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You know that you’re going to make it big someday. You repeat this belief to your spouse, your parents, and your kids. But, there’s always something getting in your way. Why hasn’t it happened yet?

You think:

„If only I buy this product, my life is totally going to change.“

„If only I get ahold of this tool, it will all come together.“

„If only I could get rid of this problem in my life, I could have made it big already!“

„If only I had more money, I could really succeed in earning a good income.“

„If only I had more time, I could make more money.“

These are thoughts you repeat to yourself to mask what’s really going on. Do you, deep down, think things are going to change on their own? Can you really see yourself becoming one of the ones who make it big with your dream?

If you’ve been at this for a while and you’re still dreaming instead of doing, or if you’re doing and not getting anywhere, then you might have a scarcity mindset and it’s holding you back.

I like to use the visual of „treading water“ because that’s really what it’s like. Your feet are kicking away like crazy and you’re dead-tired from all the work and effort you’re putting in. But you’re not getting anywhere because you’re too scared and the current is working against you. The observers standing on shore can tell you’re not getting anywhere.

You mean well and you work hard, so why isn’t it coming together? You know you’d much rather be swimming through life with ease but something is holding you back.

That something is you… and believe me, I’ve been where you are.

You have a scarcity mindset that tells you that you can’t achieve your dreams– that you may not even deserve to achieve your dreams. This mindset mocks you and torments you but it does it in a silent way so you don’t even realize it’s invaded your brain.

It’s time to stare the scarcity monster in the face and take control. It’s time to develop a mindset of abundance so you can change your life in incredible and measurable ways.

The Backwards Power of a Scarcity Mindset

How is it that these subconscious thoughts can have so much control over your life? To understand that, it’s helpful to understand how I’m defining “scarcity mindset.”

A scarcity mindset boils down to the belief that wealth, achievement, and happiness are meant for other people. This mindset may be so encoded in your mind that it’s never even occurred to you that it’s there. You might have an ingrained belief that money is bad, that striving to earn more is bad, and that you’re bad if you don’t stick to what’s expected of you.

You may believe, deep down, that money is the root of all evil (the more accurate saying is that the love of money is the root of all evil, but many people believe the first version). You may believe that it’s impossible, immoral even, to earn money if it didn’t come from the result of blood, sweat, and tears.

In your heart, you may believe that your life is going to change in so many scary and unpredictable ways if you do achieve your goals that it’s definitely safer to stay in the situation you’re in right now, even if that means living a life of financial hardship and self-perceived failure.

There’s a social aspect to this as well. People love to complain about how hard life is and they take pleasure in finding similar misery in others. People at work love to gather around the water cooler and talk about how hard everything is and how much their job stinks. It’s expected in our society that we go to work, attempt to climb some arbitrary ladder of success, and hate every minute of it. It’s expected that a certain number of people will earn a ton of money but the rest of us will fight for the leftovers. That’s just how it is, and who are you to rock the boat?

You’re you, that’s who.

You’ve felt a calling to do something different and more. This calling might make you feel guilty, particularly if no one in your life really understands. Work for yourself? Strive to earn more? The concept seems completely nuts to a lot of people. Their perception can make you feel completely nuts.

But then, you start to meet people who are making it big. Or, you see their stories in the news. These people are earning a ton of money and they make it seem so easy. You know there are scams out there, but the people you’ve met seem to be completely legit. People spend an incredible amount of money, you reason, so there has to be someone at the other end of that.

You start digging into the various business models and see stars and dollar signs in your eyes. It’s a complete rush– the endorphins are going and you’re energized, happy, and sure your life is about to change in a major way.

You buy a ton of stuff, tell everyone you know about it, and try to get it to work. But it doesn’t work. The money doesn’t start rolling in, after all. You spend all this time in panic and desperation, you’ve spent all this time trying these different methods, you’ve spent bucket loads of money, but it’s not working.

And again, I can empathize with you. I’ve been there, done that, and survived to talk about it.

You know it’s possible to achieve your dreams. You know there are dozens of viable profit models within and you’ve tried so many of them. But you’re still stuck at your old job or with no job at all, except now you have credit card bills on top of it all. You’ve wasted time and you just feel completely crushed. You were dreaming and hoping so big and look at you now.

What if I told you this is one of the most common stories among those who are ready for more? What if I also told you that I have the cure?

It doesn’t come in the form of a pill or a bottle or a push-button course that’s going to „put piles of money into your bank account.“ Everything you need is what you’re reading right in front of you. If you’re feeling lost and frustrated and terrified that you’ll never reach your goals, never earn enough money, and never feel good about your business or life again, stay tuned. The answers are here and I know these revelations are going to be very life changing for a lot of people…

… including, hopefully, you.

How to Develop an Abundance Mindset

Now that you recognize the possibility that you have a scarcity mindset, it’s time to figure out how to change things. I don’t write about having a scarcity mindset to make people feel bad or to feel like there’s no hope. There absolutely is hope that you can ditch that mindset and attract abundance in your life. This is true even if you think certain patterns in your childhood brought you to this point or you feel like you’re totally stuck.

Have you heard of „The Secret,“ a very popular book from several years ago? Don’t worry; I’m not going to get into too much of some of the more controversial airy-fairy content from that book and movie. But I am going to talk about the Law of Attraction.

Whether you believe in its more mystical qualities or not, it’s indisputable that, on average, people who are positive, seek positive opportunities, and have a mindset of success tend to find success. Those who are negative, turn down new opportunities, and have a mindset of scarcity do not tend to find success.

You can find a lot of material about The Law of Attraction if you’re curious about that more mystical side, but I’m going to distill it down to the above, for the purposes of this content. Think positively and actively seek positivity in your life, and you will find it. If you actively look for problems and why things can’t or won’t work, you’ll attract negativity in your life.

It’s sort of like when I was driving down the highway, and my wife said to me that most of the cars we were encountering were white. I hadn’t noticed that, but as soon as she said it, my senses were tuned into car colors, and sure enough, there were more white cars than silver or red or blue or black.

I’m not saying that the fact that I was noticing this made them suddenly turn white, but what I’m saying is that expecting positive things to happen to you in your life can easily tune you into opportunities that you’d otherwise miss.

If you think things won’t work, they won’t. If you come up with all the reasons why you won’t succeed, you won’t. If you think your customers won’t buy, they won’t, or at least they won’t in the numbers that you want.

Unfortunately, even if you become aware of these patterns and thoughts, your subconscious mind can sneak into the background and will make you revert back to old patterns. This is true even if you’ve made a decision to develop a new habit or make changes to reach a goal.

You’ll self-sabotage so you don’t reach your goals because your subconscious feels its job is to make you stick to what’s „true“ about you. If you don’t believe you deserve to have money, your subconscious will sabotage you. That’s why it’s time to change your internal beliefs and mindset. You need to have an abundance mindset so your subconscious will not sabotage you, rather it will aid you in ways you won’t even realize.

Think of This in a Whole New Way

We were born to be creative, smart thinkers. We are designed to use our minds to make our lives and the lives of others better. If you go through life with a scarcity mindset, you won’t just be holding yourself back; you’ll be preventing others from benefiting from the great things you’re going to do with your life.

When you think of it like that, it almost seems selfish to stick to your old patterns and have a scarcity mindset. There are wonderful things waiting for you, you just have to tap into them. Your outcomes and success can be anything you want them to be. Commit yourself to changing your life and the lives of others and you just might be more motivated to follow through.

Consider how you feel about yourself. Do you feel you’re worthy of finding success? You have to think of yourself in a positive way. You’re a good person who is going to do wonderful things. If you believe you’re bad or unworthy, you’re not going to get very far.

