You can reverse the destructive cycle of de-motivation with a few simple strategies and reclaim the positive spark to make your team-machine tick.
People lose motivation because they are uninspired by doing the wrong things in the wrong conditions. Your team may have all the knowledge and expertise to make your business rise in the ranks, but if they're not motivated, it's unlikely that they, or you, will achieve true potential.
Three recognised team motivators are achievement, affiliation, and power. While there is no one-size-fits-all approach, here are some tips you can apply immediately as you learn to refine your technique:
Achievement – offer achievement to those who need to set and achieve goals, calculate risks and like to work alone. These people need challenging, but not impossible, projects.
Affiliation – offer affiliation to those who prefer to belong to a group, like to be liked, and go with the flow. Your affiliation-loving team members work best in a group environment, so try to integrate them with a team rather than solo tasks. They also don't like uncertainty and risk.
Power – offer power to those who enjoy competition, control, status and recognition. Your power people work best when they're in charge. Because they enjoy competition, they do well with goal-oriented projects or tasks.
These tips are based on David McClelland Human Motivation Theory. By learning to apply this simplified version of his theory, you will understand how to lead your team by assigning the right tasks and giving feedback that will keep your team engaged, motivated, and happy with the work they are doing. “With a little bit of look-and-listen you will quickly understand how to lead, inspire, and motivate your team”
It has taken some amazing students a lot less time to realise this than many others. Now these students are no Trumps or Gates yet they have the forward thinkingness (?...I see an English course coming up) to plan their future financial position. What's more, these courageous little gems have come to me with no prior knowledge of this strategy. Their pre-requisite was merely a passion to do something about a concept they have, a dash of resilience and some brain space. So what is this financial investment?
Finding the passion
They are building an online business. In each case the online business for my students is based on their passion - this took a bit of drilling in some cases but far from dentistry. Once the passion was identified, we determine that the online project is sustainable, in other words, it attracts the excitement and attention of the owner regardless of the ups and downs.
My students are comfortable and eager to learn. At each learning
milestone, and there are plenty, I sweep the audience for an eyebrow
check, which is of course the best indicator of whether they're with me
or I lost them at the at 'here is the emergency exit'. Eyebrows work
brilliantly for this, although I was caught out once while presenting to
a group at a Beauty Institute who had undergone brow botox not so long
beforehand.
Developing a digital strategy
Developing a digital strategy will vary depending on your needs. However, a simple step-by-step approach is useful.What goals do the students have for their business? During the workshops I deliver, I examine the student's goals. It goes a bit like this. Do you want to:
attract more local, national or global customers, supporters and donors
create value for your customers, supporters and donors
reduce your costs
raise awareness about your organisation
increase your revenues and donations
have more targeted and effective marketing campaigns
be more aware of what your customers, supporters and donors are saying about your organisation
develop better metrics and feedback from your customers, supporters and donors
ensure that people can engage with your organisation, including on their mobile phones
OK, picture this; retirees, ex farmers, mothers and homekeepers,
having dialogue about developing a digital strategy. Yes, this is new,
this is very new. I have no idea about how to develop a cattle branding
strategy or a caravan towing strategy and I'm no origami wizz with
nappies, therefore I empathise. But give me an audience about developing
a digital strategy and I can talk and inhale at the same time - this
stuff excites me!
What online activities will benefit you?
The answer could be all or some of the list below:
establishing an online presence
developing richer and more engaging content
developing a search engine and/or social media marketing strategy
expanding your use of digital communications tools internally
digitising the support of your customers, supporters and donors
incorporating e-commerce functionality for donations and sales
optimising your content for the mobile web
improve your metrics
At this point in the workshop I remind myself of the virtues of these
wonderful people who are listening to me, with one corner of their
mouths edging up to their nose exposing an incisor and tilting that same
side of their head slightly upward in a 'what the ..' look. They are
investing in themselves and have taken the courageous step to learn
something that has only been introduced to them in the latter part of
their lifetime, and in Australia, they are a minority - Aussies occupy
only 1% of the world's internet users, ha!
How can your online activities help you achieve your goals?
a cafe may want to use the web to drive foot traffic to its physical location
a giftware store might aim to increase sales outside its immediate geographic area
a furniture company may seek to reduce the number of returned products by providing online instructional videos for assembling items
a community organisation might use an online forum to notify volunteers of opportunities to get involved with local events
a charity might use social media to promote a fundraising initiative
At this point in the workshop we are close to lunch and the
hunter gatherer instinct kicks in. I have only a limited amount of time
to get this point across while my presentation remains more interesting than the
next meal! I share some examples of how the online activities can be
used to benefit business. Remember, my audience includes mobile-phobics
and snail mailers.
