Sample Content Preview WRITE IT UP ON PAPER FIRST Like setting in place a mini-business plan, you can start to brainstorm how you will put in place the many steps that we've provided for you. Each step of the way is going to be a learning process, and you will probably need to tweak things as you go along, but if you want to start off on the right foot, put together a master plan. This is particularly important if you are going to generate email lists across multiple websites and social networking platforms. Even though the steps are simple, the entire process can get very complicated when you are working with multiple lists from multiple websites. That's when you're going to have to plan ahead of time how to centralize your operations and how to keep track of people who may be on two of the lists that you own. What will you do if one person should be upgraded to a list whereby they are offered pricier items in email campaigns? Do you have mechanisms in place to realize that you should take them off the original list and put them on another list? If you don't do this, you may end up sending duplicate emails, and they may get confused and frustrated with your services. Simplify as much as you can about how you will track the basic steps before you start. SET UP A CAPTURE PAGE A capture page is a leads sales form. Here you're not so much interested in making a sale as in getting a lead. It doesn't mean that you don't use the same strategies as you would with a regular sales page; it just means that the end result is not going to be a sale. You should never try to sell something to someone right away when you are trying to capture his/her email address. It makes him/her suspicious. Instead, take the time to court your email sales prospects and offer them some incentive to sign up to your email list. LIST THE BENEFITS Just like a regular sales page would list the benefits, you are going to want to do that too on your sales lead capture page. Why should they sign up for your email list? Are they going to learn something through a free report? Are you going to make their lives easier? How much money can you save them if they take the time to add their name to your list? You alone know what the main motivation might be from your core audience. List the biggest benefit up at the top, just like a regular sales page, and some other benefits after an opt-in form. If the capture page is too large, repeat the opt-in form over the length of the page so that people can remember to sign up. ASK THEM TO SIGN UP Just like you need to ask people to buy, you also need to make a specific request for them to sign up. It sounds redundant, but people often need a little nudge to do what they really want to do anyways. You're just making sure that they know that they are welcome to sign up. You can even reassure the people who sign up that you don't give out the email addresses to other partners, if that's the case. Your content should be easily read, and the form should be easy to fill in. USE A DOUBLE OPT-IN FORM The easiest opt-in form for users is one where they are simply asked for their email address and password. That email address is verified by sending out a verification email. Once the subscriber opens his/her email, he/she can click the link that will approve the new sign-in. This keeps automatic spammers Tips And Traps Of Email Marketing and hackers who want to add others to your list to create mischief out of your list. It means that the user of the email address himself/herself must verify that the sign-up is valid. SET UP AUTORESPONDERS Autoresponders are email inboxes that receive email and automatically send out a reply. If you set up your systems right, you can set up an autoresponder to be triggered at the moment a sale is finalized to send out a “thank you” note. Anytime a customer or visitor takes an action to email you or to buy something, you can have the autoresponder kick in and market to them some more. DIFFERENT AUTORESPONDERS FOR DIFFERENT ACTIONS You can set up an autoresponder to welcome people to your email list. The first email autoresponse that you contact a prospective customer with should never sell him/her anything. Instead, it should be an introduction to who you are and what you hope to achieve based on this new relationship. It may seem a bit slow to start off with something this innocuous, but it sets the stage for building a gradual trust between you and the customer. Other times you might want to set autoresponders is when they buy something from you or when they email you for specific things. You can set up an entire set of autoresponders for different functions, such as customer service and help desk functions. Just be sure that if the problem needs to be escalated to a live person that the customer can do that at some point. DIFFERENT AUTORESPONDERS FOR DIFFERENT CAMPAIGNS Along with setting up autoresponders for different actions, you also want to set up different autoresponders for different marketing campaigns. Once you assign someone to a list, for instance, you might find him/her to be in the low-income list. In that case, your email messages may be different to this group than to the ones who you expect to buy more because they have higher incomes.

Sample Content Preview What does the owner do? One option would be to change the text across all stores and to hope that the market research proves to be accurate. The business owner did something right here, in that they at least conducted market research first, which helped to motivate a smart change. The worst case scenario is that the business owner would simply decide that they like a more ornate font and change it across all their stores without thinking about the potential implications. They could end up losing a lot of money and never knowing where the ‘leak’ was. But the problem is that even with market research, you still can’t be certain that you’ve made the right decision. Market research can be wrong, and it can miss other factors (the visitors may prefer the more ornate font, but they might not see it as easily as the clear, bold font!). A split test then would involve changing the font on half the buildings. It would then compare the profits of those two groups, in order to see which one performed better and whether or not the change should be employed across the entire chain. If the stores with the new font earned more money, then the same technique could be used globally. If not, it could simply be forgotten. And another new change could be tested. This way, split testing allows you to be certain that something is the right move before you do it. And the same thing works just like that in SEO. Here, you might test changing keyword densities, or you might test using more headers. Maybe you test using more images, or perhaps you try using an image at the top of the page. All these things might end up impacting on the performance of your pages in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs), and thus help inform your practices in future. You might also go back through all older pages on the website and make the changes across the board. How do you run a split test for SEO? One option is to take lots of similar web pages that are all performing equally well, and then to make changes to half of them. Head into your Google Analytics account and make a projection for how would normally expect them to perform, and then compare that projection to how the pages actually perform. If all the pages with the changes start performing better than projected while the other pages remain the same, then you can take the changes and adopt them permanently on all versions of your site. If they start to fall in the rankings, then you can drop the change and move onto your next strategy. Another option is to use a redirect – creating two versions of the same web page and sending half of your visitors to each. This will allow you to conduct a more scientific study, but it will also mean that you can’t measure your position in the SERPs (seeing as it’s just one page and Google will only rank it once). This can nevertheless be used to see how changes affect things like bounce rates, CTR, conversions etc., which all are likely to have a knock-on effect on SEO AND on your profits. Not sure how to do this? Then you should check out the eBook: Split Testing