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Napolean Hills Mastermind is alive in our Social Media Communities

Have you read Napolean Hills “Think and Grow Rich“? I try to read it often, as I know many succesful business people attribute their success to the timeless principles stated in this book.

It’s amazing how some great principles can stand the test of time…

In the book Think and Grow Rich, Napolen Hill talks about the revolutions of his era. Things we take for granted nowadays. Things like:

• the light bulb
• the motor car and
• formation of giant steel companies

It’s amazing to think that this book was written in a completely different time, but the principles taught in it are still reveered today…

Napolean Hill states that:

The “Master Mind” may be defined as: “Coordination of knowledge and effort, in a spirit of harmony, between two or more people, for the attainment of a definate purpose.”

No individual may have great power without availing himself of the “Master Mind”.

In this book, the context of the mastermind was largely influenced by the era it was written – in the early 1900′s.

In that era, a Mastermind typically consisted of a group of driven business people. Or, on the other end of the spectrum were selfless leaders of human rights like Mahatma Gandhi.

It fascinates me to realise that the Mastermind is starting to find a new power in our modern life. Everyday, large groups of ordinary people are now interracting and sharing opinions in a way that creates the same type of power and influence of the industrial age Mastermind. As a business owner, it is surprising to think that your Mastermind can actually be your customers, your suppliers, even your competitors if you are clever!!

Today, we listen to our customers and provide them with a means to input into product development, marketing – even distribution and direct sales through providing referrals and building communities.

This new style of businesses is capable of operating with a lean management overhead, hence a new business model has been birthed. Today, there are a growing number of Solopreneurs (solo entrepreneurs, succesfully running their own businesses). These Solopreneurs rely heavily on interractions with their customer & supplier network, to be part of their mastermind to develop business and product strategy. There seems to be a shift away from a small group of executives dictating how the market will receive their products”.

It’s a very exciting time to be in business – one where all people are interracting more and contributing to the direction of businesses based on true desire and need.

Now, with this in mind I ask: Who is in your mastermind and how well do you work with them?

Get a free copy of Think And Grow Rich here.

Why Internet Advertising works in Australia

People always tell me that Internet Advertising is the best way to market, but it wasn’t until I experienced having some leads come from page 1 listings, that I started looking into why this is the case…

What I found explained why this is all happening: In 2011, most Australians had spent more time in front of their computer than they do in front of the TV!

According to the ABS, in 2008-09, three-quarters (74%) of people aged 15 years and over used the Internet.

Most people were accessing the internet from home, which suggests they were using it for personal reasons. Hmmm… are you starting to wonder where you should spend your advertising dollars?

In 2008-2009 SIX MILLION homes had internet access. That’s a whopping 78% of households! So it’s not just office workers reading their emails…

You might be wondering how often these people are actually surfing the net and discovering businesses like yours. Well… for the home internet users, over nine in ten (94%) were using the internet at least once a week, with over half (58%) of these people accessing the internet daily, up from 50% in 2006-07. That’s huge.

94% of internet users are browsing every single week and 58% every day!

But are these people really going to buy from you online? Well, let’s hear what the Australian Bureau of Statistics says: “Many Australians use the internet to shop online. In 2009, the domestic online retail sales for all sectors of the economy were estimated to have totalled between $19 and $24 billion“. Excuse me… was that around TWENTY FOUR BILLION DOLLARS. Ok, that answers that question. People are spending a lot of money online.

The data doesn’t lie. Most people are all over the internet. Your customers are all over the internet and making transactions online! There are many things we can conclude about this, but the one thing I would stress to you is that you should seriously consider advertising on the internet.

And it doesn’t have to be expensive. There are plenty of free internet advertising programs to choose from. Locally there is free brisbane advertising, there is free sydney advertising and I bet there is free advertising in your local area too. Better than free, you can even make money with Google Advertising. Search for advertising through Google for your local area and industry and you’ll be surprised the number of sites there to help you.

For those already into Internet Marketing, these stats above should confirm why you have been seeing such a ‘buzz’. If you are not yet marketing your business online… catch-up!

Happy browsing…

Keyword ranking rollercoaster – keeping your lunch down

I’m usually quite a level headed person, but when I see my
keyword ranks peek through to page 1 or 2, you had better be prepared for a
celebration of high-fives all around and big smiles!

On the flip side, when rankings invariably drop it’s time to either slump in your chair or pick up a weapon and start fighting for your rank!

A year ago, I barely used Facebook. Nowadays, I post on Blogs, upload movies to YouTube and post photo’s to Flikr – all which have good SEO capabilities.

