Looking for another idiot (fool) like me.

Hashtags: #quality product #excellent quality #marketing. #commitment, #self improvement #good decisions #priority #honesty #hard work #long term results #no shortcuts

I promise to explain why this title - Looking for another idiot (fool) like me - by the end of this post. but I can assure you, it is a true statement coming from me...

Let me start this post by saying why is it related to marketing.

Lets say you have a shitty product and you advertise it, so you can sell more of it. People who would buy it, will discover that is shitty product soon or latter, and probably will never buy it again. Actually, in the future when they see it is from you again (your brand), they will remember the bad experience and probably not buy from you again. So I think it is fair to say that for the cost of your initial advertising, instead of increasing your sales (witch it will in the short term) you will loose that one client almost forever.

At this point you can understand that having high quality products is mandatory if you are expecting to have a long term success. So having a good product comes first, and them you can turn into marketing , so people can find you.

 There is scripture I like to quote (Doctrine and Covenants | Section 88:40): “For intelligence cleaveth unto intelligence; wisdom receiveth wisdom; truth embraceth truth; virtue loveth virtue; light cleaveth unto light;….”

 I believe it was completely true. If you want to deal with honesty people for example, you need to become such a honest person first.

 If you want more than short term sales increase you got to work on the quality of your product first.

 It has being a few years since my divorce in 2014, even thou I admit I was a not a perfect husband, I do believe there was not a reason for this divorce to happen. When I came to cross roads of my own marriage I always try to put the relationship first, it was for example when I did abandoned my dream of living in Canada to come back to Brazil with my wife, but you cannot force someone to stay when they want to go, there was nothing I could do to convince her to stay, and I did try lot of things, now when I look back I don´t regret one second because I don´t need to ask "WHAT IF" I had tried harder, because I did try my best, even foolish things.

In this research no One ever said, they did miss making more Money or staying more time in the Office

The reason we (Mormon Christians –The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) do this is perhaps we know the only thing we can take with us from this life is our relationships if we are faithful to our covenants. (if you want to understand more, watch the video below)

To watch this video on YouTube

By the other token, we know (there is no faith involve here) we will not take our bank account or any possession with us when we die, I bet you see no one taking any of those thing to carry with then when they die. Also I can point out that money just make our life more comfortable, not happy, it also can enhance whatever we are, if we are bad we will become worse, if we are good, we will become better.

Perhaps you may be wondering who is that girl on the first picture. She was supposed to be my first girlfriend after my divorce. Despiteful all odd I did find a girl who was a Christian in a country where religion is forbid, we did a lot video talk in the past few months, she was a girl who I describe having her heart in the right direction, we did talk a lot about the gospel and she was very cute also, but we did not live in the same city. I thought to myself, one day I will look back and don´t wanna see "WHAT IF" I didn´t have done something to make this relationship possible? I am already in China, the hard part is done already.

So, since it was not possible to move out to her city I took the chance to move to best second option, witch is in Zhengzhou city, where she said she would meet me, and perhaps moved here so we could have a real chance to date. My decision implicate among other things I would not receive the bonus of renewing my contract to the company I was already working for, if that was the price to pay for a chance to make this happen it was not such a high price, specially for someone who beliefs money is not the most important thing in the world, as you read above in this article.

Few weeks later after I moved here in Zhengzhou, when we were video chatting as we usually do, she told me that moving to USA was more important to her than marrying me, I do understand her reasons as she wanted to be free to be a Christian among other things, even after explaining that Brazil was a free country and we could move there was not enough to convince her...

Perhaps this was a suggestion that one day when we face a crossroad in our marriage, she is the girl who will value other things more than a relationship, off course I was a little heart broken, even for a girl I did not even meet in person yet (after all I am human being), but I was free from the future chance of me looking back and ask "WHAT IF" I didn´t have done my part to meet her? I did took chance and got my answer, that I would never know otherwise.

By the way, even thou I was a little heart broken, I understand enough to know that is perfectly fine since I am free to keep pursuing the right one. There is so many good and cute girls here, usually I am the one who is been picky/choosy here, so the last thing I need now is to end up AGAIN with the who is not going to value me.

Maybe the best advantages to be a Christian is to know things will not finished when we die, that allows me to make better decision having the eternal perspective. One of the best illustration I saw, was from Francis Chan (Rope Illustration) 

I hope you can extract good reflection from this post, it does make me think a lot of where am I leading my life to. I know we can always do better, improve ourselves, as well our companies when we strive to put out the best selves out there or the best product possible. What I am trying to say is, perhaps being able to offer one good product is better than two bad ones.

