Begin at the End – By Tom Hess
One of the most valuable lessons to be learned, in terms of achieving goals, is to begin at the end. When working towards any goal, most people begin at the beginning (sounds logical doesn’t it?). The problem with starting at the beginning is most of us are focused on where we are right now. It is natural to begin from where our current strengths and weaknesses are, where our preferences lie or based on what our present circumstances are. Then what we normally do is put one foot forward (take action) based on those things. For many of us, the direction of that step (and the rest that will follow) is typically on the path of least resistance.
A common mistake in planning to achieve any “multi step goal” occurs when we begin planning from where we are in the present moment (from the beginning). This is the “bottom up” approach. Contrary to popular belief, the key to effective planning is to design your strategies from the “top down.” After you have established clearly defined and specific goals, develop your plans in reverse order (also known as “backwards” or “top down”). To do this we need to know the final step to reach that goal (notice I did not say “the first step”, I said, “the final step”). Once we have that answer, we need to know the step just before the final step. We repeat the process until we get down to the level we are at now.
Why should it matter if you make plans from the top down versus the bottom up? Is there really a difference between top downand bottom up? Won’t all the steps be exactly the same? NO! Why? Well there are many reasons, the main one is this: When you plan from the top down, you must take action IN ADVANCE to gain the knowledge needed to create the plan. This means you need to actually know (or be committed to learn) what the final steps are. Most people do not know what they are (which is perfectly normal), and/or don’t invest the time to find out. What typically happens is people begin from the beginning with an attempt to do things from the bottom up. Figuring out the first step to take from where they are now is usually easy to plan. And maybe the next 3 or 4 steps are also pretty easy to see how those things point in the general direction of their goals. Then they get stuck on what the rest of the steps might be and instead of really finding out, they usually begin to take action without a completed plan. They tell themselves things like this:
“I don’t know exactly what to do, but I have a general idea of the obvious stuff that I should be doing now, so I’ll do those things and then I’ll try to figure out what to do after that”.
Or
“I can’t plan that far ahead so I’ll just get started now and see where that leads me.”
Imagine if a corporation developed strategies in this way. They would waste a lot of time and money not really knowing what all the steps are and their competitors would put them out of business.
The other problem with building plans from the beginning (bottom up) is that it is very likely that the steps will take you in a direction that is off course from the outcome you want. Sure, strategies may evolve over time, but the chances of staying on course are greatly increased when you know what the final 5-10 steps need to be and plan the earlier steps around getting to the later steps.
What’s next?
We all know to search for answers to our questions. Most people spend their time finding answers to the questions in the middle circle. But how can we succeed if we don’t even know what it is that we don’t know? Finding the answers, the solutions, the guidance, and your own path to achieve what you want will be so much harder if you don’t know what the right questions are.
Since I am a guitar teacher and a music career coach, when I explain these concepts to my students, I tell them the following: “Think back to when you were a beginning guitar player and had no clue what was involved in becoming a good musician. You probably knew there would be a lot to learn, but didn’t know, at that time, how much there is to be learned. In other words, you didn’t know what you didn’t know. As time went by, you gained more experience and now understand more about music than you did before. The more one learns, the easier it becomes to see how much more there is to know.”
Imagine you are seeking solutions to an important problem or challenge in your life. You go to a huge library searching for solutions. Lets assume that somewhere in that library is a book (or set of books) that contains the answers you need. Now imagine that for some strange reason you don’t want to ask the librarian to help you locate the book(s) that have the solutions/answers you seek. How easy will it be to “get lucky” and stumble upon the right resource you need?
It seems obvious that the fastest way to acquire the knowledge is to go straight to the librarian and tell him/her exactly what you are looking for, or look it up on the library’s data base. It’s not very effective to read every book in the library to find the specific answers you are searching for. Yet, this is exactly what some people try to do in order to reach their goals. Other people look at the massive size of the information out there and become intimidated by it. These people give up on their goals because it seems to “unrealistic” or “impossible”.
Many people spend years chasing things that don’t matter and ignoring the things that do matter either because of ignorance or unwillingness to commit to finding a better way. (I can relate. I used to be exactly like this.) Those that have the greatest chances of finding the solutions to their problems or challengesare the people who seek first to discover what it is that they do not know. To have the right answers, you need to possess the right questions. Many of those answers may lie beyond what you are even aware exists right now.
