Many a times we keep looking for some magical bullet to be successful or when we see highly successful people we feel they were born with silver spoon or luck favored them hence they are at this position today.

But, success can be achieved implementing small and simple things in life, let me share with you 4 quick tips to be successful online.

Look at your Fears

Be honest with yourself.  When it comes to doing something, what is it you’re afraid of?  What are the specific things holding you back from reaching your ultimate goal?

As you identify what you worry about and then tackle those things head on, with each success, you will start to be more and more motivated.

For me, when I first got started as a online, I was afraid to create anything that wasn’t PERFECT.  I wanted to create the absolute spotless eBook.  I wanted it to be so perfect that I became miserable trying to write it.  And I quit many times.

Finally, I decided to just write and share what I know.  People will either love it or they won’t.  You can’t please everyone anyway.

The point being:  address those fears.  Whatever they are, whatever these obstacles are that keep you from staying focused and active…face them, find a way to overcome them and then chop their heads off.  )

Model Other Successful People

When you need that extra boost to stay motivated, conduct some research and learn how other writers or famous people started out.  The majority at one time or another waited tables, worked construction, or cleaned houses.  They weren’t always successful but had to work their way up.

Seeing the success of people we admire is a great way to stay motivated.  Each one of them had to be 100% committed in order to meet schedules and deadlines.  Knowing that other people go through the same emotions and struggles, and learning what they did to get past those barriers, will help you out a lot.

Another thing you can do is look at HOW they stay motivated.  Many of them share their “secrets” in their writings.  You can even approach some of them via email or telephone and ASK them how they overcome difficulties.

In other words, when you see something that works, try it yourself.  Find out how others “made it” and do what they did.

Spread the Word.

Sometimes sharing your goals and aspirations with close friends and family is a huge motivator.  When people expose their dreams, in a way, they’ve made themselves accountable for your own success.  In essence, they’ve now presented a challenge to themselves.  In addition to making these desires public, you have also created a cheering section.

Now, when you aren’t motivated, you can always have those people remind you of why you wanted to write.  Have them repeat back to you what you had shared with them – how important writing was to you, that writing was a passion, etc.  They can help you keep your dreams alive.

When I first started an offline Christian newspaper (actually, I hadn’t even started it yet) I had folks asking me “When is it going to be here — I’m ready to read it!”

Need any more motivation than that?

By giving other folks involved, you not only have accountability, you have waiting readers who want to see your finished product.  Sometimes as much as you want it yourself.

Reward Yourself.

Many infopreneurs create a tradition for their successes.  When you get your product finished, reward yourself with something important.  It doesn’t really matter what it is, but bait yourself with something you really want and make that your prize.  Whether it’s a new dress, a trip to your favorite restaurant, a night out at the movies, whatever it is, congratulate yourself for your successes.

I personally like a large deposit into my bank account by selling a lot of copies.

Hey, we’re being honest, right?  )

One writer collected beautiful Oriental paintings by a particular artist in China.  Although not expensive, the paintings were all signed and beautifully done.  Each time she successfully published an eBook, she would buy another piece of his work.  Within a year, she had completely redecorated her living room with his artwork on all the walls, and, she had to switch to new rewards because she was running out of wall space.  No matter what you choose, it’s important to choose something you like and can look at from time to time as a reminder that you succeeded.

Be good to yourself.

I think that’s a song by Journey, but it illustrates the point.

So, what do you to motivate yourself for success?

Leave me a comment below to share your thoughts with me.

In Part 1 of The 2 Part strategy we discussed the key difference between planned series and sequels. How dividing content in to multiple parts for articles, blog posts and viral reports help us to get more traffic and targeted list.

In this part let’s explore what to cover in Part 1 and what to cover in Part 2, where to end Part 1 and how to divide your content for maximum exposure.

