The New Years Resolution Rulebook

I think it’s fair to say that New Years resolutions have become a bonafide joke. Most of us have been there…

We set a number of new years resolutions, feel great the first few weeks, but slowly start losing the momentum we had on January 2nd. The slacking starts and faster than you can say “gym membership”, our resolutions become yesterday’s news. By June, we probably can’t remember what half our resolutions were and by the next January, we’ve renewed our faith in goal setting because this time, we’re really going to do it.

So, after years of this, one day I sat back and contemplated the “why” of it. Why do I reach some goals and not others? What’s the difference and how can I use this information to my benefit?

In the end, I came up with a list of goal setting “rules”. I dubbed them the Resolution Rulebook and over the past few years, they’ve proven to be invaluable in helping me set and reach goals. Enjoy…

The New Years Resolution Rulebook

Don’t make resolutions just because it’s New Years.

The fact that it’s New Years is perhaps the worst reason to set goals (and in my opinion, a big reason many New Years resolutions are canned). As campy as it may sound, goals need to come from you and your desire to change. If you’re setting a goal merely because ‘that’s what you should do in the New Year’, give up now, it’s a lost cause.

Cut the fat.

If you want to quit smoking, diet, get in shape, organize your garage or whatever else, make sure it’s actually a goal and not just a nice thought. The difference? The level of your desire. It’s fun to visualize a better you, but c’mon, if you’re not really serious about reaching it, why set yourself up for failure? Desire is at the heart of any goal worth reaching. If true desire isn’t there, ditch the resolution and save your energy for those that you’re actually serious about.

Don’t give in to the demands of your baggage.

We all have baggage. The most common is that which revolves around our own self worth. “Showy” goals like buying that million dollar home or that 100k Mercedes can be symptoms. Sure, these are fine resolutions, but take an honest look at your goals and figure out why you care about reaching them. In other words, evaluate the “why” of your goals. If the actual purpose of your goal is to simply impress those around you, fixing the ‘real’ issue (your lack of self-worth) might be a more worthy goal, rather than just feeding the ‘habit’.

Don’t be a slacker.

Slacking on your goals is a long, slippery slope. One day skipped at the gym easily leads to another. One dirty dish in the sink leads to a sink full of them. Pretty soon you’re out of shape with a filthy kitchen. Be militant about the small things and the big ones will come.

Don’t forget the path of least resistance.

At the risk of sounding anti-progress, one way of reaching your goals is to lower your expectations. The ultimate goal of your resolutions is to be happier, right? Living longer and healthier, being more organized and making more money are all attempts at attaining greater happiness. But one goal you might think of setting for yourself is finding happiness in the things you already have. The “anti-goal”, if you will.

Don’t be afraid to quit.

Quitting, contrary to popular belief, is not always for losers. Some goals, though they sound fantastic on the outset, can be a crapshoot in reality. This really goes back to your original evaluation of your goals and the question of whether reaching this particular goal REALLY matters to you. However, make sure you’re not quitting just because the goal gets difficult to reach. Difficult goals are all the more worthwhile. Which leads me to…

Don’t forget that wanting to quit is part of the pleasure of reaching your goals.

Reaching any goal means hard work and times that you’ll want to quit. Though there are hard times and points at which you want to give up, you’ll find that these will also be the sweetest and most profitable times of the journey.

Don’t forget the basics.

Be realistic with your goals, write them down, create a gameplan and deadlines that you’ll be accountable to, take one step at a time (focus on putting one foot in front of the other), create small rewards for increments achieved and a large reward for the final goal attainment.

Like the article? Subscribe and get our updates!

It’s Not Easy Being Green.

It’s been a busy couple of weeks.  Sorry for the absence, but we’ve been working on a couple of promotions in addition to a new product we’re planning on launching in January.  Exciting stuff.  But, combined with the holidays and other business, we’ve been busy.  Anyway, I hope this post finds you happily enjoying your holiday weekend, well fed and keeping your mind off business. 

There are a couple of things I’d like to touch on today…

First of all, I like to highlight good business ideas when I see them, and Luke Knowles over at Virtual Marketing Blog just launched one of note.

