Image by bcymet via Flickr

Have you ever been asked, “I’ve got good news and bad news.  Which do you want to hear first?” I always answer bad news.  I like to get it out of the way and then end on a good note.

So…

I’ll start with that.

My blog got hacked into a few weeks ago.

It was automatically being forwarded to other sites in some sort of scheme to get clicks to ads.

Fortunately it wasn’t forwarded to a porn site.  Which I’ve heard sometimes hackers do for kicks.
(Sorry to disappoint  guys, not that type of newsletter. )

So that put a little damper on some content I had planned to roll out to you by now.

Not to fret though.

I noticed it in time and though there was some downtime not to mention a few expletives

“Those good-for-nothing &*$#$@#%^”…

(Well, I didn’t actually say it…but I thought it.)

Anyway, the point is I got it fixed.

Obviously the bad news is that it can happen to you too. 
And according to stats, it most likely will.

The good news…

You can learn from my experience and I’ll show you how
to prevent it.

Be on the lookout for a post on the subject in the near future.

But first, on another quite different topic…

With the launch of Google Buzz and some prominent marketers canceling their Twitter accounts, many people are asking, “Is Twitter dead?”

I’ll be posting tomorrow my take on it and what I think you should do.

For first notice make sure you register for my newsletter on the upper right.

As always leave me your feedback on the blog.  Would love to hear from you.

See ya soon. 

It would make sense to think that the more things you can get done in the least amount of time the more productive you would be.

Heck, if you can do many things at the same time even better, right?

Wrong!

Sure, I’ll admit that at one time it seemed that bouncing the baby on my lap, writing a blog post, listening to a teleseminar and starting dinner all at the same time were a great use of my time.  The more things I could possibly fit in at the same time became like a multi-tasking badge of honor that was somehow indicative of my super mom meets She-ra wannabe persona.

Of course, the burnt dinner, the crying baby, the unfinished blog post and not being able to recall one single thing from the coaching call told quite a different story.

So I’m gonna make it easy for you and sum up the truth about multi-tasking in ONE sentence.

Here it is…

Multi-tasking KILLS your productivity.

Instead of concentrating your efforts like the sun’s rays thorugh a magnifying glass,  multi-tasking spreads the beam of your focus so thin that it reduces to almost nill the effectiveness of what you do.

So instead of doing more things well, you do more things half-arse or not finish them at all.  Which we would all agree is a bad thing.

Instead of feeling confident about goals accomplished, you feel failure at the things still left on your To-Do list.

Instead of being clear about what you are doing at the moment, your thinking becomes muddled and hazy.  What’s even worse is that you develop a habit of erratic thinking that spreads to all areas of your life.

What did I do to overcome this?

I had to re-train my mind to focus.  You see, focus is a skill like painting, or hitting a baseball, or playing the guitar.  And like any skill it improves with practice.

If you can learn to focus on the task at hand,  wether its spending time with your kids, editing a video, writing an email to your subscribers, or simply enjoying a day off away from the computer you’ll be able to accomplish whatever you want.

Which is what being productive ultimately is.  It’s not about being busy for the sake of checking things off your list.

It’s about doing the things that will get you from where you are to what you want. Whatever that is for you.

So today I’m going to share with you two things you can do that will help build your “focus” muscle.

First, get and use a timer.

Using a timer is probably the single most important thing that helped me shoot my productivity through the roof.  You can use a stopwatch, your iPod, an online timer, an old-fashined handheld one, whatever you want as long as you can countdown in increments of time and it gives you some kind of alert when time is up.

Here’s how to use it. Decide what you are going to focus on and set your timer.  Do not work on anything else until the timer goes off.  Turn off the phone, skype, IM, Twitter, email, and any other distractions.

If you’ve never used a timer I suggest you start out with 15 minute increments.  As you get better on focusing you can increase to 30 then 45.  I wouldn’t recommend going past 60 minutes at the most unless you get obsessed with your work and are really hard-core like me.   You know if that is you.

But for most, stick to 30-45 minutes max.

When the timer goes off, take a break.  Physically change what you are doing.  Stand up and walk around, go to lunch, get a drink, whatever works for you to clear your mind.