The classic and beloved Winnie The Pooh stories feature an Eyeore character that is always gloomy. He’s negative and expects that bad things will happen to him. So, bad things happen to him. He doesn’t live in a nice house like his friends, though they are always trying to help him build one.

Don’t be an Eyeore. Life really isn’t that serious or bad. The money is out there, you deserve it, you can help a lot of people, and you live in a fantastic time where you can create your success, and quickly. There is literally nothing standing in your way.

By the way, having an abundance mindset doesn’t mean everything will run smoothly all the time. You will make mistakes and bad things will happen in life and in business. But when you have an abundance mindset, you’ll be able to bounce back very quickly. Nothing will hold you down for very long. You’ll know that as long as you’re alive, you’re going to live life on your own terms and you are going to succeed.

Your Abundance Mindset Will Determine Your Outcomes

What do you believe success means? It’s important to define this for yourself so you can work toward that. You might find that your concept of „success“ changes when your mindset changes. In order to achieve your goals, they have to be measurable and realistic. But what you believe is realistic and achievable right now might be different after you’ve read this content and applied its concepts.

You have to believe that you are an intelligent, kind, creative, and quick-thinking individual. That will come across in everything you do in your business and in your life. If you think badly of yourself, you’re going to hold yourself back. You won’t take the bull by the horns and do what it takes, because you won’t believe you have what it takes.

It doesn’t matter what you’re going through right now, or how much money you do or don’t have right now. You can change. It doesn’t matter how old or young you are, you’ll see the positive changes you want to see in your life if you develop an abundance mindset.

If you think abundantly, you’ll find abundance. If you believe you can do amazing things, you will do amazing things. If you believe that you can live life on your own terms, find success, and help people along the way, you will.

The Power of Opportunity

Think back to the past year or so. Did you take every great opportunity that came your way? Or, were you too scared or worried or totally ignored the opportunity? Reflect on this and really be honest with yourself as you consider whether you’ve truly taken every opportunity that was presented to you.

Successful people with a mindset of abundance are always on the lookout for new opportunities. They want to try new things (that are in line with their goals), work with new people, and take risks others aren’t willing to take.

If you want to be more successful, and develop a mindset of abundance, it’s time to seize the opportunities that present themselves to you. Take some risks– it’s scary, but it’s how success stories are made.

Right now, the opportunities might not be very clear. It might feel like every door is closed to you. Reflect on why this is and start to brainstorm where these opportunities might be lurking. They will quickly come out of the shadows so you can seize them to work in your life.

One story I love to tell is about when I owned a retail store. We sold collectibles, and mostly to boys and their fathers. At one point I sensed an opportunity to get into a new line of merchandise, whose main customer base was girls and mothers. I’m talking about Beanie Babies (back in the 1990’s).

So when I proposed this new product line to my wife, she was against the idea, but I convinced her that the initial inventory cost would be modest, and we should just try it for a while.

Long story short, that decision totally changed my life. Because of that, I got into an entirely different line of merchandise that I could sell not only in my store, but on the Internet. I first sold on eBay, and then set up my own web site, and things just exploded from there.

I saw possibilities rather than problems, and that path has led me to where I am today.

Creating a New View of Yourself and Living a Life of Abundance

You want to develop a mindset of abundance, so you have to change the way you view yourself. Let’s do an exercise that can help you see an instant new view. Create a list of 10 things you believe to be true about yourself as a person and a businessperson.

Now, create a list of 10 things you think others believe to be true about you.

Then, ask close friends and family members to list the top 10 things they think of when they think of you.

This is an interesting exercise. The three lists might be fairly closely aligned, or you might find some major surprises in your answers and in the answers of others. Either way, the way you feel and present yourself to the world will be made clear. That can be eye opening in a way that can help you get unstuck and come closer to the person you want to be with the mindset you want to have.

Awareness is the first step. Then, it’s changing your views and patterns. You can become conscious of some of your more negative thoughts so you can take steps to change them. Studies show that it takes around 21 to 30 days to create a new habit. I recommend working on just one thing at a time.

For instance, do you tend to complain that you don’t have enough time to work on your business? That’s a scarcity mindset. You have 15 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour a day. You can get a lot done in that time. Every little bit helps, and someone with an abundance mindset would see that right away and would chip away at their larger projects until the success started rolling in more quickly than they expected. Focus on changing your view and habit that you don’t have enough time.

Or, maybe you’re not willing to invest anything into your business. You hate the idea of spending any money at all, even if you know you’re likely to turn that money into huge profits, very soon. You think something will happen, or that the money will disappear, or something else terrible will happen. Turn that pessimism into optimism. You don’t have to spend money you don’t have, but giving up a few bucks for a method or tool or advertising strategy that can give you major returns is just smart business. If this is an issue for you, focus on changing this habit and this mindset issue this month.

As you can see, habits help form our beliefs about ourselves. We have well worn patterns in our lives. We do the same things and think the same things and always will, even if we set lofty goals, until we break down the habits, thoughts, and beliefs that are causing the problems and take steps to change them to form a life and business of abundance.

The post Abundant Thinking appeared first on Time Toasters.

Many people think it’s impossible to get past that hard part and get motivated, especially if you’ve been in a particularly difficult slump for a long time. Maybe you’re drained of energy, not sure which direction you should take your business in, and just generally feeling out of sorts and not on top of things.

The good news is that it’s easier than you think to get motivated and feel refreshed in your business. You can completely revamp your mindset. It can happen today, in fact. And once you do this one simple thing, everything will suddenly become so much clearer. Your path to more money and greater business success will suddenly seem so much smoother.

It doesn’t matter who you are and how much experience you have in business; this is going to help you in major ways. Revisit this section every once in a while and you’ll be able to count yourself among those who know the true secrets to success.

Here’s the Answer—Goals and Whys

The answer? It’s knowing WHY you’re in business in the first place and setting solid, specific goals that will help you get to where you want and need to be. It might sound simple and obvious– maybe you’re even rolling your eyes right now because of course you need to know what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. Of course you need to have goals… silly, right?

Do yourself a favor– don’t dismiss what I’m telling you outright. Instead, be honest with yourself. Have you really figured out your honest and true Reason Why that you’re in business? Do you have solid and extremely specific long and short-term goals that you revisit on a very regular basis?

Don’t worry if you don’t. You’re definitely not the only one. It’s easy to think you have all your ducks in a row until you really start taking a deep look into your business. Now’s the time to start. And the beautiful thing is that it will help you gain instant focus. It will help you do better and be better. Having a reason why and setting specific goals in your business can motivate you to more and better action, starting right away.

Doing this today can completely transform your business and help you earn more than ever before, and that’s the honest truth. Whether you’re completely stuck in your business and you don’t know what to do or you’re just looking to grow, expand, and achieve even bigger dreams, this is the way to do it.

How to Figure Out Your Reason Why

You might think that your reason why you’re in business is to earn money. That seems pretty logical, right? Sure, you want to earn more money, but that’s often not enough. That’s not a big enough motivator- not by a long shot.

There’s something else that can drive you to success beyond your wildest dreams as soon as you’re able to identify what that is. There’s something else that’s your life’s purpose. For me, it’s helping to change the lives of others. It means a lot to me to help others find success. It gets me up in the morning. It keeps me active and motivated. Yes, money’s important to me, but this is so, so much more important.

My reason why at the start of this century was to get out of the crushing load of debt I was under, to eliminate a very specific amount of financial worry, and to improve my health and happiness for myself and for my family. It took a while but I accomplished those goals, and that why went away, replaced with something else.

What’s your reason why? What’s going to motivate you and drive you to work hard even when you don’t really feel like it at all? Figure out what that is for you. Brainstorm and take notes until you can pinpoint what’s truly important to you– usually above and beyond money. Why are you in business? What’s going to be your legacy?

