Sales4U - Fast Sales Growth Without The Guesswork

I was asked a question about planned vs. unplanned work. How do you manage interruptions that come up throughout the day? My take on it is to put all my planned and unplanned tasks (things I just need to do but don't know when) in Asana, and any meetings on my calendar. Then, if a new unplanned task comes up, I first add it to Asana as well. It is the tool I use to capture and organize all of my todos. Depending on the priority of that new task, I assign it to myself for today, or tomorrow, etc. That means that I often have to rearrange my priorities and the tasks I'll be doing today, tomorrow, and in the following days. How do you manage interrupting tasks?

To be fair, I used to be pretty good at coding, especially on the back-end side. I even enjoyed coding the logic behind the landing page I started building today. But I was never great with CSS, and trying to make it do what want was beyond frustrating - and honestly a waste of my time. So I went on Fiverr, spent about 30 minutes finding a good programmer, and messaged a handful of them. One guy responded almost immediately, and hired him after clarifying what I need. I've hired programmers extensively and have a full-stack development team I work with regularly, but since I just needed something simple to test out an idea and I didn't want to spend a lot of money on, Fiverr was the best option. I also suck at accounting, and I'm delegating that as well : ) What are you currently doing in your business that you either suck at or hate doing and that you could delegate to someone else in your team or outsource it?

Today I stopped by to Le Massif de Charlevoix on my way to Baie St-Paul and La Malbaie to disconnect from work and get some mental rest. Enjoying a stunning view of the St-Lawrence River and the surrounding mountains feels a lot better than staying home and watching movies. It was more tiring to get there, but it gave my brain a rest. I encourage you to do the same and spend some time in nature to completely disconnect for a few hours, a day, a weekend, or more.

The TBE Show (The Blind Entrepreneur Podcast by Johnathan Grzybowski) is a new podcast I very recently discovered. Johnathan is the co-founder of www.Penji.co. I interviewed him for a couple of series, Growth Hacking Geniuses and Leadership Geniuses, and he's a cool guy. I enjoyed getting to know him and giving him a chance to share some of his wisdom. So I'm sharing with you his podcast, which I'll be listening to in the next weeks and months. Here's the link to his podcast: http://tbeshow.com/

I don't think we need to debate the benefits of exercise. It's good for you, for so many reasons - both mentally and physically. In this day and age, most of us entrepreneurs and business owners work long hours seated at a desk. So the question is, have you exercised today? Will you exercise tomorrow? I try to do some exercise on a daily basis, even if it's just some push-ups throughout the day. For the last 3 years I've been training in martial arts, but haven't gone since before the holidays. Even though I want to get back to it and will, I keep exercising regularly meanwhile - 2-3 times at the gym weekly, and push-ups and other exercises daily. What is your exercise routine like?

1. WHAT IS THE CHALLENGE SALESPEOPLE AND LEADERS FACE THE MOST? - The biggest challenge is themselves - the “inner game” 2. HOW CAN YOU ASSESS WHETHER YOU'VE FIGURED OUT THE INNER WORLD? HOW DO YOU MEASURE THAT? - Stress is a big indicator. Are you managing your stress in a constructive manner? - Be aware that you need rest, and take care of yourself 3. WHAT IS A GROWTH MINDSET? - Knowing that you have the ability to grow and develop and overcome challenges - The opposite of a victim mindset - Keep learning, no matter how old you are 4. WHAT'S YOUR PHILOSOPHY ON READING, LEARNING AND GROWING? - TED Talks - Well-reviewed books - Take insights from anywhere you look 5. HOW DO YOU GET YOURSELF READY TO BE SUCCESSFUL? - Have annual, quarterly, monthly, weekly goals - Daily meditation - silent time - Keep yourself in a good physical state throughout the day 6. WHAT BOOKS AND RESOURCES WOULD BE HELPFUL FOR PEOPLE TO CHECK OUT? - TED Talks - Shawn Achor - The Happiness Advantage - Tony Robbins - Dalai Lama - Ryan Holiday - The Obstacle Is The Way 7. WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON POSITIVITY? - See things in a real mindset - acknowledge what frustrates you or annoys you then address it - The dance ritual (dance by yourself in the dark) and notice your thoughts - Ask yourself what you’re grateful for - When experiencing a negative emotion, ask yourself “Is it true?” 8. WHAT'S YOUR VIEW ON GOAL SETTING? - You can’t hit a target you can’t see - If you’re reaching all your goals, you haven’t set them high enough - Look at them quarterly 9. HOW IMPORTANT IS IT TO DEFINE YOUR BUSINESS WHY OR PERSONAL WHY? - Your WHY gives you the ability to persevere in the long-term 10. TONY ROBBINS' AND MASLOW'S PYRAMID OF NEEDS - Certainty, variety, significance, love, growth, contribution - “Know thyself” and what makes you happy 11. TAKE SOME TIME FOR YOURSELF - 6 deep breaths can lower your blood pressure - Pay more attention to your body

