Tag Archives: Entrepreneurs

Small Business Branding for Online Entrepreneurs

Small Business BrandingWhen It Comes to Small Business Branding, You Are Your Brand

Here’s secret successful marketers know and where small business branding comes into play: customers don’t buy a product. They buy you.

Your personality. Your experience. The unique qualities only you possess.

There was a time when “branding” meant a corporate-looking logo and a slick catalog, but in today’s online marketplace, the real value is not in appearing to be a big company, but rather in just being you. And your personality shines through in a variety of ways.

I was at a conference recently where some of the top experts in the field of small business branding were teaching us how to effectively brand what we do online. Here are some tips they shared that you may find useful:

Your Authentic Voice

How you speak and write and even how you act on camera or in an audio interview has the power to instantly identify you to your audience. You can see this in action if you scroll through your Facebook feed. It’s easy to know who has posted a particular image or status update, just by recognizing the voice with which they generally speak. This is crucial to small business branding.

Here’s an even more important aspect of your “voice” though: it has the power to attract a specific audience. In recent years, a few high profile coaches and product sellers have become celebrities of a sort, largely because of their harsh, “don’t hold back” language. Ash Ambirge over at The Middle Finger Project makes no apologies for her use of offensive words, and her fans love her for it. And those that don’t? Well, as she says right on her home page, her site and services are “not for humorless bores.”

Snarkiness and foul language is not the only way to go, though. Carrie Wilkerson has built her brand almost entirely on her ability to be kind and generous. She always has a nice word, never appears defeated or overwhelmed, and is an inspiration to her fans and clients.

While very different in their approach, these two women have one thing in common: authenticity. It’s clear that if you were to meet either of them in person, they would speak and act exactly as they do online. And their brands are stronger for it.

Your Story and Small Business Branding

How did you get to where you are today? The backstory – which to you might seem boring and uneventful – is a powerful tool that can help solidify your brand and attract just the right audience.

Melissa Ingold tells of being a struggling single mother, and of creating an online business rather than simply choosing to work one dead-end job after another. Her success is an inspiration to her audience, and is a huge part of her branding.

Kelly McCausey speaks often of how she got started online when she was looking for a way to earn just a few extra dollars every month to keep the lights on. Creating graphics at $5 each quickly turned into a full-time online career.

Gary Vaynerchuk is an example of someone whose personal brand somehow became a little bigger than life. He says”…

“For those that don’t know me, in my earlier days as a budding businessman and entrepreneur, I took my passion for wine and turned that into one of the biggest shows and channels on YouTube. That show landed me appearances on The Conan O’Brien Show, Ellen, CNN, etc. while amassing a social following of millions and establishing me as a “guru” (I’m not a guru) of sorts in the Social Media, Marketing, and Personal Branding worlds. From there, I became an early investor in platforms like Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook and co-founded VaynerMedia, which is now a 600 person digital agency that represents the social presence of brands like Pepsi-Co, General Electric, and Anheuser-Busch InBev.”

And my story includes details of how I worked for twenty years as a classroom teacher while simultaneously working in real estate. After multiple bouts with cancer and a serious work injury I was ready to change my life completely and became an online entrepreneur.

Your story doesn’t have to be dramatic, and you certainly don’t have to share more than you’re comfortable with, but it does have to be yours. Be your true self, and you’ll never have to worry about attracting the right audience. They will self-select, and your perfect client will find you.

I’m Connie Ragen Green and I work with new online entrepreneurs to help them get into profit as quickly as possible with information products, affiliate marketing, marketing for small businesses, blogging, authorship, and more. Download your Online Entrepreneur Blueprint and get started right away.

 

Share Button

Email Marketing Tips for Affiliates and Entrepreneurs

Email Marketing TipsEmail Marketing Tips That Work

Email marketing is an excellent way to let people know who you are and what you have to offer them that will enable them to move closer to the goals they wish to achieve. When I am sending out emails to promote affiliate products I craft them in a way that will enhance the credibility of the product creator, share a story about the product and how it will be helpful, and also explain the bonus I am offering and why it is relevant to what I am promoting. Here are some email marketing tips for affiliates as well as online entrepreneurs.

Recently I took part in an affiliate contest where I was promoting a package that included twenty-five coaching lessons on getting started with internet marketing. It was originally written and created by Sean Mize, who had then sold a package of this and many other products to Dennis Becker and Barb Ling. I know all three of these people quite well and have for many years, so it made perfect sense to me to offer this to my community. I knew it would be confusing to explain, so I set about the process of sharing a little about Sean and how I had already gone through all twenty-five lessons when he first released them a few months earlier.