Let’s go back to the example we referred to in Part 1 of this series. Lord of The Rings Part 1 ends at a point where you really want to know what happens next, it’s not an abrupt ending but it’s not a complete ending either. It will keep you wanting to know more. It’s a human psychology that we want to see an end of what we started. Our mind needs a logical completion or a loop closure that’s the primary reason for success of 2 or 3 part series.

Let’s see how to divide your content for maximum exposure. When you are writing your article or blog post, write it as one piece, in case you are uncomfortable writing a two part series. Once you are done writing, divide your article, post or ebook in to 2 parts.

Each part should be logically complete by themselves, so that a person who is reading any part shouldn’t feel left out, but if they want to get the best out of the content shared by you, they have to read the other part.

Once you have written the content in single piece and divided in to 2 logical chunks, you will need to do couple of changes. You will need to write a summary for Part 1 that summarizes what you covered in Part 1 and create anticipation for Part 2. Leave them at a point so that they want to know more. You will also need to create intro for Part 2 to establish a connection with Part 1 and it should act as quick recap of what’s covered in part 1. The other change you will need to make to create more anticipation, is to have logical links or cross reference of both parts in each other. In Part 1 I had mentioned that I will cover what to write in Part 2 and how to divide the content and in this part I mentioned about the example I covered in Part 1.

If you are submitting article to article directories, your signature file should be highly customized to let the readers know that there is even more exciting article available on your site, it gives them advance information about the topic they just read. If your Part 1 is good, readers are bound to click the link and visit your site to read part 2. Same strategy can be applied for Blog posts.

For short reports or viral reports, when you divide your content, ensure that Part 1 contains meatier content; let’s say you are discussing 30 best copywriting tips.  Put the Top 10 in part 1 and in the beginning as well as in the end of the report put in a link to your site where people have to opt-in to get Part 2 and 3 of the report series.

Another strategy that you want to implement similar to movies, don’t release the complete series together, release the part 2 after a gap, so that there is enough curiosity and anticipation for it. This is to ensure that people are ready for the consumption of part 2.

So, there we are at the end of 2 part series about the 2 part strategy for driving huge traffic and targeted list building. Divide your content at a logical point that gives them a sense of incompleteness, submit part 1 to free sources and get link back to your site, drive traffic to your site; have cross references in part 1 about what you will cover in part 2 to create anticipation and release the part 2 after the gap.

Have you tried this strategy? What kind of results did you achieve?

Please comment.

Staying motivated and sticking to a schedule can sometimes seem more of a chore than a delight.  As a info product creator, it’s important to set goals for yourself.  These goals will help you see progress, successes and provide you with inspiration and motivation.

It’s one thing to start creating a product.

It’s another thing to finish it.

Often times when someone feels they’re boxed into a corner, they lose desire and motivation.  They feel forced to do something instead of wanting to do it.  I know that it happens to me.  I get trapped by deadlines or sidetracked with delays and I just want to quit writing at times.

And taking a risk at times can help get me fired back up (Which is just a sports phrase that means MOTIVATED).

What kind of risks?

Being totally honest.  Sometimes it is good to just say how you feel, even if those feelings are a bit controversial.  For example:  I’ve actually said, “You know, the customer is supposed to always be right…but sometimes I just want to tell some bozo ‘You’re an idiot.  Go away.’” That may come across a bit controversial, but it certainly keeps things interesting.  Some of the most motivating (and ultimately, rewarding) things you can do as a writer is to be totally honest and just share what’s on your heart.

Being totally vulnerable.  Another way to stay motivated by taking risks with your writing is to open up and let people see the real you.  So what if you’re a male — you can still share how you love your wife and kids.  It may not be a “war story” or a “macho” thing to talk about, but you might be surprised at how many other people feel the same way.  I continue to share about my being a Christian (Many people say don’t do it…it’s bad for business and you shouldn’t mix the two) because that’s something I’m passionate about.  Like me or hate me because of it — you gotta respect me for not holding anything back.