Finding Your Goals

Once you know the reason why you’re working so hard and want to be so successful, you can start to investigate your goals. Again, this can’t just be something vague like „earn more money.“ Consider your reason why. Knowing that alone should be very highly motivating for you.

Now, think about how you’re going to fulfill or achieve that reason why. What are your goals for life and business? What are your goals for your wealth, health, happiness, freedom and lifestyle?

Don’t be vague. It’s time to get really specific. What are your specific short-term financial goals? Write them down—the exact numbers and deadlines. What are your exact long-term financial goals? Write them down—exact numbers and figures.

Brainstorm your goals at first and then narrow things down from there. You might surprise yourself with what you come up with. You’ll likely find clarity you’ve never found before and that will be very exciting for you. It reinvigorates you and gives you purpose.

Your Goals and Reason Why Work Hand In Hand

Your goals and reason why work together. When you know what you’re doing and why and where you want to go, you can achieve amazing things. You finally know what you’re aiming for instead of fighting your way through, aiming in the dark. That’s what this is all about—finding clarity, purpose, and direction in your business.

Writing It Down Helps

It’s one thing to have these very specific facts and goals figured out in your mind. It’s another thing to write them down. There’s something about connecting the pen to paper that gives goals life. It’s almost like magic—your brain can start moving you toward the actions you need to take to achieve your goals… simply because they’re now solid and real.

They aren’t swimming around in your mind, unclear and uncertain. They’re on paper, they’re in front of you, and they’re what you’re determined and excited to achieve, no matter what.

Revisit This Often

I recommend you write your very specific long and short term goals down right now. This is an exercise you’ll want to do on a regular basis. In fact, you might want to revisit your goals every day. Many successful people review their goals in the morning and/or before they go to bed at night.

They’re adding new goals and either adjusting or achieving the old goals. What seemed like a huge, impossible goal just a short time ago becomes so much more achievable and they move their goals up, up, up.

It’s like a GPS device, in that you keep on track and don’t wander down rabbit holes or take a wrong turn halfway to your destination.

Don’t just set your goals and get excited for today… allow yourself to get excited for a lifetime because your business can be whatever you want it to be. Set very specific goals and revisit your reason why you’re running your own business and working so hard on a very regular basis.

Your Mindset, Goals, and Reason Why Will Absolutely Help You

This isn’t just one of those exercises that’s just there to prevent you from getting to the good stuff. This is the good stuff. Work on your mindset and you’ll suddenly start to see the success you’ve always dreamed you’d see.

Solidify your goals and grab hold of your Reason Why and there’s nothing you can’t achieve if you set your mind to it. Doing this will motivate you and excite you. You’ll start to see solutions to problems and new angles that will help you achieve so much more. This is exciting—do this today. Figure it out, write it down, and get motivated.

The post Goals and Whys appeared first on Time Toasters.

Hello, Jason Fladlien here, and today I want to discuss with you how an IM’er, an Internet Marketer, can make a difference in somebody else’s life.

There’s some interesting stuff here. I think you’re going to get a lot of benefit from this, because once you know how to deliver value better than your contemporaries deliver value, you’re going to make a lot more money. Some of this stuff is pretty obvious, but I have my own slants on it as I always do. And some of the stuff is not so obvious, and a lot of people overlook that. The result is they don’t infuse that in their marketing, and therefore, that’s one less competitive advantage they bring to the table.

Once you can understand how you can impact people’s lives and all the different ways you can do so, if you can create a plan to put as much of that into your business as possible, you’re going to kick some butt.

So when I do my internet marketing, I think to myself „What’s my job?“ And here’s really my job. It’s these things right here. We’re going to break all of these down for the most part.

My main task is to bring a simple solution to a crippling problem, but I also have to listen to them. This is a dynamic relationship, where we have to feel each other out and see what’s going on so we can work together.

The other thing here is some people like to live through others. That’s why television is so popular, because it gives us a peek inside worlds that we never see. And so I have to be able to give them a peek inside my world that they otherwise would not get access to the excitement. I’m in the inner circle. I’m making all this cash. I’m doing all these things right, and I still have integrity. They want to know what that looks like. So that’s another thing I give them.

My job is to look out for their best interests in a way that nobody else is. So I do things for them that I make sure are helpful for them, that’s not necessarily going to make me any money that you can trace to it making money, but it’s going to build a lot of good will, which will then make me money. Like I said, it’s not something very easy to trace, but I know it’s important.

So there’s times where I’ll sacrifice part of my profits or I’ll sacrifice some of my time just so I can look out for their best interests. I’ll tell them what products not to buy. I’ll tell them the traps to avoid that I know they are easily sucked into and pay money for because they get tricked. I tell them „Hey, I’m not going to trick you, and this is what you should avoid, even though, yes, I know I can use this and making a ton of money. I’m not going to because I’m looking out for your best interest.“

Be their source of unbridled optimism. There’s so much negativity out there. They need somebody to turn to who is constantly showing them the other side, the better path to take.

Finally, offer them something they can’t get anywhere else. If you do all these things, you’re going to make this true.

So let’s break down and look at some of these things individually.

The first thing here that you want to do, the main crutch in your business, the main thing that’s going to make a difference to somebody’s life is to bring a simple solution to a crippling problem.

So, for example, I’ve taken people who were broke and turned them into $40 an hour ghostwriters. So they were able to work from home, make twice or three times or even four times or even five times, actually, as much money as they ever had previously in their life, and I was able to do that for them quickly so they could measure it. They were extremely thankful. I made a difference in their lives, and they love me. They tell everybody about it, and basically, they look at every other thing that I put out there. Now they have more money to buy my other stuff — awesome.

And I’ve shown people how to write sales letters in two hours when before they couldn’t do it in two years. What did I do? One of the big things I did is I gave them something that gave them confidence that they could do it. And confidence is so valuable because a lot of people lack that. I made a difference in their life. I have changed their thinking. I have literally changed what goes on inside their head in a way that’s going to make them more valuable as a person to humanity at large. And they love me for that. They’re so happy. They’re willing to pay me a lot of money to get stuff like that. That’s great.

I did the same thing with product creation. I cut down people’s article-writing times from 50 minutes to 5 minutes. Think about how you make a difference in somebody’s life. Time is the most valuable resource that there is. I say „Here. I can get you the same result. I can do it quicker every single time.“ So if you write ten articles, I’m saving you 450 minutes. That’s a lot of time. That’s six or seven hours that you could be spending with your family. That’s six or seven hours you could be devoting your time to your hobbies, six or seven hours you could be doing other stuff that would make you more money or make you money that you otherwise couldn’t make — whatever. I’m giving you time, and time can make all the difference in somebody’s life.

Really, that’s what I’m doing. I’m finding solutions to crippling problems — simple solutions — that if they really acted on it and they had the propensity to do it, they would get the result too. That’s one of the ways I changed a life. That’s the most obvious.

Let’s get a little bit deeper with it.

The second part of your job in how to make a difference in somebody’s life is to listen to them. In life, we all seem like strangers. It’s so weird. Sometimes I’m driving my car, and I just look at all the cars go by, passing me or I’m passing them on the interstate. I’m like „I never will know this person, this person, this person, this person. I’ll never know any of these people.“

And then I see all the semis, because I live in Iowa, and you can see about 17 semis on the interstate in about five minutes. I’m thinking „Man, they’re taking all this stuff to places. These people created all this stuff. These other people are going to use this stuff and spread it out to all these other people, and I’m never going to know any of this.“ I’m standing in line at the store, and I’m like „I don’t know any of these people here. I don’t know anybody in this whole store.“

It seems in life, 99 percent of the people we pass by are strangers. And so a lot of people feel alone because of that, or isolated. Most people feel that they have no one to turn to, no one to talk to, no one that knows what they’re going through. That’s especially true in the information business, where everybody looks at us like weirdos because we want to read something or watch something or listen to something that’s going to try to give us a new skill that we didn’t possess. Most people don’t think like that.