in SEO for Data Driven Success, which will explain everything in more detail. This will also show you how to avoid letting split testing hurt your ranking, and how to be as scientific as possible about your results. I know what you might be thinking at this point: do you really need to go to all the trouble of creating two different versions of the same pages? Or split your pages into groups that way? Couldn’t you just introduce the changes to your site and then see how they perform? Or perhaps just test the changes on one page? Maybe just read a book?? Well the problem with the first option – introducing the changes to the site – are several. Firstly, this would take a long time. If you go to all the trouble of introducing changes to all of your pages, only for this to have no beneficial effect, then you’re going to have wasted a huge amount of time that could have been spent much better. Not only that, but if you make all these changes to every page on your site and the changes turn out to be a mistake, then this can seriously hurt your business. Not only can this hurt your short-term profits as every page on your site begins to underperform, but it can also seriously hurt your reputation if those changes end up driving away your visitors. Okay, so making changes across the board isn’t an option. But what about introducing changes to just one page and seeing how that works? Well, the problem in that case is that you’ll be introducing what are known as ‘confounding variables’. A confounding variable is anything that could skew your results but that you haven’t accounted for. So in this case, if you include your new SEO strategy in just the very next blog post, you might see it thrive and assume that means it was a good move. You’d then make the changes to every post on your page. But what if the only reason that page did so well, is that you happened to write a really good post that your audience loved? Or what if you accidentally stumbled upon some other SEO-secret sauce. Maybe your headers were all the perfect length and it had nothing to do with the resource box at the bottom of the page? In this case, you could once again go to the effort of changing every single post on your site, only to find that the strategy doesn’t work and you just seriously damaged your website ranking and your reputation. Bad news! Finally, why conduct these experiments at all? Why not just use the knowledge provided by the SEO community – or even other people who conducted those experiments? A great article on MOZ, shared by the creators of Optimization Delivery Network (Distilled), explains this very clearly. Distilled provides SEO services for clients, and the company recently decided to try using split testing to make better choices (it developed Optimization Delivery Network for this very purpose). The company then began to conduct hundreds of experiments on a huge number of blogs, to collect as much data as possible. So, what did they find and what can we learn? The first thing they found, was that using a more popular search term doesn’t always yield better performance in the SERPs.

Sample Content Preview Please take not here of the very important part of this which is “you want to improve”. Don’t try to improve your life because others tell you that you need to do this. You are far more likely to succeed if you really want to make improvements that come from within. When you make improvements to your life you will boost your self esteem and increase your confidence. These are both very powerful in your quest to stop making unhealthy comparisons. Forget about perfectionism when you are working to improve different areas of your life. There is no such thing as perfect. If you strive for perfectionism then you are very likely to achieve nothing. Good enough is fine. It is natural for human beings to want to compete against each other. But the downside of doing this is that there will always be other people that are better than you at what you are striving to achieve and this can really bring you down. Instead of competing with others we recommend that you compete with yourself. When you do this you will be competing in a healthy way and it will really challenge you. So it is important that you set challenging goals for yourself and regular track your progress. If you are not where you want to be then you can put in the extra effort needed. Using other people’s standards to judge yourself is a road that you don’t want to go down. This will fuel your need to compare yourself with others and will likely result in negative thoughts and feelings. Set your own standards and judge yourself by these. This is all about taking responsibility for your own life and being in control. Always remember that you do not have any control over what other people do. Become comfortable with your own standards so that you refrain from looking at other peoples. Envy is a really bad thing that can drive you in all of the wrong directions. If you are envious that your neighbor has just purchased a brand new car then you may be tempted to get yourself into a lot of unnecessary debt by buying a new car yourself. It really isn’t worth it. Be appreciative of others instead. Other people can help you through their different experiences and knowledge levels. Decide that you will use this to your advantage rather than being envious of this. Rather than feeling inferior to them tell yourself that you will learn from them to improve your life. If she can do it so can I! Having a good coach can really help you to improve your life in so many ways. But different coaches use different approaches and sometimes you will not be happy with how an external coach tries to motivate you to succeed. So why not be your own coach? After all you know yourself better than anybody else ever will. You will know how to push the right buttons to get yourself to take action. When you are your own coach you will know that you will always treat yourself right. You will appreciate your own efforts and raise your self esteem in the process. Are you someone that is permanently “plumbed in” to social media? If you receive a notification on your phone do you tend to drop everything and respond to it? A lot of people are addicted to social media and the representations that it makes. There are many people with strong opinions about how people should live their lives. We are not asking you to get rid of social media altogether. It can be a great way to stay in touch with family and friends and we appreciate that. What we do recommend is that you limit the time that you spend on it. If you follow people that have a big influence on you then consider stopping this. They don’t know you and what your hopes and dreams are. They maybe living the life that they want but you never know the full story. Being swayed by social media in this way is not healthy for you so we are asking you to be careful who you follow and listen to. No matter where you turn these days there seems to be an endless amount of images of “perfect people”. You can find these in magazines, TV shows, social media, in movies and just about everywhere else. It is not a good idea for you to compare yourself with these images. If you don’t measure up then this can lead to you experiencing negative thoughts about yourself. So we are asking you to avoid them and ignore them if you see them by accident. Again you never get the full story. The pictures of the skinny models on the catwalk may seem appealing but there is a likelihood that most of them are continually hungry because they don’t eat enough. Some photographs are cleverly manipulated using programs such as Photoshop as well. You are always going to come across people or images of people that seem to have a better life than you do. Maybe they have the perfect relationship that you crave or the perfect body. But nothing in this world is perfect and never likely to be. In perfect relationships there is often pain. Couples have disagreements all of the time and they might look like the perfect pair from the outside but you don’t know the full story and probably never will. If someone has a nicer car or house than you then use this as motivation to make positive changes in your life rather than get bitter and twisted over it. Take stock of where you are now and decide where you want to be.

