Well Crissy Herron is one lady I agree with often. She’s written a great post on how to get something we all need – more time. This post she’ll share how she gets more done in less time… leaving some time left for you to use as you wish!

Get More Done In Less Time by Crissy Herron (www.IndieBizChicks.com)

With summer approaching, you may find yourself with more activities on your schedule – and a lot less time to work on your business. So many things happen in the summer – from weddings and graduations to family reunions and barbecues with friends.

If you’re a parent, your kids are home from school and they want to be entertained. And you still want to find time to enjoy the warm weather yourself. It’s no wonder that people often let their business take a back seat during the summer!

Here are some tips on how to get more done in less time:

Make A List – Start by making a list of the things you need to get done. Writing everything down will clear your mind and allow you to focus. You’ll be surprised at how much more productive you are when your mind isn’t scattered in a bunch of different directions, trying to remember everything that needs to get done.

Prioritize – Once you have your list, start prioritizing your tasks. What are the most important things that need to be done? What are the things that can wait until tomorrow or the weekend? Take care of the most important things first. For example – finishing your ebook is more important than answering a miscellaneous email.

Automate – Try automating as many tasks as possible. For example, sign up for a free account at HootSuite and you’ll be able to pre-write your tweets and status updates and set them to publish up to 6 months in advance. You’ll still want to log-in to Twitter and Facebook and interact with others, but you won’t need to log-in as much.

Note from Angela: I’m working hard to automate my business through my email marketing using Aweber. I’ve set up autoresponders (automated emails) that will go out to market my business even while I’m away at weddings, attending backyard BBQs and more. I’m also working to automate delivering of my coaching programs and products so my customers get their products delivered even when I’m away. Gotta love automation!

Delegate – Many business owners try to do everything by themselves. Instead of overloading yourself and feeling overwhelmed, start outsourcing some of your tasks to a virtual assistant. If you have knowledge and experience to share, you can also take on an intern. When you work with an intern, they will “work” for you in exchange one-on-one help, mentoring, and experience. This can be a very cost-effective way to start outsourcing!

If you enjoyed these tips for getting more done in less time and want to learn more tips, tricks, and methods for staying focused, creating quick content, and more, sign up for my 90 Day Summer Biz Challenge. It’s free to join and starts on June 1. You’ll receive weekly lessons to help you stay motivated and productive all Summer long. Learn more at: http://indiebizchicks.com/wp/the-90-day-summer-biz-challenge/

Is Your WordPress Website Protected? Self-Quiz

Instructions:

Take the quiz (print it out or write on a sheet of paper) to learn if you really know how to secure your WordPress website or blog.

If you pass, congrats! If you fail, click the FAIL button below and find out how you can protect yourself – before it’s too late. (cue scary ‘look out behind you’ music….)

WP Website Safety & Protection Self-Quiz:
(answer questions as they relate to your WordPress website)

1.Do you or your webmaster perform regular manual backups?

2.Do you have a regular automated backup system in place?
a) Do you check on your automated backups on a regular basis to make sure they’re still working?

3.Do you know what to do in the event of a major website catastrophy? ie. Hacked, spammed, virus installed on your website, hosting crash, etc?

4.Is your WordPress website updated to the newest version of WordPress?

5.Do you update your WordPress site as soon as a new security update comes out?

6.Do you give your Virtual Assistants and other ‘helpers’ their own WordPress accounts?

7.Do you have a spam plugin installed and working properly?

8.Do you know how to move hosts quick if you need to?

If you answered NO to any of these questions then it’s time to learn how to protect your site!

Come join us at http://www.WPStudyGroup.com

It’s one of my absolute, all-time favorites.

Henry sees Lucy in a little breakfast diner and is instantly attracted. He’s got game that day and helps Lucy add a cool waffle door to her cute waffle house… a love connection is made.

Henry leaves feeling pretty good about the prospect of seeing Lucy again and when he returns the next day he is thrown for a loop to realize that Lucy has NO short-term memory. Lucy’s forgotten all about Henry and when he approaches her joking about his hands smelling like fish (he works at an Aquarium) she takes a total freak out and in no uncertain terms tells him to back right off!

Does Henry give up because it’s hard, or, seemingly impossible?

Nope…  he spends the next 50 days working his ass off to make Lucy fall in love with him all over again, every day.
(awww makes me wanna cry just thinking of it…!)

