Focus On List Growth And Sales

There’s so much you can do on a daily basis to grow your reach and make more sales. The list seems almost endless, doesn't it? You could be writing a new blog post, creating a series of videos, posting on various social media platforms, writing guest posts, publishing kindle or print books… the more important question you should be asking yourself is what should you do if doubling your income is your goal? The answer is much simpler and the list much shorter. 

 

You should focus on just two things. Growing your list and making sales. Does this mean you stop doing everything else you’ve always done? Not necessarily. Think of it more as a mindset shift that can help you become much more profitable. You could still write that blog post. But the goal of the post would be to either turn the reader into a subscriber, or warm them up for the offer you’re going to email them about in a couple of days. You’ll record that podcast interview, but your main goal will be to convert the podcasters audience into subscribers to your list. Do you see how this works? 

 

Why is focusing on subscribers and customers so important? Because it takes some time before someone is ready to buy from you. They have to know, like, and trust you first before they hand over their credit card, or log into their PayPal account. That’s why your number one goal when you reach a new audience should always be to get them on your list. That gives you a chance to build a relationship before you make an offer to buy. Of course, the benefit of a list doesn’t end there. You also get a chance to make offers for other products. These could be your own, or something you’re promoting as an affiliate. The end result, in either case is more money in your bank account. 

 

A list of subscribers is valuable and something you should always work on growing. The only thing more valuable is a list of customers. Customers have proven that they trust you and like you enough to hand over their hard-earned money. If you deliver a lot of value and help them solve a problem, they are more likely than anyone else to buy something else you offer or recommend. 

 

As you go about growing your business, focus first on growing your list of email subscribers, and then on converting these people into paying customers. Make that the main goal for everything you do online and you will quickly see your income grow.

Create A New Product For Your Existing Customers

Listen up, this is important. It’s one of the most powerful marketing concepts out there and something that could become a game changer for you. It’s much easier to sell ten products to one customer than it is to go out and find 10 buyers. In other words, it’s much easier to create a second product and sell it to your current customer base than it is to go out and market to new people. 

 

That’s why one of the quickest and easiest ways to increase and even double your income is to create a new product. Find out what your audience needs next. What else are they struggling with? What’s the next step they should be talking to reach their goal? Talk to your customers and do a bit of research in your niche. I’m sure you’ll come up with all sorts of fun and creative product ideas. Pick one and get to work. 

 

You’ll find that it’s much easier and quicker to create that second product than it was to work on the first. You know what you’re doing now. And guess what. It will get even easier the third and fourth time around. Plan to create a whole series of products that help your customers reach their ultimate end goal. When you start to run out of ideas on what they should be doing next, think about related topics. For example, once you’ve taught your tribe everything you know about list building, branch out into social media or copywriting. If you’re teaching them about container gardening, consider branching out into composting, or food preservation for example. 

 

Finish that product and get it up for sale. Then email your list of existing customers about it. Don’t be surprised if the majority of them will buy from that one email. That’s right, you’ll start seeing quite a few sales from that one email. Compare that to all the work, effort, and time it took to find those customers in the first place. Doesn’t that want to make you get to work on the next product? 

 

Of course, the benefits of adding a new product don’t end there. Start promoting the second product the way you did the first. Send an offer for it out to your list of leads. Mention it on social media. Link to it from existing content on your blog. Mention it in guest blog posts and podcast interviews. People who weren’t interested in your first product, end up picking up this new one, resulting in even higher profits. Try it and see for yourself.

Raise Your Prices & Rates

Are you up for a little math? I promise it won’t be hard, but it will open your eyes to the possibility of doubling your income by raising your prices and rates. I’m sure you’ve heard that one of the best ways to double your income is to charge more for what you do. When we first start to work online, we tend to undervalue our worth. We are anxious to get clients or make those important first sales. Starting out on the low end is actually not a bad idea. Without experience, testimonials, and social proof, starting with low-end products and services is a great way to get a foot in the door. But it isn’t where you want to stay. 

 

How do you know that it’s time to raise your prices? When you start to make quite a few sales. If you’re a service provider who’s constantly booked, you should be raising your prices. When you hear your customers rave about your products and share how much value they’ve gotten from them, it’s time to raise your prices. 

 

But what do you do when you’re not there yet? It may sound counterintuitive, but the reason your sales pages aren’t converting may be that you’re not charging enough. Think about it. You come across a course on running an online business that offers a ton of content for $7. What’s your first thought? It’s probably that it can’t be very good if the person is selling for so little. Your customers and clients may feel the same way. 