To begin at the end you must:
1. Be specific about what the end actually is.
2. Build your plans from the top down (not the bottom up).
3. If you don’t know how to build from the top down, find someone who does know.
Every person, situation and goal is different. Outlining a complete hypothetical plan that is specific and detailed would be overly cumbersome in this format. The purpose of this article is to shed light onto the principal of beginning at the end, not to engross you into a plan that may not be relevant to you, your goals, and your present circumstances.
** To comment on this article or to read comments about this article, go here.
About the Author:
Tom Hess is a professional touring guitarist and recording artist. He teaches, trains, and mentors musicians from around the world. Learn more about how to build a career in the music business. Visit http://tomhess.net to get 15 free music career tips.
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A Home Based Business Overview:
Tutoring
With schools starting up around the nation, It seems to be an appropriate time to take a look at tutoring as a home based business.
Students in all grades, elementary through college, can often use a helping hand to smooth out the rough spots.
If you enjoy working one on one and you have patience. If you get a satisfying thrill in seeing a child’s face light up when they finally get it. Tutoring could be a perfect chance for you to work at a rewarding career that could easily provide a part time income and you could develop it into a full time business, if that’s your goal.
Of course the more qualified you are the higher rate you can charge, but you can expect from $20 up to $100 an hour for more technical specialized tutoring.
The Breakdown For Home Tutoring
To be the very best home tutor, you will need to have some skills in teaching. A formal teaching education or background would be ideal. For example, some teachers supplement their income working from home tutoring. If you are a former teacher, this could work well for you. If you do not have this type of education, you still may benefit from this type of work at home opportunity. If you have a degreed education, you may be able to help with tutoring. Families who do home school may also be able to fit this requirement.
The key to remember here is that home tutoring is not for everyone. You will need to be
someone that can work well with others and who understands the concepts being taught by the school. You may need to help children with learning disabilities or those who do not like to learn. You may wish to take a few classes to freshen up on the areas you will be tutoring in, too. Some tutors specialize in certain subjects, such as reading, math, or science.
How To Get Started
To be successful as a home tutor, you will need to have students on a regular basis. After school homework help is one option. Students come in for an hour or so after school to work with you on their homework. This may be three to four days per week. Other students require just some additional help in one or two subjects and may need a one to two hour block of time dedicated to that topic once or twice per week. Some tutors tutor on the weekends. Finding those to work with is as easy as listing your services online, in local ads, and at local schools. Often, online tutoring is an option, too.
Hopefully this article gives you some ideas on the home tutoring business. It’s not for everyone but if it’s for you it can be a great way to help out the kids and earn some good money in the process.
Home Based Business as a Freelance Writer
Do you have a passion for writing? Non fiction writers can make a sizable income working off
the web. Here, you are constructing website copy for business’s websites. Every business in the
developed world is likely to benefit from having a website. By writing articles, blogs and press
releases for them, you help these companies to do well online.
How It Works
To be a freelance writer, you definitely need to know how to write content for the web. This
includes knowing how to make web content search engine friendly, how to write non sales and
sales types of product and how to write in the tone that’s expected online. You will likely need
some training, but there are outstanding groups to help you.
Potential Income
How much money can you make writing as a freelance web writer? This can vary considerably,
too. At first, making $1 per 100 words is a good route to take, but don’t let that stop you. Some
are making $1 per word, with the average being the 500 word article. That is a sizable profit, but
you do need training to get to that point.
More Information
For those ready to make this type of living from home, a good place to start is with other writers.
A number of forums are available online to help you to learn the markets available to beginners.
To find jobs in freelance writing, there are various resources available online. Some companies
have full bidding websites where you can pick up jobs others are looking to fill.
As a freelance writer, you do need to know how to sell online. You will need to invest some time
in learning the ins and outs of the business. This includes learning skills like search engine
optimization and writing content for websites. You also will need to be able to sell yourself as a
professional in the industry. That is never an easy job to do but it can be one of the best ways to
get your foot in the door.