Being totally personal.  Want to stay motivated?  Talk about what you love.  Even when what you are writing ISN’T about what you love.  For example:  Already in this eBook I have mentioned golf.  In the last section I mentioned my relationship with Christ.  See how they were worked into the content?  Not only does it allow me to stay motivated by sharing more about myself and the things I am passionate about, it also allows my readers to get to know me on a more intimate level.  And that builds all kinds of positive things into a relationship:  trust, loyalty, friendship.  So, get personal and share who you are, what you think and feel, what you want and strive for in life.  The real you.

The key to taking risks isn’t to be careless.  It’s about being honest and forthright, even when others may not agree with you.  Ever watch Jerry McGuire, the movie?  That’s what Tom Cruise’s character did.  It cost him his job.  But, it changed his life.  And ultimately, he was the big winner.

Please comment.

As per the age old saying online, “Money is in the list” so, the bigger your list, the bigger fortune for you to tap into.

Let’s see 10 tips for getting more subscribers:

1. Include a call to action at the end of your blog posts.

Let your visitors know that if they like your blog posts, they’ll love your newsletter content. That’s because you save some of your best niche tips, tricks and secrets for subscribers.

To get more subscribers, include a link to your landing page at the bottom of your posts, along with a reason to click on that link.

Example: Discover 101 more weight loss tricks for free – click here!

2. Encourage a viral effect.

You can get more subscribers simply by including a note at the bottom of every newsletter where you encourage your existing subscribers to forward your email to their friends, family and colleagues who could benefit from the information.

Example: “Do you know someone else who could benefit from these dog training secrets? Please forward this email to them – they’ll thank you for it!”

3. Use your forum signature file to get new subscribers.

If you’re visiting busy niche forums, include an ad and a call to action in your forum signature.

Example: “Free report reveals the health secrets your doctor doesn’t want you to know! Click here to claim your copy now…”

4. Point your Twitter followers to a free report.

You can use Twitter.com as well as other social media sites (like Facebook.com) to grow your list. Simply point your fans and followers towards your squeeze page to pick up a free report. Include this link on your profile page as well as in some of your posts (“tweets”).

5. Embed your links in your products.

Sometimes people share your digital products with their friends. Sometimes they give away or sell pirated copies of your product. Either way, you can benefit from this if you include links to your squeeze page in your paid products.

6. Drive traffic to your landing page using videos.

You can create YouTube.com videos for the sole purpose of driving traffic to your newsletter sign up page. To get the best results, include a call to action at the end of your video where you promise viewers they can get the second part of the video – for free – when they join your list.

7. Tap into Squidoo to get new subscribers.

Create Squidoo.com pages around niche topics with the purpose of driving visitors to your landing page. In other words, when including links in your Squidoo page, consider making as many as possible point to your squeeze pages.

8. Co-promote with others in your niche.

Here you can swap endorsements with your partners. You can post your endorsements on your respective blogs as well as in your newsletters. I’ve also very successfully done ad swaps where I swap ads with other marketers.

9. Unleash the power of content marketing.

First create a multi-part article series around a niche topic. Then upload Part 1 to the article directories (such as EzineArticles.com, GoArticles.com and IdeaMarketers.com) and upload the rest of the series to your autoresponder. Use your article byline to encourage people to get the rest of the series (starting with Part 2) by clicking through to your squeeze page.

10.Form a newsletter co-op.

Do a co-registration deal with one or more people in your niche. That is, when a prospect joins your partner’s newsletter, they also get the option of joining your newsletter at the same time (simply by checking a checkbox).

You can use each of these ten methods to get dozens, hundreds or even thousands of new subscribers. The important thing is to choose one and do it over and over again. Then, try another. Just imagine how big your list will be once you apply all these methods.

Which is your favorite technique? Do you have any technique that gets you subscribers like crazy?

Looking forward to your comments...