Sample Content Preview THREE POPULAR SOCIALNETWORKING SITES YOU SHOULD DEFINITELY THINK ABOUT JOINING Please note that these are my personal favorites. They are well worth considering for different reasons, which I shall reveal as we take a quick look at each one. So let’s take the guided tour, shall we? MYSPACE It’s big, it’s popular and most people have heard of it. And those are three good reasons why you should get involved with it too. They don’t like affiliate links, so if you’re planning to promote other people’s products and you don’t have a site of your own, you’ll benefit from getting one. But that aside, you’ll get a comprehensive profile page that will help you tell people what you’re all about, and you can list your interests too. If you make sure these are related to the focus of your business, you’ll draw even more interest. Oh and did I mention you can have your own blog on MySpace as well? People can access this from your profile page, and you can end up with quite a few fans simply by writing a great blog on a regular basis. FACEBOOK The other huge social networking site out there today. And this one doesn’t mind you promoting your business either, which is why it gets on my top three list. You can actually join by proclaiming that you are a business and opening a business account, but you should be aware that you can’t then have a personal account as well. The rules regarding this are quite complex, so it’s worth checking out the help section before joining. Facebook is laid out differently from MySpace, but the principle is the same. And the fact that you can be honest about why you’re there – to market your business – makes it a lot easier and arguably more enjoyable to use. TWITTER If you want big results for less work, then Twitter is the site for you. Why write a long message to people who are interested in what you have to say when 140 characters will do? That’s all you get to communicate with on Twitter, but it makes it easy to keep busy on the site. A minute or two here and there and you will soon have plenty of followers hanging onto your every word. Some people have even created a series of necessarily short pieces of advice, labeling them ‘1 of 12’ and so on, to create interest. It works well, too, and simply experimenting with using the 140 character limit to your advantage can create some good results. ADOPT A DIFFERENT APPROACH TO SUIT EACH SITE To really make the most of social networking, you need to present yourself as someone down to earth but professional. So let’s take a look at how you can do that by focusing on a few important points to remember. WHO ARE YOU LOOKING FOR? On a very basic level, you’re looking for customers. But you’re also looking for a certain type of person who is going to become your customer. What you need to do is to find out who that person is. What do they like? What are they really interested in? And so on. And once you have found out the answers to those questions, you can target your social networking efforts towards that person. This should be easy to do if you know your product well. And it also means you won’t get overwhelmed by the volume of people on the social networking site you are targeting – because you will know exactly which ones you are aiming for. But make no mistake - knowing your audience is the key to using social networking sites successfully when it comes to marketing your products. If you don’t know who you are aiming at, you won’t attract much attention at all. At least, not the type you are looking for. This follows up on choosing the right sites for you in the first place. Once you have done that, don’t assume that everyone on that site is going to have an interest in you. It’s just a question of narrowing your focus even more and zoning in on the people you want to reach. Don’t try and sell to everyone because it won’t work. ADAPT YOUR PROFILE Don’t make the mistake of going onto one of these sites and setting up your profile just as it would be for YOU. This really follows on from the last point about knowing who you are looking for. If you know what will attract their attention, then you will know how to write your profile so it fulfills that purpose. For example, photographers are naturally going to be interested in the profiles of other photographers. Writers will naturally gravitate towards other writers. And people who are trying to make money online will search for others who are trying to do the same. This applies to every niche subject or market you can think of. Why? Because they are trying to find the knowledge they need to succeed. Or in some cases, knowledge about a subject they like that they don’t yet know about. And if other people who share their interests are easy to find through their profile, they’ll want to stick with them and see what they have to say, won’t they? Remember that you’re not on there for social kicks: you’re on there to make contacts and generate interest in your business. That means you need to create a profile that is different from how you would normally describe yourself. The only prerequisite here is that it should catch the attention and make people look closer. But being professional isn’t always going to be the right approach here. You want to seem casual and approachable, so use the kind of language your preferred audience might use. For example, if you sell a range of USB gadgets, you could describe yourself as a USB gadget freak. If you sell eBooks on the subject of saving money, you could refer to yourself as a thrifty money saver. There are plenty of possibilities here and you should find that you can change the wording you use on your profile page, so don’t be wary of experimenting. You might feel like a bit of a fraud to begin with, because your real passions might be very far away from what you include on your profile. But you should think of yourself as being two very distinct people – a business person and a normal day to day person. And it’s the business person that is going to be joining these social networking sites. There is one other VERY important point to mention here. When you join a site, make sure your first task is to create that profile and get it up and running. You don’t want people clicking on your screen name to find out more about you, only to be met with a website address and little else.

