This time last year I was in Europe and today I was reflecting on some of the places I stayed. My husband and I visited Rome. Rome fascinates me because it has an amazing mix of its history from ancient to medieval through to the modern within one of the most popular cities in the world.

It got me thinking… if your building your online empire,
how do you know that someone is right for your team?
You don’t want anyone who wants a hobby, this is serious life changing stuff. What is the type of questions you can ask that help you understand whether this person is right for your team?

I have created an article called How Can You Help Others to Become Successful Online Entrepreneurs? to help you with THE question.

Be bold, take action…and why not take silly pics of yourself just for the hell of it )
Ally

If you were in an elevator and someone asked you “What do you do?” would you be able to describe your business in the time it takes to get to your floor in a clear way that the other person could understand easily?

I like the idea of an Elevator Pitch for your business purely to help YOU clarify what your business represents for you so then if the question is raised you can answer without mumbling, making mistakes, not making sense or coming across as unsure. Also this is the type of phrase you use on your social media pages and website etc.

Here are some basic guidelines to craft your elevator pitch message;
An elevator pitch IS NOT a Sales Pitch. Why? Because it’s not about how fantastic your business is, your pitch centers round how you help people.

When considering what your business elevator pitch should be, consider the product and the service that you offer. What problems do it benefits and features solve?

Switch the question “What do you do?” to “How do you help people?”

Start with the premise “The problem I solve is X, the solution I have is Y.”

An example.. “I help women loose weight to get them back into their skinny jeans quickly”.
A benefit of losing weight would be for general health, humans have more of an emotional attachment to looking slim rather than being healthy. Mentioning the skinny jeans helps to trigger an emotional response with your audience. This helps to create the urgency for the other person.

The urgency brought on by the emotional trigger your words represents will provide the person the option of wanting to learn more about you and to seek you out.

You can create a video and apply it to your landing page, website.

Here is an example of my elevator pitch.

Let me know your business elevator pitch.

For more information on how to create your own Elevator Pitch read my article called Creating an Elevator Pitch For Your Online Business

Be bold, take action.

Ally

I have created an article for you in relation to keywords and a particular lesson I have learnt recently. If your a new online entreprenuer I would suggest either using the resources you already have or seeking more knowledge on keyword research.

Keywords are like online real estate, seriously, top 1 ranking is very important and this is a start of many articles/blog posts to help you be more aware of keywords and their importance to your business. I don’t get bored of the Market Samurai logo, its really cool.

Select this link for the article called Market Samurai- Why is Keyword Analysis So Important?

When reflecting on the week just past, what did you learn? What insights did you allow yourself to be open to? Did the penny drop on a certain subject you may have been struggling with, did you get a ‘aha’ moment?
I’m really grateful that I had a lot of aha moments this week. By starting to read more and seeking wisdom I’ve not had just a aha moment I have had a wooow dude moment….( it means your totally stunned within the aha moment..)

There will be lots of new articles I will be releasing in the next couple of weeks that I can’t wait to share with you. It’s a win/win situation, writing about new subjects helps me to reinforce what I know about a subject while sharing it with you. When the subject is on leadership and self-development you and I both benefit hopefully we will both get the wooow dude moment )

Here is a list of my woow dude moments from this week;
A leader works to a plan. Continual focus needs to be made on your goals on a daily basis, this is why its so powerful;
Your belief determines what you think.
What you think determines what you do
and what you do determines your life.

Kick your past to the curb. Entrepreneurs need to be open to new possibilities. Approaching any new possibility and making reference to your past is a HUGE no no….How can your past best serve you into becoming the person you have always wanted to become? Exactly…. It can’t, end of story. Making a decision on negative past experiences is not going to help you succeed so don’t do it!! (I’ll know and you will be in trouble ;o)

Rattle the cage!! To be an entrepreneur you need to put yourself in the spotlight and forever be challenging the status quo. Face it, wanting to be an entrepreneur makes you different from the 97% of population out there, so really become that person. It’s not about being arrogant and over confident. You represent your brand. Be authentic, be yourself and have fun. I have so many ideas this week I have decided I am going to create an idea book so I can write them down.