In Part 1 of My Top 10 Firefox Addons we discussed five addons that allows you to extend the functionality of Firefox for personal usage. Now, let’s see some plugins that will help you in online marketing.

iMacros

All of us do some repetitive tasks everyday, how would you like to automate the tasks on the click of button. It is possible with iMacros.

You can record the repetitive tasks like filling up forms, remembering password, submitting your content to various article directories etc. What’s cool about this addon is that they give you iMacros pre-populated with some most commonly used macros, so, you can start using them instantly. There is a thriving community that can help you when you are stuck with any issue.

S3Fox

Many marketers have been hosting their media content for distribution on Amazon S3 service, if you are using that then this addon is a must have for you.

S3Fox Organizer helps you organize/manage/store your files on Amazon S3. It is easy to install and use as it is integrated into the browser. You can easily drag and drop files like FTP, if you have multiple S3  accounts, you can use them through this addon.

CBNotify

Are you an affiliate marketer, do you promote products from Clickbank then this is a must have addon for you.

You can check how much you have made from your multiple Clickbank accounts without logging in to Clickbank.  All this from the convenience of your browser, you can configure up to 10 Clickbank accounts, earnings are displayed in the bottom bar.

SEOQuake

SEOQuake is a very useful Firefox extension for webmaster who do SEO. The Seobar version of the tool places a bar that floats at the top of the web page you are browsing. This is a ‘nice to have feature’ when actively reviewing and optimizing sites, but after a few days became mildly annoying. I prefer the Seotoolbar version which adds yet another row of toolbar to the upper section of Firefox. From that toolbar I enjoy easy one button access to Yahoo Backlinks, Pages Indexed in Google, Whois Data, Robots.txt, Keyword Density reports, SeoDigger data, and more!

When changing configuration options I recommend setting Load Parameters to ‘by request’. This will prevent the tool from constantly hitting search engines such as Yahoo and Google for data and prevent any possible bans as a result of automated use.

Google Analytics Monitor

This is another convenience addon that allows you to access all our Google Analytics data from the convenience of your browser. You won’t need to login to your Analytics account, just configure it and you will be able to all the Google Analytics profiles from the browser.

So, there you are with my top 10 Firefox addons. Which cool addons do you use for Firefox that help you in a great way, please share.

Did I leave anything out?

I love Firefox as browser and the main reason being the addons that extend the functionality of the browser to great extent. You can achieve so many things with addons that it is not possible to do the same with IE. Chrome realized this quickly and they opened up the browser for developers to put together Extensions (chrome’s name for addons).

I want to share with you my top 10 Firefox addons in this 2 part series.

XMarks

We store our favorite on our browser by bookmarking the url, but what happens when you have 2 different computers, one at home and one at office or what happens when you are travelling, your computer stopped working and you need to send urgent communication after accessing few sites.

XMarks solves this problem for you; they have plugin/addon/extension for IE, Firefox and Chrome. They store your bookmarks on their server, in your members area and once you start our browser, it will connect their server and synchronize bookmarks to ensure that it’s up-to-date.

AdBlock Plus

Do you also hate those pesky banner ads that appear on all sites you visit? Do you wish that Google Ads wouldn’t interrupt while you are reading an interesting blog post? There is a very efficient solution available.

AdBlock Plus plugin allows you to block all ads. It reformats the pages that you are viewing after blocking/hiding all ads for your easier viewing. It allows you to browse faster without those irritating banner ads.

Flashgot

What do you do when there are multiple links on a page and you want to download all of them? You click individual link and then download one after the other, wouldn’t it be good if you can click the link once and it can download everything for you automatically.

Flashgot allows you to do that, it’s actually a link between your page and the download manager installed on your computer. It can fetch one link for download or you click an option of selecting all links for download. Just click the option once an it will queue all downloadable files in your favorite download manager. Wasn’t that simple.

FoxClocks

Do you work with different geographies? I do, and at times it becomes really difficult to remember time zone. Rather than going to timeanddate.com every time I want to check the time at specific place, I have a nifty little addon that resides in left bottom corner of my favorite browser.