I came across this video by Neil Patel where he talks about his main growth strategy for 2018. I highlighted the main elements of it in this #DailyGrowth video. One thing I forgot to mention is that the more under-monetized a blog is (the more potential for increased monetization it has), the better. Here is the original video by Neil Patel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QF2lvWEHzSw

1. HOW TO CONVERT TEXTUAL CONTENT INTO VIDEO CONTENT? - By 2020, over 80% of the world’s traffic will be to video content - Convert your evergreen content to animated or sizzle or production videos 2. HOW DO YOU MEASURE THE IMPACT VIDEOS ON YOUR BOTTOM LINE? - Add a facebook pixel on your site to track views, adds to cart, etc. and see how much impact each video is having - Measure the watch time - Break up the videos into Instagram stories 3. FACEBOOK VS. YOUTUBE - Look for what people are searching for - Facebook is prioritizing video over other types of content - Facebook is pay-to-play - boost posts and set up ads to reach more followers 4. LINKEDIN - Cost-effective - Post videos natively (YouTube links will soon get penalized) - Until then, post YouTube links to get more views and engagement on your YouTube videos 5. IMPACT OF EACH PLATFORM - Figure out who your audience is - Share your content on multiple platforms - Create content that your audience resonates with - Leverage retargeting campaigns - Chunk up your content and publish it on Instagram - Optimize YouTube content for search - Promote your YouTube video links on your website - Have a distribution strategy to spread your videos 6. HOW TO OPTIMIZE YOUR VIDEO - Have a good description. For YouTube, write long text. - Add relevant tags - YouTube has more capabilities than Facebook to optimize videos - On Facebook, thumbnails and captions are crucial - On Facebook, promote new published videos immediately with comments, shares, and an ad to increase your organic reach and make it more likely to be viral 7. CAPTIONS - Use a service for captions, which makes it easy to edit directly within their platform 8. VIDEO SERIES - Facebook Watch is creating TV production-style series. It is starting to compete with YouTube - People binge-watch series - For business, people prefer watching series of short episodes. Your brand can be integrated in those episodes. - Start making a series as if it was on Facebook Watch - look at what is trending. 9. HOW DO YOU PERSONALIZE VIDEOS? - Know your WHY - People buy emotionally and rationalize

My morning and night routine are pretty simple, but I try to do it consistently. After some deep breaths, I ask myself this one question. I find that it allows me to focus on what's good in my life, and it motivates me to work harder to get more of the positive things. I recommend you ask yourself the same question morning and night. I literally takes 30 seconds to do.

Online group calls are great because they allow you to run and build a company with a distributed team, but it also brings its set of challenges. The biggest one, I think, is communication. Since you are not in the physical presence of the other people in the meeting, non-verbal cues aren't as obvious, and you really have to be clear in how you communicate. Also, I found that I get triggered by details (inconsistencies on tasks in Asana, for example, incomplete things, etc.) and I get an itch to want to address right then and there and make it perfect. So I am sometimes too impulsive on calls, and realized that the meetings flow better when I give more thought and am more patient before commenting or asking questions.

