Table of Contents 5 Productivity Hacks for Home Businesses 4 6 Brilliant Ways to Boost Your Productivity as an Online Entrepreneur 6 An Intro to the Pomodoro Technique—Save Your Time and Sanity 8 Best Productivity Books for Online Business Entrepreneurs 10 How to Set Up a Home Office Where Stuff Gets Done 12 Let’s Debunk 3 Productivity Myths 14 Practical Uses for the 80/20 Rule for Top Productivity 16 Top 5 Tips for Staying Productive When You Work from Home 18 Top Productivity Apps for Working from Home 20 Use Parkinson’s Law to Improve Productivity 22 Sample Content Preview An Intro to the Pomodoro Technique—Save Your Time and Sanity The Pomodoro Technique was invented by a then-university student, Francesco Cirillo. He named it after the kitchen timer he used to track his times – a timer in the shape of a tomato. (Pomodoro is Italian and means ‘tomato.’) The idea of the Pomodoro Technique is to take large, time-consuming tasks and block them into time slots, with breaks in between, to improve attention span. Simply by using this method, you can improve your concentration and even lengthen your attention span when you use it consistently. Pomodoro is very simple: When you’re ready to work on a task, set your timer for 25 minutes. For these 25 minutes, you will focus solely on your task. You won’t check email, texts or an-swer the phone. Pure attention is to be given to the task you’ve committed these minutes to. When the timer goes off, take a five-minute break. Get up, walk around, try to clear your head of the project. If you've been looking at a computer screen, try to do something different during breaks. Doing this will give your brain the real break it needs so when you go back to work, it feels refreshed, which means you’ll have better focus on the task. After your break, go back for another 25 minutes and start a new Pomodoro cy-cle. Once you’ve done four of these, take a longer break, 15-20 minutes. Remember to get up, stretch, and walk around during your breaks. The Pomodoro Technique has been scientifically proven to be an effective way to be more productive. And to make it even easier, there are lots of Pomodoro apps available to help you track your time, so you can see how well it works. Remember, this is a tool to increase productivity, it’s not a way to pigeonhole your creativity or to force you to be creative on cue. If you’re on a roll when the timer goes off, it’s okay. Just finish your train of thought or that part you need to get done. Then take the break. The entire point behind the Pomodoro Technique is essentially to remind you to step back once in a while or to come up for air. Often, we get lost in the job, for-getting to do things like stand and walk around. We enter the “zone” where time ceases to exist. While that might seem productive, it’s dangerous and can be un-healthy as well. The Pomodoro reminds us that our brains and bodies need a break to gain a fresh perspective to keep the production level high. Best Productivity Books for Online Busi-ness Entrepreneurs If you want to be an entrepreneur, you’re going to need to do a lot of research. But these books are not just for the budding entrepreneur; they are also for the business startup that wants to make a real go of it from their home office. Some of these have been out a while, some are newer, but the basic truths in these books still holds true. 1. Manage Your Day-to-Day: Build Your Routine, Find Your Focus, and Sharpen Your Creative Mind - Jocelyn K. Glei This book is a compilation of contributions from entrepreneurs such as Dan Ar-iely, Leo Babauta, Scott Belsky, Lori Deschene, Aaron Dignan, Erin Rooney Do-land, and many more. 2. 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done – Peter Bregman The author of the Weekly Harvard Review works from the idea that the best way to combat distraction is to create them, like fighting fire with fire. He claims that these can be used to get through emails and other distractions. 3. Eat That Frog! 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time - Brian Tracy Brian Tracy’s bestselling book looks at the to-do list and acknowledges that not only is there not enough time to do everything; there never will be. Successful people don’t even try to do everything. The title is taken from a quote by Mark Twain that if you start each day by eating a live frog, you’ll have the satis-faction of knowing that the worst part of your day is already over. 4. The Power of Habit – Charles Duhigg This bestseller explores the worlds of habits, how they came to be and how to change them. These habits can be used to lose weight, live better and live richer. 5. Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity – David Allen One of the most influential in the last fifteen years, this book has become an entirely new way to approach business. 6. The 4-Hour Workweek - Timothy Ferriss This book details the author’s journey from 40K per year to 40K per month, outsourcing his life with personal assistants and working 4 hours each week. All of these books offer great insights into productivity, going a lot deeper than what you’ve learned previously through blog posts and other resources. Taking the time to read a chapter a day will go a long way toward learning new truths that will help you to increase your productivity down the road. 12 RRW How to Set Up a Home Office Where Stuff Gets Done Setting up a home office is a little more complicated than installing a length of pressboard slung between some cinderblocks in a garage. While that might be helpful for a shop, for an office, it’s not a great idea.

Table of Contents Introduction ...4 Money-Making Blogging Begins With Owning Your Web Real Estate ....6 Make Money from Your Blog Today with Affiliate Marketing .8 How Does Affiliate Marketing Work? ..8 Benefiting from Long-Term Cookies ..9 Why You Absolutely, Positively Must Be Building an Email List through Your Blog ....11 Write an Email Once and Make Money Forever with Autoresponders ....11 Selling Your Own Digital Products and Courses ...13 Online Course Creation 14 Selling Ad Space ...15 Think Outside the Usual Ad Placement Box ....15 Writing Sponsored Posts .....17 Sell Virtual and Real-World Services ...19 Selling Online Services through Your Blog 19 Offer Coaching and Other How-To Services .21 Sell Physical Merchandise ...23 Sell VIP Memberships and Gated Content Upgrades ...25 Internet Webinars and Live Seminars ..27 Resources to Help You Build, Grow and Make Money From Your Blog 29 Top 10 Tips for Making Money from Your Blog ....30 Conclusion ...32 Sample Content Preview You probably don't need to generate that much income from your blog to quit your current job and provide financial security for your family. The good news is that your blog can do exactly that. In this guide on how to make money blogging, you will first learn how to get your blog up and running. There are easy to use, free and paid options which can have you sharing your content with the world in no time. Seriously, if you know how to send and receive emails, you have the technological know-how to build, manage and make money from a blog. Creating your blog is the easy part. Once you start blogging, how do you begin to turn your web property into a passive income source? That is what the meat of this report is about. The monetization methods discussed here are used every day by the most successful bloggers to generate truly life-changing income. You will learn about the simplest and fastest way to make money from your blog with the fewest headaches and little to no customer follow-up (affiliate marketing). We will also discuss passive revenue streams that take a little more time and effort to develop (selling your own digital products), but you benefit from ownership of the products you sell as well as 100% control over the process. Let's get started on your blogging monetization education with a short discussion on how to create your web property, and why it is imperative to own your blog. Money-Making Blogging Begins With Owning Your Web Real Estate Starting a blog has never been easier. Sites like Blogger.com and Wordpress.com can have you up and running in less than 5 minutes. You pick a name for your blog, choose a template, write a post, and click submit. Congratulations. You are now an official blog owner. These platforms are free and recognized by Google, as well as easy to use. You invest nothing more than your time and mental energy, which is the biggest selling point for free blogging platforms like these. Tumblr.com, Medium.com, Wix.com, and HubPages.com are a few of the other popular free blogging platforms. As easy as these types of blogging services are to set up and manage, here is why you probably shouldn't be using them. You don't own your blog. Ownership on the web is important. Imagine that you take the time to build a blog on one of the above-mentioned platforms. Everything goes swimmingly well, you begin to attract some serious traffic from the search engines that doesn't cost you a penny, and you are actually making money from your blogging efforts. Then one day you attempt to