FoxClocks allow you to add different cities and it will display the time directly on your browser bottom bar, or you can keep it in collapsed state and it will display the time of various cities upon mouse over.

Feedly

We start our mornings with print newspaper, and there are some of us who start mornings with online news, by visiting different sites and blogs to find out if there is any news posted. Would you like to visit one page, instead of visiting 10 different pages and know what’s latest on your favorite sites?

Feedly helps you to do that. It allows you to magazine style page where you have added feed of all pages you frequently visit, it fetches latest updates on those sites and displays summary for your viewing in magazine style format. You can click the link if you find summary interesting and visit the site for more details. I find it very handy to track latest happenings on different blogs. It also integrates with Google Reader, Twitter, YouTube and Amazon.

So, there you are with the 5 plug-ins that will allow you to extend the power of Firefox for your personal usage, in Part 2 of this series we will see how you can expand it for online marketing.

Your thoughts?

Do you follow Harry Potter movie series? If you do, you must be aware that last movie is going to divided in to 2 parts, one part releases this year end, the other is going to be released next year. They have completed shooting for both parts, but they will be releasing it in two parts.

Did you watch Lord of The Rings Series, same strategy was followed for it. After grand success of Matrix, Matrix Reloaded and Matrix Revolutions were released over a period of time, though Matrix Revolutions was a continuation of Matrix Reloaded, unfortunately they didn’t have a great success at box office like Matrix.

Why am I talking about movies, and why am I talking about continuation series, why not about sequels. I feel there is good correlation between the planned series and sequels released in movies and online marketing world. There is a key difference between planned two part series or trilogy vs sequels that are released based on the success of the first part and response on the subsequent parts.

In online world also 2 part or 3 part series are very popular for driving traffic or building lists. This technique is used by eminent marketers and if used correctly it can get you decent traffic and build highly targeted list for you.

You can use this while writing blog posts, like I have been doing, or writing articles, follow-up series or mini report series. Divide them in to parts that are linked to each other and then watch the strategy at work.

They key difference between planned series is that you start with an end; you know which milestones you have to cover from start to end. In case of sequels you plan an extension after the success of first part.

Let’s see how you can use it for driving traffic to your site.

When you are planning to write an article, create an article of around 1200 words instead of 500-600 words and then divide it in to two parts. In part of this series, I will let you know where to end Part 1 and what to cover in part 2.

Submit Part 1 to article directories and in the end put a link to Part 2, which is posted on your site. You can follow similar approach for your 2 part blog posts also. Another idea you can use for your blog posts is become a guest blogger and post Part 1 on someone else’s blog and then point the readers to your blog to read part 2 of the series.

This way you will get good back links and highly targeted traffic.

You can use the same tactics while writing short reports series or viral reports. Plan different topics in area of your expertise, say Copywriting. Create a full length report of around 60 pages, discussing various tools, techniques, checklists and swipe files for copywriting. You can divide this ebook in to 3 parts and give the first part away at forums, giveaway sites and ebook listing sites and use it as a list building machine to get access to the other 2 parts of the series. In part 2 of this series I will share with you what to cover in the first report that you giveaway and how to divide the content in to 3 parts.

This strategy of dividing your content in to 2-3 parts has proven to work and many marketers have used it to their advantage. You can use it effectively for driving traffic using articles, blog posts and viral reports.

In Part 2 we will see how to divide your content for maximum exposure, what to write in Part 1 and what to cover in Part 2.

Please comment below and let me know... I would really appreciate it.

In How To Automate Your Blogging Tasks – Part 1 we discussed how to automate blogging tasks in wordpress like automating posting to Twitter, Facebook and Buzz about your latest blog post, how to schedule posts and back up your database. Now, let’s talk about we can automate your traffic generation activity.