Henry found something worth working hard for and he wasn’t willing to take no for an answer.

Isn’t love supposed to be easy? Well not for Henry. He did it anyway.

I’ll let you go find the movie on Netflix or Amazon to find out what happens in the end… it gets me every time I watch and I end up bawling my eyes out!  Spoiler Alert – He gets the girl!

The point?

Someone might of told you building a website is super-easy, seconds to put up and all that.

Someone might of said you can make $10,000 in a DAY on the internet.

Someone might of inferred that internet marketers are lazy people who don’t want to work…. and you wanted to join them?

I get it. I wanted to be lazy, too. I thought maybe I could just ‘strike it rich’ and get ‘lucky in internet marketing’ like maybe Henry wanted to be in love.

But I wasn’t lucky in internet marketing. I worked DAMN hard! I mean DAMN hard…. not a little bit hard.

I wanted this bad and I didn’t give up when I found out I had to work harder to get it.  Like Henry I was willing to try over and over and over and over and over again…. and over again… as long as I had to.

• I was willing to spend nine months on 4-6 hours sleep per night to quit my job.
• I was willing to pull my hair out working with clients who were hard to please.
• I was willing to live in my parents basement while my friends were buying houses so I could build up my business.
• I was willing to invest money into the services that helped my business grow.
• I was willing to keep giving it time when it felt helpless and I was told to just give it up already!
• I was willing to do whatever I had to… period.
  (As long as it was ethical and honest of course, which should go without saying.)

It gets under my skin a little when people come to me expecting to pop up a website in a few days and get the same results someone who’s been doing it for 10 years can – that’s just not realistic! At the same time I get it, I really do. We all want what we want and we want it now.

The good, no GREAT, news? The sooner you realize this is not a business of instant gratification the sooner you can get to work ON the results you want and the sooner they will manifest themselves into reality!

This CAN absolutely be done! I almost quit many times but I kept coming back… and I’m so glad I did…

So I’m sorry it’s not easy to build a successful business on the internet… but that’s the truth.

Are you willing to work harder?

It all started the day I stumbled into the Internet Based Moms forum run by Alice Seba. I was a brand new mom, with a brand new business and not a clue how to make money on the internet. I also had a very strong desire and suspicion that it was possible to fulfill my dreams of working from home full time, online.

That was 2004. The free forum at Internet Based Moms introduced me to many great business ladies I still know and network with to this very day. I soon found out that Alice Seba was partnering with a couple of other smart ladies named Kelly McCausey and Lynette Chandler to create an exclusive ‘mastermind’ site for moms who wanted to learn more about how to be successful at working online.

I was SO IN!

It was so exciting to hear the group was starting, join on the launch special and meet many other ladies with the same goals and aspirations as I.

The fee to entry wasn’t huge, but for me it might as well been since at the time I was on maternity on a very limited budget with a new baby to support. I ended up dropping out and rejoining a few times until 2006 when I joined for good.

Joining Solo Masterminds – The Smartest Business Decision

I can say without a doubt that joining Mom Masterminds, now Solo Masterminds, was one of the smartest moves I EVER made for my business. I’ve recorded a video that tells you all about my experience with the group:

My time came when I started a Virtual Assistance business, Star VA. Little did I know that posting a super-low-priced special on the mastermind forum would literally change my life. The offer was for 10 hours of work at $50. I had income from my factory job so my only goal at the time was to get experience as a VA so I could start charging more and getting clients and finally QUIT MY JOB!

This Group Helped Me Quit My Job

Well because of the fabulous members of the group I ended up with 11 clients in less than 24 hours. Oh yes I was happy but it also meant I was going to be BUSY. That meant 110 hours of work for me to do! Well I did it, and then I got some more, and some more with many of those first clients becoming repeat clients. Within nine months I QUIT MY STINKIN FACTORY JOB and came home to work full time.

My last paycheck came in on May 24th, 2007:
I haven’t looked back since.

What I have done, though, is stayed in touch with the members of that forum.

Solo Masterminds is responsible for teaching me so many of the skills I use in my business today. I learned about copywriting from Alice Seba. I learned how to make websites in Frontpage from Kelly McCausey, and then to make blogs in WordPress from Lynette Chandler. I’ve gained amazing tips from Melissa Ingold on working smarter in my business, instead of harder.

