GTD Method of Online Success – Part 2

April 23, 2010

GTD Idea #2 – Put Ideas into the Storage Systems

We as the internet marketers are experiencing the phenomenal power of an information overflowing age. Like a sword that is sharp on both sides, the information explosion on the internet has both advantage and disadvantage to us.

It is our advantage to have many marketing channels to reach our prospects, but it is our disadvantage to catch up restlessly with all these new ways of marketing online.

Brian dump ALL your important ideas and to-do items on the STORAGE SYSTEMS consistently is the key to succeed in 21 century.

3 ways to capture your ideas in the STORAGE SYSTEMS:

#1 – Albert Einstein way
Do you know how Einstein capture ALL his ideas when doing his problem solving? He WRITE down all his ideas on a piece of paper or on the chalk board. Don’t overlook the simplicity of just writing down your ideas. Even such an intelligent person like Einstein, he does it too. Use a notebook (e.g. Moleskine) or the yellow notepad to hold ALL your business ideas. When you use your hand to write, you create the natural body movement. It can increase the flow of the idea easily.

#2 – Mindmapping
Mindmapping is a very powerful way to do accelerated learning, problem solving, brain storming, or business planning.

Mindmapping is the term coined by the brain expert Tony Buzan in U.K. It is a process to capture our thoughts and ideas in the semantic way, and that is how our brain holds the information and knowledge.

The mindmapping process is very simple.

We start by writing down one particular core theme or objective of the thinking process. For example, we have an objective to create 1,000 opt-in. We write down ‘create 1,000 opt-in’ and circle it in the center of a piece of paper.

And then we branch out the ideas like a tree by adding any thoughts that come to our mind related to this objective. The key is to let your ideas to flow without limitation. You will come up with ideas like the kind of traffic method you can use, the ebook you can read to learn, the people you can ask for help at skype, the kind of squeeze page you need, and so on. For each idea, you can branch out more detailed ideas like how to get it, what web site may hold that information, and etc. (here is the mindmap example of creating 1,000 opt-in).

#3 – Voice recording

Many people like to use voice recording to capture their thoughts immediately without stop doing their current task like driving, or doing exercise. You may use your mobile phone, a mp3 player/recorder or check out the right device at amazon.com. You may need the transcript service to type out your ideas if you do that regularly.

GTD Idea #3 – Organize and Prioritize Your To-do Items

Focus is the key to succeed in internet marketing business. After brain dump all your ideas and to-do items, you have to identify the top important items to work on in each category.

4 key categories in internet marketing business:

#1 – Content / Product Creation
Information are the currency in internet marketing. Your readers are looking for valuable information from you either free or paid. Spend time to create valuable content / product. You can it on your own, buying from PLR, or outsourcing to your business partners. Use the content at your blog, newsletter, articles submission, ebook creation, PDF report, video, podcast, and other marketing channels.

#2 – Traffic generation
There are many traffic generation methods. And there are pros and cons for each one. Don’t buy in the hype that one way is better than others. You can only find it out by testing it in YOUR business. Pick ONE traffic generation method to master and make profit first.

No matter which one you choose, there are challenges to meet. The challenges won’t go away because you pick another way of generating traffic.

#3 – Pre-selling
The most valuable asset in your business is the RELATIONSHIP with your prospects and customers. It does not do any good if you have 1,000 subscribers but they don’t buy from you. The simple formula to build relationship is: know, like, trust.

Find ways to make your subscribers like and trust you by saying authentic things, giving them valuable information, showing them how to get solid results, over delivering what you promised, and helping them to resolve their problems quickly. Pre-selling is all about building that trusted relationship in your market.

#4 – Monetization
This is the main reason to be in business. Be honest with yourself and with your subscribers about that. Find ways to generate income by making offers to your subscribers. If you don’t have any product to offer, join the affiliate programs in your niche.

You can present your offers by simply putting up a banner at your blog, inserting those affiliate product link in your ebook, mentioning your / affiliate products in your newsletter, present it as a solution in your Free report, talk about it at Twitter, Facebook, forum, and so on.

Use Pareto 80/20 rule. Pareto rule tells us that 80% of our business performance comes from 20% of our business activities. Ask yourself what are the top 20% to-do items in each categories.

5 FREE Powerful Tools Recommended:

Notepad
I find the most handy and helpful tool in my PC is Notepad that comes with Windows (Mac also has Notepad). It is extremely fast and easy to use without any initial learning. If you open many copies of Notepad at a time, that is a bit clumsy. You can use another free tool called Notepad++ that has a tab function like Firefox to hold many notes in one window. (notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/)

Ever Note (web based and iPhone version)
If you use Gooogle Notebook before, you will find Ever Note is a more enhanced version of that. It has a character recognition function. If you take a picture with words in it like meeting notes or your own hand writing notes. You store it at evernote.com account. You can use keywords search to dig out that piece of information even it is a hand written form. It is an amazing tool. The only drawback is its slower speed comparing with Notepad. (Evernote.com)

Remember The Milk (web based and iPhone version)
It is a great tool to capture EVERYTHING and put it into different project category for personal and business purpose. For example, you can setup categories like traffic generation, content creation, JV partnership building, health building, book reading list, shopping list, reward list and etc. And you can insert a tag like ‘next-action’ to your action items to define a next-action list. It is one of the favorite tools used by many GTDers. (Rememberthemilk.com)

Mind Meister (web based and iPhone version)
If you would like to create mindmap and share with more people like your team members or your partners online, Mind Meister is a very handy and colorful mindmap tool for that. It has the function to import other mindmap formats from other platforms. However the free account allows you to create 3 mindmap only. (mindmeister.com)

Freemind (pc/mac based)
Another popular and excellent mindmap tool that is used by many internet marketers. It is absolutely free. And you will find many helpful business building mindmap in Freemind format flowing around on the internet. (freemind.sourceforge.net/)

The book series The Chicken Soup For the Soul has created the phenomenal success in the book industry. According to the official site, with more than 112 million books sold to date, almost 200 titles in print and translations into more than 40 languages, the total retail sales of Chicken Soup for the Soul branded merchandise reached over $1.3 billion.

When the founders Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen started to promote the book in 1993, they asked many experts in the book industry for advices and come up with more than 1,000 to-do items and marketing ideas. After working consistently on that list for over a year, the book eventually became a New York Times best-seller.

As Jack said in his book The Success Principles, “You don’t get paid for what you know, you get paid for what you do.”

If you want to become successful in internet marketing, you need to come up with your list of action items and knock them down one by one. By taking consistent actions daily, you will gain momentum and reach your goal in a faster pace.

In GTD Method of Online Success – Part 3
You will learn how to:
- Take Actions and Build Momentum
- Review and Refine Your Results