I usually don't have time to read full books, so I tend to prefer book summaries or watching videos. Or even better yet, to learn directly from people I admire and respect who have achieved the success I am looking to obtain. In this DailyGrowth video I review the TED Talks book which I went through in about 10 minutes to extract the essence of it. I am not actually a fast reader, but I used a simple technique to go through the book quickly by going through the table of contents, then each page for about a second or two each. If you do this, you won't get all the meat of the book, but you'll get the main ideas from it. And honestly, would you really remember all of it a week from now anyway?

In this video by Sujan Patel, he offers 10 tips in 2018 to grow your business. I finally got the time to watch it, and I summarized it. Below are my notes. In the video, I go through these 10 points in 3 minutes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqtMqg0uNj8&__s=pwgpd5xt56efjiyodqee 1. Find niche opportunities Quora (works better for B2C, self-service SaaS Podcast ads Billboards Instagram influencers Rent blog posts 2. Buy dead blogs, failing products, or social media accounts 3. Cross promotion and co-marketing Pimp each other out (email your list about their offer, and vice-versa) Joint webinars It gets you in front of a lot of people 4. Create a free product for lead generation 5. Engage your customers Talk to them about problems Make their first experience amazing 6. Content marketing Fill gaps of knowledge Map your customer's journey Solve customer problems Create epic content 7. Change from leads to conversations Chatbots on facebook Chatbots for scheduling calls chatbots can engage high-intent customers 8. Video 9. Double down on high-traffic pages 10. Use "artificial intelligence" in marketing copy

Is your schedule full with client work? Or are you struggling to get enough projects from your current clients? I find that abundance is the key to being able to command higher rates, as well as building your reputation, expertise, and credibility. If you can't afford to say no to new projects, then you are still in scarcity. Actual success and abundance of projects makes it easy to increase rates because your value is higher, or at least perceived as being higher.

Mobilizer (https://mobile1st.com/features/) is a tool developed by Mobile 1st which allows you to see what your website looks like on a dozen actual devices and on both iOS and Android. With this tool, you can easily spot bugs on your site that you need to fix.

As a entrepreneur, startup founder, business owner or a high-powered executive, you most likely work a LOT of hours, have a lot of pressure and stress, and are often tired. It can be quite difficult to stay healthy, especially in a difficult climate where the temperature changes dramatically form day to day and many people around you are sick. The downside of getting sick is huge for an entrepreneur - it slows you down, puts you on your back potentially for days, makes you late on projects, and overall sucks. So I think that the key to staying healthy is a combination of awareness of your body's health, and a decision to slow down and get more rest whenever the early symptoms appear. It is definitely harder said than done.

I fully realized today how quickly email can become overwhelming and how it slows down the communication, obfuscates it, and makes it harder than it should be. Discussions about project tasks should really be done in a task in a tool like Asana, and not in email.

I haven't used mindmaps for a few years, because I've been capturing and organizing project information and the information from meetings into Google Documents and diagramming tools. I used to mind map a LOT since it is was my business, but I very recently rediscovered its power. I find that it is great as a visual support to calls and meetings. But then, you should take that information (mostly the actionable items) and add them to a project management tool such as Asana.

These two documents allow you to clearly define and agree on what will be delivered and the work that was actually delivered. The two lists of items are possibly slightly different if requirements change or new requirements are added mid-project. At that point, you have the choice of being flexible, or sticking exactly to the service order and moving to a new Service Order anything outside of that initially defined scope. A big thanks to Scott Gillespie from Jigsaw Group for suggesting these and helping me define what should go in each. https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-gillespie-712124/

Being Canadian (I'm assuming that has to do with it a bit), a nice guy, and a busy entrepreneur, I am very accommodating of clients'. I've recently adopted the mindset that if a client books my time for a paid session and they cancel last minute (without a reasonable warning and request to reschedule), then I still charge for it. Thoughts?

