The Write Mindset For 2013

December 3, 2012 By Lisa Angelettie 8 Comments

Increase Your Writing Productivity: Get Into The “Write” Mindset

At this time of the year I like to focus on what I call getting into my “write mindset” so that I produce more high quality content that servers my tribe. To do this, I typically first take a look back at what I’ve written and published on my websites, what’s in the draft folder, and what I’d like to write for the new year. Writing this down helps me organize and decide what writing will be on tap for the new year. I do this for every website I own and write content for. Pardon me while I get a little transparent with you today:)

On LisaAngelettieBlog, I’ve written and published over 105 articles during 2012, I have 3 articles in the draft folder (which have been there for months!), and I’d like to publish 156 of my own articles along with 52 guest post submissions for a total of 208 articles in 2013.

I’d also like to make sure that one of those articles per week is a video article so that I can start maximizing YouTube for more visibility and traffic back to my site. Who knows, maybe if I find my sweet spot I may create more video articles than text ones (yeah right!).

I also have a goal of writing and submitting two to three of my own guest posts per month. I typically spend a little longer on researching and/or writing these articles, so two or three a month is a realistic number for me.

I’m also still dying to get that podcast started that I’ve been talking about since forever! I would really like to launch the first episode in January. Thank you Pat Flynn for the inspiration.

I will also be focusing a lot on the Amazon income stream of my business. I’ve seen a lot of growth there and I think it’s only going to get better as tablets and readers become more accessible to buyers. Tablets have gone down considerably in price this year, so the forecast is that ebook sales will continue to rise. That’s only good news for folks like us. A great creative passive income stream for any business owner is to take existing content and publish those articles on the Kindle marketplace. I’ll be covering this topic a lot more on this site in the new year.

My experience on Amazon so far has been really favorable with publishing non-fiction, but I plan to also jump into the waters of fiction in 2013 as well. Writing fiction has been a lifelong dream of mine that I created a million excuses for not doing for many, many years. My fear of writing fiction was so crippling that I am going to document my entire process from start to finish just so that I hope it inspires some other writers out there to do the same. I am in the process of building that blog now, so I’ll let you know when it’s live. The digital revolution has made it so easy for us to get out there as entrepreneurs, authors, publishers in a really big way. I say NO EXCUSES in 2013 everyone! Me included.

Now I want YOU to get into a the creative write mindset for 2013 as well. In fact, I’ve gathered a few writing productivity resources from this site that I think may help you in areas where you may be struggling:

How To Write What People Will Read

How Entrepreneurs Can Quickly Beat Writers Block

#1 Secret For Writing Productivity

Writing Rituals

So what are your writing/content goals for the new year?

It may be a good idea to share them with the rest of us so that you’ve put it out in the universe and so that we can hold each other accountable. I’d love to hear what you have planned, no matter how lofty your goals may be:)

What Is Distracting You From Building A Profitable Business?

August 9, 2012 By Lisa Angelettie 3 Comments

Are Distractions Driving You Into Business Failure? Well, I Think It’s You’re Inner Ninja Trying To Tell You Something…

If you’ve visited my site before, you will see that I offer a lot of how-to training. A lot of tips and resources. I am very much a analytical thinker, but today I want to tap into my “mommy” stuff and my ole’ psychotherapy “hat”. No specific training today, just a dose of reality for all of you in business or thinking about starting a business.

See it’s my job to keep my daughters on track in life. It’s my job to make sure their beds are made, their teeth are brushed, that they’ve showered (very hard in the tween stage by the way!), and that they complete their homework assignments. It’s my job to ensure that they can complete all these tasks with minimal distractions.

But guess what?

There’s no momma to keep you on track if you are an entrepreneur. You’re on your own. So if you are working on or in your business and you find that you are constantly being distracted from what you think you need to do, your inner ninja, inner goddess, or inner voice is trying to tell you something! Trust me.

You may think that you are scattered, unorganized, unmotivated, unproductive and unclear — but you’re subconscious is tapping you on the shoulder and telling you that those things aren’t true. You are fabulous, BUT you aren’t really doing what you should be doing in your business.

First Of All, I believe that every successful and happy entrepreneur owns a business that fulfills two criteria. They are passionate about it and they have the skillset to make it happen. So if you are trying to start a business and have had zero training or experience in what you are doing or you wouldn’t do what you are doing for free for someone, then you are going to have a mighty hard road building that business. Make sure you are always learning and honing your craft and love doing it.