So when you go out there and you try to better yourself in a world where nobody tries to better themselves, you get this disdain. There’s no one you can really turn to very easily who understands.

So they want to be able to feel like you’re there, you understand, because you know what they want, because you have heard their cries. You have listened to their problems, and you’re finding solutions for them.

Basically, they want somebody who understands them. They want somebody they can look at and say „Hey, I’m just like him. I can do the things he’s done. I just have to know what he knows.“ And then they want to listen to you so they can get what you know so they can do it too. That’s simple.

So that’s the second big part of your job.

The third one that a lot of people overlook is to give them vicarious thrills. Some people — the value of just feeling like they got a glimpse inside the inner circle is extremely worth a lot of money to them. This is how practically the whole network marketing business, the multi-level marketing business, is run. Most people aren’t making money at all, but as long as they can be around others who are making money, they feel like they’re doing something, like they’re part of something. So they get value in that, and that’s value you should not underestimate.

Like I said, some people don’t have the nerve to be on the field, but they love to be in the stands. So a lot of people go to sports games and they’re like „Yeah, we’re playing the Patriots this weekend.“ „Oh, you’re on the professional football team then.“ „Well, no.“ We — they have an identity with that team even though they never could do it. Just by being in the stands, they feel like they’re a part of it.

And that’s what you kind of want to foster with your little group of buyers, your little group of prospects, or anybody that you can put a marketing communication message in front of.

If they can’t do it, at least they can say they helped somebody who could. This is another thing. If they felt like they were a part and they participated in your success story in some way, even though that person didn’t succeed, they felt like they contributed some value to humanity because they helped somebody make a difference in somebody’s life, and there’s value in that.

So they’ll tell them „I’m friends with someone who…“ — this is the water cooler talk. Or „Hey, I know a guy who…“ — this is your after work bar talk with your buddies. Or your family members — „Hey, I know somebody who…“ You’re telling them about me, or you’re telling them about whoever you’re looking to for advice on solving that simple solution to a crippling problem.

So you’ve got to give them the ability to understand and give them a glimpse of what you’re going through in your life, the things you do, so that way they can feel like they’re getting a vicarious thrill, like they’re participating in your success. And they’re going to be extremely responsive, because that’s a high-level value for them.

Let me again just reiterate. Some people just don’t have what it takes to do this. I’m not one of those people who believes everybody can do this. I know that there’s some people who can’t do this and never will be able to do this. And that’s okay, because they can do a lot of stuff I can’t do that make them money. They just probably can’t do it with internet marketing.

Now, that’s only a small portion of people, but some of those people just want to belong. And why rob them of that opportunity? While they’ll never have the aptitude to do it themselves, just by participating and seeing you do it and feeling like they helped and just being in that inner circle saying „I know this guy who…“ — that’s going to give them a lot of value.

Okay, so moving on. This is another way to make a difference in somebody’s life is to look out for their best interests. I know this sounds silly, but everybody is so self-interested that they don’t understand that it’s in your self-interest to help other people. It’s so weird. It’s like the more you give, the more you get. I don’t know how it works. I just know that it works.

One of your jobs is to warn them about potential threats that they would otherwise be unaware of. Sometimes it’s at the sacrifice of profits — yes, that’s true. I do this a lot. Sometimes it’s a sacrifice of contacts or of business partners. You just say „Hey, I like this guy and I follow him, but this is one opportunity that he’s a part of that I don’t endorse. And I don’t think you should get sucked in, because in my opinion, it’s flawed.“

You’re going to bat for your customers, and you’re alienating yourself. You’re running the risk that people are going to get mad at you. I’ve been threatened with lawsuits before because I told my customers I didn’t like this product. They’re like „That’s libel. You’re going to get sued.“ I’m just like „Whatever, man. I got to step up and look out for their best interests.“ Nobody else, in my opinion — when I looked around — nobody else was saying the things that I thought needed to be said, so I said them.

That’s your job, too. You’ve got to say the things that other people are afraid to say that you know are in your customers‘ best interest.

The other thing you need to do — and this kind of ties in with the next point here — is safeproof them from negative social conditioning.

You’ve got to be that guy who doesn’t allow them to be around their soul-sucking friends, who will tell them that they’re foolish or chasing a dream or whatever. You’ve got to look out and let them know that that’s going to happen to them. Then you’ve got to equip them with strategies to deal with that in a positive manner.

Finally, make small sacrifices for your customers from time to time. And again, sacrificing is in your best interest. It’s a great paradox. I love it that it works that way.

So from time to time, do things that don’t make you any money right away. Just do them because you want to give something back. So one time for my list I said „Hey, I’m doing two hours of free ad critiques. Here’s how it works: Send me your ad, your piece of copy. If you get it in to me, I’m going to take them in the order I get them. I’m going to critique this, and I’m going to put it up on the internet, and you can watch the video of my critique. This is free. Normally I charge a lot of money for a sales critique — $75 for a half an hour or $125 for a full hour. However, I just want to give something back to you, and this is the way that I thought I could do this. So reply to this, and you’ll benefit from it.“ And yeah, people loved that.

Another time I said „Hey, I’m going to put together a little source to refer people who ask me for ghostwriters to this page. So if you’ve got information as a ghostwriter and you do ghostwriting, send me your details. I’ll put this together, and then when people come and ask me for referrals, I’ll just send them to this page.“ I’m not making any money that way. It’s just taking up my time is what it’s doing, but I’m looking out for their best interests. I know if I can help them succeed, then they’re going to help me succeed. They’re going to want to help me succeed. That’s part of it.

This next thing is a major, major biggie that a lot of people just don’t understand. They overlook it in their business as a service provider, and they shouldn’t, and that’s to be the source of unbridled optimism.

70 to 80 percent of our thoughts are negative. If you are the average person, almost four out of five thoughts that you think are negative in nature. A lot of it has to do with the culture we’re raised in. When you’re a kid, what are you told all the time? „Don’t do that. No. Stop. Put that down. No, no, no, no, no.“

Then you go to school. Guess how they grade you. They don’t mark everything you got right on your paper. They only mark everything you got wrong on your paper.

And you’re usually taught by people who are not very successful. You’re taught by business teachers who have never ran a business in their life. You’re taught by art teachers who have never had a painting published or a work of art. You’re taught by musicians who have never toured or played a live gig before. You’re taught by chemistry teachers who the only chemistry they do is in their head, mixing chemicals about how negative they are. On and on and on.

You’re taught by all these people who make nothing. I’ve made more in a week than most starting teachers make in a whole year, and you’re taught by these people who make nothing and who are usually miserable and settle on teaching as a last resort. And this is what you grow up in, and you spend six hours a day, seven, eight hours a day in this environment for 15 years, 14 years, maybe more if you go to college.

And the result is you get all these negative thoughts by just being in the social cog — a machine.

So you as a service provider have to be that person that fixes that for them. You’ve got to be that person who gives them that ray of hope constantly from every single different angle that you can. You’ve got to be a living example of unbridled optimism.

This is very real to me. Recently my brother passed away, and what did I do? I showed my list of customers, I showed the people around me, how to respond to that situation. So I found every single positive thing I could take away from something so sad — like my 8-year-old brother passing away. It was tragic. And what did I do? I turned it into every single positive that I could, and I went out there and I showed them by example — unbridled optimism — how I’m going to get through this. I’m going to figure out how to make this work, and I’m going to actually be a better person because of this. I’m going to touch more people then I would otherwise touch. I’m going to turn this devastating challenge into an opportunity.

