Solo Entrepreneur: How To Keep Track Of Your Daily Tasks (Simple Method Inside)

When you get a fitness program from a trainer, it consists of three types of workouts. Some of them build power and muscle, some your endurance and some focus on flexibility. Also they may overlap. Well, it's the same thing with business exercises.
When you plan your day, you need to have these different types of exercises in balance, and as you know, a fitness regimen also requires focusing on technical issues - especially if you really want to make great results. My personal definition for a "sport" in oppose to "fitness" is that it is goal oriented. Kind of like comparing to a "business" vs. an "expensive hobby". In both you do the same things but with a different seriousness.
So what does power mean in a business?
It means money of course. It's the exercises that bring in cash, either immediately or in the long run. Every day you should incorporate some exercises that focus on money. It's about acquiring new customers and making sales, so it absolutely does mean pitching and selling, too. But also a lot more happens on this sector.
The second group of workouts build stamina - brand awareness.
It's about what you do to take your message out there in front of the people and keep it consistent and coherent. Just like you need to have consistency if you're training for a marathon, the endurance of your business builds up gradually. One round of jogging every once in a while isn't enough to prepare you for the quest.
The third mandatory qualification of a successful athlete and business alike is flexibility.
In sports the elasticity of the muscles and joints protects from injury and I like to think it's the same with business.
As I said, some of these workouts overlap, just like in sports they do. I compete in kettlebell sport, which is kind of a perfect combination of all three. It packs a whole gym to just a few exercises which can be executed in a very short time and still get the same - actually better - results. I like to use the same tactics when planning the workdays and work weeks. The basic guideline is: how do I get maximum results from the least amount of work?
Here are some questions I would advise you to answer, but first you need to list all the tasks you do in your business.
Under which category do the fall?
Do they affect multiple areas?
Is there imbalance between them, are you focusing on the right things?
Have you scheduled the time for improving "the technique" as well?

You can download the free Gold Medal Online Marketing eBook from my website. It explains this method from A to Z. http://evekoivula.com/online-marketing-special-method/free-course/

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/8163828

Online Business Success: How To Create Repeatable Systems (5 Step Plan)

One of the reasons most online businesses fail is the lack of repeatable and scalable systems. Many people confuse those with technology and believe they can be replaced by it, but not everything can be put on autopilot.
What are the systems?
Systems are the daily, weekly and monthly routines build around different items in your business. Let's use content creation as an example here.
First phase: the idea
An optimal situation is that you have created another system behind jotting down and collecting them in one place. Maybe you use Google Alerts to get them in your email, perhaps you have a set up a blog stream in a reader, or you have a dedicated time of the week you sit down for a half an hour to do it manually.
Second phase: decision making
From an idea you move to the next phase, which is to choose the format: will you shoot a video, write an article or make an infographic, mindmap etc. and what else do you need to keep in mind to take it out to the world.
If you're working on a blog post, the needs are very different from those of a special report, not to mention shooting videos.
Do you need to have someone to do the manuscript for you, book a studio and a hairdresser, or will you create a video using screen capture?
Do you need an external writer or a proofreader?
How about the artwork?
As you can notice, from this point on every system and process gets very different.
Third phase: content creation and formatting
In this phase you produce and compile the content according to your plan: have your video edited, graphics designed and layouts done, and so on.
Fourth phase: delivery
Once the piece of content, or a whole set of it has been created you must consider the distribution and delivery: where is it published? Is it a product, which needs a sales page with copy, graphics and the shopping cart integration? Is it a video which requires an external storage? Is it a special report to collect names on your email list, which then requires certain procedure done for your autoresponder?
Fifth phase: promotion
Finally it's time to promote your content: will you send an email to all your subscribers with a link to your new blog post? Do you post a status update to your Facebook page, Twitter and LinkedIn? Will you create an ad or write and post a press release? And so forth.
All these five phases should be systematized, so you never need to worry about missing something important. Use checklists, mindmaps and flowcharts, or create a video explaining all the necessary steps if you're comfortable with those. Just make sure you document the whole process at some point. That's the way to avoid excess work and also gives you the opportunity to develop and streamline the process to make better results.

Your content creation should start by structuring your coaching business and marketing. If you liked what I wrote, you're the most welcome to visit my website and download a free guide for that. http://evekoivula.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/8172147

The First 7 Lessons Learned About Online Marketing (Free Step-By-Step Plan Inside!)

I've been an offline marketing professional for over 15 years, and while there are similarities between "the two worlds" offline and online, you can make great new discoveries, too. Here are some of them I've made while shifting my focus from the first to the latter.

