Bob greene: when you're good at something, you'll tell everyone. When you're great at something, they'll tell you. Greene: if you're an entrepreneur who's founding their first company, networking events seem like a godsend. He says people who started million-dollar businesses weren't the people he saw at networking events. Greene: if you're an entrepreneur,

Stop trying to get noticed and start building something worth noticing

Eople from your community are reaching out to you via linkedin or email to invite you to a networking event. Customers contacting you via your support box or social media to tell you how much they love your product. A third great indicator is when people start reaching out to you on linkedin to ask you for coffee.

How to Know When It's Time to Network

If it's not time to network yet, then you focus on making something worth sharing. Like Luke, you keep your head down until it's time to come on stage.  What “doing the work” means is vastly different for everyone depending on what line of business they are in, but there's one piece of advice I give to everyone, regardless of what they do… 

What Do You Do If It's Not Time to Network Yet?

If you're an artist, post pictures of every piece you complete. If you make apps, post screenshots of development, prospective designs, and company updates.

Practice in Public

If you find yourself thinking “I need to build my network,” you probably don't. If you have a good product, you'll be able to show up to only a handful of networking events each year to maintain a thriving professional network. If you think you need to build your network, what you probably need to do instead is read a few books and put in the work to make your company great.  Networking works when you have something to offer the crowd that they want. Give them something worth wanting. 

In Conclusion

My free course 10x your productivity is what you need to stop wasting time and finally start getting stuff done.

Want to 10x Your Productivity?

Stop trying to get noticed and start building something…

Stop Trying to Grow Your Startup by Networking

There are 1,440 minutes in a day. Do you know who has this random fact memorized? Executives and entrepreneurs. The ceo is the modern-day superhero.

Tips for new entrepreneurs and executives.

Self-driving money doesn't exist yet. But you can still automate the tasks of investing and building wealth. The goal here is to set up a system that buys back your time, preventing you from clicking transfer buttons and moving money around aimlessly each week.  Once your wealth-building system is set up, your money will be working for you day and night, all while you go on living your life. This is the actual dream.  Here's the framework I use to automate my investments. 

1. Automate AMAP

Building wealth takes a long-term mindset. As you approach retirement, when you'll need the bulk of this money, you'll want several accounts growing alongside each other. The main reason for this is taxes. Having different tax-advantaged accounts gives you flexibility now and later.  This combination of accounts offers the most tax benefits.  The smart order of withdrawals during retirement, to save the most on taxes, is typically 1) Brokerage, 2) 401k, 3) Roth 401k, and 4) HSA for medical expenses along the way. 

Open the right accounts

This is where automation happens. Once you have the right accounts set up, turn on auto-deposits going into each one. Your employer makes it easy to accomplish this with your 401k since it comes right out of your paycheck.  With the other accounts, like your brokerage, you can easily turn on automatic deposits to be pulled from your checking account and into your investment accounts at an amount and frequency of your choosing. I have mine set up as bi-weekly deposits, around the same time my paycheck hits my bank account. 

Turn on automatic deposits

Let's say you choose an investment portfolio that's 60% stocks, 40% bonds. That's the one that lines up with your goals in this example. Over the course of weeks and months, the stock portion of your portfolio might outperform bonds and become an even bigger piece of the pie. Maybe it's 70% stocks, 30% bonds now.  To get your asset allocation back to your 60/40 portfolio, you'll want to sell 10% from stocks and add it to bonds. Most Robo advisors and retirement plans make this super simple with an automatic rebalance feature. Turn it on, and you're good to go. 

Turn on automatic rebalancing

Yes, I'm serious. It adds up quickly, and you won't miss the “spare change.” In 2020 I saved an extra $2,500 using a micro-investing app, all without noticing the money leaving my checking account.  Here's how it works: download a micro-investing app (my favorite is Acorns) and link your spending accounts. When you buy coffee for $4.50, your purchase is rounded up to the nearest dollar, and that $0.50 is automatically invested in a diversified portfolio of low-cost investment funds. It's one of the sneakiest ways to save and invest more money, and it takes very little effort on your end. 

2. Invest Your Spare Change

If you have 3–5 goals competing for your income at one time, you'll probably be investing differently for each one. Investing for financial independence in 20 years will not look the same as saving for a house down payment in three years.

3. Get Crystal Clear About Your Goals

Yes, it's boring as hell to talk about insurance and estate planning. But as they say, building wealth is one thing…keeping it is another ball game. Morgan Housel made this clear in his book The Psychology of Money .  “The Forbes 400 list of richest Americans has, on average, roughly 20% turnover per decade for causes that don't have to do with death or transferring money to another family member.”  What makes up your protection plan?  Do the hard thing. Batch this boring (but incredibly important) part of your financial plan this weekend. You won't regret it. 