Second, you need to pay attention to what exactly is distracting you. If you find that you are spending a lot of your day on social media rather than writing your blog posts because you enjoy it — that’s telling you something. That’s your inner voice trying to tell you that there is something about social media that is much more enjoyable for you. Something that you can get passionate about. Something that you should perhaps find a way to implement in your business in a more strategic way so that you spend more of your time doing that. Maybe it’s a total change in your business? Maybe you ARE a social media expert?

Perhaps you find yourself doing a lot of the techie things in your business when you feel like you should be doing more in person networking. If you are avoiding networking like the plague, don’t beat yourself up about it. Figure out a way to do more of what you love to do to grow your business. You can’t fit a round peg into a square hole!

Don’t spend months or even years trying to model a business owner you’ve seen create a great business doing things that don’t work for you. It isn’t smart. It isn’t productive. It isn’t authentic. And it won’t work. I spent a LONG time trying to model my business after experts and gurus who I thought had the answer for me, when the answer was inside me all along — writing. That’s what I love to do, I do it for free, I’ve done it in some capacity since I was a small child. I’ve always loved words. It just took me a really long time to realize that. I don’t want that for you.

So the lesson for today? Listen to your gut. If you are distracted a lot of the time. Figure out what you’re doing with your time and turn those lemons into lemonade!

Let the church say Amen!

FREE RESOURCES FOR READING THIS ARTICLE LATER
Save this article and read it later on any device with GetPocket
Convert this article into an Mp3 recording and listen to it on any device with SoundGecko

How To Listen To Articles On The Go

August 9, 2012 By Lisa Angelettie 1 Comment

Listen To Articles Anywhere With SoundGecko

Do you remember the first information product you ever purchased? I do. It was a complete set of Tony Robbin’s cassette tapes of Unleash The Power Within home study program. I bought the program when I first graduated undergraduate school and quickly realized how difficult it was going to be to land my first “dream job”. I needed motivation and inspiration. I listened to these tapes in the car on my way to my first job out of school as a spa manager. I honestly feel that they were responsible for me staying on track and finally landing my second job out of school which was for The New York Times. Dream job!

There’s something to be said for continually feeding your mind with positive messages and to always be learning — even on your down time. Especially because of all the negative and nonsensical messages we receive throughout our day via television, radio, and the internet. And then when do find information that you’d love to read — you just don’t have the time. Not to read everything.

That’s why thanks to Pat Flynn of Smart Passive Income, I’ve discovered a fabulous and free tool for listening to articles in an effort to feed myself positive information during my down time. It’s called SoundGecko and it’s so simple and so powerful, it’s very exciting!

1. Copy the url of the article you want to save and listen to later.

2. Send the url to SoundGecko and they turn the article into a MP3 recording.

3. Listen to your articles on any device like your smartphone or your ipad. Listen to your articles in the car, on the train, at the gym or while cooking dinner.

The sound quality (very human) is pretty amazing for a text to mp3 transcription service such as this one, so I imagine that it won’t be free forever — but it is for now so enjoy!

What Is Your Online Footprint & How Far Does Yours Reach?

June 4, 2012 By Lisa Angelettie 1 Comment

What is your online footprint, how far does yours reach, and why should you even care?

When’s the last time you Googled yourself? LOL! No really, here’s a quick assignment for you. Conduct a search on yourself and/or your business name. How many results show up in Google, Bing and Yahoo? The results that appear are your online footprint. Your reach on the web. The online “trail” that you leave behind.

For example, when I do a search for Lisa Angelettie in Google, you will see over 27,000 results for my name. These are all the places that you will find me, my content or mention me on the web. That is my online footprint.

Now let’s compare that to powerhouse Oprah Winfrey, who has over 31 million results for her name. (Dang!) That is a powerfully deep and wide online footprint. In fact, just because I have mentioned her name in this article has immediately increased her online footprint.

So What Does That Mean?

Simply put, she has the opportunity to touch and reach a lot more people because of how OFTEN she is mentioned on the web. Her reach is VERY wide. It is the kind of footprint that all business owners should strive for and it’s really what I love working on with entrepreneurs.

