8 Tips to Motivate Your Lazy Self

There are going to be days you don’t feel like doing much of anything. The occasional lazy day is fine, but when they become a regular occurrence, within you, something needs to change.

People obtain success and meet their goals through motivating or inspiring themselves to take action each day.

Whether this is just luck of the draw or a learned skill for those lucky few is debatable. However, there is no debate that anyone can learn to be more productive.

Try these tips to motivate yourself and increase the odds of success in your favor:

1. Be more willing to fail. Maybe you’re not being lazy. Maybe you’re procrastinating because you’re afraid of failing. A fear of failure will take the wind out of your sails and begin the process of rationalizing reasons for not doing anything at all. Embrace failure as a regular part of life.

2. Remember that life is short. Life is short, but it’s long enough, as long as you don’t waste time. You can get a lot accomplished between now and the end of your life, but only if you respect your time and make the most of it. It’s easy to put things off until tomorrow, but there are only so many tomorrows left.

3. Consider the long-term cost. What is the cost of waiting or not taking advantage of the opportunity before you? It’s easy to see the enjoyment of sitting on the couch for another day. It’s not as intuitive to think about what being lazy will mean a year or more from now.

4. Consider the benefit of getting something accomplished. What will you get from going to the gym every day for the next year? What will happen if you don’t go? What do you get from taking action right now? Focus on that instead of the short-term pleasure of being lazy.

5. Ask yourself what you could accomplish today. What could you get done today? How would you feel about yourself and your day if you did get a few meaningful things accomplished? Make a list of things you’d like to get done and then follow your list.

6. Use a timer. Spending four hours cleaning out the attic isn’t too appealing but seeing how much you can accomplish in 15 minutes is intriguing. A timer will give you a specific endpoint and focus your attention. You might decide to reset the timer and give it another go after the first round.

7. Create goals. Having a few short-term goals and long-term goals can make it easier to motivate yourself. It’s not easy to go the gym just for the heck of it. It’s easier to go to the gym if you have a goal of losing five pounds this month, or 50 pounds this year, or looking great for your class reunion.

8. Use music, books, quotes, or movies for motivation. Maybe you have a certain movie scene or song that motivates you. For someone else, it might be a favorite quote. YouTube is full of inspirational videos that only take a few minutes to watch. Start and end the day with something that inspires you to take action.

One thing that separates successful folks from mere mortals is the ability to get things done on a consistent basis. It’s important to know how to motivate yourself each day. Use the most of each day and avoid wasting too much time. Life is short, so make the most of it. There’s nothing to be gained by being lazy. Find your focus end procrastination without the willpower

Source: https://www.amazines.com/Motivation/article_detail.cfm/6262951?articleid=6262951

Who Needs Website Marketing?

 Why do so many people in affiliate and network marketing fail online? While there's no short answer that would include everyone's situation, some of the problem exist in understanding the difference between advertising and marketing.

While advertising is a way to get the word out about a business, products, or services; marketing is a bit more complex. Marketing is the methods used to persuade people that you have the product they want and why.

So while advertising is the medium or method used to let people know of your stuff, marketing is the technique used to convince people to spend their money. Website marketing is not only useful, it's a must, especially for all businesses online. There's so many distractions with everyone competing for attention, but only those with a good marketing plan will end in high profits.

Advertising is part of the website marketing equation; which is the only way a marketing system can work or function. Without advertising to generate website visitors, the marketing system would be totally useless. As you can see both advertising and marketing go hand and hand, that's why it has been clumped together as one and seen as unseparable.

In order to properly promote a website business, products, and services, having a good grasp on both advertising and marketing are a must. By keeping them as two entities, more focus can be placed where it is most needed during the marketing campaign's creation.

When separating advertising and marketing, it allows things to become easier, in a step by step, more organized process. Whereas trying to plot a website marketing campaign haphazardly usually ends in lots of re-tweaking during the campaign. It is then that unforeseen errors come to the surface and make themselves known.

Learning website marketing online from scratch, as many new people often pursue, is not the most favorable way to learn marketing. However, with training, proper ongoing education, patience, and hard work a newbie may prevail. It's not uncommon for someone that was business and technology illiterate to become efficient in both, and create a successful business online.

To learn more about advertising and marketing online, visit HomanArtDesign.com to download our free new person's Internet marketing guide

Source: https://www.amazines.com/MLM/article_detail.cfm/6198577?articleid=6198577

The greatest entrepreneurship story untold

 I always find it impressive to see people go into business at such a young age.

No, I’m not talking about the influencers on Instagram and YouTube who show off their rented lamborghinis, penthouses they rented on Airbnb, and claim they retired at the age of 17.

