Visualized.Feel.Abundance

Hey Folks,

Welcome to Goal Setting Lesson Two. I will be covering some basic, time-tested goal setting techniques here so you can write down your first goal clearly.

SMART
It is general accepted that goals need to be SMART. So what does SMART mean? It’s actually an acronym for:

Specific
A goal has to be specific so you know the direction you are heading towards.

“I want to grow my business” is a loosely defined goal. Which part of your business do you want grow? The revenue? The profit? The size of the company? It has to be specific.

A specific goal should sound like “I want grow the revenue of my business“. Now you know clearly which part of your business to focus on growing. No more ambiguity, right?

Measurable
A goal has to be measurable so you know the distance you need to cover to reach your goal.

“I want grow the revenue of my business” could not be measured. How much of the revenue do you want to grow? 5%? 10%? 100%? One thing for sure is that you will never know when you have grown sufficiently and you will never know exactly when you have reached your goal.

A measurable goal should sound like “I want grow the revenue of my business by 20%“. Now you know which part of your business to focus on growing and how much you want it to grow .

Attainable
A goal has to be attainable with your current resources at hand, level of competency or state of being to handle that given goal. In another words, do you have the physical means and resources to achieve the goal you set.

“I want our new advertisement to attract 10,000 customers a day” might be attainable by a business with a big budget to advertise on TV, Radio, does branding and the like. But will the same goal be attainable for a neighborhood convenience stall that only have a budget to distribute pamphlets only?

Knowing all your physical means and resources you have at hand will help you set attainable goals.

Realistic
A goal has to be realistic. Where attainable relates to your physical means and resources. Realistic relates more to conditions and circumstances surrounding us.

“I want to grow the revenue of my business by 500%” might be realistic for a new business in it’s expansion/growing phase in a new market but for a matured business that has grown almost to it’s current market limit, it is unrealistic.

A more realistic goal for a matured business would sound like “I want grow the revenue of my business by 500% by expanding into a new market“. Make sense?

Time-Bound
Every goal needs to be bounded by a time frame so it can be measured and a baseline can be formed for future goals of similar capacity. Also a time-bound goals will lead to an urgency to take action and measure performance against.

“I want grow the revenue of my business by 500% by expanding into a new market” would not give you any urgency, you could take a year, two years or maybe forever. When it takes forever, it’s called day dreaming.

“I want grow the revenue of my business by 500% by expanding into a new market by [fill in your date]” would give you a dateline that you can start measuring your progress against. A dateline would ensure that you move towards your goal in a steady and consistent manner. Even when you missed the dateline, it would not be far off the mark as compared to not having one.

Summary
Look at the goal(s) that you have set, are they SMART enough? If not, isn’t it time to do something about it.

Cheers
James

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Focus On Market Research
Market Research is usually done at the beginning of a marketing life cycle where you decide which market or industry you would like your business to focus on. Or it could be done when you are identifying new products or sub-niches to add to your current niche or marketing segment.

Keyword researches, analysis of competitors, marketing plans and strategies to penetrate a market should be a focus here. But don’t dwell on it too long as opportunities come and goes. Once you have identified what you want, plan and execute it.

Focus On Site Design
Site Design is usually a focus before you launch a site/blog but it should not stop there. Continuous improvement is a necessity in fine tuning your site/blog to make it easy for readers to subscribe your RSS, comment on your articles and opt in to your mailing list.

A Good site design makes reading visiting your site/blog a pleasant experience where advertisements are merged seamlessly into or around your content and archived articles are easy to find. It will also encourage readers to help you drive your traffic by sharing your articles through Web 2.0 buttons/link and convert readers to clients.

Focus On Content Creation
Every person has a wealth of content to share. You may think that what you know has already been shared but I can promise you that your perspective has not been shared before. It’s yours and it’s unique and that’s what your readers want to know. When they like your style and perspective, that’s when you convert them from visitors to readers.

If you think you have no content to share, then surf the web and read up on contents! Once you find contents related to your niche, track back to that article and give your views on it. Never copy and paste, unless you get express permission to do so.

So who says you have no content? Your views and perspective are your unique content!