4. Build Your Protection Plan this Weekend

There's too much noise thrown around the finance world. If every headline and stock price movement actually mattered, you'd have no time for the rest of your life. Instead, you'd be glued to CNBC, watching Jim Cramer shout about stocks until he has an aneurism.  Skip the noise and time-suck. Instead, curate the “need to know” information that has a real impact on your wealth by signing up for an email newsletter.  Here are a few I read every week. 

5. Subscribe to a Finance Newsletter

Twitter is powerful because you can curate a feed of smart people and learn from them every day. For investors who want to better understand the world around them, these are just a few people to follow on twitter.

6. Follow Financially-Smart People on Twitter

The ultimate flex when you're short on time is hiring someone smarter and better than you at building wealth. The feeling of overwhelm, especially with taxes and investing, drives clients to seek help. Do you think jeff bezos or bill gates spend their time clicking transfer buttons and picking stocks? Hell no.

7. Hire Someone to Build Wealth For You

At some point, you face the law of diminishing returns. There's only so much time in the day to split between work, family, and hobbies. Just as you would hire a virtual assistant or begin building a team in a growing startup — with success, consider using these tips to scale your personal wealth-building efforts.

Final Thoughts

7 Ways to Build Wealth When You’re Low on Time

Jeff goins has an amazing saying about the way to think about writing: you make money so that you can make more art.

Create art and make a living at the same time

In the book, he talks about an exchange he had with a young woman who wanted to become a best-selling author. He gave her advice on marketing, promoting, and selling her work. The young woman rejected his advice.

Decide Which Type of Writer You Want To Be

You can choose to write in an unprofitable market, but don't get upset if you don't make much money from your writing. You can choose to focus on what you want to write over what audiences want.

You Can't Have Your Cake And Eat It Too

To make money writing, start by not focusing on money at all. In most businesses, you tend to break even or lose money in your first few years. In the fourth year of my writing career, i made more money in a single year than any other year of my life.

Take the Counterintuitive Route to Profitable Writing

Some writers hate my approach to writing. Going about your writing like a business owner, like a professional leads to quality and artistic genius.

The Choice Is Yours

Create art and make a living at the same…

Three Strategies You Can Use to Become a Profitable Writer

Year of pandemic living has millions of americans rethinking their career path. But does pushing all the time and making your career a significant part of your identity really lead to a richer life?

Gut check your hustle.

In a famous survey of stanford mba students, 87% of them felt they were in the top 50% of the class. The moral of my story is we are all replaceable.

We think we're special

There is a way to hustle and still have balance, though. Build up your support system over time, and soon your career fuels your life inspirations rather than your identity.

How to maintain your hustle and still have a life

This Hugely Viral LinkedIn Post Might Make You Tweak Your Career Aspirations

Writers need to be open to a flow state, but we must never think it is natural or sustainable. A flow state is the magical place that writers can get to. A writer's purpose is to write, not to surrender to the fear of creating the mediocre. A writer's goal is to write the very best story he can.

Producing highly creative work requires one to abandon this mystic pursuit and all its upshots along with it

Verlyn klinkenborg's several short sentences about writing is almost a decade old. The author expounded on ethics of writing that are as relevant today as they were when the book was first published.

Verlyn Klinkenborg: There is hardly any correlation between reading and writing experiences

The act of describing a face has the effect of impairing your otherwise effortless ability to subsequently recognize that face. Our unconscious does a better job at recognizing the face of a stranger when we don't think too much of it than when we do.

Malcolm Gladwell: Overthinking leads to jinxing

The art of writing is not a fight to win the love of the audience. It is a struggle to keep trying, whether the experience is good or bad. Don't worry about finding a flow state, friend.

Producing highly creative work requires one to…

Why Writers Should Avoid Striving for Flow State

Organic reach has plummeted on instagram and facebook. Yet, on pinterest — where things aren't oversaturated — there's still hope.

Unlike Facebook, free clicks are easy to come by

The major benefit to using pinterest for entrepreneurs is that you can get clicks to your site, hopefully leading to more readers or the sale of a product or service. Unlike other social media sites, pinterest is really a search engine.

Benefits of Using Pinterest for Entrepreneurs

When you're trying to market yourself or your business as an entrepreneur, the last thing you want to do is waste time learning a platform that doesn't work. Before diving into Pinterest, you should first consider these major factors.

Is Pinterest Marketing Right for You?

Opular niches can still be repined on pinterest. Niches with lower search volumes will naturally take more time to build.

#1 Consider Popular Pinterest Niches

The animal niche isn't the most popular category, but it's growing because it's perfect for pictures. Compare that to a less visual niche, such as drywalling.

