We watched the movie Julie and Julia last night and thought it was an excellent movie with a great message about following your passion.

Both Julie and Julia were at a crossroads in their life…they were not happy with what they were doing and were searching for something that would bring them joy and purpose in life.

This time of year is the perfect time to reflect on your own life and what you are, and are not happy about. Do you love going to work every day? If not, work to change it. Find something that you LOVE to do and start doing it. Once you do, find a way to monetize it!

I see two clear messages from this movie:

Do what you love to do. Don’t go through life doing something that does not make you anything less than 100% happy

You never know what can happen. Do you think Julie knew her simple blog would end up as a major motion picture with book deals etc? NO! It goes to show you that anything can happen if you love what you do and you work hard

If you have not already seen this movie, I highly recommend it. Don’t forget to think about how it could apply to your own situation.

Our friends over at Amazon.com are showing their Christmas spirit by offering a FREE Christmas mp3 download every day for 25 days. You can’t beat free! Check it out here:

Free Christmas Music At Amazon

Your Content Must Also Be Easy To Consume…

The other day, I received an email about a 45 minute video someone posted online which I wanted to see. Great, right? Not so much.

As I sat down to watch the video, my phone rang, I got busy, and to top it off, the video played slow. There was no way to download the video and it was not created with chapters or sections to make it easier for the viewer.

They Lost Me!

People are busy and now more than ever, it is critically important to make sure that you are easy to do business with and your content is EASY TO CONSUME.

Videos

Some ideas for making online video easier to consume:

1. Offer a download option so viewers can save to their own computer and watch on their own time.
2. If you have a long video, break it up into shorter segments and files so that is loads faster and allows the viewer to come back to it easier
3. Create chapters or markers in your video
4. Make it interesting to watch. Add background music and graphics, calls to action, notations, and things like that.

Blogs

It is also important to make your blog easy to consume and read. Some things you can do are:

1. Make sure that your blog design is neat, organized, and not cluttered

2. Don’t have distracting flash, graphics, or colors on your blog that take away from your message

3. Make sure people can easily reach you – Prominently list your social media links, email, RSS feed, etc.

4. Make it easy for people to share your blog with others. I highly recommend the "Share This" plug-in which is displayed at the end of all of my posts. Try it out and see how easy it is to share this blog post.

These days, having great content is not enough, you must be easy to do business with and your content must be easy to consume.

What do you think?

Photo Credit, Jaxed

Recently, I have received a few emails from people who are down on their luck and wanting advice on turning their life around.  I thought I would   turn my answer to that question into a blog post so it helps others as well.

First of all, realize that you CAN turn your life around right now. Change happens in an INSTANT. What most people fail to realize is that you need to make the changes and then give it some TIME.

Imagine you are flying on an airplane from Seattle to Florida (west coast to east coast) and just as you are about to get to Florida you want to go back so you the pilot turns the plane around and starts flying back. You wouldn’t expect to snap your fingers and automatically be back in Seattle would you? It’s going to take you 6 hours to get back but you WILL get back. Using this analogy most people turn around and head back and give up when they aren’t back in Seattle in 30 minutes! Give it some time!

In life, many people want instant results. That just isn’t how it works. You can change your DIRECTION in an instant but you have to give yourself time to get to your new destination before you decide to quit. Here are two tips for changing something in your life right now:

1.       Make a decision RIGHT NOW to change something in your life that you are fed up with. Change it RIGHT NOW. Change your direction right now but give yourself some time to get to your new destination.

2.       Surround yourself with motivated, positive, uplifting people. This will work wonders in your life. I won’t do business with anyone who is not positive because it’s just not worth it. This goes for social media as well. Find like minded positive people on Twitter and communicate with them. Unfollow those that are negative.

I will talk more change in future blog posts. Please share your experiences of change in the comments on the blog!

1. Engage, Interact, & Communicate

Twitter is not meant to be a one-way medium. The true value of social media is the “back and forth” communication between people, sharing of ideas, and helping others. Don’t just post a bunch of “one way tweets”, make sure to spend time each day reading and responding to other people’s tweets as well. I sometimes call it “mining for gold”. There is lots of great stuff you will find on Twitter and when you do find something great, make sure and retweet it!

