorities. Make sure you’re focusing on the tasks that are delivering your results. Step #6: Get comfortable with self-promotion. In order to be successful with your product or service, people have to be able to find you. As an entrepreneur, marketing must be your top focus, especially in the beginning. You need to get out there and market yourself based on a solid, well thought out strategy. Marketing and sales is something you do for people – not to people – because you have the answer to their problem. An authentic way to market your business and sell your services is to demonstrate to potential customers that you do care and that you have a solution for them. You can get this point across to potential customers without being pushy. Here’s how Drew phrases it:“Just so you know, I’m here and I have the skills to help you stop struggling and to reach your business and lifestyle goals. So, if it feels right for you and you think that working together would be a good fit, I’d be more than happy to help.” Sounds like the right approach, doesn’t it? Step #7: Done is better than perfect. Drew calls himself a lifelong perfectionist, so he struggles with this one himself all the time. But he’s learned to let go a little because if he didn’t, he would still be in the pre-launch stage. He puts it this way:” Don’t let analysis paralysis hold you back. Just implement, implement, implement.” Take action, then take the next logical step, and continue to make forward momentum every day. If you’d like more on combatting perfectionism, check out this post: https://alphadogsuccess.com/blog/perfectionism-procrastination/ Step #8: Fail fast and forward. Sometimes the only way to know what will work and what won’t is through trial and error. Failure is an essential component to success. Successful people know this, and aim to fail quickly. The key is to learn from your mistakes very quickly and make the necessary adjustments. You need to course correct right away either by tweaking your approach or by taking a different route altogether. For instance, if enough people are not signing up for new a program, is it the copywriting that needs improvement? Is your page user-friendly? Do you need to edit your video? Is the pricing off? Nothing is permanent – especially in the online world. You can change things very quickly. As the head of your company, it’s your responsibility to do so and there’s no corporate red tape to cut through.

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How to Overcome Your Fears and Step Out With Courage

How to Overcome Your Fears British adventurist Sir Ranulph Fiennes has been called the world’s greatest living explorer. He’s navigated some of the world’s most challenging and inhospitable places on earth including trekking the Antarctic and both North and South Poles, unsupported and on foot. When Fiennes was in his 60’s, he decided to overcome his severe fears of heights by climbing Mt. Everest. On his second attempt, hundreds of feet short of the summit, he suffered severe chest pains, at night, dangling from a rope on a near vertical ice wall at 29,000 feet. Frozen and in pain, he turned around and somehow managed to descend. He lived to tell the tale, running a marathon a mere 16 weeks after his near fatal heart attack. When it comes to facing your fears how daring are you? Do you turn tail and head in the opposite direction? Do you waver and hope the feeling passes? Or, do you, like Fiennes, stand firm and always face your fears head on? Picture what your life would look like if you consistently faced off against your fears, both big and small, with the fearlessness of someone like Sir Ranulph Fiennes. What would it feel like to boldly stare down and confront your fears, never letting them interfere with what you want to accomplish? Imagine what you could achieve if you never again let fear get in your way. The truth is, the closest most of us will get to scaling Mt. Everest is flying past it en route to a comfortable vacation destination. But there is good news; you don’t have to be an adrenaline junkie, risking life and limb, to be fearless. Life offers plenty of everyday opportunities for us to face our fears. Whether it’s asking your crush out on a date, speaking in public, or asking for a raise, no fear is too big or too small to challenge – and we all have within us the potential to be fearless. The first step to overcome your fears and become more fearless begins with understanding fear. What it is, what scares us (and why), and how fear holds us back from living a full and fulfilling life. Once we gain some insight into our fears, fearlessness can become second nature. If you want to be more fearless, more often, let’s start by exploring what scares you. “Don’t be afraid of your fears. They’re not there to scare you. They’re there to let you know that something is worth it.” C. JoyBell C. We all know what fear feels like – dread, tension, difficulty breathing, rapid heartbeat, sweating, racing thoughts, and ‘butterflies’ are just a few of the feelings we associate with fear. It’s no wonder so many of us choose, one way or another, to sidestep our fears. After all, who wants to feel those uncomfortable feelings? What if these fears aren’t designed just to scare you? What if, instead, your fears were a doorway into new and exciting prospects? Could fear be an opportunity for personal growth in disguise? What is Fear? The word ‘fear’ derives from the Old English word faer, meaning sudden attack, peril, or danger. Simply put, fear is an emotional response to a perceived threat. It’s primitive, powerful and universal. Fear is like an internal alarm, it’s design warns us and protects us from danger. There are two types of fear responses: biochemical and emotional. Biochemical Fear is a natural emotion resulting from a perceived threat and its design makes us more alert and responsive as a way to survive. When this happens, our bodies respond in specific ways such as sweating, increased heart rate, increased awareness, and high adrenaline levels. This state of fear is often referred to as a “fight or flight” response. Emotional Fear differs from person to person. Because fear involves some of the same chemical responses in our brains similar to happiness and excitement, feeling fear under certain circumstances can be seen as fun. For example, the fears you experience with watching a scary movie, riding on a roller coaster, or venturing into extreme sports, create emotional fear. Some people like emotional fear, however, there are others who have negative reactions to emotional fear and try to avoid fear-inducing situations all together. Although the physical reaction is the same, this type of fear may be perceived as either positive or negative, depending on the person’s perspective. What are We Afraid of? While most of us aren’t facing the same threats our ancestors did, we still face threats in our day-to-day lives that cause us stress. What are we so afraid of? Quite a lot, as it turns out. Public speaking, flying, and death are often touted as the things we fear the most and, while those fears are real, our dread go much deeper and wider than a potential bruised ego, gravity, and our inevitable demise. According to The Chapman University Survey on American Fears, our biggest fears of 2018 include: government corruption, the state of the environment, danger befalling loved ones, and personal finances. Fears that didn’t crack the top 10? Public speaking (#59), death (#54), and flying (#82). Regardless of ranking, the survey suggests there is no shortage of fears to keep us up at night. The survey also suggests more people than ever are afraid, and fear, in general, is on the rise. All this dread is having a significant negative impact on our lives. For example, fear can make us; hesitate, procrastinate, experience creative blocks, and be averse to risk, all of which can lead to low accomplishment. That can cause stress. That stress can lead to cognitive impairment, an increased risk of heart disease, premature aging, relationship conflicts, depression, and more – and a cycle of fear is born. That cycle can leave us feeling like we’re just going through the motions of life without really living. “My life has been filled with terrible misfortune most of which never happened.” –Michel de Montaigne Putting

