The New Year is 6 days old and already the numbers of people going to the gym are dwindling. So much for all those well intentioned New Years resolutions.
Willpower can only take us so far. The effort needed to initiate momentum is finite, it runs out the more its used.
Habits are our saving grace because they take over where willpower leaves off, they are what help us over the longer term.
But habits don’t kick in for at least 30 days of continuous routine, where you do something religiously, almost everyday. After 30 days or so, habit will take over and make the process more automatic. You won’t be thinking about whether to do it or not quite so much, and on the flip side, you will feel a tinge of guilt if you miss a day. Six days of effort isn’t ever going to be nearly enough, persevere through to the end of January at least.
Bad habits tend to be harder to break than good ones, so a few days taking time away/off, results in an interruption of your inertia, which breaks your routine, and consequently the habit, so don’t weaken and get lazy. Health should be a lifestyle, afterall.
Set yourself a tangible goal, and act with purpose in its realisation. Put in the effort to get some momentum, until it becomes habit and then it will be easier to keep going.
For more about increasing your motivation, check out our MOTIVATION GUIDE.
I’ve just finished watching “The Choice” on Netflix with Mrs Turner, and I would highly recommend it. But I’m not writing a movie review here, but talking briefly about what it got me thinking about.
I find choice to be an intriguing aspect of life.
Life is all about choice, right or wrong doesn’t matter because life keeps unfolding regardless.
Choices can be big or small, and can change the whole direction of your life in a heartbeat.
We are where we are because of the choices we have made to this point. The decisions about what to think, to do, and who to do it with or not, provide a continuous stream of options, each following the other.
The best or worse thing about it, depending on how you choose to frame it in your mind, is you get to make them, all of them.
I once made a choice to go away on an holiday, I wasn’t particularly looking forward to. I won’t bore you with the detail, but at the end of it all, it resulted in me meeting the love of my life and marrying her. If I hadn’t of gone on that holiday, and I very nearly didn’t, I wouldn’t have been in a position to meet her and experience the subsequent journey we have enjoyed together since. That holiday literally chanced my life, but really all the decisions we make have the potential to do that don’t they?
So let me wish you good luck with your future choices, may they bring you incredible joy.
I believe SELF AWARENESS to be probably, the most important part of improving the quality of life and achieving success in personal and business life.
As part of my attempt to improve self awareness, I found it important to explore my emotions, feelings and reactions to events, circumstances, situations, and attachments in all aspects of life.
Emotional compass
I’ve learned that how you feel about something lets you know whether you’re on the right track or not. Decoding the meaning of that feeling is very important if you’re to learn anything from it.
If you’re feeling good about something, then you’re likely to be on the right track, at least, from your current perspective. If you’re feeling bad about something, you may need to take a closer look. Think of your emotions and feelings as a compass, indicating which way to go.
Coping strategies
However one thing that can cause a great deal of confusion is the adoption of COPING STRATEGIES (otherwise known as psychological coping mechanisms/tactics/skills), which are often employed to cover up some negative situation or issue and allow you to put-up with them.
Coping strategies can be positive or negative in nature. Drinking and taking drugs to excess is often a sign you’re using them to cover up pain, or trying to temporarily forget about the pain. Overeating, complaining, blaming, gossiping, procrastination, gambling, self-sabotaging are all examples of negative coping strategies. They are designed to temporarily cover up the underlying issue, but seldom work to resolve the issue, and to make matters worse they often add more pain into the mix.
I believe it’s important to look underneath the coping strategy and find the underlying issue, and deal productively with it. The field of Spirituality agrees, saying we should “surrender to what is”, to “go fully into the feeling” and “accept it”, and “let go” of any negative influences, working positively to move beyond it. Many psychotherapies are designed to confront the root cause of pain and again move healthily beyond it.
It’s best to resolve the issue in most cases. Seeking professional help might be needed for more complex, severe issues and trauma. Some issues can be resolved yourself, if you take positive steps or employ positive coping strategies to deal with them.
Knowing the cause
Discovering and examining the underlying issue is the first step. Repressed pain and memories often still influence us at a subconscious level. Uncovering and taking a fresh perspective can help. Some issues start early in life and are left unexamined into adulthood. Often looking at them as an adult helps shift perspective, and what was a big issue as a child is not so much as an adult. We can be particularly hard on ourselves in relation to say ,embarrassing situations, and feel traumatised by them at the time, but looking with fresh eyes, as a mature adult, maybe as a parent, we realise that we may have been viewed less critically or harshly by others, then we thought at the time, at least by those with some level of decency and maturity. If you saw a child mess up, in say, a school play and subsequently became upset, would you look on that child as a complete loser, or would your heart go out to them, and want to tell them it’s not a big deal, don’t worry about it? Only those in pain themselves would negatively view the child.
Taking Responsibility
Get results: take responsibility
Blaming and complaining is often an attempt to pass on responsibility. It’s a coping strategy, but when you pass blame or you complain you also pass on power. You pass on the power you need to do something about it yourself. You can’t control what others do, but you can control what you do, and how you react to things, situations, events and people.
