“I bet I could have saved on many of the ninety-hour weeks that I’ve invested in over the years, had I been more systematic in managing time!”
…Have you ever heard anyone uttering this? I will be surprised if you haven’t.

Do you feel the need to be more organized? At the end of a tiring, hectic day do you sit and wonder why you haven’t accomplished much?

Any business without an effective and well thought out time management planning is just like around the world in 80 years, flying in a jet!!
Time management skills are especially important for small entrepreneurs who often find themselves performing many different tasks in a single day.

Time Management- A Myth???

No matter how organized we are, there are always only 24 hours in a day, you can’t change that. So, it’s all about managing ourselves and what we do with the time that we have.

To start with:

Get Aggressive about Managing Time!
Time and money are both very important in business. Yet, many business people tend to give a lot more specific thought only about managing their finance and leave time to take care of it. The time management of most entrepreneurs doesn’t go much further to questions like “What am I going to do today?” or “What should I do next?”
But the fact is like finance, proper forecast, control & budget is also necessary when it comes to spending business time

Find out where you’re wasting time.
You could fall prey to time-stealers that eat into the time you could have used much more productively. Find out your time-bandits! Do you spend too much time net surfing, reading email, or making personal calls? Checkout your daily schedule file so that you can form an accurate picture of what you actually do.

Create goals.
Remember, the focus has to be on changing your behaviors, and not time. A good way to start is by getting rid of your personal time-wasters. For one week, for example, set a target of not taking personal calls while you’re working.

Implement a time management plan.
You can take this as an extension of time management tip # 3. The objective is to change your behaviors over time to reach whatever target you’ve set for yourself, it can be increasing your productivity or decreasing your stress. So you need to not only set your specific goals, but also track them over time to see whether you’re accomplishing them.

To keep you cool & collected here are some more leads for you.

Use time management tools.
Let a software program such as Outlook, remind you of events, appointments and meetings in advance, making your time management easier.

Prioritize ruthlessly.
Your day should start with a time management session prioritizing the tasks for that day and setting your performance benchmark. As for instance, if you have 20 tasks for a given day, how many of them do you truly need to accomplish? Jot down your tasks in your personal notebook, cellular phone, digital diary, wherever you may find comfortable. Get everything that you need to concern yourself physically in an email in-box, a notebook you take with you, a little tape recorder, etc. Don’t try and remember everything! So, start the day correctly.

Learn to delegate and/or outsource.
Allow other people to bear some of your load. You are now in an era of outsourcing. Identify the non-core functions of your business bulk those out.

Get in the habit of setting time limits for tasks.
Reading and answering emails can consume your whole day if you let it. Allot a specific time, say of 1:30 hours in a business day to see and answer your mails. Have 2 specific time of the day, one in the morning, one in the evening to check and reply mails. Turn off your mail-alert; that tends to make you open and read mails whenever they arrive.

Be sure your systems are organized.
Is hell of a time being wasted looking for files on your computer? You need to organize your file management system. Is your filing system slowing you down? Redo it, so it’s organized to the point that you can quickly get what you need.

Don’t waste time waiting.
From client meetings to personal appointments, it’s impossible to avoid waiting for someone or something. But you need not have to just sit there and fiddle with your thumbs. Always take just a blank pad of paper that you can use to plan your next marketing drive. Technology makes it easy to work wherever you are, but I found it slaving to be “always connected and wired!. The classic pen & paper are useful for me anyway.

While in a meeting
While you are in a meeting with your members of staff, keep it brief, in no case that should extend an hour, if you really don’t want your staff to yawn over your face. Don’t discuss non-pressing items in a meeting that always pushes off the priorities. Best of all; hold meetings standing, rather than sitting, that way you will all arrive at quick decisions.

Narrow Your Focus!
This is very crucial to avoid distractions… fewer priorities you focus on at once, the more productive you will be. After you have your major time priorities for the year established, you should allocate them by week or by month.

Process
Process tasks systematically. Start from the top of the in-box, pick up each item and ask yourself “is there an action I need to take about this item?” If there is no action you need to take, either throw the thing away, file it for reference, or make a note on your “Someday/Maybe” list. If you feel you can take action in any of the listed tasks in two minutes or less, do it now! If not, decide what that next action is, and enter it on your “Next Action” list.
Now, you have to get out from under the daily grind and find time to grow your business

The Rolling Stones sang, “time is on my side, yes it is.”
If you own and run a small business, this probably isn’t your theme song.

You may have noticed the last posts almost all were about James Brausch.
Well, I think I found a reason.

I just listened to his “LifeManagement 101″ Audio CD and found out he just has very similar thoughts about life.

Maybe, if we meet someone (be it in person or virtual, how I met James on his blog…), your subconscious mind checks similarities to that person by scanning all it can get to compare to your mindset. That may be text, topics, videos, thought, anything.

Well, James seems to be a crazy guy (what 98% people would say ;o) and I seem to be.
I tell you: HE’s not!