If you are like me, you love the exhilaration of keyword rank ups and downs. It’s a fun, challenging and rewarding ride. Trying to fight the fear of losing rank is like trying to keep your composure while dropping down the big dip. Just go with it and take the ride again.

What I think makes a big difference to your persistence along the journey is belief in your value offering. If I can give Free Brisbane Advertising in my business and help my local tradespeople and community, then it is something worth fighting for.

I’m sure your fight for rank is worth it too, right??

The entrepreneurs start-up juggle

Creating a new business is a lot of hard work and distractions are everywhere! Discussions on sales, marketing, efficiency, strategy, tactics, conversion, retention… arggh!!

The thing I always try to do during start-up, is constantly move forward and not backward. That fact alone is comforting during the turmoil of startup. The downside is that we always still see a huge incline ahead…

New business startup journey

We are very lucky to have such a huge amount of information freely available and there are a lot of organisations there to help you through start-up phase. The downside to that however, is the distraction. The distraction that causes difficulties to focus on a single thing. The amount of well wishing sales & marketing webinars, blogs and forums can distract you from the task at hand. How much advice can one get on SEO, Cold Calling and Avoiding marketing traps etc etc…? That stuff bombards you everywhere and there just isn’t enough hours in the day to sift through and find the gold!!

As James Allen once said “Having conceived of his purpose, a man should mentally mark out a straight pathway to its achievement, looking neither to the right nor to the left“.

That’s a great quote, but as a start-up entrepreneur you may have a single purpose, but you will have a dozen tasks all allocated to you, at any given time.

As an Project Manager, I schedule my tasks through realistic and thorough plans. As the most basic method, I recommend starting with a spreadsheet and create group – like “Affiliate Marketing”. Then, list all the things you need to do to start your Affiliate Marketing. Things like “creating prospect list”, “create flyers”, “tap prospects” etc…

Once you allocate a schedule for starting and completing these tasks it’s simply a matter of focus and persistence to achieve your plan.

Strange as it may sound, with one of my businesses my current struggle is to give away free advertising to Brisbane Tradies. Even that is harder than it sounds!

With all this in mind, Go forward… mark out your plan and follow your path, looking neither right nor left. Enough distractions already!

The best things in life are free – How Positive Association can benefit you

Not everything in life is free, but I believe that some of the best things in life ARE free.

#1 Advice is free

#2 Support from your friends and associates is free

You can spend tens of thousands on marketing and product development, but it is these two things alone can be the difference between failure and success…

If you have an open mind, you will find that people will support you – but be careful that you only seek support from positive people. Even your well meaning relatives will warn you about all the possible dangers ahead of you. Save the critics judgements for when you are in a critical mindset also, not when you are looking for positive support.

Don’t be disheartened by mis-aligned communication.

I have been looking for support and been confronted by critics. You need to shut that down straight away because it is a dream killer. This mis-aligned communication will kill your dream and starve you of your success potential.

Associate with positive, constructive people who make a difference. Their advice and support will be constructive and help you.

Who are you associating with today???

How to be more lucky – 3 Simple Steps

Just yesterday, a well meaning relative pointed out that my Wife and I were always so lucky and got everything we wanted. Well that sounds like a pretty far out thing to say, but it did get me thinking… Is that true? Am I really lucky?? If so, what is luck and how do you get it?

Lucky frog

When I look back at my my life, I have been purposely associating with many lucky people and taking many ‘lucky’ actions. Many of the people in my life say they have been blessed – people like CEO’s of companies, people with happy families and people with abundant wealth.

Okay, let’s say that associating with lucky people has something to do with it. But what if you don’t know people like this? Well… neither did I. Not initially anyway. I started associating with CEO’s and abundantly wealthy people by reading their books, listening to CD’s (and tapes back in the day) and going to seminars.

Now let’s get one thing straight: I have never won the lottery. Nor do I take home every meat tray from the RSL. But… I do like to think that I am very lucky and very blessed. With my family, my career, my finances and my business. My ‘lucky’ experiences can be boiled down to 3 simple points which I will share with you now:

1) Maximise your chances of being lucky
- Start many things. Take calculated risks. Have faith in yourself.

2) Expect good fortune
- Expect the best of other people and every situation.
- When times are tough, look for the opportunity. Good opportunities always exist. Especially in tough times.
- When times are good, look for ways you can do good to others. Good deeds always payoff. It’s natural law.

3) Be intuitive
- Go with a hunch. Meditate. Don’t over-analyse.

There you have it – my three simple steps to having good luck.

Take care and good luck to you!!