In my Top 10 WordPress plugins post I have mentioned AddThis and Digg Digg plugins that help your readers to share your posts with others. Driving social traffic to your site is important, but at the same time it is also important to have your blog post bookmarked at some of these social sites, as Google loves these sites. If your link is bookmarked at one of these sites, there are good chances of Google picking them up quickly and listing them on search engine.

So, without waiting for others to bookmark your blog/blog post on social sites, how can we automate the process to drive traffic from social sites?

OnlyWire

This cool service helps us to automate the bookmark submission task to Social sites. It currently has 36 social sites where you can automate your content and bookmark distribution. Using it is very simple; you need to create an account with Onlywire. Once you have created an account, you need to put your login details for the social sites, this is one-time activity and that’s it you are done with the set-up.

To use their free service you will need to put a link (button) back to Onlywire on one of your sites. You need to download the software and install on your machine to carry out the submission process, it runs in background and you just have to enter captcha for 4-5 sites that need it. Otherwise the entire submission process is pretty much automated.

I had a WordPress plugin that used to automate the complete task, Onlywire Auto submitter plugin would automatically submit a bookmark about my latest blog post to my Onlywire account without lifting a finger and then I have to keep the Onlywire software open in background, which will do all the hard work. Unfortunately the plugin stopped working when I upgraded to WordPress 3.0, but I will let you know once the update is out, so that you can also automate bookmark submission directly from your WordPress.

So, this is just to Social sites. Now, let’s talk about other sources.

RSS Directories

I have specified following directories to ping every time I post on my blog:

http://rpc.pingomatic.com/

http://api.moreover.com/RPC2

http://bblog.com/ping.php

http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2

http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php

http://ping.feedburner.com

http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php

http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/

http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2

http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping

http://topicexchange.com/RPC2

http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates

http://xping.pubsub.com/ping

I have put this list in my Settings >> Writing  >> Update Services text area. So, WordPress would alert these popular RSS submission services that my blog is updated and they will in-turn let other blog directories know about the same.

Create content on Web 2.0 Sites

We have bookmarked our blog post on social sites, we have also informed RSS directories about the same, now how about using the same content to drive traffic from web 2.0 sites like Squidoo, Livejournal, Knol etc. You may be aware that these web 2.0 sites allow you to create your own content pages, where you can share content with the entire world, every site calls this page by different name, but purpose is the same.

I use Incansoft’s Web 2.0 Bot to submit my content to Web 2.0 sites. I use 2 part strategy that I will describing in my future blog post, so, I will post one part on Web 2.0 site and in the end I will provide link to my blog to read the Part 2.

Web 2.0 Bot has very clean and easy to use interface, you have to create your company profile and then create your account profile. If you already have accounts at the Web 2.0 sites then you can put in your login details, or Web 2.0 Bot can create accounts for you.

Then you can submit your content to the sites you select. A cool feature that I really like for Web 2.0 Bot is that it allows you to enter your content in Jet Spinner Syntax, that way your content submitted to different Web 2.0 sites will appear to be unique. This is much better than hand submission of your content to all web 2.0 sites.

There you are we have covered today a cool free service to automatically submit your content/bookmark to 36 social sites, we also covered the sites to put in your WordPress blog to ping to RSS directories and a cool software that allows us to submit semi-automate content submission to Web 2.0 sites.

I have covered automation of tasks in this 2 part series, I haven’t mentioned about Outsourcing all these tasks, as that’s a different ball game all together.

Hope you found the blog automation part 1 and part 2 useful. So, how do you automate your blogging tasks?

Do you agree or disagree?

How many times have you been impressed with presentations you have attended? Have you seen people like Steve Jobs, Jack Welch, Armand Morin, Robert Kiyosaki, Donald Trump etc. present in front of large audience, the complete group seems to be mesmerized by what they are sharing and the style in which they are sharing it.

How would you like to create and deliver great presentations? Let me share with you the secret formula of highly effective presentations.

