 If you’ve ever looked at another entrepreneur and wondered how they manage to get it all done, the answer might surprise you. They have got good systems. It’s true. The most productive people all have one thing in common: they don’t reinvent the wheel every day. Instead, they’ve figured out the best, most efficient way to do every task, and they create a system to do just that. READ MORE: 17 done-for-you forms you can use right away No matter what business you’re in and what projects you find yourself tackling, a systemised approach will help you:
The Magic of Templates How many times do you answer email from potential clients? What about responding to customer complaints? Or mailing your JV partners about an upcoming launch? READ MORE: 17 done-for-you forms you can use right away All of these tasks and more become effortless when you create fill-in-the-blank templates that can be re-purposed for specific cases/people. Templates can be as simple as a “canned response” in your email client or help desk, or you can use software such as Text Expander (for Mac) or Phrase Express (for Windows). You might even create a template document in Dropbox or Google Drive to house all your templates for easier access. While templates will undoubtedly save you time, the real beauty is that once they’re created, you can easily outsource things like email and even sales. Simply instruct your assistant on the proper use of your templates, and you’ll be free to do other, more important things. READ MORE: 17 done-for-you forms you can use right away Checklists Prevent Mistakes It might seem counter-intuitive, but when you perform the same tasks over and over again, it’s easy to miss a critical step. You might think you paid your affiliates this month—you might even remember doing it—only to look back and see it was never completed. But when you implement checklists, it’s suddenly much more difficult to miss an important task. READ MORE: 17 done-for-you forms you can use right away You can easily create checklists for all your common tasks and projects using nothing more than a text document. If you’re managing a team, checklists in your project management system allow you to see exactly what tasks are complete, and which are still outstanding. Templates and checklists turn smart business owners into productivity superstars, and it’s easy to get started. The next time you answer an email you’ve answered before, save your response. The next time you set up a new product in your shopping cart or create a new opt-in page, take the time to record the steps. These documents will make future projects easier and faster to complete, and best of all, you can hand them off to your assistant to do instead. READ MORE: 17 done-for-you forms you can use right away To Your Success! Lindsey x www.digital-duchess.com 
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 As any smart business owner knows, the key to passive income is a well-established (and full) funnel. So of course you’ve optimised your opt-in pages and monetized your download pages and encourage more buyers through well-placed upsells and downsells. READ MORE: Email Marketing: From Hot Mess to Mega Success in 7 Days But what about the follow-up? Do you contact customers about the products or services they didn’t buy? Do you encourage them to use the products they have purchased? Are you making sure they know about all your other wonderful programs? If not, you’re missing the boat. But the good news is, this can be easily managed with just a bit of simple automation, and when done right, it will smoothly lead your customers from one purchase to the next, at the exact right time for them to take advantage of your best offers. READ MORE: Email Marketing: From Hot Mess to Mega Success in 7 Days Segment Your Audience Many autoresponder services allow you to target emails based on reader action. Want to sent a follow up email to those who clicked a specific link? Create a segment and mail away. Want to re-engage with those who haven’t opened your emails in a while? Easy to do, and you can potentially recover subscribers who have gone missing. In more sophisticated systems, such as Infusionsoft or Ontraport, you can dig even deeper, and move people from one series to another based on their buying habits. That way you’ll never promote a product a reader already owns. Not only that, but you’ll always be able to offer the very best next thing, no matter where a subscriber is in your funnel. READ MORE: Email Marketing: From Hot Mess to Mega Success in 7 Days Still another way to segment your list is according to what they do not buy. If a subscriber has been on a list where you’re promoting your top-level coaching program, and they have not yet purchased, it may simply be too expensive for them at this time. Consider moving these readers to an autoresponder series promoting a lower cost option instead. All of these tactics require that you know your audience and your products exceptionally well. Study your stats. Know your open and click rates. Pay attention to the promotions that work, as well as those that fall flat. With information in hand, you’ll be better able to effectively segment your lists and make the most of all the parts of your funnel. READ MORE: Email Marketing: From Hot Mess to Mega Success in 7 Days To your success! Lindsey xx www.digital-duchess.com   How