What's Been a Waste Of Your Time and Investment?

I like that you're making changes in your life and changing your focus to help others.

I've definitely come to see that blogging should not be my main focus. It can be a good useful tool. but not where I should pour all my energy into.

I've had both experiences - where blogging has been productive and revenue producing, like my first blog where I made 5 figures in 4 weeks. Other times, it's been a waste of time and energy.

The good has always been where I had a clear CTA and knew exactly what I wanted the reader to do. e.g. Click here and buy this Clickbank product that's closely related to this blog post. Knew the keywords I wanted to rank for, knew the competition, knew what to write to covert them into buyers.

The bad has always been where I didn't really have a clear goal. Instead, it was just about sharing knowledge. Heart and soul into blog post. While people shared and bookmarked the page, it didn't really have what I consider to be meaningful results, although it builds goodwill.

An example of the good is HubSpot. e.g. Personalize the Online Experience for Prospective Students. It has clear CTA's throughout that are custom for the blog post topic. Not just vague "Click here to subscribe and learn online marketing".

EXACTLY right! Most of us get so caught up in that. It's time to slap some sense into ourselves and get back to work!

I think you've nailed it there! I've been guilty of buying that shiny new object and then realizing I wasn't that committed to making it work.

So let's say NO this year to buying shiny objects and investing MORE into what we already have and making it work!

Back to simplicity!

you see...this is one of the keys right here...

Stop everything (including buying courses and tools), that does not produce: meaningful relationships and profit.

Most of us know overnight success is a pipe dream, but still do the things that hold us back from our own success.

I spent an easy $100k+ over 18 years, and sure I have had successes, but in the end my whole life had to be destroyed to the ground for me to actually learn how to win this game long term.

Learn from my mistakes in the previous paragraph; please.

Best,

~Hodge

PS: Productivity tip...take your tasks that suck the most of your time, that you also hate or procrastinate on, and move them to the top of your to-do list...it's all downhill from there.

Jason took the words right out of my mouth!

Thanks for sharing that great point!

We're sometimes gullible to believe marketers who tell us the road to riches is as simple as spinning some content and choosing a good few keywords and we can conquer ANY niche, etc. Fact is, in certain markets there ARE those big giants to compete against... so it's going to take a BIGGER battle plan than slapping up some reviews or spun content.

Too much time reading emails and not enough time doing things that will move things along.

I've been working on pruning the number of email lists I'm on. I'm not saying that they don't have value for someone, just not enough for me to read every email when often one in ten has something I'm happy I didn't miss. Reading the other nine is time gone forever.

Even the lists I'm happy to remain on, I tend to skim before spending time reading. In particular, I tend to be more aggressive with the delete button when I get obvious affiliate pitches. "My good friend, X, just released..." gets a quick glance at the title before being added to the trash folder. Same for webinar invites.

And before someone replies with that vintage whine about "marketers bitching about marketing", I'm not. It's just part of the resolution to waste less time looking at shiny objects and worrying about missing something and more time taking care of business.

I'm guilty, too!

Uh... you should see my hard-drive.

But, I can say that I'm finally improving in this area. I try to take some personal time on Fridays for catching up on podcasts or videos for extra learning... during the work week I try to kick myself into high gear to be more productive and get my main priorities completed. Content creation, editing, image designs and product publishign are my ACTION words.

I make myself EARN some "Friday Freedom" as a reward.

99% of people do not realise how the multimillionaires do it.

They buy things, then they TAKE MASSIVE ACTION and SELL THINGS.

If you get caught up in the BUY BUY BUY [and I will do it later] type routine, be prepared to make CHIT money! $0.

I went from $0 to over $500 a day fast, when I stop buying crap, and actually did stuff. Excercises like....

- build a list
- build great content
- help people
- study what successful people do
- take a notepad and write down my ideas
- write ways on how to TAKE ACTION

Then I actually went out and took action.

Sure you can buy stuff, heck, I would even encourage it, but if you are buying stuff to just look at, and are one of those guys that DO NOTHING, and SAY..... "CHIT! I will do all this stuff later!"

Then you are not ready to get in on this IM game.

Actions breed results, so if there has been anything I can say, that has brought in HUGE REWARDS for me in 2015, it was to invest time in myself, and spend the hours creating content, and then marketing that content.

