When a non-Twitter user asks me why I have embraced Twitter as a communication method, I’m quick to point out that I think there are two reasons Twitter is MORE than a communication method; that it’s an entirely new way of engagement.

To say that Twitter is just another communication method is to suggest that it is equivalent to writing a letter or writing an email or picking up the phone – as if Twitter might be a fourth alternative. But I disagree (and I’m not the only one who thinks this, by the way).

The two reasons that I’ve embraced Twitter are because:

1. I enjoy real time person-to-person engagement.
2. I can search the real time web for up-to-the-minute information.

In these newsletters, I’ve generally been focusing on how you can more successfully connect with people in a real time, person-to-person engagement.

But in this ninth TweetsIn10 post, I would like to talk about Twitter search.
Go to http://search.twitter.com and search for something. Anything. Whatever you want. Your city or town. Your favorite movie. Your favorite hobbies. Your industry. Your big-name competitors. The results you get from that search is real time… and not just a real-time dry repeating of the facts, but a real-time discussion of the facts with thought and context.

These results are what people are talking about right now. If there’s a big news story happening, it’s being tweeted about from a thousand different viewpoints. If there’s a major playoff game taking place, every good play and every bad call is being announced, discussed, and analyzed… as it is happening.

That is a transformational way of thinking about our connection through technology to the rest of the world.

• Once, we waited for the daily paper to come out to read about events of the day.

• Once, we tuned in to the 11 o’clock news to watch thirty second sound bytes of the events of the day.

• Once, we waited until Google performed an update to find the latest and most relevant website on a subject.

• Once, we clicked to news sites and viewed the content they gave us when they chose to report on a topic.

But now, we get the information as it is happening. We see topics as they are trending. And, we see it through the unfiltered lens of the common person and not some news agency.

Now, just to clarify, I’m not against the news industry, they definitely have a role to play in delivering insight and in clarifying the facts. But the real-time aspect is huge. Sure, lots of people are quick to point out that this news isn’t necessarily accurate. On the other hand, I’d counter that content created through the traditional news industry may be more accurate but isn’t necessarily timely. There is some give and take and neither option is perfect. But I’d rather have a thousand different viewpoints of right-this-minute news – and rely on my own ability to discern which viewpoints are most likely to be trusted – than to wait until someone else reports the news later. That is very cool.

Lest you think I’m just ranting about the value of real time news, let me now talk about why this is important to you:

Real time connects you to your audience in a way that is unlike anything your business has ever experienced:

• You can change your website copy to be the most relevant based on current events based on trending topics and the latest news.

• You can shift supply lines when you read about the bad weather that is blocking your vendors from delivering raw materials to your factory. Just search for information about weather and road conditions in areas where that is critical to the operation of your business.

• You can immediately address any concerns that your customers might express as soon as they express them. Just search for your business’ name.

• You can modify what you sell and how you sell it based on what’s going on in the world and, specifically, in your clients’ lives. Just keep an eye on the news and search for problems and issues that your clients face.

Twitter search should be a regular part of your business research and you should be consistently viewing trending topics in Twitter so you can react immediately.

Bonus Tip:  Monitor Your Brand

Make sure that at the very least you monitor your brand or product via search. This assures that if anything is said negative or a customer or client needs help that you can respond right away using real-time search tools.

Related posts:

1. Tweets in 10 – #Great #Idea #for #Twitter
2. Tweets in 10 – Twitterpress: Combining Twitter and WordPress10
3. Tweets in 10 (Part 1) – Twitter in 10 Minutes a Day

In this article, I want talk about things you should and shouldn’t do with your list and how you can make your list profitable.

First, let’s talk about the money-making aspect because I know that’s what will probably be most interesting to you.

There are a few ways that you can make money from your list. Here are the four most common ways…

1.    Positioning: This is where you simply use your list as a venue for idea sharing. You never direct sell to your list but rather just add value to their lives by sending them high quality information.

By positioning yourself as an expert, they’ll be more likely to think of you when they need to buy. And, because your content is really valuable, your subscribers will be more likely to save and even share your emails with someone else.

The return on this method is the hardest to measure because, unless someone says “your ezine convinced me to buy from you”, you’ll never really know the impact it had. But,this is also the most trusted and appreciated method of marketing to your list. Your subscribers will be more likely to open and read each email you send.

2.    Selling your products or services: This is where your emails explicitly sell your products, services, seminars, ebooks, memberships or whatever. If subscribers don’t mind getting these offers from you, and if your offers are relevant to them, they will be more likely to read them.

3.    Affiliate offerings: This is similar to #2 except that your emails sell other people’s stuff – perhaps services or downloadable products from another vendor. You are paid per click or per lead or per sale (depending on the affiliate relationship you have).

4.    List rental: This is where you collect a list of names and advertisers pay you to send out an email to your list. This is uncommon in many industries but it is still very common in other industries (such as the investment industry, where it is overdone). This is the least-trusted and least-opened of the four types of email marketing. Note: I DO NOT support, encourage or endorse this type of list. I won’t discuss this option further, but I have had readers ask about this type of list so I am referencing it for information only.

