Unstoppable Peak Performance

Introduction
Hello, this is Aurelius Tjin. Welcome to the Unstoppable Peak Performance guide where I’ll teach you how to focus, earn more, work less and overall enjoy more of life. I’m excited about being here with you today because after you read this guide, you are going to digest three and a half years of my own personal experience with Internet marketing into one – and I’m very grateful to share that with you because without loyal people like you, I wouldn’t be in the position I am today.

I’m not going to teach you how to build a website, create a product, build your list, and generate traffic here – there’s plenty of information out there and experts in those fields already. One of the biggest problems I see with those who are struggling with their online business, and even those who are making a slight success but want to take it to the next level is this.

A lack of focus and vision for their objectives.

When this happens, they suffer from certain disorders which limits them from reaching their goals.
They try out every opportunity that claims it’s “the next big thing”,
They’re ready to finally quit their job because they think the next “pushbutton” system will make them a fortune,
They try to do too many things at once and end up not accomplishing anything 100%.

I’m here to help you overcome obstacles that are limiting you from getting things done. Whether it’s to complete your project or build your first mailing list – you’ll be in Peak Performance after discovering the methods and strategies I used to get to where I am today.

So let’s get started with a question…

Why Don’t You Own A Functional Business?

There is no shortage of technical tools—computers, software programs, machinery—needed to build your business. You own nearly everything you need. What you still need, you can rent or finance. There is no shortage of laborers to work on your business. All you need to do is figure out what must be done, and then hire those who can do it best for the lowest cost.

There is also no shortage of free information. Everything you need to know to build a business is readily available to you. You just have to put it to work. There is also no shortage of lenders who are willing to finance YOUR business plan. If you come up with a plan—and you know that plan will work—you should have no problem obtaining the funding needed to finance it. In fact, you may be able to get all of that funding from a credit card.

With all of this said, why is it that you have failed to create a functional, growing business in all of the time you spent working online?. Why is it that you spend more than 10 hours a day working at your computer, but you earn nothing or next to nothing or an amount that isn’t worth your time?. Is it that you’re not doing something right? Is that the issue? or is it something else?.

If I had to bet money on it, I would guess that it is something else. And I bet I can also guess exactly what that thing is:

You have most of the resources you need; and you could access the resources you don’t have yet relatively easily. But you have absolutely no confidence that you can fit all of the parts together and make a business that functions and grows. For that reason, you stall. You stall because you don’t think you can get everything quite right.
But to quote Mike Litman: “You don’t have to get it right. You just have to get it going.”

And Mike is right. You don’t have to do everything “right” the first time you do it. You just have to do something.
In fact, before you get something wrong, you probably have no idea what “right” actually is. Let me give you an example: If you had never ridden a bike before, do you think you could make plans to ride the bike the “right way”—and then do it and get it “right” the first time? Of course you couldn’t. There are things that you cannot know about riding that bike that you will not know until you try.

This analogy does not work perfectly with Internet businesses. No analogies fit perfectly. But this one sure makes a lot of sense, especially when you consider why most Internet marketers fail. So what is my point? My point is that you have to get moving. You have to stop giving yourself excuses for being unproductive–for letting yet another day pass by without doing anything that improves your business. I wrote this ebook for people just like you. You’re smart, you’re willing to learn, and you’ve spent the time and money to self-educate yourself. But you face a problem that could very well prevent you from making money; or from scaling up the amount of money you can make: you have a hard time focusing; you cannot set goals, and you are not completely sure why you started an online business or what it is that you hope to do (other than earn money).

My goal is to get you to shed that premise—that everything must be perfect. Instead, I want you to adopt an alternative premise: that productive action is the most important driver of your business. That, in order to constantly advance your business and your income, you must always have a set of goals in place; and you must always pursue those goals with sustained action.

CHAPTER 1: It’s Time For You To Build Momentum

This chapter is all about building momentum. Right now, you have none. You are completely inert. You have no direction. You have no speed. You are waiting for something to come along and act on you.

Ask yourself this question: What is more likely to accelerate to 60 miles per hour in 5 seconds – a car with a dead battery or a car that is putting down the road at 15 miles per hour?. Before the first car can even be turned on, the battery has to be replaced. It may even have to be towed to a garage. In the case of the second car, it isn’t moving all that fast, but you can rest assured that it will reach a speed of 60 miles per hour long before that first car even arrives at the garage.

If you aren’t taking any productive action, your business is that car with the dead battery. You’re going nowhere other than the garage (if you’re lucky), where you will rack up a bill (or fixed business expenses in your case—hosting fees, domain name registrations, autoresponder fees, etc.) before you can even turn it on.

So what can you do?

First, ask yourself why that battery is dead. In other words, what is making you completely inert as a business owner?. Why is it that you are gathering no momentum? Why is it that you know a lot, but you choose to apply very little of what you know to your business?. Are you simply afraid of taking action? Do you think the consequences of failure could outweigh what you will lose by doing nothing at all?.

I don’t know exactly what your problem is. But I do know that you must identify it. Here are two common problems that slow business owners face. Consider whether or not they apply to you. 1. You don’t know how to put all of the parts together. You might know how to advertise with Google Adwords. You might know how to create a sales page. You might know how to create a product. But maybe there’s something you FEEL you’re missing that is preventing you from getting started—gaining momentum, moving at least 15 miles per hour, so you can have a prayer of one day moving 60.
Most people—before they own a successful business—feel as if they do not know how to put all of the parts together. They may feel confident that they can create a product, but they have no idea how to get customers to that product, and then compel them to buy.