1. You can find pretty much anything for free from the web, but it's slow and the pieces never really seem to fit. If you value your time and your good night sleep, don't go that way. Investing on someone who can give you step by step instructions allows you to take giant leaps towards your goals, even if you wanted just a part time side business.

2. "Step by step" can mean anything from merely superficial advise to a highly refined and detailed plan.

3. Most products and programs on the market help you to fix tiny details by teaching you a single tactic ("the how"). That doesn't help much if the ground work was never properly done ("the why") or you're missing pieces strongly connected to this particular tactic.

4. The bigger the guru, the more likely they tell you over the first 3 lessons that you should hire a virtual assistant, VA.

5. They are right: you should hire a VA when it's necessary. But first you need to know what it is that you don't know and what you should use their services for.

For instance, you may have a fear of technology and you decide to hire someone to take care of your website, but as long as you don't know what you want to present on that website and what's the purpose of it, it's in vain, unless you let the assistant decide on that.

But then you should rather get a partner, not a VA.

Also the expenses will multiply unless you have a clear assignment to present.

6. People are always looking for simple and easy, that's why the "systems", "formulas" and "blueprints" sell so well. Once they have it, there's still the actual work to execute and that's where most people fail.
Here's one of my favourite quotes on that:
"Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything." (George Bernard Shaw)

7. Pardon my sarcasm, which was unacceptable for online entrepreneurs until a guy named Frank Kern made it acceptable.

But there's something I call "Rinse & Repeat Success Formula".
It's the step-by-step plan I promised you and here it is:
Step 1: Plan
Step 2: Start
Step 3: Continue
Step 4: Tweak
Step 5: Repeat steps 3 and 4

99% of the people who start an online business - or any business for that matter - fail. There are a number of reasons why that happens and one of them is lacking a plan. I have put together a report you can find on my website free of charge. It introduces four other mistakes you should avoid while building your business online. http://evekoivula.com/blog

Also published http://EzineArticles.com/8161677

Online Business Step By Step: How To Spot Ideas

How to develop ideas for info products and services sold online? Here are three possible solutions you can use, whether you already have a business or you're only just considering to start one.

Before bringing a new information product to the market, one should always determine there's an actual demand. Pretty much everything has been invented by now, so there's no need to wait until you come up with a completely new and unique idea. You just need an angle nobody has thought of before.

1. Improve existing program or product

Whatever your area of expertise, you can find hundreds of solutions all over the web. The vast majority of the information is completely free, but in order to develop a fee-based program the best you can do is to invest on someone elses program to see how it's constructed.

It is certain that "one size" doesn't fit all, and no matter how popular a program, someone is always dissatisfied with some aspects of it.

Pick up those flaws and complaints and use them to design your own product or program on the base of an existing one. You can for instance improve the user experience, add something significant to upscale results or reassemble the array. If you study multiple programs you can also form a combination of them, added with your personal twist.

However, under no circumstances should you plagiarize anyone and anything!

Giving your name to for example Tracy Anderson method doesn't make it your own or unique. Simple re-branding is mere stealing.

2. Conduct or attend a survey

When you get a request to attend a survey, sent by a marketer with similar topics to what you teach, it usually means they are testing their ideas for a new product, training or program.

Everyone - including you - can and should use surveys on their database once they have one. It's a great way to find out what the audience really wants and may even be interested enough to buy.

3. "Nichify" an existing system, program or product

It can be done with either yours or someone else's methods, products and programs.

One example is the one I have used, which is transposing the structure of a fitness program to business and marketing and using the same techniques I use to coach athletes. After all, regardless the field, success always results from similar actions.

My system divides those actions to three categories: A, which stands for "assist", B as "basic" and C as "crafting" and they build power, endurance and flexibility for business, just as a physical exercising program should. This step for example falls into B category.

If you're interested in my method, download your free copy of the eBook from my website http://evekoivula.com/online-marketing-special-method/free-course/


Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/8139057

Online Business Step By Step: The Three C's

To run a successful business online you will need three essential pillars. This article explains what those are.

Conception

Starting out as a solo entrepreneur your conception, or "vision" is the first thing you must define, because later on it will work as the fuel that keeps you going. You need to be clear about your motives to self-employ. The harsh truth is, that otherwise the first upcoming obstacles will end your enterprise.

One way to concretize your vision is a "treasure map" or a "vision board", which is often times an image-based collage or a written manifesto. Some studies state that taking the effort of concretizing your vision may actually increase your chances to succeed up to 40% (source: The One Thing, Jay Papasan, Gary Keller).

You will also need a vision for your business, even though at first it may seem they are just measurable goals. You should start by defining your goals for the first year: what kind of services and products do you sell? Will you hire people or outsource and what is your role? What are the targeted customer base and turnover numbers? And so on.