log into your blog, and it isn’t there. This is what can happen when you don't own your own domain name and host your blog yourself. By the way, this is a very real occurrence that happens all the time. You absolutely must own your little corner of the web. That means purchasing a domain name from a domain name provider like GoDaddy. You can buy a domain name for about $15 or $20 per year, and GoDaddy offers sales all the time. You then turn to someone like HostGator for your hosting plan, and that company currently offers monthly hosting for less than $10 per month. You install a website platform like WordPress ([email protected], not to be confused with the free WordPress.com site) and begin blogging. There is a little more effort involved, but you can pay someone at sites like Fiverr and Freelancer.com $50 to $100 to create your blog. This way you own the domain name. No one can kick your blog out or delete it for any reason. The reason free blogging platforms are so popular is that they don't cost any money. You probably have come to realize in life that you get what you pay for. If you want to get a blog started immediately, by all means, use one of the free platforms if money is a problem right now. However, you should start tucking away some cash so you can eventually own your own dedicated blog. This gives you 100% control over your destiny, and with such low costs for entry and ongoing maintenance, it doesn't make any sense to put the future of your blog into the hands of a free blogging platform provider that can shut it down at any time, without having to explain why they do so. Make Money from Your Blog Today with Affiliate Marketing You probably have heard of a company called Amazon. The world's largest retailer online or off achieved a market capitalization of a staggering 1 trillion dollars in September of 2018. That is 1,000 billion dollars. Do you know what Amazon's premier source of advertising is? Affiliate marketing is the main advertising model Amazon has chosen for getting web surfers to buy items from its online marketplace. Affiliate marketing is without a doubt the easiest and quickest way to make money online. You don't even need to own a blog or website to benefit from this powerful marketing model. Pat Flynn is the creator of the Smart Passive Income blog and podcast. Each month he reports the income earned from different marketing methods. He routinely makes more than $30,000 per month from affiliate marketing. How Does Affiliate Marketing Work? Have you ever worked as a salesperson? If so, you understand that you got paid for selling products you do not own. That is what affiliate marketing is. Individuals and companies will pay you a commission when you convince someone to buy the products or services that an individual or company is selling. All you do is send traffic to a website or blog, and if someone you sent to that web property makes a purchase, you get paid. Commissions can range from as low as 4% to as much as 100% per sale. You don't deal with customer service, refunds, or product delivery. All you do is write high-quality blog posts, publish them, include your affiliate link and then work on getting as many people to read your blog post as possible. Head to a top affiliate marketing platform like Amazon Associates, ClickBank or JV Zoo. You can alternately perform a search for "your blogging niche" + "affiliate offers" to find a company offering affiliate marketing opportunities relevant to your blog. Register for free and browse around for a product to promote. You will be given a different affiliate link for each product you choose, and you add that link to your blog posts. If anyone reading your content clicks that link, he or she is taken to the sales page of the product you are promoting. You are paid if that person buys that product or any other product from the company you are affiliated with. Once the sale is made, there is nothing else for you to do. Product delivery, customer follow-up, up-selling, and any other customer interaction is handled by the company you are working with, not by you. Benefiting from Long-Term Cookies Amazon currently offers 24-hour cookies to its affiliates. What is a cookie? An affiliate cookie is a piece of code that tells a company where its traffic came from. This is how Amazon, ClickBank or any other company knows who has earned a commission. Amazon is very good at converting traffic into buyers. All you have to do is consistently send Amazon traffic through your blog, and for up to 24 hours after one of your readers clicks an affiliate link, if they buy anything at all from Amazon, you get a percentage of the sale. When deciding on a company to promote, look for long-term cookies. Some websites offer 30-day cookies to their affiliates. In this case, if someone clicks on an affiliate link on your blog and doesn't buy anything immediately, you can still make money. If that person returns to the website you are affiliated with and buys anything within the next 30 days, you get the commission.

Table of Contents Embracing The Online Enviroment ...... 4 Niche Sites . 4 Google Keyword Tool 6 More About Blogs ..... 7 Websites .... 8 Forums ...... 9 Email ....... 10 Long Term Business Ideas ... 11 Target Hot Markets . 11 Create An Automated Sales System .... 11 Create Self-Perpetuating Communities 13 Get As Many Affiliates As Possible ....... 13 Offer Free Items Frequently .. 14 Monthly Subscriptions .......... 15 Good Ol' Marketing . 16 Wash, Rinse, Repeat ............ 16 The Art Of Persuasion .......... 17 Learn The Art Of Attraction ... 18 Change Your Marketing Mindset .......... 19 How Much Are You Worth? .... 20 How Much Is Your Customer Worth? ... 22 Simple Things To Remember . 22 Creating A Personal Connection With Potential Customers . 24 The Elements Of A Good, Persuasive, Story ....... 24 Using The Five Elements In Your Sales Page...... 26 Use The Power Of Imagination To Sell . 27 Drama And Controversy ....... 27 The Story Of Your Sales Page 29 The Coveted Offer ... 30 When No Means Yes 30 How Just ½ Hour Of Time Can Produce Results .. 31 Be Prepared At All Times ...... 31 Be A Copy Cat ........ 33 Who To Copy .......... 34 Sample Content Preview Create An Automated Sales System1 2 The way to create an automated sales system that takes advantage of the great desire a segment of the population might have for some product or service, is to follow three easy steps. 1. Make A Great Offer – This is the first powerful hook for the people who happen on your website. The ad can be for something like a free report that will be provided for adding their email to your list. Or, it can be for a discount coupon code available for those that sign up their email address. The whole point is to get that email address as quickly as possible while providing some incentive to purchase in step 2. 2. Fabulous Sales Letter – If you are giving away the free report, this should actually be your sales letter in disguise. Include great information about the topic, but also include information that sells your products and services through the report copy. 3. Add Affiliate Offers – Just in case they don't buy your products, that doesn't mean you still can't make a sale. Include information on affiliate offers that can provide a stream of income for you, whether they choose your product or not. The sales funnel is set up to capture most people who visit your website by offering them something they will have difficulty turning down. The original offer is meant to harvest their email address. From there, you send them the freebie, which will include other offers. And, finally, if you still don't make a sale, you now have their email address and can continue to market them further down the line. The trick to automating this entire process, however, is in how you set up the email system. You want to set up autoresponders to be able to send out products once a sale has been made. You don't want to have to check your email all the time, and manually respond to each one by attaching the report they've requested. Instead, you want the system to do it for you. You want your offer to send email to an autoresponder that replies with the free report. You don't even have to ever see that someone requested it. You can also set up your payment processor to send an email to a specific email autoresponder that can respond with any product you are selling, without having to constantly manage incoming and outgoing emails. This way, you can set up a site, set up the offers, set up the autoresponders, and then walk away. All you're interested in is the dollar signs that you make at end of each month that should be automatically deposited into your payment collection areas. Create Self-Perpetuating Communities Social networking is a great way to create self-perpetuating communities that create content and buzz for your products and services. You can do this by simply adding a forum to your site and signing up a few people to get the ball rolling. Some people even choose to pay a few contributors until the community takes hold, but it's really up to you. You can