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8 Important Tasks for One Person Marketing Teams

You could easily succeed if you had a dedicated team, a million-dollar marketing budget, and 48 hours in a day. But that’s not how real life works. Especially for a new entrepreneur or one-person marketing team. It’s easy to get into the “if only” mindset when you’re the only employee/marketer at your company. But if you want to grow your business, it’s important to get solution-oriented. Try to focus on getting the biggest ROI from every marketing activity you have the time and resources to execute. To help you out – I’ve compiled eight incredibly important marketing activities that a one-man or one-woman team can execute that will start moving key metrics. No more dilly dallying around with things that don’t move the needle. 1) Set strategic and measurable marketing goals. Before you start posting, sending emails or scheduling tweets, be sure you’ve properly set goals for your marketing. Think of your marketing like a road trip. You wouldn’t start driving until you’ve found your destination, and mapped out the most effective route to get there. In the same way, you should always make sure your activities and goals help you drive your business forward. You wouldn’t want a goal of converting more leads into customers if you aren’t converting visitors into leads already. You can’t pull people through the funnel until you’ve gotten them there in the first place. And of course, ensure the goals you set are measurable. For instance, if your goal is to increase visitor-to-lead conversion rate, think about whether you have the tools in place to measure whether you’re doing that. If you need help determining which goals are right for your business, check out my guide to setting SMART goals. 2) Establish exactly who your target audience is. With only so much time in the day to devote to marketing, you want to make sure that every piece of content you produce (ebook, landing page, blog post, or email) is on-target and effective. Wouldn’t it be frustrating to spend a ton of time creating content that falls on deaf ears? The best way to guard against wasting your time creating content is to create and use buyer personas/ideal client/customer avatar/etc. If you’re not familiar with buyer personas, they’re models for what your ideal customers are like. A persona includes information such as what sort of person they are (education, income level, or job, for example) as well as what’s important to them (saving time or money, for example). If you haven’t developed them yet, or you think you could put a little more elbow grease into ones you already have, here’s a free checklist to help you nail down your market research and target audience. If you put together buyer personas now, and then create every piece of content with a persona in mind, your content will work harder for you — in fact, you may find persona-driven content results in your audience marketing your content for you! 3) Focus on the right social media platforms. Now that we have some important baselines established that will make your subsequent marketing efforts pack a more powerful punch, let’s figure out the right places to spend your time (so it’s not wasted in the wrong ones). And if there’s one area rife with opportunities for misspent time, it’s on social media. It’s tempting to try to be on all of the social media platforms because everyone else is doing it, and it feels like that’s what good marketers do. Fortunately for you, they are most definitely wrong. Instead of wasting your time engaging on social networks that won’t help you achieve your SMART goals, strategically choose one or two platforms to be on and knock them out of the park. To find out which social networks you should spend your time on, check out your analytics. In your sources report Identify which social networks are already sending you the most traffic, and then capitalize on them. If you have closed-loop analytics, I also recommend drilling down further to see which networks are sending you the most leads and customers. Have access to all of this information will help you make better decisions on which social networks you spend your marketing time. You may find that a top social network for you isn’t Facebook or Twitter, but rather a niche social network specific to your industry. Instead of wasting time on a big social network because it’s something you’re just “supposed” to do, switch your efforts to social networks that will pay off big time for your business. 4) Schedule out social media posts/updates. Now that you know where to spend your time on social media, let’s make your time spent on it both efficient, and effective. First, let’s talk about scheduling your content in advance. Instead of freaking out every day trying to find something amazing to post to social media, sit down once a week to think of all of the subsequent week’s social media content. While you may have a couple things come up that warrant posting – like breaking industry news, for example – bucketing your time like this will make you more efficient. (platform itself, buffer, later, hootsuite, etc.) Alright, now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s make your time on social media more effective by thinking about the best times of day to publish your content. I encourage you to look for timing trends for your own social media presences. 5) Create evergreen content to reap short and long term benefits. Since content creation can get pretty time consuming, focus on creating evergreen content – content that stays relevant over a long period of time — to pack the biggest punch. This type of content pays for itself over and over again. Because it’s not time-sensitive, search engines will continue to drive traffic to evergreen posts, helping to drive leads long after you hit publish. If you’re having trouble finding an evergreen topic to write about on your company’s