I divide the secrets of putting together great presentation in 2 parts:

-      Preparation

-      Delivery

Preparation

A very simply structure of presentation that I learnt during my MBA course is:

-      Tell them what you are going to tell them (what to expect)

-      Tell them the content (meat)

-      Tell them what you told them (summary and action point/s)

That’s it. No fancy formula.

It’s about setting expectations in the beginning, so, you need to tell them what you are going to cover in your presentation, outline the objectives. This is like telling your listeners the favourite channel they want to hear WIIFM (What’s In It For Me). You presentation should start with an impact; we are majorly impressed when someone throws startling data at us, something that we never knew or some startling revelation. Do a good research on your topic and put together first couple of slides that will catch their attention. Very much like salesletter, we need to have an impressive start.

State the objectives of your presentation, what you are planning to accomplish from the presentation or what will they achieve by the end of presentation. This kind of tells them what they will know by the end of your presentation.

Dive in to the content, present your topic; here also it will be good to have numbers and facts as a part of your coverage. I am planning to write a separate post about what to cover in your presentation to make it impressive. But, one thing that I can say for sure is, know your topic really well. It can be through Google search or you are an expert in your field. But, you need to know more than what your audience knows. This is to ensure that they respect you.

Finally, conclude with a summary of what you covered in your presentation and put in action item. People would like to know the take away and what you expect them to do. So, it is very crucial to tell them the action point, also, have some time for question and answer session.

That’s in brief about Preparation part. Now, let’s talk about Delivery.

Delivery

The presentation that seems to be very natural and effortless, be rest assured that lots of effort gone in by the presenter to make it effortless. Have you read The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs by Carmine Gallo? The author mentions that before any public presentation Steve Jobs presents in front of his launch team for at least 2-3 days, they ensure that the presentation is flawless and smooth.

Whether you are delivering a presentation on stage or webinar, you should rehearse it and ensure that you are not always reading the slides verbatim. The content on slide should be small bulleted points and supported by clip arts or photos where ever possible. Don’t put everything on slide, you should use slides as starting point to expand the thoughts. When making public presentation it is important to make eye contact with your listeners than just reading through your slides. Would you like someone who is just reading through the PPT without even looking at you throughout the presentation?

Rehearsing is also important to time yourself. Be it seminar, knowledge sharing session or webinar, you want to ensure that you stick to the time given to you for delivering your presentation, if people have more questions and that needs extra time, that’s fine. But, you should aim to complete your main presentation in stipulated time.

While you are delivering the presentation ensure that you take pauses at appropriate places, check with your audience whether they are following or not, check with them if they are fine with your pace or not and invite participation from them. While sharing factual data or numbers, speak as naturally as possible, without putting great emphasis, the impact of data should be felt by them and not by you in your voice, because you have already gathered the data and digested it to deliver in your presentation1 J

While concluding your presentation thank your audience for sitting through and listening to you, tell them what you covered and finally tell them the action you expect from them. This technique can be used in sales presentation, information sharing session or webinar.

So, there you are with the simple formula revealing the secrets of great presentations. Have a format to your presentation which lists objectives, meaty content and summary with action point; follow this with rehearsal and sound delivery.

Share some techniques that you use while making presentations?

What do you think? Please comment below to tell me.

Call it writer’s block or call it exertion but all of us do face this situation when we have to deliver the content in form of blog post or article in our schedule time and we draw blank, we can’t think of anything to write about.

Does this happen with you? Let’s say you write a weekly blog post or article for your list members or your membership site and this week while you sit in front of computer you totally draw blank. Nothing to write about, you feel like you have exhausted all topics.

Let’s see 9 things that you can write about in such a situation:

1) Your thoughts/views about latest news

Everyone is interested in knowing other person’s thoughts or views about the latest event or latest news item. It can be about election, it can be about movie, it can be about a celebrity controversy or it can be about Twitter or Yahoo or Google getting hacked. What do you have to say about it? If you are well informed and you have read about the news piece, rather than just reporting the same to your readers, you can add your view/take/perspective to the same. This will give them information in addition to what is publicly reported.