Over the course of three days I sent five very detailed emails. I decided to come from the perspective of someone wanting to teach internet marketing to others and shared how they could repurpose each of the lessons into their own coaching program. I referred to this as an “earn while you learn” strategy that could serve them very well.

When questions began coming in about this product and how it could be used it became clear to me that my audience wanted and needed training on how to use PLR in their businesses. So my bonus package included a training webinar the following week on exactly that – using PLR to build an online business. This is an example of how the situation dictates what you could offer that would be the most beneficial to those who will be receiving it.

Each day during the three day promotion I shared more information on how this product could solve the problem of not knowing how to get started as an online entrepreneur and the importance and value of being able to offer a coaching program that you owned the rights to. I included examples from some of the lessons and shared even more about how well they were prepared. I could vouch for the quality and validity of this program because I had gone through it myself, so credibility was not to be an issue.

As the sales kept rolling in I became more excited about the bonus webinar training I was going to be delivering the following week. I added more details of that in my final emails and even more people came aboard and purchased. I hope these email marketing tips in relation to affiliate marketing have been helpful.

And yes, I won Dennis and Barb’s affiliate contest!

Be sure to take a look at Affiliate Contest Secrets, a training I created to share with you how I have been able to consistently win affiliate contests since coming online over a decade ago.

I’m Connie Ragen Green and I work with new online entrepreneurs to help them get into profit as quickly as possible with information products, affiliate marketing, marketing for small businesses, blogging, authorship, and more. Download your Online Entrepreneur Blueprint and get started right away.

Share Button

5 Reasons To Write a Book: Entrepreneurs, Coaches, Everyone

5 Reasons to Write a Book

Connie’s Books on Amazon

5 Reasons to Write a Book – Yes, You Must Become an Author!

When I decided to share this post, I thought about the 5 reasons to write a book and what that would mean to you. Are you struggling to build an online business or sign more clients? Not sure what to do next in your marketing plan? There’s one simple answer you probably haven’t yet considered:

Write a book.

It’s true. This one thing—especially if it’s an actual printed book rather than a Kindle or eBook—has the power to grow your business beyond your expectations. You’ll experience a whole new world of opportunities simply by having your name on the cover of a book. Here are 5 reasons to write a book:

Authority

Imagine you’re at a workshop or a conference or local networking group and you meet two people who both specialize in business branding—something you know you need help with.

One person says all the right things. She’s been in business for years and worked with some top-notch business owners. She has great ideas for how she can help you solidify your branding.

The other has a similar history and story, with one added bonus: she’s just handed you a copy of her latest book. It’s a professionally printed, substantial publication that practically exudes confidence.

Which person do you think shows more authority in her field? The one with the book, of course. There really is nothing better when it comes to establishing your authority in any niche than having a book with your name on it.

Expertise

So why does a book speak so highly of you and establish your authority so well? Because it gives you a platform to show off your expertise. It’s like being invited to present on any topic you choose on the world’s largest stage.

Not only that, but your readers are a captive audience. They’re listening—in that moment—only to you. That’s a powerful position to be in, and one that gives you an opportunity to really show off your stuff.

Market Reach

No matter how many readers Google sends your way, no matter how much traffic your YouTube channel receives, nothing will ever compare to the number of potential readers Amazon and other online booksellers can bring your way.

Positioned correctly, your book can reach millions of new readers, and thousands of potential clients. Combine that with the expertise and authority we know comes with being a published author, and that’s a recipe for success that can’t be beat.

Better Than a Business Card

If you’ve ever been to a conference, you have no doubt collected a stack of business cards. You get home and toss them in a drawer, and six months later you throw them out, without ever having contacted the people who gave them to you.

But if one of those people handed you a book instead, what happened? You’ve likely read it (or at least leafed through it). You almost certainly didn’t throw it away. And you remember it—and the person who wrote it.

Press Opportunities

Turn on your television to any interview show, browse through Huffington Post or Forbes, or listen to any of a number of popular podcasts, and you’ll quickly see that most of the guest speakers and interviewees have written a book.

The fact is, interview shows depend on interesting, insightful guests to keep their audiences listening, and there’s no better applicant than an author. Writing a book will open up many, many opportunities for appearances that you may never have without your name on that cover.

Do you have to write a book to be successful? No. But there’s no denying the fact that a published author will find she has a much easier time growing her business than the person who keeps putting it off until later.