Sample Content Preview It is important to monitor your screen time so that you can be aware of how much time you spend in front of a screen and how much you want that to be reduced. Increasing our awareness of how we use technology is key to succeeding in adopting healthier behaviors. Not only are we more likely to change our habits, but we are also more likely to change our life by being in control of our screen time. You can download an app that will calculate that for your phone and make sure to take note of screen time on other devices like TV or computers. Your goal will be to see a reduction in screen time over the course of the next weeks. Every morning, you can note your screen time of the previous day and aim to reduce it. Step 4: Identifying Actions The next step is dedicated to actions. Make a list of the things you could do to help you reduce your time in the digital world. Here are a few examples: Practice Mindfulness Mindfulness doesn’t have to be a complex meditation practice. It can be a simple exercise of taking a moment to connect with your breath by taking three deep breaths. Mindfulness is the act of observing our experience in the present moment. Using the five senses is a great way to practice mindfulness. Observe what you smell, see, hear, feel, or taste. Using your senses will bring you in the present moment. Do One Thing at a Time Our society tends to encourage multitasking. On the other hand, it has created individuals who have a hard time being present. If you are spending time with a friend, be present, listen, and interact with the individual. Turn off your notifications on your phone and keep eye contact with the person who is interacting with you. Train Your Mind It is possible to train your mind to focus on the present. You can do so by recognizing when you are thinking of the past or the future. Choose a day or an hour when you will observe your thoughts. During that time, catch yourself when you are having thoughts connected to something outside of the present moment. Like thinking of what happened in your past or hoping for the future. Once you caught yourself, take three deep breaths to bring your attention back to the present moment. That way, you will get better at bringing your mind back to the present. Enjoy Your Meals Many people have learned to eat in front of the screen. Unplugging while you eat, allow you to be present and enjoy the food that you eat. Every bite you take, force yourself to place your utensils on the table, and taste your food. Observe the texture, the taste, and be mindful of every bite you take. Have a Bedtime Ritual When you go to bed, instead of scrolling down posts on social media, take 15 minutes to acknowledge what you are grateful for in the present moment. List all the things that at this moment you are thankful for. Assign Offline Time Many people do not have limits or boundaries when it comes to social media. Setting healthy boundaries is essential to improve our relationship with Facebook or Instagram. You can do so by identifying a specific time when you are offline, a time when you believe it is best not to look at social media. For example, you could decide that the first two hours of your day are offline. That way, you don’t have to let social media influence the mood you are in that day. It may take some days to adapt, and don’t forget, research says that it takes 21 days to form a habit. Put Your Phone Aside When you are interacting with other people, whether it’s at a family dinner or hanging out with friends, make a point to put your phone away. Social Media can quickly pull you into a rabbit hole where you will completely forget your surroundings and realize that you are not enjoying the present moment with people in your circle. Putting your phone aside will increase the quality of interaction you have with others and also bring more enjoyment. Clean Up Your Feed It is incredible the roller coaster of emotions that social media can lead you in. Take the time to be aware of how you feel when you see or read a post. Make a point to unfollow any individuals that make you feel bad. You have the right to choose what you want to see, and that is an important decision that could change your relationship with social media to be more positive and empowering. Practice Emotional Awareness Practicing emotional awareness means paying attention to your emotions while looking at social media. Every time you catch yourself feeling down. Take a screen time timeout of one minute. During that minute, focus on your breathing. Take six deep breaths every time you have a negative emotion. The key to success is to identify ways that are realistic and practical for you. It doesn’t have to be an all or nothing approach. Slowly reducing your time in front of a screen, will allow you to get more comfortable with reality.

Sample Content Preview There are a variety of other versions as well, such as 4 high carb days followed by three low carb days. However, as a beginner, you will want to start with the simple alternate day plan. You can switch to a different cycle when you get the hang of it and feel you are ready. Or, you can stick to the basic plan throughout your journey until you have achieved your weight loss goal. If you find that carb cycling works for you, you may want to delve deeper into these other plans. In this case, you will want to consult an expert. They will help you customize a plan that suits your weight goals, gender, and lifestyle. The alternate-day plan we will use here is just the simplest for a beginner and will work for anyone. What You Eat Carbs: They are the main source of fuel for the body and essential for boosting metabolism. They are also essential for potting the fat-burning cycle into action. Protein: This is the foundation of your carb cycling plan. You must eat between 1/5th to 1/7th of the minimum required daily intake with each meal. Fats: Fat intake will remain consistent throughout the plan. You may raise your fat intake a little bit on low carb days for more energy. Calculating your daily intake For the best results, you need to calculate your daily intake of carbs, proteins, and fats. This a very easy process of multiplication Low carb days Carbs: Women simply must multiply their body weight by 0.6. Men should multiply bodyweight by 0.9. The resulting number will represent the carbohydrate intake in grams per day. Proteins: Women can calculate their daily intake by multiplying their body weight by 1.2. Men can calculate their daily intake by multiplying their body weight by 1.5. The resulting number will be the required daily intake of protein per day. Fats: To calculate daily fat intake, women should multiply their body weight by 0.5, while men should multiply by 0.8. The resulting number is your daily intake of fats in grams. To calculate the total number of calories, add the totals from the three food groups. High carb days The same calculation is used, except that in this case, your intake of carbs and proteins will be higher. Your intake of fats will decrease. Carbs: Women should multiply their body weight by 1.4 while men will multiply by 1.7. Proteins: Women multiply their body weight by 1.4 and men by 1.7 (yes, it's the same ratio as for carbs) Fats: Women should multiple bodyweight by o.3 whereas men should multiply by o.6. The total of the three numbers will give you the total number of calories you can consume for High carb days. It is up to you how you divide your daily intake throughout meals, whether you are having three meals or six meals per day. Calories As for daily calorie consumption, the recommended range is 1500 – 2300 for women and 1500 – 3000 for men. This is the general recommended range that you should stay within. However, don’t beat yourself up if you exceed it a little on some days. I highly recommend that you invest in a calorie counting app. As for how many calories are contained in the foods you consume, you can easily look this up online and prepare a reference list to store on your computer. Portions Carb portions range from 200 grams to 300 grams on high carb days and 50 grams to 150 grams on lower carb days. We will discuss portions and food types in a later chapter. This was a very simple explanation of how the carb cycling plan works. Next, let’s find out why it works and how it can benefit you. Chapter 2 - Why the Carb Cycling Diet Works The carb cycling diet has become mainstream recently. Research is still ongoing with regards to the additional benefits. However, many people have reported great success with the 7-day plan for several reasons. Here are some of the arguments for why it works: • One of the main reasons is flexibility. It really doesn’t feel like a diet because there is a wide variety of foods to choose from. You can eat your favorite foods on certain days. People who follow the plan report not feeling deprived. And, the cheat day really helps as well! • It gives you the ability to customize your plan if you stick to the basic rules.

