af Anthony Johnson 13 år siden
4872
Mere som dette
Service is an attitude, not limited to saving lives and the environment
Improve the quality of life in the world
Doing something that improves life besides your own
Sports, hiking, chess, or any activity that is domestic to the country
Languages
It is possible to become conversationally fluent in any language in six months or less
Adults can learn languages much faster than children
To live is to learn
If you can't define it or act on it, forget it
If you find a focus, an ambitious goal that seems impossible and forces you to grow, these doubts disappear.
Go nuts and live your dreams
What 20% of belongings are used 80% of time?
Sell, donate, store
Clutter creates indecision and distraction
Arrange a week of language classes upon arrival
Take a trial run for a few weeks
Don't assume that places abroad are more dangerous than your hometown
Long term stay often costs the same as hotels
Take advantage of currency differences
Observe how you judge both youself and those around you
Get lost intentionally
Learn to slow down
Not a one time event--take several per year
Aim to experience the world at a speed that lets it change us
Not an escape from life but a reexamination of it
It will ruin my resume
Health insurance and retirement accounts disappear
I won't be able to pay the bills
Quitting is permanent
Work wherever and whenever you want, but get your work done
Dreamlining
Activities that will fill the vacuum when work is removed
Goals must be unrealisitic to be effective
Defined steps instead of ambiguous wants
ADD: Adventure Deficit Disorder
Excitement is a better synonymn for happiness
The opposite of happiness is boredom
There is less competition for bigger goals
People overestimate the competition and underestimate themselves
Find loopholes in the rules
Money is multiplied in practical value depending on the number of W's you control in your life.
whom you do it with
where you do it
when you do it
what you do
Freedom to pursue your dreams
Payday every day
Cashflow first
More quality and less clutter
Have reasons for making money
Neither boss nor employee, but owner
Do all you want to do, be all you want to be
Prevent work for work's sake (W4W)
Have others work for you
Freedom to avoid what you dislike
Reach a big payoff
Have more
Make a ton of money
Be the boss
Buy everything you want
Retire young
Work when you want
Work for yourself
Do not provide home addresses
Set up interactive voice response (IVR) remote receptionist
Put multiple email and phone contacts on website for different departments
Give yourself mid-level title instead of Founder/CEO
Do not accept orders from common fraud countries
Offer a lose-win guarantee instead of free trials
Offer low-priced products instead of free products
Refer all potential resellers to an online order form that must be printed and faxed in
Raise wholesale minimums and require tax ID number to qualify resellers
Do not accept money orders or checks
Do not offer international shipments
Eliminate phone orders completely and direct all prospects to online ordering
Do not offer overnight or expedited shipping
Do not offer multiple shipping options
Offer one or two purchase options
Phase III: Use bigger, more sophisicated outsourcers such as end-to-end fulfillment houses
Phase II: Add extensive FAQ and use local fulfillment company
Phase I: Do it all yourself
Place yourself out of the information flow
Ensure that all outsourcers are willing to communicate among themselves to solve problems
Contract outsourcing companies that specialize in one function instead of freelancers
Invest or divest
Rollout and automation
Test the advertisement
Drive traffic with Google PPC and track results
Use real websie to offer free downloadable material
Dry test with one-page site advertisement
Test eBay auction
Best the competition
Create a one-page advertisement emphasizing differentiators and product benefits
Use search term suggestion tools to find related/derivative terms for respective products
Figure out how to differentiate
Free or faster shipping?
Offer better selection?
Create a better guarantee?
Use more credibility indicators?
Option three: create a product
Information products
You don't have to be an expert
Join ProfNet to be a quotable expert for articles
Offer to write 1-2 articles for trade magazines
Give one free 1-3 hour seminar at a nearby university, then at 2 large companies
Join two or three related trade organizations
Read 3 top selling books on your topic and summarize on one page
Do you have a failure-to-success story that could be turned into a how-to product for others?
What experts could you interview and record to create a sellable audio CD?
What skills are you interested in that you--and others in your markets--would pay to learn?
How can you tailor a general skill for your market ("niching down")
License content or compensate an expert to help create content
Repurpose content that is in the public domain
Paraphrase and combine points from several books
Time consuming to replicate
20-50x markup
Sell only through one outlet (to avoid price wars)
Find a generic product that can be repurposed for a special market
Create new product prototype
Option two: license a product
Dealmaking intensive but higher profit margin
Option one: resell a product
Easiest but least profitable
Pick two markets you are most familiar with that have their own magazines
It should be fully explainable in a good online FAQ
It should take no more than 3-4 weeks to manufacture
It should cost customer $50-200
The main benefit should be encapsulated in one sentence
Be a member of your target market
Which of the groups have their own magazines?
Which social, industry or professional groups do you belong to?
Find a market, then develop a product for them
Send one task at a time, no more than two, and always prioritize
Tasks should be completed in no more than 72 hours (Parkinson's Law)
Request regualr status updates on tasks
Give precise directions
Make special request for type of VA you want at the outset
Create unique login for VA for your websites
Never give them debit cards
Use a VA firm instead of solo operator
Get a trial first
Determined by cost per completed task, not cost per hour
Refine the rules and processes before adding people
Unless something is well-defined and important, no on should do it.
Get a remote personal assistant
Don't limit yourself, just ask if something is possible
Empowerment failures
being unable to accomplish task without obtaining permission or information.
Set or request autonomous rules and guidelines with occasional review of results.
Time consumers
Batch activities to limit setup costs and provide more time for dreamline milestones.
Time wasters
Easiest to eliminate
Use the "Puppy Dog Close" (ie - "just this once"
Do not permit casual visitors to your cubicle
Define the end time of meetings
Meetings should only be held to make decisions
Respond to voicemail via email
Treat phone calls as urgent
Use two telephone numbers
Limit email consumption and production
Create systems to limit your availability via email and phone and deflect inappropriate contact.
The art of nonfinishing
Starting something does not automatically justify finishing it.
"Will I definitely need this information for something immediate and important?"
Replace information gathering (reading, news, etc) with talking to the people in your life
To learn something new:
Use what you read to draft intelligent questions for experts in that field
Read only the parts relevant to immediate next steps
Select one book about the topic by someone who already did what you want to do.
Read one hour of fiction before bed
Ask people "what's new in the world?"
Increased output requires decreased input
"task creep": doing more to feel productive while actually accomplishing less.
Am I inventing things to do to avoid the important?
Identify the few critical tasks that contribute most to income and schedule them with very short and clear deadlines.
80% of outputs come from 20% of inputs
Efficiency is still important, but it is useless unless applied to the right things.
