Living your best life is all about doing the things that make you happy and bring the greatest rewards. I relate to this concept after choosing to leave my former life as a classroom teacher and real estate broker/residential appraiser behind in 2006 and coming online to live my life as an entrepreneur.

Rachel Rofe recently posted her list of the ‘7 Reasons You’re Not Living the Life of Your Dreams‘ and I found it interesting that it was mostly about reframing the way you think of your current situation. I did this when I was in the last year of working as a classroom teacher so that I could mentally detach from an unhappy situation and move into my new life as an online entrepreneur.

Are you ‘living your best life?‘ If so, congratulations! If not, look over Rachel’s list and see where you can make some changes immediately and in the near future to have the life you want and deserve.

You can listen to my podcast interview with Rachel Rofe here.

Goal setting and goal achieving can be done using something called ‘Smart Goals’, where SMART is an acronym for goals that are:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Agreed
• Realistic
• Time bounded

Marlon Sanders has an excellent post on this topic that is worth reading. He gives examples of SMART goals and shares where he went wrong with his own goals before learning more about this.

I can speak from experience when I tell you that writing down your goals is the best way to begin. I continue to do this and focus on the steps I must take each day to move closer to each of my goals.

Listen to my podcast interview with Marlon Sanders here.

Prime time for entrepreneurs refers to those sacred hours every day when you can accomplish the most. For me, those hours are between about six-thirty and eleven in the morning and I am reluctant to give them up very often.

Mike Darling was discussing this topic of prime time in one of his recent posts, and he brought up some salient points that are worth reading. He shares that his best hours are in the early morning, and says:

“So I have found it useful and helpful, to live my weekends as if this was a weekday and I was self-employed, until I am self-employed.  Which means yes I have to wash the car and mow the grass and exercise, but I need to preserve and protect those precious hours in the morning.”

This topic of ‘prime time’ is from Day 19 of my Online Productivity Challenge. Join in at any time to grow your online business.

Finding the best book font combinations for your printed books can be a challenge, but may be well worth the time and effort to find the ones that work best for you. Book publishing expert Teresa Miller discusses this topic in her recent post, where she also shares a list of top fonts and combinations from Douglas Bonneville.

Teresa says that one her personal “go-to” combinations is the first one on Bonneville’s  list: Helvetica (bold) for chapter titles and Garamond for body content.

I have written all of my print books (nine to date) using the Georgia font throughout. Now I can see that I have limited myself with this choice and intend to be more creative with my next book (due out in October, 2014).

Which fonts are you using in your printed writing, and why do you prefer those to the more traditional font combinations?

Niche sites are a favorite passion of mine when it comes to earning income online, and one person who has done this exceedingly well is Susanne Myers. She calls herself ‘The Hillbilly Housewife’, and in a recent post on her site she explains how and why she doesn’t use paper towels any longer for day to day spills and messes. In this post she also shares the wisdom of another expert in this area.

I recommend reading these posts, checking out all three of the blogs, and thinking about how you can create a niche mini-site that reflects your life and your interests. Think about hobbies, sports, fashion, pets, travel, and anything else that you or someone you know enjoys and spends money on. These are all possible niches, and business opportunities as well.

Could there be one or more niche sites in your future?

Debbie Benstein first reached out to me in a Skype group we were both a part of. I felt an immediate connection with her and loved what she had to say on her Marketing Morsels site. I soon found out she was living in Israel and assumed she was Israeli. She is not.

Debbie’s Marketing Morsels are filled with solid, valuable marketing tips based on her more than twenty-five years of real world marketing experience. I love how she describes what she does on her site:

“I care deeply about old-fashioned values such as honesty, integrity and ethical behavior. Marketing can often be manipulative and that’s the kind of marketing I despise. But marketing done well, and to a receptive audience, can promote a win-win scenario for both the business and the target market. That’s the kind of marketing I like to do.”

Please listen to this marketing tips podcast with an open mind and see if you don’t agree with me that Debbie Benstein is indeed a rare gem.

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Online marketing productivity habits can definitely increase your bottom line, and Dennis Becker has written a post about this that I highly recommend. He breaks down his strategy into five ‘Productive Habits’ and I resonate the most with #1 – They plan what they are doing each day. This is what Dennis says about this:

“This is one of the biggest problems Internet marketers face. It’s next to impossible to be productive if you don’t have a plan for what you’re doing each day. If you just plop down at your computer with only a vague idea of what you want to get done, nothing will get done at all.”

Please read and comment on his full post at the link above, and let me know what you thought about it by commenting here.

You can learn more about Dennis Becker by listening to an interview I did with him for my
Online Marketing Tips  podcast series here.

Getting Started Online: Online Marketing Tips Podcast

Which type of entrepreneur are you? Are you focused on building your business on the Internet as a successful online entrepreneur? People around the world have now discovered that starting an Internet business is the fastest way to achieve both time and financial freedom, as well as to great success in all areas of your life, and you need help to get there quickly. That’s why I started this online marketing tips podcast for my community.

At a recent live event where I delivered the Keynote and presented as well, I observed three distinct types of entrepreneurs in the room. In this episode of the Online Marketing Tips Podcast With Connie Ragen Green, my newest marketing training podcast series, I discuss in great detail what I saw, and how you can determine where you are along this continuum at this point in time. Knowing where you are and where you want to go is crucial to the process of becoming the online entrepreneur you are meant to be.

I take questions from those who attended the live recording, including why coaching and mentoring is so important, my 10K Laser Coaching program, attending live and virtual events, and my own upcoming event, The Weekend Marketer: Affiliate Marketing for Everyone, in Las Vegas October 10-12. Also, when I am asked how to start earning right away I share the details of what I did that very first year that made a huge difference in the level of my success.

I also discuss how I have created a lucrative business online without having a business background or any previous experience in this area. Someone asks me what to do with the ‘hundreds of ideas flying around in their head’ and I address the importance of focus and clarity as you grow. We also discuss why it is so important to have great focus and discipline as you build and grow your business as an online entrepreneur.

This online marketing tips podcast, as well as all of the calls in my podcast series is intended to teach you and other new online entrepreneurs how to take your business to the next level quickly and effectively, and as a way for me to share my exact Case Studies, secrets, and advice on creating a profitable and lucrative online business using the ‘multiple income streams’ approach. You will see that each session is first recorded live as a teleseminar, and then repurposed into a podcast to extend my reach to the world. Please join my list (opt in on the right) to be included on these calls, and be sure to introduce yourself and share your site for optimal exposure for years to come!

Also, you can now pick up my popular training on winning affiliate contests and other online marketing tips for only seven dollars at Affiliate Contest Secrets. Use the discount code CONTEST to bring the price down to $7. This training has been completely updated for with the latest information, strategies, and Case Studies for you to use in your own business.

Subscribe To My Online Marketing Tips Podcast Today!

Remembering Robin Williams

We were all stunned and shocked when he heard about Robin Williams’ death on August 11. It made me think of all of the great performances he had graced us with over the past forty years, but then I thought about his words. Geoff Weiss, a staff writer for Entrepreneur Magazine put together a list of Robin Williams 10 Most Inspirational Quotes you will want to read. My favorite quote is this one:

“It’s a wonderful feeling when your father becomes not a god but a man to you — when he comes down from the mountain and you see he’s this man with weaknesses. And you love him as this whole being, not as a figurehead.”

You may also want to comment on this thread I started on Facebook to get over the initial shock of this tragedy.

What will you remember most about Robin Williams?