Michael Wilding

Category: Productivity

  • Thaa She Blows

    Thaa She Blows

    Last Friday I needed to get rid of a load of boxes, so I decided to burn them.

    As I burned them I realised what a bad idea it was.

    It wasn’t the giant flames leaping out of the fire pit that got me concerned.

    Nor the smoke which, if the wind had changed, could have blown into the neighbours.

    What actually tipped me off to the bad idea was the Vesuvius sized pieces of ash blowing up from the fire!

    That was when I thought I should probably have not done burnt quite that amount of cardboard.

    Hey ho… all was well and I got rid of a load of cardboard.

    Anyway, on to today’s best stories from the world of business and entreneurialism.

    Ciao,

    Michael

    The Danger of “Not Good Enough”

    This is a short blog post fropm Seth Godin, but I strongly recommend everyone reads it.

    Like most of his content, it’s simple and to the point.

    You don’t have to have pages of content to make something valid.

    Check it out here.

    How to Generate New Leads Without Spending a Fortune

     

    Every brand needs new customers.

    Those of you who have been in business for a while may be doing fine generating high sales from your existing customers.

    But that business model isn’t sustainable forever. There comes a point when you won’t be able to grow without new leads.

    This is especially important for newer companies. Since you haven’t been operating for a long time, you definitely need new leads just to survive.

    But where do you find them?

    Neil Patel shows you how in this article on Quicksprout.

    3 Powerful Ways To Retire Rich

    We all want to retire rich.

    The big question is… HOW?

    Well, this may not have the exact answer, but it’s a start 😉

  • The perfect age to be an entrepreneur

    The perfect age to be an entrepreneur

    Last week was a bit quiet because I had a few email template issues, these aren’t quite resolved yet, but I’m back up and running.

    I’ve also learned a valuable lesson… if I want to get this email out every day, then I’m going to need to write it the evening before. The morning’s are just insanely busy at the moment!

    What’s already coming to light by finding the most interesting blog posts each day, is how the big boys such as Forbes, Inc., Business Insider and Entrepreneur stay at the top of Google searches.

    It’s by sheer quantity of content.

    I’m sure they’ve got their SEO teams working hard as well, but the volume of content, and some of it pretty good, that they produce is incredible. On average they’re each publishing around 100 articles every single day.

    In comparison, the busiest personal blogs I’m following produce three or four articles a day, whereas most are only producing one article every few days.

    How can you compete with that kind of volume of content without a big budget? Honestly, at the moment I’m not sure. But it’s something I’m going to be getting my head around over the coming months

    In the meantime, BeeBee is in the middle of an operation about now, an Trump has been making an ass of himself as usual. In other words… the world is trundling on.

    There are three great stories I’ve chosen for you today, and I’m sure you’re going to love them.

    Over ‘n out,

    Michael

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    There’s No ‘Perfect’ Age For Success In Entrepreneurship

    The Only Requirement For Success Is To Want To Succeed

    A lot of folk assume that entrepreneurs are young, but that’s not necessarily the case. In fact, you get the same excuses from folk who are young as you do from folk who are older.

    • I’m too young
    • I’m too old
    • There’s not enough time
    • I don’t have enough money
    • I don’t know where to start

    But the truth is… these are just excuses. There’s perks to starting a business young, and there’s perks to starting a business when you’re older, they’re just different.

    The bottom line is, there’s no age limit to success.

    And this blog post explains exactly why.

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    6 Expensive Things That Are Totally Worth The Money

    Consider The Cost The Japanese Way

    Years ago, when I was in Japan, I was told that the best way to decide if something was worth the cost was to divide the cost by the amount of times you’re likely to use.

    For example, you may buy a pair of shoes for $300 and are only likely to wear them twice. That gives them a price of $150 per use. If you’re only going to be using them for four hours each time, that’s $32.50 per hour. Pretty expensive for a pair of shoes.

    On the other hand, you may spend $30,000 on a car which you’re going to drive for an hour to work each day each way. That’s two hours per day. You’ll probably also spend a couple of hours each weekend in the car as well. A total of 12 hours per week or 624 hours per year. If you plan on keeping the car for three years, you will spend 1872 hours in your car. That means it’s costing you $16.03 per hour, pretty much half the price of the pair of shoes for $300.

    There are some things though that you should never skimp on, and this blog posts lists the six most important.

    And I’ve got to be honest… I agree with all of them!

    [divider]

    Paying For Software

    Why It’s Worth The Pain

    Sometimes it’s hard to pay for software. It’s hard to see the value in it, especially when there’s often free open source software which will usually do the job just as well.

    Or seem to on the front.

    But here’s the thang… free isn’t always the best value.

    You’ve got to thing about what happens when it breaks, if you want it to do something else or on-boarding support.

    Seth Godin puts it very succintly here.

  • Vegetarian Chicken

    Vegetarian Chicken

    So… it’s turning out to prove harder to get this email out to you every day at exactly the same time.

    My morning’s have gone insane.

    Today we had to go back to Addenbrooke’s for a hospital appointment for Max, which took out the entire middle part of the day.

    I did begin writing this email at 7am, but then I had to leave before I’d finished it.

    Anyhoo… the important thing is that it’s here with you now in all it’s glory.

    See you tomorrow (at some point!),

    Michael

    [divider]

    Vegetarian Fried Chicken

    Here Endeth The World

    “Humans are strange.

