What do you need to change for 2011? What do a crazy pair of shoes have to do with your business? Watch the following video and find out…
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Today I’m going to discuss 3 important words that can be used in parenting, leadership, business, or basically whatever profession you’re in, and they are…Information .. Action .. Results.
With the internet, smart phones, TV, radio, newspaper, gossip, etc. information is all around us. We are not in the industrial age anymore. Welcome to the INFORMATION AGE!! We can have access to information within seconds if we really want to find out something. Here’s the problem, how do you know that the information you get is valid? Once you get that information (right or wrong information) you will act upon that information. From your actions you will have results.
So your results of your actions stem from the information you receive. Here is a perfect example, my sister-in-law was in a town she was not very familiar with and she had to run to the store. She asked me how to get back to where I was from that store. I told her to turn left out of the parking lot to get back to where we are. Little did she know that she asked the wrong person! I need a GPS to find the bathroom in my own house! So it took my sister-in-law an hour to get back from a store that was only 15 minutes away.
You see, I gave her information (wrong information), she acted upon it, and got negative results. Let’s go a little deeper. What kind of information are you currently receiving about life, work, relationships, business, etc.? You will know what kind of information you are getting by first looking at your results. Are the results you are getting the results that you really want? What about the actions? Are you doing the right actions to get the results you really want? If you answer NO to both then that means you are not being fed the right information.
That’s what happened to me. I was not getting the right information even though I went to college and graduate school. What I learned in both institutions did not even come close for what I faced in the real world, at my real jobs. If you are a doctor, lawyer, physical therapist, or some kind of other specialty field then yeah, college and grad school will prepare you, but if you are a guy with a Sociology degree and a Masters in Health Care Administration like me then all your learning is going to come in the field OR by you taking the initiative to get the right information.
In any industry who makes the most money? Who has the biggest houses? The nicest cars? The great vacations? It’s the leaders! It’s the people who have taken the extra time to better themselves by seeking out to find the right information, acting on that information, and getting the results they want.
So with online marketing and blogging where do you get the right information? Well, if you want, you can start by checking out my blog posts. Even better join my mailing list to the right. Just enter your name and email address and you will start getting emails on how to properly set up your business on the internet and how to have the mindset of a leader!
The other thing you can do is check out Blogging For Beginners. That site will give you a ton of information on where to find the right information.
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Last blog post I was talking about how important Information, Action, Results were to leadership and building a powerful business. Today I’m going to give you some more words to live by, and those words are Define .. Learn .. Do. This is what happens to 95% of the people in this world…You go to school, get good grades, and when you are done with school you get a job. Now your boss at your job tells you what you are worth and pays you a salary accordingly.
This is totally backwards thinking, and what really happens is that you first LEARN (your job), then you DO (your job), and because your job only pays you a specific amount of money, that salary DEFINES your lifestyle. So no wonder people are in debt out the wazoo! They want better lifestyles that they can’t afford so they “finance” their lifestyle which brings them further in debt.
Leaders, the 5% thinkers in this world, do it the right way. First they DEFINE what they want, then they LEARN the proper steps they need to take in order to get what they want, and finally they go and DO what it takes to get to what they want.
Here is an example of what I’m talking about…You want to make more money to pay off some of your debt and live more comfortably (DEFINE) and you heard that the internet is one of the biggest trends out there that is currently making people money. So how are you going to ride this trend and benefit from it? You are going to study everything you can about Leadership, Internet Marketing, Web 2.0, and other tactics that I have spent hours upon hours studying to do the exact same (LEARN), and finally you go out and act upon your new found knowledge and actually start making some money (DO).
Keep this in mind, we are all the same from the neck down. It is from our neck up that makes us
different. It is the knowledge that we put in our brains that empower us to live lifestyles that we have
always dreamed of living. I encourage you to put some of that knowledge in your brain so you can be empowered to Define, Learn, and Do!
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When it comes to building your business through a tribe you need to have a certain kind of mindset in order 
for this to succeed because this is a very different kind of marketing; a marketing that you may have never experienced before. Some of the things that a tribe does will make you wonder why you are helping someone promote their product, or service for free while you could be spending the same time trying to promote yours. By the end of this article you will see and understand this new marketing concept and why it is important to get hooked up with a tribe or even start your own tribe.
Doing online marketing we are normally used to doing all the marketing ourselves, and this could look like setting up our own pay per click campaign, forum marketing, article marketing, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogging, etc. It’s all on us to get our message out there. Some people are very successful doing it all alone and have the resources to do it, but the majority fails.