Also I want to say that for most of us who feel we don´t have enough time in day to do everything we need, having a priority can make such a huge difference, if we don´t have time for everything at least we would be working in the most important things. These are not my own word, but from a leading expert on the subject of efficiency, Stephen R. Covey the author of "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" 

The title of this post is because not every one understands my decisions, and perhaps thinks I am a fool, if that is so I rather find another fool like me to marry or stay single forever. Ha ha ha ha!!  Even thou some people get away from doing the wrong things, such as when applying black hat techniques for SEO strategies on their websites, that usually do not go unnoticed for a long time and they get penalized later on. I guess I am trying to say that to do the right think is always better, and it pays off in the end.

In summary, don´t be afraid to work hard, to be honest, to improve the quality of your services and products, to be a better person with a good relationships with everyone, including your customers and clients, the worse thing a company can do is to try to trick their customers or to treat them badly, that is why when a client is satisfied and trust the company it is ten times easier to sell to them again.

I have a little help here if you are thinking on how you can improve your relationship with everyone including your clients, that is a small course on people skills I put together to share what I did learn in the past, please don´t get me wrong, they are just good techniques that will help, but will never be a good substitute to have a good character. Good character attributes like honesty, respect, trust, hard work, patience, fidelity are the foundation to any good relationship, no techniques can work in the long term without a solid good foundation.

 I will required your e-mail to share this course for free with you. My intention of having your e-mail is from time to time to tell you about the books I am publishing in the future, perhaps I will invite you to write a review of the book in exchange of a free copy of my book, in any case you can always unsubscribe to my e-mail listing without a problem. If that sounds good you can click on the next picture to subscribe and have access to the People Skills course I just talked

I invite you to take action and get your FREE copy of the People skills course and share below why do you think it is easier to do business with people you trust and have good relationships with.

Reciprocity & Recognizing small business!

The title of my post today is not readily easy to get it. So let me explain...

Reciprocity is well known to be one of the persuasion techniques, so if you want something and you first freely give, the other person may feel He or she needs to return the favor. In fact if you did give, for increase your chances to receive back the favor you did not "freely" give anything, the fact is even small gifts can trigger the other person to return the favor by given you back something much more valuable.

If you are giving with the sole purpose to receive it back or in the case of a business only to increase your profits, you are doing it wrong, perhaps you cannot even see lasting results on your actions of given. That is why I always tell my students that they should find a job they enjoy, if they do that they can go to work and draw a lot of a pleasure and their minds would not be always thinking of money. The reality is if you are in such position (doing what you like) money will follow naturally as a consequence. 

Inexplicably helping other people make you feel so good, in itself it is already a very good reward to help other people, so don´t get angry when they don´t return the favor, just do it for the pleasure of helping. Right now I am a University teacher here in china, I am being very friendly to all, specially the students at the university where I live. I had the opportunity to help students in many different ways, sometimes just by listening to their problems and offering some good counsel from someone with more experience. I offer incentive and inspiration to keep pursuing their worthy goals. Sometimes I feel they only need a little incentive, and I have seen how important that is when no one seems to care for what is going on in their lives. 

Another way you can do this online is if you have a audience, you can recognize small business just by referring them in your social media, or blog , it is like a free advertising to them, and will cost you nothing, they may even return the favor. I got this idea here and I like it, very nice article by the way. 

When was the last time you did help someone ? how did you feel? my last time was not too long ago, I did even record the conversation (not on purpose) but you can listen to it in YouTube, it was one of the links above in this post. You just can hear us talking, her identity is protected. 

Please don´t forget to share your experience if  you did help someone, it is always nice and inspiring to read such stories

 

Why is it better for small business to outsource?

Better for whom? That is where we get skeptical and sometimes we feel we should not loose control of our business by outsourcing strategic parts of it. If you thing like that, I guess I should agree with you... actually that is one situation you should NOT outsource. I will devote another post to when you should not outsource, but now I want to talk about why you should.

Did you ever have heard about comparative advantage? This is the reason many countries open up their economies to free trade, in turn the comparative advantage is the reason they can improve their economies by trading with another country, actually this process also works on a individual level too. 

Look the picture above and answer me. Why anyone would work as a secretary making $25 per hour, while this person could be working as a lawyer making $150 per hour. It makes a lot of sense to hire a secretary for $25/hour and keep the difference ($125) while you are working as lawyer. Comparative advantage is not the same as absolute advantage. Lets say the lawyer person can better at being a lawyer and also being a secretary, even thou in this case this person has absolute advantage in both cases, she still can benefit to hire the secretary for obvious reasons (to keep $125/hour).

