Plainly put – you can recreate your entire life simply by using a personal development plan. But many have failed at recognizing the importance of this important aspect and thus never achieve something substantial. To begin, creating a navigational map for your upcoming life requires a lot of courage. You need to honestly review your life till now. You must dissect each part of your life to completely reinvent yourself.

You can change your life by knowing what you have to change at the first place. Try to focus on a new behavior set that includes some good habits. Just imagine where in life you wish to end 20 years from now. Once you have seen the visual in your mind, it is time to set a goal. A goal is synonymous to a finish line. You have to run in forward direction to achieve your goal. The key here is to always aim for the trophy.

The topmost priority in any development plan is setting goals. However, before setting your goals, your intentions need to be clear and specific. Once your goal has been set, your actions should be integrated with consistent behaviors to help you achieve your goal. You can learn a new set of behavior by educating yourself. This education should be related to your goal.

For those educating themselves, there are plenty of resources. Most of these are self-help. Depending on your goal and current level of education, you can easily find information guiding you towards identifying problematic areas in your life. During this stage, many people are frustrated, overwhelmed, or just plain stuck. In this case, find yourself a good coach who can wade you through troubled waters.

Life coaches can help you follow your personal development plan. They provide a whole new perspective to your plan and offer a strong support system. You can gain from their vast knowledge, skills and learn how to use self-improvement tools. A good coach will provide you with consistent support, positive feedback and motivate you to persevere. Most people can’t work on their plan. Otherwise, everyone in this world might have been a success. Whatever you wish to call them, mentor or coach, remember there is nothing like someone cheering you up from behind the fence.

Another key aspect is to know your strengths and use them accordingly. You can easily fall prey to lack of confidence if you don’t focus on your strengths. Individuals with low self esteem usually have this issue.  And believe me, it affects more than your career. So, realizing your strengths is the key here.

Personal development plans are not magic potions. They don’t work overnight. You need to implement it consistently over a period of time and integrate it in the grand scheme of things. You need to make daily choices that add up to your overall goal. Never make a choice that can set you back a few days. Also, at every stage, do acknowledge the fact that self improvement and life’s circumstances are going to play a key role in your success.

Here is a list of all the steps I have discussed above:

1.    Realize the fact that personal development is paramount to your success.
2.    Self-assessment – identify the key areas of problem in your life.
3.    Set practical goals.
4.    Perform actions and develop a behavior that benefits the overall goal.
5.    Take the help of a mentor to provide you a positive support system.
6.    Most importantly – Pat yourself on the back for making an effort to transform yourself.

From the creators of the famous ‘Traffic Geyser’, comes this latest marketing tool called Monster Follow up. This helps save your time and effort by integrating and automating all your conventional marketing systems that you presently use to interact with your clients.

Voice follow up actually comes as a supplement to your online marketing efforts by capturing your visitor’s name, mobile phone number and email address. You can build a truly reactive client database using Monster Voice Follow up and sell your products like pancakes. Here is a personal account of what my experience has been.

What it Does

What an internet marketer needs is an automated way of following up with potential clients. You need to collect information about the visitor so that you can use it later for marketing purposes. But what kind of information you need to capture? This tool helps you combine your various information collection channels. Here are some ways it can help you collect client info:

1.    Phone Call

Voice follow up allows you to capture a phone call. You will be assigned a toll free number and people can leave their contact details. These contact info lists will be immediately entered to your auto-responder list.

2.    Email

If clients leave their email address or mail you their contact information, MFU will immediately fetch the details and enter them in your auto responder.

3.    Text Messages

In text message users can text you their contact details to a unique phone number that voice Follow-up assigns to you.  You can also send text messages from this number to collect more information.

4.   Scan Business Cards

With iPhone application, you can also scan business cards. This is simple. It takes a picture and adds the person to the campaign automatically.

MFU offers the following features:

•    Communicate seamlessly through various channels with people who sign up for your campaign.
•    You can have Voice Follow up leave a voice mail message.
•    You can do a ‘Voice Blasting’ as well with the voice blast.
•    Being able to push into the visitor’s inbox is another great feature.
•    You can integrate it with any type of autoresponder.
•    You can do simulated live tele-seminars. People can call in and listen to a tele-seminar. If they show up late, the Voice Follow Up    will detect that and let you know if they have completed the seminar, left in between, or arrived late.
•    You can also do webinars. These are also completely programmable. You can make them run once a month, week, or every day.
•    We can integrate Voice follow up with an API. This allows you to import and export your data directly.
•    Voicefollowup can be used for occasional follow ups. Such as special offers, birthday greetings, and anniversary greetings.
•    Target or focus your messages to a group or individual.