After that, set the timer again and re-focus.  You can work on what you were working on if you didn’t finish or go on to something else.

After some time, something interesting will begin to happen.  You won’t need the timer.

Once you develop the habit of focus, you’ll be able to pull yourself in to that state as easily as putting on a pair of socks.  It just takes a little bit of time and practice. (Pardon the pun. )

I said I would share with you two things to help your productivity and focus, but this post is getting a little long so I will be posting a follow-up to this next week instead.

I’ll tell you about a great sweet little free tool I’ve been testing the past few months that helps you easily and effortlessly track how productive you are on the computer and also my absolutely favorite way to banish distractions in your business.  Probably not what you think.

Be on the lookout next week.

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There was something in the following video that Seth Godin said that is a paradigm shift on how we have marketed and been marketed to in the past, and how that no longer works in bringing about significant change and contribution to the world.

He goes on to list the qualities of leaders and entrepreneurs who challenge the status quo and bring about things others thought was not possible.

There were so many golden nuggets in this talk that I could write a whole blog post on almost every sentence. Leave me your thoughts and comments.

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Last week I sent a survey to my list asking them whether they wanted more, less, or the same amount of email from me.

I couldn’t believe the results of the survey!

I wasn’t sure what the results would be…

But here they are:

RESULTS

5.9% said "Yisel you’re sending me too many emails, please slow this train down to about an email once a month."

11.8% said "Yisel, keep things like they are, email me about once every other week and keep me posted with what you think will most help me."

82.4% said "Yes Yisel send me emails any time you have something on your mind – I want EVERYTHING!"

So, I guess I’ve got my work cut our for me to them the best.

Before I sent out the survey I thought the majority would want about the same amount of email from me.

LESSON

If you guess what you’re subscribers want, you’ll be wrong. If you really want to know what they want – ASK THEM!

I did also introduce the 5.9% that said I’m sending too many emails to the UNSUBSCRIBE button.

After all, if I’m not gonna serve them the way they want, it’s best we part our separate ways.

P.S. I also told my subscribers I was working something out for them that would REALLY REALLY help them with blogging, even if they didn’t have a blog yet.
I’ll be sending them an email on this tomorrow.

But, if you’d like to cut in front of everyone before tomorrow and see what it is – here is the link:
http://budurl.com/blognow

I was on Facebook and saw this ad on the sidebar.

I ‘especialy’ thought the line ‘represent your business profesionaly ‘ was a nice touch.

I could say so many things about this ad, but I better not.  Grandma might be reading.

I’ll just let you make your own conclusions…

I read an email the other day that referenced the most absurd article .

The End of American Capitalism?

Come on.

Sure, it’s no surprise that the media has been all gloom and doom when it comes to the economy.

The stock market just last year was at a 14,000+ high point and today is now at around 8000…almost 50% less!

Sure it’s sad that lots of people have lost their jobs and some have even seen more than half of their retirement washed away.

But let me explain why you shouldn’t panic.

See, most people are programmed to see the glass half empty.

So they miss out on the half that is FULL.  They fail to recognize the opportunities that abound and exist in these type of conditions.

Let’s take the stock market for example and a company like General Electric.

Last April 2008 it was worth $400 Billion.  Today?  $120 Billion.

So the person that sees the glass half empty will cry "Boo ha ha" and go hide his money under the mattress.

The person who see the glass half full will see OPPORTUNITY and go buy hundreds of companies at ridiculously low prices.

This is just one example.  Same thing is happening in real estate and lots of other places.

So, the end of American Capitalism you say?

Well I say boloney!

As long as entrepreneurs like you and me, continue to see opportunity and CREATE solutions for problems people are willing to pay money for – American Capitalism will continue to be alive and well.

The entrepreneur is the solution.  People willing to imagine and create products, services, or charities that make other peoples lives better.

It’s because of the american entrepreneur that I have hope.  Hope in me, hope in YOU, and hope in America.

Believe in yourself and what you are capable of doing.

I AM an entrepreneur,  are you?

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• “Quack, Quack”, said the duck.