Sample Content Preview USE OTHER STRATEGIESTO GAIN EXPOSURE TOO Don't stop just with social networking. Go to forums, groups, and blogs to find active audiences that might be interested in your sales promotions. Don't solicit directly; however, you can contribute to ongoing conversations and add a link to your site when it’s relevant to do so. When Internet marketers talk about traffic being the way to riches, they are talking about the millions of connections you make at various sites that are willing to come back and take a peek at your site. Putting out a link to your offerings, however, doesn't guarantee that you've gotten someone to connect with you. It's how you treat that person when he/she interacts with you that will determine whether the person stays and buys or whether he/she walks away. Keep in mind that not everyone processes information in the same way. Some people prefer to hear their information, while others want to see something to understand it. Still, others prefer a touchy/feely approach in order to “get a handle on it.” When utilizing face-to-face marketing, you can tell what your customer prefers by the way he/she interacts with you and the language he/she uses. Online, you might get some of that through language when you discuss things back and forth on a forum, but you won't really see that from an anonymous visitor to your site. That's why it's important to offer your visitors something tangible that speaks to them in their language. This is done by offering audio, visual, and kinesthetic information on the site that can appeal to each of the three groups. Videos, for instance, appeal to people who process information visually. There are as many YouTube addicts as there are people who just love to download music. Still, some people need to feel a book in their hands to feel comfortable. As you seek to make connections, be aware of the environment and the audience. It will attract people who prefer one style of communication to another. Your job is to match that and to offer some of that style on your sales pages so that when they come back, they’ll have an instant rapport with you. Not only does it strengthen the connection, but it also creates a wider exposure for you to have your content in various formats, from video to audio and even to physical format books. As you start to gain an Internet presence on all of these high-traffic sites and stream some of those connections back to your own site, you will find that it gets harder and harder to manage all of those connections. You might find it takes more and more of your time to comment and to promote your links. You don't want to spend so much time socializing on the Internet that you don't have enough time to plan new product rollouts and to close big deals. The answer to that is to learn how to automate your connections while maintaining a personal touch when necessary. In the next section, we'll discuss some of the tools to use to not only create greater exposure and many more new connections, but also to simplify and make your interactions more efficient. The idea is to exploit your interactions so that what you relay in one interaction serves not just one customer, but many customers. As more people find value in your interactions, whether you personally talked to them or not, they will return more and more to your site. If you encourage them to bring their friends with them, via generating referral or affiliate programs that create income opportunities for them too, you not only widen your connections, but you empower them to build your business for you as well. TOOLS TO MANAGE YOURCONNECTIONS In your personal life, you know that if you miss someone's birthday, he’s/she’s likely to feel slighted. Yet, people fail to try to make their online connections feel special and important just because they are virtual friends. Sometimes, it can be a simple matter of feeling overwhelmed. It's okay to manage talking to 20 or 30 people online, but what happens when your connections reach into the hundreds and thousands? The power of the Internet makes it so easy to connect that these numbers that would be impossible in a face-to-face situation are a real possibility for many Internet marketers. If you want to continue generating the same success with your connections when you had just a few, it's going to take some fancy footwork and great tools to keep your audience feeling special and important when there are so many others vying for your attention. PLAN YOUR INTERACTIONS At this point, not only are people expecting to hear from you, but you can lose a large share of your audience if you suddenly go silent. This makes it very hard on you when you want to take time to develop some other area of your business and your audience of friends or followers is clamoring for attention. That's why you need to be sure to feed them regularly by planning your interactions. Let's give an example. Let's say that you joined Twitter and cultivated thousands of followers. Obviously, you can't pay attention to them all one-on-one and you can't be online 24 hours a day in person. You can, however, manage these interactions and even schedule them so that they don't interfere with other activities that you are completing to generate income. Take a look at the many third-party applications, like TweetLater.com and TweetDeck.com, that will allow you to view the stream, respond to questions, and even schedule your interactions for days when you simply want to be offline, but will continue your presence online virtually. The applications are free to use and will make your life a whole lot easier. Not only will your audience be thrilled, but you will also be able to plan your tweets to roll out a promotion every step of the way, without having to be at your computer terminal to do it. It's a real-time way of being present, even when you could be snoozing on a beach getting a tan at the time your product promotion happens online. CATEGORIZE TO TARGET-SPECIFIC GROUPS Categorize your list of friends and followers, especially if you have their email addresses and are marketing to them via email. This will help you to roll out several promotions at once and to get better results from your offerings. Of course, it is easier just to have one list of people and then use that to mass market, but that's not a very efficient way to market to people or to make them feel special. It's like the ubiquitous newsletter that shows up in your email inbox that you know got broadcast to an entire list. How special is that? Not much, and people understand when they are being listened to and when their needs are being addressed. Learning to categorize and to really understand the connection you've generated is the key to picking products and services that provide value to that person. If there is a match, the sale is practically automatic.