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Master Your Inner Critic to Be Successful

Our inner critic says, we get told the world is the way is and you just have to live your life inside that world as best you can. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family, have fun, save a little money. Don’t step on toes, don’t be too cocky. That’s a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact: Everything around you that you call ‘life’ was made up by people that were relatively no smarter than you. So, if you want to change something in your world… you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use too. You are more useful than you know. Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again. This is the advice I learned from Steve Jobs. You know that billionaire guy with the Apple fetish? He rocked. And more than that, he knew he did. That was the biggest secret to his success on and offline – like you, he initially thought ‘I don’t want a job. I want to be an entrepreneur’. Most of us end there and then let self-doubt cloud any potential of getting any further. We make a few bucks, we live pretty comfortable and we dream realistically. We see the obstacles. But obstacles don’t stop us from going further, as we may think – it is actually how resourceful we are in dealing with them. We can’t let a few trials dictate to us where our ceiling of success is. And while being safe instead of bold is a good strategy if you like this life… there is no harm in a little self-love. It is this that creates the boldness, and ultimately the desired results. If you wonder what being bold has to do with being successful or you think that talking about self-love is a little too ‘new-agey’… then let’s get scientific. 55% of all of our communication (that is how we present ourselves to the world) is not what we say or the words we decide to use. It is our body language. It is what we do with our face and our tone. The words you say are a side note. And so, it is essential to believe in yourself each day before you ever set foot online thinking you’re going to make a million because – heck – if you don’t believe it and you are not congruent, not one customer is going to believe that you’re the one to solve all their problems either. So next time your inner critic says ‘I don’t want to sell myself’ or ‘I’m not sure people will like my product’ or ‘Am I charging/asking too much?’, make sure that the answer to that is in line with how much you value yourself. Be the value and people will pick up on it. Tell yourself you have lots to offer and that you can do it. And why not… many people talk to themselves negatively all day long and have nothing to show for it. So why not try looking at things differently? I’ll say it one last time… you want to succeed. Do it from the inside out – believe you can first. Don’t let your inner critic run the show. Believe you are worth that money. It is from a place of fear and worry that most people never pick up that phone and call when they should, most people never ask for what they want (at the price they want) when they know they should. That’s what separates the people that do things from the people who just dream about them. It’s up to you to take action. You must be willing to fail. You’ve got to be willing to crash and burn. And when it is all done and it’s time to get up, it’s not your legs that will lift you… it’ll be your self-belief, not your inner critic. Take a deep breath and say it out loud – “I am worth it!” Now get to work.

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Focus is the most powerful magnet for success

Focus on The Most Powerful Magnet for Success (or Failure)

“You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.” ~ Mark Twain Remember old fashioned cameras (or any that weren’t in your phone)? They had intricate lenses you had to focus by hand. The process was very precise and technical and your results were 100% determined by… …what you focused on. If you didn’t get the results you wanted, it was because the lens wasn’t focused properly. One little tic to the right or left and you would’ve had the perfect shot. Right? The good news about that is that you had the power to shift the focus (and the result) of the image. Today I’d like to explore something that you can do, just like shifting the focus point on a camera… …to shift the results of your life. We all want the “tack sharp” beautiful, abundant, fulfilling life of our daydreams, right? Here’s how you get it: Focus As many coaches and inspirational leaders so often say: “What you focus on determines your results.” And they are right. I’ve been using this principle in my life, very successfully, for decades. And I’ve seen it happen with other people, over and over again, with terrific results. In order to get what you want in life… …you must focus your mind toward what you want, and away from what you don’t want. Your brain is a very powerful magnet – and it operates like a search engine. It acts like a heat-seeking missile, drawing to you whatever it is you are focusing on. And the more energy, vibrancy, and passion you conjure up in your imagination… …the harder your brain works to make those thoughts your reality. Whatever you focus on most – the failure or the success, the love or the betrayal, the win or the loss – the more situations, people and resources you will attract to make the object of your focus a reality. The Science of Focus This isn’t just woo-woo, pie-in-the-sky thinking. There are scientific reasons and countless studies that prove this out. Your brain has a mechanism called the Reticular Activating System (RAS). The (RAS) is a bundle of nerves at your brainstem that filters out unnecessary information so the important stuff gets through. The RAS is the reason you learn a new word and then start hearing it everywhere. This is why you can tune out a crowd full of talking people, yet immediately snap to attention when someone says your name or something that at least sounds like it. It’s the reason you see BMWs everywhere, the moment you decide to buy a BMW. It’s why red flags go up when you sense something isn’t on the up-and-up. Or why you trip on the same pothole every time. It’s also the reason – if you focus too often on how hard something is – your brain automatically leaps to the obstacles and not the solutions. In effect…it attracts the obstacles, rather than the solutions. Training Your Brain As you can see, it’s very important that your mind leans toward what you want, toward resourceful thoughts and feelings that serve you, and away from those that quietly sabotage you. Bear in mind, “positive thinking” isn’t automatic or easy. It doesn’t come to us naturally. And there’s a scientific reason for that… In case you’re feeling bad about yourself for being “negative” too often. Our brain, since caveman days, had to be alert to potential dangers in order to survive. We evolved as a species by being highly aware of our surroundings. We were ingrained, for our very survival, to focus on the potentially negative… …to spend time, energy, and resources on potential dangers. This is why it’s so easy, so automatic, to focus on the negative things that may – or may not – happen in our lives. But this habit can be changed. You can retrain your brain, and make positive, resourceful thoughts and feelings become your automatic response. A side note: Don’t feel bad when you find yourself traveling down a dark tunnel of fears, doubts, and “what-ifs”. Your brain is pre-wired that way. But you can retrain your brain to lean in a new direction…toward the resourceful thoughts that serve you, instead of those that ultimately sabotage you. Keep using your Holosync, and be on the alert for negative thoughts and feelings. As soon as you recognize them, flip them over. Find the opposite feelings, the positive results, the great outcomes…and aim your brain on those things instead. You will find – with that same powerful magnet known as your brain that you’re automatically attracting good, abundant and beautiful things into your life.