And everybody picked up on that. They were like „This is amazing.“ They got caught up in it, and I impacted their lives because of that. That’s the difference you can make in somebody else’s life. I showed them how to think positively in the most negative of all situations.

The other thing is the status quo is so freaking mundane. I grew up in a factory town where 25 percent of employed people worked at one factory, because it was a really big factory. So one out of every four working adults that you would see on the streets worked in this factory, and this factory works like this.

You typically work either first or second shift, but a lot of people work second shift, so your whole social calendar is screwed up. You work eight hours a day; you go home; watch TV; hang out with the wife or the husband; work eight hours a day; and then on the weekend you go out and get hammered because your life sucks so much. It’s boring.

The status quo is mundane, and you want to give them something that enlivens them and gets them excited. Normal people get normal results, so you don’t want to be normal, and you don’t want to explain stuff in a normal fashion. You want to explain stuff with a new slant, and you want to give them a new way of looking at doing the stuff that they’re doing in their lives and new approaches so they can get new results.

You want to be different than what the norm is. Offer them alternatives to the norm by giving them different options, like I was talking about.

Like I talked about earlier, show them how to handle setbacks properly. Be that example of how to always think positive no matter what situation occurs. Always point out the opportunity. Always show them the potential growth in any situation.

And finally, you never want to let them give up on their dreams. You always want to continue to push them to chase that ideal solution that they’re picturing in their mind 24/7. You always want to be able to be that person that says it’s possible. Show them every single testimonial you can. Show them every single case study that you can. Show them every factoid. Show them every bit of statistics. Show them every bit of your own personal insight. It shows that it’s possible for somebody who is determined to achieve their dreams, and that will make a difference in someone’s life.

It all boils down to this. It all boils down to offering them something of value that they just can’t get anywhere else. So if you can combine really good information with really actually listening to them deeper than most people do — give them a little glimpse into what their life could be like. Always look out for their best interests, and be that person, that ray of light, that rose that grows in the concrete in the middle of the street — be that thing. Be that unbridled source of optimism.

If you combine all these things together, then you’re going to be able to offer them not only the best information, but the best experience of their lives. They can’t get that anywhere else. If you do that, you’ll make a difference in somebody else’s life. And the cool thing is that if you help them get what they want, they are more than likely to help you get what you want.

So thank you for listening, and get out there now and do your job.

Jason Fladlien

The post How an IM’er Can Make a Difference in Someone’s Life appeared first on Time Toasters.

In the book I talked about how it was in 2005 that I sat down with myself after 3 long years of constant failure, told myself that I had to quit chasing what I now call “bright shiny objects”, and simplify things.

Bright shiny objects are the little things that glitter in your path as you move along in life. Things might be going relatively well, but a BSO will distract you from what’s working, and pull you off the path to something that looks enticing but is really just a distraction.

Although many other traits in your power arsenal are also essential, I truly believe that focus is the driving force of them all.

Unfortunately, it isn’t obvious how truly essential focus is to your success. What becomes obvious is what happens when you lack focus. You’re distracted from essential tasks. You become unproductive. You don’t get things done that need to be done. You start feeling frustrated. You begin to believe that you can’t reach your goals, or you stop setting goals altogether, or at best you set simple goals that are easy to reach and not the “stretch goals” that can truly change your life.

Worst of all, the BSOs that contribute to your lack of focus cause you to feel unworthy of success altogether because you think that you aren’t capable of performing up to your capability.

It isn’t that you aren’t capable, and it isn’t that you’re trying to do too many things; it’s that you’re trying to do too many things at the wrong time.

You see, you are indeed capable of doing multiple things, but usually not at the same time unless they’re trivial tasks. If you try to do multiple important tasks at the same time, none of them will get done well.

Chase two rabbits… both will escape.

One reason that chasing BSOs is detrimental to your success is that it’s a common symptom of procrastination. You might actually be trying to sabotage yourself by procrastinating on a task because you secretly have a fear of success.

Hardly anyone ever admits to a fear of success, but it’s very, very common.

You might fear success because you don’t want to leave your comfort zone. You’ve lived your entire life doing things a certain way, with a certain income, a certain set of friends, your family has adapted to the lifestyle you’ve allowed them to become accustomed to, etc.

Getting out of that comfort zone exposes you to unknown results, so rather than focus on doing what it takes to change, you let yourself be distracted, delaying the task that you should be working on.

So you don’t change, and you’re comfortable… but you’ve sabotaged your personal progress.

Fear of success is much more powerful that a fear of failure because most people aren’t even aware that they have this fear, and will resist being accused of it. You can’t begin to change a habit that you’re unaware that you have.

Awareness is indeed half (or more) of the battle.

I remember the Pogo comic strip, which is quite likely well before your time, and one of the famous and so appropriate quotes was „We have met the enemy and he is us.“

Learn to be aware of who the enemy is, and root him out of your mindset.

Here’s another exercise that will hopefully convince you of the power of focus…

What is there that you’ve been wanting to do, or wanting to learn, for years?

Let’s say that you (like me) wanted to become really good with a complicated software tool like Photoshop.

Right now I’m scared to death of anything that involves graphics, and I resist doing things that require them, even though they would be great for my business.

So I keep going along my merry way doing other things besides learning Photoshop.

How long do you think it would take to become proficient and comfortable with Photoshop if I really sat down and focused on it, ignoring everything else for as long as necessary?

I figure 2 8-hour days, maybe 3.

One of these weeks I’ll do it. Really I will. Until then I’ll advise you to do as I say, not as I do.

What have you always wanted to get good at? A programming language or HMTL or CSS? Running webinars or Google hangouts? Podcasting? Pay per click advertising?

It isn’t that you can’t do those things, it’s that you haven’t focused on learning how to do them yet.

Focus and you’ll be able to achieve much more than you ever thought possible in ridiculously short amounts of time. You can do anything you want to if you focus on it.

Did you ever try to keep track of how much time you actually spend each day doing tasks that contribute to your progress, your success, your income?

I’ll bet if you did, you’d be amazed at how much time you’re actually consuming that does nothing to move you forward. You check emails, you chat on Skype, you check your Facebook feed, and you watch all the funny videos. Then you contact someone to share those funny videos with them.

And on and on it goes all day, until you reach the end, and you’re exhausted, and you haven’t accomplished much of anything at all.

That has to stop. You have to focus on the task at hand. You need to be accountable to yourself at least, and to an accountability partner if you want the ultimate boost. Telling someone you’re going to get something specific accomplished in a given day is a good way to force yourself to actually focus on that task.

Inside The IM Inside Track, we’re going to stress the importance of focus over and over, and I’m going to be giving you some concrete methods that will help you improve your ability to focus as well. Hopefully my suggestions will lead to eventual formation of habits that will make the art of focusing second nature for you.

But until then, make it a conscious effort to be more focused on single specific tasks during your normal day, and I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at the results.

The post Focus appeared first on Time Toasters.

Free is great! There are so many wonderful opportunities to promote your business and get traffic to your web properties by using free traffic. I want you to realize, though, that there’s a cost for using „free“ methods. You pay with your time, including the fact that free methods can take a lot longer to take hold.

Sometimes, such as with Facebook, you’ll get to choose whether you want to use free traffic, paid traffic, or both. Ideally, you’ll end up using both.

But I’ve been around long enough to know that many people are mostly attracted to the free traffic methods. I understand that, as we all want to get things for free. Also, some of the free traffic methods are completely amazing and can produce even better results than some of the paid methods—you just have to know what to use and when.

With certain paid methods, you can literally set up an ad and receive traffic within minutes. This allows you to test conversions and start making money right away. Of course, you have to know what you’re doing so you don’t lose your shirt.

