I hope that you will find these 50 quotations about success inspiring and uplifting. They certainly are for me, which is why I have added them as a permanent record to my blog!
1. “We become what we think about most of the time, and that’s the strangest secret.” Earl Nightingale
2. “There are two types of people who will tell you that you cannot make a difference in this world: those who are afraid to try and those who are afraid you will succeed.” Ray Goforth
3. “If you want to achieve excellence, you can get there today. As of this second, quit doing less-than-excellent work.” Thomas J. Watson
4. “Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.” Pablo Picasso
5. “Create experiences that leave you in awe, for these will be the highlights of your life.” Ryan Blair
6. “Failure is not in your vocabulary; rather, you convert all working experiences, be they positive or negative, into fuel for future success.” Anonymous
7. “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear – not absense of fear.” Mark Twain
8. “Repetition is the father of learning, I repeat, repetition is the father of learning.” Dwayne Michael Carter
9. “Top Achievers are improvisors, not perfectionists. If you want to create more success in your life you have to move forward not knowing all the answers.” Douglas Vermeeren
10. “Weak people talk and do not act, strong people act and keep quiet.” Eliphas Levi
11. “I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” Michael Jordan
12. “Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day-in and day-out.” Robert Collier
13. “All success in life, whether material or spiritual, starts with the thoughts that you put into your mind every second of every minute of every day. Your outer world reflects the state of your inner world. By controlling the thoughts that you think and the way you respond to the events of your life, you begin to control your destiny.” R. Sharma
14. “The only thing that can stop you is the doubt that you carry in your mind.” Chae Richardson
15. “Unfortunately, there seems to be far more opportunity out there than ability. We should remember that good fortune often happens when opportunity meets with preparation.” Thomas Edison
16. “Thinking should become your capital asset, no matter whatever ups and downs you come across in your life.” Dr. APJ Kalam
17. “I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.” Thomas Jefferson
18. “Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always some one to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising to tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has it’s victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
19. “How you see the world first determines your attitude, and then your attitude determines how the world sees you.” Mark Amend
20. “As soon as you realize that you don’t need anyone to make it in life. That’s your first step towards success.” Vusi Ndlovu
21. “Win as if you were used to it, lose as if you enjoyed it for a change.” Anonymous
22. “The starting point of all achievement is desire.” Napolean Hill
23. “All progress takes place outside the comfort zone.” Michael John Bobak
24. “You may only succeed if you desire succeeding; you may only fail if you do not mind failing.” Philippos
25. “There are some things you can’t learn from others. You have to pass through the fire.”Norman Vicent Peale
26. “Successful entrepreneurs are givers and not takers of positive energy.” Anonymous
27. “Seek first to understand, then to be understood” Stephen Covey
28. “Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit at home and think about it. Go out and get busy.” Dale Carnegie
29. “When in doubt, act boldly, as if it were impossible to fail. In essence it is.” Steve Pavlina
30. “If you want to achieve greatness stop asking for permission.” Anonymous
31. “When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand, and was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
32. “An object at rest tends to stay at rest, an object in motion tends to stay in motion.” Isaac Newton
33. “The more you lose yourself in something bigger than yourself, the more energy you will have.” Norman Vincent Peale
34. “The great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
35. “Capital isn’t scarce; vision is.” Sam Walton
36. “Failure defeats losers, failure inspires winners.” Robert T. Kiyosaki
37. “Nobody talks of entrepreneurship as survival, but that’s exactly what it is.” Anita Roddick
38. “Action generates motivation; not the other way around.” Mark Amend
39. “Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” Winston Churchill
40. “I’ve been blessed to find people who are smarter than I am, and they help me to execute the vision I have.” Russell Simmons
41. “Just when the caterpillar thought the world was ending, he turned into a butterfly.” Proverb
42. “There is no passion to be found playing small – in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.” Nelson Mandela
43. “Don’t let what you can’t do stop you from doing what you can do.” John Wooden
44. “Don’t wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect. There will always be challenges, obstacles and less than perfect conditions. So what. Get started now. With each step you take, you will grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self-confident and more and more successful.” Mark Victor Hansen
45. “Whenever you see a successful person you only see the public glories, never the private sacrifices to reach them.” Vaibhav Shah
46. “Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.” Albert Einstein
47. “Success belongs to those who believe in the power of their ideas.” Michael Irwin
48. “Most of our obstacles would melt away if, instead of cowering before them, we should make up our minds to walk boldly through them.” Orison Swett Marden
49. “When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all of your thoughts breaks their bonds: your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction and you find yourself in a new, great and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive and you discover yourself to be a greater person than you ever dreamed yourself to be.” Patanjali
50. “The number one reason people fail in life is because they listen to their friends, family, and neighbors.” Napoleon Hill
These quotations were ‘borrowed’ from this page – http://www.mindpowernews.com/SuccessQuotes.htm – as I wanted a permanent record of them.
These 50 quotations about success are priceless jewels that will help to sustain you on your journey in business.
The Fisherman Analogy: I am currently going through The IM System by Kenster – this is a comprehensive training on the art and science of internet marketing with a heavy emphasis on the importance of mindset.
One of the interesting articles in THE IM System makes the analogy between internet entrepreneurs and the fisherman who had bought a rod and reel and decided to go fishing. He went to the lake and spent a frustrating day trying to catch fish with his new tackle.
At the end of a long, hot day when he had caught nothing, after trying various spots around the lake, he walked dispiritedly away from the lake. On the way back to his car he met an old fisherman who greeted him with the words – “I’ve rarely had a better fishing day in my life. They were really biting today.”
Our newbie fisherman just grunted and passed on – he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He had the right tackle and he’d fished hard all day, surely the old fisherman couldn’t be right.
Our newbie fisherman is very like many internet entrepreneurs. They have all the tools of the trade and they jump from ‘fishing’ spot to fishing spot on the internet but rarely catch anything.
They know there are fish in the lake but they have a poor habits and a poor mindset.
After a little effort, they soon give up and move on to something else little realising that most methods will work if the right techniques are employed. Many internet fisherman get caught in a perpetual cycle, moving from opportunity to opportunity little realising that they need to change their habits.
They don’t understand that ‘buying a rod and reel doesn’t make them a fisherman.’ They are ‘wannabees’!
