If you would ask me what is one thing to master… it would be what I'm about to cover in this post. When you get really good at these 3 things you will see success faster and easier.
That doesn't mean you won't have to get good at other things.
However it does mean these are absolutely essential… and your lack of not having them is a BIG factor for not getting the results you really want right now.
This is a follow-up to the wildly successful blog post called, "How To Build A Successful Internet Business In 100 Hours."
If you have not read that, you will want to take a few minutes right now to do so (or re-read it to refresh your memory.)
This post will give you 3 CRUCIAL strategies to ensure the "100 Hour Rule" actually works for you.
Everybody I have taught this to, who started using these 3 strategies, instantly (yes, instantly) started seeing MASSIVE jumps in their productivity and progress they were making (meaning getting the important stuff done and making money).
I consider this a CORE foundational must have if you want to be successful online.
And yes, I'm putting a lot of emphasis on this because I KNOW how vitally important it is… but it lacks the "sizzle"… that's the rub, the stuff that REALLY brings you success is NOT the sizzle, its the fundamentals.
Here are the 3 Crucial Strategies…
1. Break Big Tasks Into Small Bite-Size Steps (Munchies/Action Plan)
2. Create a Weekly Plan To Do Those Bite Size Steps (Weekly Plan)
3. Create Large Blocks Of Time To Big Chunks Of Tasks And Create Momentum (Mini-Blasts)
If you make these 3 activities a HABIT, your online business will never be the same.
You will experience less frustration, less overwhelm, accomplish more in less time, and start seeing results quicker and quicker. You will, faster than ever before, reach the Full Time Online level.
Munchies/Action Plan
Let's say you have the task to set up your first squeeze page you will use to build your email list. You sit down at your computer, look at that task on your to-do list, and immediately you start feeling overwhelmed, that twinge of anxiety builds up in your chest, and you eventually find something else to do — read email, browse online, clean the bathroom toilet — anything to avoid this task!
And it keeps getting carried forward and carried forward on your to-do list, never getting done. Days turn into weeks, turn into months.
The problem is, the task is WAY too big and complicated to take action on it. You are staring at an elephant and trying to figure out how to eat it all in one bite.
The solution.
Take that big task and "munchy" it down into the small bite-size steps to complete it.
First you break it down into the big steps, then break the big steps into the small steps.
Some big steps:
* Create the opt-in offer
* Choose an email hosting solution
* Create your opt-in page and confirmation page
* Add the opt-in form
* Test the process
Then you take the big step, "create the opt-in offer" and break that down into the small steps.
So first you will need to figure out what your optin offer will be, then create an outline for the offer, then create the actual thing you will be giving away for free (your offer), edit it if it is digital content, create the download page for it, upload the page and the content to be downloaded to your site. DONE with that step.
By doing this you are creating to-do items you CAN take action on and accomplish quickly.
You can open up a spreadsheet (or word document, or just write it out on paper) and start typing the Big Steps.
Then for each Big Step, type the little steps.
Now you have your complete Action Plan to accomplish this next project in your business. (Also it gives you a lot of small little steps you can cross off when you complete them… doesn't it feel great crossing off to-do items!)
Weekly Plan
Last year, when I did my end of the year review, I realized if I did this one 15 minute activity each week — that was a HIGHLY productive week. And if I did NOT do this one 15 minute activity — that was a very NON-productive week.
Wouldn't it make since to spend 15 minutes once a week (I do it either Sunday night or first thing Monday morning) doing this activity and virtually guarantee it will be a productive week?
Here is a quick 12 minute training video on Taking Action With The Weekly Plan, as well as the exact templates I use every week, walking you through the process. (This is normally only provided to all of our new customers, but its so important want to give it to you right now too.)
As you will notice in the video, the list of small little to-do's you created above now fit perfectly into your weekly plan.
Again, make this a weekly habit and your results will shoot through the roof.
Mini-Blasts
OK, this one has been the biggest breakthrough for me. And is the last piece of the "Being Super-Productive 101" puzzle. It is also a critical one if you are doing this part-time right now.
Its covered in detail in the 1st chapter of the Nitro Blueprint System manual. And we also cover it at our Everyday Entrepreneur Getting Started Online seminars.
Here's the quick summary.
There are 3 ways to approach your business.
1. The Slow And Steady
2. The Massive Action
3. And the Mini-Blast
Slow and steady is what most people do… and it dooms you to failure.
The reason why is because you are making small incremental progress over a long period of time. That means you are not creating any momentum in your business… everything just seems to drag on and take forever. And distractions and obstacles are popping up constantly and zapping you of your time and energy.
And you are not seeing or recognizing the progress you are really making. So instead of being encouraged and excited about your wins and progress, you are discouraged and view your so called lack of progress as a negative. It now becomes negative de-motivation.
Eventually you either give up or move onto the next shiny object to repeat the pattern over again.
Obviously not a good scenario, but one that is probably all too familiar with yourself.
Massive Action is awesome, however maybe 1% to at most 5% of the population is really hard-wired for the Massive Action approach.
That is where you "lock yourself" up for however long it takes, 2 weeks, a month, 90 days and focus almost exclusively on your business.
I had a friend who was hard wired like this. When he decided he was going to do this online business thing, he made the "3 People Negotiations" with his family, friends and himself and took massive action.
It took him 90 days to create a product, learn all the tech stuff to get a site up and order processing in place, create a sales letter and launch his business. The result, he made over $100,000 his first 4 months.
Only problem, I couldn't do that and most people can't do that either. We would burn ourselves out and go crazy after a week or two! Again doomed to failure.
That brings us to the good ole' Mini Blast.
That takes the best of both of the previous approaches without the negatives. And gives you a solution that works for the rest of us.
The Mini-Blast is where you set aside a block of time and ONLY work on your most important, result producing activities in your business. And you remove all distractions — no email, no phone calls, no TV, no crying kids, just you and your computer.
This may be 3 hours one night after work, or 1 whole day over the weekend, or 8 hours over an entire afternoon and evening, or you take off a day of work and spend 3 straight days.
Whatever it is, the keys are:
1) an extended period of consecutive time
2) ONLY focused on your most important, result producing activities (or solving your biggest challenges, such as tech issues)
3) with no distractions, you are only focused on your online business and your Action Plan
You will end up accomplishing more in that mini-blast than days or even weeks via the slow and steady approach.
You will also have created a lot of momentum in your business.
And you will have seen a lot of progress which gives you a lot of inner motivation and is very energizing.
Then, in between your mini-blasts you go back to the slow and steady approach to keep moving forward, making progress and ride the momentum you created until your next mini-blast.
On the graph, the red line is your slow and steady only line, the green line is your mini-blast approach line. You get a big jump with the mini blast, then keep moving forward with slow and steady, then another big jump.
There are some other important factors, like making the "3 Time Negotiations," that we will cover in future blog posts. So be sure to subscribe to the blog update email list and RSS feed so you see them when they come out.
Next week (on Tuesday April 28th) I will be doing a completely free and in-depth webcast training focused entirely on something we have been doing here at Nitro. I have seen the writing on the wall that an area of online business we ALL rely on is about to experience a radical (and costly change).
And we have been proactively making important changes in our business so we are not member's of the online road kill (but instead profit immensely over the coming months and years)… and I want to let you in on it too.
Keep an eye out for emails over the next few days on how to register for this webcast.
In the meantime, please post your questions and comments below about the topic of these 3 Taking Action Strategies so I can incorporate them into future blog posts and trainings.
-Kevin
P.S. Follow me on Twitter - http://www.twitter.com/kevinnitro to get quick updates, insights and tips on business and life.
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