Being Empathetic
Get Results: Empathy
If you are angry with someone from your past, because they messed up, or let you down. Maybe looking at the situation differently might help, consider the other persons INTENT rather than their EXECUTION. Were they acting with the right intention, but just messed up their execution? Were they acting from a position of fear, and trying protect themselves in some way? What were they going through at the time, that could have impacted on their execution?
Often holding onto resentment, hatred and anger is far more damaging and destructive to ourselves than the other person they are directed towards. Let them go.
Below is a list of coping strategies, check them out and see which ones you use, figure out what the underlying issue is and deal with it or seek professional help to do so.
Coping strategies
Adaptive Mechanisms: That offer positive help.
Adaptation: The human ability to adapt.
Compartmentalisation: separating conflicting thoughts into separated compartments.
Compensation: Over-doing one thing to compensate for another weakness.
Crying: Tears of release and seeking comfort.
Displacement: shifting of intended action to a safer target.
Idealisation: playing up the good points and ignoring limitations of things desired.
Identification: copying others to take on their characteristics.
Intellectualisation: avoiding emotion by focusing on facts and logic.
Performing Rituals: Getting time to think.
Post-traumatic growth: Using the energy of trauma for good.
Sublimation: Channel psychic energy into acceptable activities.
Substitution: Replacing bad things with good things.
Undoing: actions that psychologically ‘undo’ wrongdoings for the wrongdoer.
Attack Mechanisms: That push discomfort onto others.
Acting Out: not coping – giving in to the pressure to misbehave.
Displacement: shifting of intended action to a safer target.
Fight-or-Flight Reaction: Reacting by attacking.
Passive aggression: avoiding refusal by passive avoidance.
Projection: seeing your own unwanted feelings in other people.
Reaction Formation: avoiding something by taking a polar opposite position.
Trivialising: Making small what is really something big.
Avoidance Mechanisms: That avoid the issue.
Acting Out: not coping – giving in to the pressure to misbehave.
Avoidance: mentally or physically avoiding something that causes distress.
Denial: refusing to acknowledge that an event has occurred.
Displacement: shifting of intended action to a safer target.
Distancing: Moving away.
Fantasy: escaping reality into a world of possibility.
Idealisation: playing up the good points and ignoring limitations of things desired.
Intellectualisation: avoiding emotion by focusing on facts and logic.
Passive Aggression: avoiding refusal by passive avoidance.
Performing Rituals: Patterns that delay.
Projection: seeing your own unwanted feelings in other people.
Rationalisation: creating logical reasons for bad behavior.
Reaction Formation: avoiding something by taking a polar opposite position.
Regression: returning to a child state to avoid problems.
Somatisation: psychological problems turned into physical symptoms.
Suppression: consciously holding back unwanted urges.
Symbolisation: turning unwanted thoughts into metaphoric symbols.
Trivialising: Making small what is really something big.
Conversion Mechanisms: That change one thing into another.
Aim Inhibition: lowering sights to what seems more achievable.
Altruism: Helping others to help self.
Conversion: subconscious conversion of stress into physical symptoms.
Displacement: shifting of intended action to a safer target.
Idealisation: playing up the good points and ignoring limitations of things desired.
Post-Traumatic Growth: Using the energy of trauma for good.
Reaction Formation: avoiding something by taking a polar opposite position.
Somatisation: psychological problems turned into physical symptoms.
Sublimation: channeling psychic energy into acceptable activities.
Substitution: Replacing one thing with another.
Symbolisation: turning unwanted thoughts into metaphoric symbols.
Trivialising: Making small what is really something big.
Defense Mechanisms: Freud’s original set.
Denial: claiming/believing that what is true to be actually false.
Displacement: redirecting emotions to a substitute target.
Intellectualisation: taking an objective viewpoint.
Projection: attributing uncomfortable feelings to others.
Rationalisation: creating false but credible justifications.
Reaction Formation: overacting in the opposite way to the fear.
Regression: going back to acting as a child.
Repression: pushing uncomfortable thoughts into the subconscious.
Sublimation: redirecting ‘wrong’ urges into socially acceptable actions.
Self-harm Mechanisms: That hurt our selves.
Conversion: subconscious conversion of stress into physical symptoms.
Somatisation: psychological
problems turned into physical symptoms.
Self-harming: Conscious physical self-harm.
(list sourced from: changingminds.org)
Get Results: coping strategies
Some ways these manifest themselves into our daily lives, separated into positive and negative grouping can be seen below.