Voice Follow Up Certification Program

The site offers a certification program that lets you fully leverage the power of this tool. There are steps in this program. These are:

1.    Client & opportunity Targeter – To identify voice follow up clients and business opportunities.
2.    Business cards – Pre-made business cards to help you with marketing. These list your offer and are linked to your personal campaigns.
3.    Pre-packaged client BizOp models – Hands free, pre-packages marketing opportunities that you can provide your clients. These      pre-written scripts help them set their campaigns.
4.    Client Funnel Identifier – This means telling your clients how to fetch leads. Learn to identify your clients cross selling options. Build a campaign that has multiple tiers that will guide the targeted market from product to offer, in a friendly manner.
5.    My Market Radar – Learn proximity marketing  so you can market to exact targets according to demographics.
6.    Influence/Data Mining Analysis – Through Voice Follow Up , you can ask some questions or make users complete a questionnaire. This can help you achieve some visitor targeting from keyword density analysis.
7.    DISC profile test – Build a profile assessment through a test. These are the same tests used by Fortune 500 companies in their marketing analysis.

Besides these steps, you also achieve some great new marketing lessons. The tool itself is of great help when it some to automating your business. Its ability to integrate my connection channels is simply amazing. The tool is definitely worth every buck spent.

Ah! Online marketing – the Achilles heel of internet businesses. With internet population growing by the day, more and more people are joining the earn-money-online bandwagon. Subsequently, numerous online programs, too, have emerged that lure people into joining them. Some of them are easy to follow and genuine while others are simply too complex to execute. This leads us to one question – is online marketing for everyone?

This question spans across many elements. First of all, it depends on the marketing company or the program chosen. If the procedural steps required to set up the system are easy to follow and understand, naturally, people are going to be successful. The tools associated with the campaign should be chosen well to make it a success. Having an experienced ‘Guru’ is also helpful to a great extent. So, choosing an authentic as well as easy to follow program is the key to setting up an online business.

Next comes the skills. See, some people have inborn marketing skills. Others have to acquire them through proper training. Now, if you are good at learning and implementing them, you will definitely see success at some point in time. Setting up an MLM business requires considerable time and energy input. And let’s face it – some people simply don’t have the capabilities. However, throughout my online career, I have seen hard work resulting in some great successes.

For starters, it is advised not to blow money on hyped programs. It is observed that people turning to online money making schemes are often desperate for quick money. On the contrary, they blow up more money than they intend to make. They end up quitting the online marketing realm thinking every program is a scam. Or sometimes, these people simply can’t take up the strategy overload that comes bundled with online marketing programs, especially MLM businesses. All this comes as a major stress to even those from real-world marketing industry.

So what is the solution?

Let’s face the fact – there is no get rich quick scheme here. Realize this fact and respect it. Those with limited means should not opt for expensive programs in the beginning. On a personal level, I would advise them to get to know the online marketing realm. Understand the basic elements – which are different form real world marketing strategies.

Starters can join free services, online marketing classes and use free tools. Learn to implement these strategies and get to know the tools. In the beginning, you can make money from simple things like running a personal blog. This won’t cost you a bomb and get you decent income within a few months. You can then go onto join complex programs. This way, you’ll have enough experience to implement strategies and a fallback income source if your chosen program fails.

The times we live in, having a dependable income source is paramount. Having your own business is the only way you can achieve financial freedom. Online businesses promise you the same. And then some. So, if you are thinking of joining an online program, go ahead. Let your journey to freedom began.

Hello Everyone!

I hope you are having a great day

As I was trying to change some of the tabs on my facebook fanpage, I found an awesome site that allows you to add all these different applications such as twitter, youtube, flickr, RSS, PDFs, and more for FREE into your fanpage tabs.  The site its called involver and it offers a variety of services for your fanpage.

Here is just a little tutorial on how easy it is to add these features.

Enjoy!

Most marketers fret at the very thought of creating a new sales copy. And there are good reasons for it. A sales copy demands substantial time input, creativity and market research. Good copywriting is not for everyone. However, this skill is not inborn either. Some of the most successful copywriters have honed their skills for years before landing plump assignments. One such internet marketer is Joe Vitale, a.k.a. Mr. Fire. The name may sound cliché but the man is brimming with creativity when it comes to creating great sales copies.