Focus On Tracking Results
In order to know if you have done something right and to allow you to focus on what brings you the best results, you will need to test and measure. In Online business terms, it means tracking your traffic source and sales conversion. If you know where you are getting results from, you can tune your marketing activities to drive maximum results with the least effort.

Tracking Results does not take a lot of time, just set things up at the beginning and monitor it once a day follow by an analysis of the results once a week. Fine tune or discard activities that bring little or no results, focus more time and effort on activities that gives the best result or add new activities and track the performance.

Focus On Driving Traffic
Driving Traffic must be the most talk about topic in any online business. Every single site/blog that talks about internet marketing, online business or making money online will have a whole section (if not all the content) on this topic alone. So what I’ll highlight here is this, Driving Traffic is just the beginning. You will also need to focus on the next 2 items below to make driving those traffic worth it’s while.

Focus On Traffic Retention
So you have a good niche, a fantastically designed site, added great content and drove a ton of traffic. What if you did not retain them? You start from ground zero again the next day. Kind of lame right? This is exactly the case where many sites/blogs have stagnant growth - traffic surge at the beginning and then levels off, never to grow again.

What’s lacking here is the lack of a Traffic Retention policy. Offering a weekly/monthly ezine, offering full feed RSS, hosting a forum for discussion, interacting with readers that comment are some strategies to retain your traffic. Focus on these and you will build up your traffic to new heights over time.

Focus On Selling
It does not matter if you are selling a product, service or information. It does not matter if you are canvassing for a cause or charity. It does not matter if you are promoting a way of life or belief. It is all marketing and the end result is that you need to sell something.

Selling a product, service, information requires the same process as selling an idea, belief or donation. And unless you learn how to sell effectively, one of your main objective of your site/blog will not be met. So the focus you need here is a call to action.

Focus On SEO
If you have configured a self hosted wordpress blog properly, you are pretty optimized for SEO already. What you need to focus on is to optimized your headlines and articles with keywords and key phrases to attract more organic traffics. If you are not on a self hosted wordpress, it’s time you think about it.

How To Focus
If you are now suffering from information over load or at a lost about what to focus on, you need some help. On the left side bar, there is a free tool known as The Ladder Of Dreams. It has been proven to help online entrepreneurs set a clear path to their goals and keep them tightly focused on the critical activities they need to take action upon to achieve success.

Go ahead and download it, it’s FREE.

Cheers
James

Disclaimer: This post is not intended to teach internet marketing or how do you carry out an online business. It does highlight the crucial areas that an online business should focus on and some activities which are commonly neglected by internet marketers and online entrepreneurs.

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Hey Folks,

A quick post today with my limited writing time. I am going to give you the formula to be successful as I understand from Stephen Pierce and all the successful stories at UYMG.

The Success Process Map

1) Get a plan(s) and know your options. This allows you to form strategies.

2) Take action and implement the plan.

3) Measure your results and adapt to the circumstances that you are in.

4) Determine what options you have and implement the one which is strategically most favorable.

5) Repeat from 3-5 until you find success.

Success is that simple. But most people have it all wrong and I will show you what their process looks like.

Doom To Failure Process Map

1) Get as many Plans as possible and plan fall back option (Quit).

2) Determine which plan gives 100% success rate. If not, wait 3 months and implement the plan with the highest success rate.

3) Just follow the plan. Determine if it is successful 3 months later.

4) If there is no success, choose another plan to implement within the next 3 months.

5) Go to Fall Back option or find more plans and repeat 2-4

So does your own process map for success look more like “The Success Process Map” Or “Doom To Failure Process Map“? Think about it.

Cheers
James

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Hey Folks,

It’s been slightly more then 2 months since I wrote my first post on the “9 Secret Steps To Life Transformation” series. It started with the simple vision that I wanted to pen down my success formula that I had put together through years of trial and error at my own cost. I wanted to share it with you and others like you who are interested to help yourself, which is probably why you are sitting here reading this blog.

I believed that abundance starts with giving and sharing. By sharing this gift, I believed that I will attract more into my life. More experience to gain, more positive people to meet, more things to learn and a more fulfilling life.