I certainly hope these 5 reasons to write a book have been helpful to you. I wrote and published my first book in 2010 and am currently finishing my fifteenth. It’s still difficult for me to believe I have written so many bestsellers, and my business would not be where it is today had I not chosen to become a published author.

I’m Connie Ragen Green and I work with new online entrepreneurs to help them get into profit as quickly as possible with information products, affiliate marketing, marketing for small businesses, blogging, authorship, and more. Download your Online Entrepreneur Blueprint and get started right away.

Share Button

Free Information Products for Online Entrepreneurs

Free Information ProductsThe Strategy of Free Information Products

Have you ever thought about giving away an information product at no cost? There are several ways to do this and this strategy has been quite effective for me over the years. I will describe each of the three ways to use free information products to build your list, connect with new prospects, and grow your online business in a way that makes sense for your niche and for your specific topic within that niche.

The very first time I created what would become a free information product was years ago when someone who had been online for many years wanted to recommend me to others. His community was huge in comparison to mine and we wanted a way for his to share what I was doing with his vast audience. The answer was for me to create a new optin page (also known as a squeeze page) through my affiliate link. That way when someone came over to check me out and opted in to my list, they were doing so through his affiliate link. This strategy also allowed me to experiment with different headlines and copy and to reach out to a demographic I hadn’t even thought of going after before this time.

The actual free information product for these is a short report on a specific topic, such as affiliate marketing or teaching online courses. These days I have several of these single page opt in websites up and they continue to generate leads and business for me.

The second free information product is one in which I create a post on my blog and turn it into a free online course over a period of time. I have done this for going on my seventh year with my annual productivity challenges. Allow me to describe in more detail what I am doing:

  • I start a new blog post and explain that this will be a thirty day challenge
  • Each day I add to that existing post and include new tips for the challenge
  • On about the third day I forward the post to a domain I have purchased for this purpose
  • At the end of the challenge I turn the entire post into a downloadable PDF
  • This becomes yet another free information product to add to my inventory

This one continues to be a popular way for others to get to know me without having to purchase anything up front.

The final way I create free information products is through another opt in page. This time the free giveaway is a short report on a specific topic, such as content creation and marketing and it leads those who opt in to a limited version of an online course I have taught on this topic. No one has ever complained that they paid for something I am also giving away because the paid version is complete and also includes some excellent bonuses.

By now you can see that the free information products strategy is a solid one that is worth pursuing in your own business. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this as to how you will be using this technique to build your online business.

Are you ready to build your online business with information products? It takes time, effort, and hard work to learn what you need to know and to put all of the pieces in place. But once you do, you are unlimited as to what is possible in your business. My Really Simple Info Products training course teaches you everything you need in a step by step manner so that you will not leave out any of the pieces. Begin by creating simple information products on topics you are familiar with, and then expand to more sophisticated products and courses. Over time you will build your own silent sales army and enjoy massive passive income for years to come.

I’m Connie Ragen Green and I’ve been an online entrepreneur since 2006. If you are ready to get started on your journey to multiple streams of online income, visit my site at Online Entrepreneur Blueprint and download your complimentary training to get started today.

Share Button

Email Marketing for New Entrepreneurs

Email Marketing OnlineEmail marketing is the preferred means of communication between those wishing to learn more about a topic and those providing this information. You may be surprised that I didn’t say that social media served this purpose, but the fact is that the social media experience is connected to down time from thinking about business and other important issues for the majority of people. When you want to connect directly with prospects and clients, do it with email.

I send out emails to my community anywhere from seven to ten times each week. This allows me to share a little about myself and what I am doing, as well as to let my people know what is available to them to help them to reach their online business goals. I may recommend my own or other people’s products, services, and courses, or to tell them about my latest blog post on a topic of interest to them. It is also a way to stay connected with people in order to build relationships over time.

Email Marketing: When Do You Begin?

Begin your email marketing campaigns as soon as you have even one person on your list. This is an activity that takes some time to master, so there is no time like the present to jump right in. I began sending email messages to my list when there were only about a dozen people and this gave me the practice and the experience for when more people joined. By the time I had a hundred people I was already accustomed to staying in touch regularly. And remember that people join your list by choice and may unsubscribe at any time by clicking on the link at the bottom of your message. This is in accordance with the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, signed into law by then President George W. Bush on December 16, 2003, establishes the United States’ first national standards for the sending of commercial e-mail and requires the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to enforce its provisions.

