The things that took the most time out of my day was Twitter, Skype, and Facebook. It is definitely an attention grabber with status updates, skype calls, and video shares. It just breaks my concentration and I end up clicking on the link and looking at everyone’s statuses. I even found myself on youtube for almost an hour.

Not good when I got a whiteboard filled with things to do. So this week experiment was born and I think I did pretty well. I got a lot of things done, contracts reviewed, offers going up, products needing traffic, research keywords etc. I did a lot of things. Instead of me reading DamnYouAutoCorrect.com or finding new mixtapes on Datpiff.com – I was full productive on what I had to do.

… and yes the occasional cat pictures.

Here are somethings that has helped with my productivity….

• Every morning I write my goals for TODAY and what I want to accomplish for today. This puts me in a goal oriented mood where I want to cross one of those task off the white board, and it feels good doing so.

• LeechBlock, is one Firefox plugin that I used to help stop myself from going to WorldStar, Facebook, Datpiff, Youtube, and all these other sites that I tend to randomly go to.

• SimplyNoise, replace my Winamp player and Grooveshark.com because I notice myself picking and choosing songs I want to play and listen to. This actually helps  a lot and relaxes my brain actually as well. It did take me getting use to but it definitely is worth it to have playing in the background.

• Close out Tweetdeck and try not to open it. Twitter, I do not know why I find it so interesting maybe because of what certain celebrities say that interests me or the funny remarks from music artists. I did manage to not look at twitter on my PC but did tend to look at my iPhone twitter app – but not as often – so that is a plus.

• Closed out my email. I started responding to emails more so towards later in the day and via my iphone especially if it was important. This help a little with more screen real estate, allowing me to move more windows around when necessary.

I think that was it. Just these things alone definitely helped with my daily productivity and how I manage things. It s a good thing that I have workoffice to help with managing my VAs and partners. In all I think I had a hell of a week, so cheers.

enjoy your weekend!

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I then notice the quotes on the wall. One that caught my eye is “Failure is the Mother of Success“.

It was interesting to see this quote on the wall. This stood out the most as the rest were drunk quotes. The quote itself is true and should  be taken serious. I say this because you learn form your mistakes. For example, when you were young you probably put your hand over a flame and pulled it back fast. You associate that pain sensation with the flame and learn fire is hot and can be painful.

This can also apply to your online marketing efforts. By making mistakes you can only learn from it. If you are a beginner and buy a domain with the company’s name in it, you receive a C&D, and then you stop buying domains with the company’s slogan or name in it.

We all learn from our own mistakes, sometimes we do not have the knowledge to make the proper decisions. Sometimes we do not have the experience to make proper judgement in our own marketing efforts. We have to gather the data from our testings to make sure we can conclude the proper outcome.

Sometimes it isn’t the case, we simply just have to take a risk at something and see what the outcome is. Some of our greatest achievements comes from our own setbacks in life and in business. Maybe your mistake lead to an accidental achievement.

One quote I like is “Failure is Always an Option”, this is what the TV show Mythbusters always go by. They never see it as a true failure because they actual have data to tweak and adjust their theory to try again. They never see it as a full setback but an opportunity to improve.

Being successful is all about learning from your experiences and setback sin life. Most online marketers tend to stop after they fail, saying it doesn’t work with less than a weeks work. There isn’t anything which can come to you overnight. It does take dedication and the will to do more and better.

Remember when you road your bike on 2 wheels for the first time? You wore your helmet, knee pads, elbow pads, etc. Eventually you fell off your bike, but you also got back up and tried it again until you were able to ride and control your bike with no hands!

This analogy is also pretty similar to online marketing. You can have all the resources, reading blogs, buying ebooks and softwares, and reading marketing books. You will not prevent your first failure in your online business, you just have to get back up and do it again until you can do it with no hands.

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I was ready and all packed to head to the airport when I received an email notification saying flight my flight is cancelled. I check my flight status app on my iphone and it verified it is cancelled. The airport I am landing in is closed! This sucks. I then called to re verify and to see if I can get my flight scheduled to the next available flight.

… the earliest is the 31st at 6am!

Any flight delays or cancellations are a pain in itself. It aggravates yous and throws your mood off. I know it did for me, but luckily I wasn’t at the airport when this happened. Orbitz notifications prompted me and I avoided any issues at the airport.

