The Best Kind of Question to Ask to Increase Engagement
Have you ever watched a game show on television by yourself? If you’re like most people, you probably have at some point in your life. They’re a lot of fun! And even though we hardly ever know who the contestants are on the show, it can hold our attention for quite a long time. Now, another question for you… While watching a game show by yourself, have you ever said an answer out loud? If you’re like 99{0e584ec94eaa64d073763ee1dc286a1f4d0f941424b1448bbfd01af7d90f9475} of the population who watches game shows, it’s an absolute yes! Some …
SPI 154: Behind the Scenes of SPI TV with Caleb Wojcik – Gear, Numbers, and Production Tips
This week’s guest is the amazing Caleb Wojcik, the video mastermind behind DIYVideoGuy.com and the videographer for my latest project, Smart Passive Income TV. Caleb and I have been working together on various projects for years, but never have I been more excited about anything video related until SPI TV. Since we launched SPI TV a few months ago, Caleb’s helped me take my existing video content, repurpose it for iTunes as a video…
6 Ways to Validate a Product Idea Before You Waste Your Time and Money
Validating a product idea: an all-important step to take to avoid wasting time and money building a product nobody wants. It seems like an obvious thing to do, however many times it’s a step that gets pushed aside. Why? It could be because: We think we already know what our audience wants and will pay for. We’re anxious to actually begin creating something and rush through the research phase. We don’t know how to validate. A combination of all of the above. I’m fascinated by the idea of product validation – spending time upfront to confirm that…
SPI 155: Inside One of My Weekly Mastermind Meetings
I’m doing something different with today’s episode. No, it’s not another NPR-style epsiode—though you all know how much I love doing those. This time, I’m sharing with you a recording of a phone call. That phone call was with one of my mastermind groups I meet with each week. Consider this a sneak peek into how we run our mastermind group, what questions we ask, and how we push ourselves each week to make improvements to our businesses. This meeting was unique in that we had a special guest join us. Joey Korneman runs SchoolofMotion.com, an online resource for motion designers, and he’s been working hard to grow his business. …
My Monthly Income Report – March 2015
Welcome to my March 2015 monthly income report! As always, each month I write up a detailed report about how my online businesses are progressing. In these reports, you’ll find not only what I’ve been up to and the lessons I’ve learned, but a line-by-line breakdown of my earnings. Some income streams go up, and others go down, but there’s always a lesson involved. Let’s get right into it… What Happened in March? A lot of exciting things…
SPI 156: The Story Behind Abel James and the Success of Fat Burning Man
This week’s guest comes to us from the fitness world. He’s Abel James, who I got to know last year when he won an award for his incredible podcast, Fat Burning Man. Abel didn’t just stop at podcasting—his Fat Burning Man brand also includes a wildly successful book and mobile app. He’s built a multimedia franchise in an extremely saturated field, and he’s done it all without any of the sleaze that plagues so much of the fitness industry. Let’s face it: There are a lot of scammy fitness and nutrition businesses out there. That’s what makes Abel so amazing—he’s used transparency, honesty, and…
It’s About Time! #NMX
It’s early Monday morning, and I’m writing this post from the bed of my hotel room in Las Vegas. I perform my keynote presentation in front of a gigantic crowd tomorrow, and I couldn’t be more excited! Here’s a preview of the room: Woot! I’ve had well over a year to plan for this, and tomorrow – after all of the planning, coordination and rehearsals – all I can say is: It’s about time. Look out for a live stream of my presentation coming on Meerkat or …
SPI 157: The Art of Rejection with Jia Jiang
I first saw today’s guest on a TED Talk. His name is Jia Jiang, and his talk was titled, “Surprising Lessons from 100 Days of Rejection.” It’s one of those TED Talks you start watching and find you can’t stop—it’s that good. In the video, Jia talked a lot about struggling with rejection, particularly as an entrepreneur. He’d faced some hard blows trying to get his business off the ground, and hearing “no” time and time again was affecting his willingness to take risks. Then …
Back to the Future Again (My Short Film to Open My NMX Keynote)
A lot of you know that I like to go all-out when I get on stage for a presentation. I’ve watched hundreds of talks online and even hired a coach at one point to improve my public speaking skills, and I always try to bring something new, creative and different to the stage. In 2013, during the opening Keynote for the Financial Blogger Conference, I started the presentation by literally tripping and falling on stage, something I got special training for to learn how to do correctly. I tripped because the presentation was all about the power of first impressions, and that you never have a second chance to give one. People still talk about my entrance at…