If you spend days, weeks, and months on free traffic methods that you hope will pay off… but it’s a bad campaign or it’s not targeted right or something else happens, there’s a huge opportunity cost there. You could have set up an ad and had your answer as to whether that squeeze page (or whatever) was going to work or not within a few hours.

Hours vs. months… no competition, right? How much is your time worth, anyway? Once you know the paid ad is working you can expand out into free ads. That’s the best way to drive traffic, in my opinion.

Please don’t just pay attention to the free traffic methods and ignore the paid traffic methods, and vice versa. It is important to invest in your business, and that means investing with both your money and your time.

If you’re short on cash, you can certainly start out with free methods and then move to paid methods once you have some cash to work with. If you do have the money, start out slowly with paid traffic and work your way up as you gain more experience. For example, spending $5-$10 a day on Facebook ads can give you some great results and isn’t overly risky at all. Then, you can work your way up to spending $500+ a day once you know what you’re doing, for some extremely big profits.

Think about it, if you could get $10 income for a $5 investment, and then scaled that up to a $10 investment and made $20, and kept going until you were investing $500 and earning $1000, wouldn’t you do that?

With free traffic, there’s a limit about how much you can get based on how your site is ranked on the search engines, and that can change overnight (up or down, but often it’s down).

If you’ve read my “5 Bucks a Day” book, you know that I talked there about the fact that I used paid traffic to send visitors to pages, and I was spending at the peak around $1,000 a day. However I didn’t unleash that budget until I was sure of my conversions, and knew exactly how much each visitor to my site was worth on average.

Once I realized that each visitor was worth 20 to 25 cents, and I knew that I could pay 10 cents per visitor, it was as easy a decision to make as it would be to buy $20 bills for $10 each, and be willing to take as many as someone was willing to sell me.

Obviously, you have to be sure of your costs, your conversions, and your visitor value before you undertake a plan like that, but it’s certainly possible.

If I had to rely on free traffic for the campaign that made me a profit of $38,000 in around 6 weeks, I would have probably made nothing, because I would have had to work and wait for the pages to rise to the first page on Google, and since it was an extremely competitive set of keywords that I was targeting, it probably wouldn’t have happened.

Free and Paid Traffic—Perfect In Combination

I urge you to take advantage of paid traffic opportunities as soon as you can. If you have the money when you first start out, go ahead and engage in paid traffic right away. You’ll be able to test and track results much more quickly. The results you get with paid traffic can then be translated to organic, free traffic methods.

The opposite is also true. If you find a free traffic method that works with a certain group in your niche, you should ramp your efforts up with paid traffic. If you’re already getting traffic one way and earning money one way, you may as well find multiple ways so you can earn even more. Also, when you pay for traffic, you’ll spend a lot less time on your marketing.

By the way, some of your paid traffic generation techniques will actually funnel into your organic traffic techniques. For instance, you might pay for Facebook ads that funnel people to your Facebook pages, and/or to your email list, and then your email broadcasts become free traffic.

It is totally free to create a Facebook page, but it can take a lot of time and effort to grow that Facebook page organically. When you pay for traffic, you’ll see instant growth. Incidentally, paying for ads to a Facebook page can also dramatically increase the number of organic likes you receive since the friends of all those paid clicks will see your page now, too.

It all works hand-in-hand. I don’t recommend you ever use just one way of driving traffic. Maybe you specialize in one traffic generation technique. That’s great! With that said, you should never put all of your eggs in one basket. Use a variety of techniques, including free and paid. Your free techniques will help your paid techniques. Your paid techniques will help your free techniques.

For example, if you’re marketing your own product, and you have affiliates, once you have established that your site is performing well as far as conversions, affiliates will be much more likely to promote for you, and that’s free traffic.

Whether you’re using paid or free techniques, you always want to drive traffic to your list. Getting that email address will cement your success forever. You never want to market to people just one time—especially if you paid for their click. You don’t want them to visit your site just one time. You want to get them into your traffic funnel for the long term.

Always consider this when you pay for traffic. You want to get the most for your money. That means getting people on your list, liking and following your social media properties, and so on. Many, many people pay for traffic, get one sale or some passing interest, and nothing else.

Any traffic you pay for or work for the organic way should be the start of something long term. In general, this means driving people to an email opt-in form. Build a relationship with them there and you can get them to visit you on social media, read all of your blog posts, buy the products you release, watch your videos, subscribe to your podcast, consider your affiliate product recommendations, and so on.

The post Paid Vs. Free Traffic appeared first on Time Toasters.

Once you know the answer to that, you can develop a strategy you can follow through with every day to grow your presence on social media. As you develop a following on social media, you can then drive traffic to your web properties.

Remember to provide a lot of value. This isn’t about spamming your link all over social media. This is about helping people and developing real relationships so people will naturally want to check out what you have to offer.

The post Be Where Your Audience Is appeared first on Time Toasters.

There are many different ways to drive traffic to your business online. The choices might be overwhelming – what should you do first? What should you focus most of your time and attention on?

There’s no easy answer to that question because every niche and business is different, but it’s a safe bet that social media should be a huge part of your overall strategy to generate traffic.

The web is social. Social media is where people learn the latest news, keep up with people, products, services, businesses, and more. It’s generally expected these days that a business should be found on social media. It’s where customers are now trained to connect with businesses they care about.

That’s good news for you, too. Social media is a wonderful way for you to get to know your customers. You can use social media for niche research, to understand your audience more fully, to develop strategies that will be a hit with your audience, and to become known in your niche.

The more well known you become on social media, the easier it will be for you to generate traffic to your web properties. Your goal should be to become an authority to people in your niche. They should see your posts and tweets and activities on social media and know that you are someone to watch, as well as someone with a personality.

It’s so important to be present and helpful on social media. That’s the sort of thing that will help you get noticed. When you get noticed on social sites, you’ll get more followers. People will come to respect your opinion. They’ll naturally want to check out your website and your business—that’s the goal.

Who Are the Current Social Media Superstars?

Consider the people who are currently social media superstars in your niche. Where do they (and the audience) hang out? They might be on Facebook or Twitter. How do they conduct themselves?

They probably spend a lot of their time interacting with members of that niche. They answer questions, retweet or share things of interest, hit on the latest news and changes within the niche, and more. They are seen as thought leaders. People flock to them because they’ve made themselves so magnetic.

Take notes on what these superstars are doing because that can give you some great clues as to what you should do on social media. They’re likely generating a lot of traffic, and success leaves clues.

Driving Traffic Using Facebook

There are three main areas to Facebook. You have your typical profile, where you typically “friend” family and friends. There are also Facebook pages and Facebook groups. We’ll focus on pages and groups.

You can create a Facebook page that will be of interest to the people in your audience. I don’t mean just creating a page for your business – I mean creating a page that represents an interest of the niche overall.

This should be something people will „like“ because they actually do like it. Right now, they don’t know much, if anything, about your business (assuming you’re just getting started). What will capture their attention?

You can get ideas by looking at some of the most popular Facebook pages within your niche. Create a page people will really go for – something they’ll like even if they don’t know who you are quite yet.

Once you start a Facebook page, you can comment as that page (generating interest from similar pages), run ads to that page, and otherwise interact to get more people to like your page. You can share helpful information, photos, helpful posts, and more. People will start to share your content, leading to more likes.

You can also join or start your own Facebook group. Facebook groups are a bit different in that they offer more of a community feel.

Do a search for existing groups in your niche. Get a feel for how these groups are run. Consider how they benefit their creator. How does the owner of the group use the group to drive traffic and represent himself or herself as an authority figure in the niche?

Once you understand how Facebook groups work, you can start your own. This group should be created with the intent of being helpful to people. In addition to being helpful to people, you can link to your web properties, squeeze pages, special offers, and more.