 

Often, we’re reluctant to raise our prices because we think we’ll lose customers. While that can happen, it also opens a lot of doors. Other people may not even consider buying what you have to offer until they see a price that they associate with high-value. Plus, when you increase your profit margin, you don’t need to sell nearly as much as you did before. 

 

Let’s dive into that math. Let’s say you have a product that you sell for $20. To keep the math simple, let’s say you sell 100 of them each month and that there’s no real cost associated with the product. With an information product like an eBook or course, there really isn’t and let’s ignore those pesky payment processor fees for this exercise. In that case, you’re making a $2,000 profit per month. 

 

Now let’s say you go crazy and double your price. You start charging $40 for your product. Because it’s such a great value and because the higher price reflects that, you find you’re making just as many sales as before. By doubling your price, you’re doubling your profit. You’re not bringing home $4,000 per month. 

 

But it doesn’t stop there. Because of the higher ticket price, an affiliate marketer becomes interested in promoting you. You set up a 50% commission and he sends an additional 100 customers your way. That’s another $2,000 in profits after you’ve paid the affiliate his or her share. 

Don’t be afraid to raise your prices. You don’t have to double your rates if that seems like a bit much. Play around with the numbers. If it doesn’t work out how you’ve hoped, you can always go back down, bundle products at a lower price, or offer a coupon. Play around with pricing and find the sweet spot for your audience and your products that nets you the biggest profits.

Collaborate With Other Players In Your Niche

Here’s an easy way to double your income. Put yourself in front of twice as many people who are interested in what you have to offer. Of course, that is easier said than done. Getting traffic and exposure is one of the hardest things to accomplish as the internet grows and expands. Sure, you could throw a lot of money at the problem and accomplish it with well placed ads, but that’s not a viable option for most of us. 

 

A great way to get in front of a new audience interested in what you have to say is to find someone else who’s doing something similar to what you’re doing. In other words, find other players in your niche, or closely related niches and start to collaborate. For example, let’s say you’re selling a guide on growing tomatoes. Go find a few bloggers and marketers who are also in the gardening niche. This could be someone who blogs about organic gardening, or someone who sells container gardening kits, or books on how to grow all the vegetables you need in your backyard. You won’t be competing directly, but instead complementing each other. Your audience will be interested in additional organic gardening tips, and they may want to purchase a container kit that makes it easier to grow those tomatoes. Do you see how this could work? 

 

Approach the other players in your niche and see how you can work together. A great place to start is to offer to share something of theirs with your readers first. If the person sells a product, ask if you can interview them, or see if they have a special coupon you can share with your readers. If they have an affiliate program, you can even profit from sharing this with your readers. 

 

Next, ask if they would be interested in sharing you with their own audience. This is always your end goal, but you have to make it worth their while. Depending on your business model, there are several different ways to accomplish this. If you have a paid product, and an affiliate program, it makes it easy. You can also offer to create unique content for the other person’s audience. 

 

No matter what you decide to do, make it as easy as possible and do whatever you have to do to get your fellow blogger or info product creator to email his or her list for you. Mentions on social media and blog posts are great, but your ultimate goal should always be to get them to mail for you. When they do, your next goal is to get these people on your own list and to turn them into paying customers.

Track What’s Working And Use The 80/20 Rule

One of the best ways to double your income is to figure out what’s working and doing more of that. 

 

Sounds simple enough, doesn’t it? The problem is that you first have to know exactly what’s working and what isn’t. The best way to do that is to track everything. From there you look at your data and make a plan for what you should and shouldn’t be doing going forward. 

 

Your first step will be to decide what you want to track. This will be a little different for everyone depending on your business and what you do on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. A good place to start is to look at income and expenses, products or different sources of income, and of course where you spend most of your time. 

 

Let’s say you start to track where your income is coming from. If possible, go back and look at the last six to twelve months of financial data. Did you make money selling your own products? Did you get large affiliate commission checks? Did you sell advertising on your websites? 

 

Next you want to look at expenses related to that income. You’ll have some fixed expenses like hosting your website for example, that you should ignore for the purpose of this exercise. Look at cost directly related to each source of income. For example, in order to launch your products, you may hire a graphic designer, a VA, and pay for your shopping cart software. You may also be paying commissions to affiliates promoting your products. Subtract those costs from the income you’ve made to get a good feel for your actual profits. Other sources of income will have little to no expenses. Once you’ve adjusted your income figures to reflect the profit you’ve made, you can start to compare. 