Positive coping strategies (constructive)
Diversions
Artistic – Writing, drawing, painting, photography, playing an instrument, singing, dancing, acting, gardening
Taking a shower or a bath
Taking a walk, or go for a drive
Watching television or a movie
Spending time on social media
Play a game
Going shopping
Cleaning or organise your environment
Reading
Taking a break or vacation
Social/Interpersonal (with others)
Talking to someone you like and trust
Setting boundaries and saying “no”
Writing a note to someone you care about
Being assertive
Using humour
Spending time with friends and/or family
Serving/helping/encouraging someone in need
Caring for or play with a pet
Role-playing challenging situations with others
Cognitive (Of the Mind)
Making a gratitude list
Brainstorming solutions
Lowering your expectations and preferences of the situation
Checking out inspirational quotes
Being flexible and open minded
Writing a list of goals and things you want to achieve
Taking a class, learning a skill
Acting opposite of negative feelings
Writing a list of pros and cons for decision making
Rewarding or pampering yourself when successful
Writing a list of strengths and skills
Accepting a challenge with a positive attitude
Tension Releasers
Exercising or playing sports
Catharsis (yelling in the bathroom, punching a punching bag)
Crying
Laughing
Physical
Getting plenty of sleep
Eating nutricious and healthy foods
Getting into a good routine
Not over indulging in sweet/fatty foods
Limiting caffeine intake
Deep/slow breathing
Spiritual
Meditation and/or praying
Enjoying nature
Getting involved in a worthy cause
Limit Setting
Dropping some involvement
Prioritising important tasks
Using assertive communication
Making time for yourself
Using negative coping strategies
Using Diversions
Procrastinating
Abusing drugs or alcohol
Wasting time on unimportant tasks
Creating a lower level drama to cover up higher level pain (the less of two evils)
Negative coping strategies (maladaptive)
Diversion
Procrastinating
Abusing drugs or alchol
Wasting time on unimportant tasks
Creating lower level drama to cover up higher level pain. (less of two evils)
Social/Interpersonal
Blaming
Isolating/withdrawing
Mean or hostile joking
Gossiping
Criticizing others
Manipulating others
Refusing help from others
Lying to others
Sabotaging plans and goals
Being late to appointments and letting others down
Provoking violence from others
Enabling others to take advantage of you
Accepting embarrassing situation to hide a perceived more embarrassing situation (not undressing to hide fat)
Cognitive (of the Mind)
Denying any problem
Stubbornness/inflexibility
All or nothing/black or white thinking
Catastrophising
Overgeneralising
Tension Releasers
Tantrums throwing
Throwing things at people
Hitting and lashing out at people
Yelling at others
Destroying property
Speeding or driving recklessly
Physical
Suicide
Self harming
Developing illnesses
Intrapersonal
Making fun of yourself
Self-sabotaging behaviors
Blaming yourself
Indulging
Spending too much
Gambling
Eating too much
Setting dangerous fires
Continually crying
Conclusion
We all use coping strategies to deal with anxiety and pain, in some form or another. They help us deal with negative feelings and emotions so that we can function without feeling great sadness, anger, and pain, all the time. There are good ways to deal with pain as well as bad.
The extent to which drugs and drink are indulged and abused in modern life, suggests that there are a lot of people experiencing negative emotions to varying degrees, and are dealing with that pain in a very destructive and damaging manner.
Mental health problems are on the increase, particularly with the uncertainty and fast changing society we now live in. A job for life is no more, and this cause great uncertainty and anxiety. Strong family units and ties are increasing hard to rely on and with them. the important support networks they once provided.
People feel increasing isolated and vulnerable and so look for ways to escape the perceived madness, injustice and isolation. Coping strategies are used, by many, to deal with this pain, in the best way people feel they can.
It’s so important to deal with such issues at the root, and employ positive coping strategies for issues that can’t be easily resolved. Remember you can’t control how others think or behave, but you can control how you respond, react, behave and think about the situation/issue/event. Awareness is often the first BIG step in the right direction.
I hope this article helps increase your awareness and self awareness so that you can move towards a healthier state of well being.
If you would like to read more articles focused on COPING STRATEGIES, click here.
“Problems are not the problem; coping is the problem.”- Virginia Satir
“If you really want to do something, you’ll find a way. If you don’t, you’ll find an excuse.”– Jim Rohn
“Culture is a way of coping with the world by defining it in detail.” – Malcolm Bradbury
“Give me rampant intellectualism as a coping mechanism.”- Chuck Palahniuk
“Routine is part of coping.”- Lorene Scafaria
“Leaving things behind and starting again is a way of coping with difficulties. I learnt very early in my life that I was able to leave a place and still remain myself.”- Rachel Cusk
“Think first of the action that is right to take, think later about coping with one’s fears”.- Barbara Deming
“Scientists have demonstrated that dramatic, positive changes can occur in our lives as a direct result of facing an extreme challenge – whether it’s coping with a serious illness, daring to quit smoking, or dealing with depression. Researchers call this ‘post-traumatic growth.” – Jane McGonigal
“What is forgiveness? An emotion? A coping mechanism? An element of deepest faith? A way for the heart and soul to combat the type of hate, anger, rage and a thirst for revenge that could ultimately consume a person? All of those and more?” – Mike Barnicle
“One day I looked at something in myself that I had been avoiding because it was too painful. Yet once I did, I had an unexpected surprise. Rather than self-hatred, I was flooded with compassion for myself because I realized the pain necessary to develop that coping mechanism to begin with.”- Marianne Williamson
“If you aren’t in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?” -T.S. Eliot
“If you are faced with a mountain, you have several options. You can climb it and cross to the other side. You can go around it. You can dig under it. You can fly over it. You can blow it up. You can ignore it and pretend it’s not there. You can turn around and go back the way you came. Or you can stay on the mountain and make it your home.” ― Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration
“It is what it is. Isn’t that how these things always go? They are what they are. We just get to cope.” ― Mira Grant, Feed
Get Results: How will you know if it’s the right decision if you never make it?