There’s No Way to Estimate Value – It’s Been Priceless

I’ve gleaned so much valuable information from the other members and the conversations in the forum that I can’t ever put a price on the value it’s given me.

I believe the support and encouragement I got from Solo Masterminds is something that helped me push through the hard times (and there were many), through the times when no one else around me thought it was possible to make a living online, through the times when I was convinced that this online thing “just isn’t working” and that I should “stop living with my head in the clouds” and “go get a real job”.

What I got as a member of Solo Masterminds was support, guidance and friendship. I’d recommend the group to anyone. The group is so established that there are many success stories I could point you to. The friendships run deep because of the special understanding we all share about what is really required to build a successful business on the internet. I’ve been so lucky not only to meet my mastermind group friends ‘virtually’ but also live and in person as well:

This Mastermind Group Pumps Out Successful Marketers:

For example Nicole Dean of NicoleOnTheNet.com was one of the first people I connected with on Solo Masterminds and she’s now doing extremely well for herself as an online marketer. She’s the owner of EasyPLR.com, IncomeCPR.com and many other great sites.

Tiffany Washko of NatureMoms.com is another long-time member of Solo Masterminds who’s done amazing things as an affiliate marketer and business owner.

Wendy Wood of GeteCovers.com is a very talented graphics designer who provides a highly-needed service for internet marketers and does very well for herself!

Susanne Myers of DailyAffiliateTasks.com is a super-smart affiliate marketer wh

o knows how to draw a fantastic income by promoting other people’s products.

Christine Steendahl of DineWithoutWhine.com has build herself a successful niche business.

I’m proud to consider myself an original member of this group and I highly recommend it as a real long-term source of business support, inspiration, motivation and education.

Join Us? I Think You’ll Never Regret It!

CLICK HERE to JOIN SOLO MASTERMINDS

This group is literally my ‘secret weapon’. Now you know it, too…

If you’re worried that no one is reading your email messages here’s a blog post to check out:

http://www.reginabaker.com/no-one-responds/

I’ve been invited to be a monthly guest contributor to an internet marketing question each month and this month’s question was “What do you do when no one responds to your emails?”

Check out my answer at the link above!

Oh and could you do Regina and I a little favor and leave your comments and thoughts? We’d love to hear from you…

I love marketing

However I’ve often had an aversion to ‘marketing tactics’.

I’ve looked at marketing tactics like evil tricks to play on our human psychology and instincts to convince us to buy stuff we wouldn’t normally buy.

I never wanted to be labeled a ‘charleton’ so in the past I’ve strongly resisted many of the common tactics: gradual price increases, limited time bonuses, limited time offers, urgency and scarcity in marketing.

One of my main objections I think comes from when I myself fell for a marketing tactic that had me putting a $10,000 coaching program on my credit card!!! I had some serious buyers remorse for that one and luckily managed to get a refund on the program.

Marketing Tactics Can Be Used For Good!

Yes there are people out there who only care about getting your money anyway, any how they can get it. That doesn’t mean the tactics themselves are evil or even bad. It’s human nature to procrastinate, I do it all the time! If there is no reason to DO IT NOW, we won’t. I now often am the happy receipient of a scarcity or urgency offer. I don’t allow them to make me throw all common sense out the window but I DO grab up great offers when they come buy. It’s a win-win for the marketer and for the customer.

Marketing Scarcity – How I’m Testing It

There’s a new product that I’ve been checking out called Scarcity Samurai. I haven’t bought it yet but I’m considering it. In the meantime I watched the video on this page and was really taken by the information that they share. Scarcity Samurai is created by the makers of Marketing Samurai and they’ve sold oodles of their keyword research tool over the years.

As a matter of fact I bought Market Samurai back in 2008 and hadn’t really used it until just recently when my friend Lexi posted about Scarcity Samurai on facebook, which reminded me of the product!

Here’s the video that make me really think about scarcity and how to use it in my business, specifically using a Countdown Clock Plugin for WordPress (more on how YOU can do this in a sec). Beware that the offer at the end (Pro version for $97) is no longer available and the Pro version is $197:

So that video promotes Scarcity Samurai. I was very tempted to buy it and I’m fairly certain I WILL buy it. What I decided to do first though is test out the claims they’re making – that using a countdown timer in an offer makes a difference in sales. It’s important because I want to make an informed decision as to whether a product is going to bring me the ROI I want, which is at a minimum to earn back the price I’ve paid and of course at an ideal to multiple my sales across the board.