create multiple user names for yourself and just add multiple entries under your own name to build up the appearance of a larger community until more people join up. Forums and networking sites are a great way to get other people to work for you. They are also a great place to sell online advertising to other people, if you want to make money that way. Or, if you want to concentrate on your own products, you still have a captive audience that will allow you to post any advertisement you want in front of them. Get As Many Affiliates As Possible You will want to sign up as many affiliates as possible to sell your products for you. The way to do this is to offer them a higher commission. It wouldn't be a bad thing if you gave them 60 to 70% of the sale, even if that sounds outrageous. The fact is that you want them to do the selling while you go off to create more sites. If you have 1000 people selling your ebooks for you and you don't have to do any of the sales, you are free to develop more streams of income while collecting on old ones. If you only have a few people selling your products though, it won't be worth it. You want to maximize the potential for income without having to do too much of the actual work. And, remember that affiliates don't just make sales, but they also boost the traffic to your site. So, why wouldn't you want someone publicizing some of your offers for you? Each site itself will start to grow in value and you will eventually be able to sell the entire thing to someone else for quite a handsome profit, if you ever wanted to move on. Offer Free Items Frequently Okay, you're probably scratching your head at this one. How can you make money if you keep giving things away for free? Well, because the power of the Internet is about exposure and leveraging your paying offers within free items. So, even though you give away something for free, it doesn't mean you won't get something back. And, if you want something to go “viral” on the Internet, you have to give it away. Once something goes viral and propagates all over the Internet like a runaway meme, you have the potential to make BIG money on any embedded link offers that were within that free report or item. At the very least, you should have a URL in the free reports pointing back to your website so that if it goes viral you reap a huge amount of traffic. Now, if you want to keep people coming back over and over, then you can offer free items on a regular basis as part of the sign up. Some people do this by offering a free monthly newsletter. The newsletter should have valuable information in it, but it should also include links to your offers so that you are marketing them yet again while appearing to be quite altruistic. Not only to people look forward to good newsletters, but sometimes they even forward them to their friends too. If you send out a paper newsletter, people have it in front of them all the time around the house and it can be a way to get some direct mail customers, however, the cost of mailing is higher. Another popular way to generate interest and increase sales is to do contests for free things. These work very well on content sites with forums. Say you want to get people to contribute more content. You can either pay a bunch of people to write posts, or you can sponsor a contest with one of your products as the prize. Not only do you get a bunch of people competing and adding valuable content to your site, thus building your community, but you also get to advertise your product while you are doing. Those that don't win still know where they can buy your product. Monthly Subscriptions If you manage to build a community site, you will want to offer some membership subscriptions. There are several reasons for doing so. It goes back to the idea that you are creating a group with higher status than just the regular people who visit your site. You will let this elite group in on extra discounts, specials, tips, and goodies that the rest don't get. And, this will appeal to people. The other reason is that you make a residual income with monthly subscriptions. You don't even have to charge much. If you just charge $5 for instance and offer a $25 discount for signing up, it will appear that the subscription pays for itself. The thing is though, that people often forget where they've signed up and that $5 a month may end up being deposited in your account for years because they won't take the trouble to unsubscribe. It's like the concept of the gym membership you never use. You don't cancel it because you think you might use it in the future, and besides (you reason), it's not that much to hold on to. Further, if you make it hard to find out how to unsubscribe people might just give up and forget the matter entirely.

Table of Contents INTRODUCTION 4 BENEFITS OF GETTING OUT OF THE ZONE 6 YOUR SELF-AWARENESS WILL INCREASE 7 YOU’LL LEARN NEW SKILLSETS 8 CHANGE WILL COME EASIER 9 YOU’LL BE MORE CREATIVE 9 THE CHALLENGES OF STEPPING OUT 10 IT FEELS SCARY 10 AFRAID OF FAILURE 10 FEEL LIKE A FRAUD 11 FEAR OF WHAT OTHERS WILL THINK 11 MORALITY QUESTIONS 12 WHAT’S AT RISK—STAYING IN COMFORT 14 NEVER FIGURING OUT WHO YOU ARE 14 MISS OUT ON LIFE 15 NOTHING VENTURED, NOTHING GAINED 15 YOUR GOALS BECOME REGULATED TO “SOMEDAY” 16 WAYS TO GET OUT OF YOUR COMFORT ZONE 17 GATHER INFORMATION 18 DO SOMETHING EVERY DAY THAT TAKES YOU A LITTLE OUT OF THE ZONE 18 MAKE A PLAN 18 MAKE YOURSELF ACCOUNTABLE 19 TAKE BABY STEPS 19 STAY FOCUSED, STAY POSITIVE 19 BE HONEST WITH YOURSELF 20 FIND A MENTOR 20 PRACTICE MINDFULNESS 21 SAY YES TO SOMETHING YOU DON’T KNOW EXACTLY HOW TO DO 22 TAKE A CLASS 22 JOIN A NEW COMMUNITY 22 PICK A FEAR, ANY FEAR 23 BE GRATEFUL 23 REACH OUT TO THAT PERSON THAT CHANGED YOUR LIFE AND LET THEM KNOW 23 CONCLUSION 25 Sample Content Preview Benefits of Getting Out of the Zone At the turn of the 20th century, two psychologists determined that “a state of relative comfort created a steady level of performance.” In other words, once we reach a comfort zone, we expend as much energy as we need to remain static in that zone. When change is forced upon us by events out of our control, then we change our efforts to fit the new “normal.” If the comfort zone is threatened or altered, we may have to worker harder to maintain it through rising costs and then adjust to the new reality. If things become easier, then the temptation is to lessen our efforts as it’s easier to maintain the status quo. That’s why it’s a “comfort zone” – it requires no extra effort to maintain. Notice, however, that the new normal becomes the new comfort zone. Growth and progress come just outside of the comfort zone, in a state referred to as “optimal anxiety.” Optimal anxiety isn’t a new idea. If you’ve accomplished something great, or been able to reach a goal, you’ve been there already. It’s found where you’ve pushed yourself to meet that goal. Bear in mind that pushing too hard or being pushed too hard will create a pushback response, and performance takes a dramatic downturn. In this case, it can also reinforce the idea that challenging yourself is a bad idea. You can even convince yourself that you’re unable to succeed. We naturally want to return to our comfort zone. This means that leaving the comfort zone isn’t easy. However, with practice and continued success, challenging ourselves can become addictive in the way athletes become “addicted” to working out and pushing themselves physically. Even though pushing out of your comfort zone is uncomfortable and challenging, there are many benefits to sticking to it. Here's a list of benefits you can look forward to once you are committed to moving towards your fullest potential. Your self-awareness will increase “Every entrepreneur knows how agonizingly difficult it is to make the decision to give it your all, knowing that failure is inevitable; the successful ones know that the only way to get back up is through learning from that failure.” Fabrizio Moreira, Ecuadorian political dissident, and businessman. The difference between “failing” and “learning” is whether you get up and try again or not. You won’t recognize yourself Seriously. If you set out to prove you can write a novel and you do, you will forever see yourself as someone who has written a book. If you set your goal to make Vice President of the company, and you do, you will see yourself as a “go-getter” who can and has climbed the corporate ladder. Getting out of your comfort zone means you have to reassess who you are and how you see yourself. It creates confidence and self-assurance. You might even be surprised how much you like the new you. Others will see you differently too You’re going to be the go-getter at the office everyone talks about and envies. You’re going to be the example to others who don’t leave their comfort zones. Have you ever wondered how someone got to where they are in life or in work? That’s going to be you, and that new perspective will change the way others see you, probably forever. You’ll learn new skillsets When you take a step out of your comfort zone, you’ll get the opportunity to develop new skills