Goal setting is great in theory. Write down your goals, maybe write them down every day, carry them with you… And in a year nothing has changed. Let’s be honest… Most of the time goal setting simply is not enough to get things done.

Even when you break BIG goals down into little steps and then gradually work towards those goals, it still doesn’t work for many people.

If you are one of those people who can routinely achieve the goals you set, then congrats – you can stop reading right here. But if you’ve set goals – and set more goals – and set even MORE goals – and you STILL don’t have what you want…

…or maybe you don’t even like setting goals…

…then I’m going to propose you do something a little different.

Stop sweating the goals and instead focus on systems.

Yes, SYSTEMS.

You thought I was going to say habits, right? Habits are good but they’re not always flexible enough to get you to where you want to go.

Here’s an example of the difference between a habit and a system. Let’s say you want to bench press 250 pounds. You can make it a habit to do weight lifting at 6am on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. But if you don’t have a system for increasing your reps and weights over time, you’ll never reach your goal.

Habits are repeatable actions you do without thinking, like going to the gym at a certain time on certain days. A system is a series of actions you take, like systematically increasing reps and weight to reach your goal. If you’re just lifting weight without a system to increase reps and weights, you’ll never improve.

Goals alone without systems can be detrimental and limiting. Princeton’s theology school did an experiment: Theology students were told to go to another building on campus and teach a class on The Good Samaritan. You’ll recall that the Samaritan story is about a man who was beaten and left by the side of the road. Others walked past him, but the Good Samaritan stopped and helped him.

Students were told to go teach the story of the Good Samaritan to another class. But they were also told they were late and must hurry. An actor was planted on their path, lying on the ground, hurt, moaning in pain and even screaming twice.

Every single theology student ran past the injured person to go teach the class on the Good Samaritan. One person even stepped over the person in pain to get to the class.

The goal was to get to the class and make the presentation on time and the students were blind to any other possibility. They were so focused on that goal that they missed the bigger picture and personal perspective to help the injured person. But if these students had a system by which they lived, that system would likely have prioritized living the story of the Good Samaritan rather than just teaching it.

If you have a goal to earn a million dollars a year, you might bend rules, break laws or even hurt people to achieve that goal. But if you have a system that says you make money by providing real value to others, then you’re going to stay on the right path.

I think of the difference between habits and systems like this:

A habit is, “I write every day from 8am to 10am.

A system is, “I work on writing a book every day from 8am to 10am for two months, at which time I’ve completed a book. For the next 3 weeks I market and promote the book during this time, and for the fourth week I do research and outline my next book during this time. And then I repeat the system.

This might be an oversimplification, but the point is the system has more flexibility than a habit, allowing you to adapt as you go. Figure out what you want to achieve and then create systems to get you there. Build flexibility into your system so that when something unexpected happens, you know how to get back on track.

Lastly, focus on your system (the process or journey) and not on the goal (your destination). When you give your attention to where you are now (the system) you’ll find you’re much happier in the moment than if you are continually wishing for the goal itself. You’ll be able to celebrate little victories every single day by using your systems, rather than putting happiness off until you finally reach your destination.

Plus when you do reach your destination, because you have systems in place, you also won’t experience the paradoxical and yet all too common experience of feeling empty or sad because you no longer have that big goal to look forward to.

A man sets out on a journey of a lifetime.

The problem is, he doesn’t know where he wants to go.

So he spends the next 40 years wandering the back roads, never really going anywhere.

Another man chooses his destination. It’s a promised land, far, far away. The dangers he faces along the route are great and the challenges seem almost insurmountable.

Yet because he knows where he wants to go, he is able to find his way, overcome the challenges and eventually reach his destination, where he retires in 10 years’ time.

One man didn’t know where he was going, and so he wandered for 40 years and achieved nothing.

The other man knew exactly where he wanted to go, and because of his belief and determination, he was able to overcome every obstacle and reach his destination in 10 years.

Which person are you?

Most people won’t define what they want until they have clarity on how they will get there.

But because they don’t know what they want, they don’t have the clarity, and thus end up doing nothing.

That’s why you’ve got to decide first what it is that you want, and be totally clear on what that is. Write it down in detail.

Only then will you figure out how to get to where you want to go.

One more thing: Once you begin your journey, take time every single day to revisit your goal.

