Tag Archives: Job

Motivational Tips and Success| Daily Dose of Dave – Adversity

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Everyday we all need to be motivated and think successful thoughts and that is exactly why Dave McGarry created Daily Dose of Dave. In today’s Daily Dose of Dave the word that Dave McGarry talks about is Adversity. A quote by Keith Craft goes like this, ” Adversity is to the soul and spirit what going to the gym is to the body.” What a great quote and for those of you who do not know my story I worked in the health and fitness industry for 15 years prior to starting my own business. The crazy thing is you just never know what is going to happen and when adversity is going to come your way. Just in a snap of a finger I was let go from the job I had loved and now faced with a decision to make. I chose to start my own business and I would be lying if I said it has been easy but facing adversity has changed me and exposed my weaknesses…. Find out what else it has done for me and why you need to learn and grow from your own adverse times.

Please “Like” and “Share” with someone you know that needs to hear this. Also, you can follow us over at the blog @ http://www.thinksuccessdaily.com or on FB @ http://www.facebook.com/internetmarketingadvisor

Motivational Tips and Success Coach

How Being Fired Saved My Life

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Yes, as the title says being fired from my job saved my life and this post is going to explain to you exactly why I believe that. You see it has been almost 2 years since that day that I heard the new GM say to me, “We are going to let you go “ I was shocked, pissed, scared and probably every other emotion that we have when it happened. I mean how could this happen to me and what was my life going to be like now that the job and career I had worked hard for was now gone. Little did I know that I was on a new journey that I believe has saved my life and has given me a clear picture as to what my purpose in life is all about. My goal for telling you this story some two years later is if there is someone out there who might be struggling after losing there job don’t lose hope because just maybe you too will be saved and found your true calling.

Now I am not going to go into all the details as to how and why I was fired but I do want to start with maybe a little foreshadowing event that happened when I first graduated from college. I have to admit I was not a big reader in college but soon after I graduated people who had created big companies and appeared to be successful fascinated me. So, one day I was at Barnes and Noble and picked up a book about the guys who started Home Depot. In it I found out that one of the founders of Home Depot was fired from his job. He said it was the best thing that had happened to him; little did I know that would be the case for me too.

So here is why I feel that way:

Probably the single most reason I have come to believe that being fired has saved my life I feel is because I have not spent enough time developing my spirituality. You see, for years I worked on building my career, my health, my wealth and my family, but the one area of my life that was out of balance was my spirituality. Now I had been attending church but wasn’t really growing and maturing in my spirituality. What I came to realize is that I had been going at everything alone and was fighting what my true purpose here on earth is all about. Through reading Scripture and the “Purpose Driven Life” I have a renewed sense of trust in my faith and my savior, Jesus Christ. It is strange how the good Lord works but I now know that me being fired was his way of saying it is time to get closer to me and stop doing things on your own. Understanding and realizing this has brought a sense of calm and peace to my life. I now have a clear picture of what I am called to do and no matter have tough things get I know I am not alone.

Another reason I feel it has saved my life is because I am able to use this as a teaching moment. I know it sounds strange but being fired has given me the opportunity to show my kids that life is going to hit you and knock you down, but the important part is how you react to life’s struggles that matters. Hopefully by me showing them that dad did not quit and had faith throughout will help make them stronger.

My final breakthrough and realization that my life has been changed comes from being an entrepreneur. For starters being an entrepreneur has taken me out of my comfort zone. I no longer have the luxury of having a paycheck delivered to my bank account any more, but making a sale and knowing that a person has trusted in one of my products or services gives me such pride and more personal satisfaction than any paycheck has ever brought me. Also, by being my own boss (Oh, the real boss is my wife J) I have had opportunities to do the things I like and take the chances on projects and ideas I am interested in.

As I wrap up my story I am going to admit to you that finally coming to this understanding has not been easy and I hope you don’t have to go through tough times to find out your true purpose but if you do embrace the struggle and realize that the old cliché “Everything happens for a reason” is true. There is a plan for us and part of that plan is to learn from your struggles.

So, my goal moving forward is to use my blog and this platform to help and encourage others to live the life they always wanted. I will also begin to share more about my struggles and insights as I continue down this path of entrepreneurship. I hope you will join me on the journey.

To your success,

Dave McGarry

P.S. If you know someone who needs a little inspiration please share this with him or her. Also, I would love to get your feedback and learn your story by having you comment below.

How to Create a Membership Site to Generate Passive Income #3

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Simple Membership SystemQuick, what is it about a running a membership site that makes you NOT want to run one? If you’re like most marketers, the idea of being chained to your computer week after week delivering content is a major downside.

When you first got online, you probably had dreams of living the “Internet lifestyle.” You couldn’t wait to get away from the daily grind and job responsibilities. And yet if you run a membership site, it can feel like a job. You can’t see yourself running off to play on some exotic beach when you need to upload content at least once a week or more.