and abilities. This is one of the things that makes life exciting instead of boring. Your productivity will increase Comfort is the best, fastest and most sure way to kill productivity. How many times have you described your current job as a “rut”? If you’re only making the barest minimum effort to maintain, you’re not producing near what you could be doing. Leaving the comfort zone hones your focus and concentration. Taking a risk can be scary, but it’s also exciting. Once you take that first step, you’ll notice you look forward to learning new skills and attacking different tasks. Life is no longer ordinary. Learning new things will improve your focus and concentration so that you are more productive and on-task. You’ll get further than you ever believed possible Once you step outside of the comfort zone, you’ll push yourself harder, focus better and achieve more than you ever thought possible. Remember that failing is okay, it’s part of learning. You might find that each trial, each learning experience is a milestone getting you closer and closer to your goal. You might even discover that you can go past your goal and achieve even more than you ever dreamed of. Change will come easier Getting out of your comfort zone means that you’ll be better equipped for change. You’ll become more resilient. So, when unexpected changes come, or your plans don’t go exactly as you’d hoped, it will be easier to bounce back. You’ll be more creative There’s really no reason to be creative when you’re resting in the comfort zone. But branching out will help you to see things from new perspectives. Those new perspectives along with the new challenges you’ll take on will inspire you to get more creative in your problemsolving. It will help you think outside of the box. Don’t misunderstand, a comfort zone is not a “bad” thing, nor is it intrinsically good. It simply is. It’s a natural state toward which we all gravitate, becoming enamored with the concept of comfort and security. Comfort zones are for resting, for taking stock, for assessing all we have accomplished and created and have done. They are necessary. They are also addictive, and occasionally hard to break out of. When the comfort zone is a place we refuse to leave altogether, that’s when it becomes problematic. Going to bed is a necessary thing for rest but staying in bed all day leads to depression and irritability. Let the comfort zone give you rest and peace, but when it’s time to move on, move on. The benefits will be worth the challenges. The Challenges of Stepping Out We’ve established that stepping out of your comfort zone isn’t easy. The very thought of it might send shivers down your spine. Why? What’s so terrifying about trying something new? It might help to reason out why it’s so frightening. The more you understand about the process, the easier it is to handle. Here are some very common challenges for stepping out of your comfort zone and spreading your wings. It feels scary “…courage is not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.” – Nelson Mandela. It’s normal to be afraid, don’t fight it, don’t chide yourself for a reluctance to step outside of your comfort zone. It’s also okay to be scared. Taking risks does feel scary. People want to stay where they are. They want to be safe and protected and know what’s expected of them. It fights against the instinct to leave that and challenge yourself to go on to greater things. To overcome some fear, you may want to consider taking smaller steps out of your comfort zone until your confidence grows. And often, just keeping in mind that everyone feels scared when they first step out of their comfort zone can relieve your anxiety.

Table of Contents 5 Steps to Overcoming Shyness 4 10 Techniques to Move from Shy to Self-Confident 6 Am I Shy or Just an Introvert? 8 Cure Shyness Once and For All with Hypnotherapy 10 Four Ways to Stop Shyness from Holding You Back from Life 12 Sample Content Preview Start with the least stressful things on your list until you’re accustomed to facing these situations. By getting in some practice, you’re going to notice how good it feels to accomplish this task. Once you’re more comfortable with the process, you’ll have a better chance to conquer the larger, more intimidating items. Facing your fears makes them smaller and less frightening. You can do this. Just give yourself the chance. 10 Techniques to Move from Shy to Self-Confident Shyness can be debilitating, especially in a work environment. It can also be over-come, but it takes some time and effort. Consulting with a therapist might be indi-cated if the shyness is extreme, as it could be a sign of Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD). There are steps to reducing shyness. Practice these steps every day, and the shy-ness will begin to dwindle and even dissipate. 1. You may think that you radiate shyness, that it’s written all over your face, but you’d be wrong. Most won’t realize you’re shy if you don’t mention it. Not that it’s anything to be ashamed of, just don’t mention it. 2. Keep it light. Yes, shyness can be crippling and severe, but if you’re ques-tioned, laugh it off or treat it as no big deal. Others take their cues from you. If you’re not concerned, they won’t be either. 3. Does shyness have secondary symptoms such as blushing, nervousness, short-ness of breath? Admit to the obvious but separate that from being shy. “I’ve always been a bit nervous in new situations. This is just normal for me.” 4. Let yourself shine through Avoid the well-meaning person who introduces you to others as “shy” or “quiet,” Don’t rely on labels, let yourself be you. You are more than a single trait. 5. Calm the voice in your head that kicks you when you’re down. We all make mistakes, and we all occasionally act the fool. That’s ok to do once in a while, but don’t let that voice in your head hold you back. 6. Write down what’s the best and brightest about you. Get someone to help. In-telligence, creativity, easy-going manner – all of these are positive traits. Write them down and when that voice tries to drag you down again, go over them. Remind yourself how great you are. 7. Take a good look at how you feel around your friends. Are you positive and en-ergized or do you question yourself when you’re with them? Be honest. You cannot grow if you are surrounded by people who constantly tell you how in-adequate you are. 8. Avoid the bullies. There will ever be those who would bully you, would drag you down. These are relatives, coworkers, toxic relationships that convince you how far you are from perfection. 9. Look at others, the ones that seem bold and self-confident. What do they do, how do they react? What can you do differently? Emulate the best of their be-haviors. 10. Forgive yourself. You’ll make mistakes; you’ll fall on your face. That’s how things are. Don’t let one mistake derail your efforts. These are basic beginning steps to help pull you out of the shyness spiral. Keep in mind; you may want to talk to a behavioral health specialist for the bigger issues. Am I Shy or Just an Introvert? Some people are shy, while others are described as introverts. Is there a differ-ence? Yes, there is, and those differences are important if you want to change. Working with shyness is very different than working with someone who’s introverted. But does it matter? Is it a bad thing to be shy or introverted? If you’re happy with where you are in life, then there’s no motivation or even rea-son to change. But if you want to work on your social and professional relation-ships, if you want to interact and talk to people with confidence, then it’s proba-bly time to do something about it. And to do that, it’s important to know the what it means to be shy vs. what it is to be an introvert. How do you find out? First, ask yourself a couple of questions. 1. Where does your energy come from? The primary difference is largely a mat-ter of energy. An introvert is physically and emotionally drained after being in a crowd. An introvert gains energy by being isolated, reading a book, or watching TV. For the record, extroverts are just the opposite. Being an introvert doesn’t mean you’re completely against attending the occa-sional party, it just indicates that you recharge better alone. Shy people? They lose energy everywhere. 2. What kind of friendships do you enjoy most? There are benefits to being an in-trovert. Introverts are experts in detail-oriented work; they tend to be more open to self-analysis. But it's the friendships that matter most. While introverts gener-ally have fewer friends, the ones they do have are dearer to them than anything. Shy people tend to have very few friendships at all – meaningful or otherwise. 3. What kind of conversation do you prefer? Introverts are typically bad at small talk, but a deeply meaningful conversation is right up their alley. Someone who's shy isn't going to be able to manage either. So what if you are an introvert? Does that mean you can change? The short and quick answer is: you can’t. It’s the way you were born. On the other hand, that doesn’t mean there isn't hope.

