6 Practical Tips to Become an Effective Entrepreneur When you start on your entrepreneurial journey, you are sure to hear one important piece of advice – you need to maintainRead More
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]]>When you start on your entrepreneurial journey, you are sure to hear one important piece of advice – you need to maintain a work-life balance. But what exactly does it mean? Does it imply that you divide your day into two equal parts – one dedicated to work and the other to life? Not really!
Work-life balance implies that you put equal emphasis on the two. But it’s easier said than done. It can be difficult to think of your life separately when you have to juggle numerous roles and handle numerous responsibilities. So, what do you do?
Here are a few tips that can help you become an effective entrepreneur:
If you started because you loved what you did and wanted to do what you loved, work will never feel as a burden. And while it can take up most part of your day, especially when you are just starting out, it will not make you feel as if you have wasted it.
Not just the work portion, but every part of it. And try to stick to your routine. There will be times when you have to reschedule a meeting or attend your child’s ballet recital. But otherwise, you need to plan out how you will spend the day. This way you can avoid the fear that something you wanted done won’t be on done on time.
Setting a big goal for the year isn’t a good idea. Instead, focus on smaller goals that you need to achieve within a week, or may be a month. It will make you feel good when you achieve these smaller goals. And it will also help you attain the bigger goal you want to achieve in the long run.
While you may love to handle every little detail for your business, if this means that you skip your breakfast, miss your exercise or don’t get enough sleep, it isn’t really the best thing for you. Eat healthy, exercise regularly, and get enough rest; and you’ll see what a difference this little things make in your life.
Taking care of your physical health isn’t the only thing you need to do. You need to refresh and re-energize your mental and spiritual self too. Go on a date, indulge in a spa break, plan a vacation, or do whatever you feel like. And switch off your Smartphone and leave your laptop behind on these occasions.
Be grateful every day for how everyone in your circle of life helps and supports you. It may be your spouse helping with housework or a business associate chalking out a financial plan. Say thank you whenever you feel; expressing your gratitude always makes you feel better.
Being an entrepreneur doesn’t necessarily mean losing sleep or finding no time for it altogether. If you love what you do, you can build your business into your lifestyle. And this way, you will be able to achieve the right balance between work and life.
Also, don’t stress about balancing your work and life. It will only mess up things even more. Instead, focus on what you need to do to stay healthy and happy. And when you love your work as an entrepreneur and be part of your circle, you will find that the work and life portions works out on their own.
The One Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan
Grow A Pair by Larry Winget
Procrastinate on Purpose by Rory Vaden
The Energy Bus by Jon Gordon
Virtual Freedom by Chris Ducker
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]]>Who is Chris Ducker and what you can learn from him: Entrepreneurs and those planning to be one in the near future can learn some essential job outsourcing tips fromRead More
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]]>Entrepreneurs and those planning to be one in the near future can learn some essential job outsourcing tips from outsourcing guru Chris Ducker on how they can get on top and increase profits using simple low-cost outsourcing methods. Chris is also widely known for his book, Virtual Freedom that comes highly recommended by many successful entrepreneurs.
In his book and presentations, Chris Ducker teaches business people on how they can take their online marketing efforts to the next level with the help of virtual staff. These lessons will show you how to become more successful than you possibly thought using new mediums such as video. Online video is huge, and yet still many small businesses are not utilizing the power of online video to increase brand awareness and increase profits.
The following are 5 lessons entrepreneurs can learn from Chris Ducker:
One major reason why small businesses shy from creating web videos is that they don’t exactly know the kind of topics to present to their audience. According to Chris Ducker, “ It’s all simple. Like blogging, you should offer solutions to problems that plague your target audience.” You can do that with video presentations.
Ducker explains that brainstorming ideas with your virtual staff to know what exactly your target audience needs help with will be your first step. He goes on to emphasize the importance listing everything as this will be your source of video content. You can even list for the future too. Organize topic ideas into groups and see if you can create a video series that grow that list. Think of the common questions you get every day and consider making a video series to answer them.
In today’s evolving world, the best way of going about this is doing some keyword research. Ducker writes, “ Think about it rationally, you certainly wouldn’t go and launch a business if there wasn’t money to be made by selling your services and products, likewise there’s no need to keep creating content unless there is a real need for it.”
You can use the latest Google Adwords Keyword Planner Tool, especially if you are just starting out. This will help you know if people are visiting search engines to look for the information that you’re considering to record. Create a Google Adwords account to access this free tool.
If you’re looking to take things higher, there are also other keyword tools like Long Tail Pro and Market Samurai which do much more than give search engine volume results and cost per click. With these tools at your disposal, you can view exact statistics, check search traffic and analyze competition.