In this case I have no doubt this company makes a good product since I already own one of their products. I also trust their reputation as professionals in the industry. I don’t even doubt that this plugin works and does what they say. I figure I can test out the idea, make the money to buy the plugin and then use it to create an evergreen marketing system!

Free WordPress Countdown Plugin

I went on a search for a free WordPress countdown plugin and found one that’s really cool.

The Uji Countdown Plugin. It’s also seriously easy to use.

I’ve been having fun setting up this plugin and getting ready to test it on my sites. For example, if you’re here within five days of this post you’re going to see something like this, which promotes my WordPress workshop next week:

I’ve also added a big countdown to the actual sign up page:

Really excited to see how these work out for me. I can tell you just looking at the countdown is doing something for ME and reminding me I better get prepared to talk about Multimedia WordPress stuff! And hey go check it out when you’re done here to make sure you don’t miss out on the upcoming workshop! (see what I did there?)

Why Does the Countdown Plugin Work?

Remember McGyver? It was a wildly popular show, right? Something psychological and physical really does seem to happen when you’re racing against time to get something done, especially when it’s life threatening like in McGyver’s case.

In our case it’s not so life threatening but it COULD be life-changing. Taking action on a product that can help you make more money CAN put your business over the edge to do many things you couldn’t do before… like quit a job, donate to charity, take a big vacation, etc.

That’s why the countdown can be so powerful.

Why Buy It, When You Can Get It Free?

Honestly at first I thought I was pretty smart finding a plugin that was free to do the same thing a $97 (or $197 if you have more than one site) plugin does.

The problem with using the free plugin is that you’re not building a passive, evergreen system. You’re creating a ‘job’ for yourself because maintaining a large number of countdowns or campaigns is going to be a huge pain in the but!

It’s my goal this year to create some very well-planned autoresponder sequences that I can send my peeps to and provide huge value in. I was actually LOOKING for something just like this plugin (Scarcity Samurai) so that I could create time-limited offers within the autoresponder series. This has a HUGE value. I know because I work my TAIL OFF promoting my four-times yearly Website Design Mojo course. A combination of autoresponders and a built in offer that is time limited is going to free up my time to go create more products and create more systems… I can only see this being a huge benefit to my business.

Watch out! I might have too much fun playing with this plugin and get a little countdown crazy. Fair warning . Seriously, though, I can’t wait to report back to you on how this goes…

How about you? Any ideas on how you could use scarcity marketing in your business? I’d LOVE to hear from you and how you can apply this to what you’re already doing! Let’s start the discussion right here, post a comment and I’d love to offer my feedback.

You don’t want this happening to your site so please pay attention and protect yourself. I thought it important to bring you this information now as there have been some issues with increased attacks on WordPress installs over the last little while.

The short version if the number of ‘brute force attacks’ on WordPress installations have about tripled over the last couple of days and that’s a security risk to your WordPress site.

Brute Force Attacks are computerized attacks on your site that try to crack your login information and gain access to your site.

You need to keep your site protected and here are some quick tips for that:

• Change your passwords! Do NOT have the same password across all accounts, especially the email that you used to register your site, your hosting and your WordPress logins – they should ALL BE DIFFERENT!
• Make sure your WordPress version and all your plugins are up to date.
• Don’t use ‘admin’ as your WordPress username. If it IS your username, change it. (Matt Mullenwig, founder of WordPress says if you do so you’ll be in the 99% of sites that will probably never have a problem: Matt’s statement on the attacks). WARNING – When deleting a user you need to make sure you don’t delete your content associated with it (ie. the ADMIN user)… If you don’t know how to do this hire someone who can so you don’t lose your stuff!
  
• Use the WordFence plugin to get an idea of who’s trying to access your site and how often. It also includes login security to prevent brute force attacks.
• Backup your site(s)! Prevention is great but if you miss something you could still get hacked. Make sure you’ve got a backup and you’re looking at a minor inconvenience compared to a potential major catastrophy! Backup Buddy is an excellent tool to create WordPress backups.

Look I know you’re busy like me so if you only do ONE thing from that list above make it be that you create site backups! Get it done ASAP because once you’re hacked, you’re hacked and then it’s too late.