High paying jobs are rarely available right off the bat, but many individuals can start to earn
money online right away. Be careful to avoid scams which raman amplifier run widely online for freelance
writers. Also, be sure you have a reliable Internet connection and word processing software
available online to help you to make your freelance writing business online a true success right
from the start.
Here are some questions you may have about the
Design Dashboard and the answers:
QUESTION ONE: Is this just for designing web sites? Or can
it help me (or my assistant) do graphics for blogs,
landing pages, affiliate pre-sell pages, ebook covers and
Power Point presentations?
ANSWER: It’ll help you with anything you need to do
graphics for. Even if you outsource, it’s GREAT to be able
to whip something out in a hurry when you don’t have time
to wait.
QUESTION TWO: Is this something I can REALLY do without
sweating bullets and going through the learning curve from
down below?
ANSWER: ONLY if you have “The Design Dashboard.” If you
don’t, yeah, it’s gonna be a real pain. But with the
Design Dashboard, you have step-by-step screen caps that
make doing things a breeze. Plus, video where needed.
QUESTION THREE: Why would I need this if I use templates?
ANSWER: 1. A blog header with graphics looks better than a
plain one. You have the chance to do a little branding.
2. Templates for Power Point are just backgrounds. What
about graphics that illustrate your point?
3. If you buy the SAME templates from the same places
everyone else does, will YOU break through the noise?
4. With just a little skill and the right software, you
can create some GREAT graphics for affiliate pre-sell
pages.
5. There ARE programs that create ebook covers but they
don’t do the GRAPHICS FOR the covers in most cases. The
Design Dashboard serves many purposes.
QUESTION FOUR: How much is the software gonna ding me for?
ANSWER: $100 or less for the graphics software. If you
want to add flash audio buttons to your site, you can
spend $27 to $100 for that software, but SAVE $20 a month
vs. what most people do.
In other words, if you do just ONE graphic header in 2007
yourself instead of outsourcing it, you paid for it.
QUESTION FIVE: Why learn to do design when I can outsource
it?
ANSWER: 1. You may not get the special treatment and same
quality that “gurus” receive.
2. Talented designers sometimes get booked up for weeks.
What if you need it sooner rather than later?
3. Once you see how easy it is to do graphics, you’ll
probably find yourself doing at least SOME stuff yourself
when you’re in a hurry.
4. Outsourcing is great. But you may want to only
outsource when you need that special touch and do
bread-and-butter stuff yourself.
5. You can have your ASSISTANT use the Design Dashboard
and do stuff for you. It can be your training tool for
THEM.
QUESTION SIX: What will the Design Dashboard do for me?
ANSWER: 1. You can design GRAPHICS for blogs, landing
pages, affiliate pre-sell pages, ebook covers, power
points.
2. Above and beyond that, there are step-by-step
instructions for your sales letter (if you need one), ftp,
shopping cart and other stuff. This is ONLY for the people
who need it. You can use all the design part even if you
don’t need THOSE things. But it’s nice to know they’re
there if you need them.
3. You will save money.
Other programs use software that isn’t mainstream and may
not keep up with the times. Plus, you can’t buy any books
on it at the bookstore. Or they use Photoshop CS which is
$650 or $750 USD. Then, for html, they use Dreamweaver,
which sets you back more. I could go on and on. I’ve
stripped out every possible cost.
4. You will save time
I know you have 1,000 things to do. Even watching videos
takes TIME. That’s why I’ve used as many screen caps as I
can. Learning from them is faster than video. But I’ve
used video where it made learning faster.
5. You will avoid a painful, full-blown learning curve
The worse thing about software is the learning curve. I’ve
taken out the learning curve and JUST given you the steps
you need to know.
QUESTION SEVEN:
What is the difference between the Design Dashboard and the
Marketing Dashboard?
ANSWER: One is for design. The other is for marketing.
The URL is:
http://www.designdashboard.com
Best wishes,
Tags: home based internet marketing business, start a home based internet marketing business, Start Home Based Internet Marketing Business
Waiting For Things To Happen
If you truly want to develop a ‘think and grow rich’ mindset, you must remember that every successful entrepreneur is an ACTION TAKER.
Many make the mistake of building a beautiful website and a product, but they just sit around all day hoping sales will come. This is WRONG.
