www.48 days.com, as reviewed by Rick Curtis

Do you ever find yourself searching for direction in your life? Maybe you’ve started to question your true purpose for being here on this earth. At least for myself, I know that these types of thoughts go through my mind on a some what daily basis. Personally, I have found the 48days.com site to be a wonderful resource that offers numerous tools and a wealth of information for putting life in perspective. By using this resource I have been able to better analyze myself. Through the guidance of this site and its resources I have been able to realize my calling for motivating and inspiring others to follow their hearts and chase their dreams. Especially, in a world that is on such a “go” mentality, sometimes we settle for what’s in front of us at the moment and leave our true desires unturned. This site focuses on the premise that each and every person should respond to their calling or their true passion.

The creator of the 48 days site is Dan Miller. He offers courses that will help you take action and put in motion the steps you need to take within 48 days time. Dan Miller used to host a nationally syndicated talk show but has since chosen to answer questions on a weekly basis from his listeners. An incredible resource he offers free is a weekly pod cast of his show. On his show he answers questions that his listeners have pertaining to their careers, life and direction. He also has numerous works on his site that he has created that help direct a person’s career and life. I would highly recommend checking out Dan Miller’s website at www.48days.com.

This is a guest post by Rick Curtis.

Review of www.daveramsey.com

I would strongly recommend that you check out Dave Ramsey’s website at www.daveramsey.com. This website provides tools that help people clear up their debt and build wealth in a very smart way. I was originally turned on to Dave by my parents, which I will forever be grateful. Dave teaches people how to be smart with their finances and the lessons that he teaches are some that I have taken with me throughout life. In Dave’s words he shares common sense advice about life and money the same as your grandmother would teach. Personally, I find myself learning and bettering myself just by using his materials. On his site he has numerous tools such as financial wealth calculators and links to people that he trusts in different industries like real estate, life insurance and various others.

Dave Ramsey operates a nationally syndicated radio show called “The Dave Ramsey Show” . On his show he answers questions from callers regarding their finances and life. Dave’s story is quite an intriguing one. He became a millionaire very early on in his life through the real estate industry and by the time he was 30 he had lost it all. After that Dave started his own business on a card table in his living room by helping people clear up their debt and build wealth. In the process he has become an extremely successful and respected authority on the subject of finance. He also has designed financial education programs that have been utilized in many churches and other organizations as well as in schools all across America. I would highly encourage you to visit Dave’s website at www.daveramsey.com.

“This post is by Rick Curtis. Rick runs a personal development website which can be found at www.ricksdreammachine.com. His site focuses on sharing messages and resources that are aimed at inspiring and motivating people to chase their dreams and follow their hearts.”

Follow us on Twitter

Now that you’re on Twitter, let your followers know where else they can find you. Include your website when you first make an account, or go to settings-profile-web and insert it there. This will make your website known to those who click to see your homepage, they shall find it in the right hand column of stuff that includes your name and location.

After that, make it official by clicking on the ‘goodies’ at the bottom of all Twitter pages and follow the instructions to put a ‘Twitter’ button on your website to make it easy for others to find you the other way around. Now you’ve just created a full circle for your clients, friends and family to find you no matter how they approach the Internet.

InSights is a group that works with entrepreneurs as well as small businesses and dental practices on how to effectively use social media marketing strategies.

Whose website is it?

Your website is not about your organization.

It’s about your users, your constituency, the audience or market that your organization serves. Every decision related to design, content and function of a site must be made with the needs of your audience in mind.

Your website is not about you.

It’s not about your personal likes and dislikes and tastes and preferences. Your personal opinions do not matter, and should have no place in determining what your site looks like or how it acts. Only business considerations matter. Everything must be decided with the user’s needs in mind. Get your ego the hell out of the game. Got it?

It’s not your website – it’s your users’ website.

Your site should not be designed for your benefit. It should be designed for the benefit of your users, your constituents; your customers, your prospects, your members, your contributors, your volunteers, your whatever.

Your benefit comes from serving the needs of your users.

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Understand why your website is important

Understand WHY your website is important to your business.

website1 Understand why your website is important A recent study indicated that around 70% of people looking to buy a product or service will visit a company’s website to get more information before they will contact the company directly. And you don’t know that these people are even there. And you don’t know who they are. So you can’t communicate with them. The only tool you have available to move them to the next step in the sales process is your website. And that tool has ONE chance to do its job.

