Shafir Ahmad’s Tips n Tricks

One thing I’m doing more of now is to offload many of the tasks which I am doing to someone else. This frees me up to do more of the planning and the thinking, designing the marketing process etc.

I’m using virtual assistants to do most of this work, such as backlinking, content writing, SEO and more.

Some of the big complaints I’ve heard over time are that people (especially internet marketers) have no time, they are swamped with the many millions of things to do. (Remember Rich Schefren’s manifesto, anyone?)

The solution I think, is quite easy. Be clear on what you need done, and let someone else do it. You’ll have to train or create a training document or video to show your delegatee how your task should be done, and then you leave them to do it.

Amazing how much time that frees up. Try it. You’ll like it.

There are many blog automation products available, but they all require that you have content available. You can either write the content yourself or use articles, videos and audios that are allowed to be republished, for example articles from an article directory. Of course, you could also outsource the content writing to someone else.

What if - you could get some pretty decent content for your blog - and you did not need to write it yourself.

On the flip side, what if you want your content appearing on many other people’s blogs without you putting it there?

Article Marketing Automation is a service that purports to do just that, ie provide you with content for your blog (you choose the categories and hoe much content you need daily) and at the same time, give you an alternate avenue for your article marketing efforts by letting your content reside on many other related blogs

I’m using it myself to distribute my content as well as get content for some of my blogs. Check it out here: Article Marketing Automation

I’ve just come back from six grueling days with Stephen Pierce and his team at the UYMG Malaysia 2007.

There, he mentioned that you need a strategy to outsmart and outwit your competition. Step by step plans do not work in a competitive environment.

Plans and recipes work well in a controlled environment, where you control everything, example, to bake a cake, you can control the temperature, time, correct mixture of ingredients, and viola, you get the perfect cake everytime.

Try that when playing chess. Have you ever gone into a game of chess, and said, “Here is my plan for the game, and I am following it step by step”. One move by your opponent that is different from your pre-planned plan, and you will be doomed!

So while you need to know various methods and techniques, what is needed is a strategy to beat the competition. So work on your mission and vision statements, and always ask “Where can I win?”, and “What else?”.

Now, you may be doing Internet Marketing from home in your pyjamas, but that is no reason not to organize your business.

It is best if you organize your internet business right from the get-go, otherwise it will be a lot more difficult to get it organized at a later time. When things are organized around you, you will be more productive. This is because any clutter around you will contribute to your stress level. The more stress you have, the more you are unable to focus and you will tend to make incorrect and rash decisions.

So to keep yourself motivated and positive, do keep your workplace free of clutter and well organized.

Keep all your work materials neatly filed, whether it be on paper and your filing system, or it resides on your computer in folders and in your email.

Keep a list of URLs, usernames and passwords handy in one place, and you will save a lot of time hunting around for this info. Even if it means hitting the search button in your email and typing in a query, that also takes time, and may return many irrelevant results.

If you are a member of any affiliate programs or you are promoting various products and services, keep a record of the affiliate urls and the login information to check your stats and sales. You may want to use Roboform or a spreadsheet to keep track of this information.

Remember that computers are not infallible. Make sure to backup your data onto either a CD or an external hard disk. If you have written materials on paper, it might make sense to back those up as well by scanning them in and saving the images.

Do you have accurate records?

Just because this is a home based business does not exempt you from keeping accurate records. Keep a complete and accurate record of your business income and expenses, as well as all other aspects of your livelihood. File away the receipt for every purchase that you make, and organize them monthly. You should be able to access these numbers whenever you need to.

Keep your papers in binders, and have index cards and checklists made up for important routines that you perform. Organize your desktop, get rid of the many icons on your desktop and move them where they make sense. Put shortcuts to your important programs within easy reach and organize your bookmarks and favorites so that you can find things easily.

If you have any tips that you would like to share on making your business run more efficiently and increase productivity, please do leave a comment here.

I’ve found a lot of help and advice from this site which has many courses from beginner level to advanced, and covers the basics, traffic, income streams and much more. It is a membership site, and your first month is paid for! Click here to get the real deal.

http://www.shafirahmad.com/recommends/MPAM

When I first got started on the internet marketing scene, one of the first places I got my information from was from Forums.

The amazing thing was that there were people online who were willing to help someone like me to get started, and to understand the lingo and jargon.

If you aren’t a member of any internet marketing forums yet, I encourage you to go and become a member immediately. It will literally change your life.

Earlier this year, I lauched my time management ebook and had a pretty poor conversion rate even though I thought my sales letter rocked. What was amazing was that I posted my message for help on one special forum that I paid to get access to, and there were many people who gave me a lot of advice, advice that would have cost me in the thousands of dollars, had I hired a copywriter to
change the sales letter, or even to provide a critique. Thats why the sales letter is now converting about 3-4% of people who opt in at my time management site, a huge improvement over the 0.3% it was doing prior to that.

Just recently, I joined another paid forum, the difference here that there are many Experts who are willing to share and to help with their time and information. Just looking through the posts there is mind-boggling.

For example, I was reading a post entitled “Create a $500 Per Day Business for Yourself” and the information there is absolutely amazing. Lots more posts like this one there.

This forum is right here:
http://www.ShafirAhmad.com/recommends/Forum