Driving Traffic with Twitter

Twitter is another very popular social site and it can be very useful to drive traffic, depending on the niche you’re in. To get a feel for this, take a look at what heavy twitter users in your niche are already doing.

Start to follow people in your niche – including those heavy hitters and those who are following those heavy hitters. Tweet and retweet interesting things. Make use of hashtags and popular keywords in your niche to generate more interest.

You can list your company’s web address in your profile, tweet your squeeze pages, special offers, and more. Keep in mind that twitter moves much more quickly than most social media sites, so you’ll really need to study Twitter to maximize its effectiveness.

If you get a lot of followers, and write tweets that are interesting and intriguing and generate clicks, you can drive some great traffic to your web properties.

Driving Traffic with Pinterest

Pinterest is an interesting social site because its focus is on sharing (or “pinning”) pictures of things. If you have more of a visually focused business (fashion, fitness, etc.), this is definitely a social media site you’ll want to pay attention to.

You can start to pin graphics and images from your blog or website. Repin things other people pin. Start to follow boards on Pinterest and do a good job of organizing your own boards so other people will follow them, click on your pins, and visit your links.

It can take some time to become familiar with Pinterest. Study those who are already effectively using this site and come up with your own strategy.

As you pin images from your blog or website, they can be re-pinned by others, bringing you some great traffic. In some cases your pin might be re-pinned thousands of times.

Make use of hashtags and keywords within your descriptions on Pinterest so those who use the search bar on Pinterest come across them.

Also, make sure you put easy-to-use buttons on your blog or website so people can pin your content themselves. The idea here is that you want others to pin things from your webpage organically and re-pin things you’ve already pinned, in the hopes that you’ll gain a wider audience of people clicking through to your website.

Getting Traffic with LinkedIn

LinkedIn is fantastic for business-to-business social media especially. Your LinkedIn profile is where people can go to learn more about your company. If you’re in the Internet marketing niche, offline marketing niche, or anything like that, this is definitely where you need to be.

LinkedIn is all about networking. You can get to know people in your niche, potential partners, and more.

LinkedIn allows you to link to your other social media accounts and interlinking is a good thing for traffic generation.

There are also groups right on LinkedIn you can start or join. This is how you can become more well known, getting people interested in what you have to say so they’ll naturally want to visit your website and see what you have to offer.

Getting Traffic with Instagram

As with Pinterest, Instagram isn’t for everyone. Instagram is a site where you can share images and graphics. It’s less flexible and quite different from Pinterest, though, other than the fact that both sites rely on images.

This is more of a site for those in visual fields, such as fashion. You’ll gain Instagram followers by using hashtags, following others, and consistently sharing high-quality images that are attractive and interesting to your audience.

The post Using Social Media for Traffic appeared first on Time Toasters.

There are so many marketers successfully getting rivers of traffic to their websites every single day. How do they do it, and what about the rest of us? Is there some secret we should all know about driving traffic?

The answer is no, not really. The secret is that you need the right strategies and dedication to make it happen. It requires you to stay on top of what’s working now. What worked several years ago often doesn’t work today, especially if those methods were a little sneaky or lazy.

The funny thing is it’s easier and faster to do it the right way than it is to try to trick people and search engines into visiting your site. If you have the right strategy, you can easily drive thousands of visitors to your website, product, service, or business.

Not only will you be able to drive as much traffic as you’d like, but you’ll also be driving the right kinds of traffic. You’ll get highly targeted people to quickly become fans of your work and come around again and again.

Plus if you get the right kind of traffic, it will convert much better into the action that you desire, and then often affiliates will be much more likely to want to send you even more of their traffic.

I’m not into boring methods that don’t work. I’m not into trying things that take forever to do with little result. What I am into are innovative, top-of-the-line traffic generation strategies that are going to have dramatic results for your business. I love finding new and exciting ideas and putting them to the test. That’s why I’ve researched and found the very best strategies there are so I can share with you what’s working right now.

I’m including some of the very best ways to drive traffic as part of this overview. This isn’t a complete list, but it does contain what you need to get started successfully driving high converting traffic.

Search Engine Optimization

You have to keep readers and searchers in mind. What do they really want and how can you give it to them? You should provide very high quality, very thorough content. You should also have a lot of activity and freshness on your website. This means interacting with your readers and keeping your site up to date. This is one reason why blogs are a phenomenal way to drive traffic.

Focus on your readers and customers first, and Google will take notice. Spread your brand everywhere, be helpful, and be present in as many places as possible.

Building links to your site can be very helpful. Here are some ways to manually build links:

You can:

• Guest post on others‘ blogs
• Comment on blogs
• Submit articles to article directories, like EzineArticles.com
• Submit your site to blog directories
• Submit your site to site directories
• Write a great, different post that many people want to link to

Guest Posting

One of the most powerful ways to build backlinks, authority, and your presence on the web overall is to submit guest blog posts. Guest posting on other people’s blogs is a fantastic method of leveraging the traffic of an already established marketer. Many website owners love guest posts because it gives them a little bit of a posting break and exposes their audience to a different viewpoint, which is very valuable.

Creating Great Content

If you’re going to dominate the search engines, then you need to create fantastic content people will want to share and link to. If people are linking to it from their own blogs and websites and sharing it on social media, you can bet Google and other search engines will take notice and rank you highly for the keywords you desire.

Blogging For Traffic

If you aren’t yet blogging, it’s time to get started. It doesn’t matter what your business is or what you’re marketing, it’s beneficial to everyone. You can use something like WordPress on your hosting account, which is easy to use and free. Or, you can use a hosted Blogger.com blog. Make a plan to stay consistent with your blogging and write content people will want to share so you can become a well-branded leader in your niche.

Press Release Traffic

Press releases have long been a great strategy to get attention to a business. Online press releases can work extremely well. Unfortunately, releasing press releases online has been abused by many marketers, so you definitely want to make sure you only focus on the highest quality press release distribution websites. For example, PRNewsWire.com is an excellent press release site to pay attention to.

Using Images to Drive Traffic

Getting traffic isn’t just about written content. Images can have a big impact on who shares your content, who finds you, and how popular your brand becomes. People can find your images via image searches. They can find your images on social media. They can find your images just about everywhere especially if you take steps to make sure your images are branded well and lead a clear path back to your website.

Using Social Media to Drive Traffic

Social media is an essential part of any traffic plan. It’s so important that even search engines like Google pay attention to social signals when determining popularity and rankings. If you’re not already using social media, you should start right away. If you’re already using social media, it’s time to make sure you’re using it in the best possible way.

It doesn’t matter which niche you’re in, people in your niche are very active on social media. They’re looking for stories, tips, how-to articles, entertainment, products, services, and friendships based on the topic they’re interested in. They join groups, follow people of authority, and digest, share, and comment on social media posts of interest. This makes social media a fantastic way to grow your audience and get more traffic to your website and business in general.

Using social media, you can share content you’ve written. You can share images and infographics. You can get to know the leaders in your niche and network in a way that will help you become one of them. There’s no shortage to the ways using social media can help you grow your business and get more traffic.

Your goal is to get people interested in what you have to say. You want them to like, retweet, and share your content. You want them to become so invested that they then join your list, buy your product, and learn from you away from the social media platform as well.

Your ideal customer or reader is someone who doesn’t just follow you on Twitter or like you on Facebook. Your ideal reader isn’t someone who just visits your blog sometimes. Your goal is to get people interested enough that they see your content on your blog, in the search engines, on all relevant social media sites, and in their email inbox. You’re going to have a much bigger impact on your audience if your content and presence is inescapable. That’s a big part of the reason why social media is so important.

Some Social Networks to Use:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Google+
• Pinterest
• Instagram
• Tumblr

Using YouTube and Other Videos to Drive Traffic

Video is a wonderful way to get traffic. Some marketers prefer using video and find themselves naturally drawn to it. Other marketers are very wary– probably because they think it will be too difficult to get started with. The great news is that you don’t have to be all that tech savvy to really do well with video. If you haven’t started using video yet, you’re really missing out.