compelling is it when you see this on a sales page? “Peek over my shoulder while I…” It doesn’t matter if the seller is demonstrating how to bake a cake or how to build a website, we want to see. There’s just something intriguing about the opportunity to see an expert do what they do best. And that’s just what makes these types of products best sellers in nearly every niche. READ MORE: Need help with your presentation or speech? We want our methods justified. We very likely already perform the tasks this “over the shoulder” product teaches, but we question if we’re doing it the best, most efficient way. Is there a newer method that works better? Is there a less expensive or time consuming technique? Or do we know a better way (that feeling of smugness is its own reward)? By purchasing the products that show us exactly how others work, we’re finding out how we can work better, while still building up our confidence. READ MORE: Need help with your presentation or speech? We want the tried-and-true approach. When we’re just starting out (or even if we’re not) it can be helpful to cut through all the trial and error and get right to what works. After all, if you can skip the months and months of learning—not to mention the expense—why wouldn’t you? If you trust that the seller really does have it all figured out, purchasing the over-the-shoulder training can be a great shortcut, and you can always refine the methods as you go. READ MORE: Need help with your presentation or speech? We want to know the “secrets” of the pros. Occasionally, we fall into the trap of thinking that there must be a “secret.” If only we had the right template, we’d finally be able to write that novel. If only we had the right interview questions, we’d finally be able to find a VA. If only we had the right dating profile checklist, we’d finally get a date. Of course, there’s more to success in any niche than a checklist or template, but when we can dig into what is proven to work for others, it gives us that boost of confidence we need to continue moving forward. READ MORE: Need help with your presentation or speech? So next time you see a product or program that offers to share an expert’s proven system, ask yourself why it seems so compelling to you. What’s triggering your interest? Chances are, it’s one (or more) of these reasons. To your success! Lindsey xx www.digital-duchess.com   What Is The Ideal Length of Your Content On Social Media Platforms? How long should a Twitter post be? Well, how long is a piece of string? In reality the 'ideal length' of any content is likely to vary depending on your niche/industry, your target demographic and the intent of said post. That said though, statistically speaking there are some useful guidelines to keep in mind when deciding how long to make any given post. Here we will look at what has been shown to be most successful across a variety of platforms… On Twitter the ideal length for a post is apparently 100 characters. This is according to Twitter's own 'best practices' guidelines where they state that tweets of 100 characters or less enjoy 17% higher engagement. That's not an insignificant stat… so keep it short and Tweet! READ MORE: 50 things to blog about Research though only somewhat supports this claim, finding that retweets peak for Tweets of 100 characters while longer ones do better than shorter ones. It seems that 100 is definitely the Tweet spot (sorry). It seems that brevity is also preferred on Facebook where 40 characters and less seem to do best. Jeff Bullas conducted a study on retail brands on Facebook and found that short posts and particularly those below 40 characters would receive 86% higher engagement. READ MORE: 50 things to blog about Many more studies have similarly supported the idea that shorter-does-better on Facebook. The point to remember is that people are in a rush. All the time. And especially on social media. If your content is really long, chances are they won't read the whole thing. Google+ On Google+ your headline should be less than 60 characters. This doesn't only maximize the impact in terms of content but also the readability and appearance due to the way that Google+ works. If your content is too long then it will be truncated or it will appear on multiple lines. READ MORE: 50 things to blog about That said, there is value to the longer headline seeing as it can be more enticing as click-bait. Find balance and experiment with both for your business. Note that your first sentence will also often show on Google+ and you can definitely use this to your advantage in piquing curiosity. Blog Posts While it's not social media, chances are that you'll be integrating your social media strategy with content marketing… So how long should a blog post be? READ MORE: 50 things to blog about Research shows that a blog that gets the most attention is 1,600 words, taking the average reader 7 minutes to read. It seems that a little more depth is actually a good thing at this point! However, blogs that are 300-500 words long also have their place and they are my preferred length. To Your Success! Lindsey www.digital-ducess.com   As a Digital Marketing coach, it can be difficult to watch the lack of progress of so many promising entrepreneurs and coaches. They’ve dreamed for so long about creating a solid, sustainable business, and yet, all they do is dream.
