Watch the Complete Interview on www.BeEfficient.Tv

John Kremer is a Book marketing expert, the owner of Open Horizons Publishing and the author of1001 Ways to Market Your Books.

Interview Questions / Find the complete interview on www.BeEfficient.Tv/john-kremer/

• Why and how you decided to become an author and book marketing consultant?
• What’s your background?
• How did you start in the internet marketing would?
• How to prepare the right book launch and marketing plan, what to do step by step?
• How to plan a giveaway campaign on amazon efficiently?
• How authors can be featured in the media efficiently?
• What’s The book marketing network?
• What’s the blog tour palooza? Why you created different blogs for your services and didn’t focus on putting all these content on only one blog?
• How to create a supper start blog tour for authors?
• How authors can create a loyal tribe efficiently?
• Which book designing service do you recommend?
• Where to find the best book editors and agent?
• Top 2 editors that you recommend?
• Do you recommend authors to use different editor for each one of their books and why?
• Top 2 agents that you recommend for non-fiction and fiction?
• How to pitch publishers efficiently?
• How the open book horizons publishing works in terms of deals with authors?
• Is it possible to agree with traditional publishers without giving their online selling rights?
• Publishing Vs. Self – Publishing, if the author has both options to choose from, which one to choose?
• Best e-books and audio books distributors that you can recommend?
• How Self Published authors should create their book codes and ISBN correctly?
• How self published authors can pitch book stores efficiently?
• How to hit the amazon best selling list? How many books are required to be sold and within how long?
• How to hit the wall street journal list?
• How to hit the new york times best selling list? How many books are required to be soled?
• Is it possible for self published authors to hit eh NY Times list?
• What are the types of coaching packages that you have and how much do you charge for 1 on 1 coaching sessions?
• Do you handle the entire marketing campaign for launching and marketing a certain book, if you do, how much it costs?
• Best blogs for book marketing that you recommend?
• How many online and offline team members are working with you?
• Best service that you recommend for book trailers?
• Tell us more about your other projects that you are currently working on or planning for the future?
• Share with us some of the tools or software that make you more efficient?
• What’s your daily life and work routine looks like?
• What are your other hobbies?
• Who are your top 3 mentors?
• If you have the chance, what would you say to advice your younger self?
• What are your top 3 favorite books?
• What are the top 3 people that you are inspired by?
• What makes you really happy?
• How people can contact you?

Website & Social media links

http://www.bookmarket.com

http://blogtourpalooza.com

http://thebookmarketingnetwork.com

http://bookmarketingbestsellers.com

http://askjohnkremer.com

http://askthebooksellers.com

https://www.facebook.com/thejohnkremer

https://www.pinterest.com/johnkremer/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnkremer

https://twitter.com/johnkremer

http://www.selfpublishinghalloffame.com

https://www.youtube.com/user/JohnKremer

http://www.amazon.com/John-Kremer/e/B001H6L2T4

Bio

Book marketing expert John Kremer is the owner of Open Horizons Publishing. He is the author of1001 Ways to Market Your Books; Book Marketing Magic: How to Sell Your Novel, Children’s Book, Memoir, or Nonfiction Book Like a Pro; The Complete Direct Marketing Sourcebook; Do-It-Yourself Book Publicity Kit; and Celebrate Today.

He is also the developer of the Ten Million Eyeballs Internet marketing self-study course and theBlog Tour Palooza program.

As a book marketing consultant, his clients include a self-published author who has sold over two million books, a new age publisher with 60 titles, and a $100 million publisher with a rapidly growing list of 1,000 titles.

John is the founder of the Institute on Book Publishing Innovations as well as The Book Marketing Network social network for book authors and publishers (http://www.thebookmarketingnetwork.com).

The post John Kremer On The E-Books Self-Publishing Platforms That You Should Consider appeared first on 1on1 Business & Marketing Mentoring.

Watch the Complete Interview on www.BeEfficient.Tv

Dr. Gather Williams has lived a renaissance-like career spanning across fields like business management and development, marketing, corporate training and speaking, coaching, consulting, counseling, writing, music production and songwriting, as well as community outreach. He is one of the most diversified professionals, and Serial Entrepreneurs in the world!

Interview Questions / Find the complete interview on www.BeEfficient.Tv/gather-williams/

The post The No.1 Factor For Success For Dr. Gather Williams appeared first on 1on1 Business & Marketing Mentoring.

So I find the draft for all the interviews ready for my final review before the interview on my blog goes live, usually I write the title of the interview, select the categories and tags for the interview and polish some other major details to make it ready in the best possible form. Also I Schedule it for Social Media using the Buffer tool.

The struggle that I have is I always wanted to listen to the interviews that I record again but never had time to do so, so recently I decided to play the interview while I’m doing the final editing for the interview draft before it goes live as the final editing process and social media scheduling takes me from 30-45 minutes and sometimes more.

