Focus and Concentration

From my new Online Series O-Biz 101. This is part 4

Today we are going to talk about: Concentration

Concentration is the ability to bring into sharp focus the goal to which you are working towards, and is a required step in the implementation of any business.

Like the sign in the picture says, the sign is sharp and dangerous…oh yeah, and the bridge is out.  And that is a lot like your business will be like, there will be some seemingly very important dangers that will turn out to be not so dangerous except that they are masking something that is truly dangerous.

And Concentration is what is needed – a singleness of purpose focused on the goal of what you want your business to be and how you intend to get to that point.  The bridge may be out – you may not be able to get to your goal by the way you originally thought - are you going to give up? Or are you going to pick up, and find a way around the obstacle?

Lets define what is meant by ” Concentration” – You want to have a clear, sharp idea of what you are going toward, and you want to keep trying to make that image more clear and more sharp as you approach it each day.  Here are some examples:

I want to have a business… – Not very sharp, not too clear, but at least you want something and you have some idea what it is.

I want to have a successful Online Business… – Better, now you know you want it to be successful, and you want it to be online, but what does “successful” mean? What are you doing online? Lots of people are online and don’t make a dime.  You can do better.

In the next three years, I want to have an online business selling high-end cigars and cigar accessories and gross two million dollars per year… - Now we’re talking! That is a specific goal, with clear lines and it gives you a focused target to aim for.  You can continue to hone this, breaking it down into year, and month commitments, but if you don’t get a clear vision of that endpoint, it is hard to find your way to it.

There is one more point to focused concentration: To many targets.  Sometimes we get so good at setting goals we fail to take any action to move towards them, and our goal setting becomes the passion instead of the business goal we at first wanted to achieve.

Like in anything, there is a time to stop and say – Okay, this is clear enough for now to start moving towards.  And then you need to start moving towards it!  Go back to the perspiration – you need to start doing the work.

Lets review our Biz-O 101 focus points:

• Desperation: find desperate customers.
• Inspiration: Get excited about a business you can sink your teeth into.
• Perspiration: Do the work required and don’t shirk away from it.
• Concentration: Focus and clarity is necessary to move towards your goals.

Guess what the next focus point is? Desperation.

What? We did that already!

Yeah, it’s one of those “circle of life” things.  You get to the business goal then you have better get some more desperate customers – expand your business, widen your horizons, etc.  We will talk more about this next time, but until then…

Stay Thirsty my Friends!

David T. McKee

PS: Read the following if you really want to start selling a ton of stuff right now!

PSS: So how would you sell a Light Bulb to the Blind?  Put that in your comment.  I will pick the three best comments and GIVE you a free bonus, my super collection of business, copywriting, swipe files, and hypnotic writing books.  And maybe a special bonus for the first prize winner!  Act now because I will be revealing the answer in my next post: Biz-Op 101, part 4: “Concentration”.

PSSS: Do you need some awesome Business Software but are not sure where to go? Do you want to see reviews of the business products? Go to www.HardToFindSoftware.com and check them out!

Always the Benefits!

From my new Online Series O-Biz 101. This is part 3

Perspiration:

Okay, to review… We have covered:

• Desperation - Finding a desperate buyer…(click the word link to go to that post)
• Inspiration - What you need to start successful…(click the word link to go to that post)
• and now Perspiration, the ability to work at something that may at first seem doomed to failure, to work hard, to be creative, and to follow through.

And that is why we are going to talk about selling light-bulbs to the Blind and Refrigerators to Eskimos.  These two examples are often used as a joke because the average person would think only a fool would attempt such a thing – but look at the picture I have included.  That was painted by Norman Rockwell back in the early Nineteen hundreds when a refrigerator was known as an “Ice-Box”.  Now, Mr. Rockwell understood that if a man could sell such an item to Eskimos, he would indeed be an “Expert Salesman”.

Selling to anyone is hard work, but if you know how to do it, your perspiration will pay off.

There is a secret key so subtle that almost everyone misses it, even after it has been explained to them.  Here is a little story example of Bob, the newbie computer salesman:

A little old lady comes into Super Giant Computers Emporium.  She looks confused and lost as she slowly shuffles across the floor of the massive warehouse.  Bob, seeing an opportunity to make a commission sale, moves up to the woman, a big smile plastered on his face.

