“I’m broke, in debt, and depressed,” “I hate my life,” “I have no girlfriend, no job, starting to feel very depressed,” “Starting to lose hope,” “I still haven’t made a dime,” “Fastest way to make $2000 – $3000 in one month?”

Surprisingly, these are the threads that usually get the most replies. There’s usually a lot of hype in them, even a little bit of excitement, but one can definitely feel the energy of the atmosphere as everyone is telling their own personal story to get it on the action. After many responses, the original poster receives wonderful tips to help improve their life. The scary thing is days later, weeks later, and even months later, you will find the original poster there, in the same thread, asking people for the same advice. This has made me realize that there are really two types of self-employed people in the world.

The Ones Who Take Value for Themselves

Some people need to have the perfect plan before they start taking any action. They think they have to read all the books, watch all the videos, listen to all the audio tapes, attend all the seminars, or get all the best advice from people on the forums before they start doing anything. The biggest mistake is that self-employed people make is thinking that by reading a book, watching a video, listening to an audiotape, or attending a seminar, it is the same as producing value to other people. It’s not. Rather, they’re taking value from other people who are giving it to them.

Even if the book they are reading has the answers to every single problem imagined to achieve success, if they have done nothing, they still end up just taking value. If this person doesn’t take action, nothing really changed besides them becoming more knowledgeable. They may feel more powerful or energized, but soon even this feeling will fade away into the distance when they realized that they haven’t given any value back.

So in order to regain that power, energy, inspiration, motivation, or feeling again, they will find it in another book, another video, another audio tape, seminar, or thread reply, until one day they’ve realized how much time has passed by and how much they are in debt. The credits are maxed out and the ink from crossing out all the days of the calendar run dry. Like how a powerful king who falls from the throne when he becomes too greedy, a self-employed person will fall out of greed to know everything, eventually putting them in a helpless, powerless state to do anything.

The Ones Who Give Value to Others

There is hope though. Although in today’s highly competitive world, a normal person – with or without all the rich knowledge of the information age – can still succeed and see themselves rise up to being a king, but not only a king that serves himself (or herself for women reading this – Queen), but a leader who serves the people. And this is done through giving value to others.

There’s a catch to this however. The word “value” is often times misused or misunderstood. The reason for this is because when a word is used too much, the meaning of it becomes inflated. Other examples are words like “best,” “top,” and “most.” But when you look at the word “value,” what does it really mean to you?

Most people might replace the word “value” with the word “something”. So the phrase of this paragraph’s title would read, “The Ones Who Give Something to Others”. This “something” usually comes out to be a form of rehashed or regurgitated material from a common source. What is value then?

In chess, value is not the pawn, knight, or bishop. It’s the queen. Value is something of quality. Value is something important. Value is something unique. It is not something.

So I guess the biggest question is how can you give value to other people? Although human beings may seem different in a hundred billion ways, we have an innate characteristic that enables us to detect on a deep, personal level whether or not the value we are receiving is actually making a genuine positive different in our lives.

This could be something that makes us laugh, makes us think, makes us wonder, or even better, all of the above. But it’s not something that makes us disappointed, frustrated, or even just walk away as if nothing had happened except for time passing by.

You can stand out from the rest; you can rise to the top; you can be the king. But the one thing you must always ask yourself is this question. Are you truly making someone else’s life better?

I want to give you 5 ways that I have found to work which has doubled my business sales, tripled the bottom line and halved my advertising budget.

When I first started writing this article I expected it to be around 1200 words for the whole 5 ways of doubling your business sales, but when I got started I soon realised I had a lot more to say than 1200 words. So I have written about 1500 words for each part.

For regular readers you will know I own www.binaural-mind.com where I sell binaural beats to the public for better health and relaxation, I also do affiliate marketing which I won’t talk so much about as I don’t want to give away my niche.

Anyways, when I first started out I thought if I sell the downloads of the binaural beats cheap I will get loads of vistors to the site and loads of sales through word of mouth.  Well the first month of going live, and it was a soft beginning, which meant I didn’t really shout at all about the opening of the site, I made 6 sales at $29 for each download.  I then received a message from someone else who was selling downloadable binaural beats basically saying that I should not under price my product as there were others out there selling binaural beats for up to $1000 per set.  I thought about this for a bit and obviously I knew that my competition would not want me selling cheap for obvious reasons but I thought about the psychology of it, if a product seems to cheap then it can’t be any good which means a lot of people wouldn’t buy it purely for the fact that it seemed to cheap.

I then braced myself and doubled the price of my product and waited to see what would happen.  After two days, absolutely nothing, on the third day a few questions from prospective buyers, on the fourth day 2 sales at $69 each. I’d raised my prices by $40 and I was still getting sales.  I kept it at the new price and I am still getting sales and with over 90 sales I have only had 1 return which is not bad going for a clickbank product.