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Finding Confidence To Embrace Life’s Big Decisions & Overcome Fear of…

Confidence comes from a latin word affīdāre which means “to trust oneself”; therefore, finding confidence is just having more trust in one’s self and fear of failure. Confidence is a state of being clear headed either that a hypothesis is correct or that a chosen course of action is the best or most effective. I talk to a lot of sales professionals and entrepreneurs, people starting their own businesses, and they want to learn: “How can I develop more confidence or even just get myself a bit more confident so that I can be more successful in what I do?” In order to make this happen, we have to realize where confidence comes from and what finding confidence means. Finding confidence is basically your ability to take action and feel good about yourself and the results of the action. Feeling like whatever it is you’re about to jump into, you can do a good job and you can come out of it looking and feeling good. Now, this doesn’t happen by accident. When you look at the way confidence shows up in our lives, it appears as a result of doing things over and over again and developing a proficiency from it. Confidence, in and of itself, is not something that you’re born with or not born with. It’s something that’s developed over time through practice and repetition. When you first learned to walk, at 12 or 13-months old or whatever it may be for you; you weren’t very confident at walking. In fact, you couldn’t walk at all. But you were determined to try, and determined to succeed. You stood on the side of the sofa and you pushed yourself off and you would fall. You would try it again and you would maybe balance for a bit and then fall. But you would do it over and over again. Your level of confidence in the beginning was tiny. In fact, there probably was no confidence. But you were so determined to do it, that you kept going regardless of the outcome. Eventually you took a step, you followed that with another step, and soon enough you were walking and now you’re an adult and you can walk from one room to another, you can walk for miles as an exercise or whatever, and not even think about the act of walking. It’s just something that comes naturally to you now. If someone were to ask you your level of confidence on a scale of 0 to 10, how confident you are that you could walk across the room, you’d probably say 11. It isn’t even something that you ever think to question…You just do it. The same thing goes for finding confidence in all areas of life – including your professional life. Let’s say your success right now requires your ability to sell. Doesn’t matter what it is. To sell a product, to sell an idea, to sell a service, sell a training program. I don’t know what it is for you. You might not be confident in your ability to communicate value in a way that exceeds the expense and closes a deal. So the important question becomes, how are you going to find that confidence? You weren’t born with it. Thinking about yourself going into a situation where you might have to sell somebody, makes you nervous or self-conscious. How do you get to a point where you’re confident in doing it no matter what you are selling? First, it’s natural to feel fear whenever you are stepping out of your comfort zone…it’s a biological response we have maintained from our “caveman brains”. Luckily there are many other, more evolved portions of our brain we can counter it with. So, the next time you’re feeling fearful, just try to put it into perspective. Recognize that fear is only a feeling, a chemical response to a thought. Fear can feel very, very real. But it’s only an emotion that survives and thrives when we feed it with our attention. The first step in mastering your fear of taking massive action is to remember to tell yourself that fear isn’t real – that it’s only a feeling that can’t hurt actually you. Remember, everyone experiences fear Everyone experiences fear before they try something new. Think Tony Robbins hasn’t experienced fear of failure? Sure he has, and I’m sure he would tell you that himself. Everyone has experienced fear of failure, the fear of looking like a fool, the fear of losing friends, the fear of being judged, a fear of being called an imposter, the fear of ending up worse than when you started, whatever it may be. In fact, statistics show that a whopping 85% of the population has some form of self-doubt. When a moment of panic comes over you, image your role model and remember that they too have experienced fear. But they moved through it anyway. Sometimes you’ll just have to do it afraid. Do it anyway. Take the first small step We’ve all heard Newton’s 1st Law of Motion: A body at rest tends to stay at rest, while a body in motion tends to stay in motion. Notice that feeling of fear, and then take that first small step in spite of it. Fear is a natural and required part of the process. Accept your ability to work through fear and do it anyway. You’ll learn from it and you’ll make mistakes and you’ll fall on your face, just like you fell when you were first learning how to walk. But you do this once and you’ll get a little bit of feedback, and you’ll get a little bit of insight. Maybe you can even find a manager or mentor to review your work and see a couple of things that you could improve on in the future. This is incredibly valuable feedback. Go to the next project, make the corrections, make a little bit of an improvement, and you will increase your confidence. Maybe you don’t close the sale, but you go to

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Does Anyone Know Who The REAL YOU Is Online?