Each of these four common ways to make money from your list could be used by themselves, but probably the best tactic is to use a combination of a few of these models. For example, it is very common to send out positioning content and have a sales offer in there selling one of your products or offering an affiliate product.

The models that I feel are the most effective are:

• An exclusive positioning-only ezine. This one is going to please your subscribers the most and keep you at the top of their minds as someone who truly has their best interests at heart.

• A combination of positioning content and selling of your own products or services… with the emphasis on positioning content. For example, your ezine might include a really helpful article and a PS that says “If you think the article was helpful, check out my [product link].” That keeps the emphasis on the content but still offers something you have to sell.

List Do’s and Don’t's
Now that I’ve given you some money-making tips, here are some do’s and don’ts for your list:

• Comply with the CAN-SPAM act. If you use a reputable email marketing service like the ones I’ve listed (Aweber, ConstantContact, 1ShoppingCart), they can help you.

• A double opt-in is a good idea. Single opt-in is when someone goes to your website and inputs their name and email address and clicks “submit” and that makes them subscribers. However, anyone can put anyone else’s email with single opt-in and that makes single opt-in less trusted. Double opt-in is better because once someone enters their name, an email is sent to them that they have to acknowledge. Double opt-in isn’t necessary, but just consider who your audience is. Are they motivated enough by your offer to do the extra step of double opt-in? While double opt-in isn’t necessary, I believe you get a stronger list out of it.

• Don’t pitch relentlessly or too frequently to your list. I have a few emails that I’ve filtered straight to my trash folder because it’s just one pitch after another. (I could unsubscribe but I was getting 2 or 3 a week from the sender, would have had to unsubscribe from each, and it was just quicker to filter them all at once).

• The best way to get your list to buy something from you is to first give them value. Give an over-abundance of value and you will become indispensable to them and they will reciprocate.

• If you’re going to send out a regular email as your freebie (and you should send regular emails), send it out every week or every other week. Those are the best frequencies. If you send it out more often than once every week, you’ll drive your subscribers crazy with an overwhelming amount of information. And if you send it out less frequently than once every two weeks, you’ll run the risk of your subscribers forgetting about you. Note: I should point out that the only exception to this best practice is if you send out regular reports instead of emails. If you send out something larger and more substantial, like a report or ebook, you might consider sending it only once a month. Otherwise every week or twice a month a month is good.

• It takes time to build a list and it takes time to turn that list into paying customers. Be patient and be consistent. Depending on your niche, it could take months before you have a really good list and even years before they are the high value, responsive, hand-over-their-cash list you need them to be. This is a medium-to-long term investment.

• While you are planning what to give your list as a freebie, don’t forget to plan how you will attract people to the page that will ultimately turn them into customers. That is an often overlooked aspect of list-building that you’ll want to build into your plan.

• Be consistent. If you plan to send something out on the same day every week, send it out on that day. Be consistent. Stick to your plan. You’ll “train” your list to watch for your email on that specific day.

• From time to time, surprise your list with something extra. Maybe another report or a bonus issue or something. This forces you out of the groove of just delivering weekly content, which is all too easy of a groove to get into. Adding value reminds you and your subscribers why you’re doing this.

• If you’re going to present a product or service, make sure it is relevant to your audience. Don’t offer them something that they don’t care about. Not only will it just waste your time in offering, but it could risk the relationship you have with them if they sense that you aren’t in touch with their needs.

• Measure relentlessly. Measure the open rate of your emails and the click-through rate (if you include a link in your email). Are there types of subject lines that get opened more often? Are there subjects that are clicked-through more often?

Your list is a valuable asset that, over the years, can pay you back again and again for the investment and effort you put into them. Create a meaningful incentive that they’ll love, give it to them in exchange for their email address, and start building that list.

Related posts:

1. The Power of a List: Part 2
2. The Power of a List: Part 1
3. Be a Twitter List Champion in Just Ten Minutes- Part 2

You know what I’m talking about because we’ve all experienced them. We’ve been enjoying our day, thinking that all is well in the world when suddenly our inbox reads “(1)” and the email is all caps, or brutish and rude, or contains words that our mothers wouldn’t let us say when we were kids, or outlines nasty ultimatums that may or may not be ruinous.

Those emails – which I’ve collectively dubbed “problem emails” – can destroy our day. It’s like a slap in the face. And then we think about it all day and can’t concentrate on our work. And when we finally respond it’s not the best-worded piece of prose ever.

But we can deal with them effectively. And I’m going to show you how to do it in ten minutes so that it doesn’t ruin your whole day.

This article of Tips In Ten is unique in one way: In other articles of Tips In Ten, I give you tips and ideas to do something efficiently in just ten minutes. This issue is unique because, while some of you will benefit from learning how to deal with problem emails in just ten minutes (instead of 20 or 30 or 60 minutes), others of you will need to do just the opposite: You’ll need to take extra time – a full ten minutes! – to properly process these emails.