What was your ‘aha’ moment this week? What books could you recommend that have helped you on your journey?

Look forward to hearing your answers..now go rattle that cage…

Be bold, take action.

Ally

Do you find it hard to picture yourself with the life you have always wanted? Maybe it’s a spark of inspiration you get from reading a book or watching a particular movie that gets you stopping for a small moment in time… you feel empowered and see the outcome before your eyes playing like a movie in your mind. Its so exhilarating to think about it and then the moment is gone. It’s the challenges that start to list endlessly in your mind reminding you that the goal that was so in your grasp a minute a go was just a dream.
Do you ever reflect on what emotion triggers that whole process? What emotion allows that pattern to continue?
It’s fear.

I was at a party recently and being married to a musician we tend to socialise with other musicians. A few people starting playing songs and others joined in, my husband encouraged me to join in too so I started to sing and the desire to be a singer lit up inside me once again.
A man I met at the party after we finished asked me
“Are you a professional singer?”
And I replied “no”. He looked at me confused.
What could I say? “No, it’s my fear that held me back from perusing my dream.” I was annoyed with myself, fear only creates inaction. I have to take responsibility but it’s not the end of this goal.
This is why I am writing this blog for you, don’t waste time wishing, a commitment to a decision you make means you will be tested. Accept it and take action to work towards it and you will never look back.
Are you at the point where you’re ready to make a change and work towards something you have always wanted? Don’t be fearful of the journey, it takes failure to succeed. You can’t learn from failure if you quit.

There are a couple of ways I would like you to consider when tackling that dreaded fear that turns up.
Be honest to yourself. Understand this is a journey and you have to practice adjusting how you react to fear. Sometimes you will give in to the fear and other times you won’t just continue to practice.

Justify to yourself the type of fear that you’re confronted with;
Authentic fear vs unauthentic fear.
Authentic fear – a life-threatening event i.e. being chased by a crocodile.
Unauthentic fear- everything else!!

Acknowledge the type of fear it is and rationalise, what is the worst that will happen if this actually happens? Remove the emotion out of the situation to understand why it’s making you feel that way. I like to sometimes think of the logical me driving down the street and witnessing the emotion I am feeling as being outside of the car. By trying to disconnect yourself with the emotion you will be able to access it in a different way.

If you need to remind yourself why your making the effort in the first place, remind yourself of your goals, if your emotionally attached to your goals this will inspire you to keep on practising
Another way I tried to make the point to myself was I went sky diving, my body’s alarms were going off…danger, danger authentic fear!! I ignored it and took the plunge. I survived and made a point of noting that even some authentic fears can still be placed in the unauthentic category )

Be bold, take action.

Ally

“Communication breakdown always the same, having a nervous breakdown, drive me insane”. This is an extract from Communication Breakdown by Led Zeppelin.
This song sums it up; it’s very frustrating if you can’t get your message across, especially when you have the opportunity of a new team member and you have not utilized the chance to reinforce to that person that the image you portray online is followed through with you in person. This is regardless of the outcome of the call. Attraction Marketing and being an entreprenuer in general requires you to be consistent on and off line.

I have created an article called Attraction Marketing – Effective Communication Skills
Refer to this article for more information on tips to help refine the language you use while on the phone. I used to work in a call centre and mixed it up with some coaching tips.

“Communication is the real work of leadership.” Nitin Nohria

There is lots more information heading your way about communication skills so stay tuned.

Be bold, take action.

Ally

This week I have been making calls to leads that have provided me their details. I have probably mentioned this before, but I wouldn’t say I like making these call at the moment. I want to connect with these people but my own anxiety and nervousness gets in the way of having a decent conversation.