There’s thousands of individuals and companies marketing themselves out there – and you are one of them… So, here is my question for the day: Who are you? Because as you can see, when you search through products, people, and services online – mediocrity and conformity is already 99% of everyone else’s day. Not to sound harsh, but most people just follow what is trending or what is hot, and while that may be an awesome way to make some quick money – regarding a long-term and life purpose – it is not exactly fulfilling, is it? It is just a means to an end if we think about it that way, and not sustainable. But you probably started online to make money – that is a given. You also probably wanted to have the flexibility and freedom it brings. Internet marketing has great potential to earn a large amount of money in a short amount of time. It’s a great way to learn. Most times, it is easier than your best friend’s 9-5 job, isn’t it? However, when we skip from one affiliate product to another or try to promote several things aimlessly with no real long-term vision or lifestyle design goals, we are not really building a future for ourselves overall… And as human beings, our long-term goal always stretches beyond money. In fact, as we get older, it is much more about – How can you serve and add value? How can you discover your life’s purpose? What really makes you happy? Who are you? The most difficult part in life is to really discover who you are (you: not the kid of your parents, not the wife of your husband, not the student in school, not what society thinks about you or expects from you, etc.). Once we go away and discover the answer to that – to what we really want from life, we can then apply our knowledge of who we really are to what we really enjoy doing – and in marketing terms – that can also bring money to the table. That’s where the start is. Trust me: Do what you love and what adds value in your personal opinion –and the money will follow. Picking a job or service or product is not the first thing you need to do – not yet anyway. Discovering yourself is the starting point. There is nothing before that point. The only other thing is what others are and what your position is in THEIR circles – not what your position is in YOUR life. Take a break and make a list. List all of the things you loved as a child that you have forgotten about, but still like doing. Then name five strengths you have in business and by nature. Also list five weaknesses. After a while, you will start to see a pattern – things you are good at and that you can offer. There is a reason you have the specific skills that you do; you are unique in these delivery skills and traits. Focus on what you LOVE to do and what you are good at and live from that end first before you decide what path to take. You are here for a reason. What is it? Who are you really? “You did not come into this world; you came out of it. Like a wave from the ocean. You are not a stranger here.” – Alan Watts

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The Science of Analysis Paralysis: How To Overcome Over-Thinking

Let me start by saying that I’m a millennial. I can barely remember before the internet made all collective knowledge accessible for any question that crossed my mind. Unfortunately, despite having more access to high-quality information to help us make life’s decisions, it hasn’t made decision-making any easier. We can now research the pros and cons of each and every option available to us. A simple search can often open a time-sucking black hole of link clicking, article reading, video watching. That search may end hours later…with no new answers. Psychologist Barry Schwartz coined the phrase “Paradox of Choice”. He says, while increased choice allows us to achieve objectively better results, it also leads to greater anxiety, indecision, and dissatisfaction. Instead of making better choices, our unlimited access to information often leads to fear of making the wrong decision. This can lead to us spinning our wheels in analysis paralysis, all the while getting nowhere on our important projects. Naturally, I was curious about what goes on in our brains when we experience indecision; and what we can do about it. How overthinking decisions is holding you back Delaying action while over-analyzing information doesn’t help anyone get things done. In fact, a 2010 survey showed that employees spend more than half their workdays receiving and managing information. This takes away from time spent actually doing their jobs!(Does this sound like you?) Unfortunately, that’s just the start of the bad news. Studies in psychology and neuroscience reveal that analysis paralysis impact our productivity and well-being more than just the lost time. Here are four not-so-obvious ways that overthinking your decisions is holding you back: 1. Analysis paralysis lowers your performance on mentally-demanding tasks In short, our working memory is like computer RAM, allowing us to focus on the information we need to get things done. Unfortunately, our working memory is in limited supply. You can think of it like our brain’s computer memory. Once it’s used up, there’s not much we can do. Studies have shown that high-pressure, anxiety-producing situations lead to lower performance on cognitively demanding tasks – the tasks that rely most heavily on working memory. Furthermore, the more participants want to perform well on a task, the more their performance suffers. Researchers believe both anxiety and pressure generate distractions that take up space in our working memory. When you overanalyze a situation, the over-analysis, anxiety, and self-doubt decrease the amount of working memory you have available to complete challenging tasks. This causes your productivity to plummet even further. 2. Analysis paralysis kills your creativity A recent Stanford study suggests that over-thinking not only impedes our ability to perform cognitive tasks, but keeps us from reaching our creative potential as well. “Participants in the study were placed into a functional magnetic resonance imaging machine with a nonmagnetic tablet and asked to draw a series of pictures based on action words (for example, vote, exhaust, salute) with 30 seconds for each word. (They also drew a zigzag line to establish baseline brain function for the task of drawing.) The participants later ranked each word picture based on its difficulty to draw. The tablet transmitted the drawings to researchers at the school who scored them on a 5-point scale of creativity, and researchers at the School of Medicine analyzed the fMRI scans for brain activity patterns. The results were surprising: the prefrontal cortex, traditionally associated with thinking, was most active for the drawings the participants ranked as most difficult; the cerebellum [the part of the brain traditionally associated with movement] was most active for the drawings the participants scored highest on for creativity. Essentially, the less the participants thought about what they were drawing, the more creative their drawings were.” These findings suggest that overthinking a problem makes it harder to do your best creative work. 3. Overthinking eats up your willpower A fascinating (and rather alarming) study published by the National Academy of Science looked at the decisions of parole board judges over a 10-month period. They found that judges were significantly more likely to grant parole earlier in the morning and immediately after a food break. Cases that came before judges at the end of long sessions were much more likely to be denied. This phenomenon held true over 1,100 cases regardless of the severity of the crime. As a lawyer – this was important! The judges were experiencing what psychologists call decision fatigue. Each decision that we make, from whether or not to hit snooze to what outfit we’ll wear to what we’ll eat for lunch, draws on the same limited supply of willpower. You can think of willpower as a muscle (I like to think of it as MANA from a video game).The more you use it, the more it wears out, leaving you feeling overwhelmed and exhausted. That’s why so many dieters start out strong at the beginning of the day with a healthy breakfast and lunch, only to succumb to the temptations of junk food from the office break room in the afternoon. Actions that we take automatically, like brushing our teeth, take little willpower. However, when we agonize over a decision, we deplete our limited supply of willpower much more quickly, causing us to feel exhausted and overwhelmed. Not only does this decision fatigue inhibit our ability to clearly assess the situation at hand, it also makes us more likely to choose unhealthy food, skip exercise, and put-off working on side projects in favor of watching TV. In short, analysis paralysis makes it much more difficult to make high-quality, long-term choices later on. 4. Analysis Paralysis makes you less happy Essentially you are either a Satisficer or a Maximizer. Gretchen Rubin of The Happiness Project says: “Satisficers make a decision once their criteria are met. When they find the hotel or the pasta sauce with the qualities they want, they’re satisfied.” In contrast, “Maximizers want to make the best possible decision; even if they see a bicycle that meets their requirements, they can’t make a decision until they’ve examined every option.” Research suggests