You must never sit around and wait for things to happen. Rather, you must go out there are recruit partners, make friends and most important of all – DRIVE TRAFFIC!
Dealing With Machines Instead Of Humans
Another common mistake by Internet marketing newbies – is that they do not spot the hottest trends.
You see, some people are sadly mistaken because they assume that Internet marketing is all about dealing with ‘machines’.
At the core of it, the very people who are going to be your customers (or the people who are going to click on your advertisements) are HUMAN BEINGS. We have to apply the proper psychology when we are dealing with them.
Dealing with humans require the human touch. Are you just writing articles for PEOPLE to read or are you just writing articles to please the search engines?
Not Being Focused
There are Internet marketers out there who try every traffic generation method in the book but they are not focusing on one.
They try driving in traffic from blogs, search engines, AdWords, viral marketing and everything under the sun, but they are not focused.
It is better to have ONE traffic generation method driving LOTS of traffic compared to 10 traffic generation methods that produce less than one focused method because dabbling with many methods often do not produce concentrated results.
Tags: home based business model, start a home based internet marketing business, Start Home Based Internet Marketing Business
Find a skill
The easiest way to make money online is to ‘sell’ a skill. This skill could be any form of service that you can provide to help other marketers save time, save money and save effort.
Here are a few examples:
• Writing – you can become a ghostwriter, copywriter or blogger and sell your skills to other marketers
• Graphics Design – you can create powerful E-covers for E-books or graphic banners for mini-sites
• Technical – you can help people if you are good with programming (e.g. script installation, testing and website setup)
• Networking – help other people to recruit affiliates for their product launches
If you want to develop the winning mindset, make sure you work hard by serving others first even if the pay is low or you are required to sacrifice time (and sometimes, money) in order to develop your skill and build your clientele.
Create Your Own Product
After you develop enough expertise with your skills, you can turn your skills into a product.
The most important thing to remember is that your skill must be something that brings value to others. If you can bring value to others and monetize it, others will most probably want to learn from you as well.
Once you teach others how to monetize their skill, you will have a product that will impart your expertise to others. For example: a product that teaches people “how to make money with copywriting”
Create A Business
Once you are able to combine all your products together and develop your very own system, you have a business running already.
The important thing to remember about a business is that you must have a holistic approach when it comes to business building.
Don’t just focus on your primary skill alone. Try and outsource other tasks to other people. For example, if your strength is in writing, your business must not only include writing but many other aspects such as graphics, tutorials and even a helpdesk to help you answer questions.
At the end of the day, you need a complete system to market your business.
Automating Your Business
If your business is taking up too much of your time, the best thing you can do is to try and automate your business by letting others run it for you.
Basically you still maintain ownership of your business (and revenue, of course). But what you must do is to train up people who are capable of running the business for you. By the time your business is successful enough to be automated, you can hire people who are smarter than you to run it for you.
The trade off is that you have to pay them a lot of money, but the best thing you have is more free time. When you buy people’s time with your money, you effectively remove the shackles that your business has on your time and you can use that time to invest into another business.
Remember the golden rule: Think BIG and think long term.
Tags: Home Based Business, home based business model, home based internet business, How To, Start Home Based Internet Marketing Business
Why is List Building So Important?
How successful is your home based internet marketing business?
Consider your online business, do you think you are successful?
Ask most home based entrepreneurs these questions,
and they often brush it off. Because most of them, who have
not yet realized the right way to succeed in a home based internet marketing
business, continue to believe that the mere fact that they have a website
is already enough to succeed on the Internet.
They miss the secret behind the success in Internet Marketing,
and end up frustrated and upset.
A website will not guarantee that your online business
will prosper. How will you succeed if people do not know
that your business exist? A key to Internet Marketing
is to get your business noticed.
The effective way to do this is to build an opt-in list.
Most of the experts in Internet Marketing will tell you that
building a highly targeted opt-in list is the
most effective and important tool in a home based internet marketing business.
A list of email addresses of people who have agreed to accept any
kind of information from online businesses like you, is an opt-in list.
The “opt-in” term means that they gave you permission to send to
them whatever newsletters, brochures, or promotions that you have
in your home based business.
It is extremely important that you have their permission first.
Sending unsolicited emails will be regarded as spamming, which
is not only illegal but will kill your chance of ever building a longterm
customer.