You know the people I’m talking about. They attend conferences, sign up for free webinars, buy paid training, and sometimes even work with a coach or two. And yet week after week, month after month, year after year, they fail to make any progress toward their dreams. READ MORE: Here is the secret to more business, more profits and more free time Are they just lazy? No. It’s something worse. They don’t know how to move from a dream to a plan, and they’re stuck. Start With the Long-Term If you’ve ever been on a job interview and were asked, “Where do you want to be five years from now,” you might have thought it an odd question. But as a business owner, that might just be the most important consideration you can have. READ MORE: Here is the secret to more business, more profits and more free time Without knowing where you’re headed in the long term, it’s impossible to create a map to get there. You need to know what your destination is, so that every day, week, month, and year you can check your progress to be sure you’re still headed in the right direction. Create Milestones Once you know your ultimate destination, you can draft a plan for getting there, and create the interim goals that will help you stay on track. READ MORE: Here is the secret to more business, more profits and more free time For example, if in five years you want to be free to travel for 8 weeks every year, then you need to have a few pieces in place before that can happen:
Create Small Goals If you say to someone, you need to move from $60,000/ £45,000 to $150,000/ £113,000 in five years, that’s a pretty overwhelming task. After all, it’s a $90,000/ £68,000 increase, and most people will look at that and immediately dismiss it as impossible. READ MORE: Here is the secret to more business, more profits and more free time But when you break it down as we have above, and then again into smaller steps, it suddenly doesn’t look so daunting. In the first year of the plan we have outlined here, your income needs to increase only by $10,000/ £7500. That’s less than $1000/ £750 per month! Surely that’s easy enough to accomplish! You can further break that down by week: $1000/ £750 per month is just $250/ £189 per week. If you sell just one more group coaching package, or five more of a $50/ £37 training program, you’ve already reached your milestone. READ MORE: Here is the secret to more business, more profits and more free time That might mean sending one more email to your list, or investing an additional $20/ £15 per month in Facebook ads, or perhaps reaching out to one more JV partner. The point is, reaching this much smaller goal is far easier than thinking about that five-year plan. So what’s your big dream? How can you deconstruct it into achievable milestones, workable goals, and finally, daily and weekly tasks? If you can do this (and you definitely can) then you can achieve anything in business and in life. To your success! Lindsey www.digital-duchess.com  It’s not enough to dream of success. It’s not even enough to set goals. The only way to truly achieve your dreams and build the business you’re meant to build is to sit down and just do it. And that’s where many of us…well, fail is a strong word. But it’s the doing that trips us up more times than not. READ MORE: More Important Than Money: Understanding Why You Really Do What You Do We overbook our calendars until today’s to-dos become next week’s past dues. We procrastinate on the things that are important while attending to things that are merely “nice to do.” And sometimes we simply take on too much—even when we know better. The answer? Embrace these five productivity hacks that top entrepreneurs use to get more done in less time. Rituals and Habits: Simply put, a ritual or habit is a consistent way of doing something. You have a morning ritual (wake up, brush your teeth, work out, shower, and head to your office), evening ritual (check homework, tuck the kids in, watch the evening news, and hit the sack), weekend ritual (sleep late, mow the lawn, catch a movie, visit your mom), and many others. READ MORE: More Important Than Money: Understanding Why You Really Do What You Do The trouble is, if you’re not careful with your rituals, they can turn into productivity killers. Is checking Facebook or email a part of your morning ritual? Is turning on Skype a part of your at work ritual? Distractions such as these can turn even your best intentions into hours of wasted time. Take a good look at your rituals. What are you doing that you should not be—or that should be moved to another part of your day? Make your rituals more efficient, and you’ll automatically get more done. Calendar Management: Want to know how much time you really have available for that new project? Try blocking off time in your calendar for all your existing projects. Fill in all your client calls, your business administrative tasks, time for meals and breaks, outside appointments, and everything else you’re committed to. What’s left might just shock you. READ MORE: More Important Than Money: Understanding Why You Really Do What You Do Make it a habit to block time in your calendar for every commitment, and you’ll never again over-promise or over-commit. Learn to Let Go: Here’s a news flash. You do not have to do everything in your business. You can (and should) hand off those low-level tasks to someone else. Hire a VA to create your documents and manage your calendar. Let your tech support person manage your blog and email. Turn over your bookkeeping to an accountant. The time you free up will allow you to work on what’s truly important—and that only you can do. Work Hard, Play Harder: You are not a machine. You cannot work all day every day and hope to be at your best all the time. READ MORE: More Important Than Money: Understanding Why You Really Do What You Do Take a day off. Get some rest, or relax on a long, slow hike. Take a friend out to lunch. Go shopping with your kids. See a movie or a play. Do something—anything—other than work. Not only will you return to the office feeling much more refreshed, but you’ll find yourself more creative and productive than before as well. Focus: Multi-tasking is impossible. You cannot efficiently create a new Online program while you’re simultaneously surfing Facebook, keeping an eye on the kids, and answering the phone every time it rings. Instead, use your calendar to block time off for important tasks, then turn everything else off so you can focus. No phone, no Facebook, no kids or husbands or neighbors or pets demanding “just a minute” of your time. Tune everything out, and you’ll find your work getting done much faster. Managing your time and turning up your productivity is not something that comes naturally to most people, but when you learn to master this skill, you’ll find your business grows right along with you. READ MORE: More Important Than Money: Understanding Why You Really Do What You Do To your success! Lindsey www.digital-duchess.com   Imagine you had a client who consistently failed to complete their tasks for the week.