As you know I have been affiliate marketing for a few years and I have also started up an internet marketing arm of the business offering advice to offline businesses. I was speaking with one of my clients a few days ago about a making them a website and do internet marketing for a fixed fee and monthly fee thereafter.  We sat down and discussed her business which was a service she offered to the public.  I gave her five pieces of advice for free which will bring in an extra $10,000 – $30,000  per year.  This woman’s business was run on word of mouth alone and she had a great reputation for what she did which was to make custom made curtains and pelmets for clients.  She had made our curtains and pelmets for a great price.  After the job was done we had a word about her business and I asked a whole load of questions about her business and her marketing and she said she didn’t do any marketing, it was all word of mouth.  I asked if she would like more business and how much she could handle; the answer? Of course she would and could handle a lot more.

We sat down and went into more detail about her business and looked at her competition to find out what they were charging for their service.  It turns out she was one of the cheapest on the market in her area.  I gave her 5 pieces of advice which I know will increase her sales, triple her profits and half her workload.

5 Ways to double your sales and half your workload – Part 1

1. Increase your price

You might have guessed it already, the first piece of advice I would give to businesses offering a service of some kind would be to increase their price by at least 50%.  I can almost hear the screams of abuse at this piece of advice; we’re in a recession for goodness sake why on earth would I raise my prices? but hear me out, (and by the way we’re only in a recession because the media say we are).  If you are offering a service to people and you have taken the time to get qualifications in your area of expertise and are considered a professional then increasing your price should be a natural way to build your business but most business owners don’t think like this.

They start out in business offering a service cheaper than most to build the business and get a reputation.  However, once the business has been established and the reputation gained they keep the prices the same as before, why? They don’t want to rock the boat, they are fearful that if they put the prices up the buyers will leave.  This is not true.  If you have a great reputation and people trust you, they will happily pay you the extra 50%.  Yes, you will get customers who leave you but you will also gain new customers with smart marketing.

If you are a business owner who sells products you obviously can’t sell your products with a 50% increase? You can, depending on what you are selling.  One of my clients, a computer shop owner, put a new type of motherboard  in his custom built computers which greatly increased the performance of the computer.

His new motherboard was 50% more expensive to buy.  After talking about it we marketed the benefits of the new motherboard and he increased the price of that computer model with the new motherboard by 50% and it is now the bestselling computer in his shop.  Lets look at the numbers for the computer shop owner.

As you can see from the table above the main points are, The cost to build the computer was 19% more as the motherboard had gone up in price by 50% but the rest of the components of the computer stayed the same price.  So although it was more expensive to build we still increased the overall price of the computer by 50% and gained 111% increase in profit, amazing!

Okay you might think we were being a bit greedy here.  So lets just say you increase the price by 25% which is just over the amount it costs extra to build the computer.

You still increase your profit by 37%.  The above tables do not take into consideration the increased amount in sales for the new computer as they were marketed as having the latest new motherboard and we marketed all the benefits of the new motherboard, not to mention the increased business through word of mouth. So by adding an extra high end component we have increased the sales and increased the total profit by 111%.

Work out your numbers on your business and see if adding an extra 20-50% would make a difference.  I think you’ll be surprised at the numbers it throws out.

A lot of people who own a service-business are afraid to raise their prices for fear of losing customers.  You are always going to lose a few customers along the way no matter what you do so why not increase your price, increase your customer service and lose a few old customers and gain a few new ones.

Your equipment, computers, business machines, buildings and vehicles are all listed on your balance sheet. There are no item descriptions on your balance sheet for the experience of your employees, the wisdom of your organization leadership or the company culture you’ve worked so hard to develop.

General Patton once said,

“Remember the French Revolution? That battle was won with brooms, sticks and stones- by a bunch of angry women. Get a determined bunch of men and women and they will win the battles no matter what the odds or what kind of equipment they use.”

Training & Development

In fact, the training and experience that develops your culture and makes your workforce so valuable are only directly tied to expenses! You have expenses for training, for research and development and for payroll. The overall return on these investments is reflected in revenue on your profit and loss statement, but the continually accruing asset of a well-trained and motivated workforce are usually only expressed in print through a few paragraphs in your annual report, business plan or brochure.

It’s sometimes too easy to cut back on training and development when budgets are strained or economic conditions are difficult. The problem is that while it takes only a decision to cut training expenses, it takes years to build a successful culture.

I’m all for cutting unnecessary or unproductive expenses. If someone isn’t producing, get rid of them. If you’ve truly isolated a wasteful expense, cut it. If you can save, do it. But be very careful when you’re cutting training.