I found that listening to interview while doing the final editing is very rewarding in terms of posting a better final copy and also learning and taking more notes, as it made me listen again the content of the interview and sometimes takes notes for the things that I didn’t take notes for while I’m recording the interview with the guest, also make the final editing version of the interview more rich by choosing a better title that’s suiting the content of the interview more  plus entertaining me while doing the final editing for the interview.

What’s the process and tools that you use to produce and edit your video or audio content efficiently?

The post Why you should Listen to your Video or Audio Content during the Editing Process? appeared first on 1on1 Business & Marketing Mentoring.

We live nowadays in a more unfocused world due to the huge technological development around us. We are surrounded by many devices, such as small laptops, smartphones, PSPs, and iPads, that help us keep connected with social media, email, and other time-consuming activities. These things make you busier and unfocused. Before these gadgets, people would get bored from doing nothing; boredom is rarely found nowadays, as we are always connected to the Internet or gaming through a device. This is putting us in an unfocused state of mind. We spend so much time entertaining ourselves, posting photos about our lives, or acting on the urgent stuff that comes through emails and ignoring the important stuff that hours, days, months, years, and decades are passing very quickly with less action taken on important things. Now generations are spending their lives watching TV and scrolling their Facebook pages just to look at successful people; instead of learning from them and taking action, we keep looking at them and feel depressed due to this lack of focus.

At the time of writing this piece of my book about focus, I feel good. The reason is that I am focusing on this important thing — my book — after stopping writing for the last three to four weeks because I was busy with urgent stuff. Completing my book is not urgent, but it’s very important in the long term, especially after I die. A book is a legacy of your thoughts and ideas that can add value to other people’s lives and makes people remember you. All of us as human beings always drift into the urgent stuff and leave the important stuff that makes us feel great when we do them for later. The solution is to focus and develop a habit to do the important stuff first thing in the morning, or first thing after taking a shower, or first thing after watching a movie. I call this thing “the first thing after a certain break,” because usually after this break our brains are fresher and can better deliver on the important things. However, if you spend your entire day checking email, nothing in your brain is left to act on the important things properly. It’s important to always structure your day and prioritize. Start with your day; when you fix your day, your week will be fixed. After you fix your week, your month will be fixed, and so on, till you fix your entire life by achieving what you want through the power of focus.

Focus is a major thing for productivity and time management that you need to consider. Many people spend all their lives just wasting their time. And then they figure out after 30 years or 40 years that they did nothing – or maybe they don’t ever figure it out. Focus is a must to learn and master new things; you can master it by testing and practicing. Many people are sucked in by distractions; sometimes when they go online, they go to this video, then to that website, then to Facebook, then to email. They had decided to do something important, but then they got distracted by all these things.

There’s software programs that calculate your productivity, looking at which sites you are spending time on and giving you the ability to block some websites. There’s a program that you can use on your computer called RescueTime to track the time that you spend on specific sites and then try to structure your time. You can measure your productivity level for a certain period of time and compare it with your previous or next month’s performance. I use also Anti-Social to block specific social media sites when I start my computer for a specific period of time so I can focus on more important stuff. I also use Freedom to block the Internet completely on my computer when I start it or whenever I want so I can focus on more important things. Using a to-do list and not-to-do list are also essential techniques to help you focus, as is learning how to say “no.”

You can use these tools to increase your productivity and focus. You can also use the time matrix of Stephen Covey. You can see the details of it in the below diagram, which Covey has divided into four quadrants for the four types of activities (Important & Urgent, Important & Not Urgent, Not Important & Urgent, and Not Important & Not Urgent).

The First Quadrant (Urgent & Important)

This quadrant includes activities that are necessities.

Common activities:

–       Crises

–       Deadline-driven activities

–       Medical emergencies

–       Other “true” emergencies

–       Pressing problems

–       Last-minute preparations

The key action word for this quadrant is “manage,” as these important and urgent activities require extreme care in terms of managing them.

The Second Quadrant (Important & Not Urgent)

This quadrant includes quality and personal leadership activities.

Common activities:

–       Preparation and planning

–       Values clarification

–       Empowerment

–       Relationship building

–       True recreation

The key action word for this quadrant is “focus”; this quadrant is what this chapter of the book is about, as these are the activities where highly successful people are excelling and most people are failing. These activities are important but not urgent, so there’s no time pressure to achieve them; that’s why most people ignore these very important activities. As a result, they miss the big, important achievements in their lives that the real value of their lives is centered around. Think of yourself in a mission in this life to deliver things of great value to others; others can be anybody from your family to any other people in the world. These activities are what will make people remember you; these activities are your great mission and legacy in this life.

The Third Quadrant (Not Important & Urgent)

This quadrant is described by the word “deception,” because the activities of this quadrant are deceptive.