I also want to make it explicitly clear that I’m only talking about problem emails here. By necessity, these should take longer than other emails to process. If you use this process for every email, you’ll never get anything done in your day.

Before I get started with the process, I also want to make an observation about problem emails: In my experience, at least 90% of the problem emails I’ve received over the years were not surprises to me. Occasionally (very occasionally) something will come out of the blue and blindside me. But usually there was something that led up to it. Perhaps it was a customer who wasn’t satisfied or a vendor who had a concern or an employee who wasn’t happy. And very rarely did these things suddenly appear. More often, there were problems that were festering for a while. So you can avoid a lot of these problem emails by paying attention to your business, by staying really aware of how people are feeling, and dealing with things quickly and proactively.

When you do that, problem emails don’t get written as often. But when they are sent to you, here is how to take ten minutes to deal with them.

Step 1: Re-read the email a couple of times, watching for something you’ve missed (Duration: 1-2 minutes).
Make sure you’ve read everything. Make sure you haven’t missed an important clarifying word or sentence. Make sure that you accurately understand the tone. Make sure that you are interpreting the words the same way that the email’s author intended them to be interpreted. This has happened to me when I’ve written a perfectly innocent email and the response has been “what did you mean by that?” Then I go back and re-read my own email and realize that my words were misunderstood. It’s been a good reminder for me to make sure that I’m always trying to understanding the meaning behind the words of any email I receive.

One good example that is common among some readers is the use of ALL CAPS. Sometimes people use all caps to mean shouting or sometimes it is used as emphasis. If an email is written entirely in all caps, it could be anger on the part of the sender but you should consider whether or not the person might normally write like that. Don’t automatically take it to mean shouting. I do know people who write in all caps in spite of the numerous times their friends have kindly taken them aside to try and explain it to them. And if an email uses all caps only occasionally, consider whether they meant it as a form of emphasis rather than shouting.

Perhaps it’s a case of poor word choice. Maybe they wrote the message while on the phone. Maybe they’re having an off day. Maybe they were using their Blackberry in the back of a cab and didn’t feel like thumbing a longer message.

If you have previous communication with them, consider this email in light of their other communication to help you understand their thinking.

And, make sure you read the whole message. I’ve found in the past that the first paragraph of a problem email disturbed me so much that it influenced how I read the rest of the email… but when I went back to re-read the email again a couple of times, I better understood what the person was trying to communicate.

So, if you’re the kind of person to dash off a hasty response, just hold on. Your ten minutes isn’t up yet! And if you’re the kind of person that will let this ruin your day, don’t worry: it’s not going to take much longer.

Step 2: Get up and walk away from your computer. (Duration: 2-3 minutes).
Take two minutes and leave your computer. Let the situation percolate. Drink some water. Get some fresh air. Smile. Stretch. Water your plants. Whatever. Basically, don’t try to avoid the situation by doing other work and don’t sit there and stew about it. Instead, just move around to get a different perspective. It’s okay to think about it, but don’t start solving problems yet. That’s coming next.

Step 3: Find a win-win scenario. (Duration: 3-4 minutes).
Now just find a solution that will help you both resolve the situation. This is the time you need to spend the longest on, but you’ll find it easier if you do the first two steps. It’s not always going to be a scenario in which both parties come away entirely happy, but you both come away from the scenario having given a little and taken a little.

Win-win scenarios might take a few minutes longer when you first start to look for them. But as I mentioned earlier, it’s rare that a problem email will just arrive out of the blue. More often than not, it’s been festering for a while so you probably already know part of the win-win answer.

In thinking about the best scenario, consider what the other person’s ultimate goals are and consider what your ideal goals are, too. Is there a way for each of you to achieve at least part of your goals?

Sometimes a win-win scenario with a difficult customer might be that you refund their money and let them go. It’s not perfect, but it’s still a type of win-win scenario (since you don’t have to deal with them any more).

And sometimes, the person just needs to let off some steam and the win-win scenario is for you to thank them for their honesty and (if appropriate) apologize. That might be all it takes.

Ultimately, if you can understand what they want and help them to get it, you’ll have solved your problem even if it means a minor temporary discomfort, annoyance, hassle, or cost for you. It’s likely, though, that this minor temporary discomfort to solve their issue will be considerably easier and cheaper than if they decided to go further than just sending an email to you.

And there might be some of you who wonder if I’ve allotted enough time for developing a win-win scenario. Here’s my answer to that: It’s possible that there are some situations where more time is required to create a solution. However, I’ve found that a simple, actionable solution does the job and the right answer rarely takes a while to reveal itself; in most cases you already know the best solution when you get the email in the first place. It’s just stewing and fretting that keep you from responding with that solution. Very rarely has the addition of an entire day changed my recommended solution.