They couldn’t find the time to get their email opt-in page completed. They were too busy to write the next chapter of their book. They were working too hard and completely forgot to put together their webinar presentation. READ MORE: Beyond SMART: Goal Setting for Entrepreneurs It wouldn’t take long before you sat them down for a serious talk about the future of you relationship—and their business. A client such as that is a frustrating waste of time. Why, then, do you continue to accept these and other excuses from yourself? Why is your lack of business development allowed to continue, even when you know how important those tasks are to your future growth? Now, before you go thinking I’m being way too hard on you, know this: we all struggle with this very issue. We all put our clients, our family, our friends, and even the neighbour we barely know before ourselves. READ MORE: Beyond SMART: Goal Setting for Entrepreneurs But I’m giving you permission right now to stop doing that, and start treating yourself as the VIP you really are. It’s time to put your business growth ahead of that of your clients. Only by doing that will you be able to reach a larger audience, help more people, and achieve the goals you’ve set for yourself. The simplest way to do this is to just make appointments with yourself. That hour or two you have free on Thursday afternoon? Don’t book a client call in that spot. Book yourself. Mark it on your calendar, and treat it as an unbreakable appointment, just as you would an appointment with a client or your doctor or your accountant. READ MORE: Beyond SMART: Goal Setting for Entrepreneurs Spend the time working on the things that are important to the continued growth of your business.
To your Success! Lindsey www.digital-duchess.com  What do super-successful coaches and small business owners all have in common? It’s not experience. It’s not extraordinary skills. It’s not even a powerful drive. Although all of these things can definitely help your business grow, they’re not a prerequisite for success. After all, no one is born with experience or skills, and plenty of successful people lack drive. READ MORE: Here is the secret to more business, more profits and more free time The one thing that does make a difference, though, is your “why.” Why did you decide to become an entrepreneur? Why do you spend too many hours in front of your computer every week? Why do you stay up too late and get up too early, just so you can work on growing your business? The “why” is what ultimately drives us to success, but here’s the thing: it’s different for everyone. Your why is not my why, and my why is not her why. It’s a deeply personal choice that can have great meaning…or not. For example, a survivor of domestic abuse might happily spend 60 or 70 hours each and every week mentoring other victims of abuse, or counseling couples on how to break the cycle. Her big why is a strong desire to prevent other women from suffering in the same way she did. READ MORE: Here is the secret to more business, more profits and more free time A mother of small children may be saddened at the thought of sending her kids to daycare just so she can go to work to (barely) pay for it. Her big why is a drive to spend as much time with her kids as she can, while still supporting her family. A young, fresh out of school entrepreneur might resist taking the same path their parents took, working for a corporation for 40 years, only to retire and find themselves with barely enough to live on. Instead, they dream of having the income (and the time) to see the world while they are still young enough to enjoy it. So what’s your big “why”? It might be the freedom to travel, the option to spend time with your family, the ability to take weeks off at a time, or even to earn enough money to support a charity that’s close to your heart. READ MORE: Here is the secret to more business, more profits and more free time Whatever it is, your “why” is the driving force behind every action you take. When you’re deciding whether or not to take on a new client, ask yourself if it’s aligned with your “why.” When you’re setting goals for the year, ask yourself if those goals are moving you closer or further from your big why. Thinking of branching out into a new business venture? Make sure it’s in alignment with your big why, and success is suddenly much more attainable. To your success! Lindsey www.digital-duchess.com Check out my Freedom Academy- Click my pic  If there’s one thing we know about goals, they have to be SMART, right? After all, that’s what we’ve been told for years. The only thing that matters is that your goals are specific, measureable, attainable, realistic and timely. While that looks great on paper—and clearly it’s easy to remember—it doesn’t go far enough for those who want to achieve big things. READ MORE: FREE Checklist- Never be Stuck for Blog Ideas Again Think about it. Do you want to be stuck with “attainable” and “realistic” goals when