He does one thing so super-right (if he really does how he says) that most so-called “gurus” preach, but I would bet most of THEM never put into action.
James understands WHY he chose the internet to make it his road to freedom (he defines “freedom” better on the Audio-CD!).
That reason is:

Family!

I couldn’t agree more.
And I always knew it. In fact, i have some other entrepreneur friends and some of them work on the internet. If you talk to people like that, many times the discussion goes to “Why are we doing what we do?” “What makes us different?”.
And you know what? Even if they work the same tasks like me (some of them), want to make money with the same tools like me (Selling other people’s products, create own products, build a list, etc…), they always answer this question different than me.

If you ask me today:
“Norman, why are you so eager to get your name out there, to develop products, take risks, test stuff * and sit in front of yur computer?”

*(I LOVE testing! BTW: Did you see that Google Website Optiomizer is now out of beta-status and FREE for everyone in their Adwords-Accounts? It’s fuckin’ FREE! That tool is so awesome, it honestly made me thousands over the last 3-4 months! It’s Taguchi-Testing for Dummies! You HAVE to USE it!)

Back to the topic:
So my answer would be:
“I am doing this because very soon, I want to do nothing else than to spend time with my loved wife, my kid (which will be born late summer this year! I can’t wait!! ) and my garden. I love green grass , blue sky, a reading a good book in a hammock and have a barbecue with friends & family (WITHOUT having to go to work tomorrow!).”

So, let’s sum this up:
I do what I do just and only for the purpose to FREE MY TIME!
I know I am not where I want to be with my income yet, so I still work. But I will work less and less, year by year.
My dream is to stop working. Or just doing it for fun & charity in the future. As soon as possible.

And you know what the other guys I mentioned say:
“Hey, we want to get THIS done to start THAT and then do the next project and: WE JUST LOVE TO WORK!”

Honestly, what’s the point?
You LOVE work? You LOVE being away from your family? Why do you have one?

I have to admit, there may be relationships that are not as wonderful as the one I have, but please people > Solve it or divorce! And then focus on LIVING again.

I truly NOT believe that we are here on planet earth for working our asses off!

Conclusion:
If you are a newbie to Internet Marketing or just started or are in the middle of it and realize you just have no time for yourself, family and fun anymore, I very much hope that this is temporary to get your initial momentum.

Think of time as a health supplement. Get the most of it for yourself in your own life.

In any case, James’ Audio is a good introduction to the theory of making your life YOURS (again) while still making money.

Here’s the link to his course again (NO affiliate link and it’s only $10 for the CD!):

http://www.jamesbrausch.com/?p=435

Have a great day everyone!
I love life. Not money. And not work.
Norman Freeman

Good morning everyone. Norman here.
Norman is a guy-name, here in Germany too.
Why I am telling you this? Read on.

I have been thinking about what really sells for a long time now.
I don’t mean “what sells” from a product view or what kind of service is in demand at the moment. I am talking about measurability.

So what makes your launch, your product, your list, your blog and your life a success?

For products and marketing, you would say something like: Distribution (list, promotion-partnerships, ads), Copy, features, benefits…

So have you ever thought about if one of those big guys that crank out 197$+ products every other month to lists (via JVs) of 300.000+ subscribers would be able to sell a product without any salesletter? Or, would someone not knows in the “IM niche” at all – like me – (yet ;o) be able to covert the same product with the same salescopy and the same list with the same conversion rate?

Well, I think not. Authority and influence are my favourite words of the day.
If Mike Filsaime (or any other of those guys) tells his list about a product, it’s not only about the story, the copy and the product. It has much to do with authority. And INFLUENCE!

I don’t know how to measure it yet, but maybe James Brausch is willing to help out. He is the only one I would trust in this whole marketing-circus to get an analytical product together to measure emotional variables in sales-processes.

Anyway, one measurable variable just proved itself: Influence.
Proven by the same guy btw: James Brausch.

He – what I appreciate very much – named my blog on his.
No particular incident to do so, he did it just because he likes my blog (way of writing?). That’s what he says.

But unfortunately there was one thing that caused a tail of actions been taken by different people. It was a tail that, from my view, was kicked off by the power of (unintended) influence.

To name it:
I had a header-graphic on my blog that showed me with long hair (and a business-suit btw!) like I had it grown for years. (Yes, I like Indie-Rock-Music!)
Somehow that picture seemed to look a little un-male (or at least not 100% male) to James.
Although he did not mean to be rude I am sure, he wrote about his concerns in this blog entry. Now think what happened?

1. (I am happy about this!)
I got some list-subscribers who were actively referred by James to my blog.

Sidenote: You can tell I was not only surprised but honored to be “featured” in James’ blog, since he (you might have recognized he is the ONLY blog I recommend yet!) writes a solid analytic style I like very much.
Also he seems to be way outside the “net of slaveristic freedom” (more about that later) which most “IM gurus” (I HATE the word guru…) decided to belong to.

2. (I am not sure about this one)
I got about 5-10 comments on my blog that made fun about me looking like a girl or both in my header graphic.