Table of Contents Introduction 04 Chapter 1: Peel Back the Curtains and You’ll See the Reality of Your Life 07 Chapter 2: Our Lives Are Intentional 14 Chapter 3: Too Many of Us Choose to Be Blind 19 Chapter 4: The Core of Mentalism 23 Chapter 5: All Stimuli Are Neutral 27 Chapter 6: Change Your Mental Filter 33 Chapter 7: Change Your Mental Habits 39 Chapter 8: Change Your Emotional Response Habits 48 Chapter 9: Change Your Reality Through Changed Actions 54 Conclusion 60 Sample Content Preview I remember one time I was at a business meeting and one of the guys who was supposed to make a presentation showed up in shorts and flip-flops. At the back of my mind, I automatically assumed that this person was a slacker. No way is this guy serious. He made his presentation and he left. I only learned a week later that person was actually a multi-billionaire. So much for my assumptions, right? It turned out that we needed him more than he needed us. He obviously did not need our money. I assumed that since he had that attire or lack thereof that he wasn’t professional or that he was some sort of loser. Do you see how this works? As you get older, you need less and less input for you to jump to conclusions, and this can be very dangerous. You might actually be locking yourself out from a tremendous amount of truths and opportunities out there. Another form of mental laziness involves your expectations. In a way, this works in a similar way to assumptions. When we find ourselves in certain situations, we think we are right to expect certain results. We feel that somehow some way we're entitled to certain things. This is a problem because the more entitled you feel to certain results, the less likely you are to work for them. You’re less likely to be open-minded. You're not looking for a challenge. You become less flexible. It can lead to a serious mess. Unfortunately, the only person we have to blame is ourselves. It's too easy to become a prisoner of one’s expectations. Finally, we can develop such a crippling sense of entitlement that we do not take initiative. We feel that the world has to come to us. We feel that people have to impress us, or they have to take the first step or make the effort. I'm sorry to be the one to break this to you but if you’re trying to make it in this world, you're going to have to take the initiative. You're going to have to bring value to other people's lives. It's not like they owe you fame, riches and power. You have to prove yourself. You have to establish a track record. You have to develop a brand. All of these take initiative. All the things that I've described above can act like mental curtains. In fact, the longer you refuse to cast aside those curtains, the easier it would be for you to feel stuck. Please understand that you're feeling mentally stuck not because somebody has a gun pointed at your head and demands that you be miserable and powerless. Instead, you have allowed this mental laziness and all these negative mental habits to get the better of you so you basically end up focusing on the tried and proven, the known quantities or the safe spaces in your life. Everything else is off-limits. You just can't be bothered with them. You’d rather focus on what you think you “know”. This is mental laziness. These act as curtains that block out the healthy challenges you need to master reality. To peel back the curtains of your life, you need to do one thing: take inventory of your life. Have you ever worked for a retail store? When I worked for a pharmacy right after high school, I was hired as temporary staff to take inventory. I didn't know that the typical drugstore had so much stuff. I saw this firsthand because I had to count everything. That's what an inventory is. You have a clipboard in one hand and you have a pen in the other, and you are looking through different categories and subcategories of products, physically counting these products, sorting them. Sometimes we have to take out a box and store stuff away. In many cases, we have to go to back storage room, take stuff out of boxes, count them as well as count and mark the boxes. That’s a lot of counting, that's a lot of tracking and a lot of monitoring. That's how an inventory works. You have to do the same with your life. You have to take inventory of your life. Believe it or not, this is more difficult because instead of counting stuff like medication bottles, product packages or envelopes and boxes, you're going to have to take inventory of the things that you assume to be true, what you expect from certain situations in your life. You have to become aware of the situations where you adopt certain mindsets, and you have to pay attention to your lack of initiative. That's a lot of stuff. This requires heavy mental lifting. It also requires a tremendous amount of honesty. Let's face it. Do you feel good when somebody says that you’re lazy? Do you get butterflies in your stomach when somebody says in so many ways that you are living a lie? Of course not. Most people don’t want to hear that kind of stuff, but that's exactly the kind of conclusion that you would get if you take an honest inventory of your life. It would turn out, and I can guarantee this, that a lot of the things that you assumed to be a certain way in your life are actually quite different. They turn out to be very different from what you assume them to be.

Table of Contents TABLE OF CONTENTS .. 2 INTRODUCTION .... 5 2 THE NEW GENERATION OF WIRELESS . 10 THE 3G NETWORK . 10 HOW IS A 3G NETWORK DIFFERNT? ... 11 APPLE'S IPHONE ... 12 SMARTPHONES ..... 13 THE PRIMARY TYPES OF 3G PHONE USERS ..... 14 CASUAL USERS 14 THE BUSINESS USER ... 15 3 EFFECTIVE BUSINESS USERS AND THEIR WIRELESS DEVICES . 17 EMAIL . 17 WEB SURFING . 18 VIDEO CONFERENCING ..... 18 TEXT MESSAGING . 19 PHONE APPLICATIONS ..... 19 VOICE . 19 THE FACE OF TODAY'S EXECUTIVE 20 BARACK OBAMA – A CASE STUDY ON TODAY’S EXECUTIVE ..... 20 4 USE THE HOTTEST APPLIACTION TO YOUR ADVERTISING ADVANTAGE .. 24 YOUR WEBSITE ..... 25 ATTRACTING VISITORS TO YOUR SITE ..... 27 MAKE SURE YOU’RE SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZED 27 ADVERTISE A GADGET . 28 ACCEPT MOBILE PAYMENTS 28 TEXT MESSAGING .. 29 OTHER SUCCESS STORIES IN MOBILE ADVERTISING . 31 MJOY’S UNIQUE TEXT MESSAGING SERVICE . 31 BLYK’S SUCCESS STORY ..... 32 FREE 411 .. 33 5 THE WIRELESS ADVERTISING FUTURE: NEW APPLIACTIONS WITH POSSIBILITIES .... 35 WIRELESS CARRIERS .. 35 TWITTER ... 37 SHOZU 38 MAPS AND GPS OPERATED DEVICES ... 39 6 CREATING YOUR OWN APPLICATIONS 40 THE TECHNICALITIES . 41 WIRELESS APPLICATION PROTOCOL (WAP) .. 41 WIRELESS MARKUP LANGUAGE (WML) ... 41 GETTING HELP 42 BASIC DECISIONS REGARDING YOUR APPLICATION .. 42 SOCIAL NETWORKING DEVICES 42 GAMES ..... 43 GALLERIES 43 TOOLS 43 BE CREATIVE ... 44 CONCLUSION 45 Sample Content Preview Hopefully, the statistics above have convinced you that advertising via cell phones is the wave of the future. It’s doubtful that you can boast a 15% response rate to any ad you’ve placed in the yellow pages, on a billboard or via direct mail. But, you may not yet understand how to take on this advertising venue, or what methods and resources are actually out there. It is the goal of this e-book to provide basic information about marketing to the cell phone user, taking advantage of the new features and functions of 3G technology. Hopefully, we’re going to help you get creative about marketing your business to technologically savvy users. In the pages ahead, we’ll take a look at 3G itself, including what features 3G offers wireless users. We’ll also look at how business users today are taking advantage of these features that 3G offers to make them more productive at work and at home. This book will offer ideas and suggestions, as well as give you case studies about how these advertising methods have already been proven in the marketplace. You’ll probably be surprised at how many companies are already catering to the wireless user, offering ads on frequently visited websites and sending coupons via text messaging. We’ll also offer you insight into the hottest applications available today and how they are being used or might be used to the advertiser’s advantage. There’s a lot of food for thought in the coming pages. It’s all designed to make you think about advertising your business in a very different way. It is our hope that these ideas and suggestions make your business successful and prepare it for the future of advertising in wireless technology. 