what you really dream about is a 3-day workweek, frequent international travel, and enough money to fund a mission trip (or three). Seems pretty clear that those safe, smart goals aren’t going to get you there. In fact, they might even do worse than simply “not get you there.” They may actively hold you back. Consider what happens when you set an “attainable” goal of earning 10% more than you did last year. You might work 10% more. You might spend 10% more on ads or product creation. You might even reach out to 10% more potential clients. READ MORE: FREE Checklist- Never be Stuck for Blog Ideas Again And you’ll likely earn about 10% more. “Not bad!” you say. After all, that was your goal. But did that 10% goal inspire you to work harder? Or did it create a subconscious ceiling on your earning potential that you’re unable to break through? Rather than focusing on goals that are attainable and realistic, savvy entrepreneurs know that the key to incredible success lies in creating lofty goals that feel out of reach—maybe even UN-attainable. READ MORE: FREE Checklist- Never be Stuck for Blog Ideas Again They don’t strive to earn 10% more than last year. They want 50% or even 100% more. They stretch themselves. They find new—and better—ways to do things, so they don’t have to work twice as hard, but they remain open to the possibility of doing so—at least in the short term—when it’s necessary. Of course, you cannot simply declare crazy goals and expect the universe to hand them to you. And that’s exactly why putting aside those smart goals is so…smart. When you shun the attainable in favor of the “holy cow, how will I ever do THAT?” goal, you push yourself beyond those self-imposed limits and reach for the stars. READ MORE: FREE Checklist- Never be Stuck for Blog Ideas Again Sure, you might not double your income, but you’re almost guaranteed to do better than a mere 10% increase. So push your boundaries. Set big, audacious goals. Even if you fail, you’ll be much further ahead than those smart goals would leave you. To your success! Lindsey www.digital-duchess.com FREE Checklist- Never be Stuck for Blog Ideas Again  We’ve all seen those old-style sales pages filled with yellow highlights and screaming red text and lots of “BUY NOW” buttons, and when we think of copywriting, that’s often what comes to mind. While that style of sales page can be effective, it’s not the only way to make sales. READ MORE: Check out the Digital Duchess Freedom Academy In fact, by taking a more subtle approach, you might even find that you generate more interest—and potentially more sales. Stories Sell One effective way to entice readers to click through to your sales page is with stories. These can be your stories or those of other people, with the goal of helping your readers to see themselves in the same situation. Did you help a client turn their chaotic household into a calm oasis with better organizational skills? Their story on your sales page will get more clicks than all the yellow highlight you can buy. READ MORE: Check out the Digital Duchess Freedom Academy What about that time you trashed your entire business plan and started over because you simply weren’t passionate about your work? Your potential business coaching clients will be anxious to learn more, and will click through without you even asking. That’s the power of stories, and you can use them everywhere: in your blog posts, in your emails, on your sales pages, and even in videos and on social media. Be Genuinely Helpful Want to build a reputation as the go-to person in your niche? All it takes is to help people. Answer questions on social media, volunteer to speak to groups who need your advice, write blog posts that address the most common issues your readers face. READ MORE: Check out the Digital Duchess Freedom Academy By volunteering your time and knowledge, you’ll attract a wide audience of potential customers who may need your services in the future. Who will they turn to? That very helpful person who went out of her way to offer assistance in the past. Now we’re not saying you have to give away all your time, but if you really want to show off your expertise, you can’t do better than a little volunteer work. Not only will you make an impression with the person you help. But chances are good she’ll share with her friends as well, further expanding your audience. Of course this doesn’t mean that there is no place in your business for a strong call to action. “Click here to buy” and “Learn more right now” are still useful (and even necessary) on sales and opt-in pages. The key is to know when to make a subtle offer, and when to offer a bit more hand holding. To your success! Lindsey www.digital-duchess.com Check out the Digital Duchess Freedom Academy Do you want a lifestyle friendly business? Learn more here! |
AuthorLindsey Archibald is a Journalist, Broadcaster, Digital Marketer, Author and Business Coach. Archives
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