Contrary to Western traditions, I don’t believe in waiting for New Year’s Eve to make my “life changing” resolutions.

My philosophy is that if I see the need to change something and it is within my means to do so, I make the resolution on the spot to make it happen. No waiting for that once in a year moment.

It’s like getting to celebrate New Year’s Eve every day of the year. Pretty cool, huh?

Think about it: If we all lived to be a 100 and started making New Year’s resolutions at the age of 10, we all would get to make a resolution approximately 90 times in our lifetime.

Miraculous things have happened to people who made a one time monumental resolution (that they followed through with), but the treasure of a great life lies in the small resolutions people make and follow-through with on a day to day basis.

It might be a little too philosophical for the average person, but when I study historically “great” people, I find this to be true.

Another way of looking at it: A ship on open waters does not need to make drastic changes in the direction it is headed once the course is set, but it does need small adjusting every so often to successfully arrive at the intended destination.

The Ultimate New Years Resolution

My challenge to you is this: If you haven’t done so already, make this New Year’s Eve your last New Year’s resolution. And may that one be to make and to act upon new resolutions daily.

In my case, 2012 was the best year of my life – in my personal life as well as for my business. I made some major changes at the end of 2011 in regards to my business and the new direction I was taking it. It was quite challenging at first – but it turned out to be a really wise move.

In case you were not on my list at that time, I got rid of all search engine marketing services I had provided up until then and focused primarily on affiliate marketing. I also did a handful of my own product launches (guides, plugins, etc) – which is probably how you came to know me.

Either way, discontinuing to provide SEO services was – for me – a monumental decision at that time because that is where 80% of my income was coming from. No regrets though!

Big changes hit the SEO industry just a few months later (in 2012) – at which point I was SUPER happy that I followed my gut instincts and got away from providing services. Talk about perfect timing.

Since then, my main obsession – as I already noted – has been affiliate marketing – with SEO being my main marketing vehicle/source of traffic.

This move was especially rewarding in the sense that it gave me a LOT more flexibility and time freedom. I had periods where I worked like a maniac (I sometimes can’t help myself when I get into the “zone”) for a week or two, but for the most part I can’t say I ever work more than a few hours a day (when I actually work).

In fact, my wife and I had family members and friends visit us – here in Krabi, Thailand – at different times throughout the year. Meaning that while they were around, I didn’t do a whole lot more then check my emails once or twice a day – and that was for a total of over 6 weeks in 2012 alone.

I could have never separated myself to that degree back when I provided those SEO services. So again, getting away from providing services was a good move on my part.

And just for the record, that does not include all the time my wife and I take off to do cool things all across SE Asia. Like tanning on the beaches of Thailand, snorkeling the coral reefs of Bali, or going shopping in Malaysia, etc, etc.

Let me get back to my point though: I believe I set my business boat in the right direction last year, so all that I need to do this year (2013) is to continually re-adjust the sail.

Increasing Life by Focusing More

If there was just one thing I would take away from 2012, it would be this: to focus most of my time on the few tasks that bring about the biggest results.

I am sure you have heard of the 80 / 20 rule. It basically says that 80% of the results will come from just 20% of the work being done. As basic a concept as it is, figuring out how it applies to business (and personal life) allows one to scale for massive improvements very quickly.

For my business this means that I sit down about once a month and look at what brought in the most income the month before, and once I figure that out, I resolve to focus 80% of my time on that and leave the 20% to the other tasks that are – really – secondary.

Naturally there are limits to everything – but it is a solid exercise I like to go through at least once a month.

Another (similar) exercise I have gone through a couple times in 2012 is this: writing down everything I am doing in my business right now. Once done, I go through the list again and put a check-mark next to everything that is proving to work, and put a line through everything that didn’t work. Once done, I resolve to stop doing the things that don’t work anymore, and commit to putting more energy and resources towards the things that do work.

These exercises might sound silly, but I DARE you to try them. Sometimes the best way to figure out what works is to figure out what doesn’t.

Increasing Leverage Through Knowledge & Experience

I make it a habit to continually educate myself in the areas of my business that interest me (like affiliate marketing, SEO, etc) and always keep an open mind to trying new things/new approaches/new techniques.

