The Key Difference Between Planning and Strategy
Have you ever thought about how often people talk about “Strategy” when they actually mean planning or tactics?
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Saying ‘No’ is an Under-Valued Skill – Good Ideas Need Friction More Than Ever
The last thing any project needs is to pay for an expensive sycophant.
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Starting a Degree Finally, Because Now the Robots Care About Them
AI made me go back to school.
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Developers: Don’t Build for Everyone if You Want to Succeed
When you solve something real, something annoying, expensive, or mission-critical, for a very specific group of people, they’ll often pay, stick around, and tell their peers
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How to Speak So That People Want to Listen
Do you want to get better at public speaking, podcasting, or presenting on video?
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Calming the Shipping Chaos
If even on your best days your shipping currently feels like an overly-caffeinated squirrel is running it then welcome to the club, you’re in good company.
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How to Boost Your Productivity When You Have ADHD
If you find traditional productivity methods frustrating or ineffective because of ADHD, you’re not alone.
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Dark Funnels – Why You’re Not Seeing All the Results of Your Marketing?
While you’re watching your stats, real visibility, and more importantly influence, might be building in places you simply can’t track
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Creating a Successful Digital Product: Community Strategies for an MVP
Creating a new product or service can seem daunting. What should you build? How do you make sure it will meet people’s needs? The secret lies in something called a Minimum Viable Product (MVP).
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The “Simple” Secret Behind Copyblogger’s 8 Figure Business
What is the secret behind Copyblogger’s 9 straight years of growth? How has it been achieved without any outside investment, without sales people, and with close to zero advertising?
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Permission Marketing and How to Grow Better, Long-Lasting, Customer Relationships
Discover why marketing funnels have become essential, how they work, and how you can use them to build trust, loyalty, and sales effectively
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Authority Business Lessons from an Accidental Entrepreneur
If you’re trying to build an online business that fits your life, not just your income goals, focus on these things
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How Authority Bloggers Make 6 Figure Businesses from Home – Strategy Workshop featuring Lewis Howes
If you’re ready to turn your blog into a real business asset – something that earns while you sleep and opens doors instead of just soaking up time – this video is worth your full attention.
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Product Idea Validation: Know Before You Build It and Prevent an Uphill Battle for Sales
Before you build, validate! How testing product ideas saves time, money & opportunity cost, preventing a painful struggle for sales later on.
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8 Mistakes That Can Take Down an Online Business (and How to Stay Ahead of Them)
If you want to build something that lasts, you need to know what can knock your business off course
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Why I Recommend Offering Services
Why do I suggest starting a service-based business as a great place to look for most people who want to start their own business?
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How to Authentically Use “AI” Tools to Grow Your Business
Used correctly, “AI” tools such as ChatGPT have the potential to save us a lot of wasted time, allowing you to put your energy to better use.
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Go Off-Topic: Using Ideas from Different Fields to Grow Your Online Business
How combining knowledge from outside of your expertise can give you an edge in business, as a coach/consultant, or digital product creator.
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How to Banish Self-Doubt and Do the Thing
Ideas to empower you to succeed, despite your fears, doubt and imposter syndrome, ultimately leading to a more fulfilled and content life.
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How Do Professional Bloggers Get Paid?
Professional bloggers blog professionally, that is they get paid. But how? Let’s drill down into 10 ways you can make money from blogging!
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Overcoming Your Own Constraints
Personal constraints are the things that hold you back in your life, your career, and even your relationships. Let’s identify and resolve as many of your constraints as we can.
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How to Really Win Fans and Influence People
In this article I would like to show you how a “real influencer business” is built, versus what you might mistake for success.
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Remember, It’s Not Yours
The mistake people are making, and have made since the early days is building their main community on an asset that belongs to someone else.
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Earn More Money as a Content Creator, Without YouTube Ads
Many people dream of the day when they can be a full-time content creator. Some people seemingly achieve that dream … on the surface.