My emails tend to be about two to three hundred words in length, and I break this up into about a half dozen short, narrow paragraphs. My goal is for people to not be forced to scroll and to be able to easily read my messages on any device they are using. I want the user experience to be a positive one for them. I also include at least two clickable links within each email I send out.

Even though some people in the online marketing community strongly believe that email will soon go by the wayside, many of us still have faith in this system. And there are no viable alternatives available at this point in time. I only want to receive text messages from friends, family, and some retailers, and social media is not the best way to share information with your community for a variety of reasons. Email marketing works and I would encourage you to learn more about this today. I offer my Really Simple Email Marketing training course both live and in Home Study and would love to have you come aboard.

I’m Connie Ragen Green and I’ve been an online entrepreneur since 2006. If you are ready to get started on your journey to multiple streams of online income, visit my site at Online Entrepreneur Blueprint and download your complimentary training to get started today.

Share Button

Podcast: Affiliate Marketing for New Entrepreneurs

New Rules for Online MarketingIt is estimated that about ninety percent of the people who get started online begin by choosing the business model of affiliate marketing. New entrepreneurs can get started in this way without having products of their own and by partnering with some of the most established names in their niche. I recommend this strategy as well.

In this podcast I go into great detail about getting started with affiliate marketing as your first stream of online income. Throughout this training I reference my latest Focus Guide on affiliate marketing. Download it here to follow along with what I am sharing. It will open up in a new window so that you may save it as an important resource for your business.

Affiliate marketing for new entrepreneurs is an excellent opportunity. As I enter my eleventh year as an entrepreneur I am more committed than ever to helping you succeed, and this is the way you can easily get started. Early on in my career as an online entrepreneur I earned the status of “super affiliate” and you can do the same thing if you are willing to put in the work and learn as much as you can. These are some of the topics I cover during this podcast:

First, let’s define exactly what I mean here. Affiliate marketing is the process of earning a commission by promoting other people’s (or company’s) products. You find a product you like, promote it to others, and earn a piece of the profit for each sale that you make.

I have always described affiliate marketing as recommending what you love in exchange for a commission on whatever is sold. I even wrote a bestselling book on this topic, entitled Huge Profits with Affiliate Marketing: How to Build an Online Empire by Recommending What You Love where I explain exactly how to do this successfully.

Knowing which products and courses to promote as an affiliate marketer needs careful consideration. When I was just getting started I was taught to choose the most popular products and those that paid the highest commissions. But that did not feel right to me, so I abandoned that advice in favor of the strategy I still use today. I only recommend the products and services I have used and benefited from. I continue to refer to this as “recommending what you love” and it has served me well over the past decade.

Knowing what an affiliate leaderboard in will help you to compete successfully in affiliate contests. Instead of focusing on just one affiliate contest at a time I now compete across several contests simultaneously for best results. This adds to your credibility and visibility and establishes you as more of an authority in your niche.

I also discuss how to handle affiliate refunds appropriately and why bonuses are so important. Both of these topics will be a part of your business as an affiliate marketer and will make a huge difference in your bottom line.

Promoting affiliate products requires you to get in front of the people who are most likely to be interested in what you are promoting. This can be accomplished in a variety of ways that I will share with you here.

  • Build a list of people who are interested in your topic
  • Blog about your topic and discuss affiliate products within your posts
  • Write reviews of the products you wish to promote on your blog
  • Add a “resources” page to your blog and include these products
  • Start a Facebook and/or LinkedIn group on your topic
  • Submit articles on your topic to sites like Medium and LinkedIn Pulse
  • Host your own webinars and teleseminars on your topic
  • Create short videos on your topic and add them to your YouTube channel
  • Start a podcast on your topic
  • Write a book on your topic

As you can see, the process of promoting affiliate products to others requires that you connect with people who are most likely to be interested in the topic of these products. Affiliate marketing for new entrepreneurs just makes sense. Be sure to visit the link below to listen to the audio version of this article.

I’m Connie Ragen Green, online marketing strategist, bestselling author, and international speaker on the topics of entrepreneurship and inner game mind shifts. Let’s connect to see how I may best serve you in the near future. Be sure to take a look at my books on entrepreneurship.

Subscribe to My Podcast So You Won’t Miss Anything

Share Button

Success Tips for Entrepreneurs: You Can Do It!