 

Last but not least, look at the amount of time you’re spending to generate the income. It may take you a full month of working twelve-hour days to launch a new big course. On the other hand, you may be able to put together a short eBook or fresh membership content in a day or two by leveraging content you’ve already written or buying pre-written content. Look at the time it takes for each type of product and compare this to the amount of money you expect to make from the launch and going forward. This will help you decide what’s the most profitable way to spend your time. 

 

With all the information at your fingertips, it will be easy to decide what you should be doing more off, what you should be doing less off, and what you should stop doing. Focus most of your time and energy on the most profitable products and income sources. Work on it for a good six months and look at how much your profits went up. I wouldn’t be surprised if this one strategy alone allows you to double your income.

Walking Can Help You Lower Your Blood Pressure And Strengthen Your Heart

Walking has all sorts of health benefits among them the ability to help lower your blood pressure and strengthen your heart. Many people at risk for stroke and heart disease are overweight, unhealthy and have a hard time exercising. Thankfully walking is an easy, low-impact workout that almost anyone can do. 

 

Start where you’re at. Just put on your shoes and head out there. If all you can do is walk for five to ten minutes, start there. It’s a great start and that’s a lot more exercise than you’ve been getting. Stick with it for a week and then see if you can make it for 15 minutes. 

 

If you can go for 30-minute walk, start there. Pick up the pace, walk briskly and after a week or two, try to go for 45-minute walks. Or break up your walking workout into 3 shorter sessions interspersed throughout your day. 

 

If you have any health conditions and in particular, if you’re suffering from high blood pressure and are at risk for heart disease, discuss your walking plans with your doctor. The two of you can come up with a plan that’s appropriate and safe for you. 

 

Getting out and walking will help you on several different levels. The act of walking itself, particularly if you can go for a walk out in a pretty park is very relaxing and will lower your blood pressure soon after the walk. That’s a terrific benefit of walking and something that will help you feel better right away. But the benefits don’t stop there. 

 

The regular exercise will strengthen your heart. Remember your heart is a muscle and going for a brisk walk works out more than your leg muscles. As you work out your heart, it gets stronger and better at pumping blood through your body. And as you strengthen your muscles and your body overall, you are likely losing body fat. That’s good news for your blood pressure long term. All it takes is heading out there for a short little walk each day. As you get stronger those walks will get longer and you may even give swimming or riding your bike a try. 

 

Healthy diet, regular exercise, and losing weight are some of the most effective ways to reduce hypertension regularly. Add to that the fact that walking helps you destress and it’s no wonder that walking regularly has such beneficial effects on your health. Ready to get started? Put on your shoes and go for that first walk. 

Using A Pedometer To Get Your Walking In

Setting aside some time to go for a 45-minute walk isn’t always easy. We all live busy lives and between family and work, fitting in a workout isn’t always possible. What if I told you that you didn’t have to dedicate a set block of time for your walking workouts? What if you could get the same health benefits by working in a little more activity here and there throughout your day? And what if there was a fun little gadget that helped you keep track of it and motivated you to move more? 

 

There is and it’s called a pedometer. You can pick up an inexpensive model at your local super store or order it from Amazon. Or you can go with something a little fancier like a Fitbit for example. But before you head out to spend any money, check your smart phone. Many models have a pedometer built in. All you need to do is download a free app and you’re good to go. 

 

The pedometer will track how many steps you take on any given day. It will also track how many minutes you’ve spent being active and how many miles you’ve walked. In other words, it keeps track of how much exercise you get during your day. And the good news is that it doesn’t matter if you head out after work for a 45-minute walk, or if you work out in little spurts here and there throughout the day. Maybe you start your day by parking a little further away from the office and walking a couple of hundred extra steps. Then you take a quick stroll during your lunch break. You wrap up your day by walking around the park while your kids play. And just like that you’ve gotten your exercise in without having to block out any additional time. 

 

Give it a try. Put on a pedometer, or start tracking with that phone you’re always carrying around anyway and see how much you’re walking around any given day. From there, try to get a little more active as time goes by until you hit your stepping goal. For most of us 10,000 steps per day is a good long-term goal, but if you’re feeling more ambitious than that, go for it. 

 

Keeping track of your steps is very motivating. Looking at your pedometer and realizing you’re 2,000 steps away from your daily goal may be just the motivation you need to head out for that after dinner stroll. 