Table of Contents Introduction......3 What is Positive Thinking?.4 Looking at it From a Child’s View5 How is Positive Thinking Powerful?.....6 Positive Thinking and Body Language.8 Positive Thinking's Biggest Threat......9 Putting the Power of Positive Thinking to Work in Your Life10 The Impact of Positive Thinking.......13 The Power of Positive Thinking at Work....13 Summing It Up.......15 Sample Content Preview There are plenty more ways you can use the influence of a child to drive your progress towards a positive attitude. You should watch children play. Just see what they do and take notes on how different their lives are from yours. How do they get through the day without stressing about every little thing? Do not let yourself get hung up on the fact that they do not have responsibility. Responsibility should in no way hold you back from being positive. It is just an excuse and excuses kill the positive attitude you are working so hard to build. Just focus on being child-like. Let yourself be free and just love life. How is Positive Thinking Powerful? Positive thinkingis, obviously, something that can have a great impact on a person. What is hard to understand is why positive thinking is so powerful. That involves taking a good look at how positive thinking works. Positive thinking works in three different ways. First, it works on you and your general attitude. Second, it works on those around you. Lastly, it has a way of influencing your environment. How exactly positive thinking works on these things is, open for debate, though. Some people believe that positive thinking is related to karma. That whatever you put out there comes back to you. Others believe that positive thinking is a mental thing that triggers positive things. Whatever your beliefs, it is hard to doubt the power of positive thinking. You will feel how powerful positive thinking is. Once you start to implement positive thinking in your life, you will start to see it work for you. Positive thinking has a way of changing your whole view on life. You will start to find the good in things and that will make you happy. You will be less likely to feel down and instead you will allow positive thinking to guide you to happy thoughts. You will start to do everything in a more positive way, including how you treat others. This will not go unnoticed. Your interaction with others plays a large part in your life. Other people are going to be greatly influenced by your positive thinking. You will start to see this because they are going to start treating you differently. Others will sense your positive attitude and they will treat you in a positive way. Someone who is often rude or just inattentive to you will likely start to treat you in a nice way or pay more attention to you. You will start to find that people are more likely to offer you help when you need it. They will likely do nice things, such as hold doors open or just give you a smile. Your positive attitude may even be contagious. You may start to see people you spend a lot of time with exhibiting your positive attitude and positive thinking. Positive thinking has a way of even influencing your environment, but it may not be in the way you think. Just because you think positive does not mean that everything will automatically go your way. However, when you think positively you will be less likely to see the negative in things and therefore your environment will appear to change. You will probably start to notice the little things more than ever before and that will have a nice effect on you. Positive thinking will allow you to believe in yourself. It will allow you to believe that you can accomplish something if you put your mind to it. You will be able to set goals and reach them because you will believe that you can do it. You will not have negative thoughts to hold you back. Positive thinking is very influential. It is going to start to shape everyone and everything around you. You are going to see the great power it has almost immediately. The power of positive thinking is not subtle. You have to make an effort to let positive thinking start turning all your thoughts and ideas into positive thoughts and ideas. It is up to you to start pushing the negativity out of your head and let positive thoughts guide you. When you start to find your thoughts, drifting to the negative it is your responsibility to make an effort to make them positive instead. Go ahead and train yourself to always find the positive in anything. One you do this it will go a long way towards changing your attitude. The power of positive thinking is that it will shape your life. Positivist is so contagious that it will affect the world around you. You will start to see positive thinking everywhere you go. Positive thinking has a power that is undeniable. It is something that will not be subtle. It will have such a great impact on you and your life that you will wonder how you ever lived before putting it to work in your life. The true power of positive thinking is that it allows you to live life to its fullest potential and for all that, it has to offer without letting negativity bring you down. Positive Thinking and Body Language Body language is something that we are not often aware of, but it sometimes can say more than our words ever could. That is why it is so important to pay attention to body language and always be aware of what it is saying to others.

Sample Content Preview Shall we now give attention to some two or three concrete cases? Here is a man, the cashier of a large mercantile establishment, or cashier of a bank. In his morning paper he reads of a man who has become suddenly rich, has made a fortune of half a million or a million dollars in a few hours through speculation on the stock market. Perhaps he has seen an account of another man who has done practically the same thing lately. He is not quite wise enough, however, to comprehend the fact that when he reads of one or two cases of this kind he could find, were he to look into the matter care-fully, one or two hundred cases of men who have lost all they had in the same way. He thinks, however, that he will be one of the fortunate ones. He does not fully realize that there are no short cuts to wealth honestly made. He takes a part of his savings, and as is true in practi-cally all cases of this kind, he loses all that he has put in, Thinking now that he sees why he lost, and that had he more money he would be able to get back what he has lost, and perhaps make a handsome sum in addition, and make it quickly, the thought comes to him to use some of the funds he has charge of. In nine cases out of ten, if not ten cases in every ten, the results that inevitably follow this are known sufficiently well to make it unnecessary to follow him farther. Where is the man's safety in the light of what we have been considering? Simply this: the moment the thought of using for his own purpose funds belonging to others enters his mind, if he is wise he will instantly put the thought from his mind. If he is a fool he will entertain it. In the degree in which he entertains it, it will grow upon him; it will become the absorbing thought in his mind; it will finally become master of his will power, and through rapidly succeeding steps, dishonor, shame, degradation, penitentiary, remorse will be his. It is easy for him to put the thought from his mind when it first enters; but as he entertains it, it grows into such proportions that it becomes more and more difficult for him to put it from his mind; and by and by it becomes practically impossible for him to do it. The light of the match, which but a little effort of the breath would have extin-guished at first, has imparted a flame that is raging through the entire building, and now it is almost if not quite impossible to conquer it. Shall we notice another concrete case? A trite case, perhaps, but one in which we can see how habit is formed, and also how the same habit can be unformed. Here is a young man, he may be the son of poor parents, or he may be the son of rich parents; one in the ordi-nary ranks of life, or one of high social standing, whatever that means. He is good hearted, one of good impulses generally speaking, a good fellow. He is out with some companions, companions of the same general type. They are out for a pleasant evening, out for a good time. They are apt at times to be thoughtless, even careless. The suggestion is made by one of the company, not that they get drunk, no, not at all; but merely that they go and have something to drink together. The young man whom we first mentioned, wanting to be genial, scarcely listens to the suggestion that comes into his inner consciousness that it will be better for him not to fall in with the others in this. He does not stop long enough to realize the fact that the greatest strength and nobility of character lies always in taking a firm stand on the aide of the right, and allow himself to be influenced by nothing that will weaken this stand. He goes, therefore, with his companions to the drinking place. With the same