Here is a simple trick to considerably improve the quality of your work and project deliverables.

Books are great, they compress the lifetime knowledge of a person. But there is something even better - the advice of a successful role model.

I found that one of the most effective ways of getting more B2B client projects is to build great relationships with a few other businesses is to start by helping them for free, and proving your value. Soon enough, if you're really good at what you do, they'll be asking you to help them with a lot more things, which you can charge for. Make sure that you are being genuine and truly want to build a relationship with them and work with them. So you should handpick the entrepreneurs or businesses that you admire and would like to work with.

Scott's video: https://www.facebook.com/officialscottoldford/videos/1536364426459086/ In this DailyGrowth video, I introduce these two concepts: ROI (Relevancy, Omnipresence, Intimacy) and SSF (Sidewalk, Slow lane, Fast lane).

As you're growing a business, you may be inclined, just like I was, to reinvest any revenue into it, in the hopes of accelerating its growth. By updating your accounting regularly, you will have the data to make informed decisions. Without it, you may end up spending too much money like I did.

Clarify your value proposition with clients. Have patience and do consistent good work. Nurture your long-term relationship with clients.

Here is one of the landing pages that we created for our Beeton & Co project (www.beetonco.com). In this #DailyGrowth video, I go over the main components of the page, and the assessment behind it.

This neat little extension allows you to configure certain websites that you do not want your views and clicks to be tracked. This is especially handy when you have facebook pixels installed on your sites and don't want them to fire when you're testing out your sites.

I talk about: - the hero and the guide - website homepage headline and subheadline - direct and transitional calls to action

Are your homepage's headline and sub-headline clearly communicating empathy with your audience's biggest pains and desires? I believe that the headline and sub-headline should be focused on your customers, and not on yourself. It should also be easy to read and understand in less than 5 seconds. Here is the link to the PDF with examples of clear value propositions: https://sales4u.co/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Clear-Value-Proposition-Examples-www.Sales4U.co_.pdf

I found these stats about mobile speed and how it affects conversions, purchases and bounce rates. Sources: - Google Data, Global, n=3,700 aggregated, anonymized -Google Analytics data from a sample of mWeb sites opted into sharing benchmark data, Mar. 2016. - https://instapage.com/blog/optimizing-mobile-page-speed - https://blog.kissmetrics.com/loading-time/ - https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/marketing-resources/experience-design/mobile-page-speed-load-time/ - https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/17/google-will-make-page-speed-a-factor-in-mobile-search-ranking-starting-in-july/

I share some research that confirms the impact of video for your Ecommerce store and for your site. The bottom line is... you should really use video : ) Sources: - www.shopify.ca/blog/19542212-how-to-use-video-to-increase-conversions-and-sales-in-your-ecommerce-business - https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/video-marketing-statistics#sm.0000h4rgwfoa1fouwqm23llpma557 - http://unbounce.com/landing-page-articles/the-benefits-of-using-video-on-landing-pages/ - https://animoto.com/blog/business/video-marketing-cheat-sheet-infographic/ - https://www.wyzowl.com/video-marketing-statistics-2017.html - https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/state-of-video-marketing#sm.00001neljowrr3ec4tnlfic1kqso4

As I've done a lot of website reviews over the past weeks and months, I've started looking for research to back up my recommendations. I'm sharing some surprising data on the ideal position of your logo on your site.

#DailyGrowth 66 - How To Use Asana To Plan Your Week by Sales4U

It is quite challenging to grow a facebook group consistently, and one of the main growth engines is getting access to new audiences on an ongoing basis. One way to do that is to interview experts, and broadcasting your interview live on your facebook profile, and asking your interviewee to share it to their profile as well so that it gets broadcasted live there. Then, they can also share the edited version of the interview. If it is a live AMA (Ask Me Anything) focused on a topic, then you can break down that content into chunks (one video per question), and post a video once or twice a day.