If you want a more detail explanation on the topic comparative advantage you check the following links:

Calculating Comparative Advantage ,

Comparative Advantage

From the last link we got the following insights:

• Comparative advantage helps predict the patterns of trade between individuals and/or countries.
• A country has a comparative advantage in the production of a good if the opportunity cost of producing that good is lower in that country.
• Even if one country has an absolute advantage in all goods, it will still gain from trading with another country.
• Although this example is cast in terms of countries, the same logic is also used to explain production patterns between two individuals.

Notice that this logic can be applied not only to countries, but also to individuals and businesses.

I did even made a video talking about one of the mistakes small business sometimes do is not hire help, in other words to outsource part of the business, so the business owner can spend more time doing what he does best (taking care of the CORE part of the business).

Some people do not feel up to the task and even don´t know how to start, that is the adventurous part of being a business owner, always learning something new, don´t forget that now a days is very easy to get information on how to do things for free, information that is very reliable if you know how to search for, for example, Michael R. Lewis a business advisor with more than 40 years of experience in business and finance co-authored this very nice article on "WikiHow" where you can find information, on how to outsource.

Many times outsourcing means supporting other business, that is because you would be hiring some other companies to do the service, and if you choose to do that with small business like you, not only with big corporations, you are sowing for a better future. It may mean you need to pay up a little bit more to hire from small business than big companies, but in the long run you are supporting a better market conditions than if was only dominated by the big companies. Rieva Lesonsky put a nice article arguing on this topic, it is worth reading.

Do you agree with my point of view ? if not, please feel free to share your opinion below. At least I hope, I did make you reflect on how you are managing your business.... 

Confidence, marketing mistakes and people skills - Close the circle.

People skills is a very important skill in any area of your life (including business and personal relationships), many times you get to do business with people just because they like you. Don´t take this lightly, knowing what to do to be more likeable and confident is a great way to improve your chances for success. Finally the last gift is to understand what are the most common online marketing mistakes so that you can avoid them. By learning and applying those things, you will close a circle of improvement in your business.

Get your FREE copy here

10 Reasons You Need to Market with Articles Now

Summary: Looking for a simple way to get an edge on your competition?  Article marketing is a proven tactic that addresses some key marketing strategies. Here are 10 exceptional reasons why you need to market with articles now!

 Keywords: Internet marketing, marketing strategies, article marketing, search engines

Looking for a simple way to get an edge on your competition?
Successful businesses who are in it for the long haul continually apply innovative marketing strategies and tactics to differentiate themselves and get that edge.  Writing articles is an excellent way to promote your business and on top of that, there’s probably a good chance that your competition is not using this tactic.  Face it.  It takes some time, skill, and effort to write and effectively use articles, that’s why the masses don’t do it however, those looking for an edge do. So why choose article marketing as one of you marketing tactics?  Here are 10 exceptional reasons: 

1)  It is quite simple.  People love to buy from and deal with the best.  Writing and effectively marketing your articles helps you position yourself as the expert in your field.

2)  Let's take this first concept a step further for reason #2.  Let’s be blunt here, as an expert, you can justifiably increase your rates and charge more for your products.

3)  If your articles are good and distributed properly, they can spread like wildfire and literally cause a viral marketing frenzy.  Ultimately driving business your way.

4)  A big part of Internet marketing has to do with the Search Engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN, Edge, etc.  It’s critical that we play their game.  That being said, Search Engines love content such as articles!  Many Internet marketers try the latest fad to trick Search Engines into getting a better ranking.  If you have a lot of time and/or money on your hands to keep up with the latest trends and the ever changing Search Engine rules, then do what you feel is right.  However, one tactic still holds true with improving Search Engine ranking, and that’s article marketing.

5)  People love to be and feel well informed – It helps them make better decisions.  Your articles can serve as the source for the input they seek.  And who better to buy from then the source that provided the information in the first place.

6)  Talk about getting major bang for the buck, articles can easily be repurposed in a variety of ways.  For example:
◆ They can become content for your or someone else's newsletter;
◆ Used as free giveaways to prospects/clients, in seminars, at networking events, etc;
◆ Used to spark conversation in a blog or an online networking groups
◆ Combine multiple articles into an eBook, book or info-product that can be sold or given away in exchange for contact information;
◆ Become the basis for a live seminar
◆ And we can go on and on and on.

7)  Articles when distributed properly are a great way to stay in touch with clients and prospects.  Studies have shown that on average it takes around 7 to 13 touches before a prospect buys.  Why not use articles as some of those touches?  This will help continually boost your prospect’s perception of you as someone who consistently adds value.

8) As a complementary reason for number 7,is that why business who have more “branding” and we can call writing articles as branding efforts, when they run ads they can drive so much more and better results from those who did not have any branding efforts.