Sidenote: This does not sidetrack or hurt me. I have a wife, a kid and a wonderful life. I just tell you this for a reason: Influence! Read on.

Though some of those comments were not that nice, I can understand why they occured. Honestly, I think 90% of the IM-product customers seem to be like that.

Here’s the catch if you move your brain in this niche of wannabe Gialdinis:
You are influenced. Anywhere. Anywhen. Anytime.
Keep that in mind!

So I think if some of those commentators would have not read James Brausch’s post before they came to my blog, they wouldn’t have even thought about me being a man or a woman.
They just had it in mind after reading James’ post.
In fact, some of them might even have visited my blog for just THAT reason: To see my header graphic. I changed it atm, but will maybe change it back later. In fact, I changed it now because one of those people seemed to be so persistent with his (her?) thoughts about my gender that I finally changed the pic.

So what can you learn from this?
I would say two things:

First, BE AWARE that you are influenced every second of your life! You can not change that, but you can mix it with some SELF-THINKING!

Second, you COULD use the power of influence in your salesletter, ads etc. but that’s another post.

To sum it up:
Thanks, James! I was very surprised opening up your blog after watching your “How to create a newsletter from a remote Island” videos and found MY NAME on there. I not only appreciate that, but it also gives me some confidence to continue my way.
Hope to chat with you one day.

Yours,

NorMAN

The Original post by James Brausch (I honestly don’t know how this trackback technique works yet…):
http://www.jamesbrausch.com/wp-trackback.php?p=397

http://www.jamesbrausch.com/?p=397

All the products that you want to sell online are ready. You have already signed up with the Google Adsense program or with other affiliate marketing programs and you have already prepared the ad you want to post on your affiliate’s site. Your mind is now set to being the next most successful online businessman. But is there anything else that you might have forgotten to prepare? Maybe none. But how about your landing pages? Are they all set for your business?

Landing pages are simply web pages where visitors are directed to whenever they click a result in a web search or whenever they click a web ad. For affiliate marketing, landing pages would refer to the web page where you, as a merchant, would want your potential customer to be directed after clicking your ad on your affiliate’s website. Landing pages are, at most times, nothing really different from other web pages in a particular website, especially if the said website is an e-commerce site. Some online businessmen would even use the homepage of their websites as the landing page for their ads. Are these businessmen making a big mistake? Or should you follow their method in creating landing pages for their ads?

Well, you can always follow what most online retailers do, directing their potential customers to the homepages of their websites. But if you want to achieve something more from your online business, and if you want to earn a lot of profits, you better create a special landing page for your web ads. Why? Here are a few reasons why you need to use landing pages for your web ads. And take note, it would do you a lot better if you create a great landing page than a so-so one.

Reason no. 1: It is the only way you earn conversions in an affiliate marketing program.

There are a variety of affiliate marketing programs today, but most of these programs let the merchant pay the affiliate in a pay per click basis. Basically, all you have to do is sign up with the program and submit your ad. The program owner would then distribute your ad to various affiliates who would then place your ad on their websites. Whenever your ad is clicked, a visitor would be directed to your landing page and you would have to pay the affiliate for his service.

As a merchant, you earn in an affiliate program through conversions—that is whenever a visitor that is directed to your site actually buys a product on your site. Without these conversions, you actually earn nothing from the program. Also, the more visitors that your affiliates have directed to your site, the larger would your expense be. And the only way that you can recover from these expenses is through conversions.

Now, you sure won’t get any conversion if you have posted an ad on your affiliate’s site without an actual landing page for the potential customer to be redirected into. It’s just like advertising a product without actually having a store to sell your product. Your advertisement may be enticing enough to encourage people to purchase a product, but without the landing page, how will they know how to purchase the product

It is therefore important to have landing pages for your ads because it is the only way for you to earn something in an affiliate program. Without landing pages, all you do is spend money paying your affiliates without actually getting anything in return.

Reason no. 2: Other web pages may just not be enough.

Many people make the mistake of making their website’s homepage as the landing page for their ads. The same is true for those who make use of other pages like a “contact us” page or a product page. Homepages are often designed to serve multiple users and contains a lot of links to other pages or to other websites. The same is with the other two pages mentioned. If you want to be successful in an affiliate program, we’re sure that you don’t want your landing page to cater to the needs of various people, most of which may not be really interested with your product.

When choosing a landing page, you must always have the customer directed into that page in mind. Therefore, your landing page must be relevant to the keywords and the contents you placed on your ad. It is also important that the landing page can induce your visitor to take action—that is to purchase your product or at least provide leads for potential customers.

Final Word

You probably entered into an affiliate marketing program with these things in mind: to save on advertising expenses and to gain more profit. But if you get into an affiliate marketing program without actually having a landing page, you’ll end up paying too much without getting anything in return. So if you still don’t have a landing page for your ads, you better start creating one now. And don’t get us wrong; it isn’t enough for you to have just a landing page—it should be a great landing page!