Success Leaves Clues!
One of the most powerful pieces of advice I ever read was by "success leaves clues" (not sure who said it now though). You can't possibly live long enough to make all the mistakes yourself, so look at the most successful people in your industry or niche and see what they are doing, learn from them as they have already found the path to success.
This is what I have found is pretty common across the board for IM success condensed into 4 components
1. Content Strategy
a) Create content every day
b) Design a weekly or monthly content plan so that you know in advance what you are going to write about, so that you don't waste your creation time procrastinating
c) Set aside 3 hours a day - remove all distractions - phone, email, Skype, other people. Make this your uninterrupted time so that you can concentrate on what you're doing, everything else will still be there when you're finished.
d) For your 3 hr block - set your timer and create for 50 minutes ==> 10 minute break ==> create for 50 minutes==>10 minute break ==> create for 50 minutes.
2. Social Media Strategy
a) When you first start out, be a excellent aggregator of good content.
Spend 30 minutes per day finding great content and add this throughout the day to your social media accounts.
b) This will build your following and show that you are not there to spam with your own content - do this for about a month to two months
c) Then start integrating your own content as well
3. Market Profile Strategy
a) Building a faithful following is so important these days so spend an 30 hour a day on forums, reading articles and then making useful comments - no spam here or you will pay the price
b) Spend 30 minutes a day reading all the comments on your articles, forum posting etc then respond to your audience
4. Product Strategy
a) You a product creator / affiliate or both?
IM success will come through product sales so research good products and get them out there - spend 1 1/2 per day researching, creating, looking at products in the market and what you could use to improve for your own product or marketing as an affiliate.
General Tips
You have a plan for 6 hrs of your working day which will produce long term benefits for your business
Put these activities into your diary and do other work around eg emails, return phone calls etc
Invest in your business
Take a long term view with respect to choosing technology
Outsource activities that will give you valuable time back e.g Hootesuite to manage scheduling the tweets and Fb entries for your Social Media Strategy
Don't expect to get everything you need for free or balance that will the time it will take you to be successful. e.g not spending money where you need to with result in a delays in your earning capacity
What clues you have found to mirror success?
Please leave a comment and share your insights
Recent Comments
24
As a new member... I like this Strategy and helps me to better organize my working day. Thanks!
The important thing is to spend your time productively rather than procrastinating. This plan will get you started and then you can find your own pattern. Gai
I Agree. Slightly changes must be done.... simple and step by step strategy.
(Sorry, I'm a bit row with English- learned myself)... thanks again
Thanks, Gai, I like the content strategy idea of setting aside 3 hrs/day. I do this interspersed thru out the day, but this seems more efficient. I'll have to adopt. thanksl
Lisa
It seems to be more effective when you do it together when it's done you can relax and get to the smaller time frame activities
Hi Gai. Just revisited your post. Now I'm going to print it out to try to hold myself accountable to a schedule such as this. Thanks again for outlining a great strategy. - Lisa
Thanks for the good post.lLots of people get carried away with the captions like"Work for 10 minutes and earn $2000 a week" that is a rare possibilty.
Get I think it is wise to stay away from those. Just sort out which activities drive your business and focus on those. Set yourself a time limit so that you learn to do things more effectively.
I agree Shawn it has always worked for me. The trick is to prioritize business building activities or 'fun' activities. Gai
Ah planning, the nemesis of Online Marketing. Thanks, this puts it in nice perspective. 30 minutes to respond to everyone. Ha, you need more followers. More like the 30 hours you actually typed in your missive.
Thanks for the post it is a valuable addition.
It's funny I have actually learned to set the timer again otherwise I could get caught up all day and only do that one thing Labman. It's all about balance
Thanks Gai for emailing this, makes a lot of sense, there never seems to be enough time in the day for a mum to get everything done, so planning how to use my time effectively is good advise
There is never enough time in the day but if you understand what will actually drive your business that is the best place to start. Build from there.
Gai, this is a great break down of your time. I think as a newbie to the Affiliate Marketing side this has been one of my greatest struggles. I think by using your break down of time and getting back to using my timer on my computer I'll have more productive days and not feel like I'm all over the place. Thanks so much for sharing this. :)
I agree that timing is the nemesis of small business owner. Just get the basics in what activities will help you build and grow your business and focus on them and the rest will look after itself.
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Great job GaiC on this post ! I would also like to say that with success there is always failures and not to get discouraged but to learn from from everything. If we can learn from others failures then hopefully we want make the same costly mistakes. Again well put together post thanks.
I think failure is an important part of success, if you haven't failed you probably haven't push the boundaries all that far. Playing in your comfort zone may enable limited success but not life changing success