Doing the exact same things that an experienced fisherman does makes you a fisherman. If you don’t have the right habits and are not doing what experienced and successful internet entrepreneurs are doing, you are not an internet entrepreneur. You are a ‘wannabee’.
If you sit down right now and think about what you should be doing to be a successful internet entrepreneur, I’m willing to bet that you could come up with a list of things that you should be doing but you are not doing to grow your business.
If you are serious about growing your business, start doing those things on your list right now.
You may be saying at this point that you don’t know what successful entrepreneurs are doing to make money on the internet. Notwithstanding this, if you just fix those bad habits it’s likely you are going to see a substantial lift in your income just through following your own advice.
When you have the right habits, things just start to fall into place which is why many successful businessman can move from industry to industry and still be successful – they just keep on applying the right habits.
What are some of these habits? Things like:
increasing your productivity within your allocated working hours
running your business by the numbers
systemising your business so you can outsource aspects of your activities
focusing on your sales and marketing activities
working on your business, rather than in it – planning and strategising your way forward e.g. knowing how much you need to sell this month and then working out how you are going to do it!
not jumping from shiny object to shiny object.
And so on.
I bet you can come up with your own list of things that you know you should be doing.
In my own case, I realised that once I had products to sell, perhaps 90% of my time should be spent in marketing and selling those products rather than starting to create a new product. I love creating products so I find it difficult to allocate marketing time because I constantly have new product ideas. As I sit here writing this post I have at least 4 or 5 products I would like to be creating!
Often if you can’t get some internet marketing method or strategy to work properly, the problem lies with YOU rather than the method or strategy. If you spend any time online at all, you hear people saying that this or that method no longer works.
People were saying that about the ‘interview method’ of making products when one of my IM colleagues launched his copywriting interview products and made 600 front-end sales on only his second ever product launch. Luckily he didn’t know that this method of product creation didn’t work any longer, according to some people!
So if you have tried multiple methods and opportunities without success, perhaps it is time to take a close look at your habits – look for the problem on the ‘inside’ rather than ‘outside’ of yourself?
If you are really uncertain about the right habits to adopt, find a good coach to help you – an experienced fisherman who is already getting the results that you are seeking.
If you adopt the mindset that YOU are fully responsible for the results you are currently getting, then that is the first step to realising that YOUR habits need to change in order to reach your desired goals. It’s not this or that method that is at fault – it’s really down to you and your habits.
By taking 100% responsibility for your results you are well on the way to achieving the success you desire.
Of course, it can help greatly if you can find someone who is creating the results that you desire i.e. catching lots of fish. This is where getting a good coach and mentor can short-cut your route to success. So if you can find and afford such a person, then this is well worth doing (but select that person with care after doing your due diligence.)
In the case of our fishing analogy, you would simply seek the advice of the old experienced fisherman. No doubt he will instantly spot what you are doing wrong and put you back on the right path to success.
If you are getting dispirited by the stories of other peoples success, then you are not adopting the correct mindset. You should be using those stories to motivate you because they are additional evidence that the same success is also open to you.
Just realise that if you want to get different results than those that you are currently getting, then you need to change your habits (and you probably already know what many of those changes need to be!)
So rather than jumping around from fishing spot to fishing spot, or lake to lake, start by looking at your habits first and you’ll be amazed by how things start to work themselves out and by how many fish you start catching.
These changes in your habits are well within your power to start doing.
I hope your found the fisherman analogy helpful and inspiring and I look forward to inspecting your prodigious catch!
I took this test and this is what my results were:
Your calling is:
Creative Master
You’ve got creative juice flowing all over your body. Everything is a canvas to you. You effortlessly make things exactly as you see them in your head, and you easily out-innovate everyone else around you. You live to create and you create to live. Simply, the universe is your playground, and you’re totally rocking it!
Not bad for an ex-banker and business consultant. This explains why I love creating products and websites.
[boxibt style=”success”]”If they want to pick your brain, ask them to pick a time and a method of payment!”[/boxibt]
I’m not sure I could do this quite so frankly but the principle is right – when you are selling your time as a service, it is important to place a value on it. If you don’t place a value on it, then it is certain that no one else will!
You could start by saying, my clients pay me £250 (or £500 or, like Jay Abraham, $5,000) an hour for advice and I have a packed work schedule… (which is true because, if you aren’t working with paying clients, you are working to find paying clients!)
You’ve immediately notified them that your time has a value, whatever you decide to agree to thereafter.
(You’ve also just positioned yourself as an expert whose time is extremely valuable.)
Marie has also worked out some scripts for different situations:
[boxibt style=”warning”]Script 1. The Spice Girls Script AKA. Tell Me What Want What You Really Really Want. Instead of coming right out and saying no, try this script to get right to the point of what they want: “My work schedule is full so ____ (insert: breakfast/lunch/coffee) is not doable these days. Are you interested in becoming a client/customer or do you just have a quick question?”[/boxibt]
[boxibt style=”danger”]Script 2. Pay Me MuthaHumper. When saying no, you sometimes also want to avoid being “salesy” and directing people to your products or services. But sometimes, when you’re saying no, you have to do it. Try this script: “I’m not available for lunch, but you should really consider getting my X (product, training, program) — it’s all of my best thinking in one place and I created to help people in your exact situation.”[/boxibt]
[boxibt style=”info”]Script 3. Blame It On Mama. How do you go about saying no when the invite is semi-social and the other person claims they want to network? If you think they’re going to pick your brain and you want to say no nicely, try this script: “I have a rule, if I don’t have time to see my mother, I don’t have time to meet new people for coffee. And right now, I owe my mama a visit. But seriously, I’m sure we’d have a blast and I hope you’re not insulted, but my work schedule is packed and I’ve gotta pass.”[/boxibt]
‘At the end of the day, if you want people to value your time, you need to put a value on it.’
This is not unlike the advice I received when I started out in consulting – ‘ People will not value that which they get for free.’
I found this to be true in consulting – clients will not take action unless they’ve paid for the advice – when they pay, they have to take action in order to get a return on their investment.
If they don’t pay, then they’ve lost nothing by wasting your time. By not taking action, they don’t get results and they won’t value your advice or what you could potentially do for them.