Just like a builder continually consults the building plans, you should continually go over your goal so that your subconscious mind knows exactly what it should be doing to get you to where you want to go.

This will also help you avoid time wasting activities that you don’t need.

Advanced Tip: Measure what you treasure.

Whatever your goal might be, take daily measurements of how you’re doing.

For example, if your goal is to reach a certain income level, you’ll want to track your profits daily.

If your goal is to exercise and eat right, you’ll want to keep a journal of everything you eat and every exercise you perform.

Whatever your goal might be, measure what you treasure and you will get more of what it is that you want.

All too often when people think of success, they think that they should be the best in their field. Or they should have the biggest house or the flashiest car… or millions of dollars in their bank account.

Success in life goes beyond material possessions and the number in your bank account. Real success is about living life to the fullest and knowing that you gave it your all. To live life on your own terms, pursuing your own authentic purpose and dreams is success.

The concepts of what it takes to be successful are very simple. Anybody can understand them and most people do. Application of these concepts, however, is quite another story.

In this article, I’ll share 10 important success tips with you. While they may not be mind blowing, rest assured that if you apply them daily, success in any endeavour will be yours.

Even during those times when you do not get what you want or despite your best efforts you fail, you will still push forward and succeed in areas you never even imagined.

Don’t think – Know and act.

This is without a doubt the most important tip of the lot. Success is not a coincidence but a consequence and it’s a direct result of your actions.

The majority of people who never succeed in life invariably have one common trait. They don’t take sufficient action. They hem and they haw and never put their plan into consistent and committed action. Planning does not get results. Only doing does.

Do not keep thinking about what you’re going to do or what you will do. JUST DO! This is the key. Form a plan, do your research so that you know what you’re doing and then EXECUTE the plan. Don’t wait, just start!

Instead of taking notes about which exercises are the best for weight loss, put on your shoes and start running. Instead of hanging out in online forums reading advice from other clueless people, take action. You can learn and learn and learn, but go nowhere…

The best thing is to start doing and learn as you go. Most people are stuck in a kind of inertia where they just never get started. By consciously forcing yourself to take action, you’ll attenuate this lethargy and inertia that’s holding you back. This and only this will catapult you to success.

Define your goals clearly.

You must know what you want. If you’re undecided about your goals and have a flippant attitude about how you’re going to achieve them, you will be like a sailboat without any course that’s just tossed around by the prevailing winds.

Write your goals down in a list. Make them as specific as you can. State why you want to achieve them and how you’ll feel when you do reach your goals. You must define your why and be absolutely clear about it. Give yourself a time frame to achieve your goals.

Look at your list often so that you remember what you need to do… and then go do what you have to do so that you can see success and then be able to do what you want to do.

Don’t rest on your laurels.

This is a very common mistake that can turn a successful person into a failure. If the phrase “Resting on your laurels” could be summarized in one word, that word would be COMPLACENCY.

There are so many examples of people who did succeed at what they set out to do and once they got there, they were so happy and content that they relaxed and assumed that things would always be rosy. After a while, they realized that while they were resting, the roses wilted and the weeds took the garden.

You must always be alert. If you’ve lost all your excess fat and you have a fantastic body now, that’s great. Enjoy it and be proud of yourself… BUT… do not assume that you’ll stay lean forever.

If you let your diet slide and sneak in a doughnut here and a milkshake there, it’s only a matter of time before all those pounds come sneaking back in. Next thing you know, you’re fatter than you’ve ever been before.

The same applies to your spouse. Give them the same attention that you did before you married. If you let that slide and think you closed the deal by tying the knot, it’s just a matter of time before you’ll be signing the divorce papers.

Always keep moving. A rolling stone gathers no moss.

Continually motivate yourself.

This is of paramount importance. Everyone is excited at the beginning of the year when they’re listing their goals and resolutions because of the promise of what is to come. The truth of the matter is that it will take time to achieve your goals.

During this time, your interest will start to wane and you will lose the drive to keep going through the hard yards. This is where most people throw in the towel and fail. They’ve lost sight of the promise.

The key to staying on track with your goals and succeeding in life is motivation. Do not renounce your personal responsibility of motivating yourself. Nobody else is going to do it for you.