It is also my hope that my 9 steps has helped at least some of you in some ways. If it did, thank you. I thank you because, you made my sharing valuable and meaningful. If it had help no one or motivated none, it would have been futile. So, Thank You from the bottom of my heart.

If you have benefited from this series, I welcome you to leave a note or comment here. If you have any suggestion for me to improve, you may leave it here too

Before I sign off this post, here is a summary of all the post in the series for your easy reference:

Step 1 - Take Back Your Full Responsibility
Take Back Your Full Responsibility
Story 1 (Part 1)
Story 1 (Part 2)

Step 2 - Show Your Gratitude
Show Gratitude To What You Have
Karen’s Story On Gratitude
A Technique To Give Gratitude

Step 3 - Find Your Dreams
Find Your Dreams
The Ladder Of Dreams

Step 4 - Visualize Your Dreams
Visualize Your Dreams
8 Steps Visualization Technique

Step 5 - Feel Your Dreams
How To Keep Your Dreams Alive (Part 1)
How To Keep Your Dreams Alive (Part 2)
How To Keep Your Dreams Alive (Part 3)
How To Keep Your Dreams Alive (Part 4)

Step 6 - Take Action
The Unspoken Secret Of “The Secret” Movie
Take Action
Do You Procrastinate
Bury The Procrastination Monster

Step 7 - Feel The Abundance
Do You Have Limiting Beliefs
Knowledge Creates Abundance
Karen Lim’s Abundance At Work

Step 8 - Stay On Course
Stay On Course
Learning From Steve Jobs

Step 9 - Study Your Reflection
Study Your Reflections
Study A Successful Refection
How To Choose The Right Mentor

Love,
James

PS: I came across this site telling this touching story about making a difference and it describe how I feel when I know I had made a difference. Enjoy - http://www.makeadifferencemovie.com/  (We are not related to the site but I love the story)

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Hey Folks,

In my last post, I mentioned that you should study your own reflections of successes and failures so you can avoid factors contributing to failure and pursue factors favorable to success. But in life, we have only so much time we can try and hope we don’t get errors! So how do we minimized failures and maximize success within a limited time frame?

We study Successful Reflections! More accurately, we study successful people, their processes and their habits. We study their successes and their failures and we learn from them they way we learn from our own reflections.

There is an important aspect in life and that is “Success Leaves Traces“. All successful people have some common habits or common traits across the board and here are just some of their traits (notice how similar they are to our 9 steps) :

• They never blame others for their past failures
• They always give thanks to people who have helped them along the way
• They always have a dream
• They can usually describe their dreams vividly even before they reach it
• They walk the talk
• They share their experiences and knowledge
• They Never Give Up
• They usually end up with a biography

You could learn from them when they decide to publish their biography or you could actively seek them out as a mentor. Or more likely, you can buy one of the countless books they have published about certain aspects of their success or attend one of their seminars.

So how do you choose a mentor? I have listed my criteria which works for me:

1. They are successful in the same field I am in or aspire to be in
2. They have a set of principle or philosophy which I admire and wish to incorporate as my own
3. They write books and/or speak at seminars
4. They are willing to teach

Remember in my last post I mentioned about I mentioned that given any secret formula or process, it will work if you:

1. UNDERSTAND the process correctly;
2. APPLY the process correctly; and
3. Apply process under SIMILAR CIRCUMSTANCES.

Having a mentor is guide you on the process they have created gives you the best chance to get these 3 factors right. Who else could be better then the creator to tell you if you got it right, applied it correctly and known if your circumstances were similar to their circumstances? None other then the creator themselves, right?

So if you have been struggling with whatever goal you are trying to achieve now for the pass months or years or tried whatever secret formula and process to no avail. Take sometime to think about it, is there someone in your field that is successful and willing to teach or take on an apprentice/student or offer courses or seminars where you can learn directly from them. If there is, empty your cup and learn from them unreservedly.

In the next post, I will talk about my experience with my pass and present mentor. I will also talked about what worked and what did not and the 3 things that you need to do that will ensure a fruitful experience in learning from a mentor.

Love,
James

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