Okay, this post is semi-serious semi-smart a#$ (kids in the room )

Here’s the serious part. Some of the most effective headlines have an element of curiosity and mystery. To do that, you trigger your readers’ "I’ve-got-to peak-in-your-medicine-cabinet-when-I-use-your-bathroom" type of nosiness. But whatever the fancy psychology, you simply want your reader to have to click because they have to find out what’s behind the door.

Plus some fun and outrageousness doesn’t hurt the cause and builds the "I like you factor."

Anyway, here’s the funny part. Inspiration can come from anywhere .

For example, check out these 10 best country break-up song titles from Q magazine:

1. I’ve been flushed from the bathroom of your heart
Johnny Cash

2. Here’s a quarter (call somebody who cares)
Travis Tritt

3. She’s acting single, I’m drinking doubles
Gary Stewart

4. My wife ran off with my best friend and I sure do miss him
Wayne Carter

5. You’re out doing what I’m here doing without
Gene Watson

6. Ive got tears in my ears (from lying on my back in bed while I cry over you)
Homer and Jethro

7. You’re the reason our kids are ugly
Loretta Lynn

8. Tequila makes her clothes fall off
Joe Nichols

9. She’s got the goldmine (I’ve got the shaft)
Jerry Reed

10. If drinking don’t kill me (her memory will)
George Jones

See what I mean? Hey, I told you this was semi -serious. Emphasis on the word semi .

So, which was your favorite? Leave your mark in the comments below.

P.S. Believe it or not, I’m actually working on a blog post about Facebook from one of the titles above. I’ll tweet about it when it’s done so make sure you are following me (Yisel Guajardo on twitter ).

Until next time…ciao.

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Last month I was honored to be a guest writer on Michelle MacPhearson's Social Marketing Blog.

I talked about the rush to acquire friends on social media sites and five ways you can be more likable.

You can read it here: The Social Marketing Friend Rush: 5 Ways To Be Likable On Social Media Sites

I’m torn. Should you follow back everyone on Twitter that follows you?

I got on twitter on August 2007. None of my friends were on twitter yet and very few in my niche. So I started following anyone who had anything remotely to say that I was interested in. Plus I also followed the few “smores (social media whores)” or people with large numbers of followers.

Smores? I know, funny. That’s what Guy Kawasaki calls them.

Anyway, I had no clue what I was doing, so I just started following as many people as I could.

As my own twitter followers began to grow, and my status grew to “smorrette (Not quite a smore yet)”, it was just impossible to keep up with my twitter feed (a timeline of the tweets of those you are following).

Plus, I could no longer take the time to go to every followers page and decide whether I wanted to follow back or not.

So I started unfollowing a bunch of people that never tweeted, didn’t follow me back, had a picture I didn’t like, etc. Yes, a picture IS worth a thousand words.

Then, in came automation. I subscribed to Tweetlater which is a service that allows you to future post tweets or schedule tweets in the future, like when you’ll be on a plane or jumping out of one.

It also had two features I began to use. It sent an auto reply message to everyone that followed me and also followed them back automatically.

So, the number of people I was following grew to hundreds. And I was back to square one. Which was a completely useless and crowded twitter feed.

So I did the next logical thing which was completely ignore my public feed and focus instead on posting my own tweets of interesting links, sometimes completely useless mundane tweets, and replying to @replies and direct messages (DM).

This presented a problem though. There were twitterers and topics I was very interested in following.

But in order to do that I had to use twitter’s search function, which took time (not to mention was a huge distraction.)

Solution = I began to use Tweetdeck.

Tweedeck is an application for twitter that not only lets you tweet but also create groups of people to follow, set-up custom searches of keywords and topics, plus see all of your replies and direct messages all in one place.

So I’ve been able to segment the people I want to follow into different lists. For example, I have a list with internet marketers and another one for friends or people I know personally among other lists I’ve created. This lets me see only the tweets I want to see without having to weed them out of my public timeline.

Which brings me back to my question: Should you follow everyone back that follows you?

It seems that there are three things you could do, with popular social media “smores” split between the first two.

1. Follow everyone back.

There seems to be an unwritten rule of twitter etiquette, at least that’s what supporters of this tactic believe, that doing so is not only courteous but it also encourages goodwill between your followers and you and therefore people will respond to you more and everyone who follows them will see this, which leads to more exposure for you. Big twitterers like @guykawasaki and @scobleizer follow this method.