But take Shark Tank, for example.

Sometimes, the show features some young kids along with their parents. It’s amazing to see these kids give better pitch presentations than most adults.

And some of them do end up making deals with the investors, which is great!

But there’s one story that I believe tops them all.

One kid in Mexico has done the impossible.

There’s a seven year old student who loves to watch Shark Tank, so his entrepreneurial spirit developed very early. And he came up with an idea to literally profit from his creativity.

He made up some imaginary friends and introduced them to several students in his school.

During recess, the other students were so curious that they actually bought their own imaginary friends from this young entrepreneur.

He sold each imaginary friend for 20 pesos, and at the end of the day, he earned 500 pesos, which roughly equates to 25 USD.

Absolutely amazing.

Now, $25 may not sound like a lot of money. But to earn that amount from selling essentially nothing, that’s impressive, especially for an elementary school student.

So what’s there to learn from this? Off the top of my head, two things.

1. If a kid can pull something like this off, then there should be no excuse as to why we can’t do things.

2. Curiosity sells, especially when you implement it in your emails.

To learn more, check out How to Become an Email Titan.

https://EllisenWang.com/email-titan-sample

About the author:

Ellisen Wang is an email copywriter and the author of “How to Become an Email Titan.” You can read the sample chapters of the book and learn how to write email copy that your subscribers will never get enough of and will make them want to buy from you by opting in at EllisenWang.com. When you opt in, you’ll also get daily copywriting, email marketing, and business tips sent straight to your inbox. If you don't want to optin, you can also read through the blog and listen to the audios for more marketing content and training.

Source: https://www.amazines.com/Sales/article_detail.cfm/6262372?articleid=6262372

Make Your Distribution Work for You - In Four Simple Steps

 Better distribution of your products results in greater profits for you – this is stating the obvious. But, how does one make distribution management effective and efficient? Pundits have come up with various options. Some of these are complex, and most of these will yield limited returns to you. This article focuses on four simple but proven steps through which you can manage your distribution better.

However, before we get to these steps, let’s take a quick look at what we mean by ‘distribution’, the different channels through which distribution management is done, and what their inherent weaknesses are. An understanding of the pitfalls of traditional distribution channels, as also retail management options exercised by any manufacturer, whether, of consumer goods, auto parts, pharmaceuticals, etc., will make it clear how and why the four steps outlined later on would work for you.

What is ‘Distribution’?

‘Distribution’ means spreading your product in the marketplace in such a way that your potential customers can buy it without any hassles. That is, there is little or no wait time for them if they wish to procure your product, that they don’t have to trek many kilometers to lay their hands on it. This is critical for you as the manufacturer of your product as well – if your distribution management is robust, you don’t give your potential customer an excuse to buy your competitors’ products. It is not difficult to convince anyone about the need to have a clear vision of why having a sound distribution management strategy is vital for your survival in the market. Implementing one that works for you, however, is not as easy as one might imagine. Let’s look deeper into this.

You need to have good control over the following aspects to ensure that your distribution management is robust:

1. Information about where your product should be available. That is, which are your high demand and low demand areas.
2. A reliable transportation system to ensure your products reach different areas on time, consistently.
3. The ability to track your products. Your retailers should get the right quantity of your product at the right time. If it reaches him early, he will have to waste precious space storing it; too late, means a disappointed customer, and a potential new customer to your competition.
4. Packing your products in such a manner that they reach your wholesalers or retailers without damages or broken bits. Make it easy for them to sell your product.
5. Retrieving the unsold units from the retailer so that you can re-direct them to other retailers who need your product for selling.

Distribution, thus, plays a vital role in ensuring the success of a manufacturing company. If you can sell your product faster and cheaper than your competition, you can hope to survive tough market conditions.

Channels of Distribution

How do you get your product (or service, for that matter) to your end customer? This is what is meant by a ‘distribution channel’. Or, conversely, you can think of it as the route through which the money moves from the end consumer to the original vendor, or manufacturer.

There are various ways by which you can distribute your products or services to your end user:

• You can distribute directly to your end customer. Such as Amazon, which sells Kindles directly to their end users. (Amazon uses its own logistics to distribute their products to the end user.) Or you may appoint a distributor for an area, who then distributes the product to all the retailers in that area.
• You may sell through a chain of retailers- either company owned or dedicated partners, who then sells it to your end customer. Birkenstock sandals, for example, which can be bought only through their authorized retailers. Or Dell or HP computers. Jockey has both company owned stores in and franchisees in their channel
• You may go in for the more traditional set up – manufacturer, distributor, retailer, and finally, the end consumer - as followed by the wine and adult beverage industry, for example. Meaning, you sell to your area distributors, who, in turn, sell it to their retailers. End users buy your product from these retailers.
• Or you may sell it to wholesalers, who, in turn, either sell it to retailers and/ or sell it to end users.
• You may also opt for a mix of these above models.