Common activities:

–       Meeting other people’s priorities and expectations

–       Frequent interruptions

–       Medical emergencies

–       Most emails, some calls

–       Urgency masquerading as importance

The key action words for this quadrant are “use caution” and “avoid”; in this quadrant we need to learn to say “no” more often or delegate to our team to take action on these activities. Outsourcing is a great technique that helps you delegate the unimportant activities. I also use a small whiteboard that I keep next to my desk or sofa where I sit and work. I write on it the major three to five not urgent and important tasks that I have to achieve every day and tick them out throughout the day. These tasks make me feel good when I achieve them and boost my self-satisfaction and energy levels to achieve more throughout the rest of the day.

The Fourth Quadrant (Not Important & Not Urgent)

This quadrant is described by the word “waste,” because the activities of this quadrant are a complete waste of our time and lives.

Common activities:

–       Escapist activities

–       Mindless TV watching

–       Busywork

–       Junk mail

–       Some emails

–       Some calls

The key action word for this quadrant “avoid”; in this quadrant we need to learn to say a big fat “no” more often and learn to take control of our lives to avoid these bad habits and replace them with more productive ones.

When I do something very important the first thing in the morning, let’s say write a chapter of my book — or a certain page, or paragraph, or a section — or work on a project that has been delayed, it really gives me a push throughout the day. This removes this regret factor that I usually feel when I get busy with the urgent stuff. When I just focus on the urgent stuff, it kills all my time and sucks all my energy, so I don’t deliver anything in terms of the important stuff that adds value to my day and life.

When you do the important stuff at the beginning of your productivity session, regardless of whether it’s in the morning or evening, it will make you feel better to complete the other stuff. You always need to give everything its time and divide your time, such as time to spend with your friends, time to spend on important stuff, and time for the urgent stuff. And you delegate as much as you can. These notes will help you be more productive to save time and achieve more.

When I kept creating new projects, I noticed it was draining my focus. However, the more team members you have that you can delegate to on such projects, the more you focus on the important stuff. If you feel distracted by a new project or new idea, put it on your to-do list for future projects. Queue these projects and prioritize till you get the right resources for a team and time to act on them. Don’t distract yourself by so many things; you end up frustrated, you quit, and you achieve nothing.

So when you start your day, you need to have a direction for it. You also need to have a bigger picture for your project or goals, such as to divide them into small goals to take better advantage of your time.

Having focus will direct you to take action. Don’t pick up the habit of opening your mouth when you see the success of other people and getting inspired by them but then taking zero action. Most people get inspired by successful people, but they do not think of what the successful people do. They get inspired when they go to seminars. Many people who get inspired and wowed, when they go back to their normal lives, get into their routine again, their comfort zone, and their rat race, and they get distracted. Then, they end up achieving nothing.

Nobody reads their notes when they go back after a seminar. You need to organize your notes; use, let’s say, Evernote to write your notes so you can access them when you want them, instead of when you just write them on paper and can’t find them later. Finding the right information and tools when you need them is essential to boosting your focus level. I use also iMindMap to draw Mind Maps for some projects or presentations that I want to act on. It will make you focus more, and it will draw for you a plan, steps, and directions to achieve more and be more productive within a very limited time. I use 2Do on my iPhone and Mac or use Evernote for my to-do list. Use a file cabinet to organize your documents in your office or home. All these productivity tools and techniques help you focus more on the important things.

Sometimes, I have more than 10 virtual assistants doing different stuff. Some people, when they see my pages on Facebook and they see the projects that I’m working on, they say, “How are you doing all of that?” Some people, when they come to my city, they don’t contact me because they think I am very busy. I am busy, but I’m more efficient by delegating most of the mechanical and repeated work and focusing only on the important things. So I can meet anybody anytime I want. I can work when I want from anywhere I want.

For instance, when certain tasks are done by me, such as social media, my social media guy is giving me, let’s say, a month plan in advance to approve it for him. And once I approve it, that’s it. He schedules the posts and he does it. But I just trained those guys to do certain stuff. Then they start doing it even better than me.

This is the idea: to train people to do things better than you so you can focus on more important stuff to achieve bigger things and more things in less time. So focus is a very critical and important thing. And you need to really focus on focusing on things in order to achieve. Otherwise, you’re in deep trouble.

Life keeps pushing us out of our focus zone, but we must fight back and learn to develop the habits that allow us to take control of our lives step by step and habit by habit till we take maximum control of our lives and learn to focus more on what we want to achieve to leave this world a better place than we knew it.

Share with us some of the tools and techniques that you use to stay focused in the comment section below please.

The post The Power of Focus Makes You More Efficient appeared first on 1on1 Business & Marketing Mentoring.

Most people today are experiencing big financial problems because they simply do not know how to budget their expenses. They do not know how much they are spending. While most people know how much they are making, many do not know how much they are spending. Having a budget is an absolute must if you want to pay down your debts or take control of your expenses, grow financially, and invest more wisely.