Fiddling around with Photoshop is a critical waste of time for any entrepreneur who hasn’t yet figured out what they’re doing. Ducker writes, “We enjoy the idea of allowing our Superhero Syndrome cloud us, and end up believing that we can do everything ourselves, even graphic and web design.” He explains that we pay the right skills to do the right job, because they will do it right the first time. Doing this won’t only make it look better, but it will also give you time spend on other marketing areas or putting in-place your next info-product!
Among other things, graphic and web designers will do the following:
• Design logos, icons, eBook covers, banners and headers
• Design infographic images
• Design websites and create mock-ups
• Design landing, sales and opt-in pages
• Do basic video editing, splice intros and outros with raw footage
The use and need for virtual staff in video and audio editing is still fairly new—it only started emerging over the last couple of years. But as Chris Ducker writes “I can personally tell you that this has generated a ton of extra time for me. Without the need to edit my videos, even the most basic ones has given me more time to spend developing content instead of scratching my head over the details. I did the same for my podcasting and the end results are always sexier in appearance.”
Virtual video and audio editors will do the following:
• Basic editing of video and audio files
• Remove background noise from video and audio
• Add intros and outros to videos
• Do basic Photoshop and edit images
• Setup podcasting
• Insert podcasts on blog posts
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) has drastically changed over the last couple of years. What worked before, doesn’t anymore. And likewise, what works today may not work tomorrow. If you however create captivating and solid content, you’ll be contender in the races. But what really happens after you’ve successfully promoted your online video, podcast episode or blog post through social media? The tide recedes right?
Ducker explains that having a firm SEO and Web Marketing virtual assistant will put you in a strong position for long-term and consistent traffic.
For a summary of Virtual Freedom according to Chris Ducker CLICK HERE
Buy Virtual Freedom by Chris Ducker on Amazon
Visit ChrisDucker.com to learn more about Chris, his book, and his exclusive content
Follow Chris Ducker on Twitter and Facebook
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]]>Unlike Google, not all businesses start their humble journey from their garages. You will find some types of startup companies operating from brick and mortar stores whereas some others maybeRead More
The post 5 Most Popular Types of Startup Companies from 2014 appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>Unlike Google, not all businesses start their humble journey from their garages. You will find some types of startup companies operating from brick and mortar stores whereas some others maybe working from startup incubator centers.
Thanks to the massive development in the field of technology, we are surrounded by many different forms and types of startup companies that are consciously or unconsciously changing our perception of how a startup should work.
As we move into the new year, let us recap some of the most popular types of startup companies from 2014 –
It is a fact that the vast majority of startups are still the same old small businesses. Travel agents, plumber, electricians, carpenters, storefronts, consultants etc are some of the types of startups that fall under this category. It is a fact that these types of small businesses struggle to hog the limelight of the popular media but the truth is that these small business owners work as hard as any other startups in the Silicon Valley. The good thing about these small business startups is that they mostly hire local talents and thereby contribute to the local economy. The purpose of these startups is to earn enough money to feed their families. Small business entrepreneurs rarely make it to the magazine cover but they do play a prominent role in the economic development of the country.
We are now seeing an increasing number of startup companies who are blurring the line between passion and profession. For example, people, who are passionate about drawing, are launching Animation startup companies as it gives them the perfect opportunity to do what they do best. People who have some level of expertise in sky jumping are now offering sky jumping training as well; this is another form of lifestyle startup. Lifestyle Startup is all about pursuing ones passion and finding a way to earn money through it.
The cost of designing and developing a mobile based or web based app has plummeted massively and this has given birth to the new breed of Startup Company known as buyable startup. Some of these startup companies are not even looking for traditional Venture Capitalists rather they are trying to raise money for their startups by opting for angle finding or crowd funding. However, this type of startup is generally sold to a third party after some time in return of a handsome amount of profit. This type of startup is gaining traction and is most likely to become more popular in coming years.
Unlike other types of startups, social startups are not driven by profit rather they are driven by a powerful cause. Just because social entrepreneurs are fighting for a cause it does not mean that they are any less passionate about success or adverse to the idea of making profit. Unlike traditional startup companies, the goal of most social startups is to make the world a better place. However, there are some social startups who are into wealth creation as well.
Scalable Startups are vastly different from small business startups despite the fact that they too have very humble beginnings. Unlike small business startups, scalable startups aim high. They believe that their ideas can change the world and the perfect examples are Facebook, Twitter, Skype and their likes. Scalable Startup revolves around a simple but powerful concept and they always look for financial investors to raise capital for their dream idea.