If they work, super. If not, I move on to try something else. Not everything will work, but imagine having a list of 20 – 100 things that have proven to work for you. Making money online becomes easier and easier.

Again though, it is important not to get sidetracked by new/shiny ways of doing things. It is critical that we scale what has already proven to work for us, while – on a small scale – we try out new things.

New Projects for 2013

Aside from continuing to build my existing business, I will be venturing into some new territories in 2013 as well. One of them being a “how to get blogging” video series (planned for January some time) and I am contemplating to create a mastermind group to go with it. Ideas? Suggestions?

“How to become a blogger” wasn’t really an area I had much interest in teaching, but I have been getting an overwhelming amount of emails from people asking how they can get started (must be the tough economy? I don’t know), so I got some good stuff coming out soon.

I have also been getting a number of people asking for one-on-one coaching (beginners and experienced marketers alike), but I am not sure I am ready for that just yet. I have done some basic coaching in the past but aside from that it’s an area I have never given much thought. Let’s see what 2013 brings though.

There are dozens of other projects on my list as well but I will keep them for another time. This post is already a thousand words longer than I intended it to be so… I will stop typing now.

I hope you got some golden nuggets out of it and may 2013 be your best year yet!

The post May Every Eve of 2013 be New Years Eve! appeared first on Kobra Dynasty.

Mornings are by far my least favorite time of day. At least for the most part.

To give you an idea, I usually start working (when I actually work) at around 9PM and oftentimes push through till about 3 or 4 in the morning. People have given me all kinds of advice over the years on things I should do to become a “morning person” like “everyone else”, but it just doesn’t work like that for me.

No matter how early I go to bed or how many coffees I gulp down upon getting up, my brain power never truly kicks in until after sundown.

This is perhaps why, when growing up, I was the most useless kid on the farm. I hated those early mornings and looking back, I am certain the morning world hated me too for getting out of bed before noon. Hehe

Sunrises To Behold!

These last couple mornings have been different though. I have been trying to wake up super early a few days in a row now to try and capture the beautiful sunrise over the ocean here in Bali, Indonesia. This is the best shot I have gotten so far.

As you can tell, I never actually got out of bed to take it. Lazy… I know

You can’t really capture the beauty with an iPhone camera while still half asleep, but that is a heavenly view to wake up to nonetheless.  And want to know the best part? My wife and I wake up to beautiful views like this almost every morning!

Chances are you couldn’t care less about traveling the world or seeing and enjoying the finer things in life, so let me ask you this: what exactly are your dreams? What would your ideal day to day lifestyle look like?

Living the Dream

I like to think that my wife and I live a pretty awesome lifestyle (she just confirmed that we do, hehe). I am not saying that to brag or show off, but I will say this: there honestly are very few things we would do differently if all limitations were to be removed.

We both love our dream life and you know what? We are no millionaires!

So often when I talk to people I hear them say things like “You are so lucky. I’ll start living the dream once I’ve made my first million” or “that’ll have to wait until I retire” etc. But why?

Truth is, I did not get lucky. All luck was against me and life knocked me down hard – almost daily – for 2 years straight, but I refused to stay down. Failing literally wasn’t an option for me, so I kept getting up – time and time again – and tried again. As Jon Bon Jovi would say “Success is falling nine times and getting up ten.”

Well said sir!

Looking back though, a lot of those “knockdowns” could have been avoided if I had started out with a specific end-goal in mind. Sure, I had huge ambitions, but if someone had asked me what I wanted out of life or what it would take for me to consider myself “successful”, I would not have been able to give an answer.

I wanted success, but had absolutely no idea what that would mean for me. So the lesson I learned is…

Become Very Specific with what it is You Want!

Things like “I want a million dollars” etc are not clear at all. We all want those things (most of us at least) but why do we want them?

Is it to pay off old debt? Have more free time to enjoy with family? How about: having the time and money freedom to travel the world? Those 3 were/are my big ones!

The key for me was to figure out EXACTLY what I wanted out of life. I don’t have everything figured out yet and I am constantly re-adjusting as I go along, but truth is: the clearer we become with exactly where we want to go, the easier it will be to figure out exactly what it will take to get there.