The spirit of your company

An organization, just like an individual, has a body, mind and spirit. The body is your people. The mind is your leadership. The spirit is your culture. It takes motivation and discipline over time to develop these resources and keep them healthy and productive. Investments in these resources are essential to generate organizational POWER. Power is the organization’s capacity to perform effectively, and that’s tied directly to each individual’s ability to act effectively and that’s a product of motivation and training.

Instead of an expense, training should be listed as a tangible asset account, and one that appreciates with time!

Jim Bouchard
Dynamic Components of Personal Power
www.JimBouchard.org
800-786-8502

Mailing Address:
10 Jordan Avenue
Brunswick, Maine 04011

Most people want to accomplish the tasks that they are assigned, but there are many ways to get the job done as well as increase your enjoyment at work.

Phone Skills

I disliked talking on the phone. I thought it was a waste of time, until I began to improve my skills. When my communication became more fluent I began to enjoy trying to improve the mood of the person on the other end of the line. I stopped worrying about my own mistakes and became a better listener. I would ask them how their family was or how their day was going, trying to make the conversation more dynamic rather than just asking how many units they were shipping me, thanks, good bye.

Next time you are about to get on the phone, give yourself a little goal. It may be to have a clear conversation or to try a joke to get the other person to laugh. I find self deprecating jokes work really well over the phone.

You’ll notice that when you challenge yourself to improve the happiness of the person on the other end of the line, you’ll be more likely to extract joy from the situation.

Public Speaking

Speaking to groups of people used to be as frightening as being trapped in a room full of snakes. It still makes my heart beat pick up its pace, but I’ve learned to push past these uncomfortable feelings by volunteering for presentations. I wanted to improve my speaking skills, and the only way to do that was to jump in front of a crowd and give it my best.

If you have trouble speaking to groups of people, then try looking at it from different angles. Fear is only one emotion out of many that may occur when speaking to groups. You need to stop labeling this feeling with just one word: “fear.” Try rephrasing it with “excitement” or “high energy.” You’ll open yourself up to new ways of defining your emotions, which should help you get out in front of people.

I had an old Toastmasters friend tell me, “If you don’t take the opportunity to speak to groups, then you aren’t giving people all the knowledge that can help them become better.” A good public speaker is there for himself as well as the audience. You can learn to improve your communication skills as well as impart wisdom on to the audience.

Knowledge

I’ve always been an advocate of continuous learning. It brings fresh ideas to an organization and lets employees know that the company wants them to succeed.

Many companies are also catching on to the dynamic work environment because it keeps people motivated. When people learn other co-worker’s jobs, they are able to learn more about the business, which makes them more valuable and allows them to satisfy their curiosity. People love to know how co-workers and managers do their jobs.

Your company may not give you much training or prepare you for different jobs, but you can still extract plenty of information yourself. Don’t be afraid to talk to a co-worker or a manager who has a set of skills that you admire. Ask them if you can help them for a few hours. They may see that you care about the company and it could give you a better chance for promotion. You will probably be surprised by how many people could use a hand to knock out some of their work. Knowledge at work is everywhere, if you allow the curiosity to come out.

There are thousands of ways to enjoy a job besides just reaching sales goals or finishing projects. It’s up to you to implement creative ideas that help you accomplish your job, but also inject a little enjoyment and improvement into your work.

What is your favorite way to enjoy your job that wouldn’t be in your job description?

About the author

Karl Staib writes about unlocking and kicking open the door to working happy at his own blog: Work Happy Now! If you enjoyed this article, you may like to subscribe to his feed or read one of his most popular articles, 7 Tips to Process Your Stress Faster and 8 Mental Boosts that Never Fail.

‘Anybody could do it!”’

Anybody could do it!

When I first heard this I thought it was a joke. I thought you have to know hundreds of people who would help you, I thought they all have time on their hands and no family to consider. However this is not the case. Most of the people who have made it, have had families, started part time, and due to their persistence have been able to give up their 9-5 and start their online business.

That’s another word I keep hearing from internet business owners is:

‘Persistence’

It is the key to making money online, you never ever ever ever give up. Sometimes you will strike it lucky on your first shot, sometimes you will have to fail 10 times before you get a success.

Changing your psychology

The trouble when I first started trying to make money was that I was aiming high. I was looking at earning $140,000 to pay off my mortgage and give up my 9-5 job and concentrate on making a sustainable living online. The problem with this type of thinking is that $140,000 seems insurmountable and my unconscious mind almost gives up before it’s even started.

I read an eBook that changed all that called ‘5 Bucks a day’ by Dennis Becker (Don’t worry I am not going to put my affiliate link here, if you are interested you will find it). What this guy said, and it’s very simple, is aim for earning $5 per day profit and then ‘rinse, lather and repeat’.