Paying shipping charges sucks.  I get a great deal on amazon, feel fantastic, then get killed with shipping fees.  Kinda takes the wind out of my sails.  But, Luke recently launched freeshipping.org which has put an end to my shipping fee woes.  In a nutshell, it’s a massive list of online retailers who are offering coupons for free shipping.  So, instead of going directly to the site and making my purchase, I first go to Luke’s site, grab a coupon and THEN make my purchase, sans the shipping charges.  Then I go blow the money I saved on my unborn child’s college fund.  So, you could say Luke is putting my child through college.  Thanks Luke!

Making Money Can be a Bitch.

 The other thing I wanted to remark on was brought up to me by a friend.  We’ll call him Larry.  Larry’s brief history on the web has been marked by a lot of hard work and small successes.  While his income has been nothing to write home about, he does make a living.

Our conversation though, wasn’t a happy one (though it ended well).  Larry had a few complaints, the most notable that he’s not where he’d like to be, financially.  I heard a lot of – “I see stories every week of someone selling their site for millions of dollars, why not me?!”

Larry’s practically killing himself with self deprecation.

Somewhere amidst his profession of woes, it occurred to me that there’s some seriously poor self-image running rampant among entrepreneurs on the web.  Why?  Because there are SO many stories floating around of millionaires being made overnight, that if you’re not a millionaire in 6 months or less, you start losing hope. 

Generally speaking, the internet has a ‘get-rich-quick’ aura.  An air of being “easy money”.  Personal example:  When I first told friends of mine that I was getting into business on the web, they almost unanimously made exclamations like “Whoa!  You’re going to be the next Bill Gates!”

(To drive home the point, an entire industry lives off the perpetuation of this idea, peddling ebooks and cheap strategies, preying on those that want to make an easy buck … but that’s a rant for another day )

Of course, the reason for this perception is obvious.  The internet’s done a lot of things for commerce and wealth.  Notably, it’s given consumers new things to buy and new ways to buy them.  The success stories have flowed and it’s been a very good thing.

However, there’s been an unhealthy aspect to all this.  Namely, expectations among entrepreneurs have been a little … high.  A bit overzealous, if you will.

If I opened a pub, flower shop or dry cleaner, would I have gotten any Bill Gates style remarks?  Probably not.  So the web, in general, is seen as a place millionaires are made.  Following this thought process to it’s logical conclusion, it’s easy to believe that if you’re not a millionaire, you’re doing something drastically wrong.

So, I’d like to to put an end to this terribly belittling myth.  The fact of the matter is that making a lot of money in ANY business is difficult, no matter what venue your business is in.  Barring a sometimes lower barrier to entry, the web is virtually (no pun intended) no different than business in the ‘real world’.  You still have to:

- Come up with a GREAT idea that people want.
- Put the right team of people together and implement the right plan to execute it.
- Have a KILLER marketing plan that delivers the right message to the right people.

Learning how to do these things doesn’t happen overnight – it can take months or years to master the processes that make a successful business.  So, if you aren’t banking 30k paychecks after your first 6 months, chill.  It’s not the end of the world and it doesn’t mean you’re past hope.  Creating successful businesses is a process.  The REAL key is being persistent.

Scott’s holiday message is to keep two things in mind: 

1. Screw anyone else.  What other people are doing or making should have NO bearing on you.  Concentrate on you.

2. 99 times out of 100, creating a sizeable income won’t be easy.  It takes work, time and ingenuity.  So, if you’re not fabulously wealthy yet, don’t despair.  The keyword is “yet”, so don’t beat yourself up and keep at it. 

Like the article? Subscribe and get our updates!

Remember What Your Mother Said: Say ‘Thank You’.

Here’s a quick little thing I’ve been doing since starting this blog that’s been GREAT for initiating new relationships -

Blogs naturally get links.  I make a post, one of our readers finds it interesting and posts a link to us for their own readers. But, instead of doing the ‘usual’ thing and simply looking fondly at the new links to my blog, then moving onto my next task, I’ve started individually emailing every person that links to us and thanking them.

The problem:  It’s easy to think of the internet as a faceless environment, so, the idea here is to think of your website as if it’s a brick and mortar business.  Think of it this way.  If you run a sandwich shop and the mechanic across the street is continually sending his customers over to your place for a sandwich, wouldn’t you personally thank him?  Maybe set up some kind of beneficial relationship?