I have always said that if you want to grow your money, you need to invest in multiple sources of income specially the sources that work for you without exchanging your time for money. You need to begin by investing 10% of your income and over time, you grow financially by eventually investing 90% of your income while only spending 10% of your income. This is because your money and income are increasing and you no longer need the majority of it for living.

The majority of middle class people today are living on between $1,000 and $10,000 per month. Regardless of how much money you make, it is important to budget your money. I use an app called Home Budget, which is a paid app, for budgeting my own money. This is actually the most used app on my iPhone because I use it to plug in whatever expenses I have. Whether it is buying cinema tickets, paying the check at a restaurant, or spending money on anything else, I just log it and enter the expense.

This app also allows you to create different accounts. For instance, you can use it to create accounts for your different credit cards, personal accounts, investment accounts, etc. When you spend money, you just enter the expense in the account where the money went out, sometimes you pay money on behalf of your business also you can input that in the app so you will not forget how much you have paid on behalf of your company, the app will show you how much balance in each account or credit card is left and so many other details that gives you a clear understanding of your personal and business financial situation so you can take the right decisions and control your business and life in a wiser way.

You can also set up categories for money you spend, such as rent, groceries, auto, insurance, medical, business, etc. Home Budget allows you to set up as many categories as you want and add some logos for each category so you can differentiate it from other categories.

It’s very easy to use and you just plug in whatever amount you spend into the proper category or input the income that you have received into any of your accounts. There is also a calculator that you can use to assist you, which can be helpful for exchange rates. When you pull up the app to enter an amount, it automatically goes to today’s date, you select the correct category and the account from which the money came. You also have the ability to add notes regarding what you are spending, which makes it easy to remember certain items plus you can see and compare different monthly reports to track your financial performance and cash flow.

Additionally, you can split expenses. For example, suppose you want to pay three months of rent in advance and you want to divide the expense over those three months for budgeting purposes, the app will split the expense for you. Also, the app has a section for bills that you can place on the calendar and pay from the correct accounts automatically. I can even enter due date for bills, such as my credit cards, so I know when those payments are due. There is also a section for income where you can enter income when it is received or you can make it automatic, which can be helpful if you have payments that come in automatically. It will also allow you to enter cash as income.

One of the great aspects of this app is that you can see how much income you have and how much you have spent. The target budget section of the app allows you to budget monthly for certain expenses and then you can confirm how much you have for expenses versus your income, so you know how much you have left to spend.

You can even have sections for different accounts so that you can shift money between accounts, such as a cash account and an investment account. If you need to do so, it will also allow you to extract expenses onto an Excel spreadsheet. Another great option is the ability to have a list of payees. This app will also allow you to review reports for different months and even surf for certain expenses. One of the ways in which I use this app is to track my accounts, especially for my business and know how much money I have to plan the coming bills.

As you can see, Home Budget offers a lot of different functions, which is why it is the most used app on my iPhone. It allows me to merge my entire financial system and understand how to schedule cash flow and how to stay on track with my budget. I highly recommend this app, particularly for anyone who wants to be more organized financially and make wise decisions.

Please share with us the tools and techniques that you use to budget your finances and cashflow.

The post Which App you Should Use to Budget Your Income, Expenses and Cashflow Efficiently? appeared first on 1on1 Business & Marketing Mentoring.

Have you ever wondered what you can do when you go to the mall on the weekend and parking is limited? This is usually the busiest time of the week for malls and you can often drive around the parking lot multiple times looking for an available parking spot. Not only is this frustrating but it also wastes your time. Fortunately, I have found a convenient solution to this problem that allows me to avoid the crowded parking lot and save time.

Many of the larger malls here in Dubai have hotels attached. So, what I do is go and park in the hotel valet parking and stop by one of the restaurants at the hotel to eat lunch or dinner. This way I can park at the hotel, avoid the crowded mall parking lot, and save time. And if you find some of these restaurants is expensive for you then you can order from one of them a takeaway salad or dessert on your way out of the mall or hotel to get your valet parking ticket stamped.

I also use this same method when I attend exhibitions. There are usually hotels attached to the convention center, so to save time, I try to have lunch there. This allows me to park easily for free at the valet parking of the hotel and save time, as well.

The post Saving Time and Avoiding Frustration with Mall Parking appeared first on 1on1 Business & Marketing Mentoring.

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While many people spend significant amounts of time today watching television, it’s been about 4 or 5 years since I stopped watching TV. I first decided to stop watching the news because it seemed as though there was always something bad going on and it was simply depressing. Later on, I noticed that many productive people all shared the same habit of not watching TV. Eventually, I did decide to buy a TV after I moved to my new flat 14 months ago, a really big one, but opted not to have the cable service hooked up to it, so I could only mirror the screen of my Mac or iPhone through apple TV to watch online courses, movies or some entertainment shows just to relax for an hour or two per day. I suppose that it could be argued that I still watch TV, but the difference is actually that now I am choosing to watch only what I want.