Distribution management channels can be broadly classified into two categories: Direct and Indirect. When a company invests in its own distribution channel, it is known as Direct Distribution. Amazon selling Kindles directly to its customers, or companies appointing area distributors are examples of direct distribution channels. When a company sells its products to a wholesaler or a large retailer (usually at a volume-based price), who then sells it to the end users - it is an example of Indirect Distribution. It goes without saying that direct distribution is superior to indirect distribution, as it yields better margins for the company, and companies have much more control over how their products are marketed, etc.

Then, why don’t companies do only direct distribution? The answer is simple – attempting to cover their entire market just by direct distribution is not a practical solution, as companies believe that 80% of a company’s sales come from 20% of the country (this is known as the Pareto Principle). And this 20% is considered to be mainly the urban centres within India – the metropolitan cities, and to a lesser extent the bigger towns. Even though companies are aware that rural segment presents a significant and untapped market, most companies do not think that it is worth the investment that would be required to cover this largely scattered market using direct distribution. Instead, companies hope that the wholesaler network will assure an acceptable level of coverage of such regions. Hence, the adoption of a mixed model of distribution. But given the advantages of direct distribution, companies continually make an attempt to improve it if they can. However, direct distribution as it is currently practiced by most companies is not without its own set of challenges.

Distribution Management: The Challenges in Direct Distribution

Companies establish distributors to service all the retailers in their area. These retailers in turn, ensure that your product is available to the end user. All fine on paper. Probe a bit deeper, and you will unearth a plethora of challenges, some of them originating from the company’s end itself.

Companies have monthly and quarterly targets. To meet them, they often resort to pushing their products to their distributors (most often near the month or quarter end) - the carrot for the distributors being the discounts offered by the company. But very often, these distributors do not have too much of working capital, and in order to release working capital, they push the surplus products to their retailers. And, when the retailers are forced to stock more than what they need, they react by delaying their payments to the distributors. The result? Higher outstanding in the market for the distributors. When this reaches the threshold level, the distributors adopt the same tactic as the parent company – volume-based discounts (to the retailers) to flush out stocks. The resultant situation of high outstanding and lower retention of margin creates viability issues for some distributors, forcing them to cut their costs and scale by compromising the reach and/or frequency of serving “smaller” retailers in their territory.

The Challenges in Indirect Distribution

Very often the wholesaler mode of distribution is used by companies with the hope that they will sell to retailers in areas where the company has no direct reach. So, the model is “the Company – Wholesaler – Retailer” or “Company – Wholesaler – End user”. The main challenge here is that companies don’t have any control over the wholesaler. What they do with the company’s product after they purchase them is not visible to the company. They tend to be passive sellers, even when they service retailers. They decide which products they will stock, which retailers they will cater to, and at what price they will sell their products. Companies that depend significantly for distribution on wholesalers may end up trying to please their wholesalers through huge volume discounts, etc. creating price parity issues in their direct distribution channels and cannibalization of sales from their distributors! (Solutions to this problem through the establishment of a sub-stockist, etc. result in their own set of problems, and that is not the focus of this article. Suffice it to say, that these methods very often do not work.)

How then to Make Your Distribution Work for You?

Let’s now look at four simple steps through which you can make your distribution management really work for you.