You could attend a seminar by some famous motivational guru and be pumped up for a week, but you can rest assured that the high you’re feeling will dissipate.

What then? Who is going to motivate you?

The answer is you because you’re all you’ve got. Write your goals down and most importantly, write down why you’re doing what you’re doing. What is the emotional reason behind it? Write it all down.

Whenever you feel like the journey is just too much effort, look at your list of goals and ask yourself why you started. This should give you the impetus to keep going.

You MUST motivate yourself regularly, and take consistent action toward your goals!

Don’t be afraid of failure.

Always realize that failure is not the opposite of success. It is a part of success. Far too many people never do what their heart desires because they’re stifled by fear.

The lady who loves art chooses a career in finance because of job security. She hates her job and is miserable all her life.

The man who wants to travel the world and blog about his experiences as a global wanderer ends up tying the knot at 24 and has 2 kids because all his friends are getting married and settling down. It just seems crazy and immature to do what he wants to. Years later he’ll look back and wonder, “What if”?

Don’t end up in a “What if?” situation. You’ll find success if you pursue your true calling in life and not miss life-changing opportunities just because you were trying to be practical or following the herd.

You must follow your heart and your dreams without fear of failure. That’s the only way to live a life without regret. You can’t succeed at what you don’t do.

In the event that you do pursue your dreams and fail repeatedly, don’t let these failures discourage you. Fall seven times, get up eight.

The difference between the winners and losers is that the winners failed more frequently, and kept going. Learn from each failure, correct your course and keep moving forward. This is the only way to succeed and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Don’t compare yourself to others.

This is a simple one. Stop worrying about what others are doing. It’s human nature to measure one’s self against others.

Guys at the gym look around to see who can bench press more, and who has bigger muscles.

Women tend to judge other women’s bodies very harshly just to feel better about themselves.

Businessmen compare their earnings and net worth with their peers to evaluate their own worth.

None of these is necessary and can in fact be destructive. All unhappiness starts with comparison. There will always be those who are better off than you and there will be those who are worse off. Know this from the beginning and you’ll save valuable time and energy that you can apply toward making your life better.

If you constantly measure yourself up against those better than you, you’ll be bitter, discontented and miserable. That’s no way to live life.

If you compare yourself against those who are worse off than you, you’ll not be motivated to do better for yourself since you already think that you’re a success. This will lead to complacency.

So, your personal motto should always be to better your own personal best. You are your biggest competition. Always strive to be better today than you were yesterday.

If you focus on beating your own achievements, you will reap success over and over. Your only limit is you.

Keep your calm.

We live in a world where the majority of people are very quick to react. They’re often just waiting to get offended by others or curse at their own misfortunes.

In Rudyard Kipling’s poem “If”, his very first line was “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you”, and concludes with: “Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!”

In simple words, do not be quick to anger or become overly emotional. Do not make decisions based on haste or fury. Millions of people have been to prison because they lost their minds for a split second and did something they regretted.

Extricate yourself from any unfavorable situations so that you can keep a level head. If you’re struggling to lose weight and give in to temptation and eat something you shouldn’t have, don’t curse yourself and give up on your goal. Move on, and get back on track.

In times of failure, take a deep breath and stay focused. Analyze what went wrong and remedy what you can. Don’t run around screaming and blaming everyone else. If you truly want to be successful in life, reining in your emotions and staying cool is a skill you must develop.

The same boiling water that softens potatoes hardens eggs. It’s all about what you’re made of, not your circumstances.

Eat, sleep and spend in moderation.

This may sound simple but millions fail at it. Eat clean and eat in moderation. Food is fuel, not therapy. So many people eat when they’re happy, they eat when they’re sad, they eat when they’re bored… It just doesn’t end.

Eat only when you’re hungry. It’s fine to occasionally indulge but know your limits. Obesity has reached epidemic proportions because of poor diet choices and overeating.

Sleep soundly but don’t sleep your life away. 6 to 8 hours of sleep a day is adequate for most people. Don’t sleep 14 hours a day like a baby. At the other extreme, try not to burn the candles at both ends and leave yourself in a quivering mass of exhaustion because you’re only sleeping 4 hours a day.

Spend your money wisely. One of the most common traits of successful people is that they save money and live beneath their means. Don’t spend money that you don’t have to buy things that you don’t need to impress people who don’t care.