Having a habit of making bad decisions can severely hamper the quality of your life.
Self Awareness
It can be changed by improving your self-awareness and shining a light on what is at the route of why you make your choices.
You may ask yourself “Why did I pick choice X over choice Y?”, by keep asking “why” you can dig deeper, and find the route cause of why you do what you do and don’t do what you don’t do. More about self awareness, here.
There are number of additional things to focus on when looking to improve your decision making…
Laziness
Don’t be lazy in your decision making, consider your options and weigh them against one another. Remember, doing nothing at all, is an option. Take time out to really think about all the choice open to you.
Pressured
Bad decisions can also come out of pressured situations. Important irreversible decisions should never be rushed under such circumstances.
Sales people are trained to add scarcity to their offerings in the form of limited volumes of stock or limited time availability, these are designed to encourage impulse, emotionally driven buying decisions. Don’t be fooled by this, better not to buy, than buy and have deep regret later.
Emotionally Driven
Avoid taking decisions when in a strong emotional state. Emotions can severely hamper rational decision making. Psychologically sleeping on decisions is a great strategy for allowing emotions to subside. Come back to the decision later when you can be somewhat more objective.
Summary
So, if you find you keep making bad decisions, you owe it to yourself to do something about it.
Don’t be LAZY. Ensure you are taking the time to evaluate all your options
Don’t be PRESSURED into making rash decisions. If a decision is worth taking, make sure you aren’t being rushed into it
Finally, avoid making decisions when in an intense emotional state, good or bad. Rationality and emotions don’t mix well. Take time out and revisit the decision when you feel you can be more objective about it.
For a more in-depth article about Decision Making click here.
Get Results: acquire knowledge, be motivated, be productive
Getting results in any aspect of life can be difficult, and having heavily researched the subject of success and getting results, I can tell you there are so many aspects to it.
However, when you boil it down to its primary components there are three, Knowledge, Motivation and Productivity. Everything else falls into these three.
Things like self awareness, taking responsibility, being committed, having a strong work ethic, being brave enough to overcome fear, fall under the motivation category.
Being focused, improving decision making and problemsolving fall under, productivity.
Finding reliable sources of unbiased, accurate information, under knowledge.
I love the fact you can say the same things a myriad of different ways, the following graphics have been done to illustrate this.
Get Results: know want and doGet Results: learn, desire, actionGet Results: learn, focus, executeGet Results: know, care, do
Check out our guides for more information, you’ll find links in the sidebar (desktop) or below (mobile)
Before reading on, please take a moment to think about this statement…
Spirituality is mumbo-jumbo!
Now, answer the following questions. Answer them honestly before moving on. Even better, write them down, because I want you to see how with a couple of simple points I can prove spirituality to be mumbo-jumbo and that anyone who believes in it is as “unconscious” as everyone else, and that includes you.
#1 – Do you agree with this statement?
#2 – If not, why not?
#3 – How does this statement make you feel? What emotion is most prominent? Come on you believers, you should be good at this bit.
#4 – What inner dialogue is going on in your head?
#5 – What are your initial thoughts about the person responsible for writing this statement?
Only when you have honestly answered these questions, should you read on.
Get Results: pause graphic
So hopefully you have done what I asked before arriving here. If you didn’t please do so before progressing.
So I said spirituality was mumbo-jumbo and that you were as “unconscious”, spiritually speaking, as everyone else.
How can I prove this? Well, by your answers and reactions. If you felt a string of negative emotions to the statement above and if you felt a degree of hostility towards the author of that statement then you are indeed as unconscious as everyone else.
You are attached to the idea of spirituality and that attachment or identification, is proof that you’re trapped in the Ego.
So for you spirituality is indeed mumbo-jumbo, because the Ego is anything but spiritual. Now I don’t mean for you to take offence and you may well do from an egoic state, but what I want to prove is how easily, even well practiced, enlightened people can be overcome by the Ego.
You have an attachment to the idea of spirituality, you have your sense-of-self invested in it. You see yourself as spiritually aligned, and you don’t like that to be criticised or doubted by someone outside your sense-of-self. When someone outside your sense-of-self attacks an attachment within your sense-of-self, you feel anger to some degree, depending on your strength of attachment and the degree to which it is being attacked.
If you didn’t feel the slightest negative thought or anger towards the author or the statement, then well done, you truly are enlightened.