Step 4: Write the response. (Duration: 1-2 minutes).
Yes, this is a purposely short time. I recommend that you keep it brief. If you take too long writing a response, you’ll end up either with a defensive posture or with an aggressive posture, neither of which is a good idea.

Instead, write your response and run it through this filter of:

• Does it show the other person that I read and understood their message?
• Does it make my position clear?
• Does it communicate my win-win recommendation?
• Does it outline a simple and actionable way forward?
• Is it gracious?

In my experience, these five elements will go a long way to resolving 99% of the problem emails you get. It uses good communication best practices, it helps to keep the conversation focused on the positive and moving forward, and graciousness (which is not acquiescence) ensures that you take the high road when it comes to using appropriate language and tone.

Lastly, proof and send your email. If you’re nervous about the situation and not sure that you’ve adequately addressed it in just ten minutes then schedule it to be sent a couple hours from now and let it sit in the back of your mind while you do something else. You can continue to think about it and maybe revise your email if necessary, but at least you’ll have taken some action on.

If you run a business, you’re going to have problem emails. That’s just the way it’s going to be. However, when you get those problem emails, they don’t have to ruin your day. Instead, you can spend ten minutes on them to deal with them and move on.

Related posts:

1. Sorting and Prioritizing Email in 10 Minutes on a Shoestring Budget
2. Got a problem?
3. Ezines in 10 Minutes a Day- Part 2 – Picking your Software

In this Tips in Ten, I’d like to give you a quick review of the top autoresponder programs out there to help you decide which one is best for you.

There are five big autoresponder systems out there, although you might find other ones that suit your needs but aren’t listed here. I’m going to give you a neutral review of all five and then later I’ll tell you which ones I use and why.

I’ve highlighted some of the features of each service, as well as the prices, but be aware that this information is relevant at the time of this writing. If you archive this email and read it later, the features or prices might have changed! Also, I’ve done my best to make the comparisons as “apples-to-apples” as possible to help you decide which one is right for you. Oh, and I should mention that my pricing metric is based on 5,000 to 10,000 emails as much as possible, but there are some exceptions as noted. (Note: I encourage you to visit each systems website, as these details are not exhaustive, each has many more features than listed here)

Constant Contact:

• What do they do: Constant Contact lets you create autoresponders to stay in touch with your audience, as well as online surveys to generate information and interaction from your website’s users
• Experience: They have worked with 275,000 small businesses and organizations.
• Pricing (http://www.constantcontact.com/pricing/pricing-plans.jsp): Send 5,000 – 10,000 emails per month for $75/month
• What makes them different: These are seasoned pros and have been leading the industry for a few years.

Aweber:

• What do they do: Aweber lets you create email newsletters and autoresponders for your audience, and they also let you turn your RSS feeds into emails that can be sent out to subscribers.
• Experience: They’ve been in business since 1998 and are one of the originals.
• Pricing (http://www.aweber.com/pricing.htm): 5,000 – 10,000 emails per month for $69/month.
• What makes them different: This company is the granddaddy of autoresponder systems.

Icontact:

• What do they do: Icontact allows you to generate surveys, autoresponder messages, and convert your RSS feeds to regular emails.
• Experience: They have over 51,000 customers.
• Pricing (http://www.icontact.com/pricing): 5,000 – 10,000 emails per month for $47/month:
• What makes them different: This company has enterprise partnerships available for people who have over 100,000 email addresses to send to.

1Shoppingcart:

• What do they do: 1shoppingcart offers email marketing services like autoresponders, but it also offers powerful ecommerce solutions like a shopping cart and credit card transactions, too.
• Experience: In terms of ecommerce shopping carts, this is THE company that defines the industry.
• Pricing (http://www.1shoppingcart.com/shopping-cart-features.asp): Their autoresponder-only package (which allows for a database of 10,000 people) is $29/month but you can get a much more robust system for $99/month which includes an ecommerce suite, too.
• What makes them different: This company combines a powerful ecommerce system with their autoresponder system.

Vertical response:

• What do they do: Vertical response is a mix of online and offline services, allowing users to send email newsletters, offer online surveys, and send direct mail postcards.
• Experience: I’m not clear on how long they’ve been in business or exactly how many customers they’ve helped but they say “tens of thousands” of customers.
• Pricing (http://www.verticalresponse.com/pricing/): 4,000 to 8,000 emails per month is $72/month and 8,000 to 16,000 emails per month is $120/month.
• What makes them different: This company mixes online and offline marketing together and they claim that they were founded to provide better customer service than their competitors.

There are other systems, too, so I could write all day about them; companies like StreamSend and Infusionsoft are 2 others that are popular. I just listed the ones that are among the most popular and useful but if you have the time and want to continue hunting, you will find many more. However, in my opinion, stick with one of the ones I’ve mentioned above and you’ll be working with a company that has the critical mass of customers and revenue to be able to help you.