The web’s no different.  If Joe over at thecarblog.com is sending traffic to your Honda blog, he’s doing you a MASSIVE favor.  So, thank him!  Send him an email, say hello and see if there’s anything you can do for him. 

Sure, it can be a bit time consuming but trust me, it’s worth it. 

Like the article? Subscribe and get our updates!

Are You In a Relationship?

I recently went down to LA to help my grandparents move.  Long story short, the trip culminated in a 20 hour drive with my father in a moving truck.  Suffice it to say, we got some time to chat.

 He mentioned something that’s been whirling around in my head since, and as it applies to today’s post, I thought I’d mention it.  He had a good friend a few years ago, Dave, that died of Hodgkins Disease.  Before he died and realizing that a terminal condition gives it’s ‘victim’ a unique perspective on things, my dad asked Dave what he believed to be the most important thing in life.  “What’s the key to happiness?”

His answer was simple.  Relationships. 

It’s not money, success, knowledge or possessions, he said. It’s simply your relationships with those around you. Your friends, your family, your colleagues.

I happen to agree.  Ironically, I also happen to believe that money, success, knowledge and possessions can all spring forth from strong, positive relationships.  So, yes, you CAN have your cake and eat it too.

Business, by its defenition, is all about the almighty dollar.  But, here’s a little secret.  The question should not be:

“How can I make more money?”

Instead, it should be:

“How can I create deeper, more positive, more meaningful relationships?”

Here’s why.

In the end, these two ‘philosophies’ can achieve the same goal.  The differences, however, are colossal.  Going at business with a “how-can-I-make-more-money” philosophy is immensely short-sighted.  No one likes a money-hungry fool (yes, they can smell you coming) and even if your strategy happens to be successful, you’ll ONLY have money to show for it.  Nothing else. 

Working from a “how-can-I-create-a-meaningful-relationship” perspective, you not only create an environment in which people will want to work with you, but people will think of you for future projects, refer you to their friends and in many cases, bend over backwards to help you when you need it.  You will, in fact, increase the chances of your overall success, reaping the benefit of making money AND having fantastic relationships (which, to be honest, are a lot more rewarding anyway).

So, try changing your focus from figuring out how you’re going to make that buck, to figuring out how you’re going to make that friend.  It may sound campy, but the more you put into your relationships, the more they’ll put into you. 

Tomorrow, I’ll post a really simple tip you can start using NOW, that’s helped us create some fantastic relationships.

Like the article? Subscribe and get our updates!

How to Get Tasty: the 2 things you NEED to get HOT on Del.icio.us

Last week our blog made it on to the del.icio.us Hotlist with its third post.  We saw subscribers double, 325 people bookmarked us and traffic jumped by about 5,000 hits or so.  Not an insane amount of traffic but, all-in-all, it was a nice little bump. So, how’d I do it? 

You’ll find you have more control over social media sites than you might think… 

Image courtesy of VintageIP.

The article that made it.

The post that’s responsible is What’s My Name #$%&*?. In a nutshell, it details the naming process (of products, businesses, etc) and some unique naming strategies / tools.

How long did it take to write?

I’m neither an author nor a genius, so I’m a slow writer.  Though I didn’t time myself, my guess would be that What’s My Name #$%&*? took me about 8 hours to write. 

The 2 (and ONLY 2) rules I followed…

Rule #1 – Create value (or try).

This one is talked about a lot in marketing circles.  The proverbial ‘build it and they will come’ approach.  It’s both the most obvious and the easiest to overlook piece of creation.  Why?  Because creating something of value can be a pain in the ass.  Especially, if you’re not getting directly paid for it.  However, this is THE deal with social media sites.  You MUST create something of value to get noticed.  And it must be free.

What is value?  Big question.  For our purposes here though, we’ll define value as anything that your readers want or can use.  Your article/post/site can have:

- informational value
- emotional value
- entertainment value
etc

You’ll actually find that most of what people value will fall into a fairly small set of easily targeted categories.  Bottom line, create something that has value to your reader and your message will get fully ingested, bookmarked and passed around.

