Five Steps To Make You Far More Effective
Today I want to share five methods to make you far more effective. I have mentioned these before, but I thought it might be useful to review whether you have taken them all to heart. These steps have to do with securing all facets of your online business, and you can find many more tips and tricks scattered all over this blog. In fact, when you listen, you can get MANY effective tips on how to MULTIPLY your online income.
Let’s take a look at five important ways to work SMARTER, not just HARDER. It will bring you a lot of extra time on your hands, and you can TRULY get a lot more work done in less time, thus earning you far more money with less effort.
- Get at Least Three Browsers
- Install Mozilla Thunderbird as Mail Client
- Prioritize Outsourcing
- Focus Your Attention to Single Clear Tasks
- Build Relationships
Get at Least Three Browsers
When you build websites, salesletters online, blog articles and other stuff, make sure you test ALL pages in at least three browsers. Here, I use Opera, Mozilla FireFox and Safari on my Mac, and I have a couple of other browsers at hand for specific testing.
Imagine this: you create a magnificent sales letter. You ONLY test it under MS Internet Explorer, yet suddenly your friend calls you, and tells you it looks like sh*t under both FireFox and Opera. Similarly, you may have used a transparent PNG-image under Internet Explorer 7, yet some of your clients use the older version 6 of the Internet Explorer. That will look very differently from what you expect.
You COULD use an online service for testing appearances under different browsers, but I most definitely recommend you do your OWN testing so you know it works by seeing the differences under each browser. When using that method you can decide which workarounds to use to get the right appearance under ALL browsers, thus increasing your overall potential for better conversions among ALL visitors.
Install Mozilla Thunderbird as Mail Client
In the old days, I used The Bat! created by the Ritlabs team. It was an excellent mail program. Almost so good that I could be tempted to have a netbook just for running WIndows XP and this e-mail client. However, I would miss my Mac for all other types of assignments (videocasts, podcasts etc).
Mozilla Thunderbird is ALMOST as good as The Bat!, and its versatility is good. It has been created for all major platforms — MacOS, Windows and Linux. It’s FREE, and it offers a highly useful thing that most computer users overlook: filtering.
Once you filter your mails you will discover that what previously took you hours only takes minutes. When you design the right word filters and sender-settings you can save so much time you almost wouldn’t believe it.
Some have tried to do the same using Outlook and Outlook Express from Microsoft, but I haven’t found it to be nearly as effective and quick as Thunderbird. Just imagine getting even just one hour extra to yourself every day instead of spending it wading through mails every single day…. It’s big, VERY BIG…
Prioritize Outsourcing
When you KNOW that there are tasks you don’t enjoy doing, why not spend some time outsourcing these to people who work BETTER, SMARTER and more QUICKLY than yourself. Let’s take window polishing as an example. In Denmark getting your windows polished costs you roughly 50$, and takes a professional about an hour. If I had to polish these myself I would probably spend three or four times that amount of time, and it would be TEDIOUS.
Why not outsource? When you calculate your own time spent, you end up saving 12.50$ per hour you would otherwise have spent working on a task you HATE…. If you can earn 5 to 10 times that amount per hour doing something you enjoy, why would you avoid outsourcing?
It’s not a question of whether you can AFFORD TO OUTSOURCE, but much rather whether you could afford NOT to outsource. Did you get that? Read it again! It’s important.
Focus Your Attention to Single Clear Tasks
It’s easy to get sidetracked. You’re working on a project, yet something pops up. You take a look at it and before you know it the day is over. You can’t earn money online if you constantly get sidetracked. You MUST focus your attention towards COMPLETING every task, so you can move on to other successes. When you get sidetracked you build a procrastinating habit, and it becomes more difficult to actually GET THINGS DONE.
Take small steps, but see the benefits of COMPLETING your tasks, and reap the successes of actually BUILDING something rather than being disillusioned by not getting things done…
Build Relationships
Whether on Facebook or on Twitter, you should focus your attention on BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS. Don’t focus on getting as many followers as possible, but focus on getting INVOLVED FOLLOWERS. People who are involved are people who can convert into buyers. Maybe not the first time, but then the second or third time around. When they discover that you have VALUE to offer them, they WILL BE BACK.
In Conclusion
Good luck. You will see that just these five tips can MULTIPLY your effectiveness. You can literally add years to your business lives, and you can reap the benefits of implementing things that WORK.
Carpe diem. 🙂