• No Pushing Please, Only Pulling Allowed Sales Managers are acutely aware of the problems of ‘push sales’ (i.e. pushing your product to the distributors based on inherently inaccurate forecasts and under pressure to meet monthly and/ or quarterly targets). But they continue to adhere to this out of fear that if the distributor has capital to spare at his end, he might spend it on products from their competitor. It is also easier for them to sell in bulk rather than keep track of actual consumption, and supply as per needs, that is, sales based on pull. However, moving to ‘pull’ mode of inventory distribution which ensures that the inventory levels in the entire supply chain is lean, right from suppliers to retailers is a win-win equation for all concerned.
• Collaborating is Better than Combating When companies don’t see distributor challenges as their own, they get into a combative relationship with their distributors. Pass on your target pressures to your distributor by encouraging them to buy in bulk. But this is sheer short-sightedness and will come back to bite the companies themselves. Instead, come up with mechanisms through which they can really do the job they are meant to do in a more effective and efficient manner – i.e., increase the retailers they can service (both big and small).
• Don’t Go towards Discounts – Have a Go-to-Market Strategy Instead Don’t force your distributors to be penny wise and pound foolish. That is, force them to focus only on the short-term benefits, while ignoring the big picture. When you offer discounts and tempt your distributors to buy in bulk from you to avail discounts or schemes, you too are adopting this approach. GTM is a strategy for reaching out to every potential and relevant retailer in the country, regardless of size. This is based on the premise that wherever there is a likely footfall, there is a potential to sell and the brand should be available for every potential sale. So, help distributors to help you better by allowing them to have enough liquidity to be able to afford to service all retailers in their area frequently, both big and small. Focus on supplying in small stocks frequently, helping them get better inventory turns and consequently better ROI. Supporting distributors in better retailer management can lead to better a distribution management process for you. Company management can put in place enablers to increase the number of retailers that are enrolled with respective distributors
• Don’t choke the channel, instead leverage data When the entire supply chain is operating smoothly on a pull mode where each node only supplies as per consumption at the next node, it is possible to track the movement of goods even without any IT infrastructure at the retail points. So, companies can focus on what is really selling, whether it is at a big outlet in Bangalore or a small retail store in the by lanes of a village. As you probably see, this information can be key in distribution management and retailer management. With this data access, company can take the actions to ensure that all emerging problems of retailers are handled in a timely fashion. These actions at retail points will ensure a continuous and increasing sales for the distributors and consequently for the company.

Source: https://www.amazines.com/Sales/article_detail.cfm/6262396?articleid=6262396

How to Increase Website Traffic & Attract Qualified Visitors

 What is the True Purpose of a Business Website?

Like it or not, if you own a business, you’ve got to have a properly done website.

Most business owners understand this, but unfortunately, there are far too many of them who think they can just haphazardly slap something together and that’ll be good enough.

But the fact of the matter is, if your website isn’t well-designed, it’s not going to do much for your business, and it can actually do more harm than good.

Having a website that performs poorly, looks amateurish, or doesn’t properly portray your brand can be incredibly detrimental to your business.

At the same time, many business owners aren’t aware of all the benefits offered by a high-performing website, and even fewer know what a business website’s true purpose really is.

A high-performing website will offer a ton of benefits for your business, including:

Attracting your ideal customers Setting you apart from the competition Ensuring a great experience for all users Making you easier to find on search engines Helping you to boost sales and get more leads Increasing the perceived credibility of your business From my perspective, a good website only has one main purpose, which is bolstered by all the benefits I listed above. But I’ll get into that a bit more in a minute.

So, if you’re wondering how to increase website traffic, or asking yourself, “What is the purpose of a business website?” then you’re going to want to keep reading.

Because in this article, I’m going to explain the purpose of a business website, point out some common problems that prevent them from performing to their full potential, and offer some advice on how to mitigate those issues.

What is the Purpose of a Business Website? You’re About to Find Out!

As I said above, I believe a business website has one true purpose, and that purpose is to generate, and convert, qualified leads by connecting you with your ideal clients.

Over the years, I’ve seen countless business owners who pay some unqualified designer to throw a website together for them, or try to create one themselves, and then continue to work like dogs to find leads themselves, oblivious to the fact that this is what their website is supposed to be doing for them.

If a website is poorly designed, it’s not likely to bring in many qualified leads, if any.

But with a well-designed, high-performing website, the idea is that you no longer have to do all that legwork yourself, because your website is literally a lead-generating machine.

READ: 5 Tips for Creating the Best Website Content Strategy

5 Tips for Creating the Best Website Content Strategy

If you want a high-performing website, it has to contain killer content.

Without it, your website will be less likely to bring in qualified leads or drive conversions.

So, if you want to improve the quality of the content on your website, then this article will give you a great place to start. It explains some of the best tactics for creating a great content strategy, like conducting keyword research, doing a brand analysis, and putting the focus on your customers.

Keep reading on our website.

Why Your Website is Performing Poorly and What to Do About it. Let’s dive into some of the reasons why business owners’ websites perform so poorly. I also share some recommendations for some methods for ensuring your website’s performing at its best.

Crappy Content One of the main reasons why websites do well is because they are written for your ideal client, not you or your business.

So, if you want to attract website visitors, and more importantly, keep them from immediately leaving your website, you’ve got to ensure your copy resonates with them and what they find of value to their needs and challenges.

A survey from Adobe of more than 12,000 consumers found that “nearly 9 out of 10 will abandon a bad content experience”.