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Grow Your Biz Faster With Focused Efforts

How To Grow Your Business While Doing Less By Working Smarter And Focusing Your Efforts

I get it…you’ve been working hard to grow your business…but for some reason you aren’t seeing the results you were expecting. But don’t worry, it happens to the best of us, it’s all part of the learning and growth process. After talking to numerous business owners over the last few years I realized most of them were facing a handful of very similar issues. Below is a quick outline of exactly what I tell clients. How to grow your business without adding hours of additional work to your already busy schedule! Review all the products or services that have brought in profits and will grow your business. Make a list of everything your offer or would like to offer. (If you’re brand new, then this will be something you can revisit when you have more numbers to work with.) Find the one or two core services (If you are in e-comm then you can get away with 5-10 products). Separate the ones that produced the best profits and focus all of your effort on selling more of those. SAY NO to anything that does not fall under those core products and services. This allows you to control your time and scale your business with more predictability and profitability. STOP following fake idols and countless guru’s. Find a real mentor, join a mastermind group, and pay the money to get into a REAL course. Outsource the time-consuming work so that you can focus on income-producing activities and being the best at what you do. If you think you’re getting all you need from YouTube videos and other free trainings, you are sadly mistaken. People come to you for your expertise or for the products you sell. It’s NOT because you were the person doing the marketing. Find someone that can help with your marketing and enlist them for training or services. Stop listening to all the noise. Stop chasing shiny objects. Focus your ad dollars on things that actually provide a return. If you’re unable to track a client’s engagement with your business from click to customer, then that’s your first priority. You should think twice before making any additional investments until that’s managed. Start with Google Ads then follow up with a social media campaign. According to the National Sales Executive Association, Very few people (≅ 2%) will actually purchase a product the first time they see an offer. The vast majority of them, ≅ 80%, will purchase between the 5th and 11th touch. This makes follow up and retargeting crucial aspects of your marketing campaign. Visitors that come from Google PPC campaigns are typically more responsive to social retargeting campaigns. They are more likely to become customers after viewing additional relevant ads/content on another platform. Data and Tracking are THE most important parts to grow your business effectively. If you do not understand what you are looking at and how to read the reports that are given to you, it’s a sure way to lose money. Make sure you understand which numbers are important to pay attention to, and how to find them. If you are using an omnichannel marketing strategy, then you will need to know exactly who came from where. This was you’ll understand which campaigns are successful and which you can do without. This may mean creating a custom tracking URL for each platform or campaign. Each type of business will have different performance indicators (KPI). Understanding what is essential to your business will help dictate how and where you choose to grow your business. Treat your social platforms like a job. Unless your business requires you to be on social media, 24/7 (it almost always doesn’t) use it only when you need to and then get off. Don’t worry about all the NOISE happening on social because it is just that…NOISE. You don’t need to field every reaction or comment as it comes in. If you want to use social media for your business, come up with a plan and stick to it. In general, I tell companies to start posting three times a week and gradually work their way up to everyday. Make sure the content is of high quality and features your core products or services. Most small businesses see success by posting original, authentic content and using up to 30 relevant hashtags (where applicable). YOU DON’T NEED A MILLION FOLLOWERS to be successful, do not buy into the cheap follower programs or software. Social platforms are getting smarter, and they WILL suspend your account for utilizing shady tactics. Plus, it’s much better to have fewer, more engaging followers than a bunch of empty numbers. Do you believe that YOU are why you can’t grow your business? Throughout the day the average person thinks over 50,000 thoughts, including good and bad, empowering and limiting. It is natural to doubt yourself, especially if you own or operate your own business. Sometimes you don’t see the progress because you are in the thick of it, or you lose track of your goals because life happens, and that’s normal! Creating confidence and finding your ability to overcome self-doubt happens gradually over time; there is no magic pill. What does help is controlling your mindset, managing your mental state, working with a coach, having a proven process, and keeping track of your goals. Having a proven process will keep you on task regardless of how you feel about yourself and your abilities. Writing down your goals and creating check-in’s is how you begin that accountability process. As you see yourself accomplishing and checking off goals, the fear of not being good enough goes away and the motivation to continue increases. So now I guess you are thinking, “Drew, this is great… but, what are my next steps?” First, as I mentioned above, you need to focus your efforts, so start by finding the most profitable products or services you offer. Having more offers will not grow your business. Second, choose no more than 2 subject matter