“Hi, My name is Bob, May I help you Ma’am?”

“Well, I’m not sure.  I would like to buy a computer so I can, um… oh, what is the word…so I can skate on the Inter-Webby thing?”

“You mean surf the Internet?”

“Right! so I can surf the InterWeb!”

“Well you are in luck Mame, come right over here.  This is our Web-Blaster 5000 Desktop super computer.  It has 50 gig on-board ram, is over-clocked to Ten Thousand Giga-Hertz and has dual quad-core technology.  Buy it today with a HP all-in-one Printer, Scanner, Faxer, Copier, Wash-machine, and blender and we will throw in a free Blue-Tooth connectivity pak!”

“That sounds nice, Bobby, but I want a computer that can go on that web thingy so I can send a letter to my grand-daughter in college, whcih one does that?”

Bob looks puzzled…

Well at least Bob remembered to introduce himself, but do you see what happened here? Bob blasted the poor little old lady with a bunch of features – which were meaningless to her.  He is not going to make any sales like this.

Now, lets look at the expert salesman Joe, who is selling the refrigerator to the Eskimos:

First Joe has built a relationship with the Eskimo family over the past several weeks, not trying to sell them something at first.  He knows their names…

“Hello Eetok and Boofoo! And who is this little guy on your back? Ookpic? why that is a lovely name! and I see you brought your two sled dogs Frank and Pete. Well, this won’t take too long, I just wanted to point out to you both that necessity of having a refrigerator in your igloo.  How many times has this happened to you: You want a cool refreshing glass of wales milk, but that darn bottle is frozen again.  So you get the fire started and that takes twenty minutes, and then you start melting the milk over the fire, but you overheat it and now it is boiling hot, so you got to let it cool down.  By the time you actually drink the stuff it is luke-warm and tastes burnt.”

Eetok and Boofoo eagerly shake their heads up and down, they know exactly what Joe means.

“Well, let me show you something… This little doozey has something called “temperature control” which means you will be able to keep your wales milk at a nice refreshing 45 degrees – perfect for drinking anytime!  It does not matter how cold or hot it gets out there – your milk will stay at perfect drinking temperature for you and little Ookpic.  Now notice this: This compartment is perfect for keeping all that wale blubber in during those four or five days where it gets to a blistering 50 degrees out and the flies are buzzing about.  Just think – fresh blubber year round!”

The Eskimo’s are in wonder over the marvelous device and buy it on the spot.  Joe goes on to become the salesman of the year, and the only know person to have sold a refrigerator to an Eskimo.

So what happened here?  Well, quite simply Joe did the hard work of creating a relationship with the Eskimo family, learning about them and their lives – what things they needed, what hardships they faced.

Then Joe made a list of the benefits of a refrigerator.  Obviously keeping things cold, which is the only one most people think of, was not going to be something the Eskimo family needed.  But then Joe remembered that a refrigerator is actually a temperature controlled environment.  It keeps things at a specific temperature no matter what is going on outside.  Now he has a benefit that he can sell to the Eskimo family.

That is the key in sales – benefits.  The old adage that “sell benefits, not features” is so very true.  Bob tried to sell features to a lady he had just met and had not spent even a second attempting to find out what here needs were or what her hardship was.  Because of that, he lost the sale.

So in Business there are plenty of things to keep the perspiration going – lots of work, but the most important work you will do is the selling the benefits of your product to a prospect you know and understand.

Do this, and you will become a Master Achiever!

Stay Thirsty my Friends!

David T. McKee

PS: Read the following if you really want to start selling a ton of stuff right now!

PSS: So how would you sell a Light Bulb to the Blind?  Put that in your comment.  I will pick the three best comments and GIVE you a free bonus, my super collection of business, copywriting, swipe files, and hypnotic writing books.  And maybe a special bonus for the first prize winner!  Act now because I will be revealing the answer in my next post: Biz-Op 101, part 4: “Concentration”.

PSSS: Do you need some awesome Business Software but are not sure where to go? Do you want to see reviews of the business products? Go to www.HardToFindSoftware.com and check them out!

Venture Capital for your First Business

From my new Online Series O-Biz 101. This is part 2

Inspiration:

To get inspired to create your very first internet business, you need to make some money right up front, and you need to be able to do it for twenty dollars or less.