One alternative is to outsource this task. That is, you hire someone else to upload the content every week when you’re not available. But outsourcing comes with it’s own problems – namely, you need to 100% trust your freelancer to upload the content on time.

So if you haven’t yet developed a relationship with a freelancer, you probably won’t feel comfortable leaving your business (and your customers’ satisfaction) in a stranger’s hands.

Now before you toss aside the idea of ever having a vacation while running a membership site, let me give you two game-changing words: Autoresponder delivery.

You see, with a traditional membership site (like a PLR site), all members get the exact same content. So the person who just joined today is going to get the same content this month as the person who’s been a member for a year. Next month, everyone gets the same content again.

Obviously, this doesn’t make sense if you’re running a training site. That is, you want everyone to start with lesson #1 and get the lessons in order. So the person who joins today gets lesson #1. Meanwhile, the longtime member may be getting lesson #50.

The solution? A true “set it and forget it” model, which you can achieve by delivering all the content using an autoresponder.

Here’s how it works…

1.   You create content for your entire course. So if you have a yearlong course with weekly lessons, you’d create 52 lessons. If you have a three month course with weekly lessons, you’d create 12 lessons.

2.   Load your course into your autoresponder. Next, you need to get an autoresponder through a service like Aweber.com or GetResponse.com. Simply load up your messages into your autoresponder. Set the first lesson to go out immediately after the customer joins the course. Set each subsequent message to go out on a weekly basis.

3.   Create a sales letter. Now create your sales letter and insert your order button (from a payment processor that accepts recurring billing, such as PayPal).

4.   Drive traffic to your site. Here you can use all the usual methods of driving traffic, such as affiliate and joint venture partners, content marketing, pay per click marketing, social media marketing and similar.

5.   Play golf (or whatever). Now the members roll in and your autoresponder takes care of the rest, leaving you free to do what you want!

Just imagine: You could set up multiple autoresponder-based, fixed-term membership sites. Just set one up, drive traffic and move on to setting up the next one. Rinse and repeat until you’re making as much money as you want!

In part 4 of the 5 part series on “How to Create a Membership Site to Generate Passive Income” we are going to focus in on creating real passive income by having Back End Offers.

If you missed the first two parts of this series you can find them by click on this link for part #1 and this link for part #2.

Until the next one to your success,

Dave

 

Niche Marketing: How to Profit from it Part II

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This post is the continuation from the previous post on “Niche Marketing: How to profit from it.” you may recall in the previous post I talked about my story and how I came to be where I am today but the main point I really want to drive home to you is that I was not born an entrepreneur and as I explained most of my life I never thought about owning my own business or leaving a legacy behind. So, for those of you who say, “well I don’t know where to begin or I am not sure I have what it takes to be an entrepreneur,” then look at my story and realize you just might have an opportunity staring you in the face and telling you to go for it.

Okay, so let’s move forward with part II of Niche Marketing.

 

What is Niche Marketing?

If you ask a dozen marketers you will probably get a few different answers, but the one I gravitate towards is, niche marketing is a focused, targetable portion of a market that you try to sell goods to.

For example, one of the most recent and best niche marketing products to hit the market was done by Toyota. Toyota knew that there was a percentage of car drivers who were environmentally conscience and wanted a car that could go long distances without consuming a lot of gas. These individuals cared less about what the car looked like or how fast it went but was more concerned about the environment. Toyota exploited this market and built a car that these individuals would pay more money for and also be put on a waiting list to get one. No other major car company at the time went after this highly focused and targeted group leaving the opportunity for Toyota to capitalize. There are many more examples of niche marketing but the Toyota example is a real good one to study. Although Toyota had success many companies do not but here is a list of positives and negatives to niche marketing.

Positives and Negatives to Niche Marketing

Positives:

  • Profitable – As I just mentioned Toyota was rewarded handily for their entry into the environmentally friendly conscience consumer, which helped their bottom line and profits for the entire company.
  • Hungry – If you find a market that is dying for their need to be filled you have ventured into what I call a “Hungry” market. Finding a hungry market is key to successful niche marketing.
  • Loyal – Most of the time if you find a highly focused and hungry market these individuals become raving fans and are very loyal to you. That is if your product and service are good!

Negatives:

  • Too small of market – Sometimes you might find a niche that is too small to offset costs associated with bringing a product or service to market.
  • Untapped for a reason – A big mistake that marketers make sometimes is that they think they find a niche market that is untapped but the market is untapped for a reason.
  • Crowded – Sometimes if a market is hungry and there is a lot of competition that can lead to an over crowded market and lots of competition.

Most effective Marketing Strategies

Now there are many different marketing strategies you can implement, but for the sake of this post and for my presentation to the YEA I am going to focus in on the ones that have been effective for me and my business.