Payment is simply an exchange of value and your value cannot be realised unless they take action and they are more likely to take action and get value when they pay you, so everyone wins!
The flip side to this is that I have received many unexpected and lucrative jobs by doing a freebie for someone. The work appears from unexpected sources when you demonstrate your skills, sometimes many years afterwards.
You have activated the very human emotion of RECIPROCITY and that is a very powerful motivator. When someone gives me something, I always try to return the favour in spades – it’s just how I roll. It’s human nature for most of us to feel this.
But whether you insist on payment, or you decide to give some of your time for free, you need to START by placing a value on your time.
So if you give the freebie – say two hours of your time – the recipient knows that you effectively gave them at least £500 of value and that may then activate the law of reciprocity. It cannot be activated if the recipient does not value your time.
At the very least you will want a testimonial in order to help you to find paying work.
But let me ask you, why spend time with freebie-seekers, when someone, somewhere would gladly pay for your time and expertise? You have a responsibility to both yourself and your family to spend your time wisely and find those paying customers who value your time.
And time is short.
So when a ‘friend’ or acquaintance approaches you because they just want to pick your brain, first place a value on it and then I leave the rest to your discretion – your time is valuable because it is the only thing you cannot make more of so don’t squander it – treat it as your most precious resource, because it really is!
Here’s a video I made to underline the point:
Going back in my records to when I was business consulting, I found this good advice written by…. ME!:
When we are searching for work as consultants it is very easy to under price our services.
I am even willing to bet that most of the offline consultants on the Warrior Forum have fallen into this trap.
How do I know this? I have been consulting for 10 years and I’ve learnt from my own experience.
The purpose of this article is to provide pricing guidance for offline consultants. It’s a wake-up call to re-consider your pricing policy in the light of what I will reveal.
Make no mistake, under-pricing or discounting your services will hurt your consulting business in a number of ways:
In order to meet your financial goals you will have to work harder and longer in order to make up the shortfall.
You will have less time and money to carry out the research and training necessary to maintain and enhance your consulting skills and competitive edge.
You will have less time to market and manage your consulting business which potentially means that you will miss out on more lucrative opportunities i.e. you should realise that there is also an opportunity cost to charging too little.
If you charge too little, you will sub-consciously resent your customer and have a poor attitude to getting new customers simply because you are not charging what you are truly worth.
You may also be failing your customers, who will not get the full value you are capable of delivering due to lack of time and resources. Also, if you are tired and burnt out you cannot deliver your best work.
In addition to providing you with guidance on calculating a realistic breakeven price per billable hour, this article also seeks to set-out some strategies for charging premium prices for your consulting services and the psychological power of doing so.
Pricing Truths and Myths
Truth:
It’s important to realise from the outset, your clients really don’t know what your consulting fees should be. READ THAT AGAIN before you move on because it is critically important. It’s important because they will value your service according to the price that YOU place on it.
The fact is that ‘neither do you know what the fee should be’ until you can establish the potential value or benefits that your services will deliver to your customer. If you cannot establish the value then any price you quote is effectively a gamble for both you and your customer. And you stand to lose your reputation and the customer’s money if you proceed.
It is critical therefore that you do not reveal your price until you have first established and communicated the value or benefits that you can potentially offer to their business.
Myth:
The mistaken belief that lower prices = more sales.
The problem with this strategy is that by clogging up your time with low value work it means that you may not have time for higher value work if it comes along. It also means that you have less time and money to market to find the premium jobs and may therefore lose market share. Also, your low price undermines your credibility as an expert and this may actually result in reducing your sales.
Truth:
Leading on from the myth above, realise that many people will make assumptions about your competence as an internet marketing consultant based on the level of fees you charge i.e. low fees = low value, high fees = high value.
Where do you want to position yourself in the marketplace?
Myth:
Price is the most important factor in the client’s buying decision.
You know from your own personal experience that this simply isn’t true – we are often persuaded to spend more for higher quality or our perception of it. We don’t all drive the cheapest most fuel efficient car or wear the cheapest clothes.
Our job as marketers is to help our clients to grow their business. Your fees are therefore an investment in their business and your ability to sell will therefore largely depend on your ability to convince your prospective client that you can deliver the results you promise and you are the best one to do so.
This can be achieved by:
Showing or telling them about the results you achieved for other clients
Offering a free or low-cost demonstration of your skills
Testimonials or referrals from other satisfied clients
Outlining your detailed plan for delivering results
Reducing the risk to your client if the expected results don’t materialise – this can best be done by breaking a large project down into smaller chunks and getting paid for delivering each small chunk (just like paying a building contractor to build your house.)
Providing a result upfront, on spec, and selling the finished article e.g. a lead generating website (or the leads there from).
Providing more total value than your competitors.
Truth:
You first have to convince YOURSELF that your fee is fair before you try to convince your client.
This is critically important. If you do not believe yourself in the value you are offering, you will never convince your client. This is one of the principal reasons you will be under pricing your work – you haven’t convinced yourself yet that you are worthy of a higher fee.
Let’s examine this in more detail:
You need to calculate the true cost of providing your service – a formula for this is provided later in this report.
You need to realise the uniqueness of what you are offering. We are all of us unique with different heuristics ( i.e. experience-based techniques for problem solving, learning, and discovery.) Even though we may be replicating skills we have learnt elsewhere, none of us will deliver the same service in quite the same way because of our differing life experience, training, skills and personality.
We are valuable to our clients just by listening to their problems and being present with them – you don’t have to provide all the answers, just facilitate the process whereby the client arrives at their own solution by asking insightful questions.
Most of us have a lot of expert knowledge about internet marketing that will short-cut our client’s progress to online success. (Even if we have failed most of the time, we can ensure our clients don’t make the same mistakes.)
Assuming we are honest and trustworthy, by working with us we ensure that our clients do not fall into the clutches of less trustworthy service providers.
We have unique and different viewpoints to offer – often we don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are – and this is valuable in itself.
The ability to market a business online is becoming an increasingly important skill as traditional bricks and mortar businesses struggle to compete. Every business must now learn to compete online if they do not wish to trade at a disadvantage to their competitors.
Some businesses do not yet recognise this reality but more and more are beginning to awaken to this reality as they realise that the traditional forms of marketing are yielding less and less by way of results. (As the saying goes – in the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.)