SPI 158: How to Productize Your Service-Based Business
I’ve got a truly special episode this week—one that I hope will be a huge game-changer for a lot of you. This episode is all about productizing. A productized service takes a skill you already provide and allows it to run systematically, growing with or without your direct involvement. It’s what the passive income lifestyle is all about. Productizing your service can free you from the classic freelance model, where you bill by the hour. When you productize, you’re no longer limited by the number of hours you can feasibly work. Exciting…
SPI 159: The Best Practices for Increasing Sales With Your Autoresponder Email Series
This week, we’re talking about a simple thing that can have a huge positive impact on your business: email marketing and the power of an autoresponder series. Remember Steve Chou from Episode 143? Steve introduced me to the guy who helped him triple his revenue by making some small changes to his autoresponder series. That guy is Dan Faggella. When Steve told me I had to bring Dan on the show, I listened—and I couldn’t be more excited for what he’s…
6 New Social Media You Need to Watch
It seems like new social media networks are popping up all over the internet. After quite popular sites like Medium, Tsu and Ello or less known ones as Shots, This, Pheed, and Chirp, now it’s the time to introduce some new social projects I found online. Here are 6 new social media you need to watch. 1. Brabble Brabble is plenty a social media. You can interact by posting multimedia files, sharing them with friends (your followers), with “all the world” (public) or leaving your content private. It’s possible to respond to other content with multimedia files like videos, links, audio, photos…
6 Basic Rules of a Good Blogger – Are You Following Them?
Professional bloggers know that to bring traffic to their site, they need to do more than just creating some blog posts. A successful blogger must write content that strikes a chord with people and gets them to react. Your website can be a source of great income, but you need to do more than simply create a large amounts of articles. You must write content that provides your readers with valuable, useful and entertaining information. In a few words, added value! There are lots …
15 Solid Tips About Creating Great Content for Your Blog
Have you ever wondered how to create great content for your blog? This is a 2000 words guide with 15 steps to help you writing articles with real added value for your readers. 1. Plan What You Want to Achieve with an Article This point is essential. Planning is very important not only in your daily or business life. Before you start writing you have to know what you want. So, ask yourself some questions: Should it be a promotional article? Or maybe you want to share your experience about something? Is it a simple story for your readers…
How to Make Money With Infolinks – Best Adsense Alternative
Internet is full of opportunities and making money online has become the dream of many people. Blogging is still a very popular way to earn an income, as there are different methods to monetize a website and its traffic. While Adsense seems to be the most common choice, in this post I want to write about a valid alternative: Infolinks. How to Join Infolinks Registering to Infolinks is very easy. Just visit the website homepage and at top left, click on “Join us“. After entering your website in the first field, you can simply sign up with your Facebook credentials or add your full name and email. The application process …
Lucky Orange – The Most Complete Heatmap, Visitor Recording, and Chat Tool I Have Ever Used
Using the right tools in your blogging journey will definitely influence whether your success or failure. Have you ever wondered what actions take your visitors when landed on your website, checking exactly which pages they visit, even monitoring their mouse movement? Well, with Lucky Orange you can get this, plus many other interesting features, like live chat and polling system. How to Start Monitoring Your Site With Lucky Orange Registering is easy and you can run a completely free 7 days trial, without adding your credit card information. Just add your language, name, email and password to create your account. Confirm your password and start the guided tour. You can personalize your LuckyOrange dashboard depending on your…
Don’t Miss These 20 Sites to Get Free Images For Your Content
Finding the right media (while complying with the legal rules) is one of the most difficult parts of the creation of an article. You have to choose the right subject, identify a picture free of copyrights (otherwise citing the source or the author), verify that the image has sufficient pixels size (I go for 600 px within my blog posts, and a little more for the featured one) or even resize the image if needed. And despite all the time you spend on this process, sometimes the results are mediocre (well, it always depends on your expectations). Photography is the only language that can be understood anywhere in the world – Bruno Barbey A beautiful picture can make the difference between getting clicks and…