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An Entirely New Way to Look at Criticism

Almost any marketing coach can tell you stories of students who came to them for help in launching their product. The student has the product ready to go. Maybe it needs a few tweaks, but they are small things that could be done in a few days or maybe even in a few hours. We’re talking about products that in many cases are better quality than 90% of products out there. But they won’t launch the product. They keep telling themselves their product/service isn’t ready, that it needs improving, the time isn’t right, etc… They’re deceiving themselves. The real reason they’re not launching? FEAR. Stark terror that someone, somewhere, will dislike them or say something BAD about their product. Or worse yet – people will hate their product AND the product won’t sell. But here’s the fact to focus on instead: A product that is never launched makes no money. Period. Yes, someone might not like your product. So what? In fact, there could be HUNDREDS of people who don’t like your product. So what? If the product is selling, does it matter that some people don’t like it? Look at radio talk show hosts and commentators. They have thousands or in some cases hundreds of thousands of people who don’t like them. Yet they also have LOTS and LOTS of loyal followers willing to pay to hear them or jump on their recommended products. So how do you get over the fear of launching? Here’s one way: Agree with yourself that your product isn’t finished. That’s right – it isn’t done yet. But you’re going to launch ANYWAY. As you improve your product, you will send your customers updated versions. What’s that? You forgot to add a section about managing gophers to your gardening product? Add the section and send it out to buyers. Then add it to the product itself so all new buyers get it automatically. And then add a couple of bullets to your sales letter that let prospects know you cover gophers, too. Easy, right? In fact, this gives you an entirely new way to look at criticism. Instead of cringing and wishing you had done the product differently, you can objectively look at the criticism and decide if you want to make a change based on that feedback or not. This is a much more empowering point of view than hiding in the corner, fearful of any negative comment that might come your way. Now then, let’s look at a worst case scenario: You launch your product and the very first feedback you get is, “This product sucks, I want a refund!” If this happens, there is one of two things going on, and the next few days will tell you which one it is. If more people write back with similar comments, then maybe you do have a poor product. In that case, pull it, fix it and relaunch it. Or pull it and create something else. But if sales are good and refunds are low, then what you encountered on that first feedback was likely a chronic ‘refunder’ – one of those people who buy products with the intention of finding a miracle/instant fix…who immediately quit and ask for a refund. Don’t waste your time trying to help those people. Just know that the overwhelming majority of buyers don’t do this. Most buyers are good, honest, decent people. The few who do chronically refund are just a minor annoyance that ALL product sellers have to put up with, including the big names in your niche and elsewhere. So don’t sweat it! Give them their refund and if you have the capability, block them from buying from you again, just to avoid aggravation down the line when you launch your next product. Fear of launching your product is a fear of leaving your comfort zone. Comfort zones are… well… comfy. Cozy. Warm. Secure. Safe. But sometimes you have to take a deep breath, hit the button and launch your new product to the world. Don’t worry – it gets less scary each time you do it. And you’re never alone. Even product creators who have made millions still get plenty nervous when it’s time to launch their new creation. It’s a natural reaction. The point is, you can’t let a case of nerves, no matter how bad they are, get in the way of moving forward and launching your product. Find out what you need to use to get yourself to launch. Is it a reward? Blackmail? A psychological trick? A reminder of WHY you are doing this? I know one marketer who imagines hurling himself into battle each time he launches. Another one keeps photos of his family at his desk to remind him of why he needs to overcome his fear. And a third bribes herself with a 4 day vacation for each product she launches. Whatever it takes to get you to launch – just do it. Of course, it always helps to have a coach or mentor on your side – so if you don’t have one of those yet – get one! ~Wishing you success!Drew

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Embrace Your Unique Self And Build A Business Around YOU