Developing the website plan
Once you have thought about what you are seeking to achieve through your digital strategy, you could develop a checklist of your requirements. For example:
provide up-to-date written information such as a website or blog
interact with potential customers, supporters and donors via a social media platform or real-time text chat
create the opportunity for clients and community members to make word-of-mouth referrals usinga existing social media platforms
have detailed online discussions with existing customers using a discussion forum
provide a sales platform using e-commerce solutions
make your web content readable on smart phones, perhaps incorporating design methods that cater to mobile internet users.
Building the website
This is where the fun starts for the students. Their project gets legs, while they aren't using theirs because they're glued to their seats. The developments at this point are far too exciting to leave alone. Their own skills are now so advanced that they are worth writing home about - or should I say they are worth blogging and 'IM'ing about.
I'll keep you posted with the website build progress of each student as they build away at their future. Thanks for reading!
For business owners and operators, your ‘knowledge’ (the act of knowing) and ‘growledge’ (the act of growing) are like the shoelace and eyelets of your business success.
I recently had a chance to face the back of a classroom during an online marketing workshop I presented to business owners. “I noticed their growth strategies far out-weighed their knowledge of how to implement these, and this placed them in a potentially vulnerable position” .
In this post I’m going to develop your ‘growledge’ in how you can create a 3 page test website that will cost you no more than domain registration and hosting, everything else is free for your enjoyment. Let’s go:
Register a domain name
Build your test website using either Weebly, WordPress or SnapPages. Pages to include in the website are:
Landing page that promotes and describes your product, it’s benefits, the problems it solves and/or the risk of not having it. Remember, less is more and pictures are gold.
Price page that reveals the payment methods, guarantees, refund policies, etc.
Contact page with an enquiry form
Set up Google Analytics to enable you to analyse page visits
Spilt test the landing page using Google Website Optimizer
Create a Paypal business account, build ‘Buy Now’ buttons and load to your website
Start a Facebook page that links to your website
Delegate your domain name to your host to go live!
Ultimately you will want to invest in the services of online marketing professionals for further growth once you have tested a model successfully, however this strategy will enable you to make the right investment decisions.
When you combine knowledge and growledge you have structure, similar to the sustainable structure of a tree.
Would it be appropriate for me to introduce you to the next concept, foliage?
There is a good book inside most of us, so can it earn us passive revenue?
Launching a new downloadable digital product such as an e-book or audio product requires just a few steps and you could cover costs with the contents of your swear jar (for light to moderate cursers).
Step 1: Create a Digital Product and build a website, blog or web page to promote this. You will need a page on your site dedicated to your chosen affiliate network.
Step 2 - Find an affiliate network where you can launch your downloadable product and expose it to affiliate resellers. A good example of an affiliate network is Clickbank, with over 100,000 active affiliates who could potentially promote your digital product for commission. Clickbank has its own reliable payment gateway that lets you and the affiliate reseller view all transactions. You can also turn the tables and become an affiliate promoting other vendors’ products from the Clickbank marketplace on your website. This involves just one shopping cart experience for your customers.
Step 3 – Load your product to the affiliate network you have selected. Provide your retail price and the affiliate commission you want to pay to the affiliates each time your product is sold via their link. Average commission paid per digital product is around 60%.
Step 4 – Profit from your digital product sales. The affiliate network pays you per sale and your affiliates are paid commission automatically for each sale that occurs.
Step 5 – Measure the performance of your product, look at what worked well, find niches in the affiliate marketplace and plan your next book or digital product.
Oh, the swear jar money needed for this project is a one-time $50 activation fee.
With each blog post I’d like to bring you a little closer to understanding, and then achieving affiliate marketing success. To the snappy affiliate marketeers I work with, success is measured by how passive their affiliate revenue is, against the volume of sales and the way by which affiliate product sales add value to their website asset by reeling in more traffic.
In my previous post , I discussed a scenario where you have an online information website or business, with no downloadable products for sale.
Let’s now lift the lid on Scenario 2: You have your own downloadable information product(s) available to sell from your website, and wish to promote the sale of these to a larger network of affiliate resellers who will display your product for sale on their website or blog.
What could your downloadable information product be?
Articles that you have written that contain valuable content which has been compiled into a downloadable pdf eBook
Open source eBooks that have expired copyright are a quick and easy way to create a valuable, quality production when you and add your flair and expertise to the eBook. Plenty to choose from at http://www.gutenberg.org or http://gutenberg.net.au. Please check copyright in the countries you intend to sell in, and acknowledge the original author and Gutenberg.
Polished screen recordings, suitable for training products, created in programs such as Camtasia
Audio recordings, often suited to fitness or mind power programs with great royalty-free backing tracks from www.musicbakery.com or similar.