When one is struggling they need to come to the realization that they can’t do it alone and that they need help. One can’t think of themselves as a failure, they just need to know all the options and that there is a better, more productive way to get their message out to the masses.
This is where the tribe mindset comes in which is about Edification, Exposure, and Example. When we Edify someone we give them praise, we compliment them, we talk about the positive things they have done, and we give them the credit that they deserve.
Here’s an example, my tribe, Empowered Tribe, is comprised of 5 men from all over the world and we are all not in the same network marketing business. My good friend and tribesman Ken Pickard and I are in different network marketing companies, but I talk all the time on social media sites about how good of a social media marketer and entrepreneur he is because he deserves to get recognized in a positive way. By me edifying him people might join his business. Am I OK with that? Yes, because I know that Ken feels the same about me and that he will do the same for me and by him edifying me I may get some interest in my network marketing business.
Next is Exposure. This is tough if you are trying to build your business alone online. One person can only do so much, but what if you had 4 other people trying to build your business with you…and for free? Now that’s powerful! Being in a tribe gives you the quick and constant exposure you need to get your message out there. We have developed Tribe Tuesday, and if you do a hash tag search for #TribeTuesday you will see all the activity and exposure that we have generated for each other.
What we do is set up groups of tribes that will sit down in front of their computer for about an hour to an hour and a half and just to go all the social media sites and expose each other’s content for all to see. Here’s an example, Empowered Tribe collectively has over 100,000 followers on Twitter. If we all Tweet my latest blog post it’s not getting exposed to just my 12,000 followers, it getting exposed to all 100,000 of our combined followers. More exposure means more eyes to my blog link, which means more clicks on that link, which mean more traffic to my blog. How powerful is that!? And that’s just one of the many principles that we use.
The last is Example. When we’re in a tribe we need to be leaders and we need to lead by example. What does this look like for a social media tribe? Well, it means that you need to always be on top of your game. It means that you are always creating new content, syndicating your tribe’s content, out there on the social media sites doing what you’re supposed to do, constantly learning and studying your craft. When we lead by example and are out in the forefront we are going to get exposure and edified. That’s just a given!
When choosing a tribe you need to choose people that are not necessarily in your business, but rather in your industry. What is more important is dedication and consistency. The whole group needs to be dedicated to tribe syndication and you all need to be consistent which means meeting on a regular basis to get your content out there. Without the dedication and consistency the tribe will fail and you will be back in the same place you started.
You also need to keep each other accountable. If you notice that one member of the tribe is not pulling their weight you need to speak up and say something. Sometimes all you need is just a little encouragement to get back on track, but it is very important to keep each other accountable.
The final thing is that you all have to have the same drive. Empowered Tribe has a passion for social media and tribe building and we all want to do this full time. We all are driven to make this work and we are on a path to make it happen. If you’re tribe doesn’t have the same goals and drive that you do then you’re in the wrong tribe. I started out with one tribe and saw that the consistency and dedication wasn’t there so I found a great group of guys that had the same mindset as I did and now we are making great things happen!
So I want to encourage you to go out and look for some like minded individuals and get your tribe going. Don’t be afraid to “interview” these people to make sure they’re on the same page as you. This will save you a lot of time in the long run. If you already see that these people are already making it happen on the social media sites you will probably have a sense that they will make a good tribe member, but don’t be afraid to take on someone that is a little green. This is when interviewing may come in handy because if you see that they have the drive and determination they may just make a great tribe member. So go out there, get your tribe together, start syndicating, and make things happen….together!
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If you are a home based business owner or an entrepreneur then you have probably ran into naysayers either
criticizing you, your product, or your business. You are always going to run into people that have something negative to say, however how you handle yourself in those situations is important to the growth of your business. Today we’re going to discuss how to respond to your current situation and what steps you need to take in order for you to continue on the path to success.
In any situation whether it’s good or bad there are three ways to respond. You can React, Respond, or Initiate.
Reacting doesn’t take any thought, because it’s purely emotion. Acting on emotion is not a very smart move. We see in the real world many people going to jail and doing time because they reacted. The bottom line is that reacting requires very little thought.
Responding takes a little more effort and a little more thought. Some responses are good while others involve more emotion than thought which could lead a situation going nowhere. Responses are all over the place; responses to emails, verbal, responses, video responses, responses in forums, etc. If you are going to do any kind of response than I think you will need sit down and really think about what you’re going to say before you respond.
Seth Godin said in this book Tribes, “Initiating is really and truly difficult, and that’s what leaders do. They see something others are ignoring and they jump on it. They cause the events that other have to react to they make change.”