The question is really one of addiction over entertainment. There is certainly nothing wrong with taking a break during the day to get away from work and simply relax. Everyone needs to take a break. Not having cable service has allowed me to choose whatever I want to watch, from YouTube or from my own computer to mirror whatever it is that I want to watch. Now, I can just watch directly whatever interests me, with no commercials and less cost.

In addition, I never have to wait for something to come on that I want to watch. I never waste time flipping through channels while trying to find something that I want. Once you reach that point, it really has become an addiction. That is what most people end up doing and it can be extremely addicting.

Furthermore, it eventually kills your productivity and creativity. You think less for yourself and grow less and less happy. Some people will often say, “Well, I only watch something educational like Discovery Channel.” That’s not really the point. Television is designed to get you in the habit of watching many things that you have not intended to watch or benefit from or even enjoy and over time, it becomes addictive.

For me, it has been tremendously advantageous to simply stop watching. I am more productive and happier. I have also found that watching less TV also makes you more social because it gives you more time to communicate with family and friends. One of the other benefits of living a TV free lifestyle is that you have more time to exercise. You even eat less when you watch less TV. When you spend significant amounts of time watching TV, it encourages you to continue putting something in your mouth. After all, that is precisely what commercials are designed to do, make you want things.

In the end, I have found that a TV free lifestyle makes you far more efficient and actually helps you to lead a higher quality life.

The post Why Should You Lead a TV Free Lifestyle? appeared first on 1on1 Business & Marketing Mentoring.

Dropbox has made it significantly easier to conduct business and exchange all types of files. It is a service that I highly recommend and use frequently for all types of projects, check this blog post for more about Dropbox. One problem that I discovered that I was having a very slow service while trying to upload large files, particularly videos. This proved to be especially problematic while I was uploading and downloading at the same time. I noticed that when I downloaded movies to my computer, it was very faster than the videos that I was trying to upload. The problem was that the videos that I uploaded for my video editor were taking 2-3 days to upload. I would go back and check and it would show that there was still a couple of days left remaining. This was not efficient.

I discovered that by default, Dropbox actually places a limit on the bandwidth for your uploaded files. The reason they do this is so that there is no interference regarding the bandwidth for your Internet service while you are uploading or downloading files. If you want to change that setting so that you can upload large files faster; however, it is possible to do so.

In order to change that setting, you need to go to the preferences for Dropbox and then go to Network. From there, you can change the setting for the bandwidth. Once you are there, you will see that there is an upload rate as well as a download rate. Usually Dropbox automatically throttles itself to 75% of your maximum upload speed to prevent any noticeable slowdown in browsing. Downloads are performed at the fastest download speed available. This is why it was taking so long to upload large video files for my video editor. To resolve this problem, I simply changed the setting for the upload limit to Don’t Limit. Immediately, I noticed a significant difference in the speed at which I was able to upload files, even large video files, and remember that by removing the limits from the upload speed it will effect the speed of browsing and other activities that you are performing at your computer so you can use this option if you want urgently to upload certain files.

Another solution is to test your internet download and upload speed by using one of the online tools that you can find through Google, then contact your internet service provider and check their other packages and prices for increasing your internet download and upload speed.

One thing that is important to understand is that if you are going to be doing something that requires a significant amount of bandwidth, such as a video interview or a video call via Skype while you are uploading files, then you will need to pause Dropbox while you are doing that so that you are able to enjoy the service without any interruption. Whenever you are finished, you can then unpause Dropbox so that it will resume your upload.

The post How to Instantly Improve your Upload and Download Rate of Speed on Dropbox appeared first on 1on1 Business & Marketing Mentoring.

I work with both online and offline teams and 99% of the time, I manage both teams wirelessly from the comfort of my sofa at home. Today, the primary method of communication is email, along with some other tools, but one of the biggest problems I was experiencing in managing my teams was sending emails and not getting any reply. The problem is that with so many emails you send, it can be difficult to track emails and tasks and keep track of who has responded and what is taking place with each one. This continued to be a big problem for me until I discovered a tool called Asana. This is a task management tool for teams. Of course, there are similar task management software available, but after conducting some research and viewing some videos, I concluded that Asana was the best option available so far.

One of the great things about Asana is that you can use it on your computer or as an app on your smartphone. Basically, Asana allows you to create a project and an unlimited number of tasks. Additionally, it is free up to 15 users. After you exceed 15 users, then it is priced on a monthly basis.

With Asana, you are able to create multiple projects and can even name the projects. Inside each project, you can share with certain members who are able to see the tasks you have created inside that project. In addition, you can create a description for each task and even assign deadlines. You also have the ability to assign that task to someone who will be responsible for completing and delivering that task.