It’s also worth mentioning what is common across all five of these providers: When your marketing newsletter is successful, they will be successful (and earn more money) so they provide you with a lot of really useful information on how to get your emails delivered, what to do about spam, how to avoid being mistaken for spam, how to write emails that get read and saved, and so on. They also all provide some form of email tracking so you can see who has opened their emails and who hasn’t, who has forwarded emails, and how often links inside of emails have been clicked.

Ultimately, you want to consider this: Why are you going to use an autoresponder? When you know that, you’ll figure out which service to use. Here are some thoughts on choosing:

• Don’t automatically jump into one based solely on price. I’ve listed the prices above to compare but there are many other factors that might influence the price. Perhaps a level of service between one and another will impact the price, for example. If you just want to send out autoresponders and have no plans for anything else, then you might compare by price; but first consider all the services available.

• If an online and offline mix of marketing (including direct mail postcards) is something you’d like to do, then Vertical Response might be the service for you. (However, don’t rule out using another service for direct mail marketing – like my favorite SendOutCards. (Note: You need a sponsor to enroll in send out cards, my sponsorship code is: r90776.)

• If you want to integrate your autoresponder and an ecommerce solution, 1shoppingcart might be the right service for you.

• Figure out how many people are in your database, and how many more you’ll realistically add over the next few years, and use that as the apples-to-apples metric to determine the price-to-service ratio you’re looking for.

• Each one of these systems also let’s you send out Broadcasts (non-autoresponder Emails)

And now the million dollar question: What system do I use?

Before I tell you that, let me say that I have used all 5 in some way, shape, or form. (That doesn’t mean that I’ve sent autoresponders from all of them but I have used them in some way; perhaps through the work I do with clients or for some of their other services).

I currently like and use 2 programs: Aweber and 1Shoppingcart.

I use Aweber for a few of my sites in which a newsletter is the only email marketing item in the sales process. On these sites, I’m not capturing emails to do other kinds of marketing or to ultimately promote a product or service. When I’m ONLY planning on delivering newsletters, I use Aweber. Aweber is easy to use, priced fairly, and exactly what I need for newsletters.

I use 1Shoppingcart for occasions when I want to do some email marketing but I also plan on possibly (either now or in the future) marketing services to that list of people. When I was deciding between systems, I looked ahead into the future and realized that there was value for me in selecting one system that did both the autoresponders I needed at the time as well as an ecommerce system that I would use (and subsequently, I have been using) to sell products on my sites. That way, I didn’t have to get one system then and later get another system. It was a “two-for-one” deal in my opinion. I saved time on implementation. I like the long list of services that 1shoppingcart offers, which have always been more than adequate for my needs: http://www.1shoppingcart.com/internet-marketing-tools.asp.

However, just because I chose those two, doesn’t mean that they are right for you. So, take 10 minutes right now and think about what you want in an autoresponder system… both now AND in the future. Then, tomorrow, take ten minutes and revisit each site to see if it has the solutions you want at the price you want to pay. In fact, it might be worth taking ten minutes each day until the next issue of Tips In Ten to decide what you want and click around in each site.

In the upcoming Tips in Ten I’m going to show you how to create an autoresponder, and in a couple of weeks I’ll show you how you can make money from it!

Related posts:

1. Ezines in 10 Minutes a Day – Part 3 – Scheduling & Writing
2. Ezines in 10 Minutes a Day – Part 4 – Making Money from Your Ezines
3. Ezines in 10 Minutes a Day- Part 1 – The Purpose

The trick to success is to know when to micro-manage, when to macro-manage, and when to delegate. There are only 24 hours in any given day and you have to sleep, eat, have family time, catch an episode of Grey’s Anatomy… and somewhere in there you need to work.

Take your personal life, for example.

• Do you mow your lawn? Or do you pay a neighborhood kid or landscaping service to do it for you?

• Do you clean your house or do you have a cleaning person that helps out or does the work for you?

• Do you always watch your children? Or do you have a babysitter, nanny, family member, or daycare provider who watches them for you sometimes?

All of those things are delegation. Now let’s look at why you delegate.

1. If you have someone else mow your lawn, it could be for various reasons like: Paying $10 to the neighborhood boy is cheaper than spending an hour out there mowing you lawn when you earn $100 per hour. Or maybe it’s a “quality of life” issue because you only have 2 days a week with the family and it’s worth more to you to spend time with them than on yard work.
2. If you have someone else clean your house, it could be for the same reasons that you have help mowing the lawn.
3. When you have someone watch your children, it could be so that you can go out and enjoy some personal time, or so you can work and earn money, or so you can complete errands or attend meetings, or it could be for any other number of reasons.

So, why is your business life any different? If you pay someone to watch your children while you earn an income, why not pay someone to do things IN your business so you can earn more of an income?