Well, apart from the fact you felt compelled to check the article out in the first place. If you are truly 100% enlightened, would you have felt the need to have even clicked through to this page to begin with? Maybe there is an element of doubt in your spiritual beliefs in the background of your subconscious. Hey, spirituality is not easy, that pesky Ego isn’t a quitter, it will keep you on your toes. Bringing awareness to this fact, is the very thing that will break its control over you.
Hopefully you have gained some degree of self Awareness from this exercise, which was, after all my true intention. Please don’t take any offence. Peace and love.
Get Results: Books give a soul to the universe, wings in the wind, flight to the imagination and life to everything
Reading books is one of the most effective methods for the acquisition of knowledge, because it’s an opportunity to stand on the shoulders of giants, to learn from others experiences, trials and tribulations, experiments, time, effort and expertise.
If you’re not the reading type, then audio versions are available for many popular books and are a great substitute. Check out Audible for some very affordable listening plans. I use it myself, listening in the car to make the most of travel time.
The most important part of reading a book or listening to an audio book, with the intention of learning something, is to put what you learn into practice, otherwise what’s the point? Knowledge is not power, it’s the potential for power, providing you put it to work for the good of yourself and others.
I hear people bragging about reading or listening to a book a day, Really? How can you read a book a day and possibly, gain anything of true value. Just reading without the time to reflect on the insights you have uncovered, seems nonsensical, unless you’re only gaining one or two insights from each book. Hey, if it works for you go ahead, but if you look back, having forgotten most of what you have read, then maybe it’s time to find a good book to read and take your time absorbing its valuable teachings, and to re-read it again and again.
There are a number of high quality books around, that are worth taking time over and re-reading. These are what I would describe as all time classics. Here are my favourites, if you haven’t read them, check them out by following the links.
Please note: these are affiliate links, I get paid a small commission if you decide to buy, and I thank you for that. The books are genuinely my favourites and well worth checking out.
Spiritual/Wellbeing
A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle
The Power of Now: A guide to Spiritual Enlightenment by Eckhart Tolle
Wealth, Business, Marketing
Wealth and Wisdom Classics: Think and Grow Rich. The Science of Getting Rich, The Art of War by Napoleon Hill
The One Thing by Gary Keller
Made to Stick: Why some ideas take hold and others come unstuck by Chip Heath
Purple Cow by Seth Godin
Build a Brand in 30 Days by Simon Middleton
Keep checking back for updated recommendations. Also check out our guide for the acquisition of Knowledge.
Knowledge is power, or at least it’s the potential for power. Knowing what to do is vital for success, but it comes about in a variety of ways.
The best method is probebly learning through DOING. But lessons can be learned, and shortcuts can be takens by paying attention to the journey of those that have gone before you.
Role models and mentors can make a huge contribution to your progress, and shorten the time needed to reach your goal, as long as you pick sources that provide accurate information, unbiased by their own agendas, and self interests.
If you don’t have direct access to role models, books are a great alternative and gateway to knowledge.
Below is a number of ingredients to the acquistion of knowledge, which is one of the three components of the Get Results model, the others being motivation and productivity. We will, over the coming months be linking from this page to fresh, relevant content related to the component it is linked from, so please keep checking back.
Clicking on the posters will take you to more in-depth information. If it doesn’t click through, the information isn’t available yet.
Get Results: Knowledge requires reliable sources of informationGet Results: Knowledge requires verifiably credible and unbiased sourcesGet Results: Knowledge requires roles models mentors mastermind teamsGet Results: Knowledge requires accurate informationGet Results: Knowledge requires knowing how, what and when particularly whyGet Results: Knowledge requires putting knowledge into actionGet Results: Knowledge requires developing skill from the prractice of doing. (Click on poster for more info)Get Results: Knowledge requires learning, comprehension and recallGet Results: Knowledge requires testing variableslGet Results: Knowledge requires asking expansive questionslGet Results: Knowledge requires hiring talent to do it for you
Knowledge Quotes
“Knowledge is of no value unless you put it into practice.” – Anton Chekhov
“The only good is knowledge, and the only evil is ignorance.” – Socrates
“Knowledge is power if applied.”
“Power is gained by sharing knowledge, not hoarding it.”
“knowledge comes from learning, wisdom comes from living.” – Anthony Douglas Williams
“knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit; wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.”
“The first step towards knowledge is to know that we are ignorant.” – Richard Cecil
“An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.” – Benjamin Franklin
“intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.” – Salvador Dali
“As knowledge increases, wonder deepens.” – Charles Morgan
“Doubt is the key to knowledge.”
“knowledge shrinks as wisdom grows.” – Alfred North Whitehead
“If we wonder often, the gift of knowledge will come.” – Arapaho
“Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.” – George Bernard Shaw
“The great aim of education is not knowledge, but action.” – Herbert Spencer
“Today knowledge has power. It controls access to opportunity and advancement.” – Peter Drucker
“It takes considerable knowledge just to realise the extent of your ignorance.” – Thomas Sowell
“We are all ignorant. It’s what you do about it that counts. I wish more people felt comfortable asking questions, the world would be a better place if they did. After all, division is built from ignorance.”