Today I had a light bulb moment, All this emotional stuff just gets in the way of people really seeing how committed I am to my business. I spend hours every day infront of the computer learning new skills and being focused on learning how I can better answer people’s questions so they can perform well in their business yet when I speak to someone by being nervous or even scared of the call I am not allowing them to truly see how committed I am.

I think this hits a sore point because my small amount of singing performances has been impacted by this very type of fear. I now get where my focus has to be to allow me to entertain people with my performances the way I want to.

After my light bulb moment, I decided before I make any call, I am specifically going to think about my goals and why this business is so important to me. I always want to be grateful that the person has provided their details in the first place.

I tried this today with a call I made and felt energized and felt my tone of my voice suited who I want to represent and what I want to become as a leader.

I also have been reading Black Belt Recruiting (I’ve always wanted to be a black belt ) and this may also have helped, I can’t wait to reread this again, practice more and share more what I learnt with you. I can’t wait to also have the opportunity to talk to more people to practice. Bring it on…

An entrepreneur will come across speed humps on the road. You can either slow down, procrastinate and even stop to avoid the speedhump or you can drive over it and move on.

How do you approach making calls to customers? What are your tips?

Be bold, take action.

Ally

Hi,

Here is a link to an article I recently created called Attraction Marketing -Seven Top Articles Tips

When creating your own kick ass material don’t get stuck in the learning phase or delay releasing your article to be published until its absolutely perfect. I could probably look at the article attached to the link now and find 10 things I could alter but its already taken several days to be approved by Ezines. So what’s the point delaying it any further when I could be sharing it with you?

Would you tell a baby to stop trying to walk until he or she gets it right? Of course not, try and try again.

Trust the fact that your learning a new skill, the more you practice, the better you will become. So this may mean creating an article and a month later being embarrassed to republish it.
So what!!

Learning is like dipping your toe in the pool, your ‘testing’ the water or gaining a better understanding of the subject. Dipping your toe doesn’t mean you have gone for a swim.

You need to take the plunge, go for it, put into practice what you learnt, this is the ONLY way you are ever going to get not only good but exceptionally good at any new skill. Don’t let your pride stand in the way of you truly learning and gaining the skills you need to evolve.

Whatever you doing today, take the plunge, and give it your all.

“How am I going to live today in order to create the tomorrow I’m committed to?” Tony Robbins.

Be bold, take action.

Ally

Sitting around waiting patiently for leads after spending hours and hours of time creating articles, blog posts, Facebook and Twitter updates can feel like your on a bike pedaling fast but going nowhere. To be honest, I now recall at how I would look at my email inbox waiting for that magically moment when my consistent leads would enter to let me know that I finally got something that works. It one lesson I would like to share with you so you don’t get to make the same mistakes as I did.

You may not know, in my previous role I was a Project Manager. Key metrics are an important indicator for any business to help monitor performance against objectives. For a solo entrepreneur I needed to find a way to get my own that related to keywords and traffic to my site.

With my understanding of data analysis I realised I didn’t have sufficient measures in my business to help me gauge how well my website and keywords combined performance was actually tracking. Sure, I was getting no results so that means – no leads equals no good but for my own sanity I needed to be able to test things out and measure how well they perform and drop the stuff that wasn’t working. I felt I was running blind without some sort of key metrics. In other words, there are thousands of website on the net, I wanted to know where my piece of real estate ranked and to be able to monitor the progress of my site as it increased to world domination status yeah. (Did the world domination thing concern you? Don’t worry, I can share, we can dominate the world together )

With a strict marketing budget (zero budget), I had to find some sort of way that was cost effective and was easy to use. I was on a training call and Mike Koeings (Video Marketing Expert and Guru) mentioned he used a keyword tool called Market Samurai, it was described as a Keyword Analysis Research Tool and if it was good enough for Mike, it was good enough for me. )

So I have been busy learning as much as I can about it and after a few months of using Market Samurai I believe it can help with my website ranking and a whole lot more. I will be sharing lots more about Market Samurai so stay tuned.