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Five Seconds, At a Glance, Quick and Easy

3642119413 d1c89c2bd1 m Five Seconds, At a Glance, Quick and Easy There are several rules to remember when looking at your marketing. This applies to paper, print and web marketing.

1. The Five Seconds Rule: What do your visitors see when they visit your page. What makes your site stand out. Does a visitor get a quick look at who you are, what you do, and answer the question of why they are at your site. Follow the directions in this post over at Sazbean to give your website, and others that you know, the five seconds test.

2. At a Glance Rule: How long does someone look at your flyer, or print ad whether in a magazine, advertising publication, or even your website. At a glance can they figure out what you want to be saying? Do this test, pick up a newspaper or magazine. Glance at it for 3-5 seconds. What was your eye drawn to first? We did this test, hands down images of people or even in some cases animals caught our glance. If your ad is buried on a page full of ads, what should the elements be in the ad that someone’s glance is directed towards your spot. Are you paying for advertising that fails the at a glance rule? Hmmm, something to think about.

3. Quick and Easy: Have you ever gotten a flyer and needed to find information quickly, but couldn’t seem to find it? There are many purposes a flyer can have, and some we try to give it that it is not really intended for. If you are creating a flyer for an event, make it quick and easy to within 5 seconds, take a glance, and find the date, time, and relevant information. Or, if your flyer is an informational piece, make it quick and easy for someone to understand what they should do as a result of reading the flyer. A word of advice, don’t hand someone a flyer unless they ask for it. We don’t carry around flyer organizers, nor do I have a flyer file on my desk. If I go to a trade show I keep the flyer until I get back to my office, then it is run through the 5 seconds, at a glance and quick and easy test. If it fails any one of the three, chances are that it is going in the circular file.

What do you think? Do your marketing elements, your website, flyers, and BUSINESS CARDS pass the tests?

But is it really free?

This is a guest post by Tom Harris, Your Marketing Coach. Tom helps entrepreneurs and small businesses develop and execute marketing plans. He specializes in website usability and effectiveness.

If you have a business website, the information in it is free to whoever wants to come read it. Maybe you have a blog, and everyone in the world can read your blog posts for free. But it bothers you that you never know WHO is reading your site content or your blog posts. If you did know, then you could market to them. And you certainly want to build up your email list.

So, you have this great idea – you’ll come up with a document containing a generous amount of detailed, valuable and really useful information (an e-book, a whitepaper, a whatever), and you’ll give it away for free to promote yourself and your business, BUT you’ll ask for a person’s email address in exchange for letting them download the information. How logical – they get the information, you get to add a new contact to your email list. Good trade, right? Why wouldn’t everyone want to take you up on this offer? I mean, you’re just asking for their email address, not their name and phone number and detailed driving directions to their house!

Well, a number of studies suggest that merely asking for someone’s email address will result in about half as many downloads as not asking for any information at all. And don’t even think about asking for MORE than an email address, as many companies still do.

How good an idea is it to say, “OK, I’ll give you something, but you gotta give me something first.”?
Here’s the big question: Which would you rather have – (a) a number of email addresses that you can send unsolicited/unwanted messages to, or (b) twice that many people who now have your information in their hands? If you think the most important thing is to simply “get your name and message out there”, then consider making the information really, totally free.

Connecting with people in person. Can we consider this the same as a user experience?

3297205226 a12b175d49 m Connecting with people in person. Can we consider this the same as a user experience? I have a friend who is an awesome marketing and website coach (if you are reading this blog post, I am sure you know who you are). One of my favorite parts of his presentation is where he outlines the user experience in terms of a website, and shares that the first five seconds of a users experience on your website is simply to get you five more seconds of attention. Every element of a website needs to have a purpose, or maybe it shouldn’t be there.

What if we treated our new meetings and interactions with the same rules of interaction? The first five minutes of our discussion are the basis for me giving you permission to have five more minutes of my time. What if we had a stopwatch, that kept resetting in these intervals, and at any one of them when you’ve had enough it was okay to walk away? How many of your conversations would end early? How much time are we spending non concerned about the user experience as it pertains to our in person interaction? I bet we would show much more value on our time and that of others if we treated our in person interactions as unique user experiences with the same permissions.

Interesting concept. If you got to the end of this post, I’ve held you for five of these user experience web intervals, which I believe is a great accomplishment in itself. What is your measure of the user experience, both online, and in person?

InSights Group

We are doing company launches, brand management, running companies, and in general trying to keep up with you in changing the world!

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