It is one of those “ask vague questions and you’ll get vague answers” scenarios. We have got to become very specific!

I am writing things down almost every other day now. Why? Because it helps me become super clear with what it is I want.  There is just something magical about putting things on paper.

Which leads me to my next point…

Staying Laser Focused!

This is extremely hard to do if you work online. Especially if you are a new(er) entrepreneur in the “internet marketing” niche. If it isn’t facebook, it likely is another new “shiney” product that is distracting you, and probably wasting a ton of your precious time. I am talking from experience here. Been there – done that!

Every single day I get half a dozen emails – all recommending a bunch of new product launches. I am not going to comment on the quality of these products because everyone is entitled to their opinion, but let me just say this: unless you have a way of making all products you buy work for you (as in – they help you reach your end goal), stop wasting money on them.

Most internet marketing startups fall into the trap of buying every product that promises instant riches but fact is, they will very likely not work for you – especially if you do not follow-through and implement them. I say this because I have been there.

I spent literally thousands of dollars on these shallow products – hoping that “this will be the one that will do it for me” but all they ever did was frustrate me with information overload. Nothing ever worked on a worthwhile scale – no matter how positive I felt about it.

All those product launches I bought into were a waste of my hard earned money, and more importantly, a waste of my time. Especially in the beginning when I was just starting out.

Was all the information within the guides useless? Were all the plugins and software useless? No!

They had their purpose, but for me, they were the wrong things to focus on.

Example: Every now and again I have someone emailing me, telling me of all the plugins or guides they bought and yet are still not making a dime online. If you focus on buying new products, your wallet is not going to get any fuller. In fact, keep it up long enough and you will dig yourself into a lot of debt like I did some 3 years ago.

There are some pretty cool guides, software, and plugins out there that automate tedious tasks or make things overall a lot easier, but they – in and of themselves – will not make you money in the long run. You need to follow a solid business model – where you provide value in exchange for money – if you want it to work for you in the months and years to come.

Let’s face it: Do you really need the latest guide on how to outsmart Google? Do you really need the hottest piece of software that uses “loopholes” to get you top search engine rankings?

The answer is “NO!”

You really do not need any of the flashy guides and gadgets to make it online. Would some of them come handy? Sure, but again, you do not NEED them to start out with.

Starting Over From Scratch

If I were to lose my business overnight and had to start from scratch, there really would only be a handful of products/services I would invest in to get me back on my feet.

1.) Domain Name:

First thing would be a domain name. I can get a decent .com domain name at NameCheap for about $10 USD per year. Very affordable and – in my opinion – a must have if you want to build a strong/lasting business online.

2.) Hosting:

Next, I would head on over to HostGator and sign up for a simple hosting plan. Again, for just a few dollars you can get a fairly decent hosting package with them. I currently have a dedicated server with them that I host the majority of my sites on, but when starting out, their smallest package should do just fine.

I love HostGator for their affordable “No BS” approach to hosting and their 24/7 support system. I have been with a few hosting companies over the years and when it comes to customer service, HostGator simply is the best in my opinion. You can literally talk to someone there in a matter of 2 minutes if you need to. This can come super handy if you are in the middle of something time sensitive like a product launch.

3.) AutoResponder: 

You will also want an autoresponder like AWeber or some of the other ones out there. I myself have my list hosted at MailChimp.

NOTE: I have nothing against AWeber (or any other autoresponder service provider for that matter). I used to have my lists with them back in the day, but they were a bit pricey for me at the time and I was not too comfortable with some of the “permanent account banning” horror stories I heard but all that could have changed by now. I don’t know. I only pick on them and use them as an example because I am somewhat familiar with them.

At the end of the day, it does not matter where you get any of the just mentioned services from, as long as they are reliable, easy to work with, and fit into your budget. The point I am trying to make here is: those are about the only 3 necessities (in my opinion) that I would invest in to get me kickstarted online and to be 100% honest with you, with those 3 services alone, you can make some nice cash if you are willing to do a little bit of manual work yourself.

Example: A few months back I tapped into a rather obscure niche, bought a domain name and set up a wordpress blog on the domain. I then – without even changing the original template on the blog – started adding content to it that I myself wrote specifically for it.