While these 3 pointers might seem commonplace and almost inane, you’d be shocked to know that millions have ruined their lives just by not getting these three points right.

This is the real world and these are hard truths. To succeed in life, you must master yourself, and stay balanced.

Keep your promises to yourself.

When you make a promise to yourself and don’t keep it, on a subconscious level you’ll lose respect for yourself. You’ll feel like you’re not worthy of success.

One common example is people who struggle to lose weight. They have the same weight loss resolutions every year and they never succeed. They try a hundred different programs and thousand different slimming pills and whatever they do, weight loss eludes them.

The reason for this is that they break their promises to themselves. If you say that you’ll not drink soda today, then you don’t. Do NOT make an exception and tell yourself, “It’s ok. I’ll work it off tomorrow”.

Yes, you can work it off but you broke a promise to yourself. The next time you tell yourself, I’ll restrict my carbohydrate intake today, on a subconscious level your mind will tell you, “No, you won’t. You always give in”.

And guess what? By noon you’ll give in and have 2 slices of pizza. Your resolve was already weakened by earlier broken promises.

When this process is repeated over and over, it becomes a habit. You tell yourself one thing and you do another. Your self-esteem and confidence in achieving the goals you set is diminished in this way.

You decide that the ideal body weight is just not possible for you. You tell yourself that you have poor genes, no discipline, etc. There is one thing you are succeeding at when this happens, and that is FAILURE. Many people are very successful at failing.

Always remember. Do not make exceptions when you commit to a goal. Do not skip the workouts. Do not indulge in foods that you said you wouldn’t. Stay focused and exercise self-discipline. Keep promises to yourself above all else!

Believe and have faith in yourself.

In order to succeed in life or business, you must believe that you can do it. If you didn’t, you’d never begin. You must believe that whatever you desire is within reach. After all, if it wasn’t, why bother?

Start believing it, and you’ll be on your way to seeing it. Have faith in yourself. There may be times when you’re dogged by failure and nothing seems to work. It’s during these times that it’s imperative that you do NOT give up.

It is always darkest before the dawn. If you stay on track and keep at it, success can be yours. You must stay the course, believe in yourself and your vision, and never stop working toward it until you have achieved the success you desire.

Conclusion

These 10 tips are simple to understand and you’ve most probably heard them before. Yet, you’re still reading because on some level, you know it helps to see them again.

Keep these tips in mind at all times and apply them over and over. Initially, it may be difficult and you’re bound to fumble and flounder a bit, but with practice and repetition, it will become second nature and you will be a living embodiment of success.

One of the most important decisions you’ll ever make in your life is what kind of career you are going to have. Many people out there plan their career from the time they are in high school and work diligently to make sure they have the education that they need to make their dreams come true. There are also people out there that haven’t had the opportunity, for whatever reason, to get the education they need to work in the field they have always dreamt of working in. These people will often take whatever jobs they can find in order to make ends meet and survive.

Once one starts in a job, even one that may not pay sufficiently or be very satisfying, many people end up staying there while. In order to make a change, one must make a decision to break the cycle and do something that is different from what they know or are comfortable doing. Some people will take on extra jobs in order to get the money they need to go back to school and find a better career while others will adjust their lifestyle to fit the amount of money they have coming in.

There are still others out there that decide to take things into their own hands and start a home based business. These people tend to believe in themselves and are motivated enough to make sure their dream of working from home can be turned into a reality. Frankly, these are the kind of people that will do whatever it takes to make sure they are successful in the line of work or home based business they choose.

You see, building a successful home business doesn’t really require more work than building a successful career in the workforce. The difference between those who work for themselves at home and people who work for a boss in the “real world” usually comes down to a self-motivated mindset and unwavering commitment to work until you are successful. An employee might be motivated to work until their shift is over, while an entrepreneur is compelled to work until they have achieved their goals.

Working from home can be highly rewarding if you are willing to put the effort into making it work for you. You are going to find times when you are pulling long hours and not getting many days off when you start out, but that is part of the appeal of working from home. You don’t have to worry about doing those long hours and then commuting home only to go back to the office in a few hours. You can also take breaks or days off when you want once you are successful because the only boss of you, will be yourself.