1 HOW NEXT GENERATION PHONES ARE GREAT ADVERTISING VEHICLES Many of today’s business people may remember early cell phones. They were heavy, bulky devices that worked only in your car – and then only sporadically, since there were more holes in coverage than there was coverage itself. Boy, have we come a long way. Today’s phones are lightweight, pocket sized, and calling them mere phones seems like an understatement of great proportions. Today’s cell phones provide us regular wireless phone service, allow us quick text messaging, display our emails, provide gaming and surf the internet. Many also offer push to talk capability to reduce our costs in talking to those whom we chat with frequently. All in all, our cell phones have become a business necessity – serving our needs far beyond verbal communication. Most of us take our wireless devices with us everywhere. And, what’s even more exciting about how the extent to which wireless phone capabilities have increased is the fact that the cost of purchasing a cell phone and of paying for service has not risen dramatically enough over the years to deter business people or consumers. Today, nearly everyone has a cell phone – even children. Industry experts estimate that cell phone penetration has reached nearly 100% in the United States. Wireless companies have created packages aimed at businesses to ensure that a company is willing to pay for phones for nearly every employee. And, family plans have made equipping every member of the family, right down to the elementary age child, affordable. In fact, today many families have foregone the landline home phone entirely in favor of a cell phone for every family member with a rate plan that allows them unlimited calling to every member of the family. In addition, wireless carriers have made “unlimited texting” plans so affordable that these are purchased by most business and consumer users. Finally, the newest generation of phones, “smart phones” are a revolution in themselves. These phones have richer displays and are designed with more of a browser in mind. They also can support many different applications. There are applications available today, and you can bet that many more are in development. So, if you haven’t considered advertising your business via wireless devices, now’s the time. In short, cell phones are the perfect new advertising vehicle because: • Nearly everyone carries a cell phone • Many users subscribe to text messaging and internet • There are a wide variety of additional applications that can be used for advertisers If you haven’t yet thought about advertising your business via your customers’ wireless devices, this book can help you get started. In the next chapters, we’ll explore the possibilities of advertising on mobile phones more in depth. We’ll examine the new face of the technologically savvy business user as well as look at companies that have already begun to use wireless advertising strategies to their advantage. You’re sure to come away with many new ideas to help improve your connection with your customers. 2THE NEW GENERATION OF WIRELESS Before we begin discussing the advertising capabilities available on today’s wireless networks, it’s important to have an understanding of the new wireless networks and devices that make all these great applications and features possible.

Table of Contents 1. What is Craigslist? ..3 The History of Craigslist 3 Craigslist Today 5 2. How Do I Use Craigslist? 7 Getting Started 7 Searching for Ads .. 12 Posting your Ads 12 Tips on Ad Writing . 14 General Writing Tips & Using Copy for Advertising .. 15 Keywords are Killer! .. 18 Organize Your Listing 20 3. Sell Your Junk! .. 22 What you can and cannot sell 22 How to Market Your Items .. 24 Using Advertising Language to Market . 24 Combos, Bonuses and Best Offers, Oh My! . 25 To Sell, or to Toss? That is the Question. 25 Obsolete & Out of Sight 26 Family Treasures 27 Is it Seasonal? Timing is Key .. 27 Safety Tips for In-Person Exchanges 28 4. Selling Digital Content . 29 Ideas for Products . 29 Methods of Distribution 29 Copyright Info and Things to Watch Out For . 30 5. Sell Your Services . 32 What You Can and Cannot Offer 32 Popular Areas of Service .. 32 How to Market Yourself 34 6. To Conclude 35 Sample Content Preview In need of a domain name for this, Craig registered Craigslist.org (as well as Craigslist.com later on, to prevent the name from being used for other purposes). Around the time of these events, Newmark realized that the site was growing so fast that he could stop working as a software engineer and work full time running Craigslist. By April 2000, there were nine employees working out of Newmark's apartment on Cole Street in San Francisco. Newmark says that Craigslist works because it gives people a voice, a sense of community trust and even intimacy. Other factors he cites are consistency of down-to-earth values, customer service and simplicity. Newmark was approached with an offer for running banner ads on Craigslist, but he decided to decline. In 2002, Craigslist staff posted mock-banner ads throughout the site as an April Fools joke. In 2001, the company started the Craigslist Foundation, a section 501(c) nonprofit organization that connects people to the resources they need to strengthen communities and neighborhoods. It offers free and low-cost events and online resources to promote community building at all levels. It accepts charitable donations and, rather than directly funding organizations, it produces "Face-to-face events and offers online resources to help grassroots organizations get off the ground and contribute real value to the community.” Since 2004, the Craigslist Foundation has hosted an annual conference called Boot Camp, an in-person event that focuses on skills for connecting, motivating and inspiring greater community involvement and impact. Boot Camp has drawn more than 10,000 passionate people since its inception. The next Boot Camp event will be held on Saturday, August 14, 2010. The Craigslist Foundation is also the fiscal sponsor for Our Good Works, the organization that manages AllforGood.org, an application that distributes volunteer opportunities across the web and helps people get involved in their communities. Craigslist Today As of 2009 Craigslist.com has a staff of 28 people and makes most of its money from paid job ads in cities like San Francisco, New York City, Los Angeles, San Diego, Boston, Seattle, Washington D.C., Chicago, Philadelphia and Portland, Oregon – and paid broker apartment listings in New York City. The site serves over twenty billion page views per month, putting it in 33rd place overall among web sites worldwide and 7th place overall among web sites in the United States, with over 49.4 million unique monthly visitors in the United States alone . With over eighty million new classified advertisements each month, Craigslist is the leading classifieds service in any medium. The site receives over two million new job listings each month, making it one of the top job boards in the world. The classified advertisements range from traditional buy/sell ads and community announcements to personal ads and erotic ads. One of the most notable things about Craigslist.com is that it has gone through very little aesthetic changes since 1996 and even for that time it's extremely simple and basic. Today there are a plethora of options for users to choose from as far as which types of listings can be searched though or posted. Craigslist has comprehensive for-sale listings with everything from cars to household appliances. The website also has an extensive jobs/services section as well as a classifieds section for social interaction. You can sell just about anything on Craigslist. People post ads for everyday items, brand new items sold in bulk or used collectables. Craigslist is renowned for being one of the primary online sources of local, affordable merchandise. Selling digital content is also possible on Craigslist, usually with the help of a third-party website service for processing funds and delivering content. In this respect Craigslist works as an excellent advertising system wherein every poster gets at least a few minutes at the “top of the list” sweet spot. Lastly there are untold profits to be made by seeking jobs on Craigslist or offering services. Craigslist has both employer-seeking ads as well as employee-seeking ads. You can provide service to local people and get paid per-job like a contractor, you can find local full-time and part-time jobs or you can look for someone to do the work for you. As you can see there are nearly limitless opportunities to make profit from Craigslist.com. It's one of the most diverse websites for buying/selling goods and services and it's completely free! All you need to do to start profiting from Craigslist is figure out what you want to do (Sell junk, offer your services or provide digital content) and figure out how to use the website! 2. How Do I Use Craigslist? Getting Started Using Craigslist is easy, and navigating the site is fairly straight-forward. The first thing you'll want to do is create an account. Start by finding your local Craigslist page. Each major city (and sometimes county or area) has its own page on which listings are specific to that respective metro area. You can choose from the list of major cities on the Craigslist homepage, or click into your state and your local market from there. From there just look at the panel on the left-hand side of the screen. Select “Login” or “My Account” and you'll be directed to the sign-in page. Directly under the yellow box where a preexisting user would sign in there's a link that says “Sign up for an account.” Signing up is not mandatory but if you're serious about using Craigslist for making money then you're going to want to create an account.