or with other companions this is repeated now and then; and each time it is repeated his power of saying "No" is gradually decreasing. In this way he has grown a little liking for intoxicants, and takes them perhaps now and then by himself. He does not dream, or in the slightest degree realize, what way he is tending, until there comes a day when he awakens to the consciousness of the fact that he hasn’t the power nor even the impulse to resist the taste which has gradually grown into a minor form of craving for intoxicants. Thinking, however, that he will be able to stop when he is really in danger of getting into the drink habit, he goes thoughtlessly and carelessly on. We will pass over the various intervening steps and come to the time when we find him a confirmed drunkard. It is simply the same old story told a thousand or even a million times over. He finally awakens to his true condition; and through the shame, the anguish, the degradation, and the want that comes upon him he longs for a return of the days when he was a free man. But hope has almost gone from his life. It would have been easier for him never to have begun, and easier for him to have stopped before he reached his present condition; but even in his present condition, be it the lowest and the most helpless and hopeless that can be imagined, he has the power to get out of it and be a free man once again. Let us see. The desire for drink comes upon him again. If he entertains the thought, the desire, he is lost again. His only hope, his only means of escape is this: the moment, aye, the very instant the thought comes to him, if he will put it out of his mind he will thereby put out the little flame of the match. If he entertains the thought the little flame will communi-cate itself until almost before he is aware of it a consuming fire is raging, and then effort is almost useless. The thought must be banished from the mind the instant it enters; dalliance with it means failure and defeat, or a fight that will be indescribably fiercer than it would be if the thought is ejected at the beginning. And here we must say a word regarding a certain great law that we may call the "law of indirectness." A thought can be put out of the mind easier and more successfully, not by dwelling upon it, not by, attempting to put it out directly, but by throwing the mind on to some other object by putting some other object of thought into the mind. This may be, for example, the ideal of full and perfect self-mastery, or it may be something of a nature entirely distinct from the thought which presents itself, something to which the mind goes easily and naturally. This will in time become the absorbing thought in the mind, and the danger is past. This same course of action repeated will gradually grow the power of putting more readily out of mind the thought of drink as it presents itself, and will gradually grow the power of putting into the mind those objects of thought one most desires. The result will be that as time passes the thought of drink will present itself less and less, and when it does present itself it can be put out of the mind more easily each succeeding time, until the time comes when it can be put out without difficulty, and eventually the time will come when the thought will enter the mind no more at all. Still another case: You may be more or less of an irritable nature naturally, perhaps, provoked easily to anger. Someone says some-thing or does something that you dislike, and your first impulse is to show resentment and possibly to give way to anger. In the degree that you allow this resentment to display itself, that you allow yourself to give way to anger, in that degree will it become easier to do the same thing when any cause, even a very slight cause, presents itself. It will, moreover, become continually harder for you to refrain from it, until resentment, anger, and possibly even hatred and revenge become characteristics of your nature, robbing it of its sunniness, its charm, and its brightness for all with whom you come in contact. If, however, the instant the impulse to resentment and anger arises, you check it then and there, and throw the mind on to some other object of thought, the power will gradually grow itself of doing this same thing more readily, more easily, as succeeding like causes present themselves, until by and by the time will come when there will be scarcely anything that can irritate you, and nothing that can impel you to anger; until by and by a matchless brightness and charm of nature and disposition will become habitually yours, a brightness and charm you would scarcely think possible today. And so we might take up case after case, characteristic after characteristic, habit after habit. The habit of faultfinding and its opposite are grown in identi-cally the same way; the characteristic of jealousy and its opposite; the characteristic of fear and its opposite. In this same way we grow either love or hatred; in this way we come to take a gloomy, pessimistic view of life, which objectifies itself in a nature, a disposi-tion of this type, or we grow that sunny, hopeful, cheerful, buoyant nature that brings with it so much joy and beauty and power for ourselves, as well as so much hope and inspiration and joy for all the world. There is nothing more true in connection with human life than that we grow into the likeness of those things we contemplate. Liter-ally and scientifically and necessarily true is it that "as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." The "is" part is his character. His character is the sum total of his habits. His habits have been formed by· his conscious acts; but every conscious act is, as we have found, preceded by a thought. And so we have it - thought on the one hand, character, life, and destiny on the other. And simple it becomes when we bear in mind that it is simply the thought of the present moment, and the next moment when it is upon us, and then the next, and so on through all time. One can in this way attain to whatever ideals he would attain to. Two steps are necessary: first, as the days pass, to form one's ideals; and second, to follow them continually, whatever may arise, wherever they may lead him. Always remember that the great and strong char-acter is the one who is ever ready to sacrifice the present pleasure for the future good. He who will thus follow his highest ideals as they present themselves to him day after day, year after year, will find that as Dante, following his beloved from world to world, finally found her at the gates of Paradise, so he will find himself eventually at the same gates. Life is not, we may say, for mere passing pleasure, but for the highest unfoldment that one can attain to, the noblest character that one can grow, and for the greatest service that one can render to all mankind. In this, however, we will find the highest pleasure, for in this the only real pleasure lies. He who would find it by any short cuts, or by entering upon any other paths, will inevitably find that his last state is always worse than his first; and if he proceed upon paths other than these he will find that he will never find real and lasting pleasure at all. The question is not, "What are the conditions in our lives?" but, "How do we meet the conditions that we find there?" And whatever the condi- tions are, it is unwise and profitless to look upon them, even if they are conditions that we would have otherwise, in the attitude of complaint, for complaint will bring depression, and depression will weaken and possibly even kill the spirit that would engender the power that would enable us to bring into our lives an entirely new set of conditions. In order to be concrete, even at the risk of being personal, I will say that there have come at various times into my life circumstances and conditions that I gladly would have run from at the time—condi-tions that caused at the time humiliation and shame and anguish of spirit. But invariably, as sufficient time has passed, I – or anyone for that matter - have been able to look back and see clearly the part that every experience of the type just mentioned had to play in my life. I have seen the lessons it was essential for me to learn; and the result is that now I would not drop a single one of these experiences from my life, humiliating and hard to bear as they were at the time; no, not for the world. And here is also a lesson I have learned: whatever condi-tions are in my life today that are not the easiest and most agreeable, and whatever conditions of this type all coming time may bring, I will take them just as they come, without complaint, without depression, and meet them in the wisest possible way; knowing that they are the best possible conditions that could be in my life at the time, or other-wise they would not be there; realizing the fact that, although I may not at the time see why they are in my life, although I may not see just what part they have to play, the time will come, and when it comes I will see it all, and thank God for every condition just as it came.