You probably feel this way. You feel like you might spend a lot of money to create a product that no one will buy. You will fail and lose money. Or maybe you think the opposite is true: you’re a talented marketer, but you’ve got nothing worth selling. That’s the first problem. If you have it, identify it. Tell yourself that you have it now, so you can consider how to fix it later.

What’s the second problem?

2. You have no idea how to break things down into “chunks.” What does that mean? I’ll use a quote to illustrate. This is important.

Anthony Robbins mentions the power of “chunking” in one of his early books, called “Notes From A Friend.”

Here’s what it says:
“The most successful people are those who understand the power of ‘chunking,’ who don’t bite off more than they can chew at one time. In other words, they break a goal down into bitesize pieces, achievable ‘sub-goals’ that lead toward the ultimate success they desire But it’s not enough just to set subgoals; you have to celebrate the achievement of each small step. This will help you build momentum and develop habits that will gradually turn your dreams into reality.”

And we’re back to momentum: if you have this problem—if you are UNABLE to chunk, to break your goals down into bite-sized pieces—you won’t gain momentum. If you can’t ever get that car to the garage and replace the battery, you’ll never go 15 miles per hour. And if you don’t ever go 15 miles per hour, you wont go 25, 35… and faster, all the way to 60 miles per hour and beyond. You will sit on the side of the road, wondering how fast your car might go if it only had a working battery.

How To Build Momentum

In the first part of this section, I used the analogy of a car with a dead battery to illustrate momentum. What I was really trying to show was quite simple: you have to get started somewhere. And only once you get started will you fully understand what is required to move faster and faster.

But let me put it in more concrete terms, terms that will make sense for your Internet business. I’m going to lay something out below that is similar to an “ad lib.” You can fill in the blanks with your own personal answers:

I want to earn $______ in the upcoming year.

I currently earn $______ from my Internet business.

Now take your first answer and divide it by your second. What number does your current income have to be multiplied by to equal your “target income” for this year?. If you are DREAMING that your income will increase by a factor of 3, 4, 5… or 10, it is time to come back to Earth. It is entirely possible that this could happen. But in order to get there—in order to MULTIPLY your current income—you have to actually gain positive momentum in that direction.
So let’s ground your lofty goal by coming up with reasonable benchmarks, by assessing what is possible and how much it will take to achieve it.

In the context of your business, this means something very concrete, something very usable:

If you are currently working 30 hours per week and earning $500 per week, but want to earn $2000 per week, you have to gain positive momentum—that is, your income has to rise to $600 per week, $700 per week, and so on.
Do you know how you could make that move forward? Do you know how you could move from $700 to $800?
And if you have to scale up your sales to reach $700 and $800, will that mean that you have to scale up the amount of hours you work? For instance, would 30 hours at $500 per week translate into 120 hours per week for $2000 per week?
If you have absolutely no plan to get from $500 per week to $600 per week without increasing your hours, there’s a good chance that an increase in your income of that magnitude would actually require you to work the additional 90 hours.

So what can you do?

Start Anywhere

That’s right – anywhere. Just get started. Get your business ROLLING downhill, so it can gain momentum. This is the first step you must take.
Once you have gained momentum, increasing your speed or changing direction is a simple matter of carefully observing and recording your business activities; and using the data you collect to take advantage of opportunities you pass along your way.

Identify Your Strong Points
Without question, your business will have many weak points. Some systems you setup will fail. Some workers you hire will be incompetent and may even try to steal from you. These are all givens. These are all problems you will encounter. These are all problems Fortune 500 Companies encounter. However, they are NOT things you must completely overcome before you start gaining momentum.

This is another mistake people tend to make, which prevents them from picking up speed: they constantly find reasons for why they are unable to support the growth of their business. For instance, they might say that they cannot increase the size of their business without decreasing the quality of their product. They might also say that they cannot hire other people; otherwise the quality of the work will worsen.

They might also say that they cannot grow their business because they need software programs to manage affiliates or handle payments. These are all important considerations; however, they often prevent business owners from focusing on the most important task at hand, which isn’t identifying the weaknesses of your business.

The most important task at hand is identifying what your business does best. Once you have done this, you should build around this single point, be it a product or an idea. You might be able to create a certain product better than anyone else can. For that reason, you may be able to earn more per unit sold than you do on anything else you sell. Well, rather than selling 700 different products, figure out which area is your best area—or which product is your best product; and concentrate on that.

This also applies to the product delivery or to other factors associated with the product “package.” In some cases, the quality and price of the product you deliver may be less important than other factors, as strange as that seems.
For instance, if you aren’t selling an info product with an automated delivery system (perhaps you are selling your professional services in some area), you may find that other producers in your niche have logistical problems. Either they cannot organize workers effectively to produce on schedule or they cannot deliver the project in a reasonable amount of time.

Your strength may simply be getting the product to your client on time without fail. If few other people can do this, you may be able to charge a higher price than your competition; and increase your marketshare at the same time.
Similarly, you may find that superior customer service puts you ahead of your competition. If this is the case, build on this skill. Carve out a reputation for having the best customer service in your entire niche.