#2 Consider How Visual Your Niche is

If you primarily target men, it may not be the best social media for you. The male userbase is growing thanks to categories like parenting, technology, and men's fashion. You should also consider the age of your target demographic.

#3 Consider Pinterest's Demographics

Pinterest allows people to directly click through to your website. It can translate viewers into readers or customers. In contrast, pinterest marketing could be useless if your business is only local.

#4 Consider Your Location

If your content, product, or service can be found or bought online, that's the first sign you should look into marketing on Pinterest. Next, you'll need to determine if your niche is popular on the site. If it's a visual topic, you're more likely to drive traffic. The site can be a waste of time for entrepreneurs whose businesses aren't online or whose target demographics differ from Pinterest's.

Summary: Should You Try Pinterest Marketing?

Unlike Facebook, free clicks are easy to come by

4 Signs You Should Try Pinterest Marketing

Bob greene: i don't like the traditional selling way, where you have to dedicate your time and life to convince a guy he should buy your product or service. Greene: top salespeople understand they must learn to feel comfortable doing the uncomfortable. He says he has a passion for helping others, and he has a passion for helping others. Greene: top salespeople understand they must learn to feel comfortable doing the uncomfortable

Inbound marketing is a business methodology that attracts customers by creating valuable content and experiences tailored to them.

Siva devaki created a stewardess agency, starting from scratch, directly facing the world of sales. 92% of buyers would engage with an industry thought leader compared to 62% who would be ready to connect with salespeople.

Study and Learn How You Should Approach Your Sales Process Today

S an entrepreneur managing four companies simultaneously, i can see the world's changing. As creative knowledge workers, we drill down to the source to make sense of what's happening in the world on our own terms. We are also developing our own language, our own culture, and our own approach to productivity.

Discover the New Economy You Have in Front of You

Inbound marketing is a business methodology that attracts customers by creating valuable content and experiences tailored to them. For me, inbound marketing is like sowing seeds. Becoming a content creator is a viable choice today.

2 Key Concepts You Need to Understand to Start Selling Your Products or Services

If you're really covering and attending to people's needs, you will sell your products or services. If you're a content creator and love what you're doing, you can stay at the back office.

Learning More to Sell As a Content Creator

Today, things have become much easier for those, like you and me, who don't like the classic selling process. Your talent and software do the tough stuff for you: newsletters' software, Google, online communities, etc., are your “salespeople”. Think about your product, listen to the people that connect with you, give them what they're demanding. Ask for feedback. Polish your product. Become better and better as time goes by. Avoid suffering. Be happy. Enjoy your work. Build a better world. Breathe. Live.

Takeaways

If You’re a Content Creator Who Hates Selling, Try Inbound Marketing

Optionality isn't this masterful and liberating facet we should all embrace. And it's killing the business we love.

Why keeping your option opens isn't liberating. It's stifling.

The idea of optionality in business is that we're always keeping ideas and options open for us to explore. It's more than writing down an idea in a notebook and circling back to it later. It's actively keeping your options open by pursuing these ideas or darting between ideas. It's this notion there is something better and you're always looking and willing to take it. Here are some examples of optionality: 

So, what is optionality?

Having choices in business is important. Being able to choose between two suppliers to stay price competitive. Having a choice of staff members to prepare for sick leave and high demand times. Those choices are there to help us. But optionality is more than smart choices. When we rely on optionality, we never fully commit to any business idea. 

Why is optionality killing our business?

To decide is to forsake all other possibilities and options. By committing to optionality, we're undecided. You can't run a business always sitting on the fence.

Optionality means you're allergic to decisions

Insurance isn't an option that prevents you from investing in your business. There is often this mentality that whatever you invest in should fulfil the needs of your backup plan too.

Optionality stops you from necessary investment

Optionality puts a barrier between you and the full extent of what your idea could become. By the time you may have reached the end of a business idea, it no longer exists.

Optionality prevents you from seeing an idea to the end

It's impossible to breed brand loyalty from your customer if you continue to confuse them. It's impossible to breed brand loyalty from your customer if you continue to confuse them.

Optionality confuses your customer

Writer by trade and passionate storyteller by nature. She writes about figuring about love and relationships by analysing her experiences.

Optionality ensures you're the jack of all trades and the master of none

Why keeping your option opens isn’t liberating. It’s stifling.

Optionality: The Silent Business Killer

Hello Entrepreneurs! This article is the second of three that will hopefully take you on a journey from budding to fully-fledged entrepreneur. To fully benefit from the course I recommend trying out the “assignments ” that are provided in some of the chapters. You can find the first part here . I know your time is worth gold so… let's dive into it!