Table of Contents Table Of Contents .... 2 Introduction 3 What is a Joint Venture Partnership? ... 4 What’s The Big Advantage? .. 5 The Single Most Vital Thing You Can Do . 6 Other Tips To Consider .. 7 Top 8 Mistakes .. 8 The Fire Sale ..... 9 Choosing Your Potential Partner 10 Where To Look ...... 11 Finding Your First JV Partner..... 12 Why Warrior Forum? 16 Another Overlooked But Highly Effective Source Of JV Partner Leads ..... 16 Starting Simply ...... 17 “Do I Have To Try Their Product?” ..... 19 What Traits Should You Look For In A JV Partner? 20 Researching Your Potential JV Partner .... 21 Building A Relationship ...... 23 Building your relationship ...... 25 Making Your Offer 26 Top Tips ...... 28 Necessary Steps . 28 2 Tools You Can Use 28 Dealing With Rejection. 32 What To Do If There’s No Reply .. 33 Letting Your List and Marketing Peers Know .... 33 Who Handles What 35 Joint Ventures: Tips For Successful Partnerships ... 36 Sample Content Preview If your sole reason for this Joint Venture rests on being told you should do it, or getting a sudden idea, or making quick cash, you will definitely need to rethink it. These things may be true – but you may actually not be ready for a JV yet – or you may not know that there’s one glaring condition guaranteed to make your JV offer flop on the spot. So first, let’s change that situation, before picking our marketer and crafting our offer… The Single Most Vital Thing You Can Do One thing you need to know – and do – up front. Without this condition being met, you won’t have the slightest chance of attracting a JV partner. Don’t even think of proposing a JV venture until you have your own Affiliate program completely set up and running. At the very least, take advantage of a third party Affiliate Marketplace network like Clickbank and pay the $50 one-time fee to list your product there. Clickbank will automatically set up an affiliate program for you, on that product. You’ll have to follow their rules about commissions, payout and refunds. And you’ll need to create a good Affiliate Center packed with resources specifically for you’re your affiliates to use when promoting that product. Not only will it help and please experienced affiliates, when they very properly write to you to see what resources you have to help them sell (or you let them know, in your JV offer)… it will enhance the professional image you are presenting to your potential JV partner. Other Tips To Consider One popular way to ensure a “yes”: offer 100% commission to your potential JV partner. This tactic is a good one if you have a small list, and theirs is large. At this point, you’re paying for the exposure and web recognition – as well as building your own list from sales she sends you (just make sure you know how to capture those leads without detracting from her commissions and captures.) Also make sure that your own Affiliate script or service allows you to set cookies with a short expiry date. You may not intend to be giving your JV lifetime 100% commissions on every sale from that customer, right through your funnel – which is what will happen if you have “lifetime” cookies enabled. And agree that the 100% is only for: A. That product B. The duration of the program Top 8 Mistakes There 8 things guaranteed not to incite a “Yes” answer, so make sure you’ve got them covered. The first one’s so important, we’re going to repeat it again: 1. Not having an affiliate program already set up 2. Not having all your affiliate resources complete, and ready to go for promotion 3. Approaching someone outside your narrow, specific niche 4. Not having a really strong and obvious USP (unique selling position) 5. Not having a strong and well-written offer 6. Expecting them to all the work 7. Not having any web visibility at all. (No social networking, no forum memberships, no favorite blogs where your comments are well known, etc.) 8. Not having any stats or conversion figures you can share with your potential JV partner However, there’s one more less obvious mistake that can really damage your reputation, if you don’t know what you’re doing… One More Fatal Mistake Not To Make 9. Deciding you need a JV partner just to “make a quick buck”. JV partnerships should be about enhancing both your reputations and creating a trust-based relationship built for longevity. However, if you honestly are more interested in “quick cash”, but really need to power of a “bigger” marketer to get it, there is one popular solution you can initiate – or find, and jump on an already-started bandwagon…. The Fire Sale You’ve seen these: You get an email from a marketer whose list you belong to, excitedly telling you about a “Blowout”, with hundreds of free products by top name marketers. You go, and discover that you are able to download a pile of free eBooks (and the odd piece of software.) In exchange, however, you have to sign up for each marketer’s list. The purpose of this exercise from all the marketers’ point of view is a list-building exercise. But it’s a great opportunity for you to not only build your list, but get your name associated with well-known marketers – if you have a high quality offering. One word of caution, however: You may be tempted to slap up any old thing. Don’t do it! Make sure you over-deliver, and that the item you’re contributed stands out like a beacon (it’s your one chance to wow all the new people who sign up for your product, anyway.) And remember that “qualifying” goes both ways: If the call for JV’s for the fire sale is put out by marketers you consider sleazy or shady… or there are any other signs that they are going to rip people off with a bunch of ancient, already freely available old reports… don’t touch them with a 10’ pole.