I have recently read one of his articles regarding how to create a hypnotic sales copy. He stresses the basic points here. A millionth time that is. The points being:

1.    English to emotion.

2.    Relate personally to the end reader.

3.    Present the benefits first and then the functional side.

I believe these are the fundamentals of a successful sales copy. All these three ingredients are necessary to define a product in terms of potential sales. Let’s discuss these three in detail.

1.    English to Emotion

Your latest iPod must have come with an instruction manual. I bet you never read that. This is because it is plain English, technical jargon. There is nothing interesting in it to read. Similarly, most people simply mention the benefits of their program in a clinical way. They forget to add an emotional element to their copy. Learn to make the journey from English to emotion. Remember, stir up people’s emotions and they’ll pay attention.

2.    Relate Personally

This is extremely important if you are targeting a certain area. Keeping the content local or being aware of the local flavor can be of great help. People won’t care, until you show them that you know them (wow! That rhymed). By relating to them on a personal level, you create an aura of being one with your customers. You can start by addressing them with their last name instead of a cold greeting that includes Mr. or Ms. Also, start up conversations and get to know more of your target market.

3.    Present the Benefits

Most often, people have already heard about the products you are selling. As such, it would not be wise to present them with similar information. Instead, you can offer them another perspective by telling them how your product can benefit them. Mention a quality or feature that the competitor’s product does not offer. Have an all together different approach even to promote a common product. However, do not engage in mud-slinging. Be original and you will be rewarded.

Writing a successful sales copy involves substantial time investment. Sometimes, even weeks can pass by and you won’t get headway. You need to be patient and creative. No matter how long it takes, do not compromise on a less-appealing copy. Remember, your one innovative thought can create a slogan/line that will fetch you benefits worth months of hard-work.

This one’s especially for those of you who spend their precious time thinking how can Facebook help with SEO? Firstly, let me tell you that your time is well spent and it is definitely worth the effort.

First things first, Facebook is not a search engine. Not even with its new features such as ‘Like’ and ‘Places’. As such, there is no point discussing Google and Facebook cat fight. Ever since Facebook’s open graph algorithms and search query improvements have been announced, much has been hyped about it rivaling Google. However, Facebook should be considered a ‘site search’ tool. However, there is a strong SEO side to these new developments. And this is what internet marketers can take leverage of.

Facebook SEO – The Tech

FB actually does not crawls pages and ranks them on the basis of number of incoming links and relevance to search query. Meta data is in play here. So, besides optimizing, the search results are also based on how value is provided to the end user. This, my friends, is the search engine ‘holy grail’.

Let’s face it – The solution to this is proper branding and consistent marketing efforts. This is because if people find quality on your site, they will simply hit the ‘like’ button and there you are. This can only be achieved by integrating social media ethics into your marketing strategy.

Is it Time? Definitely

Facebook’s has introduced some new elements to the regular features that help span a community’s attention towards a certain topic/issue. For example, ‘Like’ is the first major element to dig into. Facebook users can use ‘like’ or ‘dislike’ to reflect their preferences. The site filters search results based on the ‘likes’ score. So, votes matter here rather than links as in Google. So, ‘likes’ is the currency in Facebook SEO land. This can help you divert entire communities’ attention towards your business in no time.

Next comes the ‘following’. Building your tribe is going to fetch you customers faster than any other application. Engaging real-time with your clients is the advantage here. Not only can you target your business related customers but also divert traffic from other niches.

Lately, Facebook Questions has also emerged as a great tool. Surprised? Yes it is a business tool. It allows users to ask questions simply by hitting the “Ask Question” button. This tool can be used to solve marketing queries for budding entrepreneurs. Questions can lead to involving conversations and, in turn, clients.

With 500 million users, Facebook has emerged as a hot spot for internet marketing. With functional tools like, og:it and Facebook plug-in, you can easily monitor your efforts and optimize them accordingly. Being an online entrepreneur, Facebook should be one of your top marketing priorities. Period.

Most people in this world are happy being led by someone. During a serious debate, these people enjoy sitting on the fence. Remember, the backbenchers in your class hiding away from the teachers? To the contrary, some of the most successful people in this world do not take life for granted. They work hard to accomplish their goals and simply make things happen. Today, let’s discuss the two types of people that populate this world – the leader and his followers.