Asana also allows you to assign followers who are able to see and contribute to each task. For instance, you can assign a task manager, but other people can contribute to the task, as well. Whenever someone comments on the task, you will be notified by email. When you add a follower to the project, you do so based on their email address and they receive an invitation to use Asana. In this regard, everyone can complete, comment, or mark tasks as incomplete. This makes it incredibly easy for teams to achieve project while also boosting productivity, regardless of the team size.

My Asana Dashboard Showing  Projects, Tasks and one Task with its full description

You have the option of assigning tasks to an assistant, but even if you do not have an assistant, with this tool, it is really worth it to use just for yourself. You can also create the app using your smartphone and it is very easy and fast to use with no loading time. Simply create a task and share with the people you want and then you can track what is going on with that task. You can even come back a few days or a week later to evaluate progress, establish deadlines, comments, reminders, etc. Nothing is ever deleted, everything is documented, and you can ensure that no one ignores your emails. Asana can also be integrated quite easily with other tools, such as Chrome Extension, DropBox, Google Drive, WordPress, Evernote, Mailchimp, wufoo, Calender Sync, Weekdone etc. to make things easier.

As mentioned, if you have more than 15 users, you will need to pay to use it, but if you have a large company, they offer annual pricing that is quite cost effective.

So, with this tool, you can accomplish more, be more productive, and ensure that you never have to worry about your team ignoring your emails again.

The post How to Stop your Team from Ignoring your Emails and Assigned Tasks appeared first on 1on1 Business & Marketing Mentoring.

In today’s hectic world, it seems as though we are all struggling to get more done. While we are spending more and more time working, sometimes it seems as though we are actually accomplishing less. What I have discovered is that the key to accomplishing more is having a to-do list. Having a to-do list is extremely important when you want to achieve more and be more productive and efficient.

I actually use an app called 2Do, which is available on MAC, IOS and Android. If you are going to use it on your phone, I recommend that you put it on the main homepage of your smartphone, and if you are using an iPhone then add it to the bottom fixed bar so that it is readily available and visible. You also need to get in the habit of programming yourself to actually use it and checking in with it throughout the day so that you can stay on track of what you need to accomplish.

With 2Do, you have a tremendous amount of functionality, such as the ability to star the tasks that you create and prioritize tasks based on the priority level that you assign to them. Additionally, you can sync it with your MAC so that everything is updated automatically.

Different Tabs / Tasks with different Priority level (From the 2Do app on my iPhone)

It also allows you to create checklists, create projects, create different tasks, etc. Most people use it to create tasks, also you can use different due dates for tasks, assign certain action for your task such as texting or phone calls that need to be made, so that know what action needs to be taken for that particular task. You can even put a time and a location so that if something is nearby, then you will know about it. Audio notes can be added, as well.

New Task Details

As you can see, you can have different tabs on the left side of the app. There is a tab for everything, where you can see all the tasks, projects and 2do lists that you have created. There is also a tap to show you only today tasks. The app will even tell you what the deadline was so that you will know how many days past due it is.

Different Tabs / Tasks with different Priority level (From the 2Do app on my iPhone)

You can also add different tabs based on what it is that you want to achieve. For instance, you might add a computer tab so that when you are at your computer, you can check in and see what you need to do. For most people, it is a good idea to create a work tab for their general work, but you can also create different tabs for different businesses. If you are out and about a lot, you might want to create a to-do list or tab for that as well, so that you do not forget anything while you are out. You could also create a future projects tab for those things you want to accomplish in the future, such as books you want to read, etc.

To Do List (From the 2Do app on my iPhone)

Project List (From the 2Do app on my iPhone)

Another great way to use this app is to create a calls list for the people you need to call. You might also consider creating a home tab where you can enter things you need to buy for your home. In the event that you delegate tasks to someone else, you could also create a special tab for that, as well to shift the delegated tasks into that tab. Also, this app will show you the list for items that are completed, so you know what has been done. There is also a main sidebar that shows all of the tabs you have created with different colors to distinguish the various tabs. Shifting tasks to different tab categories is also very easy to be done through this amazing app.

If you want to be more productive and achieve more, I highly recommend the 2Do app.

The post Why Is it Important to Have a To Do List? appeared first on 1on1 Business & Marketing Mentoring.

The era of the floppy disks, the small hard drives, and losing your data has already come to an end. I remember very well when we used to save data on small hard drives. When something happened, you would need to take the hard drive and send it to a professional for recovery. Sometimes the data could be recovered, but in some cases, you would lose all of your data.

Then, hard disks began to get bigger and bigger. Later, they began producing external hard drives, continually making them bigger as they developed with the times. The problem with external hard drives is that you must continually back up your data in order to ensure everything is safe. This is not efficient, especially with data increasing.

Today; however, this era is over.

Dropbox now makes it possible to keep your data secure and be more productive. If you are not familiar with Dropbox, it is a free service that allows you to place all of your documents, data, photos, videos, etc. and share them easily by putting them in the cloud. Basically, it acts as a hosting service for all of your data. You can back it up and synch it continually.