So you should not be wasting time reading this post, go away and do something, that will actually get you closer to getting to your goals.

Say to yourself....SELF "I want to make $5000 USD and month!" and then say....ok
how am I going to do that.

Even if you have a full time job, wake up earlier and spend time, buying a domain, setting up 1 or 2 page websites. Get in and build a nice optin page, or something like that. and Get started on building your list.

Those 4 things I have told you above, and actions have been taking by a few warriors in here, that have bought in $XX,XXX per month. Yes, well ok, its a little more complex than having a website, and building a list, you need traffic, but what I am saying is do 1 little thing each day, to get you closer to your goals!!!

So if you are one of those people who just keep buying ebooks, and reading them, stop and actually take action on one of them, the results can be mindbending if done properly.

I have bought in $6,000 per month from a 2 page website. And that takes practically 1-2 days to set up. Then spend my time driving traffic using social, twitter, g+, content, paid traffic.

i guess my overall point is, if you are NOT DOING, do not expect to be GETTING DOLLARS sitting in your account when you wake up in the morning.

Simple as that!

You're HILARIOUS!

Of course you took time to post in this thread.... I guess that was a waste of time, too. We can all learn from this.

Yes! I think this starts when we write out our main priorities -- place them at the very top (the money maker activities)... and squash the little time wasters that are settled on the bottom... outsource those or automate what we can.

I've been guilty too!

Fact is, we've often been given the information we need to succeed, but we don't follow through... Rather than get busy implementing something, we turn around and look for something easier and better. We run in circles like those hamsters and will never be productive until we stop running mindlessly.

Ha! Such a simple answer... but pinpoints a HUGE time waster....especially for those who say they don't have enough time to make it work online.

That's one thing that I'm certainly "keeping" this year and implementing more of -- that is, YouTube. I, too, find it a perfect fit with online marketing and generating qualified leads.

Here is a trick,

stop playing around on FB and learn how to target, study and advertise to your intended audience.

If you do this, and stop screwing around, you will realize that advertisng on FB with lots of testing, its actually DIRT CHEAP, and very very targeted, and easy to get sales, if you do this right!!!

looking at how boring your friends lives is, is not building a business. Right now in 2016, i predict that there is going to be HUGE REWARDS, to people who advertise on FACEBOOK.

Its cheap, fun, and done right, your average ROI% on investments, can be quite large, especially if you advertise to smaller targeted groups. That is the secret!

I sort of agree... because there is a lot of rehashed stuff out there being sold for a quick buck.

However, I have actually grabbed some valuable content at $7 from some trustworthy marketers.... but, you have to realize that this is part of their sales funnel... and I'm sure they would like you to buy more of their products in the future. There's not anything necessarily wrong with that -- it works for them to build qualified leads who are not just looking for another "freebie."

The downside it that it's hard to decipher on the internet between what's fluff and what's not. It can certainly be a waste of time and lots of money buying them all to find out. It's better to find a good mentor who you feel really wants to help you, then invest in them when you've seen proof that they know what they're talking about and that they truly want to help their subscribers / customers.

As long as you sell valuable and helpful content to your customers, I don't see anything bad here with this, honestly. If you managed to produce a proper offer for people to actually consider with truthful information, then where's the downside for anybody involved? I only see win-win.

I've wasted a lot of money on tools I don't really use. Leadpages being the main one. It's a fantastic service, but I rarely use it as I prefer to code everything myself. Ugly always performs better for me!

I give it it's plaudits and it's a product I recommend for certain people but I'm throwing money away not using it. Numerous outsourcing websites I no longer use, few other membership sites I've never used like safe-swaps for example... I really should have a tidy up with these things

Moral of the story: Don't buy stuff you don't need! Simple!

In terms of time, I wasted a lot of time when I started out by trying to do things the "easy way" and by cutting corners. TRUST ME, that doesn't work. If you're gonna do something, do it properly!

Half assed effort = half assed results (at best).

Cheers,

Shaun

Wasting too much time putting my mind on competitors, sometimes make me feel annoying but not creating value, it really damages my passion and energy.

I think a better way is to think about how to improve or be creative to the same topic and taking actions so to focus on self-growing and be productive.