Shift Your System Into A Higher Gear

I can’t stress the importance of this enough: eventually, if you continue to push, if you continue to focus on your strengths, you WILL gain momentum. You will move your business from inertia to rapid growth. Eventually, if you continue to grow, you will start to feel the pressure. If you were making $500 each week and your sales moved you to $700, you will feel increasingly pressured as the workload increases.

This is a good thing. It means your business is ready to shift into a higher gear. However, now that you getting ready for that shift… now that you have momentum, you must find ways to handle this new growth, so it doesn’t outstrip your capacity to produce; otherwise, you might end up intentionally making decisions that sabotage your continued growth—the very thing which is responsible for increasing your income. You will do this simply because you cannot handle the extra hours required to earn 20% more or 40% more.

There’s really a simple reason behind this: the systems you use for your business were appropriate at the $500 per week level, but they’re no longer appropriate at the $700 per week level. If you are like most Internet marketers, you play several roles that increase or decrease with your sales volume. In many cases, Internet marketers will be the last person to edit or reprocess their own products, even if a number of employees or freelancers are hired to create it. Additionally, many Internet marketers will handle all customer service issues. Internet marketers also have a habit of making deals with all of the clients.

If you really think about this, it isn’t hard to see why, if you are using this model, you are placing an artificial ceiling on your income. No matter how hard you push, no matter how hard you work, your income cannot pass a certain amount using your current system.

Why not?

Think about it like this: if you currently have to work 40 hours per week to produce and sell 500 units of generic output, how many would you have to work to produce 1000—that is, to double your current income?. If your system is exactly the same and if your work increases in proportion to the amount you sell, then you will have to work 80 hours each week to earn twice as much. If you want to double your income again, you have to work 160 hours each week, which isn’t possible without sleeping. So what can you do? Once you hit that “growth ceiling,” where your business has grown to the point where you’re no longer willing to work more hours to earn more, then you absolutely must re-evaluate your business and make changes.

Resynthesizing To Maintain Momentum

Previously, your business may have been inert because you were not building on your strengths; and because you were too focused on what you might not be able to do once you grew. But now you’ve grown and you have actually encountered some of these “potential problems.” So is it time to give up? To leave your income inert once again? No way…
You must now figure out how to separate the amount of time you work from the amount of output your business produces.
You can do this by “resystematizing.”

What does this entail?

It entails avoiding trivial tasks as a business owner. If something is relatively easy to do—perhaps even repetitive—you have to create a system for doing it; and pass that system along to an employee or a freelancer when you hit a profit ceiling. Let me give you an example: if you have several employees or freelancers working for you—and they produce some type of relatively uniform product (such as graphic design work, sales copy, etc.)–you need to find a way for those products to be processed from start to finish without your involvement.

This is tough for many Internet marketers to understand. Often they want to get involved in the production process at various stages. Not only do they want to play the role of an entrepreneur, but they also want to be a production line inspector and an on-site operations manager.

In some cases, micromanagement like this might be necessary. Certainly, when you have first hire staff, you will want to check on them periodically. You will also want to be there to train them carefully; however, once you have hired someone to take over one of your repetitive tasks—and you have provided them with the incentives and instructions to do the task correctly—it is time to get out of the way and let them do it without you. This might sound like a huge risk initially. You might think that hiring someone to take over these tasks could be a disaster. After all, your profit per unit will fall.

However, what you might not consider initially is that this frees you from your 40-hour per week job of repetitive tasks. You will now make less per unit sold, but you also have an extra 40 hours to find ways to dramatically expand the size of your business without increasing the amount of time you spend working on it.
If you had all of that time to work on the strategic systematization of your business (i.e. preparing it for constant increases in capacity) and on promoting it (or working with newly hired marketers), do you think you could find ways to increase your output to a level that would more than compensate for what you lost?

Of course you could. But what’s even better is that once you resystematize—once you put systems in place that will control hiring and firing, production, marketing, revision, etc. (all without your involvement)–you can continue to increase your output without micromanaging in a way that increases your workload.

CHAPTER 2: Overcoming Information & Idea Overload

In the last chapter, I talked about gaining momentum, but most importantly, I talked about the process of growth and how it translates into RUSHING forward headlong—without constantly worrying about what could go wrong—until you hit a growth ceiling. Once you hit that ceiling, you have to resystematize; that is, you have to take the systems that are currently functional for this level of production and turn them into systems that could be functional for a higher level of production.

What I failed to mention in the last chapter is that there is something clearly identifiable that often creates that resistance to growth. That “something” is information overload; and as an Internet business owner, you almost definitely suffer from it. So what is information overload and why does it prevent you from growing your business?. Information overload is a fairly self-evident problem: as you attempt to learn more and more about Internet marketing, you accumulate more knowledge that you can potentially put into action at any given time.

In fact, when we’re learning almost anything that should be used in a functional way, we often have a tendency to over-consume the information—to study unrelated processes and functions simply because the material is there.
The end result may be that we have accumulated so much information—much of it contradictory—that we are completely unable to piece all of it together in a way that is coherent and usable.

This is where Mike Litman’s quote can be useful once again: “Don’t get it right. Get it going.” Like most Internet marketers, you get bogged down by information overload. Having “too much” information in itself is not necessarily a bad thing. This is not a problem. But here’s what is a problem: having no momentum whatsoever, so you are completely unable to test those piles and piles of knowledge.