 9) Writing articles is a long-run strategy to use in adverting, it is free and surely drive results that keeps coming for a long periods of time since your efforts have stopped. In 2011 I did was excited about leaning and trading in the Forex Market, I did end up putting my experience of trading in a book with a purpose to teach people they can learn trading without loosing money, that is the opposite view of many who thinks trading is about making a profit and not loosing money. I did promote my book by writing some articles and that was 10 years ago, those articles keep driving traffic to my bookstore where my book still making good sales.

 10) Writing those articles is the same as building a foundation where you can establish a solid brand name for your business. The more you were known among your potential customer the better results you will get when you run any marketing campaign or ads, it is like fertilizing the soil before you plant the field, for sure your results will reflect that.

 11) (bonus) Writing an article gives you the opportunity to do a “CTA” known as “call to action” on your audience, some people don’t make more sales because they don’t make an offer or invite their reader to do something, it is not like you have to do this every time, but when you do you are more likely to engage your audience and perhaps get some feedback from them. For example I could finish this article here but instead of doing that I am inviting you to share your comments below and also if you have any experience in writing an article and how that did help your business, just like the example I give on reason number 9 where writing the article helped me to promote my book.

We live in an age where information is king.  We all know something others would be interested in knowing.  Share your knowledge and like a magnet you’ll draw your prospects towards you.

Keyword Density - Simple ways to check the density.

Keyword density is an indicator of the number of times the selected keyword appears in the web page. But mind you, keywords shouldn’t be over used, but should be just sufficient enough to appear at important places.

If you repeat your keywords with every other word on every line, then your site will probably be rejected as an artificial site or spam site.

Keyword density is always expressed as a percentage of the total word content on a given web page.

Suppose you have 100 words on your webpage (not including HMTL code used for writing the web page), and you use a certain keyword for five times in the content. The keyword density on that page is got by simply dividing the total number of keywords, by the total number of words that appear on your web page. So here it is 5 divided by 100 = .05. Because keyword density is a percentage of the total word count on the page, multiply the above by 100, that is 0.05 x 100 = 5%

The accepted standard for a keyword density is between 3% and 5%, to get recognized by the search engines and you should never exceed it.

Remember, that this rule applies to every page on your site. It also applies to not just to one keyword but also a set of keywords that relates to a different product or service. The keyword density should always be between 3% and 5%.

Simple steps to check the density:

◆ Copy and paste the content from an individual web page into a word-processing software program like Word or Word Perfect.

◆ Go to the ‘Edit’ menu and click ‘Select All’. Now go to the ‘Tools’ menu and select ‘Word Count’. Write down the total number of words in the page.

◆ Now select the ‘Find’ function on the ‘Edit’ menu. Go to the ‘Replace’ tab and type in the keyword you want to find. ‘Replace’ that word with the same word, so you don’t change the text.

◆ When you complete the replace function, the system will provide a count of the words you replaced. That gives the number of times you have used the keyword in that page.

◆ Using the total word count for the page and the total number of keywords you can now calculate the keyword density.

Use Keywords In Page Titles for SEO purposes.

 

It is recommended to use keywords in page titles itself. This title tag is different from a Meta tag, but it's worth considering it in relation to them. Whatever text one places in the title tag (between the <title> and </title> portions) will appear in the title bar of browsers when they view the web page. Some browsers also append whatever you put in the title tag by adding their own name, as for example Microsoft's Internet Explorer or OPERA.

The actual text you use in the title tag is one of the most important factors in how a search engine may decide to rank your web page. In addition, all major web crawlers will use the text of your title tag as the text they use for the title of your page in your listings.

If you have designed your website as a series of websites or linked pages and not just a single Home Page, you must bear in mind that each page of your website must be search engine optimized. The title of each page i.e. the keywords you use on that page and the phrases you use in the content will draw traffic to your site.

The unique combination of these words and phrases and content will draw customers using different search engine terms and techniques, so be sure you capture all the keywords and phrases you need for each product, service or information page.

The most common mistake made by small business owners when they first design their website is to place their business name or firm name in every title of every page. Actually most of your prospective customers do not bother to know the name of your firm until after they have looked at your site and decided it is worth book marking.

So, while you want your business name in the title of the home page, it is probably a waste of valuable keywords and space to put it in the title line of every page on your site. Why not consider putting keywords in the title so that your page will display closer to the top of the search engine listing.

Dedicating first three positions for keywords in title avoiding the stop words like ‘and’, ‘at’ and the like is crucial in search engine optimization.

SEO Basics - Yellow Corn School (coursify.me)