 

2. Don’t SPAM or pitch stuff

This sounds simple but many people STILL do it! Twitter is about relationships and communication, not selling. Don’t get me wrong, Twitter is a GREAT place to build a brand and sell lots of products, but that happens as a by-product of building relationships, communicating, and not using Twitter as your personal SPAM toilet.

 

3. Don’t judge a Twitterer by their number of followers

I know that some people see a Twitter user who only has a few followers and thinks that person may not be successful. Number of followers does not equate at all with level of success. There are people with tens of thousands of followers who are not successful and there are those with 3 followers that make millions of dollars. Obviously the reverse can also be true. The point is, don’t make the mistake of assuming that someone with only a few followers has no value because it’s just not true. By the way, I have a good friend who has been on Twitter for about a year now and he has less than 500 followers and what most people don’t know is that he runs a $34 MILLION dollar business.

 

4. Don’t send auto DM’s

This one’s going to be a little controversial but that is ok. Many people send auto direct messages when someone friends them up and it’s just not something that I recommend. As people’s DM’s grow by the hundreds, fake, automated, general DM’s have almost no value anyway so why waste anyone’s time? If you really want to knock someone’s socks off, send a real DM. Oh, and don’t fool yourself, people can always tell when a DM is real versus automated!

5. Have fun!

Share links, ideas, and conversation with others. Be genuinely interested in what’s going on with other people, CARE, and have fun!

How I Use The IGoogle Customized Home Page

Google gives you the ability to customize your home page and it is absolutely amazing. I did not start using this until a few months ago but now that I do, I will never go back!

Having a customized home page allows you to be more effective, save time, and can even help you make more MONEY!

Here is how my home page is laid out and why:

1. Gmail – I have a box that shows my email that comes in. I can also send email from this very home page.

2. Weather – I have weather showing for my home city as well as cities that I frequently travel to.

3. Date and Time – Self explanatory. You can also add your Google calendar

4. Google Bookmarks – This is NEW and I love it! This allows me to add as many bookmarks as I like and they will show up on my home page. I use this area for those sites that I visit on a regular basis but don’t have the room to add them on my browser’s toolbar. You can even configure these to open in a new window when you click on them.

5. Amazon.com Best Sellers – Great info, ideas, etc.

6. CNN.com – Latest news headlines

7. AP Top Stories Of The Day – Self Explanatory

8. How To Of The Day – Kind of fun. You could also have things like “joke of the day” or “word of the day”, etc.

9. Youtube – Top videos of the day

10. My local movie times

11. Notepad/To-Do List

12. Ebay Search

 

All of this fits very nicely and easily on my home page and there is plenty of room if I want to add more. To add additional things to your home page, you can just click on the “add stuff” icon.

Having a customized home page that shows just the stuff you want to see is a huge time saver and helps make you much more effective. I highly recommend it!

 

To start, go to: http://www.google.com/igoogle to start customizing YOUR home page.  Once you have it just the way you want, there is a link at the bottom that you can click to make it your home page.

Have fun!

 

SUCCESS – You have got to want it more than the next guy (or gal!). Plain and simple.

Everybody wants to succeed at some level, but it’s those who hustle, work their butts off, and unfailingly move forward towards their goals who usually achieve them. You have to crave your goal. If it doesn’t get you excited, keep you up at night and get you up early in the morning, you don’t have the right goal.

Should Versus MUST

Are the actions that you need to take to reach your goal on a daily basis a “should” or a “MUST“? If it’s a must, almost nothing will stop you from achieving them. The problem is with the “should” which is where most people fail. I should lose weight, I should do a blog post today, I should do this or that. As Tony Robbins says, most people should all over themselves! Don’t let that be YOU.

If you want to succeed in life, banish the word “should” from your vocabulary.

Here is a quick goal setting formula that I use:

1. Make sure that you have a goal that completely energizes you, makes it hard to go to sleep every night and springs you out of bed excitedly EVERY SINGLE MORNING.

2. Start at the end of the goal and work your way back to develop an action plan that will give you actions to take on a daily basis to achieve your goal. Make SURE that these actions are “MUSTS” and not “shoulds”. Schedule them and knock them out every single day.

3. Every week or so, evaluate your progress and see if there are other people, resources, or things that you can leverage to achieve your goal even sooner.

4. When you achieve your goal, and you WILL, celebrate! You are one of the few who took action and changed your life. Now imagine what else you could accomplish? Just about anything is possible if you are committed and it’s a MUST!  