Leadership qualities can be inborn or cultivated form life’s experiences. A certain mix of qualities separate a leader from other people. These qualities include taking responsibility, having a consistent learning curve, management skills, organizational talent, problem-solving skills, and excellent communication skills. All these qualities create a magnetic effect around the leader by the virtue of which to which other people are attracted towards him. To know which side of the fence you are, just answer these questions:

1.    Do give due consideration to “Possibility Thinking”?

When you are leading a group, ask yourself: Am I open to new and creative ideas proposed by team members or do I just stick my own plan. It is integral to your leadership that you listen to people’s concerns, ideas, problems and intuition. This provides new solution to problems at hand.

2.    Lead by example or create your own way?

Working hard is important but do you set an example for your team to follow. Your efforts and networking should be demonstrated to your team members. This creates positive work ethics and helps boost productivity.

3.    Strong Self-Command?

Taking control of a situation is important. A leader is not worthy of his seat if he does not has the courage to let outside things, hamper team’s morale. For this, you need to be in high spirits always as challenging situations can confront anytime.

4.    Appreciation at the Right Time?

Being human, most team members love their efforts being appreciated by their leaders. As the head of your team, you should praise any team member’s efforts and hard work. Sincere efforts should not go unnoticed. This boosts morale of the team members and fills them with zeal to perform.

5.    Do you Maintain Ethics?

Ask yourself – have you ever stolen team member’s idea and labeled it yours? Are you ethical 100 percent of the time? Such a behavior is unacceptable when it comes to maintaining work ethics. Your team should trust you and ethics play a big role here. Ying to them or sabotaging their work can only lead to things getting worse.

Once you are through with these questions, give marks to yourself for each question on a scale of 1 to 20, with 20 symbolizing higher performance. If your score is above 70, you are performing well as a leader. A score of 50-70 means there is room for improvement. However, for extremely low scores (below 40), you really need to change your attitude towards life in general. Only then you can proceed to learn leadership qualities. Remember, successful entrepreneurs start from themselves.

As if this whole email marketing wasn’t daunting enough, here emerges another baffling question – How often should I email my list. Considering most of the email receivers have a high potential of becoming your regular client, this is one question that you should pay considerable attention to. Being an internet marketer myself, I know that most successful marketers have an e-mail list whom they feed with auto-responders. And this is an ongoing process. However, till date I have a dilemma about how often should I mail to my list. So, how much is exactly too much when it comes to emailing your list.

From what I have learned from this industry so far, there is no perfect number to follow. You cannot decide on a fixed basis as to when emails will be dispatched. A number of consistently varying factors have to be taken into consideration while drafting a schedule of emails. If you send too frequently, you risk annoying the customers and shrinking your list. On the other hand, a sluggish schedule won’t fetch you desired response either. Finding the perfect balance is vital for the survival of your email marketing campaign.

So, let’s discuss some of the methods you can use to send emails strategically:

1. Weekly email List: This email will reach the potential customers at a pre-defined time every week. Such lists prove great for advertising special events. For example, you can have a weekly sales campaign or week’s ‘Best Buy’ offer. Also, this schedule is perfect for a website whose main aim is content promotion as they can advertise week’s best articles through emails. Weekly scheduling is great provided your mails reach customer’s inbox at exactly the same time every week.
2. Monthly or Fortnight Mailing: These schedules are best for an average mailer. This gives the marketer more time to come up with ideas, content, catchy titles and advertising strategies. It serves well your purpose of reminding the customers that you are very much alive. Add right content to this factor and you have a winning combination. Again, your emails should be on time every week.
3. Daily or throughout the Week: This is the trickier part. Daily emails can be a deterrent to your business’s success. If you are sending mails daily, you got to have a strong reason for that. At best, avoid sending emails daily as they tend to annoy the customers. People don’t want their inbox to resemble a spam folder. Better still, stick to weekly schedule.

Advertising through email marketing campaigns is entirely in your hands. Once you have chosen a schedule most relevant to your style and requirements, you’ll start experiencing the absolute benefits of this marvelous marketing technique. Occasionally, you can change send times and observe the differences in click-thru rates, sales and visitor count. Just Experiment a little. Only your personal experience can tell you the magic figure.

If you work from home, chances are you already know that “you’re really pulling ‘double duty”. You probably work on your business while doing the laundry, corralling the kids, or fixing dinner… and let’s not forget all the phone calls from family and friends expecting you to run errands or just “go out” for an afternoon of fun.

