I’m very near launching another project, one I have been working on for a couple of months, and it is in these final hours of work that you often lose sight of your focus. The mind is funny like this. Subconsciously you’ll find ways to sabotage what your are doing, I guess it can be a lack of self belief.

No way am I going to put up with bull shit like that from the subconscious  mind though. It now answers to the focused mind.

You see I’m training my mind bit by bit to become adjusted to routine. And I used to hate routine. Sadly I’ve found it’s a nessesity if you want to make a success of anything. You need to be systematic and persistent.

The fact I’ve now posted for four days in a row about getting my shit together is an improvement over where I have been before. I’ll decide whether this time spent on my blog is worth it in the long run but for now it is keeping me on a focused path.

Really I need to begin looking at actual useful content for people to read instead of me telling the world how disorganized I’ve been.

Sorry just testing a Twitter to WordPress plugin, but there are some other mighty fine posts on this blog to read…

NETWORKING: In an attempt to avoid generic looking stock images I made my own. Strangely it was a damn site quicker than trying to find one in the interweb

Ever since Monday I have been rethinking my strategy when it comes to this blog. In the past I’d get caught up in how pwetty i’d like to make it. Spending hours looking for a nice theme and pissing around with header designs is none productive. Balls to that. For now I’m going to keep adding content as often as possible. We’ll Worry about the design later.

I’ve also been doing something else I had neglected.

Networking. Duh.

Really if you overlook this aspect like I have been then your business will suffer.

I have come to realise that unless I network with other marketers online who are actually doing things as opposed to talking about them I will get more things done myself.

It pushes you into a position where you either do or die. You can’t start aligning yourself with successful people and begin setting up joint ventures without following through. Unless you wan’t to look like an idiot.

It puts the pressure on you to actually carry something through to the end and learn in the process.

And if it all goes tits up. Tough shit. You carry on. But you will learn from the lesson.

Today I’ve got a Skype chat scheduled with a marketer who made a nice lump from his last project, launching a wordpress plugin to a hungry market.

I think this kind of movement is what has been seriously lacking from my strategy. Accountability to myself and others for my actions. But at least I have been taking action.

The developer sent through the plugin last night. There was a small bug, but I’ve asked him to fix it. Then we should be good to go.

The first step is to get some kind of reaction from other marketers so I will be giving it away to a select few people. Of course like with anything marketing related there is an ulterior motive. I need some testimonials.

The other marketers will also be so happy with the thought of this new plugin, they will want to promote it to their lists when it’s ready to launch.

Of course that’s how the theory goes anyway.

I will also need to create some camtasia tutorial videos. Shouldn’t take long. There isn’t many options.

Then I need to create the site with the members area for the people to access the plugin, the tutorials and bonus items.

In the meantime I have a salesletter to write. Til we meet again. Adieu…

Now he’s helped bring to market a few successful WSO’s over the past couple of months, including Justin Wheelers Facebook Fanpage plugin.

On the chat last night and I told Jimmy I had a plugin developed. His brain was immdiatley ticking away suggesting ideas for JV partners and giving tips and advice about the next stage… ie bringing it to market.

I’m on a 5 day trial here, then the price goes up to $97 a month. This seems like a big lump to dish out, but I’m seriously considering a purchase. I guess it all depends on if I can make some advance this week with potential JV patners for the WP plugin I have had developed.

Interesting indeed…

On another note… this is my second blog post in as many days. Something is definitely brewing here. The timers still ticking away and I’ve  got a schedule of work planned for the day ahead. Things are moving along nicely. Let’s keep it that way.

At the minute I have a timer ferociosly ticking away like a timebomb waiting to go off.

I just bought some productivity software and I’ve planned my day out. Now I’m flying through tasks faster than a chimpanzee strapped to a missile. (Hmm, I think this timers affecting my thoughts in a strange way).

So until my next blog post adios…

Needing to post a DVD of files to a client and pay some overdue bills I decided to go to the Post Office early on this morning. Killing the proverbial two birds and leaving the rest of the day clear to continue with my marketing. My girlfriend was to drop me off on her way to work and I planned to walk home taking a few photos of the surrounding countryside.

We live a few miles out in the country, having recently moved here from the hustle of a busy city. The peacefulness kind of suits us both and we feel more relaxed for it. But the area is new to us so I thought I’d take this chance to do a bit of exploring off the beaten track. Grabbing my camera I laced up my army walking boots, anticipating a little bit of mud.

After I had done my dues, I began the walk home. It’s a reasonable walk, about three and a half miles, and as I set off I was enjoying a chilly but sunny morning. I had looked on Google maps earlier to get a rough bearing of the direction I was heading. There was a factory site just off the main road, and it was beyond this I was to walk through the woods alongside a brook. Following it upstream I would be back home in no time. Easy.

As I entered the woods I felt a sense of clearing in my head. It is often when going for walks that you can get a chance to gather your thoughts. It clears the mind. Gives you a chance to distance yourself from the usual routine and enter a more creative state. Joggers experience a similar thing. (It is connected with the theta brainwaves and how a repetitive exercise can bring about a different state of mind)

I began thinking about my plan for the day and how my marketing efforts were going… how I’m finally putting together the pieces of the puzzle. Suddenly the sun begins to vanish and the sky turns gray. As it does my feet quickly sink into deep mud, almost sucking my boots off. I was quite surprised. While I had anticipated some mud, I hadn’t quite expected this.