Lead Magnets otherwise known as “opt-in bribes” or “opt-in incentives” are the little bonuses you promise your website visitors in exchange for their email address.
Why do you want their email address you may ask, well you want it so that you have a method of contact, a direct way of keeping in touch with them, so that you can let them know when you have something to share.
Imagine what would happen if your website crashed and your audience couldn’t find it, you could simply send them an email to let them know where they can continue to follow you while it’s down and explain what has happened.
If you have a time sensitive offer that needs to be acted on quickly, you could easily send them an email to make them aware of it.
Getting your audience’s email doesn’t mean you should keep pestering them with endless communication. But it’s a way you can keep in touch with them directly, rather than hoping they can still find you or them having to keep checking your site to find new content.
In fact growing an email list is one of the most important things you should be doing in your efforts for on-line success, no matter what type of business you run, whether it is an e-commerce site, an affiliate site, or a site that just provides information, like this one.
You’ll need three things to grow your list, an opt-in form on your site, an auto-responder service (sends automatic emails to subscribers) and a lead magnet (see below for examples)
The list below is a general lead magnet list, but when you create a lead magnet yourself, obviously, you should make it relevant to your business/niche. It’s no good offering a recipe download when you’re in the furniture restoration niche.
Make sure it provides value in some way, and is not available elsewhere on your website without your visitors, first, exchanging their email address.
Lead magnets can come in the form of a PDF document, HTML page, video, audio file, slide presentation, or whatever best suits the content you’re providing. People like to have something they can keep and is easily accessible on their preferred device, whether that be phone or computer, and preferably, without having to go on-line to access it, so make it downloadable, where possible.
Lead magnet ideas
White papers – A white paper is an authoritative guide or report designed so the reader can understand a specific topic or issue. Traditionally they have been used by government bodies and business to business (B2B) marketing.
Re-organised blog posts – Put existing content into a PDF download and call it an e-book – Blog posts aren’t always particularly well organised, they are rarely in the best order to be able to consume information about a specific topic, but rather, in the sequence they were written and posted. So if you write an article about say, lead magnets and then do another post about the subject taken from a different perspective, some months later, the two posts may be separated by other content, which means the audience have to search for the two posts separately. If you’re organised you should link the two posts via page links, but many times this doesn’t happen. You could even put them under their own specific category, but if you talk about a lot of topics, this could become unwieldy. So putting the posts into one document and offering it as a lead magnet could be beneficial to the reader.
Ebooks – are one of the most popular choices as an opt-in bribe. They range from a few pages, up to hundreds of pages in length and are usually in PDF file format. If you’re very knowledgeable about your subject, share it in an ebook
Recipes – we used recipes in an early example of what not to do, but they’re a great idea as long as you”re doing a cooking related blog.
Resource lists – People love resource lists because they provide tools that actually help get things done. I have a resource list here, that you can check out
“How to…” guides/tutorials – Another favourite of many blogs. Teach people to do something that’s important in achieving their goal or solving a problem. These can be in text form as a PDF file or in video/audio format. If you’re going the way of video, host them on platforms such as Youtube or Wistia, you can always embed them within your blog posts, on your own website. Make sure that you don’t list them publicly though, otherwise, people won’t need to exchange their email address, to access them, they’ll simply go to your Youtube channel to view them.
Tips and tricks – if you have any nifty short cuts or other time saving tips and advice, when doing something specific, or using a particular piece of software, then share these with your audience via an opt-in.
Case studies – If you can access case studies that prove a point or show some achievement, relating to your niche, share them.
Quiz or Competition – Allow people to enter a competition or quiz in exchange for that all important email address. People love to spend time doing quizzes and winning prizes.
Offer a link to a Questions and Answers or a Frequently Asked questions document where you spell out important information that you know your audience are desperate to know the answers to.
Provide a “5/10/20” day training series in return for an email. A multiple video training series gives your audience an ideal opportunity to get to know you a little better We’re conditioned to deal with people face to face, and while this is not always possible, video allows viewers to see the person behind the brand. Make sure you give them some great information to-boot, and you’ve got a very compelling persuader.
Interview your client/supplier/yourself/industry leader/influencer
Tell a story
Reviews
What’s new/hot in your niche
Your opinion on (your industry, economic trends, best practice)
Discount
Software
Consultation
Free trial
Physical gift
Notification for future announcement
Newsletter/webinar registration
Notification of latest blog posts
The “Take Away”
The more perceived value your audience sees in your lead magnet, the more likely they are to opt-in. The best advice I can give you is, test different options and see what work for your particular niche. Use best practices as a starting point, and build on these, but you won’t know what’s best for you and your audience until you try and compare results.
There is some evidence that offering different lead magnets on individual articles, relating to the content of that article, can significantly increase opt-in rates, and this seems logical when you think about it.