You will get referral-based businesses saying that they do not need to market online but the truth is that their potential clients will probably first research their business online before making contact.
Also, one has to question just how many lucrative clients they are losing if they cannot be found by a new customer at the very point in time when their product or service is needed? It always pays to have several ‘marketing pillars’ on which to support your business because you never know when you traditional source of business will dry up.
Finally, there are not many competent offline consultants available – there are plenty of other internet marketing models for an internet marketer to follow in order to make money online that are potentially easier than dealing directly with clients.
I hope I have convinced you that your marketing skills are potentially some of the most valuable that a business owner can access – remember, without more customers and sales, everyone else in the business is redundant.
Myth:
You must keep your prices low until you are established.
There are several problems with this strategy. You will fill your business with under-priced work often from price-shoppers who will show no loyalty when you try to increase your fees.
You will find heavy resistance to fee increases or face difficult questions about why you are charging more than you did before.
You are creating a cut-price brand and image for yourself that will be difficult to reverse later i.e. low price = low value.
This is the lazy way to market your business. Better to position yourself at the outset as the expert you are and charge a proper fee.
Truth:
Clients will not value that which they get for free.
Getting results in marketing depends largely on implementation not theory. It is much more likely that a client will implement your advice if they have paid a fair fee for it.
A substantial fee will commit your client to taking action to get a return on their investment. If you truly believe that you can generate a good return on their investment then a fair fee is doing your client a service by compelling them to take action. (It could also put them off buying but only if you haven’t communicated your value proposition properly in the first place and reduced their risk of taking action to an acceptable level.)
[boxibt style=”info”]There is scarcely anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse, and sell a little more cheaply. The person who buys on price alone is this man’s lawful prey. John Ruskin, (attributed) English critic, essayist, & reformer (1819 – 1900) [/boxibt]
How to Price Consulting Services
Newbie consultants often under-price themselves and go out of business.
They divide their annual salary by 2080, the number of work hours in a year. For example, $100,000 divided by 2080 equals $48.00 per hour.
The problem is, new consultants only bill half their time, say 20 hours per week. (You need the rest of the time in order to train to increase your expertise, carry out research, market your business and carry out your administrative duties.
In addition, this formula neglects the cost of benefits, usually 35-40% of annual salary. If your corporate salary was £100,000, your total compensation is roughly £140,000 (base salary + 40%).
Therefore, when figuring out your consulting rate, you should always include the cost of benefits, like this: £140,000 divided by 2080 equals £67.00 per hour.
Then you double this number to compensate for unpaid time doing such things as administration, customer service, entertaining clients, sales and marketing, and proposal writing. Now your hourly rate is £135.00 per hour—something sustainable you can live on.
You may be saying to yourself “that’s awfully hard to ask for.”
When I launched my consulting practice in 2001, I charged £30.00 per hour with the guarantee that if you didn’t like the meeting, you wouldn’t have to pay. I’ve gradually raised rates to £200 per hour today or a daily rate of £1,600 — with the same guarantee.
How do you ask for a lot of money?
As you know, everyone likes to feel they’re being treated fairly. Everyone loves a deal.
I’ve often positioned my rates like this:
“My normal rate is £200.00 per hour, but because you’re a friend of a friend (or it’s the holidays, or you’re on a tight budget, etc.) I’ll do it for you for £150.00.”
Without exception, people appreciate this gesture of savings and don’t dispute my fees. The same principle applies to large projects. Just structure your pricing accordingly.
It’s important to benchmark your rates against the market. Obviously, you can’t charge £200.00 per hour if the going rate is £50.00.
Package or project prices are generally better than hourly time and materials charges. Why? Because if you complete a £5,000 project in 10 hours, you’ve earned £500 per hour, not £200.00 per hour—your usual rate.
Over the years, I’ve completed several £10,000-£20,000 projects in just a few hours. You’ll need those big hits occasionally to stay in business.
Consulting often involves getting a client, delivering service, then finding another client. That sequential model of client after client creates the feast or famine income that consulting is famous for. It’s a catch-22: while you’ve consulting you can’t be selling, and while you’re selling you aren’t generating cash. How do you reduce the up-and-down cycles and even out your income?
One way is to establish “anchor clients.” You’re familiar with the idea of anchor stores in a shopping centre—big companies like Marks & Spencer or John Lewis who “anchor” the centre and make it profitable. Smaller stores contribute revenues but are less essential to the project’s financial success.
In a similar way, consultants can secure “anchor clients,” large ongoing projects that deliver revenue month after month. One or two significant anchor clients can keep you in business and even out your cash flow. It’s almost like having a job while still being independent. If you work ten hours per week for one organization, and five hours per week for a second company, you’ll have time left over for smaller, one-time assignments.
You’ll control both your time and your own destiny.
So when they just want to pick your brain, what are you going to say now?
Don’t forget to subscribe to my blog or list if you want more articles like this.
In this audio I discuss the topic ‘How to Focus On What You Want & Get It’.
Achieving focus and avoiding the many distractions online, are a very important ingredient for online success. There are plenty of people who have been online for literally years but have very little to show for it other than a substantial reduction in their savings.
This can be caused by confusion about exactly what you need to be doing on a daily basis. In this audio I discuss these problems and some strategies for improving focus:
(Click the image to play the audio)
Run-time: 22mins 39secs
This is a summary of what I discuss in the audio:
Here is a demonstration of Action Enforcer, which I mention in the audio – you can find out more about this product from this link or the link below the video:
I want to find out more about Action Enforcer (- This Will Skyrocket The Amount Of Things You Get Done On A Daily Basis.) When I use Action Enforcer, I always achieve more in my day than when I don’t use it.
I have an ebook entitled ‘Focus – How to Focus On What You Want & Get It’ (- this is quite separate and covers different material to the audio-) simply click the image below to read it!
Knowing how to focus on what you want (and get it) is an important aspect of success and please comment below if you can think of something else that either stops you from focussing or helps you to focus on the task in hand.
This article is a product creation update as it seems appropriate to review where I am at present given that this is being written right at the beginning of a new year – 2014.
