More on My Favorite Topic - Work Smarter, Not Harder

Tonight I'm going be speaking at the Virtual WAH Expo (you can sign up, no charge here, if you're interested).

The topic of tonight's seminar is one of my favorites: "Work Smarter, Not Harder"

As I was preparing my speech, I thought there was some things that would interest you. After all, what online business owner isn't interested in getting more with less work. :-)

To me, in comes down to 4 key points:

· Value your time
· Leverage the strengths and time of others
· Implement Passive Income Models into your Business
· Don’t be afraid of technology

Here's some more thoughts on each of those:

Value Your Time: You need to set and limit your working hours. You probably run your business, so you can stay home with your family&/or have more freedom. Well, being a prisoner to your computer doesn't do either of those things for you.

In addition, when you limit your work time, you are more productive. If you have only 3 hours to get work done, you're more likely to stay focused and do what you need to do. If you have set aside the whole day to work, you'll probably slack off and hang out at forums, check your stats endlessly or find other distractions. Sorry to say - that's NOT working.

Leverage The Strength & Time of Others: Don't think of yourself as a solo entrepreneur...think of yourself as a team. You can leverage the strength and time of others by:

• Outsourcing: Never try to do it all yoursel!
• Partnering with others reaching the same target market as you (your competition doesn't need to be your enemy!)
• Recruiting and training an affiliate force: Just setting up the script for your affiliate program isn't enough...set up a stellar program instead.
  
• Being part of mastermind group that shares business strategies and experiences.

Implement Passive Income Models Into Your Business: Outsourcing and having your own well-managed affiliate program are ways to generate passive income. Other ways to add more passive income to your online business are:

• Join affiliate programs: You don't have to fulfill all the orders and provide customer support.
• Learn search engine optimization (SEO): You don't have to get technical. Follow this link for an ultra-simple tutorial.
• Implement pay-per-click strategies: Get steady and highly-targeted traffic to your website...try Adwords of Yahoo Search Marketing. Perry Marshall has a great tutorial to get you started with Adwords.
• Use autoresponders: Effectively automate your follow-up process with our prospect and customers.
• Backend Sales & Upsells: When someone is already going to buy from you once, they're more likely to buy more. Make sure you make extra offers.

Embracing Technology: This one might be tough for some non-technical people. Honestly, I'm not very technical and I get intimidated by technology...but I do know that if I can automate something in my business, it saves me time and money. That's why I have a programmer on hand to help me with stuff like this. I don't have to implement the technology myself. I just use it to my advantage in my business.

Some uses of technology can include...but the possibilities are ENDLESS

• Autoresponders
• Shopping carts
• Membership sites
• Automating content addition to your sites
• Making customer/prospect management easier and more profitable
• Customer feedback, comments, reviews
• Affiliate program
• Tracking advertising and split testing

So please, stop doing so much work! You're business, family and friends will thank you for it!