Initiating is by far the best of the three. Let me explain how I took the initiative in my business and totally bypassed reacting and responding. When I first got into network marketing I was approached by an “old schooler” who closed me hard and I joined his organization. I brought some people into the organization but it was like my job in the corporate world, their marketing tactics just didn’t fit my personality. It wasn’t fun, I was driving all over the place going to different meetings and presentations, and I was wasting a lot of my hard earned money.
Around the same time I discovered online marketing. It was way different than what it is today, but it caught my eye and I wanted to learn as much as I could. I approached my upline and told him about this new world of marketing that I discovered. His response to me was, “That’s not how this organization does business. You need to stick to the system.”
Well I didn’t like the system, I wasn’t content, and I wanted more. So I left that company. I didn’t leave because of the money; I left because I wanted to learn as much as I could about online marketing. You see, when he told me that I couldn’t market outside of their sales system I could have reacted with my emotions and gave him a piece of my mind, and I could have responded appropriately after thinking and formulating my response, but I chose to initiate my several yearlong study of online marketing. In a sense I was initiating my future.
Fast forward about 7 years and now I am in a social media class that Jonathan Budd, Katie Freiling, and a few others were teaching. They taught me how to blog, market through social media sites, and actually get traffic. After the course I started I initiating. I got busy implementing every strategy and tactic that they threw at me and I started to get traffic to my blog (real traffic….not my parents just stopping by) and the leaders started to notice me.
From there things just took off. I got asked to be a leader in another class, and I met 5 other great guys who are now my business partners and we formed a company called Empowered Tribe where we teach people how to set up a social media tribe that will help them quickly their business up and running online. All off this happened because I chose not to settle, but chose to initiate.
One leader defined the term leadership as a planned assault on the status quo. In other words, don’t settle for what is, initiate for what will be. Each person initiates differently. Some people may initiate by just getting their blog up and running and finally taking control of that, while other people may initiate by developing their own product and / or course. Still some people may initiate by breaking off with their currently company and going a totally different direction. In any case, nothing will get done, no progress will happen, and no change will take place until you first take the lead and initiate.
Sometimes we don’t know how to initiate, where to begin or what to do. I would suggest that you look to leaders in the industry that you admire and see how you can emulate what they are doing. Sometimes you need to pay a mentor to help you get started and help get your thought process down on what you want to do and how to get you there. That is perfectly alright because all leaders have mentors. We just need to take the first step and initiate it!
Below are 6 steps to help you initiate your future:
1. Analyze your current situation and see if you are satisfied with where you are in your business.
2. If you are not satisfied think of where you want to be and what you want your business to look like. Visualize what you want your business to look like.
3. Write out some clear and measurable goals for your business. These goals need to be as clear and specific. For example, I want to master social media is not a very strong goal. A better goal may be, I want to have 10 opt-ins a day into my autoresponder in 6 months by implementing the 10 tactics Michael Feil teaches in his autoresonder class. Can you see that the second example is much better than the first because it is specific and gives a time period?
4. Now that you have your goals you need to set up your plan. Basically, what steps are you going to take to get to your goal? All this needs to be documented in a place you can go back and look at it again and again.
5. Now comes the initiate part. Start working your plan and making a change. Like I said before, often the initiate part starts with breaking off of something you are doing that is not getting you to where you want to be. It’s time to leave the status quo and start making things happen.
6. Once you start working your written plan you should now be able to see a change. Things are now taking off and you are making a difference with your actions and your plan. This would be a good time to ask a mentor to check out what you’re doing to make sure you’re on the right track. You may have to pay for this or if you know the right people it may not cost you anything. If you do have to pay this would be money well spent.
Initiating is a 6 step process and most of the time it won’t happen overnight. It will take time and it will take some work on your end, but if you’re not satisfied what how things are going it probably is time to start initiating change, especially if you want to be a leader in your industry.
I want to encourage you that no matter where you are today you can be successful. You are someone of value and of worth and you are important to this world. You can make great things happen, all you have to do is bypass reacting and responding, and just roll up your sleeves and start initiating. The future is wide open. Visualize what you want, then start initiating to make the change towards your dreams and goals.
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Value! That what online marketing as evolved into. In this video I go over the “give away the farm to get the bank” marketing principle. I discuss how important it is to first give before you can receive and how you can make your offers more attractive by giving more that what is expected.
If you like this please comment, share, and tweet it! I would love to know how you’re using this principle in your marketing plan.