MarkSalmon.Info
Today I released Mark Salmon .Info onto the market. This is a collection of video training packages to which I have resell rights.
They can either be bought individually for $27 a piece or as a package where 1 training is dripped out every week for a monthly subscription of $27 i.e. you get access to 4 trainings for the price of one every month.
Each training comprises between 7 and 12 videos and some include audios, powerpoint slides and transcriptions.
They cover a wide range of topics about internet marketing to give anyone who purchases a well-rounded education in internet marketing.
35 trainings have currently been added to this product and this will rise to at least 52 shortly so that I have at least one years content available.
This product also gives me the ability to plug any of my customers or students into an appropriate training on a wide variety of topics.
For example, if you want to add a product to an affiliate site like Clickbank or Digiresults then there are trainings on exactly how to do that. Alternatively, you may want to create some graphics using the available free tools online – there is a training on that too! Or perhaps you want a business model or strategy to pursue like flipping websites – yes, you can get a training on this too.
There are far too many topics to cover here but you can click on the image below to get more information on all the good training that I am releasing on MarkSalmon.info:
Easy Graphics 101
I have one module about Photoshop Actions to complete on this product and this will then be complete apart from the sales letter. Hopefully this should be completed and released by the end of January. This is how the site looks currently but is has not yet been released for sale. It includes 4 modules:
Solo Ads Assassin
Solo Ads Assassin has been completed in partnership with Daniel Madeira who operates a solo ads business. I did the technical site set-up and put some of my other products into the sales funnel to create a very nice offer.
Unfortunately, Daniel has had to deal with some personal problems first before he could contemplate launching this product.
Again, all the content is on the site and it is ready to rock and roll. Here is how this site looks and hopefully it will be up for sale by the end of January:
Email-ATM
This product has been mapped out on a mind-map and all the bonuses have been added to the site – there are 4 or 5 high-value bonuses related to email marketing.
I just need to create the core content and I am pencilling in a completion dater for this site of the end of February 2014.
Wake Up To Health
I am currently helping my sister, Saira, to build a health membership site which will include a number of health related products.
Her first product will be on weight-loss. Again, I am handling the technical set-up for a fee but I have included a number of premium plugins to give her an incredible marketing platform including:
a premium WordPress theme
a premium membership plugin
a premium plugin for creating ‘courses’ out of her tutorials i.e. a questionnaire at the end of each module to ensure tat students understand the content and much more
a premium squeeze and sales page plugin which includes split-testing functionality
a podcast and video player plugin to handle audio and video files
In addition to the above, I am considering purchasing a developers license to offer the ability to integrate her site with Google Hangouts so she can offer live and automated webinars. Also, whether to upgrade her video to the premium video player that I use on my sites that normally costs $297.
In total, this site offers her the ability to create multiple membership products and to market these effectively using blogging, social media, podcasts, video marketing and webinars.
My sister has been struggling with the technical aspects of this project for over 11 months and it has taken me less than 3 days so far to get her ready to get this project into over-drive in 2014.
She was quoted between $2,000 and $10,000 for this work, but I am only charging her a small fraction of that price for 3 days work.
I just wonder how may other coaches and consultants are in the same position – blocked by technology and the steep learning curve required to get their information and coaching out to their market.
One project that I am pencilling in is to create a site clone, with all the key plugins included, and offer this out for a modest set-up fee and monthly payment to keep it affordable. This to include hosting and maintenance.
Here is how my sisters site looks currently and there is about one days work left to complete and it will then be ready for her to start adding content:
Business Creation Mastery
Business Creation Mastery is my most important product that I want to get launched in January as well! I have been planning this out over the Xmas period and I have been building towards this for a long time.
My vision has been to help other people to set-up and grow a business online. I am going to narrow my niche down to coaches and consultants in a variety of niches who all have similar needs i.e. to get their training and content online and who are frustrated by the technology barrier and what it takes.
After almost 5 years online and prior to that, 8 years of consulting and 25 years of banking experience, I feel that I must have confidence in my ability to add value to the lives of other aspiring online or offline entrepreneurs. I am now going to engage with them more closely, find out what they want, and then support them using a mixture of one-on-one help, group coaching and access to my automated products.
My mission will be to help them to deliver their own unique value into their own niche or marketplace in a variety of formats.
This site has been in the planning stages for some months now and it’s ready to be launched now – I have been listening to podcasts by Sean Mize during the last couple of weeks and that has convinced me to launch now. After all, I have already done it offline and with 5 years experience online I know I have a tonne to offer.
Conclusion
That is the current state-of-play of my products currently under development. I am going to try to create 1 hour of content each day – mainly audios but also written and video. However, one of the key areas I need to concentrate on is driving traffic to my sales funnels to convert my products into more sales.
You can see from this product creation update that I am ready to hit the New Year running as my target this year is to make at least a 6-figure income and I will do whatever it takes to achieve that.
Every entrepreneur has to ask the question ‘What Am I Selling?‘
This is not a superficial question because it is critical to the way in which I market my business.
Charles Revlon said that whilst they manufactured cosmetics, they were really in the business of selling ‘Hope’ – selling ‘hope’ to women who wanted to look more beautiful.
We see this everywhere in brand selling – for example, the current Marks & Spencer Christmas advert weaves a magical illusion of Christmas and only at the end do you realise what is being sold when they post their name – a ‘magical’ Christmas courtesy of their products. (They conveniently ignore the horrendous shopping experience and queues at the tills!)
The same goes with the sale of top-brand cars – they are selling a luxury lifestyle – beautiful women, sharp clothes, perpetual youth and intoxicating sophistication. The car is almost an after-thought and cannot possibly live up to our expectations.
So this got me to thinking about ‘what am I selling?’ Yes, what am I really selling?
It’s certainly not information products about how to create an online business – it’s really much more than that. Yes, it’s a lot more than that!
My business is about offering freedom and independence to those currently working in a job that doesn’t fulfil them.
I did that for 25 years.
Yes, I made a good living but my spirit was strangled and suppressed by the burden of rules and obligation that are a necessary part of the corporate culture.
I wore a suit and tie for 25 years – I haven’t worn one since 2001 (other than for funerals and weddings to comply with social dress-code convention). These are symbols of enslavement to me.