Throughout the content I recommended an affiliate product and before long, I started getting natural search engine traffic to that blog. I did not get hundreds of unique visitors a day, but at 1 out of 17 visitors buying the product (which averages about $75 per sale), it adds up very quickly.

I was faithful for the first 2 months and added a piece of new content to it every week or so, but I will confess that it has been about a month since I last touched it. Either way, that blog consistently earns me anywhere between $500 and $800 USD per month. Yes, that was after all the crazy Google updates!

Food for Thought: I have been going through some indepth “real estate investing” training material over the years and just recently started going through it all again (as I can see myself getting more and more into that within the next year or so), but here is an interesting observation I made: a real estate property that cashflows as much as one of my sites does, is considered to be an awesome investment.

The monthly income from real estate properties is not really scalable. My sites on the other hand are VERY scalable. All I have to do is find ways to drive more targeted traffic to them and my monthly income will increase.

This was just something cool I came across and I am by no means degrading real-estate investing. In fact, like I said, I will be getting more and more into it myself over the next year or two.

Rinse and Repeat

You say “$500 to $800 per month is not much, Konrad. Show me some real figures!”

It isn’t much, but who says I can not rinse and repeat the strategy? Which is exactly what I have been doing for a few months now. Not all sites perform as good, but some perform even better. All said and done, it all adds up very quickly!

Truth is: there are still millions of untapped obscure little niches that can be very profitable. Just expand your horizons a bit and you will find dozens of them.

Anyhow, it cost me $12 for the domain name, and assuming I did not already have a dedicated server, it would have cost me another $6 per month for hosting. Aside from some good old fashioned manual labour by me, that was it!

Just to clarify, I didn’t even add an optin form to that site when I originally started making money with it, but I have since gone ahead and added it in the footer of the blog and started building a mailing list in that small niche as a result. The list – in case you did not know – is the true asset/cash machine that I can tap into over and over again. I have not mailed that list once so far though, so again, still lots of room for me to grow the revenue from that simple blog!

Let’s back up a bit: Let’s say all you really want at this point is to quit your dayjob and in order to do that, you need to replace the income it currently gives you. For the sake of this demonstration, let’s say you would need to make exactly $5000 per month.

Let’s divide that by 30 to figure out exactly how much you need to make per day to achieve that goal.

$5000 / 30 = $167

Now, if your average commission is $75 per sale (like mine is in the above example), how many sales would you need to make – on average – per day, to reach your goal?

$167 / $75 = 2.2

That means you would need to generate – on average – a little over 2 sales per day, to make your desired $5000 per month. Is that doable? Absolutely!

TIP: If you want to earn bigger commissions, look into small niches with products outside of the crowded internet marketing community.

Next you would need to figure out exactly how many similar sites you would need to set up to reach your targeted number of sales. I think you get the idea though.

Once you get some statistics going, you can very easily break down your averages and figure out the exact number of sales of sales you need to generate, the exact number of unique visitors it takes to get those sales, etc. You can literally remove all the guesswork and – like I said before – break it down to a simple science.

Make Success a Science

I am not very good with numbers. In fact, I failed math in high school (ironic how I ended up working for a leading bank later on, isn’t it?) but these kind of calculations excite me. Why? Because it makes what appeared to be impossible, all of a sudden possible!

Once you become very clear with what it is you want, you can become very clear with what it will take for you to get there. You can’t “hope for the best” if you want to make it big. You got to get very specific!

When NASA sent astronauts to the moon, they didn’t just shoot the rocket up and hoped they would land on the moon somehow. No, they calculated every move to GUARANTEE a safe moon landing. Calculate every move you need to make to guarantee your dream landing!

I can already hear someone snare “Konrad, I don’t want to set up dozens of these little authority blogs” and that is cool. I don’t care how you plan on making your money online (or offline for that matter), break it down to a science with doable/actionable baby steps and then power through them.

Outsource Dreaded Tasks

Another objection you might have is: “I suck at writing” etc etc. My response is, “then outsource it”.

Find someone on fiverr who will gladly do for $5 what you don’t want to do yourself.

We are capable of making enormous dreams come true once we break the process of achieving them down (into actionable baby steps) and follow through with them.