I recently interviewed an entrepreneur, a business coach like myself, who did not outsource anything. I asked him how he spends his time and he broke it down for me in an email as follows:

• I work 10 hours per day: 9am to 7pm, Monday through Friday.
  • 1 hour in the morning for email.
  • 1 hour in the morning for blog posting and social bookmarking as well as Twitter, Facebook, etc.
  • I have two 45 minute sessions with clients in the morning.
  • Then I take a 30 minute-to-an-hour lunch break.
  • 1 hour more of email.
  • 1 hour of bill paying, bookkeeping, and mail sorting.
  • I have another 45 minute session in the afternoon.
  • About an hour of following up with sales leads or prospects via email and telephone.
  • Then about an hour doing miscellaneous things, such as booking flights, finding conferences, looking for speaking engagements, working on my website/blog, and thinking up ideas for products and services.
  • One last email check before I leave — about 30 minutes or so — and the I close the office door for the day.

Wow! In summary he does the following daily:

• 2.5 hours of email handling.1 hour of social media/blogging.
• 2.25 hours of billable coaching sessions.
• 1 hour of bill paying/bookkeeping/mail sorting.
• .5 hour lunch break.
• 1 hour of sales lead handling.
• 1 hour of miscellaneous tasks.

Sure enough, that totals up to 9.25 hours in a day (plus the missing 45 minutes extra time spent on lunch or bathroom breaks!).So only 22.5% of his time is billable… AND he works 10 hours a day!I asked him how much he charges and he said it depends on the service: He makes anywhere from $90 to $170 per session.

If we take a “middle ground” average then he makes about $130 per session. By selling only 3 sessions a day, he makes $1,950.00 a week. While that is not bad, let’s be honest: That is a $101K/year salary; and while perfectly respectable, you don’t want to be working 50 hours a week for the rest of your life (and take a hit if you work less).

Let’s assume he outsources or delegates utilizing the “Three Strikes, You’re Out” test.

Question 1: Is it something that you don’t personally have to do, that someone else can do or be trained to do for you?
Question 2: Does the alternate person that could do it for you have an hourly wage less than your billable wage?
Question 3: Could you use that spare time on revenue generating activities or to increase your quality of life?

To take this “Three Strikes You’re Out” test, look at a task and ask yourself those three questions.

If the answer is “Yes” to all three then “You’re OUT”.

That’s right, YOU ARE OUT… outsource it!

If the answer is “Yes” to two questions, it should be considered.

If the answer is “Yes” to only one, it can be delegated as a last resort.

Let’s apply this to the tasks of the coach I spoke about earlier:

2.5 hours of email handling:

“Can someone else do it?” This is iffy. I am sure he could have a gatekeeper to handle some, while some he would end up having to handle himself. But let’s say a gatekeeper could cut the time spent in half, so the answer to question 1 is “yes”. (Strike 1). “Is the alternate person that could do it cheaper?” YES! (Strike 2). “Could he use the spare time to generate more revenue?” Certainly! (Strike 3). So, it is out… Outsourced!

Social Media/blogging: This is a “yes” to all 3! It’s outta here!

Billable coaching sessions: “No”. He has to do those.

Bill paying/bookkeeping/mail sorting: This is a “yes” to all 3!

Lunch break: No.

Sales lead handling: This one is iffy, but let’s say for safety it is a “no” (because nobody knows your business like you know your business).

Miscellaneous tasks: Again an entrepreneur always has some things he or she has to do, so let’s assume this is a no to all three.

So what we have now is the following:

• Half of the email an assistant can handle.
• Social Media is something else the assistant can handle.
• Bookkeeping/Bill Paying. The assistant can handle that, too.

What he has just done has decreased 3.25 hours of his day in exchange for maybe $75 or so (averaging $20 – $25 per hour for an assistant).

He could take on 3 more sessions a day for an increase in revenue! Or he could only work 7 hours a day! Or he could spend those extra 3 hours multiplying his income stream by creating products, goods, books, etc.

So… my message to you: Delegate/outsource in 10 minutes a day by using the “Three Strikes, You’re Out” Test.

Related posts:

1. The Value of Outsourcing
2. Reaching the Peak: When Delegation Shines
3. Master Your Day in Just 10 Minutes – Part 2

Are We There Yet? – Yes, we are there yet. We are there now. You’re already home. Confused? What a fun twist on overcoming the constant need to resolve uncertainty. Like a small child we all become impatient at times. Wanting the answer now, not willing to wait. Many great examples are listed here to alter the need for constant clarity in life’s situation. Sometimes it just is what it is.

A Kid, A Tie and a Chocolate Smile – One smile can do a world of good. In today’s world we rarely slow down to take in the good moments from strangers. In this post you will find out how one little boy in a busy city could transform a man’s day.

8 Websites You Need to STOP Building – Very funny! This comic like post will keep you laughing. It goes into several unnecessary points behind certain web sites.

5 Reasons Email is Now Snail Mail – Email in the past seemed to be super fast right? Not anymore. With more ways to communicate nowadays IM and Twitter have left email in the dust. Some interesting point are listed here as to the cause of slowness with emails. However, I have to say I’m still a fan of email slow or not.