Rinse, Lather and repeat

This is the phrase internet marketers use when they are explaining the process of making money.

Basically when they find a winning formula they repeat this formula over and over again.

For example, imagine having a blog that makes you $5 per day in adsense you then repeat the process and build another blog, and another and another and pretty soon you are earning $100 per day just from adsense. No, it’s not that easy as you have to drive traffic, however you now have a network of blogs which link to each other which means your search rankings are higher which means more traffic which means more adsense earnings. So the first blog might be hard to build as there is a steep learning curve but now you have learned about driving traffic, SEO, interacting with readers etc you don’t have to learn so much for the second blog so there is not as much effort. That was only a quick example. There are literally hundreds of ways to make money online.

The route I have chosen is affiliate marketing and it’s now starting to work out for me. Undoubtedly the biggest thing I have done is join affiliate marketing forums and I would strongly suggest finding a forum in the market you are interested in. For example if you are interested in building blogs as a way of making money join one of the big blogging forums, if it’s affiliate marketing then join a well subscribed affiliate marketing forum. This will increase your learning curve dramatically, in fact there will be a period of information overload as there is so much great information from a good forum.

Free reports and making money list

I know a lot of readers are not interested in the topic of making money, which is why I don’t post a lot about it. However, for those of you who are interested I am putting together a mailing list where I will be sending lots of great links, free reports and free online videos. If you would like to join this list please put your name and email address in the box below and you can start your learning curve immediately.

To start off I will be sending you a free report called The Million Dollar Briefcase’ written by Karl Warren.

10 ways people make money online

Blogging – There are plenty of six figure bloggers out there who are making it big with their blog; Steve Pavlina, Darren Rowse, Yaro Starak, and John Chow all come to mind. What they did was to give great information to their readers and then monetised their blog with affiliate links, adsense, chikita ads, etc. It took them time to build up their readership but look at them now, I am sure they would all say it is worth it.

Membership sites - There are a lot of people making money by starting membership sites. Basically this is where you start a site and for a monthly fee you give information on your chosen niche.

Writing – With the internet almost anything is possible and writing is a skill in demand right now. If you are good at writing then there are people willing to pay you. If you are a good writer you can make a lot of money online and offline. Sites like www.elance.com , www.rentacoder.com all advertise for writers. there is one drawback to using sites like this and its the competition. People want writers on the cheap, however if you have very good English and know your topic you can command higher prices.

Selling affiliate products – This is the method I prefer when making money online. There are tons of affiliate networks now; www.clickbank.com www.cj.com , and www.linkshare.com to name but a few. You have no physical product to ship out. I like to sell instant products whereby the buyer can download their product immediately after their purchase like an mp3, or an eBook.

Write your own eBook – If you go to www.clickbank.com you will find thousands of ebooks and it should give you an idea on the breadth of topics that people are writing about. If you have a specialist skill, can write and have people to sell to then this is a good way to make money if you put in the effort. It’s not as easy as writing it and then hoping people will come to it, you have to promote it, this is where joining a forum comes into it’s own.

Sell your skill – Do you have a particular skill? Are you a whiz at blogging? sell you skills to people who know nothing about blogging. Are you a qualified counsellor? sell your services online. Can you build a website? There are still thousands of small businesses who do not have an internet presence and are willing to pay someone to build a site for them. Truth is we all have skills that we can sell it’s just a matter of who can promote themselves the best.

Start a directory – There are a ton of directories out there and a lot of them charge a fee for inserting a link to their site. If you have a niche blog or website you can start your own directory. It might take some work initially to set it up and promote it but a $20 annual insertion fee could bring in a recurring income for you all of it passive income after the initial setup. There are lots of free scripts out there to help you do this, just have a search on google for them to find the best one.

Website flipping – If you know what you are doing and are good at SEO and getting links you can start a website and sell it on a few months later. A lot of people are now doing this with blogs. To make it worthwhile you would have to have a few on the go, build them up and then sell them.

Putting ads on your site – This is an obvious one but not one to be overlooked. Adsense and link ads are the easiest ways of making money from your site but you can also have affiliate links to the products you are promoting like the ones I have in the sidebar.

Write an eCourse – A lot of people have made big money from writing an e-course on their speciality. Again, all the work is done at the beginning. You write your course, a quality one, add some audio, video or other ways to make your presentations professional and sell it to a niche audience. Once your course is written, you can set up an autoresponder account at somewere like www.aweber.com and split the course into 7 -12 parts. The beauty of the auto responder is that you can send out emails on a timed setting i.e. send part of the course out once every 2 days or once a week, whatever you want. Then all the work goes into promoting the course, not easy but if you have a skill it could be a good money earner.