Does an increase in attacks on the software mean you should stop using WordPress? Not at all!

Just remember that it’s greatest weakness is also it’s greatest strength! The amount of time and resources that developers spend keeping hackers out it a fantastic service to us as site owners and as long as you follow some security precautions you should be confident enough to go about your business and know your website will be there when you get back

Take care and keep that website safe!

Also make sure you get on my email list and grab your Seven Website Stumbling Blocks for more advice like this.

Angela

It’s super easy if you’re in a hurry with this simple process and takes less than 60 seconds! No need for embed codes or plugins – this is copy/paste simple.

Here’s how:

Want more help with stuff like this? Check out this program: WordPress Multimedia

It was a dream come true – at first. Having very little business experience and not a very good idea of what I was getting into I quickly became overwhelmed.

I know there are people like I was out there right now. You know what I’m talking about if you’re currently dealing with clients you don’t want to work with, feeling the demands of projects that don’t excite you and wondering when in the world you’ll get ME TIME.

This isn’t the business you meant to create, is it?

I know for me it wasn’t. I know when I imagined quitting my job and working from home I didn’t imagine trading one boss and 40 hours a week for 15 bosses and 65++ hours a week.

You have to be very careful as a service-business owner to choose your projects wisely.

The Service-Business Overload Cure

As service providers we are in a unique position to gain insight into many different companies, especially if you specialize. This gives you the ability to gather information, gauge results and become an expert in your chosen field.

You need to leverage that knowledge into a product so you can earn more passive income!

Virtual Assistants:

• Create a product on how to hire great people and get more done.
• Specialize in Email Marketing? – Teach clients how to build an email list with an info-product.
• Specialize in Social Media? – Create a product on how to market with social media.

Copywriters: Create a product on how to get more sales with great copy, or how to copywrite.

Website Designers: Create a course on how to design a website (I did it here)!

Stop Thinking Hours Per Dollars and Start Thinking LEVERAGE…

If you’re a stressed out service-provider and don’t see a light at the end of the tunnel right now I URGE you to consider your current business model and start adding income that does not rely on the hours per dollars model of working one on one.

Look at your current hourly rate and see what you can do to increase it… whether that be creating a product one-time and selling it over and over again, or coaching a group of people instead of working one on one.

Know that it is up to you to DESIGN the business that provides you freedom of life and quality of work. Make sure you’re choosing smartly and if you don’t like what you’ve created – change it!

Angela Wills

p.s. If you want help I recommend you go sign up for Kelly McCausey’s 42-Day Product Launch Program (she’ll walk you through the whole process!).
It’s here >>>>>> 42-Day Launch Incubator

I teach a six-week intensive WordPress training program that isn’t free. I’ve also put out a lot of free WordPress training videos and tutorials to help you learn how to build WordPress websites and blogs that get major results.

Let’s get to it, shall we? Here are some free training resources for you:

Free WordPress Study Guide Sample:

Here’s an example of one of the study guides you’ll see in the Website Design Mojo course (minus the section on setting up email – you’ll get that when you sign up!). Keep in mind this is a tiny percentage of the videos and resources you’ll get with the course:

http://www.websitedesignmojo.com/freepeekWDM.pdf

The Difference Between WordPress.com & WordPress.org:

Free WordPress Auto Install Training Video:

Edit a WordPress Page or Post:

Did you know that my flagship course, Website Design Mojo includes the following:

60+ training videos.
6 full weeks of daily email coaching.
24 LIVE Q&A webinars per year.
Over a dozen printable resources.
$300+ worth of bonuses and free services.
Lifetime retakes, free!
Lifetime updates, free, too.

My program will teach you, step-by-step, what you need to know to get a website up, set it up for profits and even provide the same service to your clients.

You’ll learn through the training videos, the daily email coaching, the LIVE Q&A webinars and the resources. I’ll even do the initial installations for you and give you free themes and plugins that would cost you hundreds of dollars to buy!

If you’re not signed up yet but you’re ready to join the course and make big leaps in your business this year with new website skills then click below to sign up and make sure you use the coupon code:

http://www.WebsiteDesignMojo.com/sign-up
Coupon Code: mojo

Customers login here:
http://www.marketersmojo.com/member/member.php?tab=add_renew