Working from home isn’t usually like what some people fantasize about where you walk around in your pajamas all day looking like you just got out of bed… In fact, if that’s how you are dressed while you are working, then you probably aren’t taking your home-based business career very seriously, and your results will be half asleep as well. Just because no one else is around you doesn’t mean that you have to let yourself go and become unprofessional in your dressing habits. Maintaining your professional attitude is the key to having your home based business become a success and is something that you should strive for on all levels whether you work a job, or your own business at home.

Making the decision to build a successful home business is really the primary key to success. Just remember that the word decision means to “cut off from” all other possibilities. When you truly decide that you are going to build a successful home business, you surely will. And if you fall short of the success you dreamed of, well, you didn’t really make a decision, did you? That’s just a hope and a dream, and that won’t take you very far down the road to home business success. Think about it, and go all in.

If you have been thinking of becoming a green marketer – that is, turning your existing business into a greener one in order to attract customers interested in green issues – it is important to understand whether or not your existing customers are green already. If they aren’t yet, they soon could be if you lead the charge and set a good example of how to become more eco-friendly.

What Is Green Marketing?

Green marketing is all about marketing products and services which can be considered greener than what is readily available on the market at present. For example, if you were going to open a green dry cleaning business, it would use less harsh chemicals, recyclable plastic, reusable hangers and shirt boxes, and so on.

You would also need to educate consumers about why green dry cleaning is as good as, if not better than, existing dry cleaning. By explaining what the difference is, you can justify any price difference related to your new green product line.

Studies have shown that customers have indicated they would be willing to spend 10 to 20% more on a green product versus a traditional product – provided that it gives the same level of performance, if not better, than what they usually use.

A Few Tips on Running a Green Business

Green marketing is also about being conscious of waste in the business and trying to have as small a carbon footprint as possible in the running of the business.

The easiest place to lead the charge here is to stop creating paper catalogs and other paper-based sales materials. Instead, create an online catalog with full details of all of your products, and keep it updated frequently. Drive people to the site with classified ads in your local paper or niche-related or industry-related magazines.

Make the most of your email marketing lists to remind people to come to the site and see what’s new. Have regular product launches and promote them on social media and online press release distribution services. You will be spreading the word about your new green products and services, but without having a significant impact on the environment.

Around the office there are likely many things you can do to make it leaner and greener. And in this way, you can show your target customers that you are not just trying to cash in on the green trend, but are genuinely concerned about the environment. For example, use recycled paper in your printer, along with soy-based inks. Use recycled toilet paper, tissues, and paper towels as needed.

In terms of paper towels, consider buying cotton hand towels and washing them regularly rather than using up a lot of paper towels. Use mugs instead of disposable cups. Use a regular coffee machine instead of those pod thingies to reduce your daily plastic waste.

Use a stainless steel reusable filter in your coffee machine basket so you don’t have to waste paper on coffee filters. Buy water filters and filtered water jugs to cut back on bottled water use. Use BPA-free plastic (or stainless steel) water bottles and travel mugs to cut down on trash and plastic in the environment.

There are many things you can do to educate your customers about green issues. But first you have to learn about them yourself. Once you do, you can take a 360-degree look at your products, services, office, and vendors. In this way, you will be able to clean and green your company, and impress customers who are interested in green issues.

Affiliate marketing is one of the quickest ways to start making money online. However, like all businesses, there are many potential pitfalls in an affiliate marketing business. The most common mistakes can cost an affiliate marketer time and money. Avoid these 3 common affiliate mistakes and you will be a lot more successful in a faster period of time.

1. Choosing the wrong affiliate program to promote.

Many people want to earn from affiliate marketing as fast as possible as soon as they hear there is money to be made. In their rush to be part of a lucrative affiliate program, they often choose a product that is not in strong demand, doesn’t have a high-paying compensation plan or even a product the affiliate is not really interested in.

To be successful, it’s important to do quality research first and ensure that the products you want to promote as an affiliate have a strong and growing demand in the marketplace, that the affiliate program has a generous compensation plan that will reward you well for your efforts, and that you truly have an interest in the products you will be promoting as an affiliate. When these criteria are met, you will have a much greater probability of success with your affiliate marketing endeavor.