Conclusion

You really do not need any fancy tools/guides/software to make it online. You do however need to become very specific about your dreams/goals/desired outcomes and even more specific on what you will do to achieve them.

Please let me know your thoughts and or experiences in this regard and be sure to recommend this post in your social circles.

The post Scientific Formula to Successfully Living Your Dream! appeared first on Kobra Dynasty.

The main thing that line of thinking is lacking – in my opinion – is an emphasis on the importance of marketing.

Without some form of marketing, it is near impossible to gain worthwhile traction in a competitive marketplace with the ever decreasing span of attention. And so today I want to share with you a few effective platforms to market yourself online, to promote your business, to build a niche brand, etc.

#1. Google

When I first got started in internet marketing (nearly 20 years ago), I was intrigued by the idea of ranking top 3 on Google for my desired search phrases. I figured I’d be rich if I managed to do so.

One thing I did not know at the time was just how competitive (and consequently expensive) trying to rank on top of Google can get. I also did not realize just how long it can take. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) definitely is something worth pursuing if you own a website, but keep in mind that it will take time, energy, and a bit of know-how.

To learn more about SEO and how you can immediately implement some basic strategies to start ranking better on search engines, check out an article I wrote – here!

#2. Twitter

“Every business must have a twitter account” they say, and therefor most bigger businesses do. Even if for no other reason than for damage control. Nothing worse than negative publicity getting out of hand on social media, right?

But what if you could also leverage twitter to grow your business? I know most small business owners would argue they don’t have time for twitter, but in the words of Elon Musk “5 minutes here and there” is all you really need.

Install the twitter app on your phone and set up your account. Search for issues you or your business provide solutions for, and leave a short but thoughtful comment. And – 0f course – make a (niche related) thought provoking tweet as often as you can.

For example: If you own a plumbing business, maybe hint at how often hot water tanks need to be checked, replaced, etc. Or how a pipe upgrade in older homes can save fortunes from potential water damage, etc.

Of course make sure you have your website, email, or phone number listed in your profile so you can be reached by your preferred contact method.

Here are 11 more twitter marketing tips to get you started!

#3. Facebook

Facebook is another hugely under-utilized marketing platform. Although I find people tend to be more reserved on Facebook than on twitter, you have the added benefit that you can create groups or pages dedicated to your business. So there is definitely an added sense of community in that!

Similar to any other marketing platform, the key to winning at Facebook marketing is consistency. That goes for both: sharing new content as well as engaging with the people commenting on said content.

If you want to learn more about how to drastically grow your business using an engaged Facebook audience, I HIGHLY recommend you check out this Grow Your Audience course.

My wife took the course for her business and was quickly able to grow her Facebook page audience to over 100,000. You can read her review here!

#4. Instagram

Just about everyone carries a cellphone with them these days that has a half decent camera. If this is you, Instagram might be one of the easiest marketing platforms you can use with minimal effort. Just snap a picture or two while working, and post it on Instagram when you have a minute to do so.

One thing I might recommend for Instagram is to keep a list of the top used #hashtags (for your niche topic) on your phone somewhere that you can quickly copy paste into your description when posting the pictures. This greatly speeds up the posting process and helps you reach more targeted people.

The main thing here? Post something consistently (daily). Don’t worry about trying to make professional looking pictures. You get better over time. Just keep at it and you will start building a community that is attracted to what product or service you’re offering.

#5. TikTok

The thing I love about marketing on TikTok is that you can share short video clips. These videos can be of you talking, showing off work you’re doing, etc. Literally anything!

I know it can feel weird getting in front of a camera, but honestly it’s not a big deal. Just do it. Aim to get to 100 posts and you’re pretty much guaranteed to start seeing some traction.

TikTok is probably one of the best places to market on if you’re trying to target a younger audience, but these days just about everyone is on it… and the reach potential is absolutely humongous!

Things to Keep in Mind

No one starts out as an expert marketer. So don’t let a lack of skill, tools, money, etc. hold you back. You can only get better with practice. So the sooner you start your marketing journey, the sooner you’ll master the craft!

As with anything, you won’t see results overnight. So keep showing up – daily – doing what you can, and the results will start compounding before long.