That being said, when it comes to content, there are many things you want to avoid, and several things you need to consider, as well.

So, when you’re creating your content, make sure to consider things like:

Is this content truly relevant to the people I want to help? Is this content going to provide value for my target audience? Would my ideal customer actually take time out of their day to consume this content?

Are the problems or pain points experienced by my target audience being addressed?

Is my content empathizing with those problems or pain points so my ideal client knows I get them and understand what they are experiencing?

Simultaneously, you have to make sure to avoid doing things like:

Skipping important research and analysis to truly understand your ideal client and what they are hoping to

 find on your website to convince them you are the best solution for their needs 

 

Publishing content that focuses on you and your business instead of your customers

Creating content that doesn’t address the problems you can solve for your customers

Stuffing irrelevant keywords into your content in hopes to get some SEO traction

Publishing poorly written content that’s filled with errors From a marketing perspective, the whole point of creating content for your website is to attract website visitors who fit into your target audience, and keep them on your website for as long as possible, which will not only decrease your bounce rate and boost your search engine rankings, but more importantly, convert them into paying customers.

But if you publish content that’s poorly written, isn’t directly relevant to the keywords it’s targeting, has nothing to do with the problems you can solve for potential customers, or otherwise isn’t providing value for the reader/viewer, it’s going to work against you.

As a result, you’re going to look less trustworthy and credible, you won’t get as much website traffic, those who do visit your site won’t be interested in what you’re offering, and most visitors will probably leave your site within a few seconds, which ends all possibility of them becoming a paying client.

Bad First Impressions This definitely ties into the last point, because if the first thing a website visitor sees is a piece of crappy content, then you’ve already made a bad first impression.

But there’s so much more to it than that.

Every single aspect of your website, including things like how it brands your business, the way it looks, and the way it functions, can create a bad impression of not just your website, but also you and your business in general.

Research from Stanford University concluded that there are indeed “universal factors” which affect users’ perception of a website’s credibility, such as the way a site looks and the structure of its content.

A study published by Elsevier looked specifically at how the aesthetics of a website affect its perceived credibility.

When study participants were shown the same piece of content with “different levels of aesthetic treatment”, the content that was more aesthetically pleasing was considered more credible.

In other words, if your website looks good, users are likely to assign more credibility to your business.

In addition, a study published in Behaviour & Information Technology found that the visual appeal of a website can be assessed in about 50 milliseconds, which means it takes only a tiny fraction of a second for a website to make a favourable first impression.

To be honest, none of these findings are surprising, and it makes sense that consumers would make these kinds of assumptions, whether they’re true or not.

In any case, if you want to make a good first impression with your website, you should make sure:

The design of your website is aesthetically pleasing Your visual branding accurately represents your brand Your website functions properly and looks great on any device All aspects of your website are designed to appeal to your ideal customers

You work with a qualified web developer/designer who can make all this happen

Slow Site Speed Another thing that’s absolutely crucial in terms of a website’s performance is its speed.

Gone are the days when you’d have to wait several minutes for a website to load, as your 56K modem beeped and buzzed its way to the finish line.

Today, consumers expect websites to load within no more than a few seconds, and if they don’t, they’ll simply move on to a competitor’s website and give them their business instead.

In a survey from Unbounce, 70 per cent of respondents admitted that the speed of a website impacts their “willingness to buy from an online retailer.”

The same survey also found that the majority of respondents would not wait more than 4-6 seconds for a website to load on their phone, and it also pointed out that according to Google, most people will leave a page if it doesn’t load within three seconds.

In addition, a study from Portent found that a site that loads within one second will get five times more conversions than a site that takes ten seconds to load.

The study also found that when it comes to e-commerce websites, the highest conversion rates occur on sites that load within two seconds or less.

So, if you want to prevent people from leaving your site before it even loads, and avoiding your site in the future because they can’t be bothered to wait, you’ve got to make sure your site loads quickly.

That being said, there are several things you can do to increase the speed of your website, including:

Running as few plugins as possible Avoiding poor-quality WordPress themes Ensuring your CSS code is properly written Minimizing the number of elements on each page Optimizing images by compressing them before uploading Removing unnecessary JavaScript and other programming code

Are you wondering why your website isn’t performing the way it should? Would you like to access the advice of an expert with more than 20 years of experience? Right now, we’re offering a half-price professional website review and a one-on-one 60-minute strategy session with our founder and Brand Specialist, Susan Friesen. If you’re interested, you can Contact us today or more information.

To your business success, Susan Friesen

Source: https://www.amazines.com/Internet__Marketing/article_detail.cfm/6263555?articleid=6263555