The following is a guest post from my of my good friends that is very successful with social media and 
building businesses so please take a moment to read her article. I am sure you will pull some great nuggets out of it!
Hang around Internet marketers long enough and you’ll hear the term “passive income” tossed around a lot. I’ll agree, passive income is some of the sweetest income to make, but what is left out of the equation is too large to ignore – not enough people online are talking about “active income” passive’s super pumped, pesky twin which usually is the precursor to any “passive income” made.
If passive income is the Holy Grail, let’s take a look at active income as the quest that knights went on before reaching the grail. It seems too often we read books from super successful people like Tim Ferriss and think “wow, he got rich off automated income” leaving out the “after working like a dog to get where he is” part. So instead of just focusing on the end result let’s take a moment to study the path of active income that often paves the way for you to sit back on a beach somewhere sipping a Mai Tai as your bank account grows like crab grass.
Forms of smart active income that lead to passive income
1. Start with freelancing, finish with a high-end membership course.
Freelancing is a great way to get out of your job pronto and still be able to pay the bills. This line of work is for people who are highly motivated and highly skilled in at least ONE area. But if you have the dedication and skill, freelancing can be a great path to eventual passive income. So say you are an amazing writer and you decide to write a Blog about copy writing while pursuing your freelance career doing the same thing. You can build an audience and a community around people who are interested in this skill while showing them how you’re making a living as a copy writer. After a while your community should be solid and you may introduce some products that will help your readers build their own writing skills, maybe offer a seminar or an e-Book. Give it some time as your community continues to grow and you should be able to stop freelancing and instead make a full time living from a membership course that will give lots of value to your community while letting you cool your heels finally.
2. Build a product, sell the product, end up with other people building and selling said product.
The product can be anything from an exercise machine to a vitamin line. You create it, market it, lay the foundation for a business empire and after a little success you can start automating the process. Farm out the production, hire a sales team and even pass off management duties so that your “product” becomes a true source of passive income that you only have to check in on from time to time. Note: this takes a lot of systems being in place and for more info on this model I suggest you read The E Myth.
3.Work really hard to build up a passive income affiliate network.
Something that it seems like many bloggers do to create passive income streams is to build up networks of mini sites and then promote solid affiliate products via these sites. The sites have to be geared towards a specific niche and they’ll take a lot of time up front to set up and populate… this isn’t a get rich quick scheme. But if you spend the time, do the research and build 10 sites making $500 a month each you are in business. Then just rinse and repeat until you’ve made your passive income goals come true.
4. Work really hard to build up a community and then profit from offering info products.
Similar to the membership model we talked about first, this type of business is started with a community. You must give and give of yourself and your knowledge at first to have a good shot at success later on. Also it helps to really care about the community you are building, so if you hate knitting don’t start www.knittingrocks.com because your phoniness will show through fast and you won’t be able to build a solid base (as you can see the link has been disabled, hence my point!). Once the community is built you can profit from ads, affiliate products or even build your own unique offerings that can make you money for the life of the site. All you must do is keep up the community (which is the fun part in my mind) and passive income will follow, with a lot of elbow grease in the beginning, of course.
So next time someone tells you they make “passive income online” be sure to remember that the path to passive income is paved with action. Don’t beat yourself up if your income route is more active than not, there is nothing wrong with working hard at a job or business you love.
Here is the last video of my video series for our trip to San Diego. We had a blast Saturday teaching at our live event. We had a good turn out and many people felt they got a lot of value from what we were teaching.
It’s good to know that our audience enjoyed themselves. What was great to see was after our event people were still hanging out in the room for about an hour and a half just talking and masterminding with each other. Cool stuff!
This video shows Day 7 and the morning of Day 8 so enjoy it!
Please feel free to comment or syndicate!
What a day! Today we did some business planning…in the hot tub again! Then we went to play some Manball at Jonathan Budd’s house! Yes, he schooled me! I admit defeat!
After some serious manball we went to lunch with Jonathan, Katie Freiling, Aaron Fortner, and Renee Airya. We were talking personal stuff and business too…of course!!
Then in the evening we went to a great restaurant in San Diego to meet up with some of our students and other internet marketers.
After that we went back to the condo, goofed around for a bit, then went to bed.
Check out the video…
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Thanks!
Here is Day 5 of The Empowered Tribe in San Diego.
We met Raven Starre and Sage Hope for a breakfast right near the beach and then went to the beach after that and shot some video and took some pictures. It was a great time.
After that we went back to the hotel and shot some more video and did some more masterminding.
Check out the videos!
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