Also, if you’re going to be marketing on multiple social media platforms, remember that you can often repurpose the same content for all (or most) of them.

Hire Professionals

More often than not it’s easier to just hire professionals to take care of the marketing for you. Especially if you have zero interest in doing it yourself and have extra cash to put towards marketing.

If you have a clear idea of what you are looking to do or get done, you just might be able to find someone on UpWork. Heck, there are even social media management companies on there that would be happy to take your business.

If outsourcing to a marketing company is the route you’d like to go or if you have any questions before you get started, hit me up. I’d do my best to point you in the right direction!

The post Best Online Platforms for Marketing appeared first on Kobra Dynasty.

A problem all perfectionist product creators share is that the product is never done. And even if done, there are a million things they want to continually improve on.

I am not a perfectionist for the most part, but every time I launch a product, I get this deep down feeling that it isn’t quite up to my standards. Yes, it works great and yes, it delivers immense value for the price point I am selling it at. I just can’t help but notice all the little things I could have and perhaps should have done differently or better.

Someone reminded me recently “If Microsoft released their software only once perfect, you and the rest of the world would have never heard of them!”

There is a certain truth to that. Products do not have to be perfect right off the bat. You can always release updates later on that bring about the desired improvements.

This is especially true if the product is a software. Even if it is as close to perfect as you can get it (with your own testing and troubleshooting), someone else will find flaws in it. And that is not at all a bad thing.

Biggest Glitch to Biggest Wins

The most problematic software launch I ever did (aside from dozens of software glitches, I screwed up just about everything in the launching sequence as well), was also my biggest overnight rags to riches launch I have done to date.

Though I did practically everything wrong along the way, I did one thing right that made the big difference: I took feedback and bug reports to heart and fed it straight to my programmer the minute I got it. As a result, every few days or so (after the launch) there was an update available for the software.

It was a painful process but you know what? The end result left me with a nice chunk of cash in my wallet AND a highly sought after piece of software that customers brag about to this day.

I have gone on to do various other launches since. Some were software products, while others were information products. None of them were perfect, but that did not keep me from launching them, making money off of them, and building my list at the same time.

Again though, I took all feedback I could get and updated the products often the first few days.

Customers Love Being Involved

Sure there is going to be the odd unhappy customer but reality is, it does not matter how perfect your product is, you WILL have unhappy customers.

For the most part I found that customers I interacted with were almost proud to be part of the products’ “perfecting” process – which (I guess) gave them a sense of “ownership” as well.

It’s been over a year since I launched my first major software product and just the other day I went over it again and realized that “it truly turned out to be a solid product!”

So I went over it again and decided that I will update it one more time this year and will add a few more bells and whistles to it while I am at it. I want to take it from being a “great” product to being a “mind-blowingly awesome” product.

And the best part? When I relaunch it, I will double the price for it as well… and it will be worth every penny of the new price!

I will be doing the same thing with all the other products I have launched to date. For the software products, I will update all the coding to make sure they are all 100% up to date, and I will once again add a few features that they did not have before just to make them even more valuable.

For the ebooks and pdf guides, I will go through all of them and update them. Yes they are all still great and the information in them is still applicable today, but I have learned a lot since I first wrote them so it is only fair that I raise the bar on them too – after which I will of course raise the price for them as well.

What I am getting at is this: It takes time to build something phenomenal. This is something I have been learning more and more about in the last few weeks.

Wax on, Wax Off!

I see top marketers in the Internet Marketing niche whose products easily sell for $997 to $2497 each. These are oftentimes information products!

The question I ask myself is “who in the right mind would pay that much for a product?” but truth is, they have people buying their stuff – right, left, and center – every single day.

My next question is “how in the world can they pack enough value in to a product that people will pay so much money for and be happy with it?” and that is when it hit me: They have been selling these exact same products for years and yes, there often times was a point where they sold the product for no more than $37 when they originally launched it.

The difference in price between then and now is a direct result of ongoing polishing and tweaking. In fact, this is also how trustworthy brands are built.

The question we need to ask ourselves is: do we want to continue making low price-point products and sell them to the masses or do we want to create few – but mind-blowingly awesome products and make significantly more (up to 100 times more) every time we sell one copy?