Lifting my feet out I walked onwards, cursing myself for not having the foresight to realise the ground would still be boggy from the last few months of rainfall.

Then a drop of precipitation. “Great! Now I’m caked in mud, and it’s going rain” Yet I was too far into the woods to turn back, so I continue onward. Walking, I enter an open field and the ground becomes less and less stable, until I am hopping from one clump of grass to another…. I felt foolish for continuing and it surely must have been a sight to see…. A man hopping through a muddy field with no sense of direction.

I decided I should head for some higher ground. As I did I noticed a fresh footprint. Someone had recently been here before me. Feeling a sense of relief, I followed the trail of footsteps to dryer ground and back onto the trail home.

My mind came back to my progress with online marketing. I reflected on my journey over the past year, how it had began by heading into the unknown. A journey starting with a joyous, maybe naive enthusiasm. A rough route mapped out with sparse planning. Yet I soon became stuck. In turn this led to frustration, madly hopping from one idea to the next, until I didn’t know which way to turn. Thankfully I had now found footsteps to follow and I had a plan and a sense of direction. A direction in which my success lies and one I can call a path home.

You see I have recently been following a course called Simpleology. This course has allowed me to sort through the clutter in my life and put things in order. It has allowed me to find my strengths and my weaknesses and disciplined me to only spend time working on things that are important to my business.

Simpleology is a system. A system that will get you into the routine of only doing the most productive tasks each day.

If you have spent countless hours working on something with no result, then Simpleology will allow you to strip all that bare. Back to the very core of what you are trying to achieve. Will define your targets and allow you to ‘hit it, until you hit it’.

Maybe you are lost in the woods with your business? Perhaps up to your boots in the marketing mud or even hopping from one idea to the next with no sense of direction? Seriously, you should be checking out what Simplology can do for you.

And to make it even better Simplology is free. It doesn’t cost a penny to sign up. No ‘risk free trial’ or any of that nonsense.

Of course there is a marketing back-end to the system. Mark Joyner, who created it is a marketing genius.

(He wouldn’t just give away something this valuable if he didn’t know how to create sales further down the line. He’s not stupid)

What is most important here is the core system of Simpleology 101 is completely free. And besides which, simply signing up and seeing how Mark Joyner pieces together his marketing machine is a lesson in itself.

(And you don’t get many lessons like that for free either)

If you really are not convinced it will help you, then just sign up anyway, come back here and let me know. I will personally help you through any aspects of the course that you don’t understand.

Click here to sign up for Simplology 101 now. It could be the most productive thing you do all year.

Some of his videos are infact very entertaining, and this one I found particularly useful for organizing daily tasks and ideas. However I have added my own twist. Watch the video and then check out linoit to take this concept to another level.

The ingenuity of this video though is that it was part of a carefully orchestrated plan to sell a high priced course in social media marketing. Don’t doubt Perry’s ability to use NLP techniques to pre sell you with his wacky brand of internet marketing.

1. Fantastico. To make the wordpress install as quick and painless as possible I will go to my hosting accounts Cpanel and select Fantastico. From there I will simply install WordPress directly on the server. If you don’t have a clue how this Fantastico business works then take a look at this tutorial for using Fantastico to install wordpress on your website. Even better there is a video at the bottom of this page.
2. Theme. I have often spent hours trawling the net looking for a theme, but there have been some great looking themes available from within the WordPress install lately. One of my current favorites is the Arras Theme. This is a highly configurable magazine style theme that can be used to make a basic blog look like a highly interactive website.
3. SEO. One of the best methods for improving the SEO of the blog is to use this nifty FREE traffic getting software by Jeff Johnson. This basically performs some tweaks that will make SEO for your blog a piece of cake.
4. Plugins. Once you install the SEO software you are presented a list of plugins to install that are required to make the tweaks. I usually install all except the ‘sociable’ plugin. For this I use AddThis WordPress plugin. I also add the Google Analyticator plugin. This will allow you to enter your Google Analytics tracking code so you can analyse where your blog traffic is coming from. ‘There are thousands of extra plugins that can be used depending what you are trying to do with the blog. More on the extra ones I use later.
5. Akismet API key. This is a very important step. You need to have registered an account with wordpress.com to get your API key. Once you have it enter it into into the box on the akismet page in your blog admin area. This will track spam comments that are posted. One time I neglected to activate the akismet and the blog came under attack from spam comments at a rate of 1 every second. There were over 17 thousand spam comments pointing to viagra sites. I had manually go into the SQL database and delete all the entries.
6. Optimize The Blog. Using Jeff Johnsons blog software I optimize the blog. This will fix up any tweaks that are required after installing any plugins. Also enter in your blog headers and keywords using the SEO for wordpress plugin that was installed.
7. Fix Permalinks. The optimizing that Jeff Johnsons software does include changing the permalinks to/%post_id%/%postname%/.

   I prefer the format

   /%category%/%postname%/

   as this includes more words for the search engines to pick up. Maybe I’m being a bit over the top with my SEO, but post id only gives us numbers instead of words. Please note that once you optimize the blog again using Jeff Johnsons software it will change your permalinks back to the post_id format. This will lose any inbound links to existing posts in the category format.

Once all these are done I’m pretty much ready to start posting and will add custom plugins and widgets as required depending on the blog.