Now another important thing that I want to mention is that your online footprint is NOT just a numbers game. There is also the issue of quality. See it would be very easy to manipulate your online footprint number by doing something like submitting an article to 1000 low quality blogs or websites. (Although that might actually be harder to do post Panda then it use to be.) But let’s say you could. That would give you a 1000 more results BUT the reach would be meaningless because no one is finding you on those spammy sites. People aren’t reading that article and learning more about you and what you do. No one is clicking on your link to your website. It’s really just a dead search engine result. An ineffective reach.

If you’ve been around long enough there is probably a chance that you have some of those “dead” results without your knowledge or via some of your old link building tactics. That’s okay. You can counteract some of those random results “on purpose” by creating meaningful content that is read, shared, liked, clicked on and talked about on sites that are visited and that are important — including your own! This is what creates a powerfully effective online footprint that is deep and wide.

Your Assignment

Conduct a quick search on however you brand your business, whether it’s through your real name or your business name. How many results come up? Take a look at the first five or so pages of those results. Are these links on powerful sites? Well trafficked and well ranked sites?

I can quickly check this because I use browser plugins that immediately & automatically show me the traffic and ranking when I do a search. I use the SEO Status Alexa Pagerank Toolbar for Firefox to check this.

For deeper research, you can check your site statistics. You can use WordPress Stats or Google Analytics for this check what sites are sending you traffic.

*Ninja Tip

My footprint is pretty accurate because I haven’t seen another Lisa Angelettie on the web, so I know that all those results are mine. BUT if you have a more common name, then you need to be careful. For instance, if I do a search for my maiden name “Lisa Miller”, there are many Lisa Miller’s that come up in the results. So the search engine results aren’t accurate for me and my business.

Hopefully if your name is Lisa Miller you haven’t branded your business with that name. It’s too common. Hopefully you have a unique business name and have referred to that name in your content on the web. That way when you investigate your online footprint you will see a more accurate result.

Would you like a complimentary online footprint analysis? Let’s do one over virtual cocktails! In the meantime, leave your comments or questions below and let’s grow our online footprints together.

Five Steps To Get You Out Of Business Overwhelm

March 20, 2012 By Lisa Angelettie 4 Comments

Are You Running Your Business Like a Deer in the Headlights?
Five Steps to Get You Out of the Glare and Into the Driver’s Seat

Overwhelm. No end in sight. What’s next? Not another!

Ring any bells? As entrepreneurs, we’re unfortunately familiar with the feeling that there are a zillion things demanding our attention, even though we only have time for a fraction of them. New opportunities, programs, tools, apps, and just plain interesting ideas bombard us daily; each is a bright shiny object just waiting to pull our attention away from the important work that really deserves our attention.

What to do?

The number of potential distractions will do nothing but rise dramatically over time, so it’s up to you to figure how to stay aware of potential new business-building tools without SQUIRREL!!!! falling prey to every new thing that comes along. Here are tools that can help you in this sometimes aggravating, always important endeavor.

1. Develop clear decision-making criteria. It’s easy to jump on the latest bandwagon—and there are a LOT of tempting wagons out there. You can’t afford to dabble in all of them; you need to choose those that will best serve your objectives and then dive deep into those key activities.

What criteria do you use to decide whether or not to take on a new activity or project? While your business is unique, any of the following will give you a good starting point for creating your own decison-making touchstone:

– Will this directly contribute to my earning more money?
– Can I expect a fairly quick positive ROI from this?
– Does my research indicate that this activity makes sense for me?
– Is this task truly important, or is it just urgent? In other words, does doing it (or failing to do it) have significant long-term consequences for my business, or am I just feeling big time pressure to get it done? Sometimes a task will be both important and urgent, but all too often, important tasks don’t come with deadlines; that’s why they’re so easy to postpone.
– Can I clearly identify how this particular activity will move me toward my stated business objectives?

2. Chunk it down. One of the easiest ways to feel overwhelmed is to look at a big task in all its enormous scariness. Fortunately, one of the easiest ways to get out of overwhelm is to chunk it down, or break the task into very small action steps, each of which feels much more do-able. This is one of the things I do for my clients that generates the biggest sighs of relief.

As an example, putting “revamp my website” on your To Do list is a sure way of making you want to hide in a corner. You’re much more likely to succeed in this goal if you create small action steps, such as: Review current side for good copy; do keyword research for new site; interview web designers; upgrade website platform if necessary. Notice that any one of these small steps can be further broken down. The goal is to give yourself such a clearly defined, manageable task that you know exactly what needs doing and are confident about moving forward on it.