In case you are wondering why there is a picture of a Pug at the top of this blog post, it’s because pugs LOVE food, they will do almost anything for it. If you have that same attitude about what you want to achieve, you can’t fail.

In my continuing movement to help people who are worried or struggling with the economy, I have asked billionaires, millionaires, and other very successful online and offline business leaders to answer just ONE question. We have already heard from billionaire Mark Cuban as well as Kris Jones from Pepperjam. This time, we hear from everyone’s favorite social media icon, Gary Vaynerchuk, aka @garyvee.  http://garyvaynerchuk.com/

Gary gets the same question that I asked Mark Cuban and others:

If you could give just ONE piece of advice to people who are starting or running a business and are worried about money and the state of our economy, what would it be?

 

Gary V said: “U have to position yourself to RUN to work everyday, be happy as heck everyday and that business will GROW”

 

I completely agree with Gary V. It’s about finding something that you LOVE to do, something that makes you happy, something you would do for free, and then hustling you’re A** off every single day. You will be happy and your business WILL grow.

Find your passion, monetize it, build your personal and business brand, work your tail off, be positive, make things happen, and enjoy the process. It’s so much better than working for someone else and doing something that you don’t give a damn about. Remember, opportunity is everywhere! 

Next up…DIDDY!

 In my continuing movement to help people who are worried or struggling with the economy, I have asked billionaires, millionaires, and other very successful online and offline business leaders to answer just ONE question.

I have already posted billionaire Mark Cuban’s answer a few blog posts below. This time, I will share what Kris Jones had to say. For those who don’t know him, Kris is the CEO of http://www.pepperjam.com and a major player in the online business world.

Same question that I asked Mark Cuban and others:

If you could give just ONE piece of advice to people who are starting or running a business and are worried about money and the state of our economy, what would it be?

Kris Jones said: “My single piece of advice is to be willing to welcome risk even in difficult times. The degree to which one perseveres in the face of hardship defines the strength of their character.”

That’s funny; it is very similar to what Mark Cuban said. Hmm, are you noticing a trend yet?

I have said it before and I will say it again, you must be able to risk in order to be ultra successful.

Here is a quick success formula for you:

Find your passion

Find a way to monetize that passion

Work your *ss off day and night to build the business

Build relationships

Build a BRAND

Be willing to risk

Do what most people won’t do

Enjoy success

 

On deck: Gary Vee!

 

Photo Credit: affiliatesummit

 

Let me start this off by saying, I LOVE Costco, I am a huge fan, but I don’t love them today and if I were their CEO, what happened today would be a BIG ISSUE that I would immediately fix.

To most people, this will seem trivial, but if you are running a company of any size, you MUST MAXIMIZE your customer experience or you are absolutely leaving money on the table. If you do think it’s just trivial, I’d love to compete against you.  

Everyone knows that Costco has “receipt checkers” at the doors when you leave the store. Their primary job is to make sure that nobody walks out with something that they did not pay for. Their secondary job SHOULD be maximizing the customer experience to ensure return visits and goodwill.

It’s not happening. As we walked out today, after the lady checked our receipt, I looked at her and said “thank you”. What did she say? Absolutely nothing. That’s a CRIME!

This was a perfect opportunity to maximize the customer experience with something so small as saying “you’re welcome”, “have a nice day”, or “thanks for shopping at Costco today”.

If I were the CEO of Costco, I would require every receipt checker to say something to every single customer that walks out the door or they would lose their job. In this day and age, the economy, online shopping, etc, people have many choices where to shop and if you don’t maximize every customer interaction, you are losing customers and losing money whether you know it or not.

So, why should Costco do what I suggest?

1. It is EASY

2. It is FREE

3. It takes no time, no money, and virtually no extra effort!

4. It will make them more money.

Shame on you Costco for not ensuring that you maximize the customer experience at every possible opportunity. I also want to note that this was not a one-time thing, it’s happened before and I was going to blog about it but never did.

So Costco, I ask you, why not maximize your customer experience at every possible opportunity, especially with those things that cost no time, money, or effort? You have a great company but you can make it better. I challenge you to improve your customer experience at every level.

As for other companies out there, even small one person internet companies, make sure that you maximize your customer experience at every possible opportunity because if you don’t, someone else WILL!

 

Photo Credit: pokoroto