My coaching session with my coach has given me clarity on my three next steps, the three things I should be focusing on now. Very insightful! A regular coaching session is incredibly valuable.

Everyone says it, I've heard this many times, and yet I was posting manually for the longest time. I recently started scheduling posts, and it's awesome.

Virgil Brewster​ shared these 3 steps to building your personal network to grow your business, in a recent interview I did with him. Since that is something I'll be implementing in my business, I figured I'd share it with you!

It took us almost 2 years to go from about 150 members to 200 members, 2 weeks to go from 200 to 250, and 2 days to go from 250 to 470+. Here's how!

Facebook groups are a great way to build an audience for your business, so that you can then easily figure out what to build, build it, and offer it to them.

Beware the tall puppy syndrome in large facebook groups! I got kicked out of two ecommerce groups in 2 weeks :D I recorded this video this morning after reading the message from the admin of the second group saying I overposted, and he was going to remove me unless I provided a good reason. The funny thing is there is moderation on both groups, and they approved all my posts. All they had to do was: 1. reject some of my posts OR 2. give me a warning 3. make it clear how often people should post These bans are very subjective - they "felt" I was overposting (even if my focus was on providing value and help people in the group). Remember that these groups are serving the purpose of the owner... to drive more sales to their business. That's it, sadly.

It's quite easy to get frustrated and disappointed when you have failures in busines. Thinking of it as growth experiments lowers the pressure on yourself, and allows you to "fail" without the emotional negativity. Have a growth mindset!

As some of you know, I've been exploring dropshipping ecommerce by going through a 90-day challenge, and I've had a lot of back and forth with Tyler Sullivan who's the leader of one of the facebook groups I'm a part of, and the owner of an 8-figure golf products business (BombTech Golf). Bottom line is... build an audience first. Then I go on to talk about the Business Growth Geniuses community.

I talk about the importance of being part of a community when learning something new. In my case, I've joined 3 facebook groups on ecommerce as I'm going throug the 90-day Ecom Challenge with Chris Record.

47% of consumers expect a web page to load in 2 seconds or less. 40% abandon websites that take more than 3 seconds to load. How fast is your website loading? Tools: - Google PageSpeed Insights: https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/ - GTMetrix: https://gtmetrix.com/ - Pingdom: https://www.pingdom.com/ Branded Innovation: https://www.brandedinnovation.com/

Asana is an extraordinary project management tool with an outstanding free version. Kanban is a method for managing product creation with an emphasis on continual delivery. Combining both improves collaboration, communication, and efficiency.

Clickfarms (bots) generate a lot of fake likes on pages and posts, and it is becoming a real problem. Here's a great video to watch by Veritasium: https://youtu.be/oVfHeWTKjag?t=4m54s

#DailyGrowth 52 - How to Prevent Your Email List From Getting Cold by Sales4U

For the price tag of $79.99 CAD (about $65 USD), it is a great deal. I had to play a bit with the sound levels of recording, as they do not adjust automatically. https://www.amazon.ca/Logitech-Webcam-Pro-C920-960-000764/dp/B006JH8T3S

BeLive.tv offers you several features that a traditional Facebook Live session doesn't. It is a great tool which allows you to use your computer or your phone, and have interview-style conversations or a panel with several people. Facebook Live only allows you to use your phone, but you can do it only by yourself or with one other person.

I just created a first version of our explainer video for Sales4U's proprietary 5-Step Growth Process, and it took me about 2.5 hours in total. Follow the 5 steps in the video and you'll have an explainer video for your business in no time!

My mentor, good friend, and client Eric Michael Collins came up with some brilliant ideas to help you gain leverage in your business: a Warm Lead Funnel, and a Referral Funnel. A funnel is a set of landing pages where you drive your traffic in order to qualify and convert them.