2) About Your Personal Life

Have you watched the movie Marley & Me, Owen Wilson who plays John Grogan in the movie, becomes popular columnist by writing about his personal life, people really enjoy reading it. In the online world also, your readers want to know about your personality, your family; this is to make sure that you are real human being and not a machine. So, if you don’t have anything to write about, once in a while you can write a personal update, your son/daughter’s graduation day, your wife delivering a baby girl, pictures of your travel to the Bahamas etc. Don’t over do it, but if you do it in right mix, people will know more about your personality and they will feel more connected.

3) What You Use and Like

All of us have our favorites, if someone asks us to talk about them we will keep going for hours. If someone asks me about movies or about FRIENDS, I can keep talking for hours. Similarly, if you don’t have anything to write about them share some of the cool resources you have been using, won’t take much time and thinking for you to list them down and will give your readers a unique perspective. Let’s say putting together Top 10 News Sites in your niche or Top 10 Plugins you use for Firfox or 5 Software that empowers your Windows 7 Laptop or 2 Cool Gadgets that allowed you to cut down your communication cost etc. Think about what you use and what you like about those things and typing will come naturally!

4) Unique twist on what someone else has written

Copying someone’s writing blindly is one thing and reading it, analyzing it or dissecting it is another thing. Everyone has his/her thoughts on different things, it can be about how things work, it can be about new strategies to implement or it can be about future of an industry etc. When someone writes an article or blog post s/he is expressing his point of view. Now, if you don’t have anything to write about, but you do remember having a unique twist which can take the strategy described in the blog post or article to the next level, then you should give credit to the original writer and build up your thoughts on the same and express your unique twist. If your twist is good, your readers will only remember you and forget the original writer! J

5) Expand on your thoughts shared earlier

Reusability is the key in writing. We shouldn’t repeat our knowledge again and again, but if we can reuse it in some manner it’s always a good tactic. There will be multiple thoughts or ideas around a topic that we write about, but it may happen that while we were writing an article only a part of it struck to us, or let’s say some new technology or strategies have enhanced the tactic we shared earlier or you had briefly touched upon the strategy when you shared it with your readers, then you can always expand the same add more meat to it and share it as a full fledged blog post with your readers. You may shared top 5 software you use, where may you put just one paragraph about Audacity or Camtasia but at a later date you can expand on the same to write a detailed tutorial.

6) Create bulleted list of your thoughts

Converse to the previous idea, in this one, you have expressed your thoughts on different aspects of copywriting or product creation or blogging in full length blog posts or articles, how about reusing them to create a blog post that lists different aspects of copywriting in bulleted list. Since you already have the content you have to put only the intro and summary and select the content you want to put for each bullet point.

7) Your Impression on Trends

All of us actively or passively, what’s happening around us, many a times we tell our kids, “In our time, we didn’t have mobile or internet” or “when you grow I don’t know if you guys will email each other to join on the lunch table, even though everyone is in the same house!”. These are some of the observations about trend, you can write about the trends that you have observed in the topic of your expertise and where do you see it going.

Your Business goal

If you have set up a goal to achieve over the period of next year or 3 years or 5 years, you can share it with them. This will help in two manners, making it public, creates that motivation for you to achieve, since you have publicly announced it and the other advantage is people will feel motivated looking at your goals. In fact they would want to know how you are doing on your goals; you may find some like minded people who will help you achieve your goals.

9) Time Management or Productivity Tips

All of us have our personal short cuts to achieve our goals or do various tasks. Everyone wants to know about short cuts so that they can accomplish more in the give time frame. You can share some cool things you do that helps you to be more productive or allows you to manage your time effectively.

So, there you are with 9 things to write about when you are drawing blank and don’t know what to write about.

What do you do? Which is your favorite tip?

Please leave me a comment below, so, I can continue blogging...