So how did I really deal with this situation? Simple I acted calm and basically called Orbitz to help me with my situation. I was calm about the flight cancellation as it was not their fault. They can not control the weather or the 3 feet of snow New Jersey received. So there is really no side to blame.

I acted calm and just asked about my flight and to see if there was a way I can get an earlier flight out of Charlotte, NC. Orbitz took the initiative to call continental and see if there were any flights available. Again, the earliest was the 31st. The lady on the phone was super helpful and she explained due to the airport closing, this is the earliest available flight.

She also told me to call to see if any one has cancelled as some flights may open due to consistent changes especially with the expected delays and cancellations. I decided to accept the new flight change and I will also be contacting Orbitz later and tomorrow to see if there are any available earlier seats.

So how do I deal with these rapid changes and not frustrate myself even more? Simple, I stay calm. Everyone hates being delayed especially if you are on time and prominent about your schedule. I personally don’t like meeting with people who are late, it puts a bad impression on that specific person. So when I feel I am on a single track and I get shifted off for no apparent reason, I become frustrated.

One, I stay calm throughout the whole change of cancellations and delays. I do not let that take me over and change my mood. The weather is the weather, we have no control over what is falling from the sky. Here are some things to note when I am on the road and my flights are delayed/cancelled.

1. Get Flight Status Apps such as Kayak Flight – enter your flight info and it will provide you with the status of your flight.
2. Get eMail notifications 3 hours prior to your flight, this is an option with Orbitz.

If your flight is delayed/cancelled:

1. Stay Calm and Don’t Blame Anyone
2. Figure out what is the best option base on your situation. Are you are the airport or about to leave to the airport.
3. Treat the person you are talking to with respect
4. If on the phone don’t act tough because you are not having a physical face to face conversation
5. Remember the agent you are currently speaking to is the only person who can help you with your situation right now.
6. See if you can get a flight to any other closer airports

These are just some tips I came up with when having a conversation with an Orbitz agent. When I tried calling Continental direct, their lines were either busy or had a default voice message stating they have high call volume. No answer from a person. The interesting part is when Orbitz called directly to Continental they got through. I think they may have a direct line to another support team. Anyways, I am glad they called on my behalf and tried to find a resolution for me.

The holidays is a great time to spend with family but when you have unexpected delays such as flight cancellations and delays, it can get aggravating. The goal is to stay calm and work with the person you are working with. There is no point in trying to get what you want since the situation is out of your control. Asking the right questions is the only way to get your issue resolved in a timely respectable manner.

For me I am still in Charlotte writing this blog post, eagerly waiting to head back home to Jersey.

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The goal for me in 2010 is to be better organized and to be more productive. Living and working out of my house does get me unfocused most of the time and I need to stop this. I have found some things to work for me and it def has helped. So lets get started, I will start with Desktop applications and web services.

Desktop Applications

Doomi is an Adobe Air application which is really good cause it post up your to do list. Which you can check off and add new ones on the spot. I use this all the time if something comes to mind which I need to do I just type it up in Doomi. Once I have completed it I just simply check it off and its done.

The feeling of just completing a task keep you motivated to get everything else done on your list.

Mindomo is another great adobe air application because it lets you create mind maps. If you have an idea for a project, you want to brainstorm about it and make sure you have it planned out right to the minor details.

It allows you to let you think vividly because you see all the other aspects of your idea on the table. The mind map also helps me with my campaigns or my to do list.

Evernote is a universal system which enables you to use it on your iphone, the web, and your desktop. It lets you capture your notes, audio notes, and pictures.

The best part is it syncs with your iPhone so you will also be carrying your notes with you wherever you are. The fact that is can sync with your desktop and iphone makes life more mobile and easier.

Now onto the web services, which I think will help you with your online organization…

Web Services

DropBox is one of my favorite web services. It gives you an online hardrive and syncs everything up with all your PC whether it is a mac or pc. The best feature I like is again the syncing with the iPhone and multiple PCs.

DropBox is free, they give you a 250mb online storage, but you can also get an upgrade if you want.

Again I like the syncing of files between platforms.

These are some of the things that keep me focus and help me stay on track. With 2010 just around the corner, I have to setup more stern goals and keep focus. With these apps helping me I am definitely going to have a more focus year.

Let me know of other services/desktop apps you use to keep yourself organized while working. I would like to know what you use and what your opinions are with the apps I have listed as well as your own.