A tie is like a leash around my neck – just squeezing hard enough to remind me gently and persistently that I am in bondage to the organisation.
The rules within a corporate culture can be extremely onerous – you have to comply, whether you agree with them or not if you want to remain a part of the company.
Someone worked out in my last job that every week there were 9 hours of required reading to stay abreast of local and head office bulletins where the rules were continually changed and upgraded.
It became almost a full-time job to keep abreast of the rules!
That’s oppression almost as bad as that in North Korea – it is almost like being watched and examined by the ‘thought-police’.
I did a consulting job for a large non-profit organisation about 9 years ago – it was no better there. This time it was political correctness that ruled the culture due to an over-bearing operations director.
The organisation was looking after people with learning difficulties and you had to very careful with your terminology so as not offend anyone. I hate political correctness and was glad when my assignment ended. It’s just another way of suppressing your thoughts and behaviour.
In every job you get customers you would rather not deal with but have to for one reason or another. In banking it was sometimes because their financial position was very good (or bad).
If a customer was in a bad financial position and you didn’t like them this was the worst position of all because no-one else wanted them and you were stuck with each other in trying to resolve a difficult situation. There’s really no joy in business when you are forced to deal with each other from a position of mutual dislike!
When you are in a job you can often think that the business strategy is crap but you have to comply (or at least be seen to comply).
I well remember a diktat from Head Office in the recession of the early 1990’s requiring us to put up the interest margins for all customers. Ironically, the bank liked to think that we were ‘relationship’ managers i.e. that we nurtured a long-term, supportive relationship with our customers.
I’m not sure how they squared that thought with kicking our customers in the goolies when they were already down and fighting for survival. That sort of treatment is never forgotten and, quite rightly, a relationship of mutual trust is lost forever.
The other problem is that ‘creatives’ are not welcome in an organisation that works by a set of rules – they don’t want you to change things or create anything. In fact you are a dangerous individual if you start to buck the system.
The other factor is the daily commute. My daughter and son-in-law currently have a 3 hour, uncomfortable daily commute into London each day – that’s a massive portion of their life wasted travelling on unreliable public transport!
And it costs them a small fortune in train fares to participate in this madness!
In my bank, the organisation was so vast that they had an internal directory that was a couple of inches thick. The fact is that I couldn’t track down the person responsible if even I had wanted to suggest any changes. The job roles of those responsible for particular services bore no relationship to the actual services themselves!
Of course, starting your own business does not shield you from the absurdities of business. The only reassurance I can offer you in that regard is that at least the absurdities are usually of your own making. You can choose to change them yourself because you alone are responsible for everything that happens, good or bad, in your business.
This is what ‘freedom‘ means. It brings new responsibilities and you have to set your own standards and rules for doing business.
Personally, I would now rather live in a cardboard box than comply with someone else’s rules (- this is why I hate all politicians and particularly those in the EU who are unelected).
Starting your own business allows you to create something that works in a way that fits in with your values and the way you would like to earn a living i.e. doing something that really interests you, in a way that you feel comfortable with.
In many ways the stresses and responsibilities of running your own small business are even greater than being one of the sheeple i.e. a compliant employee creating someone else’s vision of what their business should be. If you fail, then you may have to return to employment to earn a living having had an intoxicating taste of freedom.
That thought alone will drive me to success in my business!
The other big benefit of knowing what you are selling is that you can start to define your target market i.e. who might be interested in what you have to offer. In my case it will be people either looking for a viable exit from their job or who have left a job and want to stay out of a job (like me!)
But first I needed to ask the question ‘What Am I Selling?’ because it is vital that I understand what I am really selling and I think I have the answer. I am selling FREEDOM.
‘Strong reasons make strong actions’ – this is a quotation from Shakespeare who died just under 400 years ago and lived not half a mile from where I am writing this post.
I think this is certainly one of the key attributes of self-made entrepreneurs – they had strong reasons for taking action and becoming successful.
In Shakespeare’s case, I think he may have got Anne Hathaway with child and had to go to London to make his living as a playwright.
My son-in-laws job recently came under threat – as a result of this he got a better paid job (+25%) and my daughter did the same (+50%). They have recently bought a new house with a massive mortgage and were staring down the barrel of potential bankruptcy had my son-in-law been made unemployed for any lengthy period of time. Strong reasons = strong actions.
This has a been a large part of my trouble in starting an online business. I have funded myself from my investments and savings for several years without making much money – because I had money, I didn’t need it badly enough i.e. weak reasons = weak actions.
I have created a number of products but, because I have not yet run out of money, I have not really marketed those products.
Sergio Felix, my coaching colleague, has told me that I must change my mindset. He is absolutely right – in my case it is definitely a mindset issue. I already know enough to succeed, I simply need to reach out and grasp it.
Ironically he is the same. He has been working on perfecting one WordPress product for well over 12 months – with his wedding due to take place in 2 months time he needs to make some money and lots of it!
Both Sergio and I are both fast approaching this crisis point – the point where we simply HAVE to make the next step.
In my business career I have seen this phenomenon many times before – I saw it time and again when the financial crisis hit in the early nineties as my business customers faced the real possibility of going bust as interest rates soared to 17% or more and asset prices plummeted.
It was amazing to me how creative people can be in a crisis – one builder customer created 3 houses out of his own home and sold them to make enough money to survive.
The truth is that we are all much more resourceful than we think we are – when the chips are really down, the strong get going.
Have you considered that if you are not yet finding success, perhaps you don’t yet have a strong enough reason for taking strong action?
I expect you already know of many examples of wealthy people who came from a background of relative poverty. That poverty and hardship is a large part of what drives them throughout life – the remembrance of their early years when where the next mouthful of food was coming from was a genuine worry.
I’ve been fortunate to never face that kind of hardship and it’s easy for me to be complacent about money. As I have got older I’ve realised that as long as I have enough money to enjoy life, I really don’t desire money for it’s own sake. In other words I am not willing to do things I hate doing just for money… unless I have a strong reason enough for doing so!
I’m fast approaching that point with my business – where I need to go out and promote myself and my products. It really does not appeal to me at all – I would much rather be helping other people ‘under the radar’ than marketing myself as some kind of guru. I want the satisfaction of genuinely helping other people without make bull-shit claims about myself and what I can do.