Create Your Own Awesomely Weird Chocolate Bars – What will they think of next? Odd but somewhat interesting you will find the makings for the most unique candy bar in this post. From potato chips to herbs you name and they can put it in your custom chocolate bar. I think I’ll just stick with a normal good old chocolate bar.

Number of Twitter followers is the most overrated metric in social media – Mark makes some great points here about the volume followers. Sometimes more is just more and not benefiting you in the long run. He gives good examples of the outcome when having more followers than you can keep up with. “Numbers of followers/friends/readers matters, but in my opinion how connected you are to them is even more important in determining influence and reach”.

The 9 Stages to Social Media Acceptance – Social Media made simple. For newcomers the tips listed in this post will be most beneficial. The step by step process of what to expect when entering the social media experience will turn you into a master tweeter in no time.

If you’re looking for more, see the rest of my favorites on HeatherVilla StumbleUpon.

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What the Lost Series Finale Taught Me About Personal Branding – Flash sideways is apparently a concept introduced through Lost. It is somewhat confusing but take a look at what David Trahan thinks of it. And don’t forget to look at the tips he includes!

How to Create Guest Post Guidelines for Your Blog-  This is a really great and highly informative blog that discusses the hows and whys of writing a guest blog. Sometimes bloggers forget about the simpler ways of going about marketing themselves. Why not get your name out there – everywhere – and use other people’s influence and audience to your advantage.

Why BP Should Embrace the Fake BP Twitter Account – We all know about it; it’s the talk of every media outlet imaginable! This environmental disaster involving BP also made it onto twitter via a fake account @BPGlobalPR Outspoken Media came up with a compelling and well thought out list of reasons for BP to embrace the falsies out there!

Beware: Baby Lambs Cause Computer Viruses – The internet is an amazing thing and I can hardly remember life before www. This is a really great blog from one of my favorite bloggers. She wrote how she received an email from a friend of her who described how she got a virus from a website about baby lambs. Seriously – baby lambs! Take a look at this article and make sure you read the comments.

Rubber boots and sales copy – Poor Aaron. Working in his living room because his office is full of water. Poor guy! Take a look at what he had to face and then the awesome advice he gives about writing amazing sales copy at the end. Great advice from his temporary office on Hoos Island!

A Beginner’s Guide to Trail Running – Literally, this is a blog that gives you instruction, guidance, and tips an what is required to begin making a habit of Trail Running. I will admit, I am not an avid Trail Blazer but it is something that I have thought about doing. This is the most thorough articles I have found on the topic!

Check out HeatherVilla StumbleUpon to see more of my favorites.

Have a great weekend!

Related posts:

1. Weekend Reading: My fav’s from this week: 2/19/10
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3. Weekend Reading: My fav’s from this week: 6/11/10

I’m not a big believer in the “magic bullet” theory of business. I’ve never believed that a particular business model or the perfect product will turn a business from a mediocre business into a super-success. I’ve always subscribed to the notion that if you work hard and provide value and do good in the world, you’ll enjoy some business success. But IF ever there was a secret to success, I think a good set of systems is a contender to be nominated as one.

Systems are the processes that we develop for our business. It’s a preplanned structure; an outline; a pre-determined way of doing something. Sometimes the idea of systems is one of automation but I don’t think that’s always accurate (and I’ll show you why in a moment).

Systems make your day easier and they save time. When those two things happen, you can do more in less time. And when you can do more in less time, you can make and sell more and your business will grow.

So, what kind of systems am I talking about? I would recommend a system for everything you can make a system for:

• Create a checklist to make sure that every email you send out contains specific pieces of information that your clients usually ask for.
• Create an easy way to write a blog so you take less time thinking up a topic and writing about it.
• Create a workflow system so that every incoming project ends up in one central location and is scheduled appropriately.
• Implement a CRM system so that every prospect and customer gets treated right and doesn’t fall through the cracks.
• Create a bookkeeping workflow so that every income or expense item gets passed to your assistant on the day it is received and logged within one day in the right spot.
• Create a flowchart for common “mini-disasters” you face in the day, such as an irate client or a customer service issue.
• Create a social media checklist to make sure that you are engaging appropriately each day without wasting time by starting at a Twitter stream without a clear idea of what you need to do.
• Create a checklist of the 10 things you need to do each day to market your business.

See what I’m doing? I’m listing the most common tasks that you (and every other business owner) go through and I’m recommending a type of system to be developed. Systems don’t have to be technologically automated. They just need to have an established process in place. It could be as simple as a checklist or a flow chart. (By the way, one of my clients has exactly this: a 12 point checklist posted on his wall right in front of his computer. As long as he goes through each point each and every day, he earns six figures a year. Having the list, he says, has helped to free up his time).

Systems ensure that you don’t reinvent the wheel every time. Systems ensure that you do what needs to be done and you don’t miss something. Systems simplify your work by freeing you from having to remember what to do each day. Systems make work predictable so you can spend your energy on the value-adding efforts for your clients.

Want the secret sauce recipe for your business? It starts with a system of the things you do every day.