Due to the feasibility of building your opt-in list on Internet
Marketing, most of the online entrepreneurs consider it a
treasured tool online. They use this list to get
the consumer’s attention and sustain interest.
By building your opt-in list, you will be able to keep a solid
contact with your previous buyers and at the same time, boost your
sales because you have a sure target market
always ready to purchase items from you.
Considered to be the most important item for the Internet Marketer
an opt In list would be the one thing they would save in case of an
emergency.
Think how Internet Marketers value their opt-in list…
It must be really important, right?
If you are not yet aware of the importance of building
your highly targeted opt-in list and would like to know how to build
them, below are some tips that could be very helpful.
1. Pick your target market, your niche.
Very important that you know your niche market in order
to focus on marketing to it. It will be confusing and time
wasting if you build an opt-in list to no where.
Focusing on a niche market will allow you to concentrate on your
marketing campaigns and will derive better results because you
have delivered your emails to people who will most likely be
interested in them.
2. Verify your Niche market is available on the Internet.
Selecting a niche market does not guarantee that
you can start building your opt-in list. The
concept of the opt-in list generation is specifically to aid in the
growth of the Internet Market of a particular entrepreneur, it
is important to have a niche market that is available through
the Internet.
How can you promote your online business if your niche market
is not online.
Hence, it is extremely important to verify if your target market
is available online.
3. Verify if your niche market is an income-generating
market.
If your niche market cannot generate income, then
building a highly targeted opt-in list will be a waste of time.
Verify the income-generating potential by using the search
engines, there you can find paid ads related to the keywords
you have searched. This should mean that if somebody is willing
to pay to advertise focusing on the same target market that you have
in mind, chances are it is profitable, but watch it for a few weeks, It
could just be someone else running some test.
4. Use Internet Forums and find solutions to the problems in your niche.
Forums will help you determine the underlying problems and solutions that
will answer most of your target market’s questions.
Using the posts and threads, you can identify your
target niches problems and come up with great
solutions. This, will also be very valuable when you start building
your opt-in list.
Indeed, the success of your online business or your home based
internet marketing efforts depend greatly on your opt-in list.
Consider your Opt-In list as pure Gold. That is why they say,
the money is in the list,
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Discover your skill.
Of course an easy way to make money with internet marketing is to promote and sell your skill. The skill could be any ability or form of service that you provide to help others save money, time or effort. Some possibilities include the following:
· Writing – nearly every website you see is a potential customer if you can be a ghostwriter, copywriter or blogger and sell your craft to other webmasters.
· Graphics Design – everyone needs graphics for their websites, ebook covers, banners, salespages.
· Computer Help – from how to use the PC, server to programming, software, scripts.
· Marketing – presenting the product to customers, running ad campaigns, testing and tracking for best results.
Always put the customer first and be prepared to give a little more of yourself to develop your skill and build a loyal following.
Creating Your Very Own Product
After you develop enough expertise with your skills, you can turn your skills into a product.
The most important thing to remember is that your skill must be something that brings value to others. If you can bring value to others and monetize it, others will most probably want to learn from you as well.
Once you teach others how to monetize their skill, you will have a product that will impart your expertise to others. For example: a product that teaches people “how to make money with copywriting”
Create A Business
Once you are able to combine all your products together and develop your very own system, you have a business running already.
The important thing to remember about a business is that you must have a holistic approach when it comes to business building.
Don’t just focus on your primary skill alone. Try and outsource other tasks to other people. For example, if your strength is in writing, your business must not only include writing but many other aspects such as graphics, tutorials and even a helpdesk to help you answer questions.
At the end of the day, you need a complete system to market your business.
Automating Your Business
If your business is taking up too much of your time, the best thing you can do is to try and automate your business by letting others run it for you.
Basically you still maintain ownership of your business (and revenue, of course). But what you must do is to train up people who are capable of running the business for you. By the time your business is successful enough to be automated, you can hire people who are smarter than you to run it for you.
The trade off is that you have to pay them a lot of money, but the best thing you have is more free time. When you buy people’s time with your money, you effectively remove the shackles that your business has on your time and you can use that time to invest into another business.
Remember the golden rule: Think BIG and think long term.
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