But my mindset and attitude have to change if I want to stay in the internet marketing game – the key word there is ‘marketing’. As Sergio says, I must find my own audience and reach out to them. He has to do the same – we all do!
As a small step on that road I have installed the Page Peal Pro plugin (aka One Ring Plugin) – this is on the top right of my web pages – if you like it you can get a copy of this plugin here. It’s not a ‘strong’ action but it is a step in the right direction.
Your task and mine is to find a strong reason for taking strong action – whatever it is, whether it’s your family, your health, your self-respect, your wedding etc – find it because I believe that it’s part of the formula for success.
When I was a child, I used to read stories of events in history. One of the ones that gripped my imagination (and still does today!) is the story of the Battle of Hastings in 1066. This was the decisive battle between William’s invading Norman army and Harold the English King.
William became ‘The Conqueror’ but it was what he did BEFORE the battle that laid the foundation for his success.
It is said that his invading army came across from France in around 600 ships on 28th September 1066 and landed at Pevensey. After he had disembarked all his troops and equipment, his army watched in horror as William ordered that the ships were burnt on the beach.
Can you imagine what his troops were feeling? Their only line of retreat was destroyed even as they watched.
Do you think that in the heat of the battle of Hastings on 14th October 1066, that when things got difficult and bloody, that the knowledge and mindset that they either won or died on that day, didn’t affect the outcome of the battle?
I’m pretty certain that it stiffened the resolve of Williams army wonderfully.
The reason that I mention this episode in history is because I think it has a bearing on our business success or failure (and also our personal success).
Inevitably in business there will be tasks that you don’t enjoy, that make you uncomfortable or even downright scared. Tasks like speaking in public, pitching your product, creating relationships with people of influence, technical challenges, understanding the numbers – all these things and more are a part of building a successful business.
The problem with being in business for yourself is that WE get to decide what we do on a daily basis. There is no-one standing over us saying that you have to do this or that. This presents a challenge to most people and a large part of why many people fail in business – they simply don’t have the discipline to do what is uncomfortable or difficult.
We sometimes fail to realise that there are certain tasks that are unavoidable if we want business success. Even if we realise it, because we have the power of choice, we choose to avoid ‘the challenge’ in the hope that somehow success will arrive anyway.
Someone once said something like ‘it is in our moments of greatest discomfort and difficulty that we have our greatest learning’. I think that this is true.
When I was in banking, I never really ‘knew’ my customer until they faced a moment of crisis or a moment of great difficulty in their business. Some would lie and cheat. Others would run away from their obligation.
However, others would turn and face almost insurmountable odds in the face of professional advice to give up and declare bankruptcy.
And often I could not pre-judge how my customer would react until the crisis happened.
So what does this mean for you and me in our struggles to create a business?
I think that firstly it is important to recognise that EVERYONE in business faces these types of difficulties at one time or another. If you are facing a moment of crisis in your business, you can be sure that many others have faced the same or a similar difficulty before you.
These are often the moments that will define your success or failure. You intuitively know WHAT you HAVE to do but you always have a choice of whether to do it or not.
Will you take action or side-step the challenge to complete a more comfortable task?
The problem with this is that the same challenge or difficulty will often not go away- it usually presents itself again and again and again. You cannot move forward to be as successful as you might be, until you face that challenge or quit to get a job where someone else is willing to do that which you have been avoiding – often these are well-paid jobs simply because these people are doing what others will not.
Of course, you could outsource the challenge, but then your business is totally reliant on someone else. If this task is central to the success of your business, this represents an area of potential vulnerability in your business. For example, if that person realises their importance to the business, you either have to pay them accordingly or face the possibility that they will look for another opportunity to be paid what they are worth.
This is why people talk about the importance of getting out of your comfort zone – it is only in these moments that we grow as individuals and we allow our business to grow with us. If you avoid these challenges, often they don’t disappear but they keep coming back in one guise or another.
Sometimes we wait until our back is literally against the wall (or the boats have been burned on the beach), before we are literally forced do what we know we have to do. That’s pretty drastic but if that’s what you have to do to move forward, you can easily engineer that situation for yourself.
However, why wait for this moment of ultimate crisis?
If you are feeling uncomfortable about doing something in business, take a moment to to realise that this may be something that you MUST do in order to be successful.
Think through the consequences of not doing it.
If you decide it is something that cannot be avoided if your business is to be successful, then this is THE priority task for you and your business. Everything else is secondary and YOU must find a way – YOU alone are responsible as the business owner.
This is THE moment when you and your business will grow because, by conquering that crisis, you know in that moment that you have the discipline to do whatever it takes in the face of extreme personal discomfort, pain or fear.
If you avoid it, you may be selling yourself short in not only this area but in many other areas of your life. You see, it’s all about self-respect and self-confidence.
When you know that you are willing to do whatever it takes, then your success is inevitable and you become an unstoppable force.
And success is often on the other side of failure.
So what difficult areas of your life or business have you been avoiding?
Often these challenges and failures are disguised as your greatest opportunity for growth. Embrace that fact, ‘burn the boats’ of potential retreat in your mind and move forward with iron purpose and resolve.
Realise that you will not potentially die (like William’s army) if you fail. This is simply one of the challenges that life is presenting to you in order to find out whether you REALLY, REALLY want success.
And these questions will keep on coming (and you will have to find answers) until your success becomes unstoppable and inevitable .
Rejoice therefore in the challenges that you face and ‘plunge into battle’ with your sword arm swinging freely!
If you you want success badly enough, you cannot retreat because you have first metaphorically ‘burned your boats (the line of retreat) on the beaches of your mind’.
You can find more on the importance mindset for business and personal success at ‘The Sky Inside‘
I have been rubbing shoulders with some internet marketing gurus over the weekend. I attended Alex Jeffreys ‘Marketing With You – Live’ event in London.
The biggest revelation to me was that I did not learn much new about internet marketing! That may sound like a negative comment but it really isn’t.
Alex outlined his simple business model – it really is simple. I’ve heard him talk about it already in a number of his webinars, which is why there was no new content. I don’t mind that because, if this is his real business model that is earning him a lot of money, then why talk about anything else?
From this, I have come to the conclusion that I am over-complicating my business – so this is perhaps the biggest learning point for me. I am still looking for the magic secret and there really isn’t one.