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I have a good couple videos too that I want to put up as well. But in any case I have been multi tasking, working with networks and advertisers can be a pain. The reason is they want your traffic. I finally got the chance to work with a new advertiser to test out an offer and to see if it will work. I also started doing more Facebook advertising. The reason is because I want to test a traffic demographic both search and social traffic.

But also I had to deal and work with my programmers on the new Twit Sniper platform!

So with traffic testing, dealing with outsources, talking to partners, and all the other things. How do I focus and get things done? Well recently I started to download some apps to help me focus. I give myself goals. I also give myself a time frame to finish it so it forces me to get it done.

For example, I recently got a designer to do some work and I needed some things done over the weekend. So I wrote myself a note saying “get designer to do … , get done by …”  So this tells me and forces me to do it and get it done to get it completed.

I use a check system or to do list called Doomi. It is a killer app. Honestly there is a bunch of Adobe Air Apps out there that are worth downloading and testing. The reason why I use this is because it gives me the ability to write something down and check it off once it is completed.

It feels good to check something off and watch your to do list shrink.

I guess it is a psychological thing, but I tend to do a lot of work with it. I write my goals the day before for the next, this way I turn the PC on it auto loads and I see what I have to do. Then I get focus.

Another cool app I use is the EverNote for PC and iPhone. I use this because it syncs from my PCs to my iPhone which I like. But only certain things are added to Evernote. The reason for this is somethings maybe a little longer than what needs to get done now.

Instead of doing multiple things and getting distracted I tend to focus on my goals, so I can check it off and get it off my list. Another thing is writing on my white board and erasing it. It just feels good to complete it.

I want to know what you guys use to help manage your time and set your goals. The New Year is rapidly approaching and it will be time to get things up and going. I know I need to focus more and more and stop getting ideas without time to do them.

So what apps and systems do you use to get your day going and keeps you focus?

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I have been releasing too many things and sometimes I look at my task and say slow the frig down! I have even been slacking on my own campaigns my margins have dropped from what my average is. So now I am looking to re organize a couple things.

So I have to SLOW DOWN! Every idea does not have to get implemented but can be done in time. Lately I have been doing a lot of reorg and trying to see where my focus should be.

With all the work I am doing, affiliate markting, product creations, info marketing, social marketing, going to conferences, blogging, and maintaining all these can be a bitch! SO I am telling you to slow down and not do alot of things at once. I am going to be slowing down myself, if you noticed my blog posts has not been consistant. I will be writing on my blog though because it gives me a break t just write what the hell is on my mind.

How I am concentrating my ideas:

• I have written my daily tasks
• Task that are incomplete, I carry over to the next
• I write weekly goals as well, these goals are much larger than my daily tasks

I also have been doing a lot of partnerships because I need more time to focus. The past product and current product I am working on are all partnered. This gives me more time to do what I have to do and help me focus on certan aspects of marketing.

Sometimes sitting in front of your PC can stop yu from focusing on yur current project or idea. I personally have to start focusing and completing projects and campaigns. I need to maybe get rid of a monitor or even pc. I have 2 PCs on all the time one PC just for monitoring and stats, while my other monitors have other windows open like tweetdeck, email, winamp, etc.

Maybe I need to just remove the clutter and just have one window open on what I am currently doing. But I can get easily distracted, if an idea pop ups I write it on my whiteboard and the I start working on it, slowly. I then realized I digress and I refocus myself.

My mind just keep working and it is good but also bad when I am trying to do some keyword research which isn’t the most fun but needs to be done. So I have to slow my thinking a bit well not really but be more focus on what is currently working and stick with it.

So I am going to SLOW DOWN some of my marketing ideas and FOCUS more! Focus like a Ford Whip!

What is your advice? How do you work with having waytoo many ideas? How do you keep yourself calm on a daily basis?

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Well, as you know there is a lot of hype out there that will build your followers for you. It simply is a viral follow form, but is it really targeted? Are you really interested enough for them to really interact with you? Also are you providing content to your followers in which they want to follow  you? Building a good follow is important because they are curious as to what you do and what you have to say, plus if they interact with you it is a big plus.

Below is a screenshot of my followers base on a 3 month time frame:

As you can see my following has been steadily growing and it is not like the big ballers following but its pretty impressive I think, since I do not use any automation to build my followers.

If you look at my twitter account, I only followed about 235 people! If you look at others their following and followers are almost close in range. This means they are following people to get followers and there is a lot of software that does this but on a larger scale and on a scale where it just grabs random tweeters from the public time line.