Success TipsSince coming online as an entrepreneur in 2006 I’ve made a study of successful people and what they do to achieve and maintain ongoing success. The success tips I want to share with you here are based on my informal, non-scientific research, as well as on the results I have been able to achieve over the years. Here are some things to think about in your own process…

Focus on commitment, not motivation – Motivational speaker Jim Rohn said that “Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going”. This continues to be true for me in my personal life as well as my business. I commit to achieving a goal, and then I get myself into the habit of doing what I need in order to see it through. This is exactly how I have written fourteen books, become a sought after speaker, and achieved many goals that were beyond my wildest dreams.

This week I’m in Santa Barbara for the International Film Festival, and once again I have the opportunity to spend time with some of the most successful actors, screenwriters, directors, producers, and other industry professionals. Time and again they share their own story and the success tips they continue to use to further theirSuccess Tips - Entrepreneurs art and career.

They speak about seeking knowledge, not results, which means they are looking at the bigger, overall picture instead of only what is right in front of them. For example, when Casey Affleck set out to achieve success in his life, acting was only one thing he considered. Once he had some experience under his belt, he dedicated himself to learning his craft, which included acting on the stage as well as in film and television. He also did work behind the camera as a way to round himself out. The knowledge he continues to gain serves him well, instead of only focusing on the immediate results.

Make the journey a fun one.  Instead of worrying or thinking about what could happen that would not bring you the results you are looking for, have fun with everything you learn and do. My writing is an excellent example of that. I could have easily compared myself to others, but instead I chose to keep my head down and write for thirty minutes to an hour each day. It’s been a fun process to turn myself into a writer over the past decade.

Get rid of stagnating thoughts by focusing on the positive. This is always a good idea, and success tips seem to leave this step out much of the time. No good will come from thoughts of failure and you want to stay in control of these types of thoughts.

Use your imagination to stay loose, creative, and free. It wasn’t until I came online in 2006 that I began to think of myself as a creative person. A big part of this process has been to allow my imagination to roam free and to know that anything and everything is possible in our world and life experience.

Eliminate distractions whenever possible. I demand absolute quiet while I am writing each morning. When you are focused and have clarity as to your goals, you will not want to be distracted until you have finished the task or activity you are working on. Get used to the idea of being alone with your thoughts for some period of time each day.

Don’t rely on others to make your success possible. As children we are dependent upon the adults around us to help us succeed with even the tiniest of goals. As an adult, take full responsibility for your success and be willing to do whatever it takes to make that happen.

Take regular “down time” to renew, refresh, and rejuvenate your mind and body. This will be unique to you and may well change over time. Make appointments with yourself to get out of your head and have some new experiences with a fresh perspective.

I hope these success tips have been helpful to you as an entrepreneur. Here is another article I wrote about setting and achieving goals as an entrepreneur that you may find valuable to your process. I’d welcome the opportunity to answer your questions and to discuss this topic further.

I’m Connie Ragen Green, online marketing strategist, bestselling author, and international speaker on the topics of entrepreneurship and inner game mind shifts. Let’s connect to see how I may best serve you in the near future. And please be sure to check out my Internet Marketing Six Pack training course.

Share Button

Money Mistakes New Entrepreneurs Make

Money Mistakes - Entrepreneurs3 Money Mistakes that Keep Your Business Broke

Poor money management has been the cause of more business failures than any other single issue. And it’s no wonder. We aren’t born knowing how to manage money. Most of us aren’t taught how to handle it either. We figure it out along the way, through much trial and error.

Those same mindset issues and bad habits that wreak havoc in our personal finances can plague our businesses as well if we’re not careful. These are the three money mistakes entrepreneurs tend to make…

Money Mistake: Catching Shiny Object Syndrome

Some things are just hard to resist—especially when your friends and colleagues are all jumping on board! New tools, training, group coaching programs and even business models can all have a strong pull, and if you aren’t careful, these shiny objects can quickly distract you from your current goals.

If you find yourself catching shiny object syndrome frequently, try this two-step plan instead:

  • For “too good to refuse” offers, make a plan for achieving a positive ROI before you purchase. If you cannot find a (realistic) way to make the purchase pay for itself, don’t buy it.
  • For exciting new business ideas, create a “someday” list. Jot down your idea and a basic outline, then get back to the task at hand. Now that great idea won’t be lost, but it also won’t join the ranks of half-finished business plans that litter the internet.

Money Mistake: Falling for the Sunk Costs Fallacy

If you’ve ever said to yourself, “I’m not using this subscription, but I can’t give it up! I’m still paying the launch price and now it’s much more expensive!” then you’ve fallen for the sunk costs fallacy.