Sample Content Preview Having a brand that is associated with doing one or just a few things well will help you to build a strong brand. If you want to open a business, it is okay to sell just a few items or if you want to open a restaurant focus on being great with just a few dishes. Think of all the specialty stores that are out there that specialize in selling one thing or focus on a genre. Toy stores, for example, fit into this niche. Although they sell a variety of products, they are all geared to toys. Girls toys, boys toys it does not matter, when you are going into a toy store you know exactly what you are going to see and you know why you are there. This increases their brand, whether it is a well known toy store such as Toys “R” Us, or a neighborhood toy store. The same goes for restaurants. If you want to open an Italian restaurant, do not include dishes that do not fit within the scope of your business. Focus on doing Italian dishes right and you will build a well respected brand for doing it well. There are certain rules you should follow to ensure that your brand benefits if you want to specialize or contract. First, make sure that whatever business that you want to be involved in you keep it simple and narrow. Second, you will want to keep the supply of your product full at all times. 4 ROBERT DRAKES Third, when dealing with wholesalers, you want to strike the best possible price so you will be able to sell your product at inexpensive prices. Finally, you have to make sure that you are the best in what-ever you choose to do so that you will be the leader in the industry giving you a good brand identity. Think of the large companies in the world that dominate in their category by focusing on one product. Coca Cola, for example, is the worldwide leader by far when it comes to selling cola drinks. Recent studies have shown that their share of the worldwide market in the neighborhood of seventy percent. Pundits should not even refer to Coca Cola and Pepsi as cola wars because there is a clear winner in the category. McDonald’s and Burger King are the same way; they are successful because they focus on making hamburgers. While they have expanded their menus to include chicken, they remained focused on being good at just a few items. PUBLICITY IS A GOOD THING I f you are looking to get a new brand off the ground, perhaps the best way to go about it is to generate as much publicity as you can. While advertising is another option, publicity is much better at getting a new product or brand going and unlike advertising, garnering publicity is a lot cheaper. Think about what you want your brand to stand for, if it is something that is going to be used by people that spend time outdoors or is relatable to being outdoors you can go around the country spreading the message of your new product at outdoor festivals, and country fairs. Show up at outdoor sporting events, such as the X-Games and action sports events, pass out fliers, and give free samples of your product to start creating a buzz among the consumers that you want to purchase your brand. One great way to generate publicity for your brand is to be the first at something. News people love to break news and be the first on the scene of a new story. With media now being connected across the world, it will cost next to nothing and the news media will do the job for you. With the advent of social media such as Facebook and Twit-ter, you can create your own buzz about your brand free of charge. You should not worry about trying to come up with a catchy slogan for your brand when you are trying to launch it. Stay focused on building as much publicity for your brand as possible. This will cut down the initial costs of launching your new brand so you can use your budgeted funds in other areas that will help make the brand a success. When thinking of strategies to increase your brand aware-ness try to approach it as how you can get the most publicity for the lowest cost. ADVERTISING THE BRAND Once you have launched your brand through publicity, the next step is to keep the brand name in the minds of consumers, which is done through advertising. Adver-tising can be an expensive proposition, so it has to be approached carefully and with a well thought out plan. The message that you put forth through advertising is important. You will have to figure out the image you want to portray for your company and brand. However, if you have successfully positioned your brand through publicity and have become a leader in your industry the best way to advertise is to advertise why your brand is the best. This can be done a number of ways. You can build an advertising campaign around your brand being the best in your market. Addi-tionally, you could build an advertising campaign about how your brand is the leader in quality when it comes to products in your market. Consumers want to be associated with the best and when you advertise about how your brand is an industry leader, you will find that consumers will be attracted to your brand. In order to make your advertising campaign a success it is best to do some research before you get started. Hold some surveys and focus groups to get consumer feedback on your product so you know how it is perceived before you get started. By doing this you will be better prepared to construct a message that will resonate with consumers and entice them to try your brand for the first time or keep consumers coming back as repeat customers. When you have a successful brand one of the things that you can strive for is when consumers hear the name of your brand, it puts an image or word into their minds. For example, if you have a brand that caters to high-end clientele, when consumers hear the name of the brand you want the first thing that comes to their minds is quality or perhaps exclusivity. Once your brand has achieved this status, the sky is the limit. Your brand will become the unmitigated leader in the marketplace and will drive out competition because it will cost them too much to break into the market. One important thing to remember is that once you have achieved becoming a word or image in the minds of consumers do not get cocky and try to expand. This will undo all the work that you have put in to become a successful brand. Think about successful brands in the marketplace right now. When consumers go out to a restaurant and ask for a soda to drink what to they say? They say I will have a Coke. They do not say I want a Pepsi, or a RC. This shows the dominance that Coca Cola has in their market. The same can be said for copiers. When someone says they are going to the copier machine, they say they are getting some Xerox copies. Nobody says that they are going to get some Kyocera copies. No matter what the machine is that they are using, Xerox is the dominate brand because when consumers hear the word copy, Xerox comes to mind. Finally, think about when you have a cold and need to blow your nose. What do you ask for? Kleenex right. No matter the brand of tissues that you have it your home when it comes time to wipe your nose you will ask for a Kleenex. This is one more example of a brand being so dominate that is brand name becomes the generic word for all items that are in competition with it.