How does the sales process work?
You have two choices here ladies and gentlemen, with the ultimate decision dependant on how easy it will be for potential customers to find you and to pay you. You could build an affiliate program into your existing website and personally seek, recruit and motivate resellers of your product. Alternatively, you could load to an affiliate marketplace where affiliate resellers are snooping around, awaiting fresh products like yours to resell on their websites. I’ll take a punt and work with the second option, the affiliate marketplace, as this will be a cost and time efficient way for you to test the market. So, from woa to go:
Research the viability of your product and find your niche
Develop your product
Build a captivating product sales page on your blog or website
Write the blurb that displays your product to affiliates in the affiliate marketplace and determine the product price and commission payable to the affiliate reseller
Select an affiliate marketplace where you will load your product. As you continue to develop more products for sale in this way, you will benefit from staying with the same affiliate program
Load the product to the selected affiliate marketplace, such as www.clickbank.com
Keep your website sales page fresh and bubbly with new keywords and product reviews.
Review your process, measure your success, and consider doing this all again with consecutive products.
In my previous post I had introduced three scenarios of effective affiliate marketing that could apply to your current position and enable you to sell your expertise or story globally.
You have an information business that is online, with no downloadable products for sale.
Converting your information to a downloadable product of value to potential customers can take several forms, and needs to consider your target audience. Currently in the lead as favourite downloads globally are eBooks and audios. Amazon currently lists over 677,000 eBook titles. To support this new style of reading are over a dozen models of eBook reading devices that have WiFi capabilities. This does not include smart phones with similar on-screen capabilities. “Now more than ever before, you have the ability to sell your knowledge or story to a global market that can gain instant download access to your eBook.”
What information will you convert to an eBook?
While you are most likely an expert in your area and have great information to share, what do readers really want to read? I recommend using the larger international online booksellers as an indicator. If your expertise is corporate fitness training for example, let’s look at what sells best online on Amazon or Barnes and Noble in this area, and isolate your niche. A moderate number of results, combined with research into what is not being covered by books currently in this market space, is a good starting point.
Where will you sell your eBook?
You can sell your eBook on your existing website, if the content is relevant. Sales activity will increase website ranking. Create a dedicated page for the eBook.OR
You can create a blog with relevant content – a simple process involving domain name, hosting, a blog content management system such as the free Wordpress, and your content that pitches you as an expert in your area. Also create a dedicated page for the eBook.
Join an affiliate reseller network such as Clickbank.com (around $50 fee to join as an author). Submit your eBook for sale in this marketplace and decide on a price and commission you would like to offer resellers. To this point your focus would be to make the eBook attractive for the end user. Here however, you are wanting to attract resellers to display your eBook on their site. The resellers are looking for creative, fresh content, and of course nice commission rates. They will list your eBook on their site and buyers then links to your website or blog page. This is a good search engine optimization strategy.
How will I make the eBook?
The most commonly supported files used by eBook readers are .pdf, .txt, .epub and .html. If you intend to narrate your eBook to make it available as an audio book, then .mp3 is most widely supported.Using publishing guidelines similar to print books, your eBook can be developed in Word format, including images and diagrams, then converted to .pdf.
Since my previous post about affiliate marketing as a revenue source for websites, I have received questions from readers about a variety of scenarios. In each case, specific details were asked about the set up for affiliates and the mix of technical and marketing aspects involved. I’d like to share these case studies with you.
Scenario 1:
You have an online information website or business, with no downloadable products for sale. You wish to compliment your site with relevant affiliate eBooks or other downloadable products, so that you can earn affiliate commissions on sales.Suggestion: Investigate a suitable affiliate network such as Clickbank, Linkshare or Amazon. Limit your selection to just one network. Check the affiliate network for quality of downloadable products, commission payments you are entitled to earn, and the experience your website visitors will have when they purchase one of these affiliate products from your website.
Level of interaction required from you for each sale (after set up): nil
Will visitors leave your website when they purchase the downloadable product?: yes
Scenario 2:
You have your own downloadable information product(s) available to sell from your website, and wish to promote the sales to a larger network of affiliate resellers who will display your product for sale on their website or blog. Suggestion: Select an affiliate network that has an appropriate list of resellers who will promote your product online. Some affiliate networks such as Clickbank come complete with payment gateway and console that displays your hits and sales performance.
Level of interaction required from you for each sale (after set up): nil
Will visitors leave your website when they purchase the downloadable product?: yes
Scenario 3:
You have a downloadable eBook or information product and want to attract more visitors and buyers to your website where this product is made available. Suggestion: Set up your own affiliate management area on your website, where potential affiliates can apply to join as a reseller of your product(s). You then have the advantage of managing and motivating your affiliates and sharing resources and tools, to help them sell more of your products.