Let’s go make some sauce!

Related posts:

1. Successful Business Proposals in Just Ten Minutes a Day
2. Nine Tips for a More Successful Business
3. What makes a successful business?

Last time I checked, there were only 24 hours in a day. Clients and employees and administration can each demand all of those hours. It takes bold and confident time management to run your business successfully. Here are a few tips to help you:

1.    Pick a time management system and run with it. Sometimes one system might come along and seem better – and it could be better – but it could also be a grass-is-greener-on-the-other-side situation. Try it out for a week or two first and run both systems concurrently to see if the new one is actually the superior one.

2.    Ruthlessly plug holes. Every system has holes where projects fall off. One problem I see all the time among GTD users is too many inboxes. Another problem I see is when someone crosses off an entire project as being complete even though they haven’t yet finished a final step or two. Figure out where these holes are for you and address them. Limit your inboxes. Keep a master list that only gets crossed off when you receive confirmation from the bank that the client’s check cleared, etc.

3.    Build systems. Build systems, build systems, build systems. Make this your daily mantra. If you’re doing something today and you do the same thing tomorrow, you need a system. It could be as simple as a prescheduled reminder email or it could be that you have a specific number of programs that open on your computer when you start it up in the morning or it could be a list or a spreadsheet or a flowchart. Whatever. I have a big wall calendar that I use for everything. My friend has his 4-step sales funnel printed on his wall with his daily tasks in each section. These are systems, workflows, and checklists that make sure we get everything done in the day.

4.    If you find yourself with too many things to do in one day, but you’re always finding more great ideas to try (join the club – that’s me!) then don’t adopt everything at once. Keep a big list of things that you want to do and slowly add new actions or ideas into your business. But do them one at a time and make each one a habit before you go on to the next one.

5.    On the subject of habits, identify yours and eliminate the bad ones. If you’re the kind of person who procrastinates, figure out what you need to do to stop. A client of mine has the right idea: She admits that she used to be a terrible procrastinator and the only way she can keep it from happening is by offering insanely fast turnaround times on her work for clients. She ends up being so busy that she doesn’t have time to procrastinate!

6.    Know your peak times and work towards those. If you slump in the afternoons, as most of us do, don’t schedule your most important work for that time. Find the times when you are at your best and expect to work on your most important work at those times. I know the theory that says you should work on the least enjoyable project first, but I tend to subscribe to the theory that you need to work on whatever is most important for your mental state at the time.

7.    If you work online and tend to get distracted by interesting stuff (ahem: Woot, Ebay, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter), write it down instead of looking it up. Keep a distractions page and when you think “I wonder what’s on Woot right now”, write it down and look it up later during a time-limited browse-the-web reward-for-hard-work session.

There isn’t a great, magical time management technique that will give you hours of time. But if you pick a few winning best practices to control the chaos in life, you’ll gain back a few minutes here and a few minutes there and that adds up!

Happy Blogging!

Related posts:

1. Time Off: Do Small Business Owners Get Any?
2. The Secret Sauce for a Successful Business
3. Training Others in Just Ten Minutes a Day so You Can Free Your Time and Grow Your Business

Granny DJ Spins the Internet into a Frenzy – OMG, here is the viral DJ Ruth Flowers video. I had to watch it twice! I wonder if she only wears the glasses when she is portraying DJ Flowers? =P

Breaking up is hard to do: Why businesses need to occasionally fire clients – Is there a “totally true” button here? Aaron discusses how the customer is not always right. Also talks in detail about how a business relationship with a customer can get to the point where it just makes sense to go separate ways. Maybe their focus has changed, or they no longer fit the bill in what your company defines as a customer. There is a great process/tool that the author describes to help you discover if you have to “trim the fat” when it comes to the best customer base for your company, and for the customer.

What Happens to Your Website If You Die? – This article talks about a topic most of us probably have never even thought about. What happens when you pass on and you have a bunch of websites that you monitored daily, contributed to, blogged on? It does make one think – what happens to your email inboxes? Can you “leave” them to a relative, or an employee through your will? This is a really good read and really makes you stop and think about it for a minute.

Personal Branding & Finding Your Naked Superhero – Captivating title, a photo that demands you to look twice, and content to boot! One of my favorite bloggers, Lisa Barone talks about the traits necessary to ensure you apply that personal branding paint nice and thick – so people will be drawn in to reading most everything you write about. As she mentioned in past blogs “….create a character around yourself so that you are always presenting people with the absolute best version of who you are”. A must read for bloggers who are looking to perfecting their own branding.

Why Entrepreneurs Should Eat Their Young – Jonathan Fields says it best – ” Entrepreneurs often get so emotionally-wed to their babies, they lose the ability to make good decisions”. He actually provides some information taken from a study by Hope Klug and uses it to the relationship between entrepreneurs and their still wet behind the ears followers.

Check out more of my favorites on HeatherVilla StumbleUpon.

Have a wonderful weekend and happy reading!

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