That’s important to remember: if you have no momentum, you really can’t test what will and wont work in reality, especially when it comes down to your specific business, which YOU designed with your own systems. No one else knows these things as well as you do.

Stop Buying Products You Won’t Use

You can never know everything; nor can you ever know “enough.” However, in some situations, it is relatively safe to say that reading more of the same information—or similar information–will provide little if any benefit to your business. So here is my suggestion to you: if you want to cut down on “information overload”–if you want to start growing your business—then stop buying products you won’t use.

Before you buy that next ebook, that next piece of software, that next special report, that next membership to some information site… ask yourself two questions:
1. Do I really have the time to use this product or service? And
2. Will my business actually benefit from my using this product or service?

If you can’t honestly say yes to both questions, don’t buy it. Not only do frivolous purchases bleed away your earnings, which could potentially be reinvested into useful software or could be risked on some venture that has the potential to grow your business, but they also waste your time. If you have no plan to use the information you get out of an ebook, what do you plan to do with it?. Cut back on the number of things you’re buying, but not using. This will help you to cut back on that feeling of information overload that prevents you from taking action.

Concentrate On Doing Productive Activities

There are dozens of different ways you could build your business’s momentum. Rather than staring at your computer screen, surfing the Internet, reading forums, or talking to your friends on instant messenger, you need to focus on doing things that are actually productive. Here’s what I personally suggest: start by creating a list. It can be sloppy and poorly ordered. It doesn’t matter. Just make a list in notepad and put it on your desktop.

On this list, include every single thing you can think of that will either 1) increase the number of people who place orders for your product; or 2) increase the number of products you make available to your already hungry buyers. Once you have finished your list, re-order it in the following way: place the things that are EASIEST TO DO and which HAVE WORKED IN THE PAST at the top. At the bottom, put the hardest things to do, which have not worked for you yet.

Within your current system, this should be your actual list of priorities. You should concentrate on doing the easiest things that yield the most reliable returns. Do this again and again and again.
You might think that you need to take on a gigantic project to make gigantic profits (the stuff at the bottom of your list). But that isn’t the case. What you need to do is take on reasonably sized projects, which have already proven their ability to generate revenue, and repeat them until you hit the “growth ceiling” I mentioned in the previous chapter.

Once you hit that growth ceiling, you will have to start to resystematize your business, so that other people can do those “easy” tasks, while you find the new “easy” ways to bring in revenue reliably. However, until you hit that growth ceiling, stop worrying about what you will do once you get there. Right now, you don’t have sufficient revenue and experience to deal with the problems you will face then. Once you are there, you will.

Instead, focus all of your energy on gaining steam, gaining momentum, driving forward… by simply focusing on the easy tasks that you KNOW will generate revenue. Do this again and again until you hit that ceiling. Then hire someone else to do it.

Work Or Don’t

If you’re “at work,” then work. If you’re not at work, then get away from the computer. This inability to separate work from everything else often enables or contributes to “information overload.”
Internet marketers tend to see themselves as taking part in continuing education: every step of the way, they must learn something new. Thus, they cannot separate “learning important information” with performing integral business functions.

For this reason, they often give themselves an excuse to be lazy—to read the the material under the guise of “working” when really they simply want to avoid performing those integral business functions. If this is the case with you, it’s time to reform your behavior. Stop deceiving yourself, and start performing those tasks that you identified as “easy” and “effective.” Even if they are repetitive for now, they will get you up to that first profit ceiling.

In summary—as the title says—either work or don’t work. If you’re working, perform the day-to-day integral business functions you should be doing to expand output and find more customers. If you want to “learn important information” from an ebook, then actually schedule a time during the week to do that. Other than that period of time, don’t do it. Don’t trick yourself. Otherwise, you’re simply furthering your information overload WHILE convincing yourself that what you did was an integral business function.

Cut The Fat With Testing

Often at the heart of information overload is the inability to distinguish between the better of two strategies or between the strategy that works and the one that doesn’t (when information is contradictory). So here’s an acid test for you: rather than looking for MORE INFORMATION to settle disputes, put the disputes to the test.

Just because “Guru Such And Such” says that something will work does not mean that it will work for you. It might even work 90% of the time, but maybe it won’t for you. So stop looking to information, which is often filled with conjecture, to provide the answer to something you have to test empirically. Instead, formulate your own test; perform it; and derive your own business-specific result.

Once you derive a conclusive result—cut the fat. Get rid of things that drive your costs up. Get rid of things that drive your conversions down. Get rid of employees who can be replaced by more productive employees.
Cut the fat, too, by killing useless information. If you have a contradiction in information, and you solve it with a test, you no longer have to wonder whether or not some technique could improve output or marketing or something else.

CHAPTER 3: Creating & Perpetuating Vision

Close your eyes and picture your business in one year from now. What does it look like? How many clients do you have? Who are your clients?–Are many of them the same ones you have now? Or are they different people? How many employees do you have? Are you still selling the same products?. What systems have you put in place? Are you still using the same ones? Or have you automated and outsourced more things? Are your hours still attached to the magnitude of your output? Or have you reduced your input to a strategic decision-making role?. Can you picture all of these things and more? If so, do you do it on a regular basis?.

This exercise is often referred to as “visualization.” As the CEO of your Internet business, you must envision the future. The better you can envision things, the easier it will be to see where you are going. But even if you have a very clear vision of the future, even if you understand roughly where you are going, you might not be able to get there—not unless you employ all the other components of having “vision.” I will consider each of them in this chapter.