Setting up an affiliate management centre on your website sounds a lot more complex than it really is and is a worthwhile option when you have more than one product/service for sale on your website. You also have the option of adding drop shipped products to your online store.
Level of interaction required from you for each sale (after set up): nil for downloadable products, dispatch for tangible products and delivery confirmation for drop ship products.
Will visitors leave your website when they purchase the downloadable product?: no
Each of these scenarios have been set up and operated successfully by our clients.
This expands the opportunities available to us, to enter global markets whilst living on the beautiful Sunshine Coast.
Imagine this – you have an information product that you believe the whole world should see and desire. You want minimal to nil production and advertising costs and you don’t want to wait until you draw a crowd to your website.
Pure and simply, Affiliate Marketing is a way to achieve this. If you have a downloadable product that has valuable, desirable and unique content, there are many website/blog owners who enjoy selling your product for a commission. Converting your service or product to a downloadable resource will require some creative thought, however is worthwhile if well researched. When I explain this to clients I get some very standard questions:
Q: What can I sell in the affiliate marketplace?
A: You can sell information. In most cases the information you sell would be closely tied to your profession, expertise or passion and this would be something you have researched and experienced well enough to be able to offer valuable information about. This information can then be converted into a downloadable e-book.
Q: Do people really read e-books?
A: Recently Apple sold its one millionth iPad, just 28 days after the device was introduced. Amazon stocks over one million eBook titles and offer the Kindle e-reader, while Barnes and Noble have an emerging eBook section and promote the Nook e-reader. Short answers – yes.
Q: How do I find affiliates to sell my eBooks?
A: You can recruit your own affiliates by researching potential resellers based on a criteria defined by their traffic, existing content, who they are targeting and whether they have complimentary products on their site. Alternatively you can join an Affiliate Marketplace. This is where Affiliates (the resellers) meet the Vendors with the product that they believe the whole world should see and desire.
After many questions from clients and audiences about affiliate marketing, I will cover various scenarios of affiliate marketing.
Let’s look at Scenario 1 - You have an information business that is online, with no downloadable products for sale.
Converting your information to a downloadable product of value to potential customers can take several forms, and needs to consider your target audience. Currently in the lead as favourite downloads globally are eBooks and audios. Amazon currently lists over 677,000 eBook titles. To support this new style of reading are over a dozen models of eBook reading devices that have WiFi capabilities. This does not include smart phones with similar on-screen capabilities. “Now more than ever before, you have the ability to sell your knowledge or story to a global market that can gain instant download access to your eBook.”
What information will you convert to an eBook?
While you are most likely an expert in your area and have great information to share, what do readers really want to read? I recommend using the larger international online booksellers as an indicator. If your expertise is corporate fitness training for example, let’s look at what sells best online on Amazon or Barnes and Noble in this area, and isolate your niche. A moderate number of results, combined with research into what is not being covered by books currently in this market space, is a good starting point.
Where will you sell your eBook?
You can sell your eBook on your existing website, if the content is relevant. Sales activity will increase website ranking. Create a dedicated page for the eBook.
OR
You can create a blog with relevant content – a simple process involving domain name, hosting, a blog content management system such as the free Wordpress, and your content that pitches you as an expert in your area. Also create a dedicated page for the eBook.
Join an affiliate reseller network such as Clickbank.com (around $50 fee to join as an author). Submit your eBook for sale in this marketplace and decide on a price and commission you would like to offer resellers. To this point your focus would be to make the eBook attractive for the end user. Here however, you are wanting to attract resellers to display your eBook on their site. The resellers are looking for creative, fresh content, and of course nice commission rates. They will list your eBook on their site and buyers then links to your website or blog page. This is a good search engine optimization strategy.
How will I make the eBook?
The most commonly supported files used by eBook readers are .pdf, .txt, .epub and .html. If you intend to narrate your eBook to make it available as an audio book, then .mp3 is most widely supported.Using publishing guidelines similar to print books, your eBook can be developed in Word format, including images and diagrams, then converted to .pdf.
Once set up, your eBook has the potential to provide you with passive revenue, no printing, postage or handling. You will most likely want to repeat the process with more titles, using the same research and development approach.
Sandisk, I love you! You are the best memory stick I ever had. You look after all of my work and are loyal to me even though I leave you in my pants pocket in the washing machine. Yes, and I love you too, 'Gentle Wool Cycle'
Sandisk, I love you! You are the best memory stick I ever had. You look after all of my work and are loyal to me even though I leave you in my pants pocket in the washing machine. Yes, and I love you too, 'Gentle Wool Cycle'
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