Keywords are like buying hotels in a monopoly game. You don’t win the game by just buying one. You need to buy more than one in small groups. What I realised was I was selecting keywords but just using the same ones sparingly, or I was using over competitive keywords that had strong competition that I was never going be able to compete with. Its no wonder my site was not ranked where I wanted it to be my keyword selection well to be honest..crap.

So I made up my mind, I looked at all the keywords I had used on my website and also my videos and articles and decided on a set of keywords I was going to focus on. This prompts me when thinking of new topics to create content and I can load every new URL I create and the Market Samurai Keyword Analysis Research Tool helps me monitor my rankings for Google, Yahoo and Bing.

Check it out for yourself, I was so impressed I become an affiliate for Market Samurai, don’t take my word for it, there is free access for a limited time so you can try it for yourself.

http://www.marketsamurai.com/c/Livebeyond925

The right keywords are critical to a marketers success, traffic on the roads when your in the car is annoying but its great when you’re an online entrepreneur )

What tools have you used that have helped you select your keywords and monitor your websites ranking?

Be bold take action.

Ally

Compare an entrepreneur to a 16th century explorer.What do they have in common? Both are risk takers, are passionate on their desires, have challenges they have to face to achieve their goals and inspire others on their journey.

Attraction Marketing requires an entrepreneur requires to put their brand first,for their brand to stand out in the spotlight, to be unique and provide value to others. This is really easy when your super confident in your writing skills, video skills etc. At what point does it all start to come undone? When does the confidence starts to waiver? For an entrepreneur it could be after a month without sales, or for an 16th century explorer the fears of your close colleagues dampening their enthusiasm.

I would like to share with you a story I read in The Travelers Gift from Andy Andrews that I feel is quite relevant to this scenario. I’ve summarize the first part of the story and when working through to the main point have quoted from the book.

The story was about a conqueror, his name was Hernando Cortez. It doesn’t sound pleasant in the 21st century terms but in 1519, being a conqueror was a job description.
Hernando Cortez was determined to claim treasure that had never been claimed before. He gathered an army. He actually took the time to interview each solider, helped them to visualize the goal to the point where they were inspired to join him. Hernando Cortez set sail on the final leg of a voyage from Cuba to the Yucatan Peninsula. There were eleven ships, five hundred soldiers, one hundred sailors and 16 horses.
Halfway through the voyage, Cortez had a problem, many of the soldiers and sailors started to change their mind. Their enthusiasm starts to wane.
“When they arrived at the Yucatan Peninsula, Cortez gathered everybody on the beach. They grew quiet, waiting for Cortez to say, “You go here, we’ll go there. If the arrows start flying, meet me at this coconut stump..we’re out of here.”
Instead, he leaned in and said, “Burn the boats.”
“Excuse me?!” they replied incredulously.
Cortez repeated, “Burn the boats”, Torch the boats.”
“If we go home,” he added, “we’re going home in their boats.”
And on their leader’s orders, they burned their own boats!
And an amazing thing happened. They fought really well. For the first time in six hundred years the treasure was taken!
Why? Because they had two options, the treasure or death!”

What boats are holding you back? What limiting beliefs, concerns or fears are limiting you from your goals and building a successful business? What haven’t you let go to allow you to accomplish the things you set out to accomplish?

Its time to let go of those boats, burn them so you have no choice but to succeed.

Creating a daily ritual and focus on your goal. Write your story out like a story, with emotions, specific people, places and maybe a particular event in your life and you read over it every day. (I like to do this twice, once in the morning and once before bed).

What helps you stay super focus on your goals? Leave your comments, I would love to hear from you.

Be bold, take action.
Ally

P.S. This link will take you to the specific extract from Andy Andrews book mention in this post.

P.S. This blog post is all called How to engage your subconscious mind in goal setting