3. Be productive in 15-minute increments. I can’t overemphasize how valuable I’ve found this one technique. I’ve found that, no matter how uncomfortable or tedious a task, I can handle it for just 15 minutes. (I recommend setting a timer for yourself. I happen to use a virtual one I found at www.online-stopwatch.com, but a kitchen timer works great, too.) The excellent news is that, once the timer goes off, I’ve got two equally good options: (1) celebrate having made progress on the task, or (2) continue working on it if I feel like I’m in the groove.

In a related vein, you might create a list of activities you can do “when I’ve only got a few minutes free.” If you’ve finished one project and don’t want to start another because you need to leave for a client meeting, or if your client shows up to the restaurant late, or you get stuck waiting in line, you can chip away at this To Do list. You’ll be especially productive if you use these little chunks of time for activities that can normally turn into long, dark rabbit holes (reading e-mails or working on Facebook both spring to mind).

4. Commit to being a groupie. Not that kind! Commit to organizing your day so that you group like activities together. There’s almost nothing that will fracture your focus and destroy your productivity more than flitting from task to another. Rather than interrupt your work on a client proposal to answer the seductive ping of an incoming e-mail, then leave that to add something to your next blog post, group these activities. Maybe you can designate a certain time of day (using our friend Mr. Timer, perhaps) to writing, which could include proposals, blog posts, content for teleseminars, and so forth. Another chunk of the day could be devoted to creating your subject-matter-expert presence online. What makes sense for you? (See #1.)

5. Regularly reassess your activities and their priorities. Your business is not static, and neither are the demands on your time. I recommend to my clients that they set aside an entire day every month to get out of their usual environment and spend some time in reflection and evaluation of what they’re doing to grow their business.

I’m guessing nearly everyone has heard of the classic approach of identifying A-, B-, and C-level priorities; it feels kind of time-worn. The fact is, though, that it’s a classic for a reason. When you’re faced with a mile-long To Do list, are you able to confidently say that the only things on it are your A-level priorities? If not, it’s time for a do-over.

One of the easiest ways I move my clients out of overwhelm is to gather all their great ideas in one place. (This eliminates the temptation to jump on a bright shiny object now “so I don’t forget it.” Once the ideas have been corralled, it’s easier to do a side-by-side comparison of proposed activities so that you can assess which truly are worth your time and energy. Those that are mission critical get on the A list; those that are merely important go on the B list; the nice ideas get relegated to the C list; then the tempting B and C lists get put away. Then the A list gets re-evaluated so that the client is crystal clear on what THE most important activity is for him/her to do today.

If it’s time to get yourself out of the headlights of overwhelm, apply one or more of these tools to your day and enjoy the experience of feeling in control.

Kathleen Watson is an implementation specialist who shows her clients how to move from big ideas to big actions to big results. You can get a free copy of her 15-page workbook, the Take Action Now System™, by going to www.SteppingIntoBig.com.

17 Mindset Shifts That Will Transform Your Business — In Record Time!

January 29, 2012 By Lisa Angelettie 9 Comments

For a very long time, I would compare the success of my business to other business owners in or related to my niche, and it would make me sick (literally)! The big reason is that compared to many coaches and mentors who I started out with in this niche (so around 2005-6), I was on a SLOW learning curve. It took me way longer than I hoped to catch on to and multiply strategies that were working in my business, as well as identify and eliminate ones that weren’t. It was ridiculously frustrating, and I was starting to believe that I wasn’t good enough. I almost quit more than once.

So undoubtedly, this was a mindset I had about myself and my business that was destructive and putting me in a really “low” place energetically. I would step away from the business for days — because of it. Which of course wasn’t helping, and honestly was giving me the entrepreneurship blues. (cue the blues guitar please:)

Fast forward to today and I am in a totally different place energetically as well as realistically thanks to Brenda Rivas & Fabienne Fredrickson. I have in essence “caught up” to most of my peers — and the ones that I haven’t, I applaud their success instead of envy it. Was it easy to make these shifts – nope. But it was crucial to my success and I know that it probably will be to yours as well.

[This is a text heavy post today — but I was in the zone!]

1. Stop Thinking That You Are In A Competition For Clients

You have to step outside of yourself a minute and think realistically. There are oodles of companies who do the same thing and yet they all seem to make money and stay in business. Even with McDonald’s domination of the fast food industry, there are plenty of companies that are just fine: Wendy’s, Burger King, KFC, etc. The same principle applies to your business. There is a limitless supply of clients available to you.