Why twenty dollars? Becuase it is a nice figure you can hold in your mind – when I say “Twenty Dollars” probably the first thin you thought of was a crisp green twenty dollar bill (if you are from America) or, now-a-days, it is a greenish peach color… whatever, the fact is you should be able to see your very first net based profits without spending any more than this – and by net based profit, I mean to imply that you make you twenty dollars back and then some.

So, here are my three top business opportunities you can start for twenty dollars or less that can earn you your first internet profits:

1. Sell a product or service on Ebay – each product will cost you anywhere from about 1 to 5 bucks depending on how fancy you get with gallery images, etc.
2. Get a free account on Blogger.com or Wordpress.org, set up a free blog, then join Click-Bank as an affiliate publisher for free and start promoting some affiliate products. This can cost you noting but some time to set up the sites and get your products. There have been some people who have literally made thousands of dollars doing just this – but their secret was awesome copy and content. That is where you will be spending your time in this approach.
3. Join the Warrior forum or the DataPoint forum and promote a product of your own. There is a twenty dollar cost to do this and you have to have a minimum number of days and posts on the forums, but they are a massive wealth of information on internet marketing – many individuals have made thousands using this approach, including yours truly.

These are just three ways off the top of my head that cost twenty or less.  There are probably hundreds more, and if you are willing to purchase a domain name (which usually only costs ten bucks or so) and learn how to use Wordpress stand alone version, you can also create your very own blog without the restrictions of the free blogs. In fact, this blog uses Wordpress and forum software – you could even start your own member site and charge a membership dues.

Inspiration is the title of this second installment of the O-Biz 101 series, and you should be inspired to realize that for your first business there is enough free stuff out there that you can get started right now on you own business.

Stay Thirsty my Friends!

-DTM

How Do I Start A Business From Here?!

From my new Online Series O-Biz 101.  This is part 1

Desperation:

I understand… You need to create a business just to survive! It’s no longer a matter of “I wish I could work from home so I could be my own boss!” Now it is a matter of “I NEED to work from home so I can keep it and Feed my Family!”

But at this point you don’t have any spare change, let alone money to start a business. What do you do?

Well, the first thing is you take care of your family and basic needs – do whatever it takes, work nights at a grocery store stocking shelves, or flip hamburgers. The bottom line is you have to remember that panic never helped anyone get started in anything, but usually leads to a worse situation.

If you got that basics covered, but things are just looking bleak unless you do something else, then listen up…

Yes, you read that correctly, you indeed can start a business online for no money at all. But be very careful because I did not say that it would be easy. It won’t. It will require time and work, and it will not be an instant fix.

That second part is so important that I am going to repeat all of this from the beginning because I want to make sure you are not being duped by some well wishers or some direct marketing trickery designed to part you from what little money you do have.  Here is the scoop:

• You can start a business online for nothing.
• You will be required to put time and effort into your business.
• It will not be easy, at least not at first.
• You have a lot of learning to do.
• Results will not come instantly, and may take awhile.

But guess what, it can be done and eventually you may get to the place where you are only working online and making a very comfortable living doing it!

I know it can be done because I am doing it.  This very website you are reading this on (Well, if you are reading it on www.AchieveMaster.com) is one of my online presences.  I started this whole endeavor by selling a box of old radio tubes on EBay to earn the money to buy website domains and tools to create my first web presences and start creating products and services for my online business.  You can read about this in one of my earliest posts here: Bootstrapping Your Internet Efforts. If you have an account on Ebay you can sell all of your stuff you don’t use anymore – buy your family some food and perhaps a cheap vacation, and get your mind cleared to start on a new adventure in your own business.

(Incidentally, that article was originally named “Man builds business with Box of Junk!).  Do you think I should have kept the original name?)

The fact is there are many other people doing business online and you are going to face competition as well as the uphill battle of getting known in whatever space you intend to do business in.

So todays lesson is simple: Are you desperate enough to start?  If so, then decide.

That is it – Decide you will start today, even if that is nothing more than picking up a book or magizine or going online and start reading up about what you have to know to start an online business.  But what ever you do… WHATEVER YOU DO… Dont’ Buy Anything!