In order to take advantage of these benefits, you open a free account with Dropbox, which gives you the ability to save 2GB data for free. You can create a folder on your computer, tablet, or smartphone. When you create your account, it installs a folder automatically. You store up to 2GB and then automatically synch it in the cloud. Whatever you place in the folder, it will update automatically.

You also have the opportunity to invite others to join the service and earn free data storage. If people join Dropbox through your invitation, you receive 500MG per referral for the free account up to 16GB, so you are able to increase your data storage limits. You can also earn up to 1GB per friend if you are subscribed to the PRO account up to 32GB from referring friends. Dropbox also offers the ability to earn free storage if you connect via your social pages or link your mailbox.

There are multiple ways that you can earn free data storage, but there are also paid versions available, such as the Pro plan that begins at $9.99 per month. They also provide a business plan that offers an unlimited data plan.

Also Dropbox has a feature called Packrat that gives you unlimited deletion recovery and version history. Dropbox by default saves a history of all deleted and earlier versions of files for 30 days for all Dropbox accounts so even you don’t be scared in case you or one of the people that you shared your folders with deletes any of your files by mistake because you can contact Dropbox and they will recover the file for you, If you purchase the Packrat for your account then you won’t have to worry about losing a deleted folder or file because Dropbox will save your files for as long as you have the feature, so Packrat is available to all Dropbox Pro accounts for $3.99 per month or $39.00 per year.

I can also share links or folders with friends and team members then if I need to change the link later or unshared the folder, I can do that also. Dropbox can also be used to ensure that files are completely safe. They offer an unlimited deletion recovery service for an annual fee, a service to which I subscribe.

By using Dropbox, I have found that it makes it easy to access data from wherever I want. For instance, if I go to a meeting and I don’t have my computer with me, I can access my data directly from the app on my smartphone. It gives me tremendous peace of mind and fast access to missing documents.

The post Why Dropbox Gives you Peace of Mind and Makes you More Efficient appeared first on 1on1 Business & Marketing Mentoring.

It is not a secret that learning is a crucial key for transforming yourself and attaining the ability to achieve anything you desire. I often refer to books as the treasure or one of the main secrets to success. Everyone learns for various reasons. Whether it is to make money, get ahead in your career or to improve your self-esteem or solve a certain problem.

Unfortunately, not everyone enjoys reading. In the past, it usually took me between six months to a year just to complete one or two books. I struggled quite a bit because reading has never been a fun experience for me. Even when I was studying at university, I found it to be difficult. I would lie on my bed and try to read and within about 30 minutes, I would fall asleep. So, I struggled tremendously with learning efficiently.

Everyone learns, but it is really a matter of how much you learn within a minimum timeframe. For instance, I spent time trying to learn, but I was not doing it at a very efficient rate. Then, I discovered audio books and they literally transformed my life. Suddenly, I gained a huge advantage for learning.

As you may or may not be aware, when you read, you retain about ten percent of what you read. When you listen; however, you remember twice that, about twenty percent. Therefore, audiobooks give you a huge advantage when it comes to learning.

Once I discovered this, I started to listen to audiobooks more and more. To make things easier, I use a service from a website called audible.com which is a site owned by Amazon. The advantage of this service is that the length of most books is about 5 hours. That, of course varies, but on average, they are about 4-5 hours. The books can be downloaded from your digital library, which you can check online, listen to the books from your library online or download the books to your computer or Mac and then burn the books to CDs through iTunes. This is quite efficient for me because I mainly use the books while I am in the car. Plus, having a digital library can save you a huge amount of space by eliminating the need to have big stacks of actual books.

If your sound system in your car has Bluetooth, then you can link the Audible app on your tablet or phone through the car system and you do not even need to burn the CDs at all. The Audible app is available and can be downloaded for free on most smart phones. Your digital online library will be shown on the audible app, so you can listen to the books through your headset from your smart phone and then when you get into the car, you complete the book from where you have reached on the sound system. Also, you can bookmark some chapters or add notes to it through the app.

Most people spend, on average, between two and three hours driving in the car per day. Imagine for a moment if you skip listening to music while you are in the car and instead just listen to the audiobooks. In most instances, I can finish a book within just a couple of days. Now, on average, I finish 2-3 books per week, whereas in the past I was only able to finish 1-2 books per year.

This method has completely transformed my life. Now, whenever I wish to learn about something, I just go and buy an audiobook on that topic and listen to it in the car. This method also works if you spend a lot of time commuting, perhaps not driving in the car, but on the subway or the train or whatever. Download the book to your tablet or smart phone, put in your ear buds and listen while you commute. It’s also a good method for the person who may not struggle with reading, but perhaps you just find it difficult to find the time in your schedule to read.

Of course, not all books are found in audio version. Even so, many books are available in an audio book version, and more and more are added on daily basis as authors are discovering how important it is to have an audio version and demand increases day by day.