2. Joining too many affiliate programs at the same time.

Since affiliate programs are very easy to join, you might be tempted to join too many affiliate programs at the same time in an effort to increase your earnings potential. You may think that there is nothing wrong and nothing to lose by being part of many affiliate programs at the same time.

It is true that developing multiple streams of income is an important key to financial success as an affiliate marketer, but the cost of joining too many programs at the same time will be a loss of focus and concentration on the primary program or programs that are providing your opportunity to earn additional income.

The result? The maximum potential of your affiliate program is not realized and the income generated will not exactly be as much as you were thinking it would. The best way to maximize your results is to join one core program, or a small handful of related programs within a specific niche market and focus your efforts primarily on learning how the programs work, and then implementing an effective marketing action plan to start promoting your affiliate products effectively.

The idea is to roll out your marketing strategy consistently, day-by-day until you are making the sales and income you aspire toward with the affiliate program or programs that you have joined. Once you have achieved your goals, you can always expand the portfolio of affiliate programs you belong to, and with your well-developed marketing skills, success in new affiliate ventures will always come easier. The key in the beginning of an affiliate marketer’s career is to become an effective online marketer.

3. Not buying the product or using the service you’re promoting as an affiliate.

As an affiliate, your primary purpose is to effectively promote a product or service to potential customers. For you to achieve this aim, you must be able to share the benefits of the product or service convincingly with the correct target market. This is a lot easier to do if you have purchased the product yourself, and have your own experiences with how it has benefited you. It also adds to your personal integrity and credibility as a marketer.

Some of the most effective affiliate promotions of all are personal reviews. Many successful affiliates setup review sites or videos online to promote products and services they believe in by sharing their personal experience (story) that they have had with the product. Most consumer’s buying decisions are either influenced or motivated completely by a personal recommendation they have received from a trusted source. If you can establish yourself as a trusted source by writing or recording honest and insightful reviews for products you are promoting as an affiliate, you will be far more effective than simply trying to advertise the product through other means.

Therefore, buy and try the product or service personally first before you sign up as an affiliate to see if it is really delivering on what it promises, and if it’s something you would be proud to promote as an affiliate. Your prospects will then sense the sincerity and truthfulness in your recommendations and this will lead to more product sales.

Many hopeful affiliate marketers fall prey to the 3 affiliate marketing pitfalls above, and don’t succeed in their affiliate marketing business as a result. Now that you are informed, you have the knowledge required to avoid these common mistakes and get your affiliate marketing business off to a profitable start and successful future.

To make more sales, you can send more people to your offers, you can send better qualified people to your offers, or you can convert more of the people you send. Today let’s talk about how to convert more of your traffic into sales by using little copywriting tips and tricks that massively improve your copy’s ability to make those sales for you.

1: Do more research. If you know how to hit your prospect’s hot buttons, your conversion rates will improve. And to know what you’re talking about, you’ve got to do your research.

What other products are on the market? How is yours better? What do your prospects want most? How can you tailor your benefits to what they want? What did the reviewers say?

Sometimes you’ll even discover the perfect headline buried deep inside your research, such as the comment someone made when they tried the product and got spectacular results.

2: Talk to your market. Who is it that you’re targeting with your product? These are the people to talk to. If you don’t fully understand the relationship between your product, your customers and how it improves their lives, then find out. Ask for their experiences and listen carefully for emotions and key phrases that convey both how they felt about the problem and how the product has changed things for them.

Are you just launching and don’t yet have customers? You can still ask about their problem and what it will be like for them when they have the solution. Even going to Amazon and reading the reviews that people leave for products similar to yours can be super helpful. Look for the experiences others can relate to, the ones where someone is talking about how tough it was to have the problem, and how frustrating it is that the product didn’t solve the problem or how their life has changed since it did solve it.

3: Test headlines. Always have several headlines to test, because the one you are certain will be the winner is probably going to be the loser. It’s just a fact that even the most seasoned copywriters often can’t predict which headline will hit it out of the ballpark.

Try not to get attached to a headline prior to testing, either. Give each one a fair test and let the numbers speak for themselves. I’ve seen marketers fall in love with a headline and lose a great deal of sales because they took too long to test others.

4: Use mini-headlines. Those little headlines that break up copy also work like Australian Cattle dogs to herd sheep. When your reader starts to stray, your mini-headline will bring them back into the fold because it’s going to create intrigue, give benefits or simply raise so much curiosity that they MUST read what comes next.