Learn first!

It’s okay if you go and read some of those slick sales pages designed to hypnotically make you pull out your wallet and send in your credit card number – just give your wallet to your wife or good friend first.  You must first get a lay of the land and learn what is out there, what is working, what is not.

You might want to join a few forums, here is a list of my two favorites – and you don’t even have to post at first, you can read tons of stuff for free, and if you do join, you will get so much information your head will hurt – and that is a good thing!

The Warrior Forum – probably the number one forum online, hands down.

Digital Point Forum – I personally think they are the next best thing to Warriors.

Get some books (real, paper books…at your bookstore or to save money, your public library).

By all Means go to this site here: www.hardtofindseminars.com Michael Senoff is the most generous Internet Marketer online, hands down, period.  He gives away absolute GOLD in audio format.  If you have an MP3 player, download his stuff and use it as a learning course.

Do This Now!

David T. McKee

PS: If you have a PayPal account and seven bucks ($7.00) you can order my electronic library “Marketing Magic Collection I” – a collection of over 250 books, reports, articles, and helps on Marketing, Online presence, SEO, Copywriting, Advertising, self development, etc. all in PDF format.  - But only after you have done the other stuff I told you!  Now get Busy!

For a successful life in business and anything else, a major requirement is that you are not just happy, because happiness is a momentary thing that comes and goes with circumstance.  No, what is needed is that solid, immovable, inner quietness -more even than peace, the only word that works here is…Joy.  Mot people, (myself included) don’t really have a grasp on what the word means, we throw it around in our speech, but usually we are talking about some aspect of happiness, and not true joy.

And then we hear some o-jumbo “mystical” explanation of joy and never really understand it,but we nod our heads because while we know we don’t know…we also feel that there is something about joy that is bigger than us, something really important – something we really need to look at.

So of course we try to run away from it as fast as we can.  We are only human -you can’ really expect us to have Joy?

Now, because this blog is about success in life and business I usually tend to stay away from what you might call the “spiritual” aspects of life (at least overtly), but the problem is human beings (regardless of what some might say) are spiritual beings.  Joy is made from spiritual stuff.  And I hate to break it too you, but if you were actually completely without any joy whatsoever, you would be dead – yes…physically dead.

At the bare bones level you have something that motivates you to at least breath, so that your heart pumps blood, call it the “spark of life” call it “motive force” but at some level you are alive – when you die and the doctor calls time of death – whatever that spark was, is gone.

That spark is the essence of joy.  Through pain, through pleasure, through agony and ecstasy, Joy exists as the motive force.

As as such, you must have it to succeed in life.  So, what do we do to increase our joy? How do we understand what it is, where it is, and how to separate joy from merely being happy?

Well, I got the answer today from the young man with the crazy hair (sometimes it’s black, sometimes it’s blond…) in the picture here.

Well, actually he just passed the message on to me from a …”higher” source

Stop complaining.

Pastor Steven Furtick

That’s it. Just stop complaining about how bad you got it, stop worrying about what you don’ have, take what you do have and use it with what you do know.  Joy is the fact that we are alive and we can move.  Choose to move forward.

The man in the picture, by the way, is Pastor Steven Furtick of Elevation Church (www.elevationchurch.org), my church, in Charlotte NC.  It was the second fastest growing church in America last year with three campuses – the man knows what success is, he is only 28 years old!  Now he would tell you that success, real success, is knowing who you are in relationship to God, and that is true.  But I want to focus on joy for the moment.

Without that quiet, strong supporting foundation of joy, you will not have the power to overcome the difficulties to succeed in life or in business, or anything else.  You have to at first recognize that every moment of life is a gift and be willing, despite your circumstances, to use that gift to move you toward some goal.  Life is movement, and Joy is the engine that life uses to move forward.

So this is going to be hard, good stuff usually is… To stop complaining both on the outside, and on the inside.  What do we have to complain about?  How many of us have food to eat every day? how many have a place to sleep, cloths to wear.  You have heard all of this before, but this time I want to you to understand that our complaining actually lowers and limits our joy – bringing us to a lower level of success.  Our ability to think intentionally about those things we want to succeed in is directly in proportion to the inner joy that transcends all feelings we have.

Joy is the stuff our true success is made from.

David T. McKee