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10 things I have learned about business and start-ups over the last 10 years
Anniversaries are a good time to reflect and look back. What have I learned from the online business startups I have been a part of? When I wrote this in 2017 I was working at Copyblogger/Rainmaker-Digital, a short time afterward Rainmaker was sold, and then the StudioPress division was also sold to WP Engine so…
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Productise for Business, Profit and Productivity
Consulting and coaching businesses are great because you get a deep connection with your customers, their problems and goals, plus you can start quickly (and start making money faster) than many other business models. There are some downsides though. That deep connection means there are always lots of “exceptions to rules”, people flake on paying,…
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The Key to Attention and Engagement
What is the secret of getting a person’s attention? Why do some people seem to be able to get anyone to take their call, while other people seem cursed with obscurity? I have been asked this question twice, recently. I’m always uncomfortable when I have multiple answers, none of them satisfactory. So I mulled over…
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How to Grow Your Long-Term Authority
Why do some people manage to stick around forever, while other people and brands seem to be here one day and gone the next? What is it about some people that makes you warm to them, while others give off a dodgy vibe that repels even the most tactile extroverts?
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How to Go from Author to Successful Online Business
Since I let slip that I was a wannabe fiction writer, a few people have asked me questions about the modern author/publishing business: “Can you make a full time living as a writer, without being freelance?” “What should a modern indie author do to maximise their business?” “For successful self-publishers, what would we do differently?” I’ve answered…
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29 Blogging Business Survival Tips
What does it take to be successful in blogging as or for a business? My friend Al from Coolest Gadgets contacted me for some quotes to use in a presentation he has coming up, and as usual, I gave him way more material than he could use. Rather than let it go to waste, I…
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5 Essential Skills for Today’s Online Marketer
What are the most important skills for an online marketer, blogger or professional? I am going to list my response to that, but I would be interested in hearing your thoughts in the comments. I’m intentionally keeping this one short so you can dive in and tell me where I am wrong! This post came…
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Is it Just Business? How to be Professionally Human
Have you ever worked with someone who uses the phrase “It’s just business“? Or played a game with someone who, after cheating, back-stabbing, lying or just being a jerk, said “It’s only a game“? How did that make you feel? Did you respect the person more, or less? Did you trust them more afterwards? When…
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How to Avoid Cold-Feet Killing Your Progress
Today, I want to talk about what happens when you give in to your fears. I want you to learn from my mistakes so you can have the courage to do what you need to. I have a lot of fears. That’s just part of who I am. I’m risk-averse, and I tend to focus…
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Your Best Foundation for a Sustainable Business
What would you do if your business burned to the ground? If you had to literally start over, would you be able to cope? What would your approach be? I have been falling behind with my workload lately. You just have to look at my posting frequency to see that I have been dropping as…
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How to Get Paid for Free
One of the key ideas behind being an Authority Blogger, or “Content Marketing”, is that you put out lots of educational material that ordinarily people would be willing to pay for. How do you turn that free stuff into profit? The thing is, while we KNOW this works, a lot of people get stuck on…
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4 Pieces of Advice to Help Your Small Business
You might have noticed a bit of a gap in posting here. Well, I have still been writing, just over at the BMO Bank’s Small Business site: I am writing about how online tools and techniques can grow your business. Check out my most recent articles and let me know what you think! 4 Key…
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Course-Correction and Your Half-Year Resolutions
We are half way through the year. How are your new-years resolutions working out? Are you closer to achieving your goals? A lot of my coaching clients feel bad when I ask this but I want to encourage you to not feel like a failure if you have not achieved all that you had planned…
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Breaking the Rules for Fun and Profit
I joke that I am the most conventional unconventional guy you might ever meet, but it is true in a way. When we think of unconventional we often think about specific things. Going off to live on a commune might be a big one, having tattoos and piercing might be smaller “bucking the system” type…
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Feeling Anxiety in Business and Moving the Fear Line
Fear and anxiety dominate if we allow it, but we have to keep working and striving. How can we succeed despite fears, panic, and anxiety?
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The Strange Art of Achieving More by Doing Less
If you feel like you are working too hard, or working too many hours, this might give you some hope for a solution. I’m not saying it would work for everyone, but it has certainly given me a new perspective on my own business. Over the summer I achieved something I thought was unlikely at…