Put Your Goals In Writing

Some of the most important things business owners do appear quite trivial. Simple, procedural, non-productive things, like putting goals in writing, can actually have a tremendous impact on the momentum your business builds; and the direction in which it moves.

How is that?. Written goals, placed somewhere visible (i.e. your desktop), hold you accountable to your vision.
This is why you need to visualize outcomes—and then set them as goals. Once you have visualized exactly what you want your business to look like in one year from now, you need to take the time to write that visualization down and sort it out carefully.

Let’s say your visualization is focused only on tripling sales volume within a year. That’s fine. But how do you get there?. Start by writing down your goal—“tripling sales volume within one year.” Next, add qualifiers to this goal. For instance, “. . .without increasing hours worked” or “. . .without compromising the quality of my product.”

Once you have written your goal down and have finished augmenting it with qualifiers, consider all of the intermediary steps necessary to achieve the end result—your goal:
1. How close are you to your profit ceiling?
2. Once you reach your profit ceiling, how will you have to resystematize to meet your goal?
3. How many employees will you need to hire—if any—to handle three times your current volume?
4. As your volume expands, will you need to put some of that revenue aside for investment in software?
5. Where will the extra sales come from?–Existing clients or new clients?
6. If new clients, where will you find them? If existing clients, how will you upsell them?

Without a doubt, you will ask yourself better questions because you know your own product and business model better.
However, the point of this exercise is to demonstrate one important part of “vision” that many business owners lack—which is the ability to translate an abstract vision of the future into a concrete vision on paper (or in notepad).
In doing so, you force yourself to set specific goals; and to consider the processes that will have to be fleshed out in order to achieve each of these goals. If you can do this, you’re already ahead of some of your competitors.

Revise Your Goals Periodically

As I mentioned in the previous chapter, the ultimate acid test for all business plans or projects is whether or not they work in reality—not in theory. When you first start visualizing what it is you want your business to be in one year’s time, you will undoubtedly have a number of ideas of what is and is not possible. But as you actually test new ideas, new projects, new plans… you will have to confront reality.

In some situations, you will find that ideas you never thought possible are in fact possible. In other situations, you will find that things you thought would be easily achievable are nearly impossible to achieve. This is why it is important to periodically revise your goals. Your goals must concretely reflect your vision; and your vision must be grounded in reality.

So set a certain date each month or week to revise your goals. Clip away the goals that aren’t realistic. Get rid of the things that are cumbersome and are not worth pursuing. Add things which you have newly found to be useful. Remember to actually change your written goals—the ones on paper or on your desktop—as you do this. Once you have done that, start revisualizing your business through the prism of this new set of goals.

Articulate Your Vision To Your Staff

Once you figure out where it is you would like to go, it is imperative that you share this vision with your staff, who will play a critical part in shaping how your business functions.

Right now, if you have staff—be they employees or freelancers—ask yourself the following questions:
1. What do my employees know about my business?
2. What do my employees know about the individual projects they are working on?
3. What do my employees know about my future plans for my business?
4. What do my employees know about my business’s “competitive advantage” (i.e. reliability, fast shipping, low prices, etc.)
5. What could I tell my employees about my business that would improve their performance?
6. How can I structure incentives to drive my employees to improve performance?

If your employees know next to nothing about your business (insofar as it is useful), how can you expect them to function within a framework that will further your set of goals? They wont know what will or wont improve your business. When you hire people, explain what it is your business is doing. Also, periodically take the time to explain this to your employees.

Now, even if your employees understand their own projects, they might not understand how their own project fits into the range of products you offer. For instance, if they do graphic design or copywriting, they might not understand the marketing side of the business or the product creation side. Understanding these other components might make it easier for them to understand how they can perform their own jobs best. A copywriter, for instance, will perform best when he understands his target market and the product he is trying to pitch. As the CEO of your Internet business, it is vital that you find ways to clearly explain jobs and projects to your employees.

Additionally, as CEO of your Internet business, it is vital that you take your vision, embodied by your written goals, and use that to shape how you run your business; and how you communicate with employees. For instance, if you plan to increase production by 25% in the next two months in order to achieve an objective, you may want to talk to the employees who will be doing the extra work; and explain in advance that you are planning to increase production.
Not only will you want to explain your goals, but you will also want to explain the competitive advantage you are relying on to beat your competitors. Let me give you an example: let’s say that your business’s competitive advantage is speed. If your employees don’t understand this, they might focus on other things.

Perhaps your employees will endlessly slave away trying to get things “perfect,” when, in fact, speed is more important than flawlessness. If they understand that your advantage is speed (and you positively reinforce them whenever they work fast), they will start to understand your vision and will attempt to align with it, which will ultimately accentuate your competitive advantage. Last, you must structure incentives in a way that constantly improves your business. While it helps to explain your business’s competitive advantage and your own vision, if your employees have no incentive to align with your goals, they will only do so insofar as is necessary to retain their jobs. Creating the right incentives might mean paying them per unit produced; or giving bonuses or positive reinforcement based on their alignment with your goal (i.e. speed, quality, responsiveness, etc.).

CHAPTER 4: As The Crow Flies

Have you ever heard the expression “as the crow flies”? If not, it means taking the most direct route between two points. For instance, if you had to travel by car or by foot from one corner of a city to the other, you might have to drive straight, turn left, turn right, turn left… drive straight, wait at a red light, drive straight, and then take a left again before you reach your destination.