Imagine someone is skimming your sales copy and all they are reading are the mini-headlines. Do they tell a story on their own? Do they create curiosity while also conveying benefits? Would you be drawn into the copy and perhaps even want to buy the product just from reading the mini-headlines? If not, you might want to work on those.

5: Use lots of bullet points. I’ve seen a lot of marketers who seem to think you’re supposed to have one section of bullet points and that’s it. But I’ve also noticed that some of the highest converting sales letters have 2, 3, 4 and even 5 separate sections of bullet points.

Bullets make reading easy. In fact, some of your prospects will read the headline, the bullet points and then maybe the guarantee before making up their minds if they want to go further. To create a bullet point, first write a mini headline and then add a sentence that supports the headline and adds a benefit.

For example:

The #1 Stealth Method of Persuasion (This is the exact covert method the US government used to turn die-hard Russian spies into secret double agents – use this method to get what you want every time.)

6: Add sidebars and boxes. Break up your copy with sidebars and boxes that highlight benefits, showcase testimonials and quote experts. This breaks up your copy, makes the entire letter look interesting and keeps the reader reading.

7: Use an experienced graphic artist. Ideally your designer has experience formatting sales copy within your niche. Take a look at the work they’ve done and see if their style will work for what you have in mind. Jot down ideas and suggestions of your own and then listen to your designer’s ideas, too.

Remember that good copy with great design can sometimes out-convert great copy with lousy design. The look of your page can be just as important as what your page says. If you don’t believe it, think of the last time you arrived at a sales page and clicked away because of what you saw and not what you read. First impressions are made so fast that the reader has often formed an opinion before they’ve even read your headline.

You know those headlines that scream out you can earn XXX amount of dollars by simply “pushing a few buttons” or “sending a few emails” or some such? Well, this case study is actually about someone doing almost no work and yet banking close to $5,000 a month.

In fact, she might be up to that amount now. The $4,400 was how much she earned when we spoke, and she mentioned that her income is increasing every single month. Yet she does almost no work whatsoever.

And by the way, OPA stands for Other People’s Artwork.

Here’s how it works:

I’ll call her Sally because, well, when I talk to her she giggles a lot and sounds kind of silly. Sort of like a high school girl, and yet she’s in her mid-twenties.

Sally has several different identities on Etsy and Ebay. Each identity sells a certain type of artwork. One sells paintings of animals, one sells landscapes, one sells abstract art, one sells hearts (I’m not kidding!) and so forth.

She has a real life assistant (we’ll call him Gorgeous George because as Sally tells it, in addition to working for her George also does some modeling and fitness instruction.) George makes all the listings for the artwork, gets the prints made from the originals, fulfills the orders and handles any customer service requests.

What does Sally do? She outsources work to several artists who do all of her paintings for her. Just like hiring a ghostwriter to write a book which you then sell, Sally is hiring “ghost painters”. She has them sign a non-disclosure agreement that gives her all rights to the paintings. And she never tells her artists what she does with the paintings, either.

If I were doing this business model, I might consider giving the artists a percentage of sales, but Sally likes to simply pay one fee up front to keep things simple.

Sally chooses the styles for the paintings by finding examples and showing them to her artists. She then asks them to replicate the style and not the actual painting. She sells the original paintings for a good price ($300 to $1,000) and sells limited edition prints for a lower price.

Her listings never claim that she or her persona is the artist. She’ll use generic language such as, “This painting was created May of 2021 using pastels on canvas.” She has her artists use several mediums, including acrylic, watercolor, pastels, ink, charcoal and so forth.

She also has a virtual assistant who has one job: Promoting the artwork through various social media channels. This is why her business is growing so fast, because word is getting out via social media. And she’s very good at picking her subjects, too, some of which are extremely timely and most of which prove popular.

As you can see she has expenses: Her real life assistant George, her virtual assistant, the artists and selling fees. But even after all this, she pulled in $4,400 in profit the month she revealed her system to me, and like it said, it’s increasing every month.

The real key here is to choose subjects that will sell. That’s why she likes animals, hearts and landscapes because they always do well. And her paintings aren’t super elaborate, either. An experienced painter can likely create one in a short afternoon.