You are only 6 steps away from turning your idea into reality.

The main goal of prototyping is to bring your idea into the world to see if it can be made. Then, you have to examine the strengths and weaknesses of your product by comparing it to what else is out there in the marketplace and why is it better.

Chapter 04: Prototyping

Sk your trusted testers: what do you like about this product? What are the three things you would change about it? Would you use this? Negative feedback is really important at this stage and you need to know what to do with it.

Collect feedback

Find a way to sell people on your prototype as you make it. Label a page in your notebook "possible product objections" make a list of all the issues you think someone might foresee.

Be smart and anticipate objections

Iteration's a wheel that never stops. Prototyping and iteration are a part of any business, whether you're creating an actual physical product and investing something or not. You will be iterating constantly how you're servicing the customer. The world is always changing, so solutions can't remain static. Think of how often Apple comes out with the new iPhones. Sure, the company is creating a somewhat artificial need to upgrade, but at the same time, people are beginning to expect new and better technology.

Obsess the customer

It's ready to sell when all of these questions are properly answered, It solves the problem. It gives the results you are looking for. It's the best option out there. Think about the customer at every turn, and always keep these questions in mind, How is the customer feeling? How is the customer finding our business? How is the customer comparing this to the others? Ask all these questions from the prototype to the packaging.

And how do you know is it ready to sell?

Consider your proximity to the manufacturer, his o her size and experience, the company's industry connections, and the amount of collaboration you're looking for. Ensure quality from the start. Make people that you trust use it or taste it, and try it to give you feedback.

Chapter 05: Make It!

When you're selling your product or service, you might think you're just selling that, but it's not entirely true. If you learn how to sell, you will become that much better in your business as an inventor.

Negotiate minimums

The director is someone who wants to be very concise and to the point. The socializer is someone who wants to get to know you a little bit better.

Chapter 06: Sell The Problem

If you hear a no try to use someone else as an example. Let's see how to do it: “I called an XYZ account and they said no at first too. Then this happened and it increased their sales or it drove traffic to their store. ” Another tip: Be thoughtful about when to go back to a prospect after hearing no. Give them time to consider what you've offered before asking them again. In the meantime, who knows what could happen, you may gather even more examples of people who've shifted from no to yes while you wait. This tip also applies to dating, you're welcome.

Turning a NO into a YES

Introduce your product by yourself to the people who are selling your product. The goal here is to find out “How do I make every single employee a huge fan of what I've invented? ” A good example of it can be Apple. So…How can you make them fans? Well, you could give them free products or trials for others. Control your success as much as you can, do not leave it in the hands of other people. Any change along the way that you have, especially at the beginning.

Leverage yourself

There are several classes you can take to get more comfortable with selling products or services to strangers. Take an acting or stand-up comedy class. Both will force you to confront your vulnerability.

Face your fear

Entrepreneurship 101: Prototyping, Making, And Selling Your Product

Traditional career advice relies on certain norms that are not applicable anymore. It focuses on a limited perspective that may be black and white. There are four reasons why traditional career advice isn't relevant in the 21st century.

And what the new generation should hold on to instead.

In a study conducted by pearson, recent trends have been highlighted such as technological change, globalization, demographic change, etc that will play a major role in affecting the career of a present-day student. The only thing that will give clarity is a true experience. Working as interns with head-on reality in our faces will give us the time and ability to tell what we really want to do.

At the End of the Day, Experience Will Be the Only Determinant.

The digital age will provide access to resources and opportunities that we may have never dreamt about. People with no access to traditional educational institutions can develop their skills through the internet.

Skills Matter Much More in an Unstable World.

With the digital age rising and paving its way, new paths are being written and old ones are being replaced. Here lies a generation that is much more privileged with its options. Multipotentialites have the opportunity to combine all of their interests in a way that fends for them.

We Don’t Know What the Future Looks like Career-Wise.

Research shows that boredom is beneficial to us. When we break through phases of boredom, the skillset required to go through adversity will be formed.

Experimenting Is the Whole Game.

Of course, I didn’t end up joining the institute for other reasons. I found something much more resourceful to me- I was challenged to think for myself. My fear was an incentive to search and explore my potential. These days, there isn’t any formula for a successful career. That’s what makes it all the more interesting. Upgrading your skills, instead- is the right thing to do at an age where everything seems cloudy and distant. With the plethora of options, the dilemma of right and wrong shouldn't be a problem anymore.

Stop Trying to Grow Your Startup by Networking

7 Ways to Build Wealth When You’re Low on Time

Three Strategies You Can Use to Become a Profitable Writer

This Hugely Viral LinkedIn Post Might Make You Tweak Your Career Aspirations

Why Writers Should Avoid Striving for Flow State

Peter