When I first started my online business I thought it was going to be as easy as building a website and having hundreds if not thousands of people come to it. Unfortunately, I was way wrong and the sad part is I should have known better. Having a product or service is one thing but getting be to know about it comes down to marketing. After some work with my business coach I implemented the following strategies to help sell my product:

  • Email News Letter – One of the best ways for me to deliver information and build a trust with potential clients came from my online newsletter. I created an option for subscribers to join my list and every week I would send them an e-newsletter with tips, suggestions, and personal stories. By providing them solid and valuable information I helped build credibility and trust before I even pitched them something.
  • Blog – I am sure you have all heard about blogs and what they can do for a business and this is the very first thing I started when I began my marketing. Several of my articles where picked up by the search engines and brought traffic to my site, which then allowed me to establish the relationship
  • Facebook Ads – Facebook Ads really was one of the best strategies I implemented. As a marketer the ability to dial into a selective target market, which is what Facebook let’s you do is priceless. At one time over 50% of my traffic came from Facebook Ads
  • Facebook Fan Page I created a Facebook Fan Page for my site Working Mom Workouts , which also allowed me to build a tribe of fans that I could build a relationship with before I tried to sell them anything.
  • Mommy Bloggers – I reached out to a particular group of moms who blog and are well connected in the “mommy circle”. What I did was I provided them a sample of my product and in return I asked them to blog about it to their followers. Nothing more powerful then to get a good review from a person who has influence over a lot of your target market.
  • Google Adwords  When I first started using Google Adwords I lost money and was not very successful but after taking a course I learned how to lower my cost per click and also write better headlines to get clicks to my site. Another great strategy that paid off.

Those strategies were just several that I tried but they were also my most effective. The key to any good marketing plan is to test, measure, and track your ads or strategies to see if they are working. Keep the ones that work and ditch the ones that don’t. Simple as that!

Well, with that I will end my talk on Niche Marketing and I hope you learned something that you can take along in your entrepreneurial journey!

How To Make Your Sales Manager Better

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Copyright (c) 2010 Mr. Inside Sales

I consult with a lot of business owners, and I hear a common complaint: “The sales team isn’t making their revenue numbers and my sales manager doesn’t seem to know what to do to get them to improve. What should I do?”

After reviewing their sales processes, their training program, sales scripts, etc., I always ask the same question: “How much production is your sales manager generating per month?” And I almost always get the same answer – “My manager doesn’t sell.”

Therein lies the problem.

The problem with most sales managers that they don’t sell. And the problem with that is how can they teach and manage something they aren’t doing themselves (or worse, can’t)?

Now I know there are differing opinions on this – some say managers need to manage from the sidelines (like coaches), need to be involved in higher level responsibilities, need to attend endless meetings, and need to be able to set revenue goals and get their team to achieve them.

I agree with some of this (except the endless meetings part!), but the most effective and respected sales managers and V. P.’s I work with all lead by example. They have a personal quota and they keep their skills sharp and refined because they are on the phones closing prospects and clients every day.

Because of this, they have a real understanding of what it takes to get the job done, and so they are in the best position to teach it to others.

Here are the top 5 benefits of having a selling sales manager:

1) Sales managers who actively sell have an up to date, intimate understanding of what techniques, skills and strategies work in your selling environment. And having this first-hand knowledge means they can teach it to others.

2) Because a selling sales manager has this immediate experience of closing sales, they are in a much better position to help their team members close business as well. They can easily do a TO (take over) when a sales rep needs help. This not only teaches the rep how to handle selling situations, but it often saves a sale as well. This is what your sales manager must be able to do, and it is a crucial part of their job.

3) A selling sales manager commands the ultimate respect and confidence of his/her sales team. A sales manager is a leader of his team, and the best way to lead is by example. Sales reps respect and follow a leader who can help them close sales and achieve their goals. They’ll also work harder for them.

4) A confident sales manager grows a confident and productive team. Nothing is better for a sales manager than to have him/her demonstrate, to themselves and others, that they have what it takes to successfully close sales. A successful selling manager isn’t afraid of setting production goals because he knows he can achieve them (and he knows what it’s going to take).

5) As a business owner, you must have the confidence that your manager knows exactly how to accomplish your company’s revenue goals. The most accurate way to determine this is by having the sure knowledge that he knows how to do it himself. This experience is invaluable and will ensure that the goals you set are reasonable and reachable.

The #1 problem I run across when working with companies is an unreachable, unrealistic revenue goal set by the owner that has no real buy in by the sales manager. It is this disconnect that causes friction, undermines morale, and often leads to demotivated, underperforming sales teams (and managers).

All this can be avoided when you have an experienced, hands on, selling sales manager who can give you honest and accurate feedback about production goals and the ways to achieve them.

There are many more benefits of having a selling sales manager leading your team, but I hope this short list has convinced you. Believe me, the fastest way to make your sales manager better is to give them a quota and require them to pick up the phone and start closing business.

If you don’t already have a quota for him/her now, then do yourself (and your company and your manager) a favor and set one this week. All of you will benefit from it!

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/business-articles/how-to-make-your-sales-manager-better-3103502.html

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