Rule #2 – Let people know.

As with any marketing campaign, it’s all about who sees your message.  The new blogger can write post after post of golden information and if no one sees it, they’re sunk. 

So, lets say you’re a new blogger and you don’t have an email list to alert or an existing traffic source to help “get the word out” about your new blog.  (This is where just about everyone starts.)  What should you do?

You have one, very powerful tool at your disposal.  Email.  Caroline Middlebrook made mention of this idea over on her blog also.  Email may be your only way of communicating with people about what you have to offer, so USE IT. 

The process is comprised of three steps. 

A) Figure out what kind of readers and what kind of websites would be interested in your blog and your specific post. 

If your blog covers do-it-yourself home improvement and the post you’re promoting is about flooring, your ‘target market’ is going to be people interested in DIY and flooring in particular.  See our article about segmentation and targeting for some good strategies on this.

B) Make a list of the influential names and websites in this niche and collect their contact info.

Using the DIY example above, look up keywords/phrases in Google such as “how to install floors”, “do it yourself flooring”, etc and make a list of other blogs and websites that both cover your topic AND have sizeable readerships.  You want to target ‘influential’ individuals here, who, if they mention your article on their site, will send some traffic.

C) Email them and say hi.  Introduce yourself, tell them about your article and why they should be interested.

Be personal.  No form emails.  Craft a specific email for each and every person you’re contacting.  It’s more than a promo email you’re writing, it’s the beginning of a relationship.

The Outcome.

Not every article you write or piece of info/entertainment you offer is going to be a slam dunk.  Some you think are destined for greatness will bomb.  Others you don’t give a second thought to may run to the top of digg, del.icio.us, etc.  It’s a numbers game.  But if played right, the numbers can be turned very much in your favor.

Like the article? Subscribe and get our updates!

Blondes ARE the most popular…

I’ll be honest, we’re an odd species.  People, that is.  Though anyone can easily determine this through 15 minutes of people watching at your local mall, it’s much more obvious (and entertaining) when faced with the ‘evidence’.  But I digress…

I like to waste time.  But really, “waste” is relative.  Others might say I’m wasting time, I say I’m doing research.  One of my newest ways to do … research, is by making use of my keyword tool.

Wordtracker, if you don’t already know what it is, is a keyword script that allows you to see how often different keywords are searched in the search engines.  As with any keyword tool, it has its limitations.  For the most part though, it gets the job done. 

Keyword searches and why they’re damn cool.

In a nutshell, Wordtracker lets you see how ‘popular’ a keyword or phrase is (how often it’s searched) and how much competition (webpages) are fighting for the top search engine spots for that term.  If you’re researching a new market, etc, it’s pretty handy.  However, it also holds some unique entertainment value. 

At first glance, you might think – Great, it lets you see what people are searching for – good for marketing and that’s about it. Au contraire, this little $300/year tool has the potential to give you hours of entertainment.  With the right touch, it can provide insight into our values, our culture, what we like, what we dislike and the ‘human condition’ as a whole.  Sound like a mouthful?  Let me explain…

It’s 3 AM, I’m in my underwear and I’m searching for…

 We can essentially look at Wordtracker as a social experiment that gives insight into what people are ACTUALLY like. Why?  For the most part, people are not impeded by what they search for.  It’s social pressure that causes us to conform.  No people around, less pressure, more freedom.  Alone, late at night and with nothing but our imagination to stop us, our interests, oddities and quirks can run wild.  Using a tool like Wordtracker allows us to see a few things that we ordinarily wouldn’t be granted access to – what people really want.  Plus, it can answer some very profound questions.  Like what sport is REALLY the most popular.

According to what we search for online, we’re most interested in the least consequential stuff.  The world is at our fingertips and what do we grasp for?  Most often, a Kleenex.  However, our vices aside, this tool can be good at determining what people actually care about.

 Is this full-proof?

Of course not.  But it can still be quite interesting.  Here are some questions and the answers that 15 minutes of keyword lookups can get you …

Is porn really THAT popular?
Everyone knows that the internet is big for porn.  But did you know that porn related searches comprise 11 out of the top 20 searches?  That means sex comprises 55% of our most popular searches.  Hell, even “youporn” is searched more than “youtube”.  No wonder we’re at 6 billion and growing.