This isn’t useful at all.

With Twitter and any social branding you need to be yourself and your followers will want to follow you because you are interesting. Being interesting is important and keeping it real. I post multiple pictures on TwitPic via Twitter, I post random thoughts, and also provide useful reads to my followers.

You have to treat your followers as if they are part of your email list, publicly. Sometimes I do not understand why building a huge list of followers overnight is important when you have nothing to provide.

Twitter People will Follow you if you are:

• Interesting
• Provide Content, useful
• Provide Images and Videos
• comical
• Retweet useful information

When it comes to marketing and you want fast following, start pumping out content so you can be searchable. If you have not read about twitter being the next big search engine, then you should be aware that your 140 characters of content is important. There are a bunch of ways to market via twitter, if you have downloaded my report Twitter Banking it shows to how to make money from eBay Feeds on Twitter, but you still need to pump content.

The upgrade version, Twitter Traffic Exposed is another way to utilize twitter properly without using useless tools and garbage software. It shows you to utilize a bunch of free tools for your marketing needs.

But twitter is all about keeping it real and showing your followers you have credibility in your specific conversation, not niche. Why I say this is because you do not always promote, you create conversation. Conversation leads to Viral marketing, if you provide value. If you are interesting enough for someone to follow you then they will interact with you.

Interaction is important because you create instant relationship, just keep it real because its who you are.

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As you grow your brand, you want to make adjustments on certain things you want to be viewed. You can not say your brand is WHATEVER, it is your followers and readers that brand you. You can give yourself a static brand but within that static brand you can be given many others by your peers.

Branding is all about sticking out and being different and how people view you. How do  you see yourself, more importantly how do others see you. Do others see you as an expert in a field? Do others brand you base on looks or performance. There is a lot of ways to get your brand out.

Personally, I have been branded several times over. My more popular brand is me pointing with my fingers in every shot I do. Another one is Ghetto Affiliate – seems I put a street sense to marketing online. But these are visual what are you known for marketing wise? Users see me as an affiliate, marketer, mr. networker, networking dinners, etc. There is just so much a person can be branded for. What do you do special that is outside the ordinary from others.

Well, the best part of your brand is using your credibility among others. How can you influence others? Can you get products for free with out paying? Can you gain easy access to someones lists without really trying?

Back in the day, when I was such a loser it was hard for me to get a response from certain people in the industry. Now everyone I talk to are best of friends. I use to send emails out on certain beginner products and get no response, I use to ask questions without any replies. It was hard, now I can send an email to people and get responses and even get review copies without asking how I will be promoting and when I will be writing the topic.

Use your brand to your advantage, even if your a small fry use it to your ability to influences others like you. Start small and then jump high. There are many ways to improve on your brand, visit people, go to networking events, be different. I have done so many things differently than others in the past. I have a local NJ IANteract Meetup, I host dinners at conferences and events, I pose in my pictures, I do a lot of things differently than others.

But leveraging your brand is very easy, use it with force and use it to your advantage. You are a nobody until you make it a fact that you are somebody. For example if there is a party and I can not get in, I will be like dude I am motherfriggin Ian Fernando! I make a statement and I get in. It should go for you and your brand. I use it to meet new people, gain access to certain places, receive products with a big discount, etc.

Be strong and represent!

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Besides the planning and learning we also discussed reality. We discussed aspects of normal people and entrepreneurs, this was a really good topic we just talked about over dinner. Everyone talked about how they hustled prior to online marketing and it ranges. I remember doing crazy stuff when I was younger, especially in the hood – when I was a young young young dude – like 20 years ago. But it says something you have to have a hustler’s mindset to survive.

Adhustler and WayneDog has done a lot prior to online marketing and it has helped their way of thinking. By far our group were basically hustlers when we were younger from drug dealing to selling on eBay.

Me personally, I have done several things in my young days, sighs. I have done custom mixtapes, I bought sneakers and clothing in bulk and sold them on eBay, I have done computer repair for local neighborhood, I sold old crap on ebay, playing card games, rolling dice, I have done a lot prior to online marketing. This type of thinking definitely has on impact on what you do and how you think of things.

I personally went heavy on the internet went I got kicked out of my parents house and started working 3 jobs! I started heavy with eBay and made good money that I started and risking it on affiliate marketing and information marketing. When I was doing eBay I even did local marketing, selling things out of my trunk.