I have also found it to be cost-efficient, as well. While regular books can cost up to $60 each, with audible, books range between $9 and $15 per book. This is based on the subscription plan you choose. They offer different plans with varying amounts of credit. Basically, one credit will buy you one book or you can buy the books directly from audible without subscripting into any monthly plan, but of course the books will cost you a bit more, up to $30.

This method has given me a huge advantage for learning. Not only does it make learning more mobile for me, but it also allows me to learn on demand based on any topic that I want to learn about and in a very efficient way.

The post How to Make the Move from Reading a Couple of Books a Year to Two Books a Week appeared first on 1on1 Business & Marketing Mentoring.

Ever since I shifted managing my business from offline to online, I have been searching for and testing out new ways of managing one of the biggest wastes of time I encountered during this transition: my email inbox.  The system I’m currently using (Al Kiremli Email Efficiency System) took me two years to perfect.

While less than 10% of my businesses are online, and the remaining 90% are offline, I manage more than 95% of my communication with my offline teams (investors, partners, franchisees, branch managers, PA, etc.,) and online teams (accountants, VAs, researchers, web developers, graphic designers, lawyers, transcribers, social media managers, etc.,) primarily through email.

This model allowed me to avoid having an office and specific working hours, allowing me to wake up anytime I want, work from anywhere I want, travel anytime, play my favorite sport anytime, and more importantly having my own free time when I want to and spend it with the people that I like and want to spend it with. The most challenging thing I faced after shifting to this online management style is the tsunami of emails I received, which was filling my inbox with 100-200 emails a day, not to mention spam.

Just checking and replying to these emails was taking me 6 to 12 hours a day. So in effect I had created another full-time job for myself, which was sitting in front of the computer and replying emails. In theory it’s not a bad job compared to what some other people have, because I can still do it from the beach, the mall, a café, or from home, and I can do it in stages; not necessarily all at once. But still, it was taking over my life, and brain, by taking so much time away from me during the day.

The step by step process that I use to send and reply to my email in 95% less time to what was taking me before is the following:

1-    Hire a virtual assistant (VA) through (elance.com) on an hourly basis. This will cost you from $4-$7 an hour, and I currently pay about $5 an hour to my VA, at a monthly cost of $100-$200. Bear in mind this VA will have access to your emails, so select them wisely and test them with a fake or less important email account before giving them access to your main email accounts;

2-    The emails VA will read your emails then send them to you as voice messages through WhatsApp on your mobile device in the following format:

Text from VA:  Email: (Email No. As per the sequence of emails received that day) (Sender, Name)

Voice from VA: this is a recording of the email received, and it should always start by the email number to avoid confusion should you have sent them a messages through WhatsApp in the meantime

Text from You: (Email No.)

Voice from You: (Your voice reply to the email)

Sometimes you prefer to reply in writing, in that case:

Text from You: (Your written answer)

A Snapshot from WhatsApp for the process

3-    For the emails that you need to reply by yourself because they’re personal, or critical to a business deal, or include an attachment that you need to review,  then you need to reply to your VAs voice message as follows:-

Voice Message from VA

Text from You: (Email No.) (F) f here stands for forward, but forward to where?

A Snapshot from WhatsApp for the process

4-  You then need to create a secret email address that nobody knows about except for your VA. Even your family and friends should not know about this secret email address, because this is where your VA will forward the emails that you need to review or reply to yourself. This means that  now you will have 5-20 emails to check (and no spam!) on your secret email address instead of checking 100-200 emails in your main inbox. So basically your VA will act as smart filter and gate keeper from the world to you and a quick answering and forwarding machine from you to the world

5-    Depending on the type of email reply that you want your VA to send, your VA can reply from their email address and use a range of business cards when they reply on your behalf. For example, they could reply as your VA, using your business card and email address if you want to make your reply appear as if it came directly from you.

6-    When I want to send an email to my team or reply the emails in my secret email address I use a free app called Say it Mail it because when you speak, you usually deliver the idea you want in a better and faster way, and you avoid what usually happens when writing an email such as formal greetings, Proofreading for spelling mistakes, and continually reviewing your written response.

6-1-  This is what you see when you open the app.

6-2- When you click on the Microphone the recording starts so you start your voice email.

6-3- When you click again on the Microphone the recording stops and immediately attach your voice email to your email screen, you just need to click send and your voice email will be emailed to the email address that you want.

Currently this is the email system that I use to save 95% of the time I spend sending and receiving emails, and it works very well for me. of course mistakes happen sometimes, but in terms of efficiency this is the best system that I  have ever come up with.  Now I spend about 15-45 Minutes a day answering my emails, unless there’s something long that I have to read like a partnership or leasing contract.

If you use some different techniques please share them with us in the comments section, or post any questions that come to mind.

The post How to Be 10x Times more Efficient in Checking, Replying, Sending and Receiving Emails appeared first on 1on1 Business & Marketing Mentoring.