Those will then determine the actions you need to take and allow you to see the potential. Then for a long term plan you can ask yourself how big should the business grow and what is the time frame.

Commitment

Just like an athlete who wants to climb up to the top of the world, you need to commit to doing the work it takes to achieve your goals.

It's no accident every successful athlete has a coach. Not only do they assist with practical issues, but that kind of relationship also enables the athlete to comfortably focus on the essentials and strengthens the commitment.

The study I mentioned earlier stated that by having someone to hold you accountable you will double the chances to succeed. But of course you do not have to hire a business coach, but you can also for instance recruit a friend, a family member or a mastermind group to support you and act as your accountability partner.

Curiosity

You must always remain curious and willing to learn. That can mean many things: you need to learn something yourself, or you'll learn that your capacity is limited. You may need to learn to give up and let go, or to make fast decisions. Some need to learn to communicate, manage their tasks or say no. Or to plan, delegate or keep their promises.

A solo entrepreneur often must learn and streamline all the processes of her business herself, because only after that she can effectively outsource them. For a startup that may feel like a daunting task, and it often is if you need to gather the information from multiple sources. Another solution is to invest on a program which enables to proceed with a minimum amount of stress.

The main thing is to keep an open mind.

I talk more about these three essential pillars in my eBook "Gold Medal Online Marketing - The Winning Method". You can download it for free from http://evekoivula.com/online-marketing-special-method/free-course/

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/8139683

Startup Online Business: How To Do Market Research

Research plays a major role in every online business and you need to accommodate a habit of doing some research on a regular basis. In this article I'm discussing 3 essential items you must research about your marketplace and the benefits of doing the work.

It's crucial to know your competition, so you must spend some time answering the following questions.

Offerings

- What kind of solutions are there on the market addressing similar problems than yours? How many different variations do you find?
- What are the benefits these programs or products are promising?
- What makes each of them stand out? Can you spot the claims of their uniqueness?
- What are the price ranges of all these different options and how are they constructed to give reasons for the price?

If possible, also try to find data about the conversion of these products. Affiliate marketplaces such as Clickbank provides a lot of insights on that.

Based on what's already on the market and how it sells you can then determine if your product idea is viable and how you should develop it further.

Competitors

- Who are the people offering exactly the same solution to the exact same market you are targeting? Who are their clients?
- How do they differentiate themselves?
- What advertising mediums do they use?

Find out if they use paid advertising, have social media profiles, what is their level of activeness, how big is their following, and so on.

Your competitors tell you a lot about how to communicate in your marketplace and the gaps you can fill with your own solutions.

Allies

When looking for potential allies you could connect with to establish strategic partnerships, the questions are very similar to those you answer while researching your competitors. The angle is just very different. When you take the effort of digging deeper, you may also notice these two groups can overlap.

Once you have the data about competition, you may want to think about the following:

- Instead of targeting the exact same market, can you rework your messages and your angle to match a slightly different niche?

That might offer you a chance to propose collaboration and joint ventures.

- What is missing from their portfolio?

Could you create a product or a program to address to that?

- Study the vendors they already collaborate with: what similarities and differentiators do you find there?

The marketplace and competition is just one of the items you absolutely need to research. My additional articles discuss the other equally significant areas you must study in order to run a successful online business.

By the way, if you liked my article, I'm offering similar, only more in-depth lessons to the students of my Biz Puzzle Bootcamp. Click here for more information: http://evekoivula.com/bootcamp

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/8141402

Online Startup Business: 3 Step Plan to Learn Prospect Mindreading (Yes, It's Legal!)

In one of my previous articles I explained what kind of things you should find out about your competition and now it's time to dig into the minds of your prospect. Here is my 3 Step Plan to do that the easy way.

Doing research isn't sexy and it definitely isn't always fun, either, but it's absolutely crucial for a small business in order to increase profits while decreasing the work.

Step 1: Determine who your prospect is

Be very precise with details: man or woman (let's pretend you choose to speak to a woman)? How old? Where does she live - small town, big town, countryside, abroad? House or apartment? What size is her family? What is she interested in? What kind of movies does she watch? What's her favourite TV-show? What about her favourite band? What kind of books does she read? Does she have hobbies? Does she vote? What is her income level? What about her education?

The more you know about her, the easier it gets to speak straight to her, using the language she understands and resonates with. By choosing your wording carefully, you can leave her with an impression that you are almost like reading her mind.

Just keep in mind you're looking for a person with a problem she already knows she has, and which you can solve.

Step 2: Find this woman and swipe her words

Maybe you know her from social gatherings; she's a member of the same gym as you and you have talked with her in the locker room. What did she say?