The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur by Mike Michalowicz | For a summary according to Mike CLICK HERE
Startupland by Mikkel Svane | For a summary according to Mikkkel CLICK HERE
Virtual Freedom by Chris Ducker | For a summary according to Chris CLICK HERE
Hooked by Nir Eyal | For a summary according to Nir CLICK HERE
Pocket Man by Scott Jordan | For a summary according to Scott CLICK HERE
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]]>A summary of things you should know about Virtual Freedom according to Chris Ducker: Introduction In this episode Chris Ducker takes a deep dive into his book, Virtual Freedom, whereRead More
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]]>In this episode Chris Ducker takes a deep dive into his book, Virtual Freedom, where he provides the ultimate resource necessary for building a business with the help of virtual employees.
In his book, Ducker gives you a step-by-step guide to figure out the jobs you should outsource along with hiring, training, motivating, and managing virtual assistants. The goal of the book is to show you how to buy more time, become more productive, and build your business through virtual assistants.
This book is perfect for entrepreneurs that have outgrown their daily tasks, are thinking about hiring other people, and are operating with a small, limited budget.
I don’t think there are too many books out there that really cover this topic properly. There are a few books that mention outsourcing but they failed to actually show you how to do it. This is your essential guide on finding, hiring, training, managing and working with virtual staff to help you run, support and grow your business.
You can jump in and out but it’s always best to read straight through.
Without a doubt it would be the 3 list to freedom exercise. The reason why this is the one thing that I would want people to take away from the book and take real action on is because it changed my life.
In the introduction of the book we talk about my personal burn out story where I hit burn out after working 16 hours a day for three to four years. I was building my business and had about 100 employees at the time and I hit a brick wall. It became very, very evident to me that I was no longer running my business, my business was running me. We put a plan in place by the end of 2010 to remove myself from the business and become a virtual CEO. Which is what we achieved and I have been doing it ever since. I only work four days a week, I have a three day weekend and I work five to six hours a day maximum. It wasn’t always like this so in the book I talk about my struggle and my demons in regards to that micromanagement and superhero syndrome. From there we set about helping the reader overcome their superhero syndrome that’s within them.
Section one of the book is all about finding and hiring virtual staff. We go through everything from being very real and mentioning the facts that although we would love to just hire one person to do everything in our business, it’s not possible. You have got to hire for the role not for the tasks. And then we start off the entire book by introducing our 3 lists to freedom. The first list is a list of all the things that you hate doing every day. The second list is a list of all the things that you struggle doing and the third list is all the things that as an entrepreneur you feel like you shouldn’t be doing
In section two we go through the actual training of your virtual staff.
Section three is all about managing your VA and we go through all the different types of VA roles and how to manage them properly. We talk about the difference between tasks and projects and how they are managed differently.
Section four is about going overseas or staying local and the pros and cons of doing that.
Section five is my favorite section of the entire book because it starts to really level up everything you are doing from an entrepreneurial perspective and building a real team.
We wrap up with a bonus section where I talk about the most frequently committed mistakes by entrepreneurs when they start building virtual teams and how to avoid those as well.
“Work on your business and don’t be trapped working inside your business.” – Chris Ducker
I am originally from London in the UK. I am a sales and marketing guy and was in the publishing business for a long time over there. I came over to the Philippines to deep dive into the outsourcing world in 2000. In 2004 I set up my first business and sold that in 2008. After that I dipped back into the 9 to 5 for almost two years and then in 2008 I decided to go ahead and start that entrepreneurial journey again which I’ve been on ever since. We now have almost 300 employees and are a multi seven figure business annually. I have a blog, a podcast and speak as well.
I have been involved in the outsourcing business for a long time and particularly since the 4 hour work week came out I have become more active online. It had become very evident to me that there were a lot of people in the same space claiming to be gurus that really had no idea what they were talking about. There were so many false truths being pushed out on the internet that it was actually starting to cause me problems in my business. I wanted to write those wrongs that were everywhere online and provide a resource and an essential guide to finding, hiring, managing and working with virtual staff to build your business.
Crush It! by Gary Vaynerchuk
Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
Buy Virtual Freedom by Chris Ducker on Amazon today
Visit ChrisDucker.com to learn more about Chris and his book
Follow Chris Ducker on Twitter and Facebook
Download the full transcript here (coming soon)
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud
Related books: The Suitcase Entrepreneur: Create freedom in business and adventure in life by Natalie Sisson | The Freaks Shall Inherit the Earth: Entrepreneurship for Weirdos, Misfits, and World Dominators by Chris Brogan | Lifestyle Entrepreneur: Live Your Dreams, Ignite Your Passions and Run Your Business From Anywhere in The World by Jesse Krieger
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