How To Get In The Habit Of Walking More

We were designed to walk for miles and miles to hunt and gather our food. Yet, in modern society, we spend most of our time sitting down.  That is not good for our bodies leading to a host of health problems. This is probably one of the most important reasons to make an effort to move around and go for a walk each day. Of course, that’s easier said than done. Most of us sit for our work, we eat sitting down, and to be honest all we want to do when we come home from work is plop down on the couch for a Netflix marathon until bedtime. 

 

In other words, getting and staying in the habit of going for a walk each day can be a bit of a challenge. But that’s exactly what we need to do. We need to get in the habit of going for that walk just like we’re in the habit of brushing our teeth twice a day or taking out the trash on Tuesdays. Once it’s a well ingrained habit, it won’t be as much of a challenge to make sure we go for a walk each day. 

 

A great place to start is to find a walking route you enjoy. It helps to make it as easy as possible. Your favorite walk may offer beautiful vistas, but if it’s a 30-minute drive there and back, you’ll be less likely to do it every single day. Instead, save that walk for the weekends and come up with something convenient and pleasant for your everyday walking routine. If you can, find a route in your own neighborhood so you can leave right from your front door. Just lace up your shoes and start walking. 

 

Taking the same route every day helps form that habit. It’s also encouraging to notice that you can walk the same loop faster or with less effort over time. It proves that you're making a difference and are getting stronger and increasingly fitter. 

 

Listening to your favorite music, podcast or audio books is also helpful. It will make the time go by faster and give you something else to look forward to. You can even use your favorite media as a way to bribe yourself to go for your daily walk. Let’s say you have a couple of podcasts you enjoy. Save them for your walks and only let yourself listen to them while you’re walking. It’s a great incentive to get out there even on days when you’re not feeling it. 

 

Last but not least consider walking with other people. Find a walking group in your area, or talk a friend or neighbor into becoming your walking buddy. Not only is it more fun to walk when you have someone to talk to, it also has some built in accountability. It’s much easier to skip a walking workout when you know that other people are waiting for you and relying on you to join them. 

 

Give these tips a try and see if they help you make walking a daily habit and an integral part of your health, your fitness, and your life.

The Many Health Benefits Of Going For A Walk

There are a lot of good reasons to go for a walk. It’s fun, it’s relaxing, and most important it’s good for your health. But what exactly are the health benefits of walking? I hope this article convinces you that heading out for a walk each day is a great idea and that it motivates you to stick to your walking schedule until you start to see results. 

 

Walking Gets You Outside In The Fresh Air and Sunshine 

 

No matter how fast or slow you walk, walking gets you outside and in the fresh air. This alone will make you feel better as your body absorbs the oxygen and sunshine. Both are important for your health and well-being.

 

You will find the air quality outside, particularly if you go for a walk on the beach or in a park, will be much better than the air inside your house. Of course, the sunshine outside will help your body product all the Vitamin D it needs. 

 

Walking Can Help You Get To And Maintain A Healthy Weight

 

Walking particularly at a quick pace and doing it regularly can help you get to and then maintain a healthy weight. Yes, you still need to watch what you eat and aim for a healthy diet, but walking can be another tool to help you drop those extra pounds. 

 

The nice thing about walking when you’re overweight is that you burn a lot of calories, even on short and slow walks, simply because you’re carrying so much weight around with you. As you start to lose the weight, your overall strength and endurance increases, allowing you to walk longer, further, and faster. 

 

Walking Improves Your Sense Of Balance And Coordination 

 

As you walk, particularly when walking over rougher terrain, you’re also working on your sense of balance and coordination. Just getting in the habit of going for a daily walk will help. But you can work even more on your sense of balance by moving your head around. Turn your head to the right and left as you walk for a count of 30. Then move your head up and down for a count of 30. If you do these simple exercises once or twice as you walk each day you'll get even more benefit.

 

Walking Strengthens Your Bones and Muscles

 

Even though walking is a low impact form of exercise it helps to strengthen and tone your body. If you’re just starting out, it is all you need to start to get into better shape. As you get more fit, consider adding weight lifting exercises in addition to your daily walks to continue to get stronger and help develop strong muscles and bones. 

 

Walking Will Boost Your Mood and Fight Depression 

 

Last but not least, the exercise of walking releases endorphins that will help lift your mood and can even reduce depression. Give it a try. The next time you’re feeling tired or are in a bad mood, lace up your sneakers and go for a brisk walk. It works like a charm.