2. Stop Thinking Smaller Is Safer

There is a tendency for many entrepreneurs to dream small, act small, and therefore get only small results. Once you understand that if you think bigger and BELIEVE in bigger dreams –then you will ultimately create bigger results.

3. Be Clear About What You Want

A confused mind creates confused thoughts and energy. If you are confused — the universe will be confused. Be clear about what you want to accomplish today, this week, this year, over the next 3 years. If you aren’t sure, get help around that. That way every daily step you take towards your business is purposeful and congruent with what you want.

4. Don’t Be Afraid To Ask For What You Want

I have run into many entrepreneurs who are great at what they do but often think “Hey I’m smart. I should be able to figure out this thing by myself. Why should I ask for help?” Okay — yes you are smart, creative, passionate and all of that — but there is no shame in asking for what you want. Asking the universe, God, etc. AND asking peers and mentors all around you. You’d be surprised how many people will help you.

5. Remember The Bigger Picture

It’s easy to fall into the daily business of growing your business: creating content, social media, working with clients, etc. But what’s your bigger picture. Keep that in mind. Is it establishing your LEGACY? Is it creating more time with your FAMILY?

6. Fill Your Subconscious And Your Soul With Good Stuff

When Oprah first talked about the OWN Network, I have to admit that I was one of those people that said “I love the idea of this but I don’t know how many people are really going to watch positive television day after day.” I’m a bit embarrassed by this but the point of this article is to be truthful and hopefully insightful. So there it is. But I started to finally “get it” about 9 months or so ago. Especially at the end of the day. I think it’s much better to go to bed reading a uplifting or entertaining book than watching a horror flick or for that matter the World News! Filling my soul with positive reading, television, movies etc. has really helped my occasionally “cynical” outlook on life.

7. Remember You Are In The Business Of Serving People

Most people in business want to make money. There’s nothing wrong with that, but remember the money should be a financial reward for serving your clients and your customers.

8. Be Mindful Of What You Are Attracting

If you are attracting low-paying, highly-demanding, clients then you need to take a closer look at why. Sure it may be your marketing materials, but it’s deeper than that. You have created, selected or approved those marketing materials. You are unconsciously attracting the types of clients that you don’t like.

9. Surround Yourself With Your Positive Peeps

This was a difficult one for me. Many of our closest relationships are with family members or friends from childhood and unfortunately it seems to be that more of our “forward thinking” pals are people we meet along the way in our journey — and not from the past. Perhaps college. Or people you meet while building your business. This isn’t a hard and fast rule. But regardless of HOW you met the “negative nellies” or less forward thinking people in your life who are holding you back — you’ve got to let them go. Surround yourself MORE with folks who will support and lift you towards your goals, or who at least are doing what you want to be doing. Shout out to my positive peeps Coach Kelly, Therese Prentice, and Ange’ Anglade.

10. Change Your Relationship With Money

If you have a “scarcity” relationship with money, meaning you feel badly when you invest in yourself, you frequently have buyer’s remorse, you select lower quality products to save money, you constantly are thinking about your “lack” of money, the bills you owe, or the client you didn’t close and what that is costing you — you’ve got to turn this around really SOON. The more you stay in the energy of “not having” the more you will not have. I know this seems to be easier said than done — but its simply a shift in perception. If you don’t have any money right now, if things are super tight, then that is a sure symptom of a negative mindset around money.

11. Change What You Regularly Say To Yourself

In other words – STOP your self-sabotage. How many times have you thought “Maybe I should just get a job” or “People will discover I don’t know what I’m talking about”. That’s your subconscious scaring the hell out of you! Tell him or her to shut it up, and start changing what you say to yourself in front of others as well as in the dark.

12. Start Recognizing Gratitude

Do you wake up and write in a gratitude journal? Does that question make you chuckle? If so, that means you are probably living in a low feeling place. You wake up frustrated. Overwhelmed. Discouraged. Instead of joyful, enthusiastic, and optimistic. It’s important that you give recognition and be grateful for all that is RIGHT with you personally, your family, and your business.

13. Allow Yourself To Feel Especially During The Tough Times

Everyone has very different ways for how they handle the rollercoaster emotions that come when running a business. My husband gets very passionate about his business and gets very animated about it — especially during a challenge. I on the other hand would numb myself or escape with novels, television, outings with some of those “negative peeps” I talked about earlier. This of course did nothing to make me move forward and get past whatever the challenge was, so I had to make some shifts. And I realized that the first one was allowing myself to “feel” the emotions (whatever they be) and work through them and then get over to the other side and keep pushing.