Or she may have a blog, or you find her from forums or elsewhere in social media.

When she is describing this problem, what wording does she use?

Step 3: Reaffirm your findings

Now you go back to what you found while researching your competitors, and pick the ones who seem to be talking to this same woman, and also appear to have made it big. They have very likely invested a lot of money on doing the research for you, to figure out the language that speaks to this particular group of people, so you don't have to.

Subscribe to their list, study their website and jot down what kind of power words are they using and how do they construct their offerings. Do not try to copy them word by word, just pick up the ideas. Remember that you want to incorporate these findings with your own personal story.

Are you just starting out with an online business and could use more practical advise?

I'm offering similar, only more in-depth lessons to the students of my Biz Puzzle Bootcamp. Click here for more information: http://evekoivula.com/bootcamp

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/8144267

Ideas for Your Blog

If you are blogging daily, it may sometimes be difficult to come up with fresh ideas to write about. Here are my top 3 resources to generate ideas, topics or even partially completed content for a blog.

1. Information product sales letters
If you're browsing sales pages related to your niche, you can easily find topics to post in your blog for weeks. Check out the bullet points that provide you information about the content of the product or program and write down things that come to your mind. It really doesn't matter what the original intent of a particular point was, you have a vision of your own about it and you can post that vision in your blog.

Read the whole article: http://EzineArticles.com/8018466

Tackling the Obstacles That Prevent Your Success

Jackie Joyner-Kersee has been voted as the Greatest Female Athlete of the 20th century by Sports Illustrated for Women magazine. She won 3 golden and 3 other medals in 4 different olympics in heptathlon and long jump. She has said that the secret behind her success was this: "Those who know the why, beat the how."

Read the whole article: http://EzineArticles.com/8006242

 

Small Business Success: You Need These 4 Strategies

In order to succeed, every solo entrepreneur, service provider and small business owner must have a strategy for the four processes discussed in this article. They build on top of each other and are equally important for your prosperity.

1. Business strategy

This contains decisions concerning your objectives and budgeting, the products, services and programs you offer and all the people and their roles in your business.

Read the whole article: http://EzineArticles.com/8021826

What Do You Need To Know About SEO?

Search engine optimization, or SEO, sounds complicated, but it doesn't have to be. There are some simple guidelines you need to be aware of when writing blog posts for a small business, and following them will help you to get the most out of SEO very easily.

Read the whole article: http://EzineArticles.com/7983781

How Often Should You Blog?

For small business blogs there are several opinions about daily blogging, and it's impossible to give one answer to the question "Should you blog every day or less frequent?"
If you look at some of the most successful blogs, you notice that they all do post something every single day, or at least every weekday, if they're blogging about business topics. And some of them blog even more than once a day and have evolved into being more "online magazines" or "news sites" than traditional blogs.
I can see two explanations to that:

Read the whole article: http://EzineArticles.com/7983085

Join the blogging challenge event: http://evekoivula.com/blog-tlc-invitation

3 Fundamentals of a Successful Blog

Anyone can start blogging these days, and that's why so many do. You don't need to pay for it, even if you want to monetize it later, as there are free platforms such as WordPress.org, Blogger or Tumblr. to go to and place a blog on public servers. Lots of them are doing fine and people are making money with their blogs, but most of them don't, even if they wanted to. Here are the basic reasons why they don't.

Read the whole article: http://EzineArticles.com/7981321

How to Build Power, Stamina and Flexibility of the Online Business

A smart online entrepreneur chooses the exercises that have the biggest impact on all three areas and keeps those in balance. She also bares in mind all content repurposing possibilities: for example articles can be converted to videos, podcasts and email campaigns, coaching calls to articles, blog posts and newsletters, and so on. In any case you should incorporate the following "workouts" to your business plan.
Read the whole article: http://EzineArticles.com/8000893
 

It’s in the Drawer and it’s Perfect!

Let me ask you a question: how many internet marketing courses or programs have you bought? And with that I mean those that teach you how to build a website or the entire business, how to become an instant expert, how to make a product or a program, how to launch it, market it and drive traffic to it, or simply all those products that teach you how to use Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, paid advertising, Pinterest, Google+, do Joint Ventures or whatever services are out there.
I have bought too many.

Read the whole article: http://evekoivula.com/?p=1240

3 Things You Should Steal From Your Fitness Program

If you have followed any fitness or sports coaching program for a while, you have probably noticed these similarities between that and internet marketing. So if you are building a business online, or using internet marketing to get more clients, you absolutely should take an advantage of them.

Read the whole article: http://EzineArticles.com/7985491