One of the hardest parts of running a home business is separating your work from your family and social life. Here are six proven ways to keep your home life running smoothly while keeping your business on track.

1. First, create a work schedule and stick with it. It may be tempting to answer personal calls during the day or take business calls after-hours, but doing this actually shows that you”re expendable – not dependable – and people will take for granted that you”ll “always be there” for any little things that come up. Even though family comes first, stay true to your business hours and resist the urge to chat with friends or pick up groceries during working hours.

2. Your friends may consider “working from home” an invitation to chat during the day or just go out for coffee or shopping for an afternoon. Make it clear that your business hours are just that – for business. Leave personal calls for after-hours, and you”ll find that your friends will gradually accept your schedule without feeling slighted.

3. Just because you have to set up a work schedule, doesn’t mean that you have to keep the same hours as everyone else. One of the benefits of working for yourself is setting your own hours to fit your most productive times. Whether you”re an early bird or a night owl, you”ll find that you”ll get much more done when you”re attuned to your body’s own natural rhythms. Some people work in the morning, take a break in the afternoon when the kids are home from school, and work again in the evening. Schedule your work time when you feel the most productive and you”ll find that things get done easier, faster and better than when you were dragging along during those same rigid work hours that everyone else has.

4. If getting after-hours business calls or work day personal calls is a problem, it helps to have a separate business phone line, or at least an answering machine or voice mail, to take the incoming calls. This also gives your business a more professional appearance to clients than if you and your family make and receive calls from the same phone line.

5. If at all possible, try to separate your “home office” from the rest of your home. If you don’t have the luxury of a separate room, a room partition or screen can be just as helpful. This also serves as a visual cue to family that you”re working and shouldn’t be bothered.

6. Dress and act professionally while working. Some people find it helpful to dress in casual business attire during their working hours. This reinforces that just because you”re working from home doesn’t make you any less of a professional. Answer the phone with your name, or business name, and keep your children off the phone during business hours. Also, spend money investing in the tools you need to do your job right.

If you follow all of these tips and stick with them, chances are you”ll find a routine that not only makes you feel productive and active in your business, but also projects the message that you mean business – literally!

People usually associate blogs with text content as most of the webmasters prefer writing. However, with consistent advancements in Web 2.0, there are today many other mediums of online communications. And when it comes to mediums of communication, nothing is compared to the visual element. People understand better when they see a particular matter being discussed. No wonder video blogging, or Vlogging as it is known, is becoming more and more popular.

Compared to the conventional text content based blogs, blogs having video laden posts present a concept in a more interactive manner. It is a great way to promote your business, in general. For example, you can easily create promotional videos through YouTube to better describe the USP of your products and services. Here are some more convincing reasons why your next post should have an attached video.

1.    Video Can Attain Viral Status Quickly

Since you can cut-paste a video’s embed code into your post, they can be simply attached with your blog post. You can also send an instant message containing the video link to all your friends. With the number of hits a video can receive instantly, chances of it getting popular are more. Achieving the same effect with a text post is apprehensive.

2.    Videos Can Be Transformed

Once you have a video, you can twist it any way around. The video can be converted to audio form or a text based blog post. Or you can simply have a combination of text and video. In a nutshell, a video gives you a lot of flexibility.

3.    Videos Connect You With Your Audience Better

Let’s face it – Text cannot match a videos ability to take your message across to your audience. The gestures in a video represent the non-verbal communication of humans. This is really important in presenting your complete personality in front of your audience.

4.   A Guide to Your Website

A video can quickly explain the motive behind your website to the perspective clients. People can watch a video and decide whether they want to “scroll and scan” your websites content or not. This results in targeted visitors or clients which are genuinely interested in doing business with you.

5.    Search Engine Advantage

Whenever your video’s code is embedded into someone else’s blog post, you instantly receive positive SEO points. More traffic is diverted towards your website as backlinks increase significantly due to video embedding. Also, Search engines seem to give high consideration to video posts. Think about it – one viral video and your blog can turn huge overnight.

Creating videos is a no brainer. You just need to register and upload your video on YouTube. Soon, you’ll be astounded to see the results a simple video can create. They command a higher perceived value compared to audio or text based posts. You can literally wipe out your competition by simply combining video posts along with other blog promotional strategies. So, hit  to YouTube right now.