One of her best-selling stores sells paintings that are somewhat cartoonish, including caricatures of real people as well as animals doing silly things. As mentioned earlier, one sells hearts. I suspect this artist probably does 4 or 5 paintings in a day because they are that simple. But they sell like hotcakes because people love hearts and bright colors.

This business is easy to replicate and if you use assistants, it takes very little time at all.

Boys and girls, there was a time when calculators weren’t apps on smartphones – they were actually stand-alone hand-held electronic gizmos that did nothing but calculate numbers. (I’m dating myself…) Some of these calculators were even what you might call “desk sized” because they were so big you had to set them on something to use them.

One day a salesman found himself stuck with a gross of these large desk calculators. Nobody wanted to buy them, so here’s what he did…

He told his customers they were giant “ice scrapers” they could use to scrape ice off of windshields. The customers would object and say, “No, they’re calculators,” and he would reply, “Oh ya, I suppose you could use these as calculators, too, but they’re really great at removing ice!”

People would laugh and then buy one, and within days the calculators sold out.

Do you have a product that’s not selling?

Maybe you can find new positioning for your product, or a new and imaginative way to describe it.

For example, do you have a course on how to drive traffic via social media? Reposition it for one particular niche – dating, health, mmo, chiropractors – you get the idea. Do you sell a course on how to make art? Reposition it as art therapy so that it’s now about the process and not the outcome.

Almost any product can be targeted to a new audience or even rebranded as something entirely different.

Time and again I’ve seen new marketers complain that they’re not earning 5 figures a month. So, I ask them what they’re selling…

$7 reports…

$17 ebooks…

$27 video sets…

“Okay,” I say, “let’s do some math. Five figures a month is $10,000 or more. How many $7 products do you need to sell to make $10,000?”

“I don’t know,” they say.

The answer is 1,428.

What about $17 ebooks?

If you sell 588 of those a month, you’ll make five figures.

Yeah, but what about $27 video sets?

You only need 370 of those a month. That’s 12 or 13 sales every day.

If you convert a whopping 5% of your visitors, you’ll need 360 interested visitors a day to achieve that.

That’s going to cost money to drive that kind of traffic, which means you’ll need to sell a whole lot more products.

You see where this is going.

If the basic structure of your business prevents you from earning the income you want, then you’ve got to change your business.

It’s like buying a car that only goes 50, and then feeling disappointed and mad when it won’t go 100. It’s just not built for that kind of speed, and your business might not be built to earn 5 figures a month, either.

Low priced products are great for building a list of buyers and essential for self-liquidating paid advertising. You pay $100, you make $100 but you’ve got a list you’re building, or rather two lists because one is subscribers (which can be good) and the other one is buyers (which is where the real profit is made.)

But if you want to make five figures a month, you’ll need to either sell something more expensive like a $197 course or a $500 coaching program, or else promote affiliate products.

Let’s talk about that $197 price tag – to earn $10,000 a month, you need to sell just 50 of those a month. Or you can sell 20 of the $500 coaching.

The point is, if all you’re doing is selling nickel and dime stuff, then you can’t complain if you’re not making any REAL money.

It’s time to step up your game. Whatever is holding you back from selling more profitable products, knock it off.

Don’t tell me your list won’t buy expensive products because I know they will. They’re already buying more expensive products from other marketers, so why not from you, too? Build trust and rapport with them and some of them will buy anything you offer.

But the first step is getting your own mindset in shape and believing that you can sell big ticket items.

And if this is too much of a stretch for you right now (you’re not alone) then you can at least get on the right track by adding multiple products to your line. Add a continuity membership site, paid newsletter and/or paid podcast. Add products that sell for $47, $67, $97 and more. Find affiliate products you love and believe in that earn good money per sale. This way you can work your way up to the big-ticket items.

Heck, I know one marketer who won’t sell anything that costs less than $1,997. He doesn’t have a list of 500,000 because he doesn’t need one. He’s got a couple of lists of about 5,000 each and he is absolutely CRUSHING it because every single sale brings big money to his own pocket.

His mindset is that $17 products are a total waste of his time, and he’s right. To earn $1,997 he can make one sale or he can make 117 sales. He chooses to make one sale and even as I write this I realize that I, too, need to focus more on the higher priced products. I guess there is a lesson in here for all of us. 😉