Join BuildPath and Learn How to Create a Profitable Business
In the last two years, I have participated in many interviews for different websites in the blogosphere. Frequently, the question was: “If you could go back when you started blogging, what would you have done differently?” My answer was always the same: “I would have hired a professional to teach me the right path since the beginning. This would have saved me a lot of time and money in the following years”. In this post…
Secure Your Website and Hard Work Online with Defencely
The security of your website should be among your first priorities. You don’t want to waste all the hard work you put into your online business and have it hacked, for example. This is even more a necessity if your income comes from working online. There are a few steps you can take to secure your WordPress blog. I can suggest some important tips: – use a ultra-safe password (using letters, numbers, uppercase, lowercase and special characters); – erase the “admin&#…
4 Tools to Quickly Increase Your Mailing List
Have you ever wondered how many active readers you have on your blog? Do your visitors just open and close your website without letting you know if they will return? If your stats show that you attract more new visitors rather than entice old ones to return, then you must recognize that you need to focus on working harder on your audience, instead of thinking about just getting more traffic. To generate more traffic you can make use of social media, guest posts and forums, but users who return on your web pages usually need to have a good reason to do so. If your website is already popular and you have invested your time to create a community around your blog, then the problem of having…
Mobilegeddon Checklist: How To Prepare For This Week’s Google Mobile … – Search Engine Land
Search Engine LandMobilegeddon Checklist: How To Prepare For This Week's Google Mobile …Search Engine LandThe Google Mobile Friendly Update launches tomorrow, a day that many including ourselves here at Search Engine Land are calling “Mobilegeddon.” We first learned of Google's plan to release a new algorithm designed to reward mobile-friendly web pages …Google's New Search Algorithm Stokes Fears Of 'Mobilegeddon'NPR (blog)Interview: Google's mobile algorithm update hits April 21Nooga.comM-Day is Almost Here: Is Your Website Mobile-Friendly Yet?Business.comInternet Marketing Newsall 553 news articles »
YouNoodle and Denmark for Entrepreneurs
Start-up Denmark Teams Up With YouNoodle To Find High-Growth Startups New partnership aims to attract global entrepreneurs interested in building and growing innovative companies in Denmark Start-up Denmark (www.startupdenmark.info), a new initiative of the Danish Government designed to attract talented entrepreneurs with world-class business ideas and YouNoodle (www.younoodle.com), a startup competition platform, today announced a partnership to discover entrepreneurs interested in building high-growth and scalable companies in Denmark. Start-up Denmark was created for non-European Union residents; there is no fundraising requirement and no need to get accepted by an accelerator. Applications are currently being accepted at www.startupdenmark.info/apply. Start-Up Denmark…
Small Business Scorecard : Optimism Up
SurePayroll Small Business Scorecard®: Optimism Hits New High, Pay Increases 80{0e584ec94eaa64d073763ee1dc286a1f4d0f941424b1448bbfd01af7d90f9475} of small business owners optimistic about the economy Optimism among small business owners hit a one-year high in March, according to the March 2015 SurePayroll Small Business Scorecard. Four out of five (81{0e584ec94eaa64d073763ee1dc286a1f4d0f941424b1448bbfd01af7d90f9475}) say they are optimistic about the small business economy, with 89{0e584ec94eaa64d073763ee1dc286a1f4d0f941424b1448bbfd01af7d90f9475} saying business is the same or better than last year. The Scorecard features survey data with insights from small and microbusiness owners, primarily those with 1-10 employees. SurePayroll Inc. is a leader in providing online payroll to small businesses nationwide since 2000. Scorecard Survey Data Optimism levels have been generally high…
Drone Conference Takes Off in Vegas
International Drone Conference and Exposition set for September in Las Vegas. BZ Media LLC announced the addition of Drone Business, a conference for drone business owners, entrepreneurs and dealers, to the International Drone Conference and Exposition being held September 9, 10, 11th at The Rio in Las Vegas. InterDrone, with more than 100 classes, panels and keynotes in all, will also feature a two-day technical conference, DroneTechCon, for drone-building engineers and software developers, and an overlapping two-day conference, Drone Flyer, for the buyers and flyers of commercial drones. This will be combined with an exposition showcasing 80+ exhibitors expected to display their latest products and technology. “InterDrone™ will be the largest commercial…