14. Upgrade Yourself!

Remember Beyonce’s hit “Upgrade You”? Well it was all about upgrading her man to the finer things in life. Introducing him to new things. This is what you need to do for yourself. It’s crucial. In fact, I have a client who wants to start a new business in a very competitive market but she still stands in a long line, in a hot office, to pay her cable bill! That’s not living a “platinum” lifestyle. Why would anyone invest in you if you don’t invest in yourself? So where you can make upgrade changes to your lifestyle – do so. Grow! Experience! Permit yourself to treat yourself ROYALLY!

15. Let Go Of Resentments

Let go of the bad feelings for family members who wronged you, friends who betrayed you, or resentments of someone’s success. Holding onto those resentments is absolutely toxic, because it often leads to strong feelings of anger, frustration, fear, or unworthiness that get in your way. “Why did they treat me this way, I can’t understand it!?” or “I can’t stand that she’s a millionaire and has no talent!” (I hear that all the time about Kim Kardashian — but fail to understand why people are so mad.)

16. Let Go Of Other People’s Negative Perception Of You

When someone unsubscribes from your list, do you feel a little twinge of “awww”? And then do you read why they unsubscribed, which some experts recommend that you do, but for the most part I advise against and this is why…Too many people take those comments personally and then they interpret them as there is something wrong with them. Or their content. You have to let that go and realize that no one can determine who you are — only you. All you can do is be the best that you can be.

17. You Must Take Personal Responsibility

It’s easy to play the blame game when things go wrong, but when you do this you are putting the POWER of what will or will not be in the hands of someone other than yourself. You must realize that only YOU create the life that you have now and the one that you want to have with every decision and action you take. There is no big, dark “force” working against you and your business — you are the FORCE.

Okay, this was a really long post, and typically I would have advised to break this up into at least two articles — but I appreciate that you’ve made it down this far in the article:) Now I’d love for you to answer this question: What 2 mindset shifts will you implement starting today or tomorrow? Or are there any other shifts you’ve implemented that you’d like share?

Are You Afraid Of Change In Your Business?

December 19, 2011 By Lisa Angelettie 1 Comment

Are You Afraid Of Making A Change?

Are You Willing To Make Changes In Your Business To Reach Six Figures?

In 2003, Bobby and Renatta worked with me in my psychotherapy practice for over 16 months to try and save their relationship. They both wanted to get married, but Renatta wouldn’t say yes until Bobby secured stable employment. Bobby had a dream of being an actor and wanted to continue to pursue it until he got work or until he accepted that it wasn’t in the cards for him. They were miserable, and they were both getting on each others nerves, but no one wanted to make a move towards change. They were afraid to do something, because they didn’t want to lose each other and they also didn’t want to lose themselves. So they stayed right where they were for the entire 16 months and are probably in that same space today. It was awful. It was unfulfilling — but it was all they knew and it was safe.

I saw this type of couple over and over in my work as a psychotherapist. I worked with many couples who sought advice for marital problems but were unwilling or unable to do what was required to make progress — and that was to make some sort of a change.

If you think about it, it seems to make perfect sense. If you’ve doing something for a year, for 5 years, for 10 and your situation isn’t improving — then what you’re doing isn’t working. You’ve got to do something else. That same principle holds true for anything in life — including your business.

If you have been trying to attract new clients and make more money over the last 6 months, a year, 2 years or more and you haven’t filled your practice yet then it’s obviously time to try something else. So why do so many entrepreneurs have trouble with this–with change?

Because business owners and perhaps you as well — are afraid. Afraid to make a change. Afraid to accept change. Afraid to embrace change. What you are doing and what you have always done is familiar to you. It’s safe. There is some comfort in knowing what to expect. I have seen many entrepreneurs throw their hands up and give up because they felt that it just wasn’t in the cards for them to succeed.

But I think that’s absolute rubbish.

I think that if you’ve felt a strong pull towards entrepreneurship and your niche — especially if you have a unique gift or in demand skillset — then you are absolutely suppose to and will succeed if you ask for guidance, accept direction, and implement! In order to do all of that though you have to be willing to make tweaks, adjustments and changes. Are you willing to do that this year?