I myself am trying to get away from creating new products every month. I’d rather focus that energy on perfecting what I have (that did well) than fall in to the trap so many marketers fall in to of having to create new products every single month just to pay the bills.

Some people prefer things that way, but in my opinion, we got to evolve. Our time, energy, as well as our products, need to increase in value the longer we are online. And as we all know, more value should equal more cash in our pockets.

Finding Your Ideal Customer

Who do we want to cater to? Those who never have money or those for whom money is not an issue?

There really is no “right” or “wrong” answer to these questions, but I think they are important questions we as product creators need to ask ourselves.

What are your thoughts? Do you prefer creating many low-price products or few high-priced products?

If you are not a product creator, which ones would you buy rather: a decent low priced one or a perfected, high-end, high priced one?

The post Evolving Online & Increasing in Worth appeared first on Kobra Dynasty.

Here are a few rules that have proven to do wonders for me!

Rule #1: Be Prepared

How could you possibly prepare for opportunities you don’t know will strike? The short answer is: Look at the common denominator.

In the area of life you want to take advantage of more opportunities, what are they all tied to? What would you need to take advantage of that dream opportunity if it was here today? In other words: what is the one thing you can do today to take advantage of rare opportunities tomorrow?In the world of making money, this often times means having our finances sorted and having some savings set aside that allow us to jump on opportunities quickly when they present themselves.

In the world of relationships, this might mean becoming more confident, letting go of the emotional hurt of past relationships, or getting out of your comfort zone more by going places, etc. Main thing is: find out what would open you up to that ideal relationship opportunity.

In the world of business, if you want to land that perfect six-figure-a-month client, get your business into a position where it can quickly scale to handle such client. Or if you’re looking to increase your business drastically in volume, get into a position where you can quickly scale to handle large volumes.

There are plenty of opportunities. The question simply is: What kind of an opportunity are you looking for exactly? Once you figure that out, prepare to get into a position where you can handle such an opportunity should it present itself.

Let me give you a current example:

Have you ever heard of a social network known as Parlor? They have for a long time been trying to become a world recognized social media platform, yet were ill prepared when the opportunity of a lifetime presented itself.

A world renowned internet security expert (with a TON of relevant experience and a huge following) explained to his audience his reasons for not joining Parlor. Basically stating that Parlor had let someone impersonate him for months despite his continuous complaints to the company, that they were extremely vulnerable and unsafe due to the hosting they were using, etc.

Instead if appreciating his insights and acting on them, one of the founders of Parlor took to twitter with name-calling. It was definitely something you would expect from an arrogant teenager, but not from a grown-up business man.

The security expert responded with something like “hey, give me an hour and I will walk through your system with you and show how you can future proof the network” etc, etc, but the Parlor representative once again took to name calling instead of taking him up on his offer.

Now, I get that none of us like unsolicited advice. Unless asked for, advice is rarely welcomed. But this constructive criticism should have been welcomed with opened arms. Especially seeing who it was coming from.

Imagine Warren Buffet personally offering to show me how I can invest my retirement savings so I retire ultra wealthy instead of broke and poor. Instead of taking him up on his offer, imagine me resorting to name-calling him a “Coke drinking hog” instead.

Pretty dumb right? Yet that is exactly what was happening here!

Fast forward a month, and Facebook and Twitter both starting their censorship charade. Parlor starts to blow up. Hundreds of thousands of people started joining them. All was well for a couple days, until Amazon (Parlor’s hosting company) joins the censorship-train and – almost exactly as predicted by the security expert a month prior – banned Parlor from using them.

So not only was Parlor banned from the Android marketplace (by Google) and banned from the Apple app store (by Apple), but was basically erased from the internet by Amazon. And just like that Parlor was dead. OUCH!

Had Parlor listened to the security expert and migrated their hosting to a non-politicized host (among other things), they could have blown up to – eventually – replace Twitter. Whether they ever would have done so is debatable, but they had a really good shot at it, but alas… the opportunity of a lifetime struck and found them ill-prepared.

Gab.com (Facebook competitor) on the other hand took all these precautions ahead of time and look at them now: blowing up like there is no tomorrow. Thanks to Andrew Torba (Gab.com CEO) having the foresight to prepare for the opportunity of a lifetime, he was ready to “cash in” when the opportunity struck.