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson And here’s another one…(not quite with the Emerson flair, but still quite eloquent): “You can’t fit a round peg into a square hole.” In the digital world, we’re more exposed to this than ever before! People online will tell you what to do. How to do it. When to do it. And are always happy to point out everything you’re “doing wrong”. They’ll tell you to get up two hours early and work on your business before work. Or set a timer for 30 minutes and work without distraction. Or enter a niche just because there is money there. They’ll tell you all sorts of things. And they’ll even get righteously indignant when you don’t do what they tell you to do. So now I’m going to tell you what to do. Seriously. Know yourself first. Yes, you can get round pegs into square holes, but it does a tremendous amount of damage to the round peg. If you like to sleep in until 10:00 am, then maybe that’s what you should do. You probably do your best work in the afternoon and evening anyway. If you have a flair for an odd niche, maybe you should find a way to monetize that, instead of going into a more popular and overcrowded field that everyone is telling you to enter. If you don’t like speaking to people in person, why are you buying that course on how to do marketing for local businesses? Figure out who you are and what you’re good at. Then build your business around YOU. For example, if you’re great at seeing the big picture and hate details, then focus on what needs to be done and have other people do the actual work through outsourcing. If you love to write but hate to deal with websites, have someone else set up and run your blog. If you hate writing but love talking, make a vlog instead of a blog. Or do a podcast. Or both. Just don’t do the thing you hate to do, because guess what? You cannot force yourself to do the things you don’t like for any real length of time. It just isn’t going to work. To be successful, figure out who you are and what you like. THEN figure out how to build a business around you, instead of trying to mold yourself to a business you simply aren’t suited to. “You have to remember the value of your individuality – that you have something special and different to offer that nobody else can.“ ~Wishing you success!Drew

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How To Start Over & Build A Business From Scratch In 3-Months

Someone asked me what I would do if I had to start a business from scratch in 3 months (90-days). And that got me thinking, if I could take the experience I have and use it to start over from scratch… How would I do it? When I say starting over, I mean it. In this hypothetical I wouldn’t have my mailing list. I wouldn’t have organic traffic, a following, name recognition – none of that. Just my experience as to what works and what doesn’t and the drive to make it happen. Now let’s say that my life depends on me having a full-time income at the end of those 3 months. No pressure there, right?It sounds unrealistic, but a lot of people find themselves in a remarkably similar situation – make more money or else… Or else they’re in trouble, or else the bills go unpaid, or else they’re facing losing their home, or… worse. So, with that in mind, here’s what I would do: I would stop looking for magic ‘make money online’ products, strategies and ideas. There is no secret combo of tricks and buttons to make money. It’s not a printing press – It’s a free market. It may sound counter-intuitive, but in that free market the way to make money is to stop focusing on the money. Simply make yourself indispensable to people who need your solution to their problem. That’s the best way to start a business. Do that and the money will follow. When you’re focused on providing solutions, you no longer be distracted by ‘Shiny Object Syndrome’ that steals your time and your money. Now, I’m not saying all programs are bad. In fact, many of the “how-to” and “step-by-step” trainings are useful as building blocks to the larger puzzle. But that’s usually all they are – they’re puzzle pieces – not full-blown businesses. So, I would start with the outcome first. What is my market? Will I offer a product or a service? What solution can I provide that people will gladly pay for? What’s THE ONE BIG BENEFIT I can provide to my customers? What is my goal (How will I know when I’ve “made it?”) Clarity is key here. You must know where you are going and how you plan on getting there. I don’t mean that you need to have all the specific tactics worked out. I’m talking about the big picture. Think of your business as a GPS. You must know exactly where you are and exactly where you want to end up; plus your chosen method of transportation, in order for it to work properly. This is the starting point of everything that will come next. Next, I would build my website. Odds are it’s going to be a blog. Now, I’m not going to spend a ton of time on setting this up because I only have 3 months to start a business and generate an income. I’ll spend an hour maximum choosing the URL, I’ll get the hosting, I’ll choose a simple, streamlined theme, I’ll get the autoresponder and I’ll be ready to get started. Yes, it takes money to get started. Not a lot, but some. You’re making an investment into your future. And if you think spending a couple of hundred dollars to set up your internet business is somehow a lot of money, consider the alternative: Spending at least that much each month just to drive to and from a job, or spending tens or hundreds of thousands for a brick and mortar business. Time to create content for that blog. But this isn’t about running a blog, it’s about running a business. The blog is just a tool to get the business done. So, here’s what I would do: Look at the big benefit I deliver, and then write down all the stumbling blocks people encounter trying to get that big benefit. Then pick out 3 of these and write detailed posts on how to overcome those barriers. Then repurpose those posts into videos (for YouTube or Facebook) and podcasts, or some type of lead magnet/incentive to get people to join my list. Notice I’m only creating 3 pieces of great content initially, not 300. And I’m repurposing those in multiple ways. Some folks spend years trying to get everything exactly right, but in this hypothetical, I’ve only got 3 months, so forget perfection and just get it done. Don’t get carried away with content creation either. Keep it simple to start, there will be plenty of time to expand later on. The blog posts should be highly focused on getting my prospects to take the next step, which is likely going to be a free consultation. Think about the format of a successful sales funnel that drive people to take a specific action. It’s not very easy to sell a $300 a month coaching program or a $1,000 website optimization package online. Especially if you are under a time constraint. But its typically much easier and faster if you can talk on the phone or in a meeting first. Next, I would offer a service or coaching. Do you know why? Because it’s the quickest way to make real money. Offering products is great, but it takes time to create the products and more time to build the lists to promote that product to. When your list is small, it’s best to focus on services or coaching because it’s the fastest way to start a business that generates a profit. Most people are already experts at something. And to be an expert you just have to have lived through and overcome a specific problem. Get people on a free call, help them solve a problem, and invite them to participate in your coaching program where you will share what is actually holding them back and how to overcome that based on your personal experience. In its simplest form, we are simply sharing our personal knowledge. Now, I’d focus on getting as many people on the phone as I can, because I know two

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