If change makes you uncomfortable, ask yourself:

How long have I been stuck in the same place?

What do I think will happen if I try something different?

Do I believe that bigger things are meant for met?

Can I truly reach my income potential if I do exactly what it is I am doing today?

Your content marketing assignment this week:

Is to take a long look at your business. Your marketing message. Your website content. Blog posts. Articles. Videos. Audio. Branding. Your work ethic. Commitment level. And ask yourself, is there a place in my business where I’ve remained stagnant? Is there an area where I need to be open to change? It there an area where I need to actively seek and implement change? And then go out there and make it happen! The only way you will RISE to the income level that truly rewards you for your talents is to know when to welcome and embrace change.

Are You Struggling With Implementing What You Learn?

December 3, 2011 By Lisa Angelettie 2 Comments

I have a question for you this week…are you struggling with implementing what you learn when it comes to marketing your business?

Consider all the articles you’ve read, videos you’ve watched, audios you’ve listened to, information products you’ve invested in, teleseminars or telecourses you’ve signed up for. How many pieces of content in your niche do you think you’ve consumed? 100? 1000? More?

Now think about the time you’ve invested reading, listening or watching all of these bits of information. Do you think you’ve spent a week, a month, a year or even longer of your time consuming all of this information?

Finally, consider the cost of consuming this content. How much money do you think you’ve currently invested in ebooks, information products, telesminars, workshops, etc. $100? $1000? $5000? What about intrinsic value. What about the time away from actually doing things in your business, with your family, for yourself at the expense of reading one more book or listening to another two hour teleseminar.

Now don’t misunderstand me here. Consuming content that can directly educate you about what’s going on in your niche or how to grow and expand your business is very important. Crucial even. But the key element that many entrepreneurs, especially solo professionals, tend to make when consuming information is actually implementing the strategies after they’re finished.

Hey, we’ve all done it. I did it a lot in my early years online. Mainly because I was totally overwhelmed with all of the information that I was consuming on building my business and improving my marketing. It was a lot! And there were many strategies. Lots of experts. And much of it was conflicting. I was truly swimming in a pool of quicksand and I can safely say that I know there are a lot more entrepreneurs who are currently in the spot that I was in back then. Is it you?

Here are some of my tips to get out of the sinkhole and back on land where it’s safe!

Pick One Marketing Strategy That Resonates With You And Do Only That (for now:)

The first thing I find when I work with clients is that they are trying to implement every marketing strategy that they’ve learned all at once. Needless to say that scattered implementation process does not produce results. Instead you need to focus on one strategy at a time and when you’ve mastered that, move on to the next. For me that first strategy was article marketing. For you it may be another content marketing strategy, such as video articles or guest posting.

Blow Up That To Do List!

Most people who are struggling with implementation are overwhelmed by the sheer number of things that they have on their to-do lists. I’m laughing as I write this because this was me FOR SURE. I have an old list that had like 123 things on it. The problem with this is that you only complete #1 and maybe #2 but you look at your big ole’ list and feel like you haven’t accomplished anything. So you don’t do anything the next day because you are all bummed out. Ick!

Take that list and blow it up! Pick out the top 10 things off of the list that are easiest for you to do and will make the most impact on your business. Now tomorrow you will tackle the first item on that list. You may have to chunk that item down into mini steps to get it done. Check off each step as it is completed. So your list may look like Item #1 and then a,b,c, under that item. When checked off it feels as if you’ve gotten a lot accomplished that day (and you have!) and you’re in a better place mentally to handle the next thing on the list.

Get Yourself Some REAL Accountability

This is probably the most effective strategy I used to kick my butt into gear. It’s simple. Check around with the leaders in your niche, and I guarantee you that they all have a mentor and/or a coach. The reasons to hire someone to help guide you are endless, but one of the major reasons that it’s always better to have a coach in your life is the accountability factor.

The reason why is that the person you bought that information product from really wants you to implement their strategies and see results but they’re not going to email you or call you to make sure that you did. Once the transaction is made — that’s it. But when you invest in a coach, you’re investing in someone’s expertise and their ability to keep you on task.

My business completely changed once I did this. Many of you know that I often talk about my mentors. They were very important to me and still are. I currently have 3 coaches and have seen the results in my income literally triple because of them; and I’m proud to say that I too hold all of my wonderful clients extremely accountable for moving forward in their businesses:) Do you hear me guys?