If you have a site wide opt-in for say, “Facebook lead generation tips” and this appears at the bottom of an article about “Creating Content”, they reader is unlikely to find your lead magnet offer interesting, because it’s not relevant to their interest at that time, and as a result, they will most likely leave after reading the article without opting in. However if it was relevant to the content, they would surely find it more compelling to opt-in.
The added benefit of this approach is you are segmenting your audience into their specific interests based on which offer they opted in to. They may find multiple lead magnets also more engaging and encourage them to hang around on your site longer.
I recently read an article by Jeff Bullas that talked about “Content Upgrades” being an effective lead generator. Basically a Content Upgrade is something that is related to your article that adds extra value. So it could be a PDF version of the article that the audience can download and store on their device, or a checklist version of the article containing the main take-away points from the article. It could even be a video or audio version of the article containing extra value in the form of extra information or deeper insights into the material.
Summary
Getting email addresses from prospective customers should be one of the main objectives for your website, and lead magnets are one of the most effective tools available to you in achieving that objectives. It’s considered much easier to get new visitors to part with their email address, than it is to part with their money, so selling the click, is a sensible marketing strategy for new visitors, who don’t yet know you.
Use your email communication to build trust, liking and credibility in the eyes of the receiver, all which are needed before people will part with their hard earned money, and buy from you.
For more marketing information, check out our marketing guide.
Think of an advertising system where you can target specific prospective customers based on how they are searching for your services. You can appear to them at the very moment they are looking to buy from suppliers just like you.
You only pay when someone clicks on your advert unlike traditional print media where you pay a fixed fee whether you get leads or not.
Depending on the type of business you have, you can scale up your marketing or narrow it down. You can re-market to visitors that have visited your site without buying so that you increase brand awareness. Research shows that a prospect will interact with your brand at least 7 times before buying.
The advertising platform that does all this is called Google Adwords, otherwise known as pay per click (PPC) advertising.
The importance of being on page one of Google search results
If you’re not on the first page of Google, prospective customers aren’t going to find you. Think about it, do you look beyond the first page of Google search results when you’re looking to buy something on-line? Research shows that most people don’t.
Click through rates vary massively even if you do appear on the first page of the search results, depending on what position you’re listing appears, for instance the first 3 positions on Google get over 60% of all the traffic with the bottom 3 positions getting less than 10%.
In a recent study on the effectiveness of social media as a sales generator compared to PPC and SEO it concluded, “As far as driving on-line sales goes, social media is an astoundingly ineffective channel. If you want to grow your on-line sales, the evidence is clear: SEO and PPC are where you need to invest”
SEO is a long term strategy, simply because it can take months to get a decent listing position, providing you follow the SEO guidelines for onsite and offsite SEO, all of which takes time to put in place. Whereas PPC is immediate, there’s no waiting months to see results. As soon as your adverts get Google approval, they go live. I have had adverts go live within minutes of setting them up.
Quick Tip – Success in Pay Per Click isn’t just about getting your advert displayed as much as possible for the least cost. It’s about getting it in front of good prospects that are interested in buying your product or service. You don’t want to be paying for people who are just looking for information, particularly if your budget is tight or you’re bootstrapping. You don’t want them clicking through your advert and bouncing off your landing page either, ideally you want them to buy if they click through your adverts, or not click at all, if they’re not interested in your product or service. How you achieve this balance is where the magic happens. Focused targeting is the name of the game.
DIY or pay someone else to do it for you?
Now you can learn to do Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising yourself, there’s lots of free information available out there that takes you through the process. However much of it may be out-of-date, with Google constantly making changes to its system. There is also a lot of mis-information circulating that you should be aware of.
Alternatively you can pay an expert to do it for you, many of which will want a large up-front commitment of £300-£800 to set the system up for you, followed by a minimum contract period. I used a very reputable SEO company to do PPC for me some years ago, and after spending £1000+ I didn’t get a single sale out of it. I still get calls from PPC businesses now that promise the world but don’t ask anything about my business, and without knowing about it and my prospective customer profiles, how can they know who to target?
I decided to learned the system myself from the ground up, and I still use it successfully today because I’ve tested it, tweaked it, and improved it as I’ve gone along. I use it for my own business (not related to this site), and it works for me. I have learned to build on each campaign by split testing, peeling and sticking, dropping poor performing adverts and replacing with new improved versions, in an ever improving spiral. It takes time, I’ve spent lots of money as I’ve gone along but I’ve learned, DOING is the only way to learn in this game.
I highly recommend you try PPC for yourself, it’s made a huge difference to my business. I compete with some of the big UK based experience companies and have consistently ranked higher than them, so it can be done with the right targeting. And with a ROI of well over 300%, it can also be profitable.
Local business campaigns can be effective for as little as a couple of pounds per day, of course if you want a bigger reach you’ll have to employ a bigger budget. Return On Investment is what it’s all about. If you can make £2 for every £1 you spend, than spending £10k a month means you’re making £20k, spending £100k means you’re making £200k, and that’s how you should look at it.