I sold to employees at Wal-Mart, I went to local McDonald and just stood outside chilling and selling stuff out of the trunk of my car. It was crazy and I was definitely hustling heavy. This type of mindset definitely help me where I am today. It helps be thinking and rethink certain marketing aspects, how does a customer think and how do they react towards preselling topics.

Thinking differently and putting a different spin on how you look at things is important. There are people in this world who likes repetition and no change, basically workers. Then there are other people who like to think different and want to improve their situation, entrepreneurs. Thinking differently and doing something others are not puts you in a different boat.

If you started buying a pack of Juicy Fruit gum for 25 cents and sold each stick for 25 cents – I mean you automatically profit after you sold the second stick of gum, thus helping you increase your inventory and helping you create more income! It is this type of thinking that kids have when they are little or when they are strap for cash, you think of ways to make money.

Another example is selling mix CDs when 4x CD burners were just coming out. I remember buying a spindle of CDs, downloading music and providing a huge list of my music inventory and asking friends at school or whomever what type of mixes they wanted – sold each CD for 10$. This is another big profit since the songs you downloaded were basically free or cheap to purchase and a spindle of 100 CDs are cheap as well after the 3rd CD sold you basically profit!

Why isn’t the whole world thinking like this? Is it too complex for someone to grasp an idea and run with it? Repetition and no change is the typical Americans, it is a safe place – there is no risk involved. Which is fine because it separates the entrepreneurs from the typical corporate America.

I would ike to nkow how you started hustling prior to the internet, if its selling fake girl scout cookies to your neighbors or selling ice to an eskimo. How did you earn some sort of lunch money prior to internet marketing! Definitely would like to here all your stories.

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Well I have been listening to an audio book by Robert Shemin called “How Come that Idiot’s Rich and I’m Not.” It is a very interesting audio book and the first CD just got my attention right away. It almost remind me of the secret audio and dvd set but Robert goes into a different train of thinking. It reminds me of how I think and how I approach life. The audio or the first audio that I have listened to is about changing your mind set. It is our mind set that creates this typical world we are use to. So I ask:

How do you fit a giraffe into a refrigerator?

Well it is pretty simple, did you have answer? If not I want you to think about this for a little bit. If you have given up the answer is: Open the refrigerator and put the giraffe in. That is it! You are thinking and analyzing that this can not be but it is. I bet you are asking yourself what about the size of the refrigerator and the height of the giraffe. That is what I was thinking to myself when Robert gave the answer, but I thought of that answer but I started analyzing the concepts.

We start to think about the height and small size of the refrigerator compared to tall giraffe. We think we may have to fold the giraffe a couple times or even cut it up a couple times to just fit in this perfect rectangular shape fridge. But the simple concept is to simply just open the fridge doors and put the giraffe in. It amazed me that it was that simple and I somewhat answered correctly until I started to think about reality. I started to think the rows of the refrigerator, the drawers, the shelf space, etc. In my mind I started to rearrange what may be in the fridge already and how to organize the shelf space with a giraffe. I started to think how can I fold the giraffe or what pieces should go where.

This concept is telling us why are we thinking about the big reality when the concept is still the same. Your just putting something in a fridge no matter what size it is. A fridge holds food – that is the concept. But we start to restrict our thinking because of the size of an everyday refrigerator and an animal that is way to big. Our mind puts these together and says ‘can’t do it’ or ‘does not make sense’. This is true our mind takes these concepts and put and compares it to what we already know, but concept wise we do not think about the basics.

I personally think like this but not always because I got tricked by this question and it was the first CD. I started to realize to stop analyzing too many things and think about what the most direct answer would be. In this case or to this question: open a fridge put the giraffe in and close the fridge, simple. Sometime we have to pause and think what is the most direct answer to our goal/s.

We as human beings tend to over critique things because we are in an environment where everyone is not like you or I. We are in a world where everything is very repetitive, a small refrigerator vs a tall giraffe – add them together just does not make sense. So reality holds us back from what we want to think because of its everyday nature. If we can break out of this repetition we can think and provide direct answers to our goals.

Just listening to the first audio CD reminded me to start thinking the way I was and give the direct answer to a problem. From what I have been listening to I recommend grabbing Robert Shemin’s audio book called “How Come that Idiot’s Rich and I’m Not.” I will continue to talk about what I have been listening to especially if it provides great self improvement. I finally know how to fit a giraffe in a refrigerator. So simple!

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