This common mistake is famous among economists, and we all fall victim to it from time to time. Simply put, the sunk costs fallacy is what makes us justify investing more money or time in something—even though we’re not seeing results—because we’ve already spent so much. It’s what encourages us to repair the car one more time (after all, you just put new tires on it), eat a meal we don’t enjoy (simply because you’ve paid for it), and yes, continue to pay for tools and resources you’re not using.

Take a few minutes and examine your current business expenses. What are you paying for month after month that you’re not using? Either make a plan to put them to work for you, or cancel them. Stop falling for the sunk costs fallacy.

Money Mistake: Too Much Penny Pinching

You thought this was all going to be about overspending, didn’t you? Here’s the kicker: Spending too little is just as bad for business.

When you’re constantly on the lookout for free and low-cost tools or working 16-hour days because you “can’t afford to outsource,” you’re not doing your business any favors. Sure, it looks like you’re bootstrapping and working really hard to make something from nothing, but what you’re really doing is digging yourself a rut it will be nearly impossible to climb out of. Not only that, but you’re reinforcing a scarcity mindset that will continue to plague you for years if you let it.

Rather than pinching pennies, learn to spend money strategically. Buy what you need, when you need it. Invest in top-quality products and programs rather than settling for the low-ticket, half-baked plans. Just like quality clothes, cars and furniture, quality services and software last longer and work better.  And unlike that car, good quality business tools will pay for themselves.

I learned early on as an online entrepreneur that money mistakes would cost be dearly. This is solid advice and I’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic.

I’m Connie Ragen Green, online marketing strategist, bestselling author, and international speaker on the topics of entrepreneurship and inner game mind shifts. Let’s connect to see how I may best serve you in the near future. And please be sure to check out my Internet Marketing Six Pack training course.

Share Button

Self-Discipline and Productivity for Entrepreneurs

Self-Discipline and ProductivityImprove Your Results with Self-Discipline and Productivity

I did not grow up in a disciplined home, so it just made sense that I would not become a disciplined adult. It was just my mother and I from the time my parents divorced when I was three years old, and we had a more relaxed way of going through life each day on our own schedule. This isn’t to say that we did not follow rules, but basically we went to bed when we were tired, got up just in time for me to get to school (although not always on time), and ate dinner whenever we both got hungry.

Until I went to college and became responsible for my life in a different way, I gave very little thought to this aspect of my life. Then it seemed like overnight I was thrust into a world where I was expected to maintain a strict schedule and do most everything at a specific time. I was stressed out, overwhelmed, and exhausted until one of my professors pointed out that I needed self-discipline in my life in order to become more focused and productive.

Self-Discipline and Productivity in Your Life

Now I realize without a doubt that self-discipline and productivity are interrelated and that self-discipline is a learned behavior. Striving for this in your life and business will lead to greater self-confidence, help to reduce temptations, and assist with your time management goals. It also can act as a powerful motivator for the goals you wish to achieve and help you to stay committed to the tasks at hand.

Even though I became at least somewhat disciplined as an adult on my own, old habits have a way of slipping back into our lives. When I left the work force to become an online entrepreneur I was excited at the thought of no longer having a schedule and of choosing what I would do each day in the moment. Of course, this was short lived as I realized the importance of making a strict and structured schedule for myself and adhering to it on a daily basis. I longed for this structure and almost immediate my productivity level increased dramatically.

I continue to believe that self-discipline and productivity are very personal issues, and that we must define what we mean by “self-discipline” in order to benefit from having this as a life goal. For example, I do not set my clock to get up at a certain time each day to begin writing and creating new products and courses. Instead, my disciplined habits lead me to get to bed before eleven almost every night so that I naturally arise sometime around six each morning. Defining what we expect and intend from leading a disciplined life gives us the power and control to change and improve our lives.

And please don’t confuse motivation with self-discipline. I may be motivated to write another book, but that will only take me so far, It isn’t until I dig into my toolbox and find the self-discipline that my book will begin to take shape. Willpower, persistence, and hard work are all important and worthwhile goals, but self-discipline will get you there on a regular basis.

The disciplined life is a rewarding and satisfying one, to be sure. I know that I can accomplish any goal I choose to set for myself because once I make the decision to go for it I have the self-discipline to see it through to fruition. Most people are not running their life or their business in this way, so once you embrace the concept that self-discipline and productivity have this strong correlation you will be head and shoulders above your competition.

I’m Connie Ragen Green, online marketing strategist, bestselling author, and international speaker on the topics of entrepreneurship and inner game mind shifts. Let’s connect to see how I may best serve you in the near future. And please be sure to check out my Internet Marketing Six Pack training course.

Share Button