For more about marketing, please check out our Marketing guide.
Below is a blog post I did back in 2013, but which was on another website, I thought I would include it here as it has some relevance today.
Get Results: Google Adwords
I have been using Google Adwords for my photography business for 7 years now. Initially I used a third party to execute a campaign for me, but after spending about £1000 without getting a single sale, I decided to cut my losses and end the whole sorry saga.
However in the back of my mind I thought the basic premise of Adwords was a sound one. Your ads appear to anyone searching for your product / service, at the very time they want it. Surely this is one of the best ways to target your customers? So why was my previous experience of Adwords such an expensive disaster? Had I not given it enough time? The company that ran my Adwords campaign thought I should have given it more time, I ran it for approx 4 months. Only when I questioned why I wasn’t getting any conversions did they talked about changing certain aspects of my site to improve performance.
I decided to run my own campaigns and set the whole thing up from scratch. I read a lot of stuff online, and invested in what turned out to be a great book a “Ultimate Guide to Google Ad Words: How To Access 100 Million People in 10 Minutes” by Perry Marshall. which was great at giving me a clearer understanding of the psychology of how Adwords works and then how to develop the campaigns to get better and better results. I read much more after that book but would have to credit it for getting me off to a solid start, so thanks Perry.
Once I had a clearer understanding of the techniques that make the difference between a successful campaign and one that empties your pockets faster than an hole in the bottom of them, I understood why I hadn’t got anything out of my previous attempt. I now get more in voucher sales from my site than I spend on Adwords and with a good chance of up-selling those vouchers once they are redeemed, I find Adwords to be an invaluable sales channel.
The moral being that if your product is suitable for online selling (and not all products are) and if you know your customers have a tendency to look for your service online, which I did, then Adword can be very profitable if you know what you are doing.
So what did I do to change my results, from having no sales to actually making a profit from Adwords? Well first of all I took a close look at my customers. Who was buying what from me? Initially I had Ads selling portraits, with lots of different keywords that included Babies photoshoots, Family photoshoots, Pet photoshoots, and Mother and Daughter Makeover photoshoots. Once someone clicked on the Ads they were taken to a page that sold vouchers for all of of these photo experiences. The first thing I learned to do was split my business into all the separate experiences and who the likely buyer of those experiences would be.
Makeover photo shoots – Usually purchased as a gift for friends or relatives, sometimes bought for self, enjoyed by 12 year olds up to middle aged women. Having said that the purchaser is often an husband or boyfriend.
Newborn Baby photo shoots – usually purchased as a gift for friends or relatives, sometimes bought by mother of newborn babies.
I then split these separate experiences into their own campaigns, chose keywords that were relevant to each such as baby photos, newborn photo shoots for the baby campaign, makeover photo shoot for ….guess what …the makeover photo experiences…and so on.
I kept the number of keywords down to about 1-2 per ad group, making sure that each keyword was included in the Advert and again on the landing page, which contained information about just that particular kind of photo experience. What was I doing? I was focusing my Ads towards specific customers who were looking for specific photo experiences. So someone looking for a baby shoot would type in say “baby photo packages” into the search engine, which would trigger my ad to appear on their search results. They would see my headline “Baby Photos just £30” and hopefully would click on it to find out more, they would then go through to see my landing page which would give more information about my baby photo packages. They then have the option to buy a voucher for the package there and then, or give me a call to order one.
This way of structuring my Adwords campaign has helped turn my fortunes around. It sounds like common sense but wasn’t how the so called experts that managed my first campaign had gone about it.
Adwords can work for you but you need to know what you’re doing. I guess that applies to any kind of advertising. I am sure there are many great PPC agents that can execute very good PPC campaigns for you, but only when they understand your business, your products and your customers. If they don’t ask many questions about your business at the start, how can they know enough to give you the best return on your investment. I will be going into my Adwords experience in more detail in future posts.
Summary
Google Adwords can work for local businesses, but you really need to know what your doing, otherwise it can be an expensive waste of time. The key to setting up a successful Adwords campaign is to know your business and focus on each of your product offerings (either individual products or by category depending on the nature of your business) and the type of customer who buys that particular product offering. Focus is the key here. If you are using an agent to do your Adwords campaign for you, make sure they understand your business as well as you know it. Even if you do use an agent to manage your Adwords campaign for you, I would suggest having a basic understanding of how Adwords works, so that you know if your agent is giving you the best service. I would suggest reading “The Ultimate Guide to Google Adwords” by Perry Marshall, it contains everything you need to know at this time. Adwords is ever evolving so you will need to stay ontop of the changes to get the most from the platform.
Hope you found something useful in this one….thanks for stopping by.
” by Perry Marshall. which was great at giving me a clearer understanding of the psychology of how Adwords works and then how to develop the campaigns to get better and better results. I read much more after that book but would have to credit it for getting me off to a solid start, so thanks Perry.