This realisation alone is a massively important one because it means that I am well and truly beyond the ‘learning’ stage and the focus is now firmly on implementation.
I also met some really great people at the event:
Alex Jeffreys
Dean Holland
Rob Cornish
Rob Cornish is an internet marketer that I really admire – his content is real gold and he is building a really nice business for himself. He is one of the few internet marketers whose emails find their way into my inbox. It was a genuine pleasure to meet with him (as you can see from my face!).
I also met and had lunch with Devon Brown – didn’t get a picture damnit! Devon had travelled all the way from Atlanta to be at the event and was going on to tour France and Spain over the course of the next two weeks. His business is called Renegade Success (mine is called The Business Renegade) so we have that in common. I instantly liked Devon who was very open and easy to talk to despite his obvious success – no airs and graces.
I also met and chatted to a number of students who will be stars of the future – Richard Gledhill, Malcolm Simmonds, Sherry Bualy (from Oman!), Andy Lindsay (shortly launching Config WP – a piece of software to help to launch WordPress sites faster), Catherine Toops, Kevin Ashbridge and many more.
I feel re-energised and re-motivated to get some products out into the market place as quickly as possible and to start a fixed-term membership site. I need to make some money so I can attend every event that I can – it really is a life-affirming experience to meet with other people who are on the same journey that you are. They are all positive people who want to help each other realise their dreams.
As you can tell I am excited about this experience and only wish I had found the time to meet many more people at the event.
I have also ordered the following recommended books on my return home:
‘Ready, Aim, Fire’ by Michael Masterson
‘The Obvious Expert’ by E Eldridge
‘Abundance’ by Peter H Diamandis
These books were all recommended by Alex Jeffreys and I am ready and willing to learn from the best!
It has taken me a long time to attend my first live internet marketing event – I was put off from attending events when I attended a marketing event by Chris Cardell in around 2006 that was nothing but a pitch-fest. However, Alex’s event was quite different – he did promote his own coaching but it was not offensive and there are plenty of success stories in his coaching group.
I am currently being coached by two of Alex’s students – Marc Milburn and Dean Holland and in due course I may turn to Alex if necessary if I need help to get to another level. For the time-being I am well-satisfied with my current coaches.
If you have yet to rub shoulders with the internet marketing gurus by attending a live event, then it is an experience that I can thoroughly recommend because it is lonely trying to figure this stuff out by yourself!
This new website has been created to share my internet marketing strategies and my journey to creating a sustainable online business. In fact starting this site is part of that strategy.
I already have a well-established blog called The Business Renegade that I started 4 years ago in 2009. Initially that blog was about ‘how to grow a business’ and covered a lot of my consulting strategies and my interest in finance and bookkeeping. Gradually the site morphed into being almost exclusively about my interest in internet marketing and how to start an online business.
I also set myself up as an internet marketing consultant to help offline businesses do local internet marketing and created a number of websites for offline clients but did not find that terribly fulfilling even though local SEO is relatively easy. So I decided to change my strategy to concentrate on information marketing.
I realise that chopping and changing is destructive but at the end of the day I am on a quest to find work that is fulfilling to me and generates the most value for other people. I am passionate about starting and growing small businesses and I want to be able to show others how to do it. After all, I now have 37 years experience in business and that should count for something!
Starting a new blog in the same niche is a big step for me, so how will this one be different?
Firstly, it is branded to me personally in recognition that people do business with people rather than businesses.
Whilst I couldn’t get my first choice of domain i.e. marksalmon.com, I did secure my second choice domain! (My first choice is not currently in use as it diverts to another website so I wonder if it will be offered for sale?)
Second, this new site will document my progress with my new coach, Marc Milburn, who has recommended that all students start again anew and follow his coaching exactly. This time I will keep things very simple and follow a clear-cut strategy.
Marc is aiming to make $1.2m online this year and has promised to show all his coaching students exactly what he does to be successful.
My plan this year was to release 7 high-quality products about building an online business.
Four out of the 7 products are more or less ready and I am releasing the first one as a WSO any day now. It is all about how to acquire the right mindset and is called The Sky Inside. It includes information on Vision, Mindset and Time Management and I have included two interviews with other high-profile internet marketers as a bonus.
Whether or not these products are successful, they have been a valuable exercise in flexing my product creation muscles.
The other products include:
Business Storyboards – about business strategy and structure i.e. various internet marketing plans and strategies.
WP Website Wizard – over 100 short video tutorials about WordPress systems and processes
Product Creation Renegade – about how to create digital products
List Building Renegade 2.0 – I released this as a WSO last November but I am going to update it and release it. This is all about list building, sales funnels, email marketing, and traffic strategies. (A huge topic that I will probably breakdown into smaller products in future.)
Measure ‘n’ Manage – this product is all about the key performance indicators and numbers that you need to monitor and test in your online business. Also, how to get those numbers and what to do with them.
Outsourcing Renegade – this is about team building and outsourcing or delegating tasks within your business to enable you to scale up your business.
I have no doubt that these products will only be enhanced and improved as a result of Marc Milburn’s training.
Do you want to discover my internet marketing strategies for starting an online business?
I will be sharing my internet marketing strategy in my blog posts so, if you want me to keep you informed as I post new information on my blog, then sign up to my list below and I will send you an email when I post new information.
One of the mistakes on my last blog was to be too promotional with affiliate links and, on advice from Marc Milburn, I will just be sharing good information and keep the promotional stuff well in the background. Whilst I’ve made some money from affiliate marketing, I honestly don’t think it is a great business model for your primary business because it does not position you correctly with your customer.
I’ve learnt this lesson. Your relationship with your list is critically important and if you can gather a small band of happy followers then you are set for life. This is my goal – to over-deliver to a relatively small number of people who have the same interests that I do – creating a sustainable online business using an internet marketing plan that has integrity and authenticity.
I’m in this for the long-haul because I love it and I love working from home. I also like the creative process – websites, graphics, products, software, strategies – a wonderful intellectual challenge that keeps me rooted to my desk.
So join my list and let’s get to work together on designing our internet strategies for a sustainable online business – feel free to connect with me on Facebook and make yourself known to me if you want make this journey together.