2. Only follow a select few.

Others believe you should only follow those you have a real interest in following. This keeps your feed manageable and although people can’t direct message you if you’re not following them, you can still see the replies sent to you.

It also gives your profile some exclusivity since you only follow certain people. Most of the well known internet marketers like @ed_dale or @masscontrolkern follow this method.

3. Follow as many people as you can as fast as possible.

This is one I definetely don’t recommend. It’s called Follow spam and it could possibly get your account suspended by Twitter. Follow Spam is when you follow a mass number of people, not because you are interested in their tweets but because you want to gain attention by generating views to your profile and clicks to your website. It’s the shotgun approach to twittering.

You’ll be seen as a spammer and possibly have your account suspended by Twitter. Some people have even created programs to automate the following which lets them follow thousands of people at the blink of an eye.

So there you have it. What do you think, to follow ALL or only a few?

Well, how ’bout for now just following one more.

You can follow me here: http://www.twitter.com/yisel

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Last month I was sitting at Eben Pagan’s GuruMastermind Event and during one of the opportunities to ask questions a lady walks up to the mic and says she’s a realtor and has an investor client who wanted to sell these luxury end condos but didn’t want to use proven classified ads because they didn’t align with their highty tighty image.

(I just made up “highty tighty”, but you get the point, right?)

So instead of placing a newspaper ad that would pull interested prospects ready to buy (good ‘ole direct response marketing), they wanted to use an ad with a pretty picture of the condos and a nice logo.

Sure image and name recognition branding certainly have a place – if you have millions of dollars to burn through and don’t care to measure any direct return on your advertising dollars.

But for solopreneurs or small business owners, where is the line between “looking” pretty and having a certain image and making money?

Do you need both?

Well, it depends on the outcome you’re seeking. And I assume if you have an online business then that outcome is to make a profit. Otherwise, you’re out of business. And it goes without saying that the profit should come as a result of giving outstanding value and over-delivering in your products and/or services. That should be a given.

(By the way, even if you’re a non-profit, you’re still selling something. And that something is what you want people to do, which is probably donate.)

But do you need to look pretty to make that profit?

Must you give up beauty for braun? Do you need to sacrifice image to elicit an action and get a response?

Not necessarily. You can have both. And if you only had to pick one, it would have to be braun. Which in this case is getting people to take an action because you’re giving them what they are looking for. Wether it’s clicking a link, or downloading a report, subscribing to your newsletter, buying something, or making an appointment to see those great luxury condos.

But one thing is for sure. You can’t just have beauty.

Otherwise you’re like a great looking guy or gal who you’re dying to meet only to find out when you do, that they can’t hold an intelligent conversation.

So how do you do both? How do you create a story with your image that also gets people to respond favorably.

Well, when you’re building a house you first have to lay the foundation and have the house built, before you can paint and decorate.

So this is what you need to understand before you work on looks:

You need to know what the purpose of your site is. Start with the end in mind. What is it that you want the visitor to do?

In his ebook Flipping the Funnel, Seth Godin says that a website must do these two things.

• Turn a stranger into a friend, and a friend into a customer.
• Talk in a tone of voice that persuades people to believe the story you’re telling.

Seth goes on to say that a website can only cause four things to happen to your visitor:

• She clicks and goes somewhere else you want her to go.
• She clicks and gives you permission to follow up by email or phone.
• She clicks and buys something.
• She tells a friend. These days in addition to word of mouth this is so easy to do with social media sites like StumbleUpon, Digg, or Del.ic.cious

So as long as any of these four outcomes happen, the way that you do it doesn’t matter. It could be a classic direct response sales letter, or a site that combines pleasing colors and great copywriting with video and animated characters. It doesn’t matter which way you do it, because as technology changes, the means to persuade will change too.

My highest converting website thus far is a simple landing page with no images or video. Who would have thought? Of course, that might change and that’s why constant measuring and tracking is important.

But as long as the foundation is well laid and you keep the above principles in mind (which won’t change), you won’t make the mistake the real estate investor made and think it’s just all about looking pretty.

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