    They’ll pay hundreds of dollars to eat food that looks like something and actually is something else in very fancy restaurants.”

    It’s a funny thought. VFC is the new KFC. Yes… KFC are launching vegetarian fried chicken.

    All fast food chains are being pressured into making their food more healthy, and in the UK the government wants people to have more options with less calories.

    So there’s a good reason for it.

    You can get the full story over at Inc. here.

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    6 Things Successful People do Before 9 a.m.

    The Awesome World Of Productivity

    One thing seems to be consistent amongst the most successful people, they always get a lot done very early in the morning.

    Since have a baby, I’ve also found that I get the most work done before 9am. After 9am the day begins to take a life of its own.

    But what are the six things you can do to make sure you’re the most productive?

    Personally, I agree with numbers one, two, three and six. Let me know which you agree with.

    [divider]

    Republishing Old Blog Posts

    Squeezing The Juice Out Of Your Content

    I would say that content is currently the single biggest issue facing most people online today.

    Everyone needs content, and it needs to be damn good if you want to be successful.

    Gone are the days of churning out crap, ranking in Google and making loads of affiliate sales.

    The problem is… good quality content is damn expensive.

    And most folk only use it once, which makes it even more expensive.

    However, content re-purposing can squeeze every bit of value out of your content.

    This blog on Pro-Blogger is an excellent way to get started.

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  • The dawn of a new era

    Having just come back from a weeks holiday in Crete, I’ve decided to change everything.

    The holiday was incredible, we stayed in this beautiful hotel called the Abaton. If you’re looking for somewhere to completely relax and unwind, then this is the place to go. Here’s what our room looked like…

    Relaxing allows the mind to wander, to contemplate and from that comes new ideas.

    One of my ideas is to transform this newsletter slightly. You’ll already notice that the email design has changed, I hope you like the new look.

    But the biggest change is what I’m calling “entrepreneurial shots”.

    Every day I will be finding the three best stories, how-to’s, strategies, approaches and just plain humorous tales from the world of business, internet marketing and entrepreneurialism and sharing them with you in this newsletter (along with my personal brand of commentary).

    Since I look at over thirty websites and blogs each day, it seems sensible for me to share this work with you by distilling it down into drinkable shots.

    So let’s begin with the first day of entrepreneurial shot.

    Michael

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    Using Facebook Messenger And Chatbots To Grow Your Audience

    Automated Conversations… Should You Use It?

    There’s a growing trend of using artificial intelligence in support and sales to do the work of responding to questions.

    It’s estimated that by 2020 over 80% of all interaction online will be done without you interacting with a real human.

    Seriously?!

    Yup, I’m deadly serious.

    Personally, I’m not going to be using them, it just feels wrong (at the moment). However, they’re big news and they’re big business.

    So… if you’ve been considering using them, and let’s be honest you probably have been, then you better make sure you know what you’re doing.

    This article with give you some beginning guidance on it.

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    4 Ways to Develop the People Skills You Need to Grow Your Business

    The Science Of The First Impression

    There’s no doubt that you will grow your business faster if you are comfortable interacting with people.

    And if you’re interacting with people then you’re gonna need some people skills.

    You will either be:

    a) Terrified of networking

    b) Uncomfortable with networking

    c) A networking god

    Very few people naturally fall into category (c). There will be some, but the chances are you’re not one of them.

    Which means you’re either going to be uncomfortable, at best, or flat-out terrified of it.

    But don’t worry, it’s something you can learn.

    The best way to learn is to force yourself to do it, but before you do that there are some basics you can put in place to make it as easy as possible.

    And these are some of them.

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    Facebook You Asshole

    The Two-Sided Tosspots

    You may have figured from the headline that I am not currently Facebook’s biggest fan.

    Why?

    Because it seems to me that the entire (published) principles of why Facebook was created have already been forgotten in the short time it’s been around.

    They’ve reportedly given user data to 60 companies.

    I mean… who the f**k do they think they are.

    Or is it just they’re not making enough money for their shareholders and have suddenly found how hard it is to actually sell user data, which is what the entire businesses value is based on.

    Problem with that valuation is… if you can’t sell it then suddenly your business has no value.

    Ooooops.

    Apple, Amazon, Samsung and Microsoft are amongst the sixty companies that had data sharing agreements with Facebook.

    It’s now being claimed that:

    “Without explicit consent, device makers were allowed to access data of users’ friends, even after Facebook said it would not share such information.”

    Whether it’s true I don’t know, but every time I hear another story about Facebook my trust disappears that little bit further.

    You can get the whole story on Business Insider here.

     

  • Goodbye for a while

    Goodbye for a while

    …but not forever.

    Tomorrow morning, at just after 7am, we fly to Heraklion in Crete, and I’m not going to be working for a week.

    That means I’m also not going to writing blog posts for a week either.

    I’ll still be posting on Twitter at https://twitter.com/mikeywilding

    So if you’re not already following me on Twitter, then head over there and follow me now.

    We’re staying in a new hotel called Abaton, it’s meant to be super-luxurious and the photos look incredible.

    Will it live up to the photos?

    I’ll let you know via Twitter, and possible the odd photo on my Instagram account at https://www.instagram.com/mikeywilding/

    To say that I’m excited is an understatement.

    So, until next week, have a great bank holiday weekend.

    Ciao,

    Michael