Think of the companies out there that do a great job with video. There are so many wonderful video ads, viral videos, vlogs, Hangouts, and more. The fact is that some people in your audience will respond best to video. You’ll do well to cater to them, using the awesome (mainly free) tools that are out there.

Using Podcasting and Audio to Drive Traffic

Podcasting is an amazing way to get additional traffic. There are a lot of people out there who don’t prefer to watch videos or read articles. It’s not an all or nothing thing, though. There are plenty of people who just don’t have enough hours in the day to consume your content. What they may have are hours spent in a car or a train where the only thing they can do is listen to content, rather than read it or watch it.

Audio is easy to create and release. iTunes and other platforms, make it really easy for you to distribute your podcasts. You may want to start with podcasting if you’re nervous about creating video– it’s not as intimidating because you don’t have to be on camera. It’s also less intimidating than hosting your own webinars or seminars and can be a good segue to that.

You don’t need fancy equipment at all. In fact, you can use free programs (like Audacity) that you can download right to your computer. You can even just use free or paid apps on your Smartphone or tablet. There’s really no excuse for not giving it a try because there’s no barrier to entry at all.

There’s a lot to be said for written content, but there’s also a lot to be said for audio content. People can connect with you on a deeper level when they can hear your voice. Listening to someone (you) speak allows for deeper learning and engagement. That’s a great gift you can give your audience. It’s also a great gift you can give yourself since you’ll be able to get a lot more traffic as a result.

Drive Great Traffic

Driving traffic is one of the most important things you can focus on in your marketing. It isn’t hard to drive traffic, but it does require you to be consistent. It does require you to use methods that will keep you in the race for the long haul.

Focus on the people, where the people are, what they want, and how you can give it to them. That’s a formula for success. Remember, what you focus on grows.

The post Traffic Overview appeared first on Time Toasters.

Give it a try—start today.

You can work less and earn more.

You can feel powerful in your work.

We all get the same 24 hours in a day, and now you’ll be maximizing yours.

Dealing With Fatigue and Other Issues

You’re sick and tired… and you’re sick and tired of being sick and tired. It’s hard to wake up everyday and get to work when you aren’t feeling your best. In fact, it seems impossible most days.

It’s not that you’re lazy and you do want to work- you absolutely do. You have big dreams and goals and you will stop at nothing to achieve those goals. You know that means working hard.

Eventually, when you’re feeling better, that is. For now, you’re trying to run through quicksand. Your brain is foggy and your eyes are drooping. It doesn’t matter what time of day it is; you’re exhausted. You’re barely surviving.

The good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way. There are steps you can take to feel good and invigorated again. It’s important to pay attention to your health and wellness, for example. It’s also a matter of getting excited about what you’re doing and feeling alive again.

What’s Your Health Like?

Let’s talk about what is perhaps the most obvious issue here. Are you getting enough sleep? Don’t roll your eyes and dismiss this question as being silly or insignificant. Sometimes, the simplest answer is the best and most important one.

When do you go to sleep at night? Do you get a full seven to eight hours of sleep? If you don’t, make that a priority. You’ll feel better and you’ll be a lot more productive.

Sometimes, there are chronic health issues that really make it difficult to be productive. Whether it’s something like chronic pain, depression, or another illness.

There are certainly no easy answers to things like this. You can’t just snap your fingers and feel better. But you can visit your doctor and see what can be done. You can make sure you’re getting enough sleep at night. You can take care of yourself.

Sometimes, when you’re working really hard, taking care of yourself falls by the wayside. You think you should be working, working, working non-stop. How else are you going to succeed? At least, that’s your train of thought. The fact is that you’ll do better and be so much more productive if you do take the time to rest up.

Take breaks, even short naps especially if you’re working from home. Go for a walk. Eat right. Exercise. It’s advice we hear all the time for a variety of problems but we don’t always pay attention to it. But if you want to be more productive in your business and earn more and truly succeed in business, it’s exactly this advice that we need to pay attention to.

Getting More Done By Working Less

Let’s continue on with that thought. Part of the reason you’re so fatigued is likely because you’re working so much. If you’re in the early stages of your business, then you might be studying, reading, and experimenting. If you’ve been in business for a while and haven’t yet found the success you want to find, then you might be spending most of your time, day and night, simply trying to stay afloat.

That’s exhausting. It’s exhausting to always be “on” when it comes to your work. You (and everyone else) need a break. You need some time for some rest and relaxation. That’s one of the main reasons my wife and I purchased our beach condo. You need to get away from the office, clear your head, reconnect with nature, take part in your hobbies, and things of that nature.

You’re not superhuman. As much as you wish you were or as much as you think you must try to be, it’s impossible. We aren’t designed to work day to night, stuck in front of the computer. We need time away from work.

You’ll feel refreshed and revived if you give yourself that time off. You’ll be so much more productive when you do return to your work. Things that used to take you hours upon hours now might take just a short time.

Your body and mind are telling you something if you feel fatigued all the time. Fatigue is death to productivity. So now you have to work with your mind and body to figure out what you need to do to feel revived, refreshed, and powerful when it comes to working each day.

Be Clear about What You’re Doing

Another reason many people feel fatigued and drained while they work is because there’s too much thinking going on. You’re thinking, stewing over decisions, and trying this, that, and the other thing.

It might sound strange that I’m telling you that “thinking” is making you too tired. On the other hand, I absolutely mean it. Thinking and overthinking drains you of productivity. You can’t be high energy and highly productive if you’re always worrying and wondering whether you’re making the right moves.

That’s why it’s so important to be well planned. Plan ahead for everything you do. Know what you’re supposed to be working on in your business, what your goals are, how you’re going to achieve those goals, and what you should wake up and do each day.

Don’t float from one project to the next, never finishing anything at all. Be clear about your path and your purpose. Finish what you start.

You’ll find that your newfound productivity is catching. The more you get done, the easier it will be for you to get even more stuff done. Instead of thinking of yourself as a tired, low-productivity person, you’ll start thinking of yourself as a highly efficient and productive person. The proof will be in the pudding.

It could also be the case that what you’re working on currently isn’t in alignment with your Reason Why and/or your goals. Your subconscious might be pushing back against what you’re doing, without you realizing it.

Sure, there are things you have to do that aren’t the most enjoyable in the world, but if you realize it, and acknowledge that it’s only temporary, you might feel much better mentally during those periods and start being more productive again in order to get them out of the way.

Take Some Time to Fix This Problem

I obviously can’t diagnose your specific problem through this article. What I can do is recommend that you brainstorm and really meditate over your potential problems today.Why are you so tired? Why does the thought of working on your business drain you of energy?

It might be that you honestly need more rest and relaxation. It might be that you have some health problems to attend to and work with. For example, maybe it’s your eyesight. The nonstop sessions staring at your computer monitor aren’t healthy to your eyes and could cause eyestrain, which you don’t notice because you’re used to it, but will make you chronically overtired.

Know your limitations… but also know when you should push yourself.

Most people will need to more clearly define their thoughts and goals. Figure out what you’re working toward and do your thinking and planning ahead of time. It’s easier to feel energetic when you aren’t guessing and struggling each day.

You’ll be able to manage your time better when you have real, specific goals you’re working toward. You’ll be able to manage your time better when you aren’t so darn tired.

Fix this problem and you’ll be so much more productive and successful.

A word of caution– you’ll find yourself in slumps like this again—so rinse and repeat for as long as you need to, to bring your energy and productivity levels up again.

The post Getting More Done In 24 Hours As A Highly Productive Person appeared first on Time Toasters.