Moral of these examples:

1. Always listen intently to wise council
2. Always assume your dream opportunity will eventually strike, and do everything in your power to prepare for it.

In the words of Sir Winston Churchill:

To every man there comes in his lifetime that special moment when he is figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered a chance to do a very special thing, unique to him and fitted to his talents. What a tragedy if that moment finds him unprepared or unqualified for the work which would be his finest hour.

Rule #2: Think Quick

Many pride themselves in foreseeing events, and yet fail to cash in when those events play out. Thus ultimately making their predictions worthless.

On the other hand, those who are able to think on their feet and see opportunities behind a changing tide – tend to get lucky.A story is told of a mute accountant who was hired by a big-time drug-lord. The drug-lord figured that since the accountant couldn’t speak, chances of him blowing his illegal operation wide open would be slim.

Things went well until one day the drug-lord noticed hundreds of thousands of dollars had gone missing.

He had the accountant brought before him and started questioning him, but the accountant pretended to not understand what the drug-lord was saying. The drug-lord figured he’d give him a chance, so he brought in a translator who was going to be translating between the two using sign-language.

The lord once again asked the accountant where the missing money went, and the accountant again played innocent and told the translator “I don’t know what he is talking about”.

This went back and forth until the drug-lord got so fed up that he pulled his pistol and held it to the accountants head and told the translator “Tell him I will pull the trigger if he doesn’t tell me where my money is!”

The translator signs to the accountant exactly what the drug-lord had said and he signs back “Okay okay, I hid the money under my bed. It’s all there, I promise. Just let me live!”

The drug-lord is getting impatient and asks the translator what the accountant had said. The translator – seeing his once in a lifetime opportunity for an easy fortune – says “He said, he doesn’t think you have the guts to pull that trigger!”

Brutal story, I know, but still a great example of what it means to be quick thinking when rare once in a lifetime opportunities present themselves.

Rule #3: Act Quicker

Jumping on opportunities is like trying to surf that perfect incoming wave. Act quick and you catch it. Hesitate too long and you’ll miss it.Did you ever see the Youtube video where a dad shot a few rounds through his daughter’s laptop to teach her a lesson? I remember watching it back in 2012 when it had about half a million views.

I was thinking to myself “he should monetize that video… that way he would get at least some money from this viral video of his.”

A week after he uploaded it, he had over 24,000,000 views on that video and guess what? Still not monetized!

UPDATE: He has done some monetizing since (created a blog, etc) and the video has since gone on to generate over 42 million views. Just CRAZY!

I won’t comment on the content of the video, but I’ll say this: An opportunity struck, and he missed out by not – immediately – jumping in with both feet.

I don’t care much for Adsense and as such I am not a heavy earner with them but I do make a few bucks off of my monetized videos every month and just taking my average Adsense earnings (from my videos) and spreading the formula over 24 million views, I conservatively estimate he should have easily earned at LEAST $50,000 in Adsense revenues alone (just in the first week alone).

Now of course, there are different ways of monetizing a video (like links to relevant products-for-sale in the description box, etc.) but he wasn’t doing ANY monetizing at all. I think it is safe to say that he missed out on roughly $100,000 USD just by not immediately seizing the opportunity that he was presented with.

Moral of the story? When a clear winning opportunity presents itself to you, don’t hesitate. Jump in all the way with both feet!

Conclusion

We are all presented with “once in a lifetime” opportunities and the more open minded and prepared we are, the more often such opportunities will cross our paths. The trick is to:

• get ready
• think quick
• act quicker.

Only when we do those three things can we embrace more once in a lifetime opportunities because we quite literally set ourselves up to see and act on them.

It is that very process that allowed me to recently acquire a tremendously undervalued piece of property for 16% below sellers minimum price. The best part? I got them to throw a second property in on the deal – for FREE!

To do that, I had to get my finances in order, keep an eye on the market to see if my ideal property would get listed, think quick when it arrived, and act even quicker to secure it.

What type of opportunities are you hoping to attract? What can you do today to be ready to act on them when they show up?

The post How to Take Advantage of More Opportunities! appeared first on Kobra Dynasty.