Sample Content Preview #2 Preparing your speech Now that you’ve identified the purpose of your speech, it’s time you craft it. But before you do, it’s important to clarify your topic. One way to make sure you’ve got it all cleared up is to try out the “business card test” - can you state your main idea on only one side of a business card? If you can, you’re ready to move on. If you can’t, keep working on it until you can. Now, you can start drafting your speech. Grab a sheet of paper and right at the top of the page, clearly state your desired topic and the goal of your presentation. Then move on to write your opening lines and follow that up with 4- 5 key points. Back these points up and summarize them in the conclusion. This is your outline. Now that you’ve listed your most important subjects, you can begin crafting your presentation based on the completed outline. Before you start writing that speech out proper, let’s take a quick detour, and visit one of the greatest and most notable speeches made in human history - yes, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have A Dream”. Did you know that the most important, most often-quoted and the most powerful part of his entire speech, his iconic “I have a dream” statement, was made only in the last quarter of his entire powerful presentation? It makes you wonder how he managed to capture the full attention of over 200, 000 agitated, and angry civil rights supporters? If you were thinking that it was his authority, you’re wrong. And it wasn’t his looks either. Reverend King had a powerful introduction. He started with this, “Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.” Martin Luther King, Jr. started his powerful speech with a strong, passionate story which set the mood for the rest of his speech. When you begin crafting your speech, you have to remember that the most important part is your introduction. If your audience’s attention is not captured within the first 30 seconds, you’re pretty much history. Your introduction can make, or break, your entire speech. Remember that a strong opening is King, pun unintended. You may start with a probing question, a strong statement, a personal story or even a quote. These elements not only set the mood for your speech, but also pique your audience’s attention and focus sufficiently to hook them for the rest of what you have to say. Now that you’ve crafted a powerful introduction, you can move on to the core points of your speech. Each of these points should be backed by interesting stories, illustrations, historical references, humorous anecdotes, and examples that the audience may be able to relate to. Common stories or illustrations include references to common childhood occurrences, growing up pains or even teenage experiences. You can use these stories and examples to further reinforce your point. Humans are sensory creatures. If you’re able to pique more than just one sense - their hearing - you’ve got them hooked, forever. Remember to include descriptives in your stories and even images for the visual ones in your audience. Analogies help your audience connect the dots of your points in their heads. Also remember to open and close each point with a clear transition. This makes it easier for your audience to follow your story. For those of you who’re selling to or motivating your audience, you may even address your audience’s pain, stress on the benefits of taking immediate actions, suggest a recommended course of action followed by closing remarks. Now that you’ve detailed all the main points of your speech, you can start to write your close. A common, but effective, conclusion is a summary. This can be followed by an appeal or a call to action to challenge your audience, which is completely dependent on your purpose and topic. Run a quick summary by your audience and if necessary, outline clear guidelines and next actions they can take with the information you’ve just given them so that they do not feel like they’ve left your speech with nothing concrete to take with them. Here’s a quick summary of the preparation process: 1. Identify your purpose, 2. Clarify your topic, 3. Draft your speech, 4. Craft your introduction, 5. List the main points you wish to convey, and 6. Write your close and end your speech with clear step-by-step or listed guides or next actions for your audience. Let’s move on to the next part of this session. #3 Preparing your visual aids In Martin Luther King, Jr.’s time, visual aids weren’t just a luxury - they were an hassle, and in some cases, an impossibility. Thanks to technological advances today, you have projectors in almost every main hall of a speaking event, or a white board with markers at the very least. As such, it’s no excuse to not have visual aids accompanying your speech. Why are visual aids so important? They stimulate another one of your audience’s senses and forces their brain to link the two together. This inadvertently helps keep them awake and focused throughout your speech. Most importantly, they allow you to further reinforce your points to your audience, and increase the number of associations their brain makes which can heighten your audience’s recall of your topic. Let me share with you two very commonly used, and highly effective, visual aids that will captivate your audience’s attention and help cue you as your speak. Firstly, flip charts. Flip charts are huge pads of paper that are mounted on a portable easel. This visual aid is best used with a relatively small audience - typically 20 or fewer - unless there’s a camera to magnify the chart for the rest of the hall. You can use bold or dark colors against a white flip chart to increase the ease of reading. A flip chart can be prepared prior to your presentation, but the power of the flip chart is that it can be used for drawing or writing during your presentation. Many motivational speakers adopt the flip chart, why? Because in comparison with powerpoint presentations, a flip chart allows the presenter to have a wider range of body movement in order to reinforce and reiterate their points with gestures and force. Next up, you’ve got the powerpoint presentation. These days using a laptop, a projector and Microsoft PowerPoint or the Apple Keynote program is the norm. Technological advances have allowed us to produce dramatic, highresolution visual aids such as animation and simulations. Today, computerbased visual aids are becoming the standard for many technical, educational and even business-related presentations. The power of the powerpoint presentation is that it can be used for both small and large audiences and can convey both simple and highly complex information. Today, with remote control devices, you can even change your visuals as you walk about the stage. If you’ve ever watched TED videos online, or attended a TED Talk, you’ll know what I mean. The challenge with computer-based visuals is that you need to keep them simple. There are many things to consider when crafting your presentation. Here are a few you can keep in mind. Firstly, your font. Not only is font-size important, your choice of font affects readability significantly. Always stick to high readability fonts such as “Times New Roman”, “Arial” or “Helvetica”. San-serif fonts are preferred as they usually increase readability. If these fonts seem “boring” or “distasteful” to you, scrap that thought. Your audience will thank you profusely for using these fonts. Secondly, your colors. Choose colors that heighten readability. Remember that red text against a black background is a terror to read, and the same for vice-versa. Stick to pale, pastel backgrounds and dark text color such as black, or dark, black/brown backgrounds and white text color. And remember that your text should only have a maximum of three colors. If you fear that your presentation has become too monotone, you can always opt for colorful images and pictures to add a splash of life to your slideshow. But remember to choose your pictures wisely and to not let them upstage you and your speech. Thirdly, K.I.S.S. Yes, keep it simple and suggestive. I’m talking about the text. It’s a presentation faux pas to read your slides to your audience. You should know everything inside out and only occasionally turn to your slides for a cue or reference. Most importantly, the main points of your presentation should not be in your visual aids. The text in your visual aids should only allude to your main points. Use bullet points instead of full sentences in order to decrease the wordiness of your visual aid. This also applies for your charts and diagrams. Don’t present them a full-fledged chart with 20 components to decipher. If your presentation requires charts and graphs, slice the data for your audience beforehand. They don’t need to know everything - only your key findings and the significant statistics. Lastly, less is more. This is in reference to your animation. You can use animation to reiterate a point, or even create some drama and suspense. But to animate every single word or object in your presentation is a huge no-no. Not only will you heavily distract your audience, you may also give them a headache. To quickly summarize, flip charts are great to use with smaller crowds and give you wider range of movement. If you’re considering using powerpoint or keynote slides as a visual aid, remember the 4 rules to increase readability and audience attention: 1. Simple font, 2. High contrast and minimal colors, 3. Keep it simple and suggestive, and 4. less animation is more. Visual aids are huge help for presentations and should be used if possible. However, avoid the number one mistake made by many novice speakers: Do not let your visual aids control you. You control the presentation. Your visual aid, is merely an “aid” and is not the entire show. Use it to reiterate and back up your points and don’t make it the point of the entire presentation. Remember that the point of your visual aid is to motivate your audience and arouse their imagination to help them to empathize with your idea and topic and visualize it far beyond what is visible in the ephemeral PowerPoint slide they currently view. Now that you’ve got speech and presentation basics covered, let’s move on to something a little bit more practiced.