What’s the most popular sport?  The official list (plus number of searches)
football – 15,724
soccer – 11,495
basketball – 10,222
baseball – 6,854
tennis – 3,476
gymnastics - 2,557
cricket (can also include searches for the bug) – 2,542
hockey – 2,521
rugby – 2,359
boxing – 2,119

What’s the most popular hair color?
blonde – 12,559
redhead – 8,723
brunette – 6,804

What religion is generating the most interest?
islam – 3,524
buddhism – 2,877
hinduism – 2,314
christianity – 2,133

Karl Marx was wrong.  It’s TV, not religion.
“Dancing with the Stars” is searched more than “art”, “science”, “history” and “religion”… combined.

Favorite news sources.
“Naked news” is the most searched news source, followed by fox, the bbc and cnn.

Boy or girl?
“Baby boy names” and related keywords are searched over 10 times more often than “baby girl names”.

Who’s the most popularly searched celebrity? (currently) …
Vanessa Hudgens

Eh…
“Google” is the 4th most searched term, worldwide. 
(Admittedly, this may be due to the placement of toolbar search boxes.)

Given all the possibilities in the world, what do people want to learn how to do?
how to save a life – 4,088 (related to the song, I’m sure)
how to have sex – 2,767
how to masturbate – 1,955 (destined for greatness, we are)

Who’s the most popular designer?
gucci 1,109
ralph lauren 907
versace 518
christian dior 304
giorgio armani 131

Sure, they’re cute but…
“Pictures of cats” is the most popularly searched image related term.  By a LOT.

Let the numbers speak for themselves.
“Hentai” (otherwise known as cartoon porn) is the 9th most searched keyword worldwide. 

“Preteen” and related keywords make up 7 of the top 1000 searched keywords, “preteen” itself currently appearing as the 54th most searched word worldwide.

Does Wordtracker have predictive power?

The jury’s out on this one.  But, just for fun lets compare the democratic and republican candidates and their respective searches…

Democratic candidates:
hillary clinton – 3,718
barack obama – 2,332
john edwards – 1,629
dennis kucinich – 707
bill richardson – 446
joe biden – 341
mike gravel – 269
christopher dodd – 84

Republican candidates:
ron paul 6,982
fred thompson 3,703
mike huckabee 1,383
mitt romney 1,272
john mccain 770
rudy giuliani 768
duncan hunter 550
tom tancredo 270

We, of course, need to take into account the idea that the more outlandish and outspoken a candidate is, the more press and searches they’ll get.  This can confound predictions.  However, I wouldn’t count this method out as a loose predictor of who may win an election.

Investment potential?

Who knows, maybe it exists somewhere and I just haven’t run across it yet.  But I believe that if used and tracked correctly, the terms people search for can tell us where trends are emerging (before the ‘masses’ realize it), what companies to invest in and what markets are gaining popularity.

A tool, like wordtracker, that not only tracks ALL searched terms, but alerts the user to new searches and terms that are seeing a rise in searches could be very powerful.  Searched terms could be tracked like stocks, but instead of prices, we’d focus on the number of searches.  The business and investment potential here may be worth exploring.  

One more example for you.  Box office earnings.  I’d be willing to bet there’s a strong correlation between opening weekend box office earnings and the number of searches a movie receives in the week prior.  Track weekend earnings for different earnings and compare to number of searches.  Figure out the correlation and this can be another way for production companies to predict earnings. 

These are only a couple of the possible applications of tracking and using keyword searches.  Am I 100% convinced that either would work?  Not completely.  But hey, they might.  

 Statistical pitfalls to take into account (yeah, it’s a disclaimer).

Now obviously, the number of searches for anything will be influenced by the media or current social climate, so these need to be taken into account.  If a politician is say, caught in a public restroom soliciting sex, this will of course influence the number of people searching their name.  It will not be an idicator of their popularity.  So we need to take this into account.

 We also need to consider the audience that’s searching.  Internet users, though part of the greater population, by no means are a perfect representation of the whole.

This concludes my disclaimer.  Complaints?  Email me.

Like the article? Subscribe and get our updates!