The route could be filled with obstacles. Since you’re travelling on the ground level, you have to stay on the streets, drive around buildings (rather than straight through them!), and stop at lights. All of these things make the trip more complex and longer. This is not so for a bird, or a crow, as the expression goes. The crow can simply fly from one end to the other—from point A to point B. There is no need to veer around buildings, to make turns, to watch out for pedestrians, to stop at red lights. The crow can take the simplest and shortest route from one end of the city to another.

So how does this relate to your business?

If you have the choice to go from point A to point B, then that’s what you should do. Don’t complicate the process by stopping at point C and point D and point E.

Removing Self-Imposed Obstacles

Starting today, I want you to think of yourself as that crow. You are going to move from point A to point B in the simplest way possible. This is especially important when you consider self-imposed obstacles and limits, which are often the biggest enemy of Internet marketers.

Often, Internet marketers or business owners have the opportunity to move directly from A to B, but voluntarily choose to take the ground route. They may even throw in some extra roadblocks, just to slow things down… just to give themselves some time to sit in the car and listen to the radio. If your goal is actually increasing your income—if your goal is actually creating a viable business—then this isn’t the route to take. Take the direct route by removing self-imposed obstacles.

What are some of the self-imposed obstacles that Internet business owners usually face?
1. Limits on productivity.
2. Arbitrary objectives.
3. Self-sabotage.
4. Unnecessary distractions.
5. Unreasonably large plans.

Let’s start with the first: limits on productivity. This is fairly epidemic among Internet business owners. With no pressure to “work hard or get fired,” Internet business owners often take the time to relax, to knowingly do unproductive things while they’re “at work.” Rather than producing a lot in a short span of time, they waste an entire day doing very little. Again, this is a very indirect route from A to B.

Remember, you’re the crow. Fly from A to B.

The second problem is rather pervasive, too: arbitrary objectives. Setting arbitrary objectives takes the ground route to the next level. Not only are you taking an indirect path from A to B, but you’re also planning to do some unproductive sight-seeing on the way.

Before you set any goal or objective, make sure it makes sense and is in line with your business strategy. If it isn’t, pare it away and move on with your life. You don’t need to make fake decisions to keep yourself moving; there are plenty of productive things you can do, which will actually move you in the right direction.

The third self-imposed obstacle is self-sabotage. Business owners often fall prey to this when they have no idea what to do next. They purposely become less productive because they don’t know what to do if they actually achieve a goal they’ve set.

If you have carefully followed the material up to this point, you shouldn’t have that problem. You should have lists of things you can hammer away at constantly until you reach the “profit ceiling.” But until you get there, don’t spend your time worrying what you will do when you arrive. Getting there is hard enough when you’re actually being productive.

The fourth self-imposed obstacle Internet business owners face is unnecessary distraction. After all, what could be more distracting than having no pressure to work hard (because you’re your own boss) but having complete, unmitigated access to the Internet? Why work when you can listen to music, watch movies, post on forums, read ebooks, and talk to friends on IM… all while pretending you’re making money?.

Distraction is pervasive in Internet business; however, it is wholly self-imposed. If you find that you are constantly distracted, then maybe you need to spend less time “working.” This will put pressure on you to actually get work done when you’re “at work.” Additionally, it will free you up to do what you actually want to when you’re not really working. Why read some crumby ebook that provides you with little information just so you can pretend you’re “working”? Why not watch a movie or have dinner with your family instead?.

Last, one of the biggest self-imposed obstacles that Internet business owners face is the inability to set goals that are reasonable. This, too, prevents them from going directly to point B from point A. Let me give you an unfortunately common example: many Internet business owners start with this strange idea that they will become a millionaire in one year or less. Note that most of the people who have this wish are usually generating little or no income at all from their current business venture.

If they were to break this goal down into reasonable chunks, they might stand a chance of eventually becoming a millionaire. But they don’t. Instead, what they do is create a massive, unwieldy plan, which prevents them from moving to B from A. Instead, they look at the plan and give up, move nowhere, gain no momentum. So start by removing these self-imposed obstacles. If anything prevents you from accomplishing your goals, let it be a real problem—a real obstacle—not something you decided to impose on yourself.

Distinguish Between Real And Fake Obstacles

In the last section, we talked about the obstacles we impose on ourselves. These can hamper productivity considerably. In addition to these self-imposed obstacles, we often have to distinguish between “real” and “fake” obstacles when it comes to dealing with challenges that aren’t self-imposed. Let me give you an example: let’s say you’ve decided to run a Google Adwords campaign to promote your site. After dozens and dozens of tries to break even, you continue to try and try again. You see this as a challenge that you must eventually overcome.

This may be flawed thinking. In some cases, Adwords may not be the best way to advertise your site or product. Perhaps it simply isn’t possible to do much better than breaking even if you do use Adwords for promotion.
So what can you do? You can realize it’s a fake, not real, obstacle. Don’t give up on your business because it can’t be promoted with Google™ Adwords. Instead, as I mentioned in previous chapters, focus on your strengths, not weaknesses.

If you are using some method for promotion right now that is working again and again, but the gains are marginal—no problem, keep using that. Push that method of promotion until you hit a profit ceiling; only THEN should you worry about finding new methods such as Adwords. If something actually is a real obstacle, then you should deal with it as such. For instance, worrying that your workers could steal from you or could produce sub-part work could very well be a legitimate concern. And if it is for your particular business, then you will want to figure out how to setup systems to deal with it.
If obstacles are real… deal with them in a reasonable way. If obstacles are fake, fly like the crow and bypass them.

CHAPTER 5: Model Your Way To Success

No matter what niche your business falls into, there are movers and shakers who outperform you on a regular basis—who make more sales, secure larger joint venture deals, have larger lists, etc. Can you identify who three of them are off of the top of your head? Or even better, you could narrow it down to just one guru in your niche or business and model their success.

The 3 Part Exercise To Model Success

Once you find these three people, I want you do the following three-part exercise:
1) Conduct a thorough analysis of their businesses;
2) Follow everything these three people/businesses do; and
3) Figure out specifically where they succeed AND you fail—and figure out what specific steps you can take to change that.
Let’s start with the first part…

Conduct A Thorough Analysis of Their Business

Here is precisely what you will want to do when you conduct this analysis:

1. Find out how they get all of the inputs for their products.

Let’s say they make information products. Do they actually write them themselves? Do they actually code the software? If not, who does code it? Who does write it? Do freelancers? Do employees?. One good way to get a rough idea of where their inputs come from is to shadow the business owners on forums; and to search for their email addresses on Google. Find out where they post; and whether or not they use freelancing sites to find workers.

Once you figure this out, find out what they’re paying for these inputs and what specifically they post when they post a project on Elance, for instance. This will give you some insight into how they run their businesses. You may also get a rough idea of what their profit margins are.

2. Figure out what they automate.

This is especially important with Internet businesses. Different levels of automation will require different levels of work. If your competition automates most of what they do—and you automate very little—you will find that you have to work more or charge more for your products to generate the same level of income. Not only can automation help you work fewer hours, but it can also reduce the need to hire more employees, reducing your costs.

You can figure out what your competitors automate by scouring their sites and signing up for their mailing lists. Do they use autoresponder courses, rather than sending out weekly ezine issues? This is one potential area where they could be saving time. How about customer service? Do they handle all of that themselves? Do they outsource it? Or do they use really extensive FAQs and provide only the minimal amount of customer service required? If they outsource it or use FAQs, they have a significant cost advantage over you if you are dealing with customer service single-handedly. While they can devote most of their time to promotion and product-creation, you are bogged down with customer service activities.

3. Figure out how much revenue they generate.

Many business owners are unwilling to disclose how much they actually sell; however, if they own membership sites, this wont be very hard to figure out. Simply do the math: look at how many slots they have filled. Multiply that by the cost of a membership and you will have a rough idea of what they generate in revenue per month.
Now that you have a better idea of how they operate their businesses, it is time to move on to part two.

Follow Everything They Do

If they start developing a new product, start following that process. If they post on message boards or forums regularly, follow their posts. If they launch a new site, conduct the same analysis you did in the first part to that new site. No, this doesn’t mean you simply “copy” everything they do, but more to modelling their processes.
Read their biography/autobiography so you can find out how they got started.

Your goal here should be to figure out exactly what drives these business owners. If you follow their product development and launch processes, you might be able to gain insight into who they partner with and how they promote products. For instance, you may find that some of your competitors don’t use the “normal” methods of promotion at all.

In fact, your competitors might simply be well connected. All they have to do to usher in a tidal wave of sales for their new product is announce it through a close friend. This is important to recognize. If you are promoting entirely through conventional, non-JV methods—and they are promoting entirely through Jvs—then you may have a hard time competing until you actually make some better connections in your niche.
And if you follow their forum posts, you will be able to slowly deconstruct what it is they do on a daily basis. Watch how they talk to other people; and consider whether or not they are promoting their products through the forums. Again, all of these things are key insights, which you will only gain by following those who have outcompeted your business.

Figure Out Where They Succeed And You Fail

Although finding out where you both succeed, but they succeed a little more, is important, this part is by far the most important part of this entire process: figure out where they succeed AND you fail. In other words, where they have strengths where it’s a weakness for you, that’s what you want to work on.

Here are some questions you should ask:

Does it have to do with connections? If you had better connections, could you also duplicate what their revenues?
Does it have to do with technical skills? If you had better technical skills, could you improve your site sufficiently to compete with them?. Does it have to do with copywriting skills? If you could write better copy, could you convert more people and make just as many sales as they do?. Does it have to do with automation? Do they have lower costs than you, which allows them to sell for cheaper, ultimately making their products much more attractive?.

Do they have some type of celebrity status? Does this help them make sales that you can’t at this stage, simply because you have not gained any recognition?. Have they mastered some facet of the promotion process that you have not? Does this allow them to generate more leads for less money, making it tough to compete without gaining comparable promotional skills?. Do they have better systems in place, allowing them to reduce the amount of repetitive tasks they do on a daily basis? Does this free them up to promote and develop more than you do?

Are they simply more productive on a daily basis? Did their forum posts indicate that they work harder, waste less time, and concentrate efforts on building systems, rather than performing menial tasks?. Did they launch the sites or products with more starting capital? Were they millionaires before they even started, allowing them to set up better systems in the first place? And allow them to purchase superior quality sites, products, etc.?

Are they simply willing to do things that you are not? For instance, do they work more than you do on a regular basis? Are they willing to talk to clients over the phone? Are they willing to refund all purchases without question? Are they willing to hire employees or freelancers to do things that you wouldn’t allow anyone other than yourself to do?. This might seem like a lot of questions, but it is important to determine exactly where your competitors succeed AND you fail. Otherwise, you will have no hope of producing and promoting on the same scale that they do.

CHAPTER 6: The Power Of Chunking

Motivational guru, Anthony Robbins, said in his book “Notes from a friend” –

“The most successful people are those who understand the power of “chunking”, who don’t bite off more than they can chew at one time. In other words, they break a goal down into bite-size pieces, achievable “subgoals” that lead toward the ultimate success they desire”

Consider this exercise. Try remembering these numbers: 8482200010042. Cover the numbers and try to recall them out loud, in order. Did you get them right? While the majority of people fail to recall the numbers, only a small percentage of people would be able to. That’s because they have a way of memorising these numbers. They simply “chunk” the numbers into smaller, easier pieces.

Example:
84 could be the year you were born;
82 could be the year your sister was born;
2000 was the year of the Sydney Olympics;
1004 could translate to the date 10/04, which is your anniversary;
and 2 could be your house number.

So now, the way you look at it is 84-82-2000-1004-2. If you were writing a book for example, you’ll find that when you write in smaller intervals of 20-30 minutes, then taking a 5-minute break. Your body can only work “productively” for a certain amount of time until it needs rest. Just like when you do a 100m sprint. You get puffed out and need to catch your breath back. You need to let the blood flow.

The results? You get more work done and you work in a more productive fashion because each time you come back, you’re fresh and ready to do the next chunk. Once you understand and practice the power of chunking, working on your goals would be a whole lot easier to accomplish, because now you’re working in a manner where you see results, meet your goals and build momentum.

CHAPTER 7: Persistence Pays Off

“Never consider the possibility of failures. As long as you persist, you will be successful.” – Brian Tracy
Very few Internet business owners have persistence. Unfortunately for them—not you—persistence is the price of moving from one profit ceiling to another. As I’ve said multiple times, when you’re below a profit ceiling, you should concentrate all of your efforts on doing the easiest tasks that bring in the most reliable revenue. Keep pushing until you can no longer go any further using that model.

Many Internet business owners do not do this. They find things that work, but they fail to incorporate them into their daily business functions. Instead, they continue to use the “make a million dollars as soon as a possible model,” which ignores simple, repetitive tasks that are guaranteed to bring in revenue—and instead concentrates on finding the “holy grail” of revenue, which more than likely does not exist at that particular stage.

If you find the things that do work; and you persist in repeating those tasks, you will continue to improve your revenues until you hit that ceiling. If you don’t persist in repeating those tasks, you will lose momentum and never hit that ceiling. A different scenario to explain this even further is how avoiding negativity from different sources pays off like negativity from your family or friends and information that discourages and gives you doubts about what you want to do. If you truly feel passionate about what you’re doing, then you will succeed. Do what you love and do what you enjoy and success will always follow.

Reward Small Achievements

Staying persistent requires a considerable amount of focus and confidence. You have to focus on the task at hand constantly, even when it seems boring or complex. You also need a considerable amount of confidence that what you are doing will indeed work. Without these two elements, you won’t be able to maintain your persistence.

I like to refer back to what Anthony Robbins had in his “Notes from a friend” book where he said:
“You have to celebrate the achievements of each small step. This will help you build momentum and develop habits that will gradually turn your dreams into reality.”
We all heard that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. When was the last time you gave yourself a pat on the back while you were setting your goals?
Here’s what I suggest you do in order to maintain your focus and confidence: reward small achievements.
No matter how small your achievements are, it is critical that you reward them to reinforce your hard work. If, for instance, you spend four hours plugging away at a repetitive or complex task that is necessary at your current profit ceiling, then give yourself a short break to do something you really enjoy.

If you release a product and the launch goes well, reward your achievement here, too. Make sure that you reinforce positives, and avoid or ignore negatives. Too many Internet business owners fail to recognize when they have done something the right way—or a way that generates revenue. If it isn’t sufficient (i.e. less than one million dollars), they see it as a waste of time; and they try to find some other method to generate revenue. Don’t do this. The more you do it, the harder it will be to focus on routine tasks that you must complete. The more you do it, the fewer break-throughs you will have; and subsequently the less confidence you will have in your ability to build momentum and make more breakthroughs.

Learn How To Discipline Yourself

In some situations, you simply have to tell yourself no. You have to achieve a certain level of self-discipline. If you allow your mind to constantly wander—and if you allow yourself to relax and listen to music, rather than working—you’ll end up turning bad decisions into bad habits. Next time you’re “at work” and you decide to get unfocused, play some computer games, or surf the net aimlessly, simply tell yourself – NO! Close the browser, and look at your list of things to do. Start hammering away at the items on the top of your list (the easiest ones that generate the most reliable revenue); and forget about wasting time. You can do that once you’re done working.

Just think of it this way – you would work hard for someone, but you can’t put that same amount of effort to your business? Would you rather flip those burgers or have the freedom to sleep, wake up and work when you want? Technology is really high and the point of having all these new gizmos and gadgets is to make life easier. Are you taking full advantage of it? Or is it just laziness that’s